Against My Will 6

“My God… ” The voice boomed into the command center, rotor wash not doing much against the resonance of lungs that easily stood taller than Shaquille O’Neal himself. “Did Banner really do all this?”

If not him, then we have a bigger problem on our hands.

Fury’s single eye stared intently as four birds beat the sky in a tight stagger pattern, each one coming down the East River corridor and visible on the chopper feed. Underneath the biggest chopper, a twin-rotor heavy lift, the biggest of his super-soldiers hung there — a sling the length of a schoolbus supporting him — as nearly sixty feet of Hank Pym knew what it meant to fly.

The sky beat down hard and ugly on already-choked streets, the haze of smoke from burning buildings and cars only made worse by steam as dark clouds continued their downpour. It wasn’t enough to blind the satellite pass, but enough moisture and miasma did its best to turn every hotspot into a smear.

All Fury had on the center panel was a city without edges, corners seemingly melted off and eleven hot zones where there should have been intersections. The command deck had dropped from a Hulk-induced pandemonium to a battle-ready murmur, all the consoles going and a half-dozen different channels bleeding out just as many speakers.

Very few were talking to anybody.

Most were talking into something.

Fury was the sole exception, one finger crooked as he beckoned over a familiar face.

“Director.”

He nodded at the salute from the black-haired woman, Agent Victoria Hand standing at attention and waiting for Fury’s words. She didn’t have to wait long. “I need a quick movement of Subject Jade. Equipment stays on-site but put him in a gray clinic.”

Movement was necessary at this point and it needed to be done before the Hulk situation properly came to a close. With the head of the project a literal rampaging monster, having the primary human failure point of the program at the Triskelion was more and more a risk.

“No paperwork.”

“None.” Fury shook his head. “And no movers who haven’t already been on Jade duty. I don’t want this leaking out any further than it has to.” And nothing that would give Rogers any reason to start asking why SHIELD had a half-starved nineteen-year-old chained in a research wing since he was unthawed.

Hand nodded quickly, the woman’s eyes alert behind her glasses. “Are the medical staff going with him?”

“…minimum necessary.” With that said, the director turned back to the screen, Hand already on the move.

“I just can’t believe it.”

This man… Fury bit down a scoff as Pym’s voice came over his earpiece again, clear disbelief in his voice. We might have to replace him with an actual combatant. Really, it was only because he was the only one the gigantification procedure had been tested on so far that Pym was even on the Ultimates in the first place. Get him back to work on more important things.

“You’d best start believing, Dr. Pym.” Fury nodded to himself, bottom of his chin touching the tip of his turtleneck. “And congratulations on the return to authority, what with your co-head now a giant hairless homicidal gorilla.”

“…thank you, but about Banner… Hulk.” The oversized man blinked up at the under-chopper camera, eyes made even more massive by the goggles he had on. “Why can’t SHIELD get that Spider-Man guy on this op with us? He handled Banner last time, right?”

“…Spider-Man is not under SHIELD authority and he is not to be brought up again unless you receive news that has changed. Is that understood, Dr. Pym?”

“I…”

“Good to hear.” Because there was no way he was dragging Parker into anything SHIELD or Ultimates related until he was legally required to, and that was still a good four years off. “Now shelve it, son.”

Giant-Man’s vague sounds of indignation went ignored as Fury eyed the thermal view from the second bird, the image clean enough as it came down one band at a time. All four Ultimates ran hotter than most — for varying reasons, of course, but enough to make out their shapes around the choppers as they quickly converged on a fifth ball of heat deeper in the city — the mass somehow blazing brighter than all four put together.

Alright. Four assets in the air.

Not a bad set-up, but the Norse god that refused to answer his emails would have made this so much easier when they were going up against the Hulk. Especially when the only human being who’d survived more than a full minute against the giant in a hands-on fight wasn’t even old enough to have known the purpose of a razor yet.

Worry about the kid tomorrow, Fury. Thoughts of Spider-Man pushed aside, his attention slid over to the agent handling the casualty reports coming from the disaster. “Give me the count.”

“One-hundred-and-twenty-seven confirmed, sir, but Manhatta-”

“Two minutes.” A sheet was handed to him, mouth tightening into a severe line as he traced the document. Damn it. Over ninety more confirmed in two minutes was as bad as he worried it would be, and Fury had the feeling it would be much worse. “Another two minutes, soldier.”

“Sir—”

“Give me an update in two minutes.” A hand went up as Fury turned back to the feed again, attention cued into the tactical channel. “You ready to drop, Dr. Pym? You’ll be engaging first.”

“Of course, Director.” Pym came in loud over the channel. “Other than the obvious, what am I expecting?”

“Well…” A single eye dropped down to the summary sheet in front of him. “According to the reports, we’re tracking confirmed casualties in the low hundreds.”

