Lesson end

Mahmoud Schahed/Dial

A pair of loud roars echoed over the deserts of Colorado.

"Ragh!"

"Grrragh!"

Hulk and I had grabbed each other's hands, me using my slightly stronger upper ones, and were pushing against each other, our muscles straining as the ground under our feet crumbled. For just a moment, we struggled against each other, then I used my other two hands to uppercut Hulk, sending him back a step. I leaned down and grabbed his legs, sending him to the ground, then began to spin. Around and around, dragging Hulk through the air.

"Yaaagh!" Hulk yelled, his hands swinging.

"Fly!" With another spin, I let go, sending Hulk shooting into the distance. "Whoa," I shook my head, stumbling slightly. "Dizzy."

With that, I leaped after Hulk, my giant leg muscles shooting me through the air.

There was a pure joy in being Fourarms. Having all that power, feeling my muscles move against each other as I flew through the air. I thought I'd felt powerful as Rath or Diamondhead, but there was something different and addicting about being Fourarms.

Maybe it was something that naturally came to Tetramands? The desire to fight and engage in combat with others that were just as powerful?

I landed in front of Hulk, who'd smashed into a plateau. He was getting to his knees and glared at me. He rose up to his feet, then sped forward to punch me in the face. I did the same, a shockwave spreading from the impact. Over and over, we hit each other, Hulk screaming in rage as I did the same.

He grabbed my arm and tossed me into a rock face, moving in to hit me in the rips with some lightning fast punches. I blocked his fists with my lower arms and slammed my upper arms into his shoulders, pushing him back ten feet. His feet grinding against the earth, he came to a stop and glared at me. I pulled my arms back. Realizing what I was doing, Hulk copied me.

Three pairs of palms slapped together, and two massive shockwaves of sound erupted from each of us. The earth shook, my ears rang, and rockslides kicked off. We roared as our powerful shockwaves clashed, nearby bushes tearing apart from pure air pressure as we caused a localized hurricane alongside the earthquake's we'd made.

Once the shockwave ended, I stepped forward at the same time as Hulk. Our fist flew forward again, my limited boxing and four limbs against Hulk's limited Brazilian jujitsu and incredible healing. One thing I noticed was that he really was getting stronger as we clashed. I'd realized while studying everyone in my first weeks that Hulk in this universe wasn't famous for getting stronger as he got angrier, but he was. Slowly, much slower than in the comics, but was doing it.

In the back of my mind, in between my fist slamming into his, I wondered if that was because of this new compromise between Bruce and Hulk, or if he'd simply never had to get stronger before. I discarded it to kick him in the legs then slam a lower right fist into his ribs.

After a long fight, the two of us brawling on a mountain and slowly turning it into a valley, I finally had to stop, falling back to sit on my ass as Hulk panted.

"...How you feeling?" I asked.

"Banner loud," Hulk pouted. "Always talking, thinking."

"Well, that is where his strength lies. You punch, he thinks. And together, you'll always hit the right thing."

"Loud," Hulk sat down next to me, and the two of us turned to look out at the desert. "Hulk... Hulk just to be alone."

"I think you mean you just want people to stop attacking you," the smaller brute grunted in agreement. "Hey," I nudged him with my elbow. "If they do, we'll all help you. I don't care who comes at you, every Avenger is going to stop them. And that includes helping Jennifer. We're your friends, both you and Bruce."

When I looked at Hulk, he was smiling, the sun rising across his face. Then he frowned, looking at something in the distance. I turned as well, focusing. Huh. A column of dust was coming towards. And were those... helicopters?

"X," I said with a grunt. "Send over the Defiant. I think it's time for us to leave."

"Agreed, sir. US Military forces have been sent to investigate reports of the Hulk battling an unknown being."

"How in the hell..." Trailing off, I tapped on the Omnitrix, turning back into my human form. I grunted slightly at the feeling of returning to a human body but got over the lack of power quickly. "Okay Hulk, you wanna get on the Defiant?"

"Hulk don't want be Banner," Huh. He was a lot more intimidating now that I was smaller than him. He glowered down at me, walking up to tower even more. Apparently, he'd taken the fact that Fourarms was bigger than him as an insult because he managed to look very smug about the height difference between us.

"Well, what do you say about you staying Hulk until we get home, then Bruce can take over?" I asked. "I mean if Bruce is okay with it. You need the practice anyways. Both of you do."

