soulthatwanders | Voices Inside [for Bruce]

Voices Inside [for Bruce]

It was a pretty sorry state of affairs when Wanda's only reaction to waking up in the jungle in the middle of the night was oh god, not again. Her brief (and sometimes not-so-brief, lately she'd been missing hours a day) spells of lost time had only come during the night a few times that she knew of, but it was always suprememly disorienting, the sensation of waking up on unfamiliar ground carrying with it a certain horror movie vibe. Appropriate, maybe, given what day it probably was by now, but all the more worrying with the island on alert for walking nightmares. Anything could be out there with her, and she didn't have to be a worrier to be unsettled by that fact.

Fortunately, even at night, she was pretty sure she recognized where she was, a small stand of trees not far at all from Bruce's place. A long distance to sleepwalk, to be sure, but at least it gave her an out that didn't involve a long trudge back to civilization wearing a... bathing suit?

Huh. Apparently she'd changed into her uniform, which had been gathering dust at the bottom of a shelf for years now. That was a new development.

"Bruce?" she called, knocking lightly once she made it to his hut in the middle of nowhere. "You up in there?" He kept odd hours at the best of times, and since she had a feeling that most of the island wouldn't be having great nights, she was pretty much anticipating a quick response.

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He can't explain what it is. All he knows is waking up this morning feeling a little - off. And off is never a good sign.

He's having trouble focusing, only able to keep his mind on a single task for a couple moments before he starts to experience some restlessness. It's almost like his skim is humming, vibrating like some kind of hot energy underneath the surface, and it's only been getting worse as the day drags on. He feels confined by the limits of his own body, and he's struggling not to let it get to him, but he can feel sweat beading his brow and his vision blurs behind the lenses of his glasses, which he promptly removes to pinch the bridge of his nose.

The sound of a voice from outside has him glancing up, and he's breathing hard, his heart thrown into a full gallop of a beat by the mere presence of someone else. He debates not answering, but everyone who comes out to see him has good reason for doing so - and most of them are pretty insistent. But he also knows he looks like shit, so maybe that will be enough of a deterrent for any who get the idea to wander.

"Uh, it's not really a good time," he replies, opening the door just enough to speak through, one eye visible.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Wanda replied dryly, falling back on sarcasm being her go-to response in times of stress, at least until she managed to get over her own problems long enough to notice that she wasn't the only one with them. "Are you okay?"

"Okay might be a relative term," Bruce answers, trying not to sound too wry himself and failing miserably.

"Is everything alright?" He wonders what reason she might have for seeking him out otherwise - and the change in wardrobe isn't going unnoticed either.

"Yeah, I think so," Wanda replied quickly, but even she could recognize that it wasn't the time for being dismissive and shrugged. "I'm not sure. And this isn't exactly a night for not being sure, you know?"

At least things still seemed pretty quiet.

"Why?" Bruce asks, looking confused for a beat. "What night is it anyway?"

Realization dawns a little while later; he chalks it up to not really having monitored the days of the week alongside his current condition of feeling like absolute crud. "Oh."

"Yeah. Oh," said Wanda, catching herself in a wholly inappropriate smile. Maybe it was a good thing that she'd ended up way out there. If nothing else, it was one hell of a wake-up call. "If we're lucky, this will all be one big false alarm, but you still shouldn't be all alone in the middle of nowhere with who-all-knows-what coming."

"Look, it's not that I don't appreciate the thought, but - " He does his best to fight back a visible wince in the wake of another wave, the burn of rage hot and thick under his skin as his heartbeat pulses in his ears and he struggles to look anything resembling normal.

"Alone might be the best thing for everyone involved right now."

"What are you-" she started, and while she didn't quite recoil at his sudden tension, Wanda drew herself up somewhat, concern overriding all of her stupid excuses for her own erratic behaviour (because that was all they'd ever been, of course, and why could she only see that now?).

"Let me in. Talk to me."

