BRUCE w/ A PREGNANT S/O (Bruce Banner x Fem!Reader)
Headcanons
SFW-ish, fluff and a little angst, hulk cameo, avengers cameos, team as family, reproductive health/rights, some referenced sexual activity, science bros supremacy
Actually putting Rick Jones into the MCU here bcs I can. I also definitely wrote with cis women in mind here, just to clarify so no one gets unfairly blindsided. Pictures are not canon compliant. (Pic source: Marvel’s Avengers (2020) video game)
2k+ words
Bruce loves your baby bump. Loves pressing his hands to your stomach in passing and then leaning over to peck the corner of your mouth after you give him a small exhausted smile.
Bruce never fails to compliment you if he can see your bump, or if it becomes more prominent from under your clothes. He’ll definitely encourage you to wear clothes that don’t conceal your stomach.
Definitely the type to talk to the baby. Eager to do better than his father before your child is even born and tell them all about how he can’t wait to meet them and updating the baby on your lives outside of them. Whenever he does this he likes to rub over wherever the baby’s settled in your womb if he can.
Bruce tries to avoid you being uncomfortable and lessens your pain to the very best of his abilities always. This man will rub your feet, give you a massage, wrap his arms around you from behind and lift your weighty stomach up to give you some reprieve from the baby’s additional weight, anything he can.
Tony — who’s basically Bruce’s work husband, though the honor of godfather (if you do that type of thing) is definitely split between him and Doc Samnson — pays for your baby shower. He butts heads with your people all the while on design choices and venue arrangements, but everyone ends up oddly amicable by the end to your marginal horror.
Tony 100% gifts you a plush set of famous scientists that he had commissioned for Bruce’s kid. Secretly, so he doesn’t risk pissing Bruce off during the party, he hands you a Hulk plushie after the baby shower to utilize at your own discretion too.
The Hulk plushie ends up being the one you keep closest, and the baby loves it once they're born to boot— doesn’t matter how much Bruce waves the small plush made in Henry T. Sampson‘s likeness in their cute chubby little face and tells them all about his scientific contributions.
Bruce helps you pump your breast milk and does the work of setting you up on a schedule and will positively glower at anyone who gives you shit about breastfeeding (or not breastfeeding), especially when y’all are in public.
The man goes with you to every single appointment without fail, and won’t miss your kid’s checkups after they’re born short of the world ending either.
Quite frankly, Bruce hardly ever misses your checkups or doctor appointments outside of when you’re pregnant either. The negligence of black women when it comes to their medical needs is too real for him to leave you alone and stressed like that.
HOWEVER, if Bruce can’t come he sends Rick with you, and the younger man has even less chill than Bruce when it comes to your concerns being undermined or you being unfairly profiled in the hospital.
“No, she’s not ‘drug seeking’. Fuck off, Man. Don’t you know how to do your job? She’s in pain!” & “I’m clearly not the one who’s pregnant, Doc. You should be talking to her, not me. Jesus.” & “What kind of nurse are you?”
“Doctor Dumbass” is his favorite insult to mutter under his breath to you, and it is too often an apt one. At least Rick’s a riot to be around, though!
And, frankly, he makes it so the doctors and nurses want to talk to you more— even if it’s just so they don’t have to deal with him.
Bruce doesn’t find you less attractive when you’re pregnant, he gushes over you and compliments you just the same as before your pregnancy. Depending on your libido he’ll make love to you just the same too, perfectly accommodating whatever size your stomach is at the time and making sure to keep you hydrated and comfortable the whole time he’s making your toes curl.
This man also 100% pre packs your hospital bag— and he does it with the same intensity and severity he used to pack his go-bags when he was on the run.
Probably brings in Betty to help convince you that wearing adult diapers after birth are a good idea because he doesn’t want to make you uncomfortable while he stumbles over pitching the idea; not wanting to seem pushy. He didn’t need to worry, but you appreciate the consideration as you and Betty exchange amused looks and hold back laughter at how nervous he is.
When it’s done you peck him on the tip of his nose, tell him it’s no problem and that you think the research he presented you with was a nice touch even if you didn’t need it to agree with him, and Bruce blushes the whole while like you're not literally pregnant with his child.
