Chapter 139
“Our preliminary scans have shown no evidence of cell degradation or neoplastic transformation,” Shuri explained. The Wakandan princess gestured to the holographic image in front of us—the results of a full-body imaging scan. The overall outline was ghostly and transparent, letting us see through to the cloud of purple flecks that formed a broad scatter pattern through all parts of my body, with slightly heavier concentrations around the major organs. “This is not surprising. The Heart-Shaped Herb’s vibranium infusion reinforces internal cellular lattices at the sub-molecular level. Among other things, this makes cells significantly more resistant to damage from all forms of ionising radiation, including gamma.”
My shoulders relaxed slightly as she spoke. As far as I could tell, that meant that super cancer could be safely taken off the list of things I had to worry about, which was good news.
“So why are we looking at Wanda’s vibranium distribution, here?” Nat asked, sounding genuinely curious. “If there’s no cell degradation…”
Bruce was standing next to us, tapping away at a translucent tablet held in his hand. “It’s hard to tell because we don’t exactly have a solid baseline for these things yet, but Wanda’s vibranium infusion is a little bit more advanced than we were expecting. It’s only a few percentage points above T’Challa’s, but initial expectations were that Wanda’s would be less advanced than his, not more.”
I looked at Shuri. “The gamma’s interacting with the vibranium, then? That’s what happened to you, right? Am I like you?”
“You are not like me,” she responded sharply.
Bruce grimaced and bobbed his head in a so-so gesture. “There are some similarities,” he corrected, flicking the Wakandan a vaguely apologetic look. “But overall, it’s a very different kind of interaction, because you’re in very different situations. While you both took the Herb, Shuri received a lethal dose of gamma and the vibranium infusion was administered to treat it. You, on the other hand, started with a stable infusion, then were exposed to an almost negligibly low dose of gamma radiation over a prolonged period of time.”
As Bruce spoke, the third scientist in the room—Sterns—made his way over to us from the microscope he’d been using to scrutinise a sample of my blood. “Shuri’s system had already been broadly compromised. Widespread cellular apoptosis and organ failure. The Herb compensated by using the gamma radiation as a catalyst to mutate her, creating a stable synthesis between the radiation and vibranium,” he explained. “There are minute traces of gamma radiation in your system, but the advanced stage of your own infusion appears to be more comparable to leucocytosis.”
Nat noticed me staring at him blankly and nudged me with her elbow. “Elevated white blood cell count. He’s saying it’s like an immune system response.”
“I believe that’s the most probable explanation at this stage,” Sterns said with a nod. “The healing factor induced by the Herb’s vibranium infusion is incredibly versatile. It’s quite fascinating.”
“So… just to be clear, I’m not going to turn into a She-Hulk?”
My girlfriend let out a small huff of amusement. “Don’t sound so disappointed.”
“Hey, I mean…” My eyes flicked back toward Shuri and I waggled my eyebrows a bit, letting the gesture speak for itself before I added, “And you didn’t see how Jen turned out as a She-Hulk. Woof.”
Bruce screwed up his face, ignoring the comment about his cousin. “No. Nothing like that.”
My fingers absently fiddled with the locket at my throat, the cold energy of the Mind Stone a continual, reassuring presence. “And it should be fine if I keep using the Stone the way I have been?”
“Yeah, more or less.”
My forehead creased at that response. “More or less?” I asked.
He winced. “Sorry, yeah. More.”
“Bruce…”
“More!” He held his hands out in a gesture of surrender. “More, more, more.”
Nat gave my hand a bit of a squeeze, still looking faintly amused, and I looked toward the others for assistance. Shuri had moved away, retreating to one of the workbenches at the far side of the room, looking over a hologram of DNA structures that hovered above her palm. Sterns had remained nearby, watching us with a small smile curving the corner of his lips, but said nothing.
“It’s fine,” Bruce said, trying to sound reassuring. “I’m pretty sure.”
“Okay. But if it isn’t, I’ll be holding you personally responsible,” I said, levelling a finger at him accusingly.
