Recruitment part 2
Chapter 13
"Gohan, it's time to get up, Buddy."
Gohan slowly opens his eyes and sees Tony standing over him with a grumpy looking Goten in his arms.
"Dad, what's up?" Gohan asks as he sits up and rubs the sleep out of his eyes.
"JARVIS found Banner." Tony explains. "We need to head out ASAP if we're gonna catch up to him before Ross does."
Gohan fully wakes up at that news. "Alright, where are we heading?"
"Culver University, Virginia. We're gonna need to fly, so time to suit up, Little Man."
"You got it, but what about Goten?" Gohan asks as he gets out of bed.
"Pepper's at work, Rhodey's not even in the country, and there isn't time to drop him off with a sitter, i.e Happy." Tony lists off the options while he and Gohan head to the lab.
"We're taking him with us? Isn't that a little risky?" Gohan asks, worried about the possibilities of if –actually more than likely when– things go south.
"We either bring him with us or let DUM-E watch him." Tony informs.
The mention of the bot's name puts a smile back on Goten's face. "Dum-Eee?"
Tony and Gohan exchange looks and in unison agree. "No way."
"Coming with us it is." Tony concludes.
Goten's smile falls back off. "Mean Dada."
"Responsible Dada is more accurate, my sassy monkey." Tony quips as they enter the lab.
Goten glares at Tony then starts reaching for Gohan. "Bubba."
"I've never seen Goten so grumpy before, did you have to cut his nap short?" Gohan asks as he takes Goten from Tony.
He sets him down on the floor nearby to keep an eye on him as he gets dressed in the green gi that's more or less become his default after helping Tony with the Ten Rings.
"I had to cut his cartoons short." Tony answers while the updated Mark 2 armor assembles around him.
"Mean." Goten chirps.
Gohan chuckles at Goten's moodiness and scoops him up with one arm, packs some spare clothes and other supplies he and Tony had prepared into capsules, and pockets them. "How are we transporting Goten? Should I just put him in an energy bubble, or do you have something else in mind?"
The face plate of Tony's armor slides up, revealing the cocky smirk on his face.
"I'm glad you asked." He replies as he motions for JARVIS to bring something over.
While the robotic arms that put the armor on Tony bring something over to him, he moves to a table and grabs something else. "In preparation for the occasion we would have to bring Goten with us on a 'job', I made what I like to call the 'Iron Baby Sling'."
Gohan is shown what looks like a booster seat with a color scheme similar to the Ironman armor.
"I can tell you're going to need a demonstration." Tony says, seeing the confused expression on Gohan's face.
Before Gohan can respond, Tony walks over to him. "If you would please hand me the precious cargo."
Gohan smirks and hands Goten over to Tony, much to the infant's displeasure. "Nooo."
Tony chuckles. "Aww c'mon, Monkey. I'm sorry about turning off your cartoons, but it's for a good cause. We're gonna go meet a new friend."
Tony sets Goten in the seat and buckles him in while the baby's scowl fades into a curious stare. "Ok, boys, prepare to be amazed."
Gohan watches in surprise as the seat transforms into a spherical shell and completely surrounds Goten. "Woah."
"Woah indeed, my boy." Tony boasts as he tosses something to Gohan.
Gohan reflexively catches it, then looks at the object. "My visor glasses."
"Yep, I gave them an upgrade. Put 'em on and see for yourself."
Gohan puts the glasses on and pushes the button on the top right as usual, but instead of just changing into the regular visor that circles around his head covering his eyes and ears, it also forms a mask covering all of Gohan's face under the visor.
Gohan checks out his reflection.
"Wow, this is awsome." Gohan says, noticing his voice is slightly digitized, the same way Tony's is when he's wearing the armor with the face plate down.
"I thought you'd like it." Tony says as he slides his face plate back down. "And I figured an update was in order. Even though Fury, Agent, and some other SHIELD people will know it's you under there, others won't until you decide to let them know. I changed the color to pure black to go with the getup you prefer to wear during these kinds of 'outings', and it also has a few new features."