The truth of the matter is that the anger is always brimming just beneath the surface, ready to burst free, and thanks to years of meditation and acknowledgment he's been able to fully understand that. He hasn't experienced this kind of helplessness in a long time, and it's taking every ounce of strength he has in him not to let the panic in too. One hand becomes a fist at his side, the other at his chest, and he sways only slightly before his knees buckle and he staggers against the wall. The whole hut feels like it shudders with the impact and the door opens without anyone holding onto it.

"Wanda," he grits out, shaking his head. "You need to get out of here."

"Oh god," Wanda murmured, a quiet gasp being her only hesitation before following him, facing him. Of course. Of course this was happening now. "Okay, so it's probably not one big false alarm, then, that's- that's good to know early on," she said in a rush, refusing to let herself either panic or simply leave, since neither would really accomplish much in the long run.

"When it comes to the Other Guy, there's really no such thing as - a false alarm," Bruce mutters, struggling to get out the words. It's really difficult to pinpoint the worst thing in this moment - he can barely hear anything else over the sound of his own heart, and despite fighting to remember every technique he's either learned or taught himself, nothing seems to be working.

"Not really kidding around at this point," he says, almost in a half-snarl, looking paler by the minute. "You need to go before - before I can't be reasoned with."

"But you're not there yet, that's a good thing, right?" Wanda pointed out, undeterred, if extremely unsettled. Not scared, though, she wasn't going to go to that well unless she absolutely had to. "I can't just leave you out here like this!"

"You have to," Bruce insists, voice low in warning. He hasn't prepared for this, he hasn't anticipated anything like this happening, and there's nothing remotely strong enough to restrain him past a certain point. The most terrifying part of all is that he thought he'd had a handle on this, and without that, he's not sure if there's anything else he has left.

He curls in on himself, turning to face away, face and body turned to the wall. Maybe not being able to see her directly will help, somehow.

It was hard to see him like that for a whole host of reasons, and Wanda's frustrations grew right along with the knowledge that there really wasn't anything she could do beyond awkward hovering. "And go where? Leaving you here to your devices, will I really be that much better off anywhere else?"

Okay, yelling at the guy probably isn't the smartest course of action, maybe dial it back a bit, there.

Somehow, his brain processes the sound of seams tearing before he recognizes it coming from his own clothes, sleeves beginning to split right down the middle, and Wanda's voice is a lingering echo in his ears as he turns on her - no, please no, don't hurt her -

"You'll still be in one piece," he utters, guttural, breathing heavily - and then, without any warning, lashing out on the final syllable with a fist that collides with the wall behind her, mere inches from her head.

Wanda started, breath catching in her throat, but when she backed away, it was slowly, her eyes wide but focused. Really, the fact that she wasn't dead was a good sign, and she should probably take her victories where she could. "Okay," she said, nodding slowly and praying that it wasn't too late for her to get through at least a little. "Okay, I'm going."

He looks back, and something like regret or apology briefly lingers in his gaze as he looks over her before his expression shifts again into a grimace mixed with a snarl.

"Go," he hisses, doubling over again, his arms wrapped around his middle. "Before it's too late."

She didn't take her eyes off of him until she was through the door, and even then, Wanda lingered as long as she dared. "I'm coming back," she said, firm in her resolve not to just take off and never look twice. "I'll figure something out, and I'll be right back." She doubted he'd still be there, at least in any recognizable capacity, but seeing as how she was mostly talk at the moment, it probably didn't matter. Also making the point a moot one would be the way she didn't make it more than five paces out of the hut before it hit her like a rock to the back of the head and she dropped to her knees with a scream that she didn't even hear.

Edited 2012-11-02 00:25 (UTC)

His head snaps up at the sound and he looks at his own hands, desperately trying to ensure that it isn't anything he's done - anything the Other Guy might have done. It's getting harder and harder to tell the difference right now. Under normal circumstances, his hand would be throbbing from putting his fist through the wall, but given the amount of adrenaline his blood is pumping through his system, he doesn't feel it one bit.

"Wanda," he croaks, reaching out a hand, and somewhere in the back of his consciousness he manages to stumble forward, his other arm still tightly wrapped around his midsection.