He let out a small huff of amusement and nodded in acceptance. That was probably good enough for me, anyway. I didn’t have super cancer and didn’t need to change the way I’d been doing things. Part of me had been a little paranoid that we were going to end up having another round of ‘should Wanda really have the Stone?’, this time with a healthy dose of ‘for her own good’, but it thankfully didn’t look like that was the case.
“We should still keep an eye on things, just in case things change,” Bruce said, then shot me a sympathetic look when he saw my expression. “Run some more scans once a month or so and see how we go. It’s too early to make firm assumptions. It’s not even clear if your current state is actually a result of long-term exposure to the Stone, or if it’s a more recent change because of the way your Celestial markings are cycling the energy through your body.”
“Gamma interactions are volatile and there are a lot of factors that can radically affect outcomes. They can be difficult to predict, even for me,” Sterns added. “All of our circumstances are unique. Dr Banner has a very specific combination of rare genetic markers that result in him being able to metabolise gamma radiation naturally. Shuri’s vibranium infusion mutated her to do the same in order to save her life. My own situation is different again.”
Bruce nodded in agreement. “Yeah. We’re just being careful.” He glanced over toward Shuri—it was clear that the Wakanda princess was still listening, but she’d removed herself from direct participation in the conversation and didn’t seem interested in rejoining it. “There’s something else about all this that’s been bothering me, too. I was looking over the data from the gamma burst that happened when I woke up.”
“It was a low-frequency pulse—extremely weak—and dissipated almost immediately,” Sterns said. “It’s improbable that Shuri and I would have reacted to it from the other side of the compound. Wanda was more proximate, but even so. The model doesn’t fit. You have a theory?”
“Kind of,” Bruce replied with an unenthused half-shrug. “It’s mostly intuition at this point. I don’t have a lot to support it, but I think there might be some sort of photonic entanglement effect at work.”
Sterns frowned slightly. “Your intuition has proven fairly reliable in the past, but I don’t believe there’s any real way to test for that without recreating the conditions.”
Turning back to me, Bruce noticed my curious expression. “All living things emit radiation,” he explained. “Simple biophotons for the most part—barely measurable. But gamma radiation is extremely distinctive, which means that mutates like us have very unique signatures. I think there might be some underlying connection we’re not seeing. Dr Sterns is right, though. We can’t test it without… Well, you know. Killing me.”
“Without a better understanding of the mechanism behind Dr Banner’s revivification, my current model gives only a 55 per cent chance that the event can be replicated,” Sterns noted. “19 per cent probability that it was a result of the specific conflux of factors around his apparent death.”
I knew that the way he’d said that didn’t necessarily imply that the only reason they weren’t murdering Bruce over and over for science was because it might not work, but I still wasn’t completely comfortable with the statement. Or was I just being unreasonable and judge-y, defaulting to the least-charitable interpretation of Sterns’s words because I was still suspicious of him? Ugh.
“Yeah… It could have been a one-off. A fluke. I don’t think it was, though.” Bruce suddenly sounded a bit more subdued. “The Hulk can’t be killed. That feels right to me. I know there are still a lot of gaps when it comes to explaining this sort of phenomena—”
“Do doo, do-doo doo,” I half-sung under my breath. I’d meant to do it quietly enough that it wouldn’t interrupt, but Bruce paused anyway. There was an awkward beat of silence that I felt compelled to fill. “Do do-do, doo.”
Next to me, Nat let out a soft huff of amusement. “Wanda,” she said gently.
“Sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Bruce said, shrugging again. “Like I said, this is all just supposition at this point. We’ll comb through everything we’ve got, but I don’t know if we’re going to find anything else.”
“Okay. Well, if that’s everything…?” I asked.
“Yeah, I think that’s it for now.”
Sterns gave a small nod of agreement. “As Dr Banner says, we’ll reach out if anything comes up. Thank you for your assistance, Ms Maximoff, Ms Romanoff.”
