WHO: Bruce Banner & Peter Parker (and the Green Goblin) WHEN: Afternoon, Monday, March 7 WHERE: Galveston Beach WHAT: A peaceful time on the beach turns into something not so awesome.
Bruce Banner needed a little time away from everything.
It wasn’t that he had to go far, but he needed a little change in environment. Warm sun, sandy beach. And the company wasn’t half bad, either. Bruce found that he liked Peter Parker. Another science-minded, socially awkward geek. Peter was far more outgoing and extremely talkative, but in a way that covered up for the fact that Bruce didn’t talk much at all.
“I still can’t believe they didn’t have trunks in my size,” muttered Bruce, tugging at the drawstring on his purple swim trunks. He was coated from head to toe in SPF 70 sunblock, knowing that if he got burnt, it was just going to irritate him, and irritating was bad.
“Maybe if you weren’t so skinny you wouldn’t have that problem,” Peter told him. Oh, the irony. After last night, he needed to get out and … well, honestly, he was running away, he wanted to be away from the school when Norman showed up ready to blow because Peter hadn’t signed his contract. He hadn’t told MJ or Harry where he was off to, so that if Norman asked them they wouldn’t have to lie. He just wanted to hang out with his nerdy science buddy and pretend life wasn’t happening.
Instead, Peter was rifling through his duffel bag for a towel. “Oh---oops, hey, look at this.” Peter tugged out a blue and red shirt that seemed stuffed full of something. “Must’ve been with my towel. I haven’t seen this thing in months.”
Bruce knotted the drawstring and glanced over. “Perils of a messy room?” He crouched down and picked through his own bag. It was a worn-out yellow Jansport that had obviously seen better days. He picked at a half-broken zipper before it opened, then fished out a wad of Saran Wrap and a roll of Scotch tape. He removed the monitor from around his wrist and started to wrap it in plastic.
“Just on my side. Matt keeps everything squeaky clean.” Peter shrugged, stuffing the suit back inside and tugging out his beach towel. “I never get to go to the beach. I mean, I could, but New York’s beaches are kind of crappy.”
Bruce tossed a bottle of sunscreen at him. “Wear this or you’ll burn.” He chuckled and went back to wrapping his heart monitor.
In the distance, there was a dull boom, like a low clap of thunder. Bruce lifted his head and looked back toward the city. “Did you hear that?” He looked up at the sky, squinting. “It’s clear.”
Peter’s head popped up, his spider senses practically stabbing him in the back of the skull. “...Oh, crap. Oh, no, that’s not going to end well for us.”
Shortly after, there was another dull boom-----and far in the distance, black smoke seemed to be rising up. Bruce hopped to his feet, raking his hands back through his hair. “What the... oh, my god.”
“What is that?” Peter stood, shielding his eyes from the sun to look. “‘Cause that’s … that doesn’t go to school with us, does it?”
Bruce squinted, adjusting his sunglasses. There was a black speck in the sky, moving quickly through the air and leaving a trail of smoke behind it. Other beachgoers were shooting footage with their cell phone cameras and pointing with hushed confusion and excitement. “Not typical aircraft movement,” muttered Bruce. He strapped his heart monitor to his wrist.
“No, that’s not an aircraft,” Peter mused, squinting in turn. “Too small. That is … that is weird. That’s...” As the black speck got closer, what it actually was became more clear: a person (man?) on top of some sort of glider. To say the least, he didn’t look friendly and Peter, knowing for sure that it really wasn’t going to end well, ducked behind Bruce and grabbed his duffel bag. It was a really weird instinct, Peter recognized, but he was following it anyway, tugging on the costume he’d put in his bag by accident. Something bad was about to happen, Peter wasn’t about to let it happen, but he couldn’t do it in his skivvies.
“Pete?” Bruce looked sharply behind his shoulder. “What the hell are you doing---?”
Before Peter could answer, there was an explosion far off down the beach. It shook the ground and knocked Bruce off his feet. He tumbled backwards, tripping over Peter and crashing hard onto the sand.
Peter ducked out of Bruce’s way at the last second. He was probably the only one on the beach that wasn’t thrown to the ground, and he tugged on the top half and gloves of the suit at lightning speed. He’d already been wearing his webshooters; Peter didn’t actually go anywhere without them. “You all right, Bruce?”
Bruce lifted his head and shoved his hair out of his eyes. His sunglasses had been thrown off and were somewhere in the sand. His sunscreen hadn’t fully dried, which meant that his skin was now coated with a fine layer of sand where his skin had made contact. “I’m all right, I...”
The ground was smoking. People were screaming. Bodies had bee thrown like ragdolls across the beach and into the water. People were getting up, bloodied and battered. Some people weren’t getting up at all. His heart monitor began to beep. “Peter----” He turned to face Peter, and for a moment he was jarred out of his horror. “What are you wearing?”
“How about we worry about the beeping first and the bad outfit later, okay?” Peter said quickly. He knew Bruce well enough to know that beeping was bad.
