[CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/uNV0csR.png[/IMG][/CENTER]
[COLOR=AF7AC5][indent][sub][B]Location:[/B] [COLOR=white][I]New Mexico[/I][/COLOR][/sub][sup][right][b]A Fresh Set of Eyes – 2.02[/b][/right][/sup][/indent][/color][sub][hr][/sub][INDENT][color=AF7AC5][sub][B]Interaction(s):[/B] [COLOR=white][I]None[/I][/COLOR][/sub][SUP][RIGHT][b]Previously:[/b] [COLOR=white][I][url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5023748]2.01[/url][/I][/COLOR][/right][/SUP][/color][/INDENT]
[indent]With every step seemed to come a fall. With every breath seemed to come an unseasonal chill. With every pang of the stomach came a wave of nausea.

Falling to all fours, it took everything Bruce had to not fall even further. Getting back up didn’t seem doable. On his second day of trying to find his way, his body was past its limit. No food, no water. Even if he had his full vision he had no survival skills to speak of. He didn’t know where he could find water, couldn’t catch any animals with his sight, and didn’t know what plants were edible. The only reason he hadn’t died in the night was because he had a mind to bury himself in sand, creating a cover to trap his body heat, but now his legs and arms were giving out with no salt, calories, or nutrients to function. He wasn’t even sweating any more, his body holding on to every drop of water it had. He’d heard that the body could survive three days without water, but it seemed like that was a faint hope.

Recognizing the fruitlessness of his efforts to stay off the ground, Bruce collapsed, rolling on his side. Crags and expanse all about him, his eyes were back to the blue. And there they stayed. Trapped in his own body, the heat unbearable, muscles aching, throat arid, he’d believed he was weak, that it was over, but his body stubbornly held on. As much as he wanted to melt into the scorching earth, his body remained afloat. Losing the strength to even hold his eyes open, his vision became red, sunlight bleeding through his eyelids, refusing his respite. Helpless to his circumstances, Bruce couldn’t even muster the will to try and get up. Instead, his breath reached equilibrium, his sight engulfed by white. He briefly wondered if it was intended to be a canvas, a screen to which his life would flash in his last. No such visions came, but the pain became secondary. Like the void in his sights his body felt distant, and for the first time in ages he felt at peace. A peace that went cold as his body seemed to freeze. With his darkening mood, one delicate under death’s grip, his sight too went dark, and everything was gone.

[center]---[/center]

Just a flash of green for every moment. The blood rushing in his ears gave way to a ringing, a beeping. Endless, incessant, obnoxious. Eyes tried to flutter open but they were stopped for just a moment. There was a strangled gasped, like finding air for the first time. The beeping seemed to get louder, but he wanted it to stop, not knowing its truth. Deaf to the answers, he only heard his name being called as he struggled against that which kept him down, hand grasping at the blanket over him. A brief glance brought him to the sight of a nurse, who held one of his shoulders down, trying to keep him still.

[color=99CC33]“Let me [i]move[/i].”[/color] He grunted. Pulling the blankets back he expected them to hold tight but they slid back like it was nothing. “Sir, please. Mr. Blonsky.”

[color=99CC33]“Let go!”[/color] Blonsky spat. The nurse held his hands up. “I’m not touching you sir!” Blonksy finally stopped to listen. The beeping of his heart monitor refused to slow, only intensifying as his hand touched his thigh. Or rather, the empty piece of meat he thought to be his thigh. Leaning forward, he went to reach his toes, but only his shoulders came up, his waist unmoving.

Holding onto the flesh of his leg, trying to hold himself up, he gaped, noise going muddy, sight swimming. With a rush of air his head fell ever so slightly, never being so high in the first place, yet it came crashing down all the same. 

[center]---[/center]

Betty felt her nose crinkle as she opened the door, wincing and the smell of incense. She never liked the smell of smoke, and whatever else was supposed to be called to mind by the scent she didn’t enjoy either. Unable to keep herself from coughing, she hacked, [color=F1948A]“Rick what the hell is this?[/color]

Leaning over a computer screen, Rick answered, “I just focus better with it, sorry.” Stopping so that he could wheel his chair over, he snuffed it out, nabbing a remote to turn on a fan.

Flopping down on the couch, she wished she really had the chance to get some fresh air. Rick’s apartment was sparse, made up of a couch, computer setup, with a table that extended into the nearby kitchen. She was only here for a bit, as trying to get to her apartment was...well, no longer easy. General Ross grasped why she’d had the reaction she did to that monster, coming to the same realization, and in her fervor he may have let it’s identity ‘slip’ to news outlets. Needless to say Betty didn’t want to be seeing him anytime soon.

The Hulk. That’s what the monster Bruce had become was being called, thanks to one of the earliest reports on the attack countrywide. Such a senseless attack on an unprepared, government run target by a previously unknown meta was just the story the current political climate needed, very neatly fitting the anti-meta narrative. Betty might have even been running with it: she’d said her pieces before, such as after the first student to attack their school with mutant powers, complicating school shooting and gun law discussions even further. But this time, even the thought of trying to put something to the page about the Hulk exhausted her. She’d known the signs, warned others to watch for them, ask them to look past their biases and certainties. To somehow find that which was being kept hidden before it exploded out. And in no capacity had she succeeded in following her own words.

