In the bowels of the flying aircraft carrier, Nightcrawler considered whether or not he should take the twins and leave. This was becoming a lot riskier than it was supposed to be.
So much for just offering some support in a safe setting.
Yet, knowing that the twins were needed to help Dr. Banner, he was really hesitating. And it wasn't like he could take Banner with them—teleporting for the first time was always quite a shock for people, and that obviously wouldn't be ideal in this situation.
Thankfully, Fury knew the importance of making sure Banner wasn't harmed, so he had stationed armed agents outside the reinforced chamber where they waited, ensuring no intruders could enter. The door was heavy, sealed, but every fresh tremor from the battle above rattled Kurt's nerves.
"I'm telling you, I'm fine, you can let me out. I could help, you know," Ben pleaded from within his glass-walled cell. His rocky fists pulled slightly against the restraints, more in frustration than real effort, but the cuffs groaned all the same.
"It's not that we don't want your help, but… well… Mr. Fury is the one in charge," Maxime answered carefully. His small hands wrung together, eyes flicking between Ben and the trembling ceiling. "It's his call, not ours."
Beep, beep, beep.
The modified wristwatch on Banner's arm began to chirp in rapid warning tones. His face was pale, jaw clenched, breath short as the ship gave another violent lurch.
"Oh, that doesn't sound good," Nightcrawler muttered, his tail lashing behind him.
"Yeah, it's not…" Banner wheezed, gripping the table for support. "Maybe you should—try to work on your ability, stop this—right now." His voice cracked as though he was choking on the words. His whole body trembled, as if each muscle was fighting itself.
Manon stepped closer, her hand half-raised as if to soothe him. "We can try. We can help calm you, like we did with Grimm."
Banner sat cross-legged, trying to remain calm, with Manon and Maxime kneeling in front of him, their hands on his head.
Their powers slowly started to work; his memories, those of dark days, were suppressed. And instead, memories of happy, peaceful times started to fill his mind. The area around him also started to feel so peaceful.
A sweet scent of newly cut grass, of fresh coffee, and the library. Together with the simple memories of those days spent learning, he finally started to calm down.
Inside and out, everything was calm and peaceful; in fact, Bruce hadn't felt this good in a long while. A small peaceful smile started to spread on his face.
Yet, unbeknownst to all of them, inside both Manon and Maxime, a faint blue spark had been hidden, pure energy, but not their own, that was lying dormant, and now, it moved.
As their power affected Bruce, the blue energy moved with it and flowed into Bruce. There, the energy finally burst with power, fading to nothing the next moment, but its job was done.
Bruce let out a loud roar, his skin turning green, his body swelling. The Hulk had awakened, and he was angry.
The chamber shook with the force of the roar. Metal warped, lights shattered, and the reinforced walls trembled as Banner was gone — in his place was the Hulk, muscles swollen, green skin gleaming with sweat, eyes burning with rage.
The twins staggered back, clutching their temples as the sudden backlash of energy nearly overwhelmed them. Their attempt at calming Banner had instead cracked open the floodgates.
Hulk's eyes locked on them. Small. Fragile. His mind didn't care that they'd tried to help. All he saw were threats, things too close.
With a bellow, he swung his massive arm down.
"Kurt!" Manon screamed.
Bamf!
The world stank of brimstone as Nightcrawler grabbed them both in his arms and blinked them across the chamber in a cloud of smoke, Hulk's fist smashing down where they had stood a heartbeat earlier. The floor buckled, sending cracks spiderwebbing across the reinforced plating.
"Stay close to me!" Kurt gasped, his golden eyes wide with panic. Hulk was already turning, already charging again.
He vanished in another puff of smoke just as Hulk barreled through the space they had occupied, smashing headlong into the wall with bone-jarring force.
Kurt reappeared on a support beam above, clinging with both hands, twins dangling beside him. The Hulk wheeled around, snorting like a maddened bull. His leap was sudden — shockingly fast for his size — and the beam splintered as his fingers closed on empty air.
Bamf!
They were gone again, reappearing by the ceiling.
The Hulk snarled, spinning, swiping at shadows. He hated what he couldn't reach. Each time he lunged, Nightcrawler blinked away, always just out of his grasp, the acrid smell of brimstone filling the chamber in rapid bursts.
Kurt's breaths came ragged now. Teleporting with two passengers was draining, and the Hulk was relentless.
"We can't keep this up!" he shouted over the chaos, his tail whipping nervously as Hulk ripped free a support strut and hurled it at them. They vanished again, only for the strut to punch through the wall where they had been.
Ben Grimm slammed his fists against the inside of his cell. "Let me out, damn it! I'm the only one who can go toe-to-toe with him!" His rocky arms strained, the reinforced restraints creaking ominously.
The twins looked from Hulk's raging form to Ben's desperate face. Their powers couldn't calm Hulk now, not through that torrent of alien influence. But if they freed Grimm—
Another bamf! as Kurt dodged a swipe that would have turned him to paste. Sweat ran down his temples, his strength faltering. "Decide fast!" he cried. "Or we're all dead!"
Ben's fists hammered the glass again, the reinforced cell groaning under the strain. "Come on! You need me! He's not gonna stop until he tears this whole tub in half!"
Manon's face was pale, but her voice cut sharp with urgency. "Maxime—now!"
The boy nodded, quickly pressing the big button to open the cell. Thankful that the system was made to be idiot proof, because with an angry Hulk hot on their tail, he couldn't flick a great many switches.
And finally, the door opened with a woosh.
Ben stormed out, tearing the restraints from his wrists with sheer brute force. His rocky jaw clenched as he squared up to the raging Hulk. "Alright, big guy," he growled. "You wanted a fight? You got one."