The glider flew over their heads. A split second later, another explosion went off on the other side of the beach. Bruce ducked rather than falling this time, covering his head with his hands. His heart was pounding, his breath ragged and quick. “I can’t----it’s----”
Blood everywhere, people screaming, and for the life of him Bruce didn’t know why. He was starting to panic, but there was something underneath there. A vicious, self-righteous anger. A violent sense that this was wrong.
He coughed as he inhaled smoke and ducked away, staggering toward the water. His body was heaving with his every breath. The heart monitor was beeping out of control. “No, no, no, no----”
“Bruce? Bruce, come on, you have to calm down.” Peter shoved the mask in the front of his suit and followed Bruce, wrapping his arms around his friend and holding him in a steady, hard hug. “Breathe. This doesn’t have to happen, Bruce, just breathe, all right? Can you do that for me?”
Peter was too close. It was claustrophobic. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t see---- Bruce twisted in his grip, trying to shove him away. “Get off of me!” he snapped, his voice a rough and unfamiliar growl. And then----his shoulders weren’t just heaving, they were bulging, growing broader and thicker. His skin was darkening, first to a dull gray and then to green----
---And a hand almost the size of Peter’s entire chest wrapped around Peter’s waist, and the Hulk threw Peter into the water.
Peter yelled when he was thrown, hitting the water hard. He surfaced with a gasp, shoving hair out of his face. Opening his mouth to say something smart, Peter looked up at the Hulk and just … stopped, mouth still hanging open.
“...Mommy.”
For a moment, everything seemed to stop. Bruce was gone, replaced by the massive green monster that was just barely fitting into the purple trunks that Bruce had complained about being too big. People were staring----before they started to run in the other direction.
The glider circled and approached again. It was an armored, masked man. Anyone who’d read anything about New York lately would have known who it was. The Green Goblin. Harry had been following his movements for months now. And he was here, zooming in toward Peter.
---That was, until the Hulk reached out and swatted at the glider. He clipped the edge of it and it went spiraling out of control out over the water. As the Goblin righted the glider, another one of his bombs went hurtling toward the Hulk.
It hit his chest and exploded on impact.
The Hulk stepped back, recoiling, but it hardly had the desired effect. With a screaming growl, the Hulk grabbed a beach chair and hurled it at the Goblin before taking off after him. Another bomb hit him in the shoulder, spinning him a half turn and essentially going off in his ear.
Okay, Peter, make a decision and don’t make the wrong one. Try not to cry, try not to scream and for the love of all things good in the world do not piss yourself. Pulling himself out of the water, Peter yanked on his mask (all the better to keep his hair out of his eyes, seriously) and took off down the beach, waterlogged and miserable. He didn’t want to leave Bruce here to terrorize everything, but the Goblin was going to terrorize the Hulk if Peter didn’t get rid of him.
“Hey! Heeey!” In what could easily be regarded as just plain dumb, Peter leaped at the Hulk’s back, scaling him like a building and vaulting off of his shoulder before Hulk had a chance to swat. Flying through the air, Peter actually missed grabbing the glider, twisting in the air when it whizzed by him and webbing the bottom, yanked by the force of the glider jetting forward and swinging him in an arc above Hulk’s head.
The glider wobbled underneath the new weight. The rocket jets were hot over Peter, propelling heat and smoke that threatened to melt and destroy the webbing.
The Hulk swatted at them with heavy hands, more like he was trying to deal with an annoyance than outright trying to destroy it. As he chased after them, he knocked people out of his way----throwing them into the water and sand with violent swipes of his fists.
The glider rose in altitude, stopping and hovering in air. The Goblin crouched down and bent over the front to look down at Peter. “Look who has a costume! Must be comfy, wearing your Superman pajamas to the beach.”
Somehow this was a little awkward when they weren’t flying around. Peter was left dangling by a (very sturdy) thread, looking up at the Goblin through his waterlogged mask. “You’re not one to talk fashion. What shade of green is that, mucus?” Peter had to keep talking, or he was going to start crying or wet himself or do something really undignified.
“You might want to ask the same of your friend,” sneered the Goblin. The only reason the Hulk hadn’t jumped into the air and taken them both out was because he was being shot at by police that had just arrived on the scene.
Peter glanced down, wishing to God he could go down and help Bruce instead of hanging here, but … damned if he did, damned if he didn’t, right? “Let’s blow this popsicle stand, Gobby. I’d love to chat but I can see right up your nose from this angle and I don’t feel like talking to your boogers.”
“You know what, you’re right. Let’s chat. I’ll take you out, surprise location.” Reaching down, the Goblin grabbed the line of webbing and tugged. He pulled Peter in close before a cloud of noxious fumes suddenly burst forth from somewhere in his sleeve.
Peter inhaled before he realized he’d been drugged. He coughed, struggling briefly before he fell limp in the Green Goblin’s arms.