Fandom(s): Animorphs and The Avengers
Rating: T (as according to ffnet)
Characters In Chapter: Tobias, Bruce Banner, and Tony Stark
Relationships:N/A
When Bruce said that I wouldn't understand what would be happening in the experiment he was more than right. I squinted with my weak human eyes to try and understand the contraption I was currently looking at.
"You're getting too close." Bruce said as gently
as he could.
"Um...er...sorry..." I said and backed away.
I hadn't realized how close I was getting. Being human was
more than a little odd and that was an embarrassing fact. Rachel would argue
that a human was what I was so I should feel normal in the body I was born in.
But being a hawk felt way more natural than being a human for me.
"The kid causing you trouble?" Tony asked over the
radio.
I squinted towards the sky to try and see him. He was too
high for my human eyes to see him.
"Not as much as you do." Bruce replied.
I nodded at Bruce once I realized I wasn't actually
grinning. The duo was a good team. Brains and both could actually deal with the
other. Why did that make me feel so lonely? Shouldn't I be happy that Bruce had
such a good friend? That these people would help me get home so I could get
back to the fight?
I shook my head. I had to stay focused. I had to remember
Rachel and the others. I had to get back to her. Or did I?
"Everything okay?" Bruce asked as I shook my head
again.
"Yeah," I lied. "Just realizing how insane
being here is. I have no idea what you're doing. I helped a little setting up I
guess."
"You did make things quicker." He replied but I
didn't believe him.
Tony and Bruce together could've made things go super fast.
I just took up space like always.
"Ready?" I asked Bruce and he nodded.
I looked at the
device and wondered how it was supposed to function. It seemed to be like a
cryochamber from an old sci-fi movie. I knew that I would go into it and then
be transported back to my universe. But I didn't know how it worked.
Hell, I don't think I'd understand how it worked even if
Bruce took the time to explain it to me.
Currently there was a pear inside the seat part. There was a
smiley face drawn on it courtesy of Tony.
"The best of Stark Industry." Tony had giddily
told us earlier.
The remark had made me groan and Bruce had barely resisted
rolling his eyes. Now I tried to focus on that smiling pear to help convince me
that things would go well. They had to.
I gave Bruce some distance so that I wouldn't be in his way
as he worked the contraption. I didn't know if something was going wrong or
not. He was very good at controlling his emotions, he had to be, so I just
pretended that everything was running as it should.
"Shit." Bruce said under his breath.
"Something wrong?" I asked, trying to remain calm.
He didn't reply which made me worried. I got the image of a
red-tailed hawk in my head and prepared myself to morph if need be. I had
reassured Tony, Pepper, and Bruce that I could just morph if things went bad. I
knew that Cassie could morph quicker than me and she would have no trouble
pulling this stunt off. But I wasn't her.
"Everything is fin-" Bruce finally started but
couldn't finish as he was electrocuted.
He flew back about five feet and I turned. I knew what was
going to happen, but the thought of demorphing left me. I knew I should've been
using these precious moments to get away to safety. However, the need to flee
had vanished before it had ever really began.
I couldn't explain it, but being so close to Bruce as he
transformed seemed intimate to me. I could be in a position that even Tony,
with all of his Marco-like ego, wouldn't be in. Each spasm Bruce had while the
other guy was let out had an eerie beauty to it.
Cassie turned morphing into an art form, but Bruce had somehow
perfected it without even trying. Somehow with making the process painful and
feral, it had made it more beautiful.
"To-" Bruce managed to get out before he lost all
control over his vocal chords.
It was his voice that snapped me back to reality. What was I
thinking? Had I lost all reason? While Bruce was a great man, the other guy
was...he was something else. He was like a Taxxon that smelled blood:
uncontrollable.
I focused on the red-tailed hawk part of myself and willed
the morph to go quicker than normal. It seemed to take too long for my mouth to
turn into a beak. My eyesight gradually got better and I started to think that
maybe I would get out of this alive.
Maybe I could escape and get back to my friends. Get back to
the fight.
"Boy!" A loud voice said and I was too scared to
continue morphing.
Suddenly I was flung through the air and crashed to the
ground. My arms weren't fully human or hawk, so I yelled out as my bones were
broken. I rolled over onto my back and looked up at the lumbering figure coming
towards me.
My mind flashed through all the moments that I had lived and
all the moments that I would never get to live.
I remembered morphing hawk for the first time and how free I
had felt. Nothing had equaled the feeling of flying, the absolute freedom of
it. I remembered meeting Elfangor and the great need I had felt to repay the
debt.
A tear went down my cheek as I thought about the life Rachel
and I could've had. When the war ended I had wanted to propose to her. Tell her
how much she had meant to me. But now I would never get that chance.
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