"The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving. I didn't want to destroy anything or anybody. I just wanted to slip quietly out the back door, without causing any fuss or consequences, and then not stop running until I reached Greenland." ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

Tony

A hand waved in front of his face, and Bruce blinked. He tasted dust in the back of his throat, cataloged it as familiar, the product of pulverized concrete and bricks, smelled smoke from fires, and something metallic and alien that was faintly nauseating.

"Are you back yet? On a scale of one to ten, with ten being equivalent to a Cheech and Chong level of stoned after smoking that giant doobie, just what number of dazed are you right now? Me, I'm guessing about a nine. Two minutes ago I'd have given you a twelve."

He understood the words but dismissed them as irritating. He closed his eyes and hoped the voice would stay quiet.

"O-kay, be right back. JARVIS, keep me informed of Doctor Banner's condition."

After the sound of footsteps had faded away, he opened his eyes and looked up into blue sky. He was on a rooftop, sprawled on his back and naked under a blanket, with something soft under his head. He shifted his muscles a little, his body sore with that familiar deep painful ache.

His head hurt. It usually did, after he'd turned green. He sat up cautiously. Somebody had been talking to him, but he hadn't recognized the voice. His memories started to settle into place, his last clear one meeting up with the team Fury had thrown together to stop Loki. They'd been surprised and maybe a little hopeful to see him, as they'd stood on the viaduct in poor battered Manhattan.

Tony had led a huge alien sky serpent to them, and he'd let the other guy out. Enough memories were returning to know that Loki and his invasion were defeated. Time to move on.

From what he could see, he guessed he was still in New York. He blinked hard, and cautiously started to move his limbs, doing his usual damage assessment. Huh. So the Hulk hadn't escaped the city, hadn't fled to the mountains.

He got to his feet, wrapping the blanket around himself awkwardly. Clothes, he needed to find something to wear. He was almost to an exit when Tony limped through the door, hands full.

Ah, looking around at the sheer opulence and breadth of this skyscraper, and with Tony here, he guessed he was at Stark Tower.

Tony circled him, grinning when the blanket slipped and Bruce had to grab it before it hit the floor. He handed him a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt, and kept the orange juice and aspirin.

"Awkward waking up naked in a strange place, isn't it? We'll have to compare walk of shame stories sometime."

Bruce didn't bother to answer, just handed Tony the blanket and got slowly dressed. The clothes were soft and worn, and weren't really what he thought a man as wealthy as Tony would wear.

Tony had on a Black Sabbath T-shirt and jeans. So he was off Iron Man duty, then. Things must be under control. Bruce wondered if the rest of the guys were done being superheroes for the day, too.

"Here." Tony thrust the juice at Bruce. "S.H.I.E.L.D.'s files say you get thirsty after you wake up. They don't mention aspirin, but as I'm a genius, I'm guessing you've got one hell of a Hulk hangover ."

He frowned and put his arm around Bruce when he didn't take the drink or the aspirin. "Still a little out of it, aren't you? C'mon. We've got a date with the team. Did the Hulk explain about meeting for shawarmas?"

x x x

Tony took him to a bedroom larger than Bruce's borrowed cabin in Canada, or really, most of the places he'd stayed in the last six years. It had sleek, crisp furnishings and an enormous bed covered with a black silky comforter. He steered Bruce to the bed and made him sit down.

"Doctor Banner," was all he said, but he'd lifted up an eyebrow which Bruce translated to mean prove to me you still have a working brain, and held out the large bottle.

"Umm. Thanks." He accepted it and twisted off the cap and drank a third of the sweet and tangy juice down without stopping.

Tony tossed him the aspirin bottle and he swallowed three of them, chasing them down with the rest of the juice.

"Loki?" Bruce's voice sounded unsteady to his own ears.

"In custody. For real this time. Thor's got him fixed up so that he can't use any powers. The Chitauri – those space crazies – all dead."

"People have got to be hurt. How bad?"

"Bad enough. There are a lot of folks with injuries and it's chaotic. There are missing people lists and there are deaths. The lists keep growing. But it could have been so much worse."

"Yeah. Did I hurt anybody?" Bruce always dreaded hearing the answer to this question.

"You creamed Loki. I think he's still dizzy from you smashing him into my tower floor. You went after the bad guys, Bruce. Stop worrying about it."

Tony grinned wickedly at him, eyes dancing a little. "You did give Thor a love tap. You were a little hyper and he was handy. No biggie."