Gohan turns to Tony. "What kind of new features?"
"Bubba!" Gohan jumps a bit, hearing Goten's voice right in his ear.
A screen pops up on Gohan's visor and he sees Goten smiling and waving at him.
"I set it up so that JARVIS can connect the suit, your visor, and the sling to one another whenever needed." Gohan hears Tony explain, then watches his face appear on a second screen in his line of sight.
"Dada!" Goten happily greets, apparently no longer holding a grudge and in a much better mood than before.
"He's also constantly keeping an eye on and entertaining the little monkey while he's in there."
Registering the Pokémon theme in the background, Gohan quips. "That explains the improved mood."
"Yeah, don't want him to be bored in there, anything to delay the uprising he and DUM-E are no doubt plotting together." Tony responds in a conspiratorial whisper.
Gohan laughs as JARVIS opens up the wall so they can head out.
Tony picks up the sling and hands it to Gohan. "Here, hold it to your chest."
Gohan complies, and two rectangular metal straps –one on each side of the sling– extend out from it around his torso and connect at his back.
"Good, now lift your arms up." Tony instructs.
Gohan raises his arms and the strap moves the sling to Gohan's back. "Cool."
"You got that right." Tony boasts. "It's set up so that whatever way the wearer has to maneuver, JARVIS will move it around to not be in the way, and the gyroscope will keep our little passenger right side up at all times, he'll barely even feel any shifting that happens, plus it's soundproofed so he won't hear anything from the outside."
"That's amazing." Gohan says, impressed by Tony's creativity and ingenuity.
"Of course, did you expect anything less from yours truly?" Tony asks in a cocky tone.
"Good point." Gohan laughs again.
Tony chuckles a bit before getting back to business. "Are you ready to go?"
Gohan nods and they both walk towards the exit, ready to head out.
"Let's fly." Tony quips.
"Right." Gohan answers before they take off and rocket across the sky.
-In the Air-
As they get closer to their destination, JARVIS informs, "Sir, Young Sir, General Ross and his subordinates have found and surrounded Dr. Banner. He's transformed and currently engaging them."
Tony curses under his breath and Gohan extends his senses to see if he can hone in on Banner while in his monster form.
He picks up a fairly powerful energy signature fighting a bunch of average human ones.
Gohan turns Super Saiyan and tells Tony, "I've got a lock on them. We're going to need to speed up before someone gets seriously hurt."
"Alright, let's get going." Tony answers.
"Hold on to the sling and I'll gets us there as fast as I can."
Tony grabs the sling with both hands, has JARVIS magnetically lock them in place, then gives Gohan the go ahead to go full throttle.
Gohan ups his speed to near maximum, still holding back a bit just in case Tony's armor and the sling can't endure it.
They arrive outside the campus building without issue just in time to see the campus turned debris field littered with destroyed army vehicles and all of Ross' men keeping a distance away from the huge, green figure.
All excecpt for one man who is standing directly in front of the altered form of Dr. Banner, seemingly taunting him.
"What is that idiot doing? He's going to get himself killed!" Tony says as he's detaching his hands from the sling.
As if to prove Tony right, the transformed Banner punts the fool across the battle-torn field.
Gohan flashsteps and catches the now unconscious man before he can crash into anything.
"This man needs immediate medical attention!" The boy shouts at the dumbstruck soldiers around him. "Someone hurry and get him to a hospital!"
Tony lands next to Gohan. "You heard him, someone come get this guy some help or he's gonna die."
A couple of soldiers finally get a grip, come over to them, and take the severely injured man from Gohan as another man approaches them.
"Blonsky, you idiot. What the hell were you thinking?" The newcomer mutters as the other soldiers evacuate the injured man now identified as 'Blonsky'.
He then turns to Tony and Gohan. "Stark, what the hell are you doing here? And who the hell is this blond kid?"
