spit_it_out | (no subject)

"Quit whatever, man."

The Ghost lifts a shoulder in a shrug.

"Life, caffeine, cigarettes. Christmas. Quit on yourself."

"Would that really be better?"

His arms go protectively across his midriff, and he looks at the floor.

'It wouldn't necessarily be quitting on myself.'

Because the Other Guy is not him. He has to believe it.

"You'd just go along for the ride?"

The Ghost raises an eyebrow at him.

"You really think that excuse flies?"

'Excuse?'

Bruce glances at her, then away.

'The only excuses I worry about are the ones I have to come up with when people get hurt. I can't come up with one for why Betty ended up in hospital, or for the people that have died. Or for what made me so sure I was right, I tested it on myself in the first place.'

He stops abruptly. What does any of it matter?

'I'd like to go now.'

The Ghost graciously inclines her head.

"At your will, sir," she says.

She begins to walk. Whether their steps will lead them on to something new, or back to the place where she found him, should be apparent very soon.

He's relieved to find himself back in Milliways. He has more questions than he knows what to do with, but they're questions for SHIELD, and Stark, and himself. Cryptic is no use to him.

'I don't suppose there's any chance I can skip the third course?'

The future isn't something he really wants to look at right now.

"Now, honey. You'll hurt her feelings talking like that."

Only probably not. Her sister's not all that sensitive to things like that.

None of them are, really. They're not especially built for it.

"Best eat your cookies though," she adds, favoring him with a kindly smile. "While you've got a minute."

Sugar can only help.

And in half of the time it takes to blink, she's gone.

He does not eat the cookies. He does drink the milk, more for something to do than anything else.

And he uses that minute to start making notes on some paper he keeps by the bed. Things he needs to remember, stuff he needs to ask people should the opportunity arise while he's in the bar.

Maybe, also, it helps distract him from what's coming. Because he has a vague dread about this bit. With what's happened to him in recent years, he dare not hope that it'll be good.

She is wearing a robe, the hood deep and obscuring all but a flash of eye, bright and piercing.

The hand she holds out is fine-boned and delicate, and also, at this precise moment, peremptory.

They have places to be.

Edited 2012-11-12 14:00 (UTC)

That hood is...not reassuring. But it kind of helps that he knows the story. At least he was expecting something like this.

He checks the monitor on his wrist. It held steady in the 130's during the last encounter, but the numbers are already starting to creep up.

'OK.'

He stands up, not without trepidation.

'Sooner we go, sooner it's over, right?'

Or the sooner he gets to spend time looking at a Hell of his own making.

Christmas Yet to Come wraps ice-cold fingers around Bruce's wrist and, with a gentle tug, leads him off into shadow and fog.

He looks over to the thing as they walk, but there's virtually nothing to see. And he can tell there's no point trying to make conversation.

So he walks, and waits, and tries not to hear the beep of the monitor as his heart-rate rises.

The fog clears, and they're standing in front of a small house. Nothing more than a hut, really. He turns to see what else is there - but there isn't anything. The place stands at the base of a mountain, on the edge of a plain, and there isn't another habitation within sight.

And there's a lot of space left empty. From the vegetation, and the steppes, he'd guess this was China, or somewhere similar. Not America, not Canada. Not Europe.

He swallows hard. The sky is low with cloud, and dusk is well under way. There isn't a sound. His hands fold over each other, and tighten.

'Nothing to see, huh? We could go?'

There's a light in the window, though. And he really, really, doesn't want to go and look.

The ghost's hand tightens around Bruce's wrist, ice-cold grip growing ever more frigid --

And then they are standing right next to the lighted window, close enough to see inside.

The movement - if they even moved - feels like a soft blast of cold air against his face. He closes his eyes against it, and doesn't open them again once it's gone.

He has a really bad feeling about this. There definitely isn't much Christmas cheer around here. No family, no friends, no...people at all.

But they're not going anywhere, are they? Not until he faces it. He takes a deep breath, and reminds himself that this isn't real. He's in Milliways, probably still asleep. This doesn't feel like a dream, but it doesn't make it reality.

He opens his eyes.

He's looking into a tiny living room. It might have been average-sized once, but the far wall has a bed pushed up against it which takes up most of the room.

He stares for a moment, then turns his back.

'I don't want to see this.'

He knows it's pointless. But the weight in his chest is heavy enough to force the automatic reaction.

The ghost drops his hand, bone-dry fingers lifting to grip his chin, inexorably turning his face toward the gaping emptiness of the hut's now-open door.

She does not let go.

The only sound is the beeping at his wrist. 140...150...

...160, and she's not letting go. He tries to pull away, but there's no give in that grip.

170.

'All right! All right.'

He puts his hands up. The alternative isn't something he wants to contemplate. So he walks to the door, and waits there, looking at the ground until the numbers start to go backwards. And, eventually, there's no other way to stall.