He didn't remember that. At best, Bruce only ever had bits of memory to piece things together after his skin had started rippling and the change began. Transformation. Metamorphosis into a monster.

Tony stepped away, opened a walk-in closet and disappeared inside. Then he returned to the doorway. "You're smaller than me, but my stuff should fit you pretty well. Do you want to pick something out?"

He didn't even have a toothbrush now, but he'd get by. He had a lot of experience with starting over.

Tony waved a hand at him when he didn't answer. "Hey, Bruce. I'm not going to make you wear something you don't want to wear."

"Or make me... stay?" Not that Tony could. But Bruce wanted to see Tony's face when he answered.

Tony's eyes sharpened, locked onto Bruce's.

"I'm not a big fan of being made to stay somewhere you don't want to be." Tony said it lightly, almost jokingly, but his eyes shadowed momentarily. Ah. Nothing like being forced to build weapons in a cave to help with some soul-searching. But Tony and him, they'd had some history before they'd met on the helicarrier. And it was a little mean, but he wanted to push Tony just a bit. Like he'd done to Natasha when she'd come to Kolkata. He wanted to know what would happen if he put pressure on this man.

"What's going on with you?" Tony stepped into the room, moved closer to him. For the first time since he'd woken up Bruce registered the soft blue glow of the arc reactor as it gleamed through Tony's T-shirt.

He didn't hold a grudge against Tony. But he wanted to read him, see for himself what his reaction would be to Bruce Banner, the Hulk, having a grievance against him. Could Tony handle it? Would he then finally see fear bloom on Tony's face?

"The traps for General Ross? You made them, Tony. Umm... Being kept against my will was okay with you then." He threaded an angry note, low and menacing, into his deliberately soft speech.

Tony sat down beside him. It was maybe a little too close for conventional social standards but Bruce didn't move. "I made some mistakes. I'm sorry. Can I build you a lab to make up for that?"

"Mmm... Love can't be bought by money, right? Probably not forgiveness either."

"And yet, you do forgive me. You're not angry with me, Doctor Banner." Tony turned on the bed and gave him that wicked smile again, and Bruce shook his head. Tony was a perceptive son-of-a-bitch. He crossed his arms over his chest, feeling unsettled.

On the helicarrier Tony had poked at him, figuratively and literally, and there had only been curiosity and an invitation in his eyes. Work with me, hang out with me, I know you can keep up with me. He'd done all of those things with Tony and it had been good. They'd fallen into working together like they'd been doing research and lab work for years as partners, until Loki had unleashed the Hulk from Bruce's control.

"Doctor Banner. Bruce. This could be the start of a beautiful friendship. Work for me. No, better, work with me. I want to keep you around, sure. I mean, you're you, and excuse me, but did I mention that you're brilliant? You're brilliant. And you get my science jokes. Nobody gets my science jokes. For that alone, I'd want to hire you. And the team. We need you. Your mind, your strengths." Tony's eyes were really very expressive, Bruce noted.

All the time spent with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents ready to exercise their trigger fingers, he'd been on edge. Even in the lab on the helicarrier with Tony, although he'd honestly thought he could handle it. He hadn't accounted for Loki.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. wants the monster. Fury even built me my own special room. It was never about my expertise in gamma radiation."

Tony frowned and shook his head slowly. "Now that isn't true. We did need you to find the tesseract by tracking its gamma radiation signature and you were – as I keep telling you - brilliant about it. But the Avengers isn't S.H.I.E.L.D. Okay, we're connected to S.H.I.E.L.D., and we have some people on loan from S.H.I.E.L.D. That's true. But as a team we have autonomy, with Rogers in charge. The way the Avengers Initiative works, we're the Hail Mary pass, the last stand, a desperate measure for a desperate time. I know we all got off to a rocky start, but we came together and we got the job done."

He nudged Bruce with his shoulder. "We'll be needed again. And we want you with us, Bruce."

Bruce started running a thumb over the knuckles of his other hand. "You're speaking for everybody? Captain America? That archer? I don't even know his name. And I very much doubt that Agent Romanoff wants me to be on the team."

Natasha's terrified face flashed again in his mind.

"Look, just, give us a chance to convince you, okay? Come with me and let's be with the team tonight. A meal. Breaking bread together. It's on me." Bruce thought that Tony sounded sincere. He was feeling off kilter here, and Tony was persuasive.

He really should leave. It was the best option. He didn't know who he could trust. The team? But they'd fought a battle together; they'd done some good.

He wasn't opposed to doing some good.