"Skipping the pleasantries I see." Tony quips. He shrugs as much as the armor allows. "Well, General Ross, me and my young associate here are on a little errand for a mutual acquaintance. You might know him, his name is Nick Fury."
Ross' eyes widen, obviously recognizing the name. "What does he want?"
Before Tony can explain any further, he and Gohan notice a woman walking towards the green giant.
"Before I get into that, my companion and I need to go stop that woman from getting any closer to Banner, as well as clean up the mess you made." Tony quickly digs before he and Gohan jump into action.
Ross turns to look where they went and sees his daughter is the one getting dangerously close to Banner. "Betty!!!"
Tony and Gohan swiftly close the distance between themselves and the woman moving toward the obviously still pissed off monster form of Banner.
Tony places a hand on her shoulder to stop her advance. "Sorry, Miss, but it'll probably be better if you go back over to where 'General Grumpy' is pouting. We can take care of this."
The woman jumps at the contact, too distracted to notice anyone coming near her.
She immediately pleads, "Please don't hurt him! My dad and his men attacked him first! Bruce wouldn't have changed otherwise. He doesn't want to hurt anyone!"
"Woah, woah, easy. We're not here to hurt him. We're actually here to help him." Tony explains.
"Really?" She asks.
"Yes, really." Tony assures. "What's your name, Miss?"
"B-Betty, Betty Ross."
"You're Ross' daughter?!"
"Yes, but I'm not on his side about this. Please, Bruce is very important to me. I just want to help him." Betty begs as she tries head toward Bruce again.
Gohan steps in front of her and assures her, "Don't worry, Ms. Ross, we're on the same side here."
He then looks to Tony. "Can you take the sling while I go try to talk Dr. Banner down?"
"You got it, Kid."
Tony removes the sling from Gohan, attaches it to the armor, and goes back to Betty's side, trusting Gohan has a plan.
Gohan turns around, about to head out when Betty asks him, "Young man, who are you?"
Gohan looks back at her. "Uhh...good question, haven't thought up a codename for myself yet. I'll have to get back to you on that."
With one more nod to Tony and Betty, he calmly approaches Banner.
"It'll be alright, he knows what he's doing." Tony vouches for Gohan as he and Betty watch him go.
Once Gohan gets closer to the hulking figure, he calls out to him. "Dr. Banner, I'm not here to fight you. My friend back there and I are only here to talk to you."
He gets a growl and glare in response.
"I understand why you're hesitant to trust anyone, but I promise I'm telling the truth. Just calm down and we can talk this through."
Before Gohan can get another reply, an attack helicopter closes in on them.
Ross commands the pilot to attack and multiple missiles are fired in Gohan and Banner's direction.
Gohan flashsteps between the missiles and Banner, puts a Ki barrier over him, Tony, and Betty, then launches a few blasts to destroy the projectiles midair.
As the smoke clears, Tony –knowing Gohan is ok, but still pissed that they would fire freaking missiles at his kid– yells at the General, "Hey Ross! Call off your chopper before you make this worse!"
Completely ignoring Tony, Ross orders the pilot to keep firing.
"Shit, he's not gonna listen. JARVIS, patch me through to the kid."
Gohan hears Tony's voice in his ear. "Kid, Ross isn't gonna give the ceasefire, I'm gonna stop the copter myself. Can you make sure Banner doesn't go anywhere?"
Gohan nods as he answers, "You got it."
Tony turns to Betty. "Your old man really isn't making this easy, so we might have to get a little rough with Banner if he freaks out, but we're not gonna hurt him, ok?"
Betty considers for a moment, then figuring it's their way or her dad's, she decides, "Alright, I'm gonna hold you to that, Mr. Stark."
"Scouts honor." Tony does a mock salute before taking off to stop the helicopter.
"JARVIS, think you can jack the chopper, disengage it's weapons, and force it to land?"
"Already on it, Sir."
Tony smirks, watching the helicopter come to a stop and begin to land. "What would I do without you, Buddy?"