Inside, there are stairs made of wood, and the dust on them is thick, and untouched. The tiny kitchen to the right has a single unwashed plate and cup sitting in the sink. It's warm because of a small wood fire, but the figure in the bed must have a problem with the cold, because he's buried under a mountain of sheepskin blankets. Or maybe it's his age. Bruce can't see much of his face, but the hair is pure silver, and there's plenty of scalp shining underneath. If he listens hard, he can hear quiet breathing, and the hill of sheepskin moves in time.

He tells himself it's not a surprise. How could this be a surprise? But it still hurts, like a shard of jagged glass through the heart. He sucks in a breath, as if in encouragement, and looks around.

Everything seems to be made of wood. It gives the place a hue of brown, and gold where the flames reflect off the surface. The table is varnished on top, but not on the legs - did he get bored, or just too tired? The wooden floors are sanded in the middle of the room, but not the edges. There aren't any pictures on display, though there's a thick book that might be a photograph album on the bookcase. The one splash of colour in the room is stuck between the 'case and the wall, next to what looks like a bow. He frowns, and wanders over.

The bow is broken. The colour comes from something round, red and blue and shiny under the layer of dust. Behind it on the floor, right back in the corner, is a helmet. Red and gold, black holes for eyes.

Bruce takes a couple of steps backwards at once.

'How far in the future is this?'

It's automatic to ask the person - thing - that might have answers, and his brain is now moving too fast to care whether it answers or not.

The ghost's hand rests solid and heavy on his shoulder.

The air grows chill.

Behind Bruce, there is only silence.

The cold seeps through his clothes. His head drops.

Why is that helmet here, and not with its owner? He knows, more sure than he's ever known anything, that he doesn't want an answer.

The figure in the bed stirs. Bruce turns, and watches himself roll onto his back. The eyes flicker open, sunk deep into waxen skin that sags hopelessly into the hollows of his cheeks. There's no way of guessing his age, but its older than anyone should ever get. And the colour of his eyes - he'd pull away in shock, but he has to be sure what he's looking at. The brown of them has been eaten away, the last vestiges clinging to the black pit in the middle, while the edges glow neon green.

'No. No no no...'

He steps away, shaking his head, but there's nowhere to go. The small of his back hits the armchair and he stops dead, as the rasping of his own aged breath gets louder, and starts filling the room. Something's gone wrong. There's not enough air.

'...can't be serious.'

The old man is shuddering. The blanket on top of the pile teeters, then begins a slow slide to the floor. The weight of it pulls a couple more with it, and Bruce can see himself clearly now, bones held together in his chest by the skin stretched over them. He's struggling to breath, both of them, heaving for air, and he thinks to himself that if he weren't so fucking scared, it would be freaky to watch yourself die.

Just go. Just go. Just...please, just go... and it's like a prayer, a mantra, just let this be it.

He hears a groan. The heaving stutters, and stops. And starts again. And stops.

And doesn't start again.

He watches his body go still, and the eyes fix on a point on the ceiling. It's silent. He's holding his breath. And...nothing.

Thank God.

His shoulders relax. And as they do, there's movement.

He watches in horror as the eyelids flicker once. It seems to trigger something, because the last of the brown in those eyes shifts, seems to swirl and then...fades away, swallowed up by the green seeping into it like venom through clean blood. Bruce feels the colour drain from his face as disbelief hits.

He can't move as he hears the sound resonate up through the prone figure, as if hearing a groan coming from the bottom of a well. It echoes, bouncing off organs and bones, rattling around the ribcage before finding the pipe that'll lead it to freedom. It rushes up out of the body like an oncoming express train, and erupts out of the mouth as the skin starts to stretch and bulge, mottling through veins it no longer has any use for, turning green for the last time.

The only coherent thought he has, at first, comes when he sees the look of satisfaction on the Hulk's face. As if this is what it's been waiting for all along.

He stands while the creature demolishes one side of the house with a sweep of his arm. It has grey hair, he registers, somewhere. More grey than black, anyway. He sees the red-gold helmet go flying out into space, and the shield disappears as the corner of the hut collapses; they're exposed to the plain, cold air flowing in as the Hulk thumps his fists into the ground, raises his face and screams at the sky.

Bruce watches, frozen in horror, waiting for something to come along and fix it. But nothing does. In the end, all that's left is the Hulk.

Edited 2012-11-12 23:13 (UTC)

Fingers like iron bands close around Bruce's wrist, tight and uncompromising.

The accompanying tug back into the shadows, however, is gentle. At least at first.

He can't seem to move, at first. Only when the tug around his wrist becomes insistent does he manage to make his legs work.

He couldn't describe a thing about the walk back. All he can see is the last bit of himself draining out of his eyes, like someone pulled a plug.

When they stop, he doesn't move. Can't move.

'Say something?'

If it sounds a bit like a plea, he's not ashamed.

The ghost's fingers exhibit a fine tremble as she lets go of Bruce's wrist.

The air against this back of his neck is briefly warm, like a soft, quiet exhale.

But the only sound in the air is that of the rumble and groan of a wooden building settling in the cold.

Milliways -- and the morning -- awaits.