Body and Soul: The Endgame Fix

Part 10: The Big Guy

Summary: Third (and probably the final) part from just Hulk's point of view. This part covers Hulk's initial session with Lee Samson and the early parts of Hulk and Banner's recovery and internal progress.

Notes: This chapter starts on Sunday, July 8, 2018, in Willowdale, VA, and then covers part of that summer as Banner deals with difficult relationship issues, purchasing the Bridgewater property, hiring staff, overseeing renovations to the house and lab space, AND going through therapy to work things out with Hulk. It's from Hulk's point of view, so it's a bit filtered but, I hope, pretty apparent what they've had to cope with. I'm trying some different techniques to show how Banner and Hulk would try a variety of ways to communicate prior to integration: videos, notes on dry-erase boards and written/typed texts that would have required Banner giving some control over to Hulk so he could channel him or let him out to record messages or during therapy sessions. I also like to do dreams and their intersections with the Astral Plane. Fear not, I did get some Nat in here. Enjoy and ask me questions if you have them.

Part 10: The Big Guy

"Welcome . . . Hulk?" Lee Samson both stated and asked.

Oh, son of . . . it hurt!!!  He opened and shut his eyes again. How could the sun be so loud? The odors so bright? The sounds so pungent? It had to be Earth. Again. It always hurt more when he'd sulked inside this long.

"Are you okay?"

He focused on hearing first. It was a kind voice, but Hulk almost laughed. No. He wasn't "okay," but he needed to pull it together. He knew that voice. The smell of the foliage. It whispered, Home! to him. It had once been home. It smelled like sunshine on wet grass and old fashion roses still blooming in the fall. Maybe he did miss this place he'd left to save it. The place that didn't love him. Hulk reminded himself that in a short time, he'd adjust to the pain and the sensory onslaught. Be patient. This was a time to talk—no smashing or running. He tried opening his eyes again. He hadn't been outside in months, so that's why this was so . . . annoyingly painful. Suck it up, Big Guy!  he coached himself.

He blinked several times. When he was able to tolerate the light, Hulk looked around until his eyes settled on the person in jeans and a pale blue shirt with rolled up sleeves seated in front of him, and then his eyes finally focused. Banner knew him. His hair was nearly as gray as the physicist's was now. "Nice backyard, Dr. Samson." Hulk noticed the children's plastic and timber playset closer to the house and the three bicycles propped by the corner of the garage. "Like what you've done with the place." His voice sounded like wet gravel, his words slow as setting cement in his throat.

Lee smiled benignly. His heartrate was almost back to normal after witnessing what had to be the most physically agonizing thing he'd ever seen in his life. Hulk's skin had finally quit smoking. There was a bitter smell that dissipated with it and changed over to an astringent tartness that reminded the psychiatrist of eating unripe apples. It softened to something more pleasant and balanced in a moment. "Thanks. Thank you for coming out this morning. I can see this has to be a painful process for you."

The guy's aftershave even smelled sincere, Hulk thought. He chuckled grimly, "Like being forced through a metal shredder with an acid bath chaser. It'll ease up to tolerable after a while." Banner must have really wanted him out to talk if he was able to put this many thoughts and words together and then say them out loud. Hulk noted the wooden structure in which they were seated. "Can I get up? I'm not stuck in a summoning circle or something?"

"Oh, ha! Like a demon? No, please get up if you like. Stretch your legs. Are you thirsty? There's bottled water in the cooler there."

"Thank you. Maybe later." Hulk stood up and ducked under the edge of the gazebo's eve to get a better look at the backyard. The moment his bare feet sunk into the grass, it all felt a little better. Sakaar didn't really have vegetation, and he'd missed that a great deal. "You know how some people have to sleep with a foot sticking out from under the covers?"