"I'm so sorry," Harry heard Bruce saying over and over. "I'm so sorry. This is all my fault."
Slowly, hesitantly, Jennifer's hands came up and around Bruce and tentatively hugged him back.
"This isn't your fault, Bruce," she said.
"Yes, it is," Bruce asserted, stepping back enough to be able to look up at her from a comfortable distance. "I used my blood. It's my blood that made you like this."
"Dad said that if you hadn't given me your blood that I would have died," she stated.
"Yeah, I know, you would have. But still, it made you like … like this," Bruce said.
He stopped then and seemed to really take her in, his head cocking to the side.
"You … you're not angry right now?" he asked in awe.
"No," she replied, shaking her head.
"How is that possible?" he wondered aloud.
"Bruce?" Harry questioned.
"You know the Hulk, Harry," Bruce said, turning to look at him. "When I'm angry, I get all big and green and … and dumb. Jennifer, though, Jennifer's calm and she's changed. And the way she's talking, you can tell that she's fully aware of everything."
"Well, I am," a confused-sounding Jenner stated.
"Yes, but I never remember anything afterwards," Bruce stated, turning back. "I saw you at the hospital and you were recovering well, too well, in actual fact. Which would have been because of the healing factor in the blood. But you were your normal self. Do you know what caused you to change?"
Jennifer shook her head. "All I know is that I woke up to a couple of men trying to kill me and I got really angry."
Bruce and Harry shared a look.
"That'd do it," Harry commented. "But why didn't she change back after calming down?"
"I've got no idea," Bruce replied with a shake of her head. "Jennifer, I'd like you to come with me. You'll be safe. And I'm hoping that you'll let me run some tests so that I can try to find out what's happened and see if there's a way to reverse it."
"Where?" Jennifer asked cautiously. "I … I don't want people to see me like this. The ones who have … the ones who have were so afraid of me."
This last she finished in an anguished whisper and Bruce stepped forward to give her another reassuring hug.
"Where I'm taking you, no one's going to be scared of you or make fun of you," Bruce reassured her. "It's a safe place, a place that can deal with people of our … unique abilities."
"Where?" Jennifer asked again.
"Avengers Tower," Bruce replied.
Jennifer seemed to search both Bruce and Harry's eyes for a long time before finally giving a small nod.
"Okay. But how are we going to get there with me like … this?" she asked.
"What about one of those special potions of yours?" Bruce asked Harry.
Before he'd even finished the question, Harry was shaking his head.
"They're a calming draught, designed to calm people down. From what I can see, Jennifer's already calm enough. It wouldn't do anything," Harry explained.
"In that case, we'll just rely on the tinted windows of the car," Bruce said. "The Tower has underground parking, so that won't be a problem either."
"And the driver won't be a problem?" Jennifer asked.
Harry snorted. "He's the personal driver of Tony Stark. Believe me, he's probably seen a lot stranger things in the back of that car than you."
ooo00ooo
Harry sank back into the lounge chair of his apartment, rested his head back on the cushion and closed his eyes.
Today had been an incredibly long and stressful day. The phone call, finding Bruce, collecting Bruce from the other side of the country and tracking Jennifer down had really just been the start.
As promised, Happy didn't even bat an eye at Jennifer getting into the car, although they may have widened somewhat at the way the car tilted when she first got in. The drive to the Tower was mostly made in silence, as was the elevator ride up to the floor where Bruce's own room was.
As one would expect, not long after they'd arrived, Tony turned up, no doubt alerted by Jarvis. And surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, Tony never said anything that wasn't polite or courteous. Of course, that could have had something to do with a conversation that Bruce had with Tony when he first arrived. Even from across the room, the green tinge in Bruce's skin was more than evident and warning enough.
Thor turning up not long after didn't help Bruce's temperament any either. Thor greeted Jennifer warmly enough, but after understanding that she was suffering from a similar condition as that which produced the Hulk, Thor was all for taking her down to the training room and putting her through her paces to see what her enhanced physique, strength and reactions could do.
And even while Bruce was putting his foot down against that idea, Harry could have sworn that he saw a trace of interest in Jennifer's eyes.
And then had come the whirlwind that was Doctor Bruce Banner with all of those fancy letters after his name.
While Jennifer ate, Bruce began with questions. After that, it was a bevy of tests and blood and prodding and probing. Bruce even managed to badger Harry into giving over a calming draught, which, as Harry had predicted, did not have the desired result that Bruce wished for.
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