“Don’t work too hard,” Nat admonished Bruce gently as the other man moved away. “You need to have some downtime, too. There’s no rush, right? All of this can wait.”
He gave a lopsided grin. “Yeah, I know.” As Nat and I moved toward the exit, though, he made a small noise in the back of his throat and took a few steps after us, faltering just at the threshold of the lab. “Uh, Wanda?”
“Yeah?”
Bruce gestured for us to step out into the corridor, so we did, moving just far enough out of the room that the door slid closed behind us. “Could I, uh, talk to you about something real quick?” he asked, looking a little anxious all of a sudden.
Nat looked at Bruce askance, shifting her posture to indicate she was ready to leave if he wanted her to.
“It’s okay,” he said, giving her a small shake of his head. “It’s… something we’ve already talked about before, anyway.”
I looked between the two of them quizzically. “What did you want to talk about?”
He hesitated, an indecisive expression on his face. I just waited, letting him get there in his own time. The man had died and come back to life a day ago, I could afford to give him a second to collect his thoughts. After a few moments, he took a deep breath then blew out a long, loud sigh. “Look, I know the last few days have been a lot for everyone, and this isn’t something that needs to happen right away. I really don’t want to put any more pressure on you. But there’s something I need to ask, before I change my mind.”
As he spoke, I caught Nat’s expression soften, a faint expression of realisation ghosting across her features.
The scientist half turned away from us, glancing back into the gamma lab. One of his hands came up and he tapped nervously at the glass wall a few times. “I knew…” he started quietly, then hesitated again. “I knew I couldn’t kill myself. That if I died, the other guy would just bring me back. But part of me hoped that, if he died—if the Hulk died—then that would be the end of it. But if that’s not actually true… If I really can’t die? Then I’ve gotta try something. I can’t keep doing the same thing forever.”
I exchanged a quick smile with Nat. “I’m really glad to hear you say that, if you’re asking what I think you’re asking.”
“It’s just… It’s hard to accept what you told me about him.” He let out another sigh. “You don’t know what it’s like, having something like the Hulk inside you. Every time you look in the mirror, it’s like there are two people staring back out at you. The one you can see. And the other one. The one you don’t want to.” I hadn’t realised it at first, but Bruce wasn’t actually looking into the gamma lab—he was staring at the faint outline of his reflection in the glass. “And you just want me to accept that this thing, this monster I hate, that’s caused so much pain, is a part of me I need to accept? That… scares me.”
A small laugh of disbelief escaped my lips. I couldn’t help it.
Bruce tore his gaze away from his reflection and frowned at me, as if he thought I was making light of his situation.
“Seriously, Bruce?” I asked him. “You think I don’t understand that? Me? Of all people?”
“I know you saw some version of yourself, what you could be capable of, but that’s—”
“I live with that, Bruce,” I cut him off. “Sometimes I see people and remember doing awful things to them. I don’t know why, but I remember exactly what all of the worst parts of it felt like.” My voice suddenly felt very intense, shaking a little bit as I spoke.
Next to me, Nat gently took my hand in hers.
“I know what it’s like to be scared of yourself. I know that when most people think about fear, it’s about something outside of them. Something they can run from, or fight, or escape. But I can’t run away from what scares me. Not when it’s my thoughts, my impulses, my reflection whispering things I don’t want to hear.” I paused briefly to blink away the tears that had collected in the corners of my eyes, licking my lips to moisten them. Nat squeezed my hand again. I looked at her, confessing as much to her as I was to Bruce. “I feel like I’m carrying something dangerous inside me. Something I can’t control. One moment I’m fine, but the next, I’m drowning in emotions. Rage that rises up and lashes out before I can stop it. Grief that latches on like it never wants to let go. I spiral and I don’t even know why.”