He thought about what Tony had said. It's on me." Tony could become a friend, maybe. He knew about the other guy and wasn't fazed by him. He'd trusted Bruce from the moment they'd met, Bruce thought. That had been refreshing. The question was, did he trust Tony back?

Maybe for tonight, he could take a break and enjoy Tony's company. Genius, sexy, endearing Tony, who'd shared his snack with Bruce on the helicarrier like they were eight-year-olds and were hanging out in their secret clubhouse.

Bruce might like to play the moth to Tony's flame before he left. Nothing would come of it. He was always careful not to get burned by his attractions to men or women. Tony wouldn't even know that Bruce appreciated his charms.

He thought about the Avengers, the expressions on their faces when he'd showed up to help fight. He might like to see them again.

He met a lot of people, connected briefly with them and moved on. He didn't get to keep friends or lovers. But there were small times that warmed his soul, when he spent a few hours with a person that he wished he could take to bed. He had made friends, of a sort, as he fled from country to country, and he would fix their washing machines or stitch up cuts for them.

Once he had lofty plans, big dreams involving a home, a wife or a husband, maybe even children. He'd wanted to have respect from colleagues and lifelong friendships, to know the joys of researching, see people being helped by his science discoveries or by being their doctor. Poof. All gone.

He lived in the moment now. But sometimes, those moments were good.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He unfolded his arms and nudged Tony.

"Well, if it's on you, then... okay. I'll come. And you pick out the clothes. I'll take a shower."

"So you trust me? With the selection? I mean, I might toss you my 'Top Ten Reasons Why Engineers Do It Better' T-shirt." Tony waggled his eyebrows and Bruce felt a little exasperated and a lot amused.

"I trust you." Bruce stretched his arms above his head. He hoped the shower would help loosen him up.

"We aren't talking about my T-shirt, are we? Even though it's awesome. I like reason number six the best. 'We create the world's largest erections.'"

Bruce felt a smile fighting to emerge, then gave in and chuckled. "No, we aren't talking about shirts.

He nudged Tony again, and then yawned. He felt an impulse to offer something to Tony, to find common ground. "But, um, I used to have an 'Absolute Zero is Cool' T-shirt in grad school. I could always tell who was into science and who wasn't when I wore it." He yawned again. "Sorry. I have to pay the piper after the other guy dances."

Tony jumped up from the bed. "Okay, let's hustle. I have a feeling that when you go down, you'll be really down for a while."

x x x

He started having second thoughts about coming on this little outing while he was sitting with the team Fury had cobbled together, in Tony's borrowed clothes, methodically eating a meal near the heart of the destruction unleashed earlier today.

Staying because Tony asked him? That wasn't a smart decision. He should have escaped as soon as he'd woken up, taken advantage of the chaos that S.H.I.E.L.D., plus the Army, police, and National Guard, were dealing with after the battle.

He should have disappeared. Surfaced somewhere far away, out of US jurisdiction, and hope that he'd shaken off his trackers.

Fury had built that cell for him. Caging him was at least an option with S.H.I.E.L.D. If Thunderbolt Ross found him, he would throw him in a hole. He'd promised to do that the last time he caught Bruce. The man hated him with a passion, and Bruce suspected it was as much because he'd slept with his daughter as it was because of being the Hulk.

Tony said, "This is my first time eating a shawarma. I like it." He'd been trying to get some conversation going between the six people seated at this table, but the Avengers seemed too exhausted to really respond. Even Tony, legendary in his ability to be tireless and persuasive ( and sharp with his tongue), was flagging.

Bruce tried to help him out. "I've had it before. In Sierra Leone." And that was as much as he could muster.

He hadn't eaten a shawarma since his last night in Freetown, before hitching a ride with some of the Lassa Fever researchers to Kolkata. He suspected now that one of the researchers that he'd gotten to know had been a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Maybe Michael. Michael had gotten him a place on the plane, when Bruce had told him he was going to leave Freetown.

Maybe he'd ask Natasha. She'd told him her spy agency had known where he was since he trashed Harlem and ran for Canada.

It didn't really matter.

They were the only customers in the small, mostly still in one piece shop. Really, since the conversation had totally died, the only sound besides those of some of them eating – Thor and himself, mostly – was the broom the shop owner was wielding in the corner.. Thor was taking big bites of his food, but for a mythological legend he looked subdued. Worried about his brother, probably. Bruce had a flash of memory of smashing Loki until he wasn't any kind of threat. The Hulk really didn't like it when egomaniacs decided to roll right over people.