Bruce becomes easier to trigger than before — it’s not by too wide a margin because Bruce has worked hard to control his stress levels, but still. When you’re pregnant, Bruce gets steadily more on board with letting Hulk out to deal with certain problems. He will do anything to keep you and your baby safe.
By all means due to Bruce’s easier to trigger temper reminding him of your stress levels needing to stay stable and of the baby are the only things that can quickly get him to calm down and make Hulk draw away from the surface. Getting that green tint at the corner of Bruce’s eyes to go back to their usual alabaster and the green veins crawling up Bruce’s neck to recede as you talk both of your guys down.
Bruce calms down the second you put his hand(s) on your pregnant stomach, and don’t let him feel the baby kick or pressing themselves into one corner of your womb because he will melt. The feel of your kid and the soft cadence of your voice helps ground him like few other things can.
Bruce absolutely goes to your physical therapy and pregnant exercise classes with you. He’s got enough control of his body that it honestly impresses the instructor, and he has to regularly wave off other pregnant attendees gushing about how spectacular he already is at being a dad when all he’s doing is supporting you (and by proxy y’all’s baby).
Also, Tony absolutely offers to pay for your hospital stay when you give birth. Bruce blusters about it — having already been taking more jobs for S.H.I.E.L.D specifically to put aside extra funds for hospital expenses alone — but ultimately Tony calls “godfather rights” and you don’t argue, so Tony’s allowed to help (in moderation).
Allowing Tony free range to execute everything would lead to him doing a little too much, frankly. Things need to be vetoed and shit.
Hulk is so careful with you — even more than he usually is with you, of course. He tends to freeze when faced with the challenge of gently picking you up all nine months of your pregnancy and point blank refuses to get anywhere near the baby for a few weeks after they’re born no matter how controlled the environment.
Honestly, though, the first time Hulk comes out around the baby things go down akin to if a particularly big dog went lunging teeth first for your child only to end up using their teeth to gently grab the back of their diaper to keep them from falling.
—
Bruce “hulks out” in response to a particularly serious wail your baby lets out while you two are introducing them to everyone at Avengers Mansion, and in the next second Hulk’s in his place and already dashing towards the source of your child’s voice.
Everyone, bar you yourself, screams bloody murder, but for your part you’re willing to take Hulk’s appearance for what it is and were already getting up yourself to check out what was going on anyway.
Why not let Hulk handle things, especially when you were recovering from the trauma pregnancy and birth put onto your body? There’s a giant pad with an aloe concoction slathered all over it pressed to your front and back holes and helping you heal, you were not running not one goddamn where.
You just follow after Big Green, yelling at him to ‘go easy on them’ and make your way up to where you know Rick, Clint and Thor have your baby at your own pace.
When you finally do make it to the kitchen you find a jar of baby food shattered and splattered along the floor and wall (squash based— figures), a toppled over high chair, and Rick laughing his ass off while cradling your child (who’s still too young for anything but breast milk and formula) to his chest and being held by Hulk his own self.
Hulk, on the other hand, is growling at Thor and a cowering Clint who’s backed himself into the corner behind the God of Thunder. The Archer apologizing profusely while Thor attempts to placate your Jade Giant with his palms up and booming voice as low as it typically goes.
—
Anytime Hulk’s around and sees you trying to do anything too extraneous postpartum he promptly swoops you up as delicately as he can manage (which is significantly so) and puts you right back on the bed or couch. Hulk then does his best to fumble through getting whatever you were trying to get himself or actively cedes control to Bruce, regardless of if it’s his time to be out, so he can do it for you instead.
Bruce heavily approves of Hulk doing this and can’t not say it doesn’t endear the Big Guy to him more.
Bruce helps you through any postpartum struggles that you have 100%. Keeps an eye out for signs of depression and you not connecting to the baby, takes the baby off your hands plenty of times without you asking, helps you with keeping your image of your body post-birth as positive as he can, would never in his life think to ask for sex until you're ready and fully healed, etc.