Bruce ended up in the desert over road rage? And another car had randomly found its way into a smoke shop? The way he tended to shut down when certain topics came up wasn’t unusual for him, but in the moment she even had that thought of ‘he hasn’t reacted like this before’. And then she dismissed it. She’d known Bruce for so long it felt like she knew everything about him, but that thought was a dangerous one, and reflection kept bringing her more pain, more of their childhood.

How deeply did this go? And if recollection brought [i]her[/i] so much pain, what was Bruce going through right now?

The air a bit clearer, Betty sat up again. Rick took note, turning about in his chair. “Thinking about...you know?” Betty unconsciously bit her lip, admitting, [color=F1948A]“It’s hard not to right now. Did you come up with anything?”[/color]

Rick had been lucky to avoid particular notice. Ross’ leak had been the only significant one. Rumor and speculation was abound, but the exact nature of the Gamma Stream project, and more importantly, those who worked on it, was still very much government secrets. Betty was expected to be involved in the eventual press release when it was ready for public display and investment, but now the whole thing was up in the air. At the very least, Fendi Labs was also being quiet, so Rick’s place was currently a blind spot to snoops, once Betty shook off anyone tailing her at least.

“There was one thing: Ross fired the Discharger and Bruce just sneezed it off.” Betty winced: to her it had been the Hulk, but she kept her mouth shut. “The residual radiation should have been a threat to everyone in that room, but there was barely anything.”

Betty frowned, [color=F1948A]“That was like when Bruce was hit by it too, right? The Discharger...”[/color] Betty trailed off, having moved towards an explanation in her mind, but Rick’s winced, moving in. “Those are the exceptions, not the rules. Every time Bruce was involved, the results have been relatively tiny, but every other time the measurable output has been expected. Levels that would pretty easily kill a person. It’s not the machine, it’s Bruce. Somehow he’s capable of absorbing radiation, like a sponge. I don’t know if it’s detectable, or if it’s even safe to be near him.” Betty felt her heart run cold. Rick sensed her anxiety and explained, “Look, everyone there was tested and you had no more or less radiation then anyone there. We can’t discount the possibility that this is a still evolving mutation, if it’s even a mutation at all.”

Betty swallowed. That confirmed it, and the explosive symptoms at the very least only seemed to have started after the accident. That said, they didn’t seem purposeful. A continuation of accidents, triggered by...

[color=F1948A]“It wasn’t before the accident. It [i]wasn’t[/i]!”[/color] Betty realized, almost jumping out of her seat. Rick seemed taken aback, but didn’t interrupt. [color=F1948A]“He was mad at Talbot, and a little while before that he got into road rage. The car didn’t match the description he gave, but that might have been the first time: the Hulk sent it into a building.”[/color] Rick seemed a bit lost in her rambling, but she persisted, [color=F1948A]“I remember him doing the same thing as he did last time before the accident, he fought off a dog that attacked us. No Hulk.”[/color] Knuckle over her mouth, she admitted, [color=F1948A]“It’s anger. The Hulk is Bruce when he’s angry.”[/color]

Rick scratched his chin. “Well, I’ve almost never seen him angry so...”

It had clicked together, but it didn’t seem to solve anything. Losing that motivation, Betty flopped back into her seat. Trying to envision a future only muddled her thoughts. She could only see clearly when looking back. [color=F1948A]“Hey Rick, there’s a scientist I want you to look into, when you get time.”[/color] Rick turned back to his screen, head over his shoulder watching her carefully. Betty closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the scent of that autumn in particular, the light smoke from neighborhood fireplaces, the leaves molding into the dirt, and the cigarette stench of the one who found the two runaway children.

[color=F1948A]“I need to know more about Brian Banner.”[/color]

[center]---[/center]

Taste of slime and muck filling his mouth, Bruce opened his eyes, something he hadn’t expected to ever do again. He felt moisture on his back, soft dirt all about. The air was cool yet above he could see the sun, in between the crags creating shade, and flashes of green tinged his sights. Rolling over, he was shocked to have the energy. The movement shifted his bowels, and a belch came to the surface, its taste like a vegetable. Looking up to see a pool of stagnant water, he swatted away at the itching, flies finding him. Moving away, he stepped out of the hideaway and back into the heat, getting his bearings.

He was still very much in the desert, but somehow he’d ended up at what was more or less a hidden oasis. A bit more plant life was about, including some destroyed cacti. That broken fresh scent reminded him of the unfamiliar taste, and it came together, hope and fear alike. He’d been saved by the very thing that put him here, that shoved that car into the building and threw him into the desert. And yet that thing may have done something even worse, and he could not remember even a bit. He wanted to see Betty, so badly, or even just to find out if she was alright. Talbot? Ross? Rick? Anyone?

Falling to his knees, taking in the heat, the landscape before him seemed just a little bit clearer. He had no direction, and he hated that his ineptness meant he would have to continue to rely on [i]that[/i], but it was keeping him alive.

For better or worse.[/indent]