The Hulk's head snapped toward him, nostrils flaring. The low growl that rumbled from his chest was more animal than human. With a roar, he charged.
The two giants collided in the middle of the chamber like runaway trains. The impact shook the ship from keel to deck, throwing the twins off their feet and forcing Kurt to teleport them back into cover behind the observation glass.
Stone fists met green muscle. Hulk swung wild, raw power behind every blow, but Ben planted his feet, tanked the hit, and answered with a haymaker that staggered Hulk a step back. The sound was like boulders colliding, each strike echoing like thunder through the carrier.
"You ain't the only one who can smash!" Ben bellowed, ramming his shoulder into Hulk's chest and shoving him into the wall hard enough to dent the reinforced plating.
Hulk roared, grabbed Ben by the arm, and hurled him across the chamber. Ben slammed into the far bulkhead, tearing it like tin foil, then pushed himself up with a groan. "Okay… that one hurt."
But he charged right back in.
Kurt bamfed above the fray, golden eyes flicking between the two titans. "We need them to keep him busy," he muttered to the twins. "Use the opening—calm his mind!"
Manon and Maxime pressed their palms together, focusing. Their power unfurled again, threads of memory and emotion weaving into the air. They pushed peace, warmth, the faintest reminders of Banner's quiet moments—the gentle ones, buried deep.
But the Hulk wasn't Banner. Not entirely.
He slammed Ben to the ground, fists hammering like piledrivers. Ben caught the last one, locking his rocky hands around Hulk's and forcing him back with a guttural roar. "Come on, Banner! You're stronger than this thing in your head!"
The twins' voices trembled in unison. "Remember… remember who you are…"
The blue tint of alien influence flickered across Hulk's eyes. He roared louder, slamming his head against Ben's, trying to drown it out.
But Ben didn't let go. He locked Hulk in a grapple, veins of strain cracking across his rocky hide. "Stay with me, big guy! You're not the enemy! I am not letting you hurt them!"
For the first time, Hulk hesitated. His fists wavered.
The twins pressed harder, their small bodies shaking with effort. Threads of memory pulsed—images of Banner in a lab, reading quietly, drinking tea, moments of laughter with colleagues long gone. The anger began to ebb.
The roar died into a grunt. Hulk's chest heaved. His eyes flickered green… then brown…
And with a thunderous exhale, his muscles shrank, his skin paled, and Bruce Banner collapsed against Ben's chest, unconscious.
Ben eased him down gently, his rocky shoulders rising and falling as he caught his breath. "That," he panted, "was one hell of a workout."
Kurt reappeared beside them, hand on his chest, panting with relief. The twins slumped against the wall, drained but smiling faintly.
For now, the Hulk was down.
…
The aftermath was quieter, but no less heavy. The chamber still stank of sulfur and smoke, the walls groaning from the punishment of titans.
Banner was back, but tired from the ordeal.
Fury stood at the center of the bridge minutes later, the whole team gathered around. His eye swept the room, cold and tired. "We got lucky. Too damned lucky. We keep taking hits like this, and we won't stay airborne."
Natasha stood apart, arms folded, face unreadable. Beside her, Clint Barton sat slumped against the railing, wrists in magnetic cuffs. His eyes were clear now, the blue glow gone, but guilt weighed him heavier than any chains.
"Tell me you got something," Fury demanded.
Clint lifted his head.
"It was strange… he wanted information, and I gave it, everything. He clearly wanted to cause trouble, all this." He lifted his hands to motion at the chaos around. "All this was because he wanted our attention, wanted us to fight him."
Fury narrowed his eyes at Barton's report. This was getting more and more strange. "What's his endgame?"
"A portal," Banner groaned, "based on the information, it's likely he is trying to make one, a big one."
Tony, leaning against the console, said, "Wouldn't even be difficult, just needs a power source, and there are plenty that can work, pretty much every powerplant around the world, even some private ones, like Stark Tower."
Then he froze… "They wouldn't… Would they?" Tony's voice trailed off, his eyes going wide as the math in his head lined up in all the wrong ways.
"Stark Tower," Bruce said weakly, pushing himself upright with Ben's help. His face was pale, but his mind was already spinning. "Your arc reactor—it's self-sustaining. Virtually limitless. It wouldn't just power a building, Tony. It could feed a wormhole indefinitely."
Steve turned sharply. "You're saying they're going to use your tower as the gateway?"
Tony dragged a hand down his face. "Oh, fantastic. I build clean energy for the world, and the first people to use it are alien invaders. Banner, remind me to never do anyone a favor again."
Natasha spoke next, her voice clipped. "Then that's where we go. If we know the target, we can get ahead of them."
Sue nodded firmly. "Reed will be there too. He'll be forced to help. We're not just stopping them—we're saving him."
The weight of her words hung heavy. For all the chaos, this was finally something solid: a direction.
But Tony wasn't done. He turned to Fury, sharp, urgent. "Look, I don't care how many of us are standing here—we're gonna need more. We need heavy artillery, someone who can actually counter an army coming out of a space-hole above midtown Manhattan." He pointed directly at Fury. "We need Arthuria."
Every eye in the room shifted toward the Director.
Fury's expression was stone. "She can't be reached."
Tony blinked. "What do you mean, can't be reached? She's a goddamn queen with a magic sword and a PR team. You don't just misplace her."
Fury's jaw tightened. "I said she can't be reached. End of discussion."
The silence that followed was deafening. Even Logan, still leaning against the wall, stubbed out his cigar without a word.
Outside, the Helicarrier's engines roared back to life, steadying the ship. But in the bridge, the air was heavier than ever—because if Arthuria couldn't be reached, they were about to face the coming storm without their strongest ally.
(End of chapter)
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