To the best of his ability Bruce is going to make sure no resentment festers in your little family unit. He’s lived with a jealous abusive parent, and while he obviously doesn’t think you’ll turn out like his shit stain of a father, he is still on top of your mental health. Making sure you’re not feeling left behind or ignored as you bring a new life into the world.
Every one of the Avengers and Bruce’s friends definitely shows up for you guys’ little family too.
Also, I want to make one thing very clear. If you get pregnant on accident and you don’t want that baby Bruce will, come hell or high water, do everything in his power to make sure you don’t go anywhere close to coming to term with that fucking embryo. If you want an abortion, it’s done; no trying to talk you out of your decision outside of him making sure you’re comfortable with it.
Bruce loves you, and you are his #1 priority outside of keeping himself and Hulk in check, he will do anything for you. If he gets to be selfish about one thing, it’s you.
Plus, Bruce as a character is one who both knows the negative ramifications of bringing a baby into his world, let alone a human baby, and one who’s long since come to terms with not having children.
He’d rather shoot himself in the head again than fix his mouth to guilt you for wanting an abortion, a procedure that you have every bodily right to as an actual living being weeks before your pregnancy is even far along enough for there to be an actual fucking baby developing in your womb.
Now, any real arguments come if you catch the pregnancy late and don’t want to keep the baby. Or be in their life. Because Bruce will want to be to some degree, even as he struggles over feeling (knowing) that his presence alone in his child’s life could ruin everything for them.
Bruce also stays — to an obsessive degree; yes, you do pull him aside for an intense conversation — quite aware of his own potential pitfalls as a parent. On top of his fears of turning into the type of partner his father was to his mother to you, he’s now deathly afraid of turning into the type of father he grew up with too.
Dialing back on missions and the occasional counseling visits help, but this is a constant work in progress.
Bruce likes to match with the baby. His dorky ass— it amuses him to no end. Alternatively, the baby also has a Hulk onesie (and no matter how much he clicks his tongue it is frequently worn, and even he can’t deny how cute his kid looks in it).
At least once after a particularly grueling mission that Hulk had to be present for, you find Hulk hunkered in on himself sitting inside of the nursery (actively designed to be big enough to house him— or a potentially hulked out baby) with big fat tears in his eyes as he talks lowly to you child.
Past the slight heart attack just seeing him elicits, you let him keep at it. Supervising (and offering your own comfort) until he’s calm enough to turn back into a harried, frustrated Bruce.
Yes you do take a video of his low rumbles of words and the baby’s responding coos. At how your little bundle of joy reaches, unafraid, for Hulk and how unerringly careful he is around them in turn.
Rick starts to cry, and tries hiding it (poorly. over the phone.), at the cuteness overload.
Bruce doesn’t say it, but you know that how well Hulk keeps himself together around your kid, and how much your child doesn’t fear him (especially as an extension of Bruce), helps. For as long as Bruce can remember he’s feared himself, he’s happy for the reprieve. Unfamiliar as it is.
Also, speaking of hulked-out babies. Bruce, Tony, and even Reed Richards if they can hack it, all go over the baby before you’ve even given birth. Bruce checks your radiation levels constantly, and is stressed about your body rejecting the pregnancy and you getting sick all nine months.
These worries do not go away after you give birth, and they’re so not unfounded that you only latch onto him (giving him your support) and let him prod at you and your child without complaint.
It helps that he’s so apologetic while he runs tests too. Pressing kisses all over your face and never straying far from the baby. Bruce talks you through every single move he makes, even as a lot of it flies over your head, and doesn’t make a decision until you understand and can properly approve.
Yes, while his kid isn’t going to develop DID through genetics, they can still develop a hulk form, and Bruce stews in guilt over the possibility.
Trust, you two will work with your baby if they turn out to be a mutate though. Nothing short of death is stopping you from being the best parents you can be, and even then you’d both contest Lady Death herself.
NOTES: Hope you enjoyed!!!
I have never in my life (especially as someone who does not want kids) been like “I want to get pregnant with *insert character’s* baby”, but bitch here we are. I don’t know what this man is doing to me.
Editing Trixie — Can confirm that I was ovulating the week I started this, so that was the ovulation speaking, but I started my period and got some chocolate and now I’m myself again.
