"How long?" Natasha asked, her voice still carrying that note of hurt mixed with confusion.
"Six months," Yelena replied. "Small ceremony. Very small. Just us and Bruce as witness."
"Six months," Natasha repeated slowly. "You've been married for six months and didn't tell me."
I watched the exchange between the two sisters. There was sadness in Natasha's voice, buried under her professional mask but still audible if you knew what to listen for.
"You were busy," Yelena said with a shrug, though her tone was gentler now. "Saving the world, doing SHIELD things. Besides, you know how it is. The fewer people who know about Robert's location, the safer he is."
She gestured toward Bob, who was looking increasingly uncomfortable with being the center of attention. "It wasn't personal, Natasha. It was operational security."
"Operational security," Natasha repeated, and there was a bitter edge to it now. "Right."
Yelena's expression softened slightly. "I would have told you. Eventually. When things were... safer."
"When are things ever safe in our line of work?" Natasha shot back.
The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife.
"Wait," I said, cutting through the moment before the sisters could continue their argument. "That's not the important thing right now."
I looked at Natasha directly. "Sentry and Hulk are supposed to be some of the strongest beings on this planet. Are they not immune to telepathy?"
Both Natasha and Yelena turned to look at me, momentarily distracted from their sisterly tension.
I continued, frowning. "I thought we would just decrypt the location and I'd be attacking it. If they're immune to telepathy like I am, then what's the problem? Why do we need to secure them?"
Natasha's expression shifted into something more strategic, her professional mode clicking back into place. "It's like a double-edged thing. We protect them from getting into the hands of that telepath."
She glanced at Bob and Bruce. "And Bob is immune to telepathy. As for Hulk... let's say, telepaths don't like his head at all."
"Don't like his head?" I repeated. "What does that mean?"
Bruce spoke up, a slight smirk on his face. "It means the Hulk's mind is... chaotic. Trying to control him is like trying to grab hold of a hurricane. Most telepaths who've attempted it have come away with severe headaches at best, mental trauma at worst."
"The Hulk's rage makes him naturally resistant," Natasha added. "It's not true immunity like yours or Bob's, but it's close enough that controlling him would require an incredibly powerful telepath working at full capacity. And even then, it might not hold."
"So why hide them?" I asked. "If they're resistant or immune, what's the danger?"
Natasha's expression grew darker. "Because even if the telepath can't control them, they could still be used. Manipulated. Lied to. Set against innocent people or us. And if that fails, the telepath could just kill them while they're vulnerable."
"Wait, wait," Yelena cut in, her expression suddenly sharp and focused. "What's going on? Decryption? Attack?" She looked between us, her earlier playfulness completely gone. "What did I miss?"
She looked at Bob, then at Bruce. "You two knew about this?"
"No," Bruce said. "We've been off the grid here. No contact with the mainland for weeks."
"Then what—" Yelena started.
Natasha held up a hand. "Sit down. It'll take a while."
We all moved to the living room. Bob and Yelena took the couch, with Yelena still holding his hand. Bruce leaned against the wall near his lab entrance, arms crossed. I took a chair near the window, keeping an eye on the street outside.
Natasha remained standing, falling into what I recognized as her briefing mode.
"Yesterday evening," she began, "the Avengers were compromised."
What followed was a comprehensive breakdown. She explained about Thor's hammer falling, about Vision being shut down, about Tony and Clint returning changed. She described the masked telepath, the takeover of the Avengers and SHIELD, and the complete lack of public awareness.
Yelena's expression grew progressively darker as Natasha talked. Bob looked increasingly worried, his nervous energy ramping up with each detail.
When Natasha got to the part about her team being ambushed and killed, Yelena's grip on Bob's hand tightened noticeably.
"Sharon?" Yelena asked quietly.
Natasha nodded. "She bought me time to escape. She and two others."
Yelena's jaw clenched, but she didn't say anything more.
Natasha continued, explaining JARVIS's intervention, the encrypted drive, the tracking software Tony had uploaded, and finally our arrival here.
"So that's what the plan is," Yelena said when Natasha finished. She looked thoughtful. "I can decrypt the drive for you." Then she frowned. "But are there cameras or something here? I looked the entire safehouse for any bugs and did not find any. So, how did that little AI know I'm here as well?"
"JARVIS was the only one who was aware of their locations," Natasha explained. "He's been monitoring this safe house remotely for as long as it has been established. He knew you visited."