Bruce’s eyes dropped to the floor and he nodded. “That rage…” he said slowly. “If the Hulk’s really just a part of me, then how can I trust myself? If I accept it—integrate him, like you said—then how do I know what version of me will wake up each day? I wish I could trust my own mind, my own feelings. But I don’t know how. And that’s…”
“Terrifying,” I finished. Sniffing, I used my free hand to wipe the wetness away from my eyes. “Sorry, I don’t… I didn’t mean to unload on you like that. I just… You don’t need to be afraid to talk about these things. I know what it feels like, to have a part of yourself that’s like that.” I glanced briefly at Natasha, flicking my head toward her. “Nat understands it, too. Hell, I know you’re not super close but maybe you should talk to Bucky at some point—he was probably the closest to your exact situation. The Hulk might be unique, but how you feel about him isn’t. You’re not alone, okay?”
“Wanda’s right. We’re here for you, if you need us. Both of you,” Natasha added, bumping me gently with her shoulder.
I gave her a tight smile, then looked back at Bruce. “If you want me to help, I’ll help. It’s not even a question. Of course I will.”
He exhaled, shoulders slumped slightly. “Thank you.”
--
The portal came together in threads of burning red chaos magic, revealing Natasha’s New York apartment on the other side. Nat stepped through first, followed by Pietro, and I entered last, letting the gateway dissipate into nothing once we were all safely on the other side. Yelena was there, waiting for us, tucked between the small dining table and the kitchen bench.
“Hey!” Pietro grinned, immediately beelining toward her.
“Hey yourself,” she responded and, somehow, I didn’t really clock what was about to happen until they were already kissing. It wasn’t, like, a little peck or anything, either. This was a full-on, proper, little bit of tongue (not bedroom level, thank God), full body, her-back-against-the-wall, one-of-his-hands-caressing-her-cheek sort of kiss.
As they broke off from savaging each other, I made an indignant noise in the back of my throat. “What the fuck was that? You can’t just do that in front of me. Give me some warning, first.”
“Oh, sure, it’s fine for you to kiss everyone, but the second I do it…” Pietro rolled his eyes and shot me a little bit of a smug look, one of his arms still lightly around Yelena’s waist.
“Hey, this is a little different, okay?” I said, gesturing with one hand to emphasise my point. “If I’m going to make out with your best friend, then I’ll definitely be sure to let you know ahead of time.”
“You’re not my best friend,” Yelena said, her mouth set in a small moue of annoyance.
“First: Hurtful. Second: Untrue. We established this. Also, I made this for you.” I fished a small, colourful strip of woven threads out of my pocket and held it out to her.
Yelena frowned, but reached out and took it. After a moment, a faint look of realisation passed across her features. “Is this… a friendship bracelet?”
“Yep.”
“Are you twelve? And there’s no way you made this, anyway,” Yelena said, holding it up to get a better look at it. It was a simple chevron pattern, alternating between deep red, blue and green. She glanced at Nat and waved it toward her. “She didn’t make this.”
Nat just shrugged. “I actually think she made it while we were waiting around Kamar-taj. Not sure exactly when, but those look like the colours of the sorcerers’ robes.”
“It was actually super easy to do with magic once I worked out how to get the pattern repeating,” I said, a little proudly.
Yelena shot me an unimpressed look. “Pietro said you fought robots without me. Again,” she said accusingly, changing the subject abruptly to distract away from the fact that I’d just seen her tuck the bracelet into the pocket of her jeans.
“They were only kind of robots.”
“When am I going to get to fight a robot?” she asked, somehow managing to sound genuinely annoyed. For all that Yelena ribbed me for my jokes, I was pretty sure the whole her-wanting-to-fight-robots thing was a bit, and her commitment to it was just flawless.
“Next time there’s a robot, you will be the first person I call,” I told her. “I promise.”
She made let out a noncommittal ‘hmph’, then looked over at Natasha. “So what are you two going to do?”
Nat shook her head. “I don’t really know. Something light.”
“We could watch something?” I suggested, glancing over toward the TV. Yelena had made good on her promise, replacing the broken screen at some point over the last two days.