Anyway, let’s live in a dream world where our reproductive rights aren’t under fire for a bit with this one.
btw: if you’d like to leave a comment I’d very much appreciate it!
“I told you I’d never leave. I’m not going anywhere” With Sam or Bruce please
Angst
You were struggling and Bruce knew it but he didn’t know how to help you. You were pushing him away and it broke him to pieces knowing that you were hurting.
You’d made it clear that you didn’t want him to be around, but deep inside, you needed him to be around. Bruce stopped by every day to drop off some food, but you never answered the door. He had a key to your place, but he never used it. Until now.
When Bruce arrived at your place, he noticed that the groceries he had left the day before were still outside. He’d knocked for a while before he pulled out his key and unlocked your door. He found you asleep on the couch, tv off and curtains drawn.
He rummaged around your kitchen and put away your groceries while he waited for you to wake up.
Once you were up, you found Bruce at the foot of the couch watching a muted tv show. You didn’t move as you watched him for a few seconds.
“What are you doing here, Bruce?” your voice croaked.
“I came to check on you,” he said matter of factly.
“I don’t want you here,” you mumbled, averting your eyes.
Bruce sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. “I told you I’d never leave. I’m not going anywhere,” he replied.
“I don’t deserve you, Bruce.”
“But you do, y/n. And I’ll still be when you realize it.”
THE HULK & BRUCE BANNER (AVENGERS: EARTH’S MIGHTIEST HEROES)
. ⚛︎ *. ˗ˏˋ ⚛︎ ˎˊ˗ *
❝UNSTEADY SYMMETRY - 1/6❞ (Hulk x Fem!Reader) and (Bruce Banner x Fem!Reader)
Beach days and negotiations and enjoying an easy time with the ocean’s breeze with your partners…and the Avengers, too.
or 5+1 Times Bruce and Hulk Fight Over You (and the One Time They Don't)
SFW-ish, established relationship(s), slice of life, fluff, “beach day” date, bonding, relationship balancing, fronting negotiations(?), brief nonsexual nudity, intimacy, nonsexual body exploration
Another “swimsuit fic”! Though this one has much less focus on the clothing itself and more on what it represents, I guess. (Pic source — Hulk: Tempest Fugit (2005) comic)
3k+ words
“Really it wouldn’t have to take anymore than, like, the rest of the night,” you say, gesturing broadly as you speak with the grape ice pop in your hand. The pop melts intermittently in both your mouth and propped up by its popsicle stick in your hold, but that doesn’t exactly slow you down. “And that’s after you’ve had all summer's day with me.”
Looming above you, Hulk sighs out a gust of air, “He saw you once this month already.”
“Hulk,” you chastise, shifting so you can flick the air above his knee with your preferably decorated acrylics.
The barely notable hit doesn’t need to land, it just needs to send the correct message, and by the way Hulk quite deliberately turns his head to look away from you, it does.
“I’m not in a relationship with one of you, Big Guy. I’m here for dual attention; it’s the only amount of doting appropriate for me.”
“Hn,” he grunts, but it’s more chuckle than irritation, and you’d be willing to bet he’s at least considering your request in that big head of his.
Popping the frozen treat back into your mouth, you allow him time to think. Soaking more sun into your already sun-kissed form while savoring the artificial flavor on your tongue.
In rare form Hulk was both off duty — not actively avenging — and allowed “free range”. And as demeaning as that sounds, it’s closer to the truth than you’ve ever liked.
It’s only the existence of the Avengers, and what everyone outside of the team (and some within) view as their leash on him, that allows him any semblance of a peaceful life.
Of a heroic path.
Finally he looks down at you in full, gaze stalling for a brief moment for him to no doubt look over your brown skinned and bathing suit clad form.
Colorful braids that fall past your ass when you stand pool both around your head and cascade in purple vines down Hulk’s inner thighs — whether the braiding hair is caught around your hair or the braids are a wig, doesn’t matter, they were yours regardless.
Then Hulk meets you gaze, large green eyes alight with far more intelligence than people gave him credit for.
His nose scrunches with his displeasure.
“Sunset,” he says, the bass of his voice quiet. “I’ll see if he wants to come out then. No earlier.”