"Most likely perish from a plethora of different forms of self-negligence." JARVIS deadpans.
"Rhetorical question, J." Tony retorts. He lands, walks over to the helicopter, opens the pilot side door, and tells the pilot, "You may as well go rendezvous with the rest of Ross' men. This bird is grounded until further notice."
The pilot sighs in defeat, hops out of the aircraft, and starts trekking towards the rest of the soldiers.
Tony takes off to make sure Ross or anyone else doesn't interfere with Gohan while he tries to calm Banner down.
-Gohan-
After destroying the missiles and leaving Tony to deal with the helicopter, Gohan drops the barrier, descends back down next to their potential new team member, and he asks the giant, "Dr. Banner, do you believe I'm on your side now?"
Before he can get an answer, Ross draws his own weapon, takes aim at Banner, and shouts at his soldiers, "What are you idiots doing?! Take him down!"
This sets the beast off, he roars at Ross and charges him.
"Dr. Banner, stop!" Gohan pleads while giving chase.
At the start of the gunfire, Betty quickly drops to the ground in an attempt to take cover, but still tries to reason with her father. "Dad, enough is enough! This won't solve anything!"
Tony's voice comes in over Gohan's comm. "I'll handle Ross and his flunkies, you stop Banner before someone gets hurt."
He spots him fly overhead and begin blasting the guns out of the soldiers' hands, making sure only to disarm them.
"I'm on it!" Gohan answers.
He flashsteps ahead of Banner, but the giant is so lost to rage he throws a punch at the boy.
Gohan catches the massive, green fist with one hand, stopping him in his tracks. "That's enough, Dr. Banner. I know he provoked this fight, but you need to calm down or I'll have to stop you by force."
Banner blinks in surprise, but ignores the warning, pulls his fist back, and throws another punch.
Again, Gohan catches it with just one hand, not even budging an inch. "Last warning."
Everyone except Tony pause in shock at the raging behemoth being held back so easily by a single child.
Still not backing down, Banner clasps both his hands together over his head and slams them down on the boy.
Gohan just raises his hand once more and stops the attack, the ground under him caves in from the pressure, but it's still not enough to budge Gohan an inch.
Now that everyone has stopped firing, Tony heads back over to Betty to help her up since she's so stunned by what's happening, she's still laying on the ground. "Are you ok?"
"Yeah, I'm fine." She distractedly answers as Tony helps her to her feet, unable to take her eyes off the blond boy's show of strength.
Deciding that Banner is too far gone in his rage to listen to reason, Gohan drives a quick punch to his gut before he can go for another strike.
He flashsteps behind him and gives him a chop to the back of the neck, dropping him face down onto the ground, out cold.
Everyone but Tony just stand frozen in place and stare in disbelief at this small boy who blocked three attacks from Banner's monster form with a single hand, then effortlessly delivered two swift blows that completely overwhelmed and knocked out the beast that just brushed off a full scale military assault like it was nothing.
Banner's body starts reverting back to normal as everyone watches on.
"I'm sorry, Dr. Banner, I didn't have any other option." Gohan apologizes as the transformation ends.
Snapping out of her shock induced daze, Betty books it toward Bruce's unconscious form.
Tony follows her and helps flip Bruce face up. "See? He's alright, just needs to sleep it off...and some clothes."
"I'm sorry, I wouldn't have done it if there were any other way, but I promise he'll be ok." Gohan tells her.
Betty shakes her head and smiles at them. "You don't need to apologize."
As Tony moves one of Banner's arms over his shoulders and hefts him up, Ross advances toward them. "Stark! What the hell is this kid?! How did he do that?!
Not even looking at him Tony gives the General a half-assed answer, "Couldn't tell ya. Push ups, sit ups, lots of juice?"
"Don't get fucking cute with me, Stark!" Ross yells.
"Bitch, I'm adorable." Tony sasses before remembering the young ears next to him. "And watch your mouth, General, there is a child present. Besides, we're a little too busy at the moment to explain everything. Though if you're really curious, you can try talking to Fury, see what you get outta him."