Pietro perked up a little at that suggestion. “It might be nice to just relax and switch off for a couple of hours,” he said, glancing toward Yelena to gauge her interest. “Malcolm in the Middle’s on Netflix? Yelena hasn’t seen it before.”
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. When was the last time I’d seen Malcolm in the Middle? Pietro and I had watched a lot of it together, bouncing around in the years following our parents’ deaths. We’d been eleven when it had started airing, the exact same age as Malcolm, and we’d sort of grown up alongside him. I liked to imagine that Papa would have liked the show a lot, if he’d been able to see it. “That’d be nice? Natasha?”
“Sure,” Nat said. “I think I caught a stray episode here or there, but I haven’t really watched it.”
There were also some other memories of watching the show mixed up in my head, from the other me, but they were vague and nonspecific. It just hadn’t been as important to them.
“Lemme change out of these clothes,” I said, moving toward the hallway. “Back in a sec.”
Nat followed me down the short hall and into the bedroom, closing the door behind her and leaning back against it as I quickly undressed. Once I’d stripped down to my underwear, I retrieved some baggy sweatpants and a hoodie from the closet and slipped them on, transferring my sling ring and my phone to the hoodie’s pockets. Nat remained quiet throughout the process, just watching me with a soft expression on her face.
Once that was done, I let out a small, satisfied sigh. “Much better,” I said, turning toward her and grinning.
She returned the smile half-heartedly, then stepped forward, away from the door. “Did you really think you were going to die? Back at Kamar-taj?” she asked. I hesitated, caught off-guard by the sudden question. There was a beat of silence and she took another step closer to me. “You said the Ancient One told you that you were going to die.”
“I mean…” I started picking anxiously at the hem of my hoodie. “She said something that made me think I might. But I guess it was just meant to manoeuvre me into the right mental space.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked quietly. There was an edge of… not hurt exactly, in her tone. Just concern. Worry.
I shrugged, looking away from her. “There wouldn’t have been any point. It would have only made you worry.”
She reached out to gently pull my hands away from the hem of my hoodie and clasp them in between us. “I’m allowed to worry about you, you know,” she said. There was a mild admonishment in her tone, but I once again found myself wondering if she was deliberately masking how upset she was for my benefit.
“I’m sorry.” I dipped my head slightly so I could kiss her fingers. “It’s just… I’m a shit girlfriend. It feels like I’m always the one with problems. It isn’t fair to you.”
“Wanda,” Nat said, her tone sharpening slightly. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“Sorry. I know. You have problems, too.”
“And when I do, you help me through them. Without checking the tally first to make sure it’s ‘fair’.”
“I mean… I wouldn’t have to check. It’s at least ten to one, I think.”
“Don’t be dumb. Even if it’s true, don’t be dumb.”
I mushed her hand into the side of my cheek for a moment. “I just worry that you don’t always actually let me in when you’re upset. Like with Bruce. I know how much you care about him, but it felt a bit like you just walled off your own feelings for my benefit.”
Nat visibly processed this, then gave a small nod of acknowledgement. “I… Yeah. Everything that happened, with you going missing, then the Eternals attacking, then you getting hurt, and then Bruce… You’re right. I did wall it off, but it wasn’t because of you. It’s just what I do. It’s easier to shut down, sometimes, rather than let myself feel things properly,” she admitted.
“I don’t want you to feel like you’re not allowed to be upset,” I told her. “I love you. And I want to be able to be here for you, as well.”
“I know. I love you, too. And you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” she said. “But please don’t hide things like that from me just to spare my feelings.”
I nodded. “Okay,” I said quietly.
“Okay.”
“…Did we just talk through our feelings like adults?”
Nat smiled. “We did.”
“Huh. That was weird. Not sure I care for it,” I said airily, taking a step back from her. “Did you want to get changed too, or…?”
“I’m good, actually.”
“Wow,” I said, forcefully injecting as much faux drama into the word as I could. “First you make me talk through my feelings, and now I don’t even get to see your boobs afterwards? Ugh. This is bullshit.”