“Of course.” You draw an invisible ‘X’ over your heart, crossing it, just to hear him huff. The bunched muscles beneath you relax in tandem. “No earlier,” you agree, “and thank you, Hulk.”
“Hm,” he grumbles, looking away from you, a hand swooping up to scratch at his nape, “you’re welcome. And this isn’t for Banner either, it’s only because you asked.”
You nod and Hulk finally drops his hand. Going back to leaning on it, fingers burrowing into the sand, like he was before. More relaxed than he typically gets to be.
It’s a good sight.
The caveat he tacked on at the end about Bruce was less good, however. But it wasn’t something you wanted to get too involved in either; this was something they’d have to work out on their own. Sharing a body and both having individual lives and active wants for the first time in their life.
Ever since they’d been framed and locked up by General Ross, both Hulk and Bruce have changed. Hulk is more resolved than ever to be a hero, and forcing people to actively confront his humanity has become a major part of that. Bruce’s zeal for existing and actually living life again has steadily come back to him too, and with it the desire to front has undoubtedly increased. Finding equilibrium now that Bruce wanted back out more often and Hulk had even more of a lease on life was certainly winding up to be a Herculean task for both of them.
Which means you’ve had to insert yourself more than you think is…beneficial in the long term. Even if seeing them struggle made your heart hurt and itched at your nerves.
None the wiser to your fleeting spiral, Hulk clears his throat. Starts chatting about bird watching of all things, and updating you on how sparring with Thor has been going.
Settled on top of him, you listen avidly. Angling your head so the sun’s glare is blocked by his larger one, and leaning back so you’re propped up onto your elbows, legs curled lazily closer to his torso.
Hulk gestures broadly with one hand, speaking for you alone. The corners of his eyes crinkling fondly as he recounts throwing Thor through three walls in the training room after successfully outmaneuvering the God of Thunder.
He calls him a punk the whole time, and isn’t that something?
It’s a level of conversation he wouldn’t have had the wherewithal to engage in even several months back. Too enraged, too attacked. Too unconsidered to bother.
Now he’s a far cry from having to lash out despite himself, to protect himself. To protect Bruce. Still angry, he was always angry, but smiling with you nonetheless. Snorting at his own jokes. Dressed in a pair of purple swim trunks that you don’t bother trying to hide the appreciative way you eye him up in, and little else. It’s a good look for him. And usually his only look, but still.
It was purposeful this time; the trunks at least made for him and not torn out of Bruce’s pants.
You could appreciate the autonomy exercised in him slowly amassing a wardrobe of his own.
Minutes pass before anyone disrupts your small pocket of beach bound contentment.
All because you catch Wasp’s eye midway through a gut-clenching bout of laughter. Lulled by the off kilter, slightly caustic humor Hulk’s long begun to develop and the thumb he’s been absently rubbing against your side. Rubbing over the heat warming your skin and pressing carefully, so very delicately, into the softness of your body.
Eyes going wide, Janet smiles big even after your smile dulls and you shake your head. Trying to dispel her.
When she starts coming over anyway, you relax fully across your coveted spot. Strings cut like a tangled mirrorette.
Turning your face into Hulk’s leg, you groan into green skin.
“We’re about to start water polo!” she chirps just as you pop your head back up. Your expression fixed to not look rude, you give her a wane smile. Shifting all the while so that you’re sitting up, facing away from Hulk, as she closes in. “We could totally do girls against boys?”
Nevermind the fact that you’d be outnumbered by at least one — if Natasha didn’t flat out reject Janet’s offer, that is — and that even while you didn’t dislike Janet, you didn’t consider her a friend either.
Sometimes being attached to one hero — mentally two — was enough for a working woman.
“I‘m sorry, Girl. I might’ve another day, but I can’t get my hair wet.” You gesture to your hair with a flourish and a toss; can feel the way Hulk’s body vibrates with poorly concealed laughter beneath your ass at the theatrics. “This hair is just too new, you know?”
Braids knock against your back and land quickly over your shoulder to rock with the breeze against the side of your face and Janet watches them like she’s mesmerized. The loud, passionate woman blinks, shakes her head.