Cap looked like he'd rather lay his head down on the table and sleep than finish his food. Natasha nibbled at her pita bread, and Clint Barton, the archer who'd been introduced to him as Hawkeye , was slowly eating a fry.

He'd caught small, almost secret glances between the two S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents. He peeked around the table and seen how Barton was touching Natasha with his leg. Ah. Friends. Maybe lovers, ex-lovers.

Fury wasn't here. He had a feeling Tony hadn't invited him.

He ate a fry and turned to look out the window. Yeah. There was no improvement from what he'd seen when he'd ridden a motorcycle into Manhattan. He'd turned the engine off and looked at the people he'd last seen on the helicarrier. "Sorry," he'd told Natasha. He'd been apologizing for what he'd done to her and for having to become the other guy again in front of her.

As usual, he had few memories to recall after the Hulk had been in charge. There were brief flashes of faces and bodies and things flying through the air or crumpling like Bruce Banner would crumble a paper bag and they didn't follow one another in a coherent and orderly fashion. It wasn't like he could arrange those mental snapshots in an album. Natasha's face. Guess he'd been ticked off about Kolkata. Really, he should have chased Nick Fury, instead of her. Swatting that aircraft out of the sky. He hoped, he really, really hoped, that he hadn't killed the pilot.

Falling. Clouds. The ground coming closer and closer.

He'd known where to go. The tracking program he and Tony had devised on the helicarrier had pinpointed the tesseract's location in the heart of Manhattan. Besides, as he rode the borrowed motorcycle down streets and sidewalks, it was easy enough to follow the trail of chaos to the battleground. The streets where the team was fighting against the invaders carried the look of a war zone. Even the very air of Manhattan reeked of destruction.

It still did.

x x x

He stopped fidgeting with his spoon, pushed his chair away from the table, and stood up. So did the rest of them. They were done.

Nobody had talked much during dinner, not even Tony, but Cap told them Fury wanted everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Manhattan office tomorrow to debrief again. Apparently, while the Hulk had been calming down, everyone else had given a preliminary report. This time, though, the analysts would be picking everything apart. Information was power, after all. They'd had real honest-to-god space invaders, and S.H.I.E.L.D. was in charge of developing strategies for planetary defense.

Tony moved to Bruce's side, "You know you're coming home with me, right? You don't have to sleep at Chez S.H.I.E.L.D.; I hear their accommodations suck."

Bruce nodded. God, he was really, really tired. "I probably could sleep on a bed of nails, but yeah, thanks, Tony."

Tony looked him up and down. "Okay, just hang in a little longer. I need to have a word with Cap." Tony gave Bruce a friendly slap on his bicep, then limped off to where Steve was talking to Barton.

Bruce closed his eyes for a moment, than jerked them open again. He stretched, and crossed his arms around himself. He knew his posture communicated that he felt vulnerable, but it was a habit he hadn't been able to train himself out of doing. S.H.I.E.L.D. What would be their game now? The tesseract was found, they didn't need him anymore to track it. Would they just de-brief him and show him the door? Or did they have something less friendly in mind?

He wondered what the army had done with the research on how to stop the Hulk from transforming that they'd confiscated from Mr. Blue during Bruce's last trip to New York. Maybe they'd shared it with S.H.I.E.L.D.

"So, tomorrow, back into the belly of the beast," he muttered.

Cap turned from where he was talking quietly with Tony and gave him an intense look. Ah. Super-soldier hearing at work. Captain America, because Bruce thought that when Steven Rogers wore his uniform, he was every inch Captain America, walked slowly, but with purpose, over to him and laid his hand on his shoulder. He said, "We'll make sure you don't stay there, Doctor Banner. You have my word," and left, saying he wanted to do a quick check of the property damage on this street.

Bruce watched Clint and Natasha whisper together, watched him put his hand on the back of her neck for a long moment, watched her move a little closer, turn and touch him gently on his cheek.

He looked away. Sometimes seeing such small, intimate moments like that reminded him strongly of what he had lost with Betty. There was no going back to those moments, either, except in his memories. And he was too tired and worn out to revisit that shrine tonight.

A low voice broke into his thoughts. "Doctor Banner?" She waited until he recognized her before moving closer, Barton stepping away to give them privacy.

"My PTSD, is it showing?"

"Yes," she said simply, acknowledgment and acceptance in one syllable.

"Call me Bruce, please, Natasha. Or I'll have to start calling you Agent Romanoff."