“Christ.”

“On top of that, he drank a tank full of beer and he was last seen stealing an oversized pair of pants off a particularly fat corpse.”

Pym went quiet for a full second. “…he’s what?”

“Pants, son.” Fury’s eyes remained on the track, Giant-Man’s spluttering ignored a second time as he followed the movement plotted out on a single terminal — a yellow overlay plotting Banner’s movement.

Banner was no longer wandering — and despite how Hulk seemingly acted — the giant was far from stupid. Easily distracted and impulsive as a toddler, but the monster had already straightened his path after going the wrong way for a drink and some clothing.

Southeast and consistent now, he was already deep into the restaurant blocks.

Well, now… Fury didn’t need a man with a couch and a degree to run that one over for him, and he doubted Doctor Samson would tell him any different. The head publicist for SHIELD was currently at her nine o’clock in a place worth her prestigious paycheck, sitting across a movie star and her spurned boyfriend had definitely remembered that most recent humiliation.

A hand rose to his ear. “Tony.”

“Present.” Stark came through cleaner than the rest, his suit clearing up whatever background noise there was. The suited billionaire was pacing the formation, thrusters firing bright enough to nearly wash out the cameras. “Nicholas, may I raise a delicate question?”

“Go.”

“At the risk of sounding crass, can you imagine what Banner’s going to do when he catches that girlfriend of his having dinner with Freddie?” A tsk sounded off in Fury’s ear, the earpiece catching even that. “I mean, genuinely. Picture the mess.”

Fury closed his eye, because of course he had— in every way possible.

“I’d like it on record that this is probably going to be our first and last mission—” Tony clearly wasn’t done. “—especially if we don’t keep Mr. Hollywood and his date from ending up varying types of schmear.”

“That’s disgusting, Stark!”

“Really, Janet?” A laugh from Iron Man had Fury open his eye again. “I’m not even talking about that. Get your head out of the gutter.”

“Oh, please.” Janet Pym clearly hadn’t managed to grind her preferred axe since the last time she spoke to Stark in the hangar.  “I still can’t believe Banner did this. Went through with this whole idea, I mean. What did he even want?”

“He wanted to be eight feet tall.” Fury answered that much. “And he clearly found how. Move on.”

Because there was no point going any deeper with something like this. After four-fifths of a century walking this earth, Fury knew damn well what people were like. Any man could build a case when it came to something he already wanted, and the case didn’t actually matter as much as the thing itself.

From the poor to the politician… A hand rubbed at his chin. 

“At least Banner left this out for us.” Janet’s voice came over the channel, a soldier in battle dress handing her a case. “This little antidote seems kosher enough, right? Even comes with a little needle tough enough for the Hulk.”

Left this out for us. Fury hated that phrase for the second and a half he turned it over in his head. Banner had clearly put more thought in this than any simple impulse, especially when the man hadn’t even had any traces of Hulk in his blood since February.

And that was by the man’s own admission.

So, he made the antidote, labeled it as an antidote, set it in a delivery system and left it out before his little walk in the rain. Clearly, he wanted to be stopped— most likely by the whole team on the evening news with cameras and a whole media circus to come. Fury held back a huff of breath, eye narrowed into the screens. I know your game, Doctor Banner.

And it was some dirty fucking pool.

“The chemistry is accounted for.” Fury held his ear-piece again, speaking out into the open channel. “Y’all do understand that, right? It could be the best compound ever formulated in all of human history and it does not matter one bit until somebody on this line gets within shitting distance of a man-thing that can peel tanks like oranges.”

“Noted, Fury.” Stark was quick with the response. “Bleakly noted, but noted. Speaking of accounted for, any word at all from our long-haired lord of thunder?”

“One.”

“Well, don’t tease me now.”

“He bothered to return a grand total of one of my e-mails. The last one, actually.” Fury leaned back an inch. “Thor apparently said he would be happy to help if the president doubles the international aid budget, Iron Man.”

Four seconds of rotor noise filled the channel, Tony Stark breathing out onto the open mic the entire time before a laugh was almost forced out. “Wonderful. So, we’re fighting solo, then?”

“I wouldn’t call going into the fight with three posthumans and the entire tactical might of SHIELD solo…” Fury raised an eyebrow. “But for the moment, yes.”

“Four against one is pretty good odds, Stark.” Wind was especially loud as Rogers finally spoke up and Fury knew why, the damn fool standing in the open door of the lead bird; boots out over hundreds of feet of nothing and one hand on the frame. “Besides, not one fight I’ve ever lost since ‘fourty-two, and I’ve got no intention of starting tonight.”

“That’s the spirit, Captain!” The laugh that met Iron Man’s mic was far less forced this time. “Still gotta point out that in the forties, your opposition was mostly men.”