Nat let out an amused snort, her hands going to the hem of her blouse. Before she could lift it and flash me, however, I averted my eyes, blocking my view of her with the palm of my hand and shaking my head. “Nope, nope. Too late. I don’t even wanna see them anymore.”
“Yes, you do.”
“…Yes, I do,” I grumbled. As my hand dropped and I looked back at her, my eyes widened slightly in surprise. She’d already covered herself back up! I made a small, whiny noise of protest in the back of my throat.
“Sorry,” she apologised. “Too late. You just missed them.” The tone she took was that of a humble messenger, helpless to effect any change to the situation. As she spoke, she stepped backward, reaching blindly for the doorknob. Pulling the door open, she hovered at the threshold for a moment, a deeply unapologetic grin on her face. “Come on. Wouldn’t want to keep our siblings waiting.”
“You’re so mean,” I complained, padding after her as she headed back down the hallway and back into the lounge room.
Pietro and Yelena had already colonised the couch by the time we got back, which was also manifestly unfair. I glared at them resentfully for a moment and Yelena snuggled in closer to my brother’s side in response, shooting me a smug little look as she did so. Feh. I indicated to Nat that she should sit in the armchair and, when she was settled, I dropped a spare cushion on the floor just in front of her and sat down on it, leaning back and nestling myself between her legs. As I made myself comfortable, Pietro hit play on the remote.
“This is the world,” Frankie Muniz’s voiceover started. “196 million square miles. If I covered 100 square miles an hour, every hour, for the rest of my life, I’d still only see half of it…”
When it got to the intro theme, Pietro and I both sang along, of course. “Yes, no, maybe… I don’t know. Can you repeat the question? You're not the boss of me now! You're not the boss of me now! You’re not the boss of me now and you’re not so big!”
About halfway through the second episode, I felt a faint buzz in my lap as I received a message. Fishing out my phone, I glanced at the screen and a small smile touched my lips. It was Bucky. I unlocked the screen.
Hey, anything planned for tonight?
I nudged Natasha with my shoulder and held the phone up over my shoulder so she could see it. She smiled and gave me a little bit of a squeeze with her knees.
Not yet, I typed back. Got something in mind? 😏
A few of us are going to have some quiet drinks at the compound, he responded. Common room’s been patched. Wanna come?
Letting Nat see the screen again, I sighed in faux indecision. “I don’t know,” I murmured to her, dropping my head backwards into her lap. “Do I want to get absolutely coathangered after the week we’ve had?”
She let out a soft huff of amusement. “I’m honestly surprised you haven’t started drinking already.”
Pietro glanced in our direction, a curious expression on his face “What’s that?” he asked.
“Bucky says they’re having drinks at the compound tonight,” I told him.
“Oh, you’re coming? I thought it was going to be a bit more of a boys’ night thing,” my brother said, a little dismissively. Nat stretched out a little bit, using the movement to surreptitiously poke him with her toe. His eyes flicked in her direction briefly, then he shrugged. “Eh. Yelena, do you want to come too, then?”
Yelena hesitated briefly, looking to her sister, who gave a small, barely perceptible nod in response. “Sure, why not? I haven’t got anything better to do.”
Yeah! Can Nat come? I tapped back to Bucky.
Sure. Steve was going to message her.
What time?
7?
Okies, I’ll pick you up at 6.
Bucky sent a single ? in response.
Need a big strong man to help me raid Gil’s stash for the good stuff.
Okay 👍
I absolutely didn’t need help with that, of course. But I hadn’t had a chance to really talk to Bucky properly since we’d had that awkward moment at Kamar-taj in between the Eternals’ attacks. Even if he wasn’t ready to have an actual relationshippy talk, I felt like I needed to apologise to him, and I wanted to do it before I got drunk and tried to get him to fuck me again.
That was a problem for future Wanda, a couple of hours from now, though. Locking the phone, I tucked it back into my pocket, then snuggled into Nat’s legs a bit, resting the side of my head against a knee as we continued to watch TV.