You don’t mention that you also just don’t feel like getting in the water and doing all that actively— nevermind that you’d probably end up in the water later, hair protected, because either of your partner’s overheated bodies needed cooling, but Hulk gives you a look like he sees right through your lying ass anyway.
Big Green doesn’t give you away though, just snorts lowly and turns his head away to watch where a bunch of pelicans are flocking around a startled looking Clint. Plus, you knew his game just as well and Hulk certainly didn’t want you off his lap anytime soon either. If he called you out he’d be jeopardizing that based on your sheer pettiness alone, let alone Janet’s pestering.
Janet ignores him anyway and takes to giving you her best puppy dog eyes. You don’t throw your head back to groan, but you kind of want to.
“Aw, really.” She looks over you, nose crinkling cutely. “The water can’t be that bad for your braids. It’s just hair.”
Tell that to the salt buildup you’ll have to scrub out if you get into the water.
‘To you,’ you think, fighting back a frown.
On the outside you don’t even bother talking out loud anymore, since her lil, shrinking ass wasn’t listening anyway, and just stare at her blankly. A mantra of ‘fix your face, fix your face’ zipping through your mind all the while.
Even if you didn’t want to hang with them (and their finicky acceptance of Hulk’s humanity) at the moment, that didn’t mean you wanted to end up alienating Hulk from the Avengers even a bit by being too much of a bitch. Not with how hard he was still trying to come to terms with their persisting uncertainty of him.
“So you’re really not going to go in, huh?”
“That’s…what I said,” you respond, your smile growing smaller and fingers twitching in your lap.
Pushy.
Pushy would overwhelm and then piss you off if she kept bothering you.
Hulk seems to know it too because he perks up, shifting under your easily taken weight. His big hand flashes in a jade blur in your periphery as he talks.
“Janet,” he grunts; just enough warning in his voice to be admonishing. “Stop pestering.”
You watch Janet flush and can’t even be happy, you just want her to take your answer and go.
“Alright, alright. I got it, Big Guy.” The brunette grins at him, winking. “Janet leave Hulk’s girl alone,” she grumbles out in a too light and too breathy mimicry of his own stilted speech from a few years ago.
The muscles in Hulk’s leg bulge as he tenses — physically shifting you up a bit where you’re sat on his thigh. Janet gives him two thumbs up before finally turning to bounce back to the others, and you yearn for the peace you both had not five goddamn minutes ago.
“…Your teammates,” you start, searching for the most tactful way to get your point across as you go.
“Can be too much?” Hulk’s low bass finishes for you.
“Yeah that.” You knock your head up to grin at him, his head haloed by the sky’s now setting fire, and he gives a broad laugh.
“Now,” you say lightly, “about what we were discussing earlier…”
Hulk huffs and the air from it blows your braids around for a moment, but he nudges the beach bag you’d brought with you closer to your legs where you’ve moved them to hang off his own.
“Yeah, yeah,” he mock grumbles, “I’ll see about taking you to watch the birds in Nevada, but only because you asked nicely.”
“And because I’m me, and you can’t resist me?” You flutter your lashes at him, wiggling in his lap, and by the way his lips twitch you know he’s fighting back a smile.
“Don’t push it,” he grunts, losing the battle with his grin.
─────
When Bruce comes back to you he’s…lucid.
He only stumbles a little at the sight of you in your swimsuit, at least.
The brunette man doesn’t fall, but you shift to stabilize him anyway. Hands curling around his forearms, like you’re scared he’ll collapse.
That he’ll wither away in your arms and you’ll never have a chance to bask in the fragile, earnest way he smiles at you again.
“I got you,” you mutter, brown eyes greedily taking him in. For once Bruce actually looks well rested, the bags under his eyes just a little less severe and his gaze alert without exhaustion along the edges.
Bruce hardly teeters for more than a second, only scrambling to grab Hulk’s trunks before they fall off his hips, but he doesn’t pull away from you or your hold on him.
“Sorry,” he stutters, deep set eyes wide on your face, “I’m fine. I— just— distracted.”
Oh, you could tell.