Yelena nodded slowly.
Before anyone could continue, I intervened with a question that had been bothering me.
"But why are Bruce and Bob living here in Hawaii?" I asked, looking between the two of them. "Together, specifically?"
Bruce spoke up, his voice measured. "It's more of a failsafe. We are both to each other. If I lose control, then it will be Bob who brings me under control. And if it's him who loses control, then I bring him under control."
Bob nodded slightly, still looking uncomfortable. "Bruce is one of the few people who could potentially stop me. And I'm one of the few who could stop the Hulk without killing him."
"It's a mutual assurance thing," Bruce continued. "Tony set it up after the Ultron incident. He was worried about what would happen if either of us went rogue and there was no one powerful enough to intervene."
He paused, then added, "And Tony let JARVIS decide our location because he'd expected this scenario. Not this exact situation, but something like it. A major compromise, a telepathic attack, something that would take down the Avengers and leave us as the last line of defense."
Bruce's expression grew distant. "At the time, it felt far-fetched. Paranoid, even. Tony was always planning for the worst-case scenario, and this felt like one of his more extreme contingencies. But now that this situation has happened, I guess he wasn't wrong to plan so far ahead."
I nodded slowly. That made sense. Tony Stark's paranoia was paying off. Put two of the most powerful beings on Earth together as mutual insurance policies against each other going rogue, and as a backup plan if everything else fell apart.
"How long have you two been here?" I asked.
"Almost a year," Bruce replied. "We rotate locations every few months, but JARVIS always picks isolated spots. Quiet places where we can work without drawing attention."
"Work on what?" I asked.
Bruce gestured toward his lab. "Research, mostly. I'm working on ways to better control the Hulk, maybe find a cure eventually."
Bob spoke up quietly, "And Bruce has been helping me understand the Void. Trying to find ways to suppress it or separate it from me."
"Any progress?" Natasha asked.
"Some," Bruce said noncommittally. "It's slow work. But we've learned a lot about how our powers interact with our mental states."
"Even though they might be immune to telepathy," Natasha said, pulling the conversation back, "we need them. There are a few Avengers who are on the level of Hulk and Thor."
She looked directly at Bob. "Though Sentry tops them all."
Bob shifted uncomfortably under her gaze.
Natasha continued, her tone becoming more strategic. "We don't know who the telepath will send after us once we decrypt those coordinates. It could be Iron Man and Hawkeye—manageable. But it could also be Blue Marvel, Captain Marvel, or the Vision if they've managed to reactivate him."
She started pacing slightly. "Captain Marvel alone could level a city if she wanted to. And if they send multiple heavy hitters at once..."
"You need someone who can match them," I finished.
"Exactly," Natasha confirmed. "And that's where Bob comes in. He's the only one on Earth who could realistically hold off multiple Avenger-level threats simultaneously while we deal with the telepath."
Her expression grew more serious. "So Bob is like our final layer of protection and also the strongest one. And I would prefer if he fought, as Hulk's fights cause a bit too much collateral damage."
She glanced at Bruce apologetically. "No offense."
"None taken," Bruce replied dryly. "I'm aware of the Hulk's track record with property damage."
"It's not just about power," Natasha continued. "It's about control. Bob can fight at that level while still maintaining precision. The Hulk..." She trailed off diplomatically.
"The Hulk smashes," Bruce finished flatly. "Everything. Indiscriminately."
Bob looked even more uncomfortable, if that was possible. "I... I don't know if I can—"
"You can do it, baby," Yelena said, reaching over to take his hand. "You're the strongest man alive. You're the Sentry."
Bob's voice came out quiet, almost pained. "That's the problem. You know what happens when I lose control. When he comes out."
He? Who was he talking about?
Bruce seemed to understand, though. "If that happens, then I'll be there to bring you down."
"Whose 'he' are we talking about?" I asked.
Yelena glanced at me, then at Bob, before answering. "It's the Void. It's more of an entity of darkness inside him that comes out when Bob uses his powers."
"Not always," Bob said quietly, speaking up. "But when I push too hard. When I use too much power. The Void feeds on it."
He looked down at his hands. "It's like a shadow that lives inside me. Equal and opposite to the Sentry. For every good thing I do, it wants to do something equally terrible."
Bruce added, "It's a manifestation of his subconscious fears and guilt. The darkness that balances out his light. Psychology and physics mixed in the worst possible way."