At first, Wanda was just confused. Why did she hurt so much? She couldn't remember the last time the pain was this bad, not since the early days, not since-

Finally, she managed to cut through the fog and realize what was happening, and then came the panic, grabbing her and rising fast the instant she let it in. She tried to get up, a child's instinct to run, but her muscles, her bones all felt like they were on fire, and she knew there was nowhere to go. This was a threat from without, yes, but he was already there, already a part of her. He had been for months, now, thanks to the island, and she'd just been too stupid, too willfully blind to let herself see that and now it was too late.

Looking back, she didn't quite understand her initial reaction, a strange dismay to see that it was still Bruce in there, that he was hanging on. Not until she realized what exactly it was that she was so afraid of.

"Kill me," she said, her voice high and breathless. She knew she was already slipping away, knew she wouldn't even notice when it happened, and she couldn't let herself just end that way, not again. "Please."

It's harder for him to focus on what she's saying, what's happening - his vision blurs in and out of focus, his ability to hear her words in a similar state of flux. It's the transformation and his struggle to resist it, the fight taking a toll on his body in more ways than just the obvious.

He can't do both. He can't reach her and stop the transformation altogether. He doesn't have the power to control his forward movement and halt the spread of green pigmenting his limbs, stop the growth of muscle as bones shift and grow to accommodate a bigger frame.

He staggers forward and isn't aware of falling until he tastes dirt, reaching out to her with straining, trembling, growing greenish fingertips.

His approach and slow transformation was just enough to hold her attention, no matter how hard the pain kept trying to pull it away. She slumped lower, breath coming in shallow gasps now, and the only thought running through her head was 'too late, too late', over and over like a mantra. Any other time and her heart would be breaking for him, because she knew how much he'd dreaded this and she cared about him so damn much, but there was no room for it over her fear of the Beast and from there, it was simple, desperate instinct to reach out and grab Bruce's hand. Self-preservation was entirely out the window at this point, after all, as she didn't have much of a self left. There was a fight going on inside her skin, but she wasn't a part of it anymore, she was just an outside observer waiting to be taken care of by forces that had always been outside of her control.

Later, he might reflect on this moment and consider the fact that the Hulk would have never had the place of mind to even reach out for anything resembling gentle contact - the one exception to that in the past had been Betty, and even then it hadn't been a scene he'd remembered himself, only heard about later.

It'll be proof that he's still retained enough of his own control to think of something other than the transformation when it all finally leaves him and he starts slipping towards the darkness, closing his eyes in resolute acceptance.

Every breath is a deep rumble in the Hulk's chest when he lifts his head, almost like a dog scenting the air. There's a pause, a brief jerk of hesitation, and he pulls his hand away before reaching out to nudge at the crumpled frame on the ground in front of him.

When the shift occurred, it was a subtle thing, quiet and insidious. The focus went out of her eyes for the briefest of moments and returned as perfect clarity when she looked at the looming monster. One moment, Wanda was there, and the next, she was simply gone, replaced with something else. Something foreign. Something very, very old.

"Yes," it said, voice pitched unnaturally low but still undeniably hers as it took in the new surroundings, so far removed from its own realms of men and gods. "Yes, this will do." And finally, after so many months of waiting in shadows and half-remembered thoughts, it began the transformation to its natural state. No matter the world, it would tremble before the might of the Great Beasts before the night was through.

Something has shifted. Something has changed. The Hulk knows it, recognizes it even if he doesn't quite comprehend what it could possibly all mean, but there is nothing familiar about the being in front of him now, and he snarls, lips pulling back to reveal white teeth.

It's a warning sound, and it will likely be the only one this - thing ever gets.

The Great Beast growled, a low, primal sound as muscle rippled and flowed like water, growing and shifting. Skin and clothing were replaced by hide and fur as would befit a being bound normally to colder climes, and human features twisted into something different, something wrong, just a step beyond animal to become almost alien. It didn't deign to acknowledge the feral creature before him (her, came the immediate reminder, as she now occupied the form of the mortal godling, the now-warped offspring off the hated Nelvanna) until she'd attained her full height above the monster, and when she did, there was nothing but derision in the deep, ancient horror of a voice.

"Either stand down or be the first of many to fall before Tanaraq. The choice is thine."

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Voices Inside [for Bruce]

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