“Then it’ll be a change of pace.”

All his attention snapped to the right as that heat signature moved closer, entire blocks covered in a single bound. All their cameras near him turned, a single one on the bird picking him up eight hundred feet out coming down onto a rooftop.

Fury put his knuckles on the console rail, one question suddenly taking priority. Why the hell is he gray?

The Hulk himself had made all of two appearances in the last decade before this and, in both of those, the giant had been greener than grass since the very first one. Green in every single image SHIELD had on him and that hadn’t changed until tonight.

Something had gone wrong in the mix and what they were looking at was clearly not the same animal. All he had to ask after that was what else had changed along with the color.

He was still holding onto that when the audio finally caught up with footage, a massive muscled monster hurling himself into the skyline  — an airborne mic picking up the sound tearing apart under superhuman lungs.

“BETTTTYYYYYYYY!!!”

His phone went off, a three-tone beep vibrating in his pocket. A hand pulled the device from his pocket, eye on the feeds as a news affiliate managed to get a chopper over the restaurant district. Spotlight circled slow over a block that had come apart, people out and screaming in the streets as glass came down like the rain — both in thick sheets, but only the former off a fourth flour window.

The news camera struggled to stay on Hulk, for all his size; a shoulder visible against the building as the gray monster did his very best King Kong up the side.

A single finger answered the phone before it could go off a third time, Nicholas J speaking only one word. “Fury.”

“FURY!”

He’d been expecting this, of course. “Miss Ross.”

“Fury, you get me out of here! You get me out of here, away from that maniac right the fuck now—!”

“BETTYYYYY!” The sound from behind her was almost enough to blow the receiver, lungs superhuman and volume control infantile. “BETTY! YOU GET AWAY FROM THE PRETTY BOY!”

“—ou hear that, Fury? I know you hear th—!”

“I hear him, Miss Ross.”

It wasn’t like the monster gave him any other choice but to.

“HULK KNOW YOU HERE! HULK SMELL YOU! BETTY IS BANNER’S GIRL!”

“FuryIsweartofuckinggo—!”

“BETTY!” Gray hands slammed down against the glass, a ripple of force shattering so many others on that side of the building and throwing Betty Ross off the mic for a second.

For just a second.

“Fury!!!!”

“BANNER TOO MUCH OF A WOMAN FOR YOU, BETTY? THAT IT? LITTLE CRYING BANNER A BABY? A MORON?!”

Well… Fury’s jaw set tight, teeth almost clicking together. There it is.

If there was ever a discussion to settle on the psychology of the Hulk within SHIELD, that had certainly done it. Two camps had their opinions; one that held that there was a clean break with both figures in the transformation being distinct in personality and the other had the unique and weaker opinion that the two were more… intermingled than that, Hulk simply a more primal underlying part of Banner’s conscious. 

It was clear that the second had a far stronger argument than most thought.

No way to deny it now. Definitely not with every single petty grievance that scrawny scientist held onto coming out of that thing at four hundred feet, with all the greater embarrassment stripped off it.

“BETTY SHOULD TRY HULK INSTEAD! HULK BIG! HULK DON’T CRY!“

“He’s going to try and FUCK ME, Fury!”

“…we came to that conclusion as well, Miss Ross.” Judging from the Ultimates conversation, it was far from a privately held opinion as well. 

“HE’S EIGHT FEET TALL, FURY!” For all her panic, the woman was clearly less fearful than she was furious; was a different animal and, professionally speaking, the better one. “That thing’s eight feet tall — his thumb’s the size of my fucking forearm, Fury! Do you understand what that means for the rest of him?”

“I’m understanding it, yes.”

“I want Rogers! I want Stark! I want a fucking tactical nuke aimed squarely at his ass right n—!”

“They are twelve hundred feet out.”

“—every single one, I don’t care wh—!”

“Twelve hundred, Miss Ross.” And I would like to keep my head of public relations.

“HULK’S GONNA GET YOU, BETTY! HULK HORNIER THAN A MOTHERF—“

“Oh for God’s sake, Banner!”

Nick Fury watched as a giant hand dropped from the sky, the entire limb and body it came with wrapped in leather the color of wine. Free from his sling and ahead of the pack, Hank Pym stood tall between two buildings; all fifty-nine feet and eleven inches of him.

“Just shut up, man. You’re giving science a bad name!”

Another hand came down hard over the first, both palms and giant fingers keeping the gray monster pinned into the side of the building. “Now do us all a favor…”

No. Fury’s hand went to his comm. “Pym!”

“-and calm down, little man!”

Hank Pym didn’t even have a full second to regret his words as a mass of gray burst free of his grip and went for his face, Hulk screaming loud enough to nearly mangle his mic.

“HULK USE YOUR MOUTH AS A TOILET!”