"Not Miss Romanoff?"

He'd done that to her in that ramshackle house on the edge of Kolkata. Deliberately dissed her, dismissed her status as a highly trained agent under the guise of politeness. Then he'd slammed his hand down on the table and raised his voice.

He'd wanted to see if he could shake her courteous manner, make her show the armored glove without the rose. See if she would show him real honesty, her real intentions. She pointed a gun at him, and the multiple sounds of safeties being taken off guns outside the house had answered that question. S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't trusted him. It was mutual. He'd opted to do things the easy way, though, banking that if he needed to escape, he'd manage it later. Besides, the tesseract had intrigued him.

And he'd wanted to help, if he could, if the world was in danger.

He'd gone with Agent Romanoff, met the other members of the team Nick Fury had pulled together, and he and Tony had worked together to find the tesseract. And then Loki and his own pain had forced the Hulk to take him over. He knew he'd chased her. He felt bad about that.

Maybe it hadn't been out of respect for any flareups of his PTSD that she'd been so cautious to approach him.

"I'll call you by your title, Agent Romanoff, or your given name, whatever you prefer. I am sorry. I don't want to hurt anybody, including S.H.I.E.L.D. agents."

"Not even ones who use a child to catch you in a trap?"

He shook his head and started to sway on his feet. With difficulty, he made himself stop wavering. Soon, if Tony didn't come and take them to his castle, he was going to fall asleep standing on his feet.

She moved closer to him, cautiously laid a hand on his shoulder. When he didn't jerk away, she came even closer, softly caressed his cheek and then touched his hair. He felt her strong fingers carding through the curls at the back of his neck. It was soothing and something in him melted and he closed his eyes.

"Bruce." She said his name slowly, meaningfully. "My name is Natasha."

The kiss on his temple wasn't unexpected.

When he opened his eyes again, she and Clint were gone.

Tony was there, though, with Thor, and Thor was bending down to peer into his face. He placed both of his heavy hands on Bruce's shoulders and rocked him a little. Bruce staggered, and felt like a small boat in an ocean with big waves.

"Dr. Banner, Eric Selvig, my good friend, speaks highly of you. I wish you well this night and hope that naught troubles your slumber. I go to watch over my brother. Farewell, and know that you hold all the Avengers' gratitude for what you did for Iron Man."

He was gone with a swirl of his cape before Bruce could gather his wandering wits and tell him goodbye.

He yawned three times in a row before he could ask his question. "What... uh, was he talking about? What did the Hulk do for Iron Man?"

Tony's brown eyes widened. "You don't have any memories, not even fractured ones, of the end of the battle?"

"I remember hammering Loki."

Tony snorted. "Puny god."

"Umm... what?"

"It's what the Hulk said about Loki. But Bruce, seriously, you don't remember saving me?"

"Noooo... Later, sometimes I remember things that happened. I never know how much I'm there with the other guy. I only hope I'm doing damage in the right direction when I turn things over to him."

"The other guy."

"Yeah, the other guy. He's... not me." Bruce's fingers were twitching. He rubbed his right thumb over and over in circles on his left palm. He called himself a liar mentally. All that anger? That was him. It flowed through him like blood, like tributaries and rivers, and he kept it all in check until the time was right to open the floodgates.

"You're wrong. He's you, just another facet. He saved me. You saved me." Tony said emphatically.

Maybe Bruce closed his eyes for a second, because suddenly Captain America, tall, strong Steve Rogers, was standing there next to Tony. He must have come in when Thor left, because Bruce had not heard the door open. He caught Bruce's eye and held it.

"Iron Man saved us all. A missile with a nuclear warhead was fired at Manhattan, against Fury's orders, by the way. He gave Tony a heads up, and Tony caught it in flight and steered it up into the hole in the cosmos the Chitauri were pouring from. He blew up the ship that was powering the invaders He almost died. We saw him falling out of the sky right before the gap in space closed. At first, we thought he was all right, since he'd returned. But he wasn't. He was plummeting down and when we realized it, Thor started to wind up his hammer, to attempt a rescue, but Doctor Banner, you were amazing. You jumped up and off buildings and caught Tony. You cushioned his fall, but even so, Tony wasn't breathing after the two of you landed. And then you, the Hulk, roared, and Tony opened his eyes and started breathing again. I'm proud to have fought alongside both of you."

"See, Bruce. Captain America is proud to have fought alongside of you and the Hulk." Tony was grinning. There was a teasing note in his voice, but Bruce was too tired to figure out if it was his chain or Captain America's that Tony was yanking.