Bob continued, his voice heavy. "And it loves to ruin things. Or at least, it loves to do evil to the same level of good I did as the Sentry."
He took a breath, and his next words came out faster, like he needed to get them out before he lost the courage. "And don't you guys remember what happened the last time I used my powers? I didn't even know that I had reality-warping powers. I fixed everything... everything. But he came out and ruined it for the mutants."
I blinked. "What? What do you mean, ruined it for the mutants?"
Yelena's expression grew pained. She knew this story. Natasha looked confused, suggesting this was new to her, too.
Bob's expression grew distant. "When Wanda had changed the world into what she called utopia, I knew that it was a fake world. I could feel it. The reality she'd created felt wrong, artificial."
He swallowed hard. "And when I confronted her, I discovered that I, too, had reality-warping powers. I didn't even know I had them until that moment. She tried to erase me, but they just... manifested in response to her reality manipulation."
I leaned forward, listening intently.
Bob continued, each word seeming to cost him. "And when I undid everything Wanda did and returned the world to normal, Wanda at the end decided to take away the powers of the mutants. She was broken, devastated by what she'd done. She thought removing mutant powers would prevent future conflicts."
His hands clenched into fists. "I undid that as well. I stopped her from depowering the mutants. For a moment, everything was fixed. The world was back to normal, the mutants kept their powers, and I thought I'd actually saved the day."
The pain in his voice was palpable now. "But then he came out. The Void. He took control and ruined it all by taking away the powers of millions of people. Just as Wanda was going to do. Maybe worse, because the Void did it with malicious intent. He enjoyed it."
I felt like I'd been punched in the gut.
What?
For me, it had always been Wanda. The Scarlet Witch, who'd uttered "No more mutants" and decimated the mutant population. That was the story I knew, the history of this world as I understood it.
But it wasn't Wanda at all?
It was because of an entity inside Bob?
The M-Day event that had changed everything, that had led to the near-extinction of mutants, that had resulted in Anna and me being imprisoned in that facility—all of it was because of the Void?
"The world blamed Wanda," Bob said, his voice barely above a whisper. "And I let them. Because how could I explain? How could I tell everyone that I was the real cause? That my darkness had done what she'd tried to prevent?"
I wanted to say something... but nothing came.
Natasha looked shaken, too. This was clearly a revelation to her.
"The Void's power is as much as I use in my Sentry form," Bob said quietly. "Equal and opposite. For every bit of good I do, he can do equal evil."
For someone with the power to move planets, having an evil counterpart with the same strength was terrifying.
Yelena squeezed his hand tighter. "Then you don't need to use your reality-warping powers. Just your physical strength."
"Exactly," Natasha agreed. "We don't need you to reshape reality. We just need you to punch things really, really hard."
Despite the tension, Bruce cracked a small smile at that. "The Sentry's physical strength alone is more than enough. You could go toe-to-toe with Thor without using any of your more exotic abilities."
Bob looked uncertain. "But what if it's not enough? What if I need to push harder?"
"Then you pull back," Yelena said firmly. "You retreat, you let Bruce handle it, you do whatever it takes to not let the Void out."
"Yeah," Bruce added. "I'll be able to take you down if he comes out. We've got protocols for this, remember?"
Bob and Bruce exchanged a look. There was understanding there, built on months of living together and planning for worst-case scenarios.
"The sedative darts," Bob said.
Bruce nodded. "Six of them, each laced with enough tranquilizer strong enough to drop hundreds of elephants. It won't stop the Void permanently, but it'll slow you down enough for me to Hulk out and restrain you."
"And if that doesn't work?" I asked.
"Then I hit him until he stops moving," Bruce said bluntly. "The Hulk's strength increases with rage, and the Void definitely makes me rage. I'll keep getting stronger until I can pin him down."
It was a brutal plan, but it made sense. Two monsters with contingencies to stop each other.
Bob was quiet for a long moment, his internal struggle visible on his face. Finally, he nodded slowly.
"I'll try my best."
His voice was uncertain, scared even. But there was determination underneath it.
Yelena leaned over and kissed his cheek. "That's all I ask."
The room fell silent for a moment.
It was insane.
But it was also our only play.
Then Natasha stood and clapped once, breaking the tension.
"Then let's get to work!"
She pulled out the flash drive and held it up. Then she walked over to Yelena and extended her hand, offering the drive.
"Decrypt it."
....
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