"Fuck you, Stark! Just hand over Banner and clear out or else!" Ross demands.
That last bit of Ross' blustering pushes Gohan's tolerance past the limit. He steps between Ross and Tony, lets off a little power, and asks the General, "Or else what? Dr. Banner's other form completely decimated your forces without even breaking a sweat, and you saw how easily I dispatched him. What do you think you could possibly do against us?"
Ross steps back, unable to muster a response.
"Exactly. We are not your enemies, and you definitely don't want us to be. Stand down and give up this obsession you have with Dr. Banner, he's under our protection now. Just go do your job General, and we'll do ours."
Ross steps back again, a bead of sweat slides down the side of his face and he shudders. He turns to his daughter. "C-c'mon B-Betty, I'm taking you home."
"No! I'm staying with Bruce." Betty replies.
Anger flashes across Ross' face and he steps toward Betty, but before he can do or say anything, Gohan says, "It sounds like she's made her choice, I suggest you accept that and get going, before I lose my patience."
Ross freezes and looks back at Gohan. After a few moments of silence, he nods, turns around and walks away. (His tail between his legs)
Once the general is out of earshot, Tony drops his free hand onto Gohan's head and ruffles his hair. "Nice job telling him what's what, Kiddo. I wish I'd had a mic for you to drop."
Then seemingly just remembering that Betty is still right there with them, he turns to her. "Uh...no offense."
She laughs behind her hand. "None taken, someone needed to take my dad down a few pegs."
"True, but I should have done a better job keeping my cool, sorry about that." Gohan says.
Betty smiles at Gohan. "Don't be, the only thing that seems to get through to my dad is force. Honestly, I don't think he would of backed down if you'd tried a gentler approach."
Gohan nods, then asks Tony, "So what do we do now that we've found Dr. Banner?"
"Well, we can't exactly talk to him while he's out cold. So I guess our next move would be to get him somewhere he can rest, and wait for him to wake up."
"Oh, you can bring him to my house." Betty offers.
Tony and Gohan both turn to her and Tony asks, "Are you sure?"
"Of course, I want to help Bruce any way I can."
"Alright then." Tony accepts. "Lead the way."
Betty leads them to her car, Tony lays Bruce down in her backseat, then he and Gohan follow her by air to her home.
When they arrive, Tony gets Bruce out of the car and Betty shows him to her bedroom.
He lays him down on her bed and Betty covers him up.
They move to her living room to wait for Bruce to wake up.
Tony takes off his helmet, removes the sling, and opens it to check on Goten. "How are you holding up, Monkey?"
Goten giggles and reaches for Tony. "Dada."
Tony chuckles, undoes the straps, and picks him up.
Betty gasps. "Oh my gosh, I heard you'd adopted two boys, He's adorable."
Tony walks over to her to give her a closer look. "Yeah, this is my little guy, Goten. There wasn't time to leave him with anyone, had no choice but to bring him along." He holds him out to her. "Do you wanna hold him?"
Betty nods and Tony hands him to her. "Goten, this is Betty, say hi."
Goten looks her right in the eyes, stares for a moment, then waves to her. "Hi."
She laughs. "Well hello to you too."
She looks back to Tony. "Is your oldest at school or something?"
"Actually..." Tony begins to say then looks back at Gohan.
He nods at Tony, powers down to his normal state, pushes the button to change his mask back into glasses, and takes them off. "Hello, I'm Gohan. Nice to officially meet you."
Betty gasps again and almost drops Goten. She looks back at Tony with an accusing glare. "You let your son fight?! How did he knock out Bruce while he was transformed? Was it some special tech of yours?"
"It's a long story. As long as you promise to keep it a secret, we can explain it to you and Dr. Banner after we talk to him." Tony proposes.
"I guess after what you did for Bruce, keeping a secret for you is the least I can do, but what is it that you want with him in the first place?" Betty asks.
"We've come to make him an offer."