"That's very true, but I also meant I'm proud to have you on my team, Tony." Steve smiled at Tony, warm and friendly and welcoming.

Tony looked surprised, and Bruce suddenly wasn't too tired to see that Cap's statement had shot right past all the defenses Tony Stark had ever constructed.

He took pity on Tony and said, "Guys, I'm little tired here. Tony, didn't you promise me a bed?" He grabbed Tony's arm and pulled him out the door. He called behind him, "Captain, good night."

"Actually," Tony said, and stopped Bruce's trek towards where Happy was waiting in the car.

Captain America had caught the door. "Tony asked me to come back with him. But you're right, we're all tired."

"Okay, sure," he told both Tony and Cap. "But I hope you don't expect me to stay awake when we get there."

Cap carefully closed the door after thanking the woman who'd served them for her hospitality, and joined them.

Tony's voice was amused as he switched roles and started pulling Bruce along in his wake to the car, an arm slung around Bruce's shoulders.

"Nope, Doctor Banner. You're excused from socializing any more tonight."

x x x

From far away he heard voices. "Under two minutes, I totally called it." and a different one, "He's exhausted. I don't know how he stayed awake as long as he did."

x x x

He dreamed then, of a black-haired girl running to show him her sick father and when he came into the home the girl turned around and grew up. She was Natasha, and her hair was bright red. She smoothed back his curls and shot him in the head, but he became the Hulk and handed the bullet to her.

She put the bullet on the table, and he saw they were all sitting eating at the shawarma place, and then Thor stood up and whirled his hammer and it hit Bruce hard, and the Hulk roared as Bruce's clothes ripped to pieces and the Hulk broke through the wall and ran back to Canada and was lost in a blizzard.

Everything was white and he couldn't see. He was so lost but then he wasn't anymore. He was living in a small place up in the Canadian Rockies, and he was doing yoga until it was time to go to work. He opened his cabin door and stepped out into the steamy heat of Brazil. Ross was after him, but his boss needed him to repair the wiring at the bottling plant before he left for Chiapas. People were counting on him, to heal them, to fix their broken stoves and radios.

The dream shifted then, and he knew he was dreaming and what was coming, because he'd dreamed this so many times before but he was helpless to stop it.

Smoke surrounded him and bullets screamed by him, his arm, his skin was on fire and he was bleeding, it hurt, it hurt, and then another bullet grazed his side and he doubled over in pain and he was so angry he wanted to tear their guns from them and throw them far away and yell at them to leave him alone.

Acid was being poured into his brain, and he wanted to scream to make it stop stop stop but he couldn't and then he wasn't Bruce anymore.

He was taken by rage; he was powerful, focused, and in the act of destruction there was such satisfaction. Pleasure coursed through him as he downed the helicopter.

Time leaped, and he was naked and cold near a waterfall in the mountains and Betty was gone. A truck driver gave him a lift and he sat down in the market, rags covering his groin, and he had to sleep, he was so tired, and a child placed some small coins in his hands. He bought food with it, not much, but it was the first time he'd eaten in two days.

The images of Central America rippled, like calm water when a stone is thrown in it, and when it stopped he knew he was in Africa, in Freetown and giving away medicine to patients with malaria and Lassa Fever, but the police arrested him and brought him to New York for not having a medical license for Sierra Leone.

Fury was the judge at his trial and he sentenced Bruce to be blown up by a nuke. He was tricked into going to sleep and Iron Man flew him out to an abandoned Navy carrier, and put his dead mother's crucifix in his hand. Iron Man was sad, but Bruce had hurt so many people that he needed to be put down. The nuke didn't kill him though; he woke up in time and transformed into the Hulk and got away but he was caught again and this time he was given to Ross because he belonged to the Army, his body was an army weapon and …

He was being shaken, and he came out of his dreams long enough to realize he'd fallen asleep in a car.

"It's okay, Bruce. Just a nightmare, go back to sleep." Tony was here. He relaxed and the nightmare faded. Within seconds he felt himself slipping under into dreamland.

He woke up enough to realize someone was carrying him.

"Wha..."

"You're okay. Cap's got you."

He closed his eyes and then he was on a bed and his shoes and clothes were being pulled off and the air felt cool on his skin, until a blanket covered him.

The last thing he was dimly aware of was someone stroking his hair.

And then welcome, dreamless, bottomless sleep claimed him.

x x x