Gray.

Bruce felt lost. He had wandered the area of the base for weeks, months, even had a birthday within its fences. But everything felt different, felt… smaller.

Not to mention the voice in his head. The voice that piloted his body, that told him where to go, and he couldn’t avoid listening.

He felt like he was watching himself from the inside, like his eyes were just screens playing a movie rather than a way to interact with the world.

He heard his breathing, and it felt low, and fast, like an animal. 

What’s happening to me? he thought. 

RrraaAGGH, the voice thought back. 

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. He was still in the med bay, still in quarantine, this was a dream, the last desperate firings of his dying neurons. That’s why he felt himself fading into the background, it was because he was leaving the world behind. He felt his consciousness turn around, and look toward the darkness. And for a brief second, he swore he saw a door.

A big, green, door.

He looked ahead. Wherever that doorway led, he wasn’t ready to go. He wanted to stay, wanted to be with Betty, wanted to leave it all behind. He would give up his life of studying radiation to be with her.

But maybe his life was no longer his to give.

The earth shook beneath his feet, like he was inside a suit of some kind. The thing that drove his body stumbled forward, and put its hand out to steady itself. 

It was crouched low to the ground, and Bruce knew where he was.

It was the bomb test site. He was at ground zero.

There was a tiny hole in the ground, where the bomb had done off, the size of a golf ball. That was all the size the bomb needed - when splitting atoms, size wasn’t an issue.

He stared at the ground, or the thing that was him did.

Bruce didn’t know it yet, but the thing that was him was finding its home.

Returning to its birthplace. 

A few moments later, it got up, and found its balance. Like a baby deer who had finished learning to walk, the hulking grey creature was sure of itself now. It looked around at the empty, barren site.

This was where it began. It had nowhere else to go.

Suddenly, lights came on, blinding its giant eyes. It lifted a huge arm to block its face, and with its giant ears, heard the sounds of engines, helicopter rotors, people giving orders.

It had nowhere to go, but it had to get out of here.

–

Rick Jones was only sixteen. He grew up near enough to Vegas to have seen some weird $&£% in his life, but this… this was some sideshow freak $&£%. 

The guy who had saved his life must’ve taken enough radiation to mutate his body, and Rick had seen it happen live. It almost looked like he was exploding, the way his muscles suddenly popped to three, four times their original size. 

But the way it had looked at him… the doctor was still in there. And if Rick had ever owed anyone anything, he owed this guy.

So he went to find him.

He didn’t know that the army was also trying to find him, or if he did he thought they wanted to help, too. Maybe they could find a way to cure him. 

As the General had been shouting orders, after he’d left the isolation zone with the glass wall that now looked into a quarantine room that was notably un-quarantined, Rick’s eyes followed the grey shadow into the night.

And then he got up, and walked out of the hole it made in the wall.

It was slow, the way it moved, like it didn’t know its own weight. Rick was able to follow it easily enough, the heavy sounds it made masking his own movements. 

Rick didn’t notice the point where he stopped referring to it as ‘he, the doc, the Banner guy,’ and instead called it ‘it, the thing, the shape.’

It stopped for a second, and Rick watched it stare at the ground. Then some guy with a flashlight shone it on the form, a security guard maybe. 

It was just one guy, but the thing moved like he was an army. It jumped, thirty, forty, fifty feet in the air, easily, and landed a hundred yards away. 

Rick blinked. He was glad he had his skateboard, at least.

He followed the small craters being made in the Nevada desert, until he got to a cave. It wasn’t deep, but it still seemed menacing.

“Uh… Doc?” Rick said, quietly. His voice echoed in the darkness.

A hesitant growl came in response.

Rick nodded. “Okay… okay, uh, so… So I don’t know what’s going on. Do you… know what’s going on?”

A grunt came from inside the cave.

“Yeah,” Rick said, “I didn’t think so. I feel even for a smart guy like you, this might be out of your wheelhouse, right?”

Another soft growl, not threatening, but agreeing.

Rick laughed nervously.

He sat outside the cave, crossed his legs, and thought.

“... So doc,” he said after a moment, “when my mom was alive, she always used to tell me something.” He waited for a response, encouragement to continue, but none came. He took that as encouragement enough.

“She used to say, ‘don’t make any big decisions after dark. Everything seems worse at night.’”

“Now, I’m thinking,” Rick continued, “this new gig, whatever has happened to you, probably seems super scary in the dark, right?”

He looked above, at the moon, which was getting lower in the sky. “What if you and I, we just chill out here ‘til morning, huh? I’ll keep you company, and tomorrow we can think of a plan. How’s that sound?”

There was a pause, then a soft breath of agreement.

Rick smiled. “Alright, man. Alright.”

He rested his back against the wall of the cave, and began to talk.

The thing didn’t say much, only letting out growls and grunts, though at one point Rick swore one of the growls sounded almost like a chuckle.

As the moon got lower in the sky, Rick got more and more tired, the adrenaline in his system fading, and leaving behind a hell of a crash. His eyes drooped closed to the low sounds of whatever was left of Dr. Bruce Banner, breathing slow and heavy.