Hulk huffed, blowing my hair back. "...Okay."

"Let's stop for some food first though," I said, my stomach grumbling. "I'm hungry."

Hulk seemed to perk up at that as the Defiant landed behind us.

Turned out, Hulk had never had food himself before. I ended up buying a bunch of fast food of all kinds from a restaurant I'd never been to before. The big guy spent the ride home stuffing himself happily in the back of the ship.

When we got to the Enterprise and landed on the flight deck, the first thing people saw when the door opened was the Hulk, glowering angrily at the flight crew. He turned into Bruce right after of course, but it was still funny, seeing the guys panic at the sight of a glaring Hulk.

Which lead to later, when Bruce and I, me in my Iron Man shirt, him in ripped pants, were sitting in front of Maria Hill and Nick Fury in the lockers, both of us on a bench.

"So, I've managed to make it clear it was a training exercise," Maria said. "But Ross has requested he be informed the next time something like that happens," Maria punctuated her words in a voice that would broker no argument.

"I'll bet," Bruce grunted.

"And there is more," Fury sat down on the bench across from us, focusing on Bruce. "She wants to see you. I gave her your usual response of course."

"...Actually," Bruce said thoughtfully. "Tell her I'll meet her at Stanley's when this is over."

Fury blinked, surprised. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, yeah, um," Bruce rubbed the back of his neck, looking up at Maria and Fury. "It'll be good to see her."

"What did you two do, anyway?" Maria asked, looking between us.

"Three, technically," I looked at Bruce. "I think we have an understanding, right?"

Bruce grinned. It was a very Hulk-like grin, his eyes flashing emerald. "Something like that. We both love Jennifer. And now? The Hulk and I both hate HYDRA. So you're going to want to start sending us on missions. Soon."

Maria stared at him, then looked at Fury. He smirked.

"Don't look at me, I ain't the Director," Maria glared at Fury for that.

"Anyway," Maria said with a sigh. "Let's gather with the others. We should have a mission soon. We've made some progress on tracking down HYDRA's main base."

Nodding, I rose to follow when I saw Tony outside talking to Cap while wearing a Ben 10 t-shirt. It took me a second to realize what was wrong with that. I went to go ask him about it when Bruce stopped me, grabbing my arm.

"Hey, listen," Bruce said hesitantly. "I want to thank you. I don't... I never really thought Hulk and I could talk, could understand each other. But, um... it feels good. In those other worlds, the one that you saw? Did other Hulks, other Bruces, did they do the same thing?"

"Sometimes," I said with a grin. "Usually ends with you guys destroying a planet," Bruce's eyes widened in panic and I hurried to speak when I realized how bad that sounded. "Bad planets! And it only happened once, I promise!"

"Hey," Tony and Steve walked in as Maria and Fury walked out, Tony grinning. "Check it out! Just came off the line!"

He gestured to his Ben 10 t-shirt. "Gotta say, kid, the merchandising guys are loving the Reserve Avengers, especially since everyone has the snazzy armor and you've got eleven aliens to make action figures out of. Although Pepper had to yell at some guy who wanted to convince Sam and Rhodey to do a rap album. How'd therapy go?"

"...We broke two mountains," I admitted. "It was pretty Metal."

"It was actually really fun," Bruce said in his husky voice.

Tony and Steve shared a look, Steve surprised and Tony grinning. Steve sighed, moving forward to put an arm around me. "Come on. You've got training."

As he dragged me off, Tony spoke to Bruce. "You know, we can make you some clothes too if you want? That way you don't show up naked all the time. Unless you've been hiding your exhibitionist side all this time? No judgment."

As Bruce stuttered and Steve led away, the Captain spoke. "Mahmoud, we need to talk about you doing stuff like that. Today's training is based on communication."

After three hours of boxing with Cap while he talked to me about my responsibilities, I had a meeting to get to. Someone had put in a request to meet with me and I flew through New York in Astrodactyl form to get to them.

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Author's Note: Bruce and Hulk are getting there. Not perfectly, but they are on their way, enough that they may have already made some headway. There might be some setbacks, but HYDRA really fucked up giving them something to focus on. See, asking for Hulk to fight for you is most peoples Godzilla Threshold. For Bruce and Hulk, working together is the real Godzilla Threshold.