“Regardless,” you say, grinning and squeezing a bit at his arms to help reiterate your statement, “I got you, Banner.”
For the first time since you grabbed ahold of him Bruce seems to actively register your positions. He flushes.
“Yeah,” he says, looking you in the eyes, “I can— uh— I can see that.”
“Mm,” you hum, acknowledging. You start to rub your thumbs along the edges of his rough elbows. “Hello, Handsome.”
Bruce smiles that vibrant, gentle way he always does for you. He rocks a little closer.
In the secluded area you’ve tucked yourselves into, just behind the shower building, you guys exist in your own little bubble of the world.
“Hello, Beautiful,” he murmurs back, voice only cracking a little. “How are things? The weather seems nice.”
“Oh it is, for sure,” you agree, playing along. “That’s why I just had to convince a certain big green Goliath to let you out to see.”
“Well I’m seeing,” Bruce says, but he certainly isn’t looking out at the gorgeous expanse of bright blue ocean and warmed, litter free, sand at you guys’ disposal.
The hand he isn’t using to hold up his pants moves, careful not to jostle your hold on him, and curls lightly around your bicep. Just to touch any part of you.
Longing, deep and hard won, eases and settles out of you at the feel of him against your skin, warming your insides and filling you with connection.
When you brandish a slim pair of plum swim trunks in his size, waving it around as the sea breeze brushes over your braided coils, tossing your braids around your body in a flurry and sweeping his hair to the side, Bruce snorts.
Winking, you hold them just a bit out of reach when he lets go of you to grab them, however.
“What did I just say,” you murmur, leaning in close to him and smiling a little wider at the way your plump lips glide just a little against his thinner grin.
“Oh,” Bruce grunts, but there’s little of the surprise the exclamation would suggest in his tone.
Ever used to finding himself in compromising positions — and far more eager than he’s ever been to be in one with you now you’ve sorted things out — Bruce doesn’t do so much as stutter in his movement as he lets go of his grip on Hulk’s pants.
The way they look pooled at his ankles is comical, and you giggle even as you lean into him more. Bruce chuckles himself, but it doesn’t last quite so long once you’re pressed to him, and he quickly makes use of his having both hands free to wrap his arms around you.
You let him, hands bracing themselves against pale hips, and lips locking with his in a long awaited kiss.
Fuck, but you missed this. Even with his lips slightly chapped, kissing Bruce is electric, sending tingles up your body and down your spine. You the conduit of his wily, gamma edged electricity.
Still kissing, Bruce starts to explore your body intermixed with his slight breaks from your mouth to allow you both the chance to breathe. You're happy to let him do it, letting him take even more of your weight— and despite his outward appearance you know he can.
Calloused hands, tinkering, scheming hands, drag up and down your body with reverence. Refamilarizing with every dip and scar and stretch mark, old and new. No stone is unturned as he rubs his palm across your belly and over your ass, feeling up your thighs and squeezing at your hips and your waist.
Hands brush across your breasts so quickly, but make your breath hitch anyway, drag up your arms like he’s trying to commit them to memory through touch alone, and over your shoulders and up your neck until he can cup your face between his balms with open heartache.
Unlike his bigger other half, Bruce seems to more actively appreciate your new hair.
After about five minutes with you on his lap Hulk had complained about the braiding hair being itchy but, despite you offering to move, he’d promptly refused to even let you get up with a giant jade anvil of a hand pressed lightly to your abdomen. Then proceeded to absently twirl his pinkie around a few braids (after asking permission, of course).
By comparison, Bruce twists scarred, slender fingers through the mixture of black and purple braids wound through your kinky hair. He takes a second to hum to himself and really look at them, confirms what he remembers, and says he loves them. Complimenting the color and the different way they frame your face.
Eventually you have to pull away completely for full gulps of air, but you’re both laughing while you do it.
Bruce was still in the nude after all. Shameless though he was in front of you, and too used to having to throw shame out the window when Hulk could drop him into any manner of precarious situation without warning, you still needed to get him dressed.
Tony could only rent a small stretch of the beach after all, and only for so long. Money didn’t talk loud enough every time, no matter the amount he could throw around.
Shortly thereafter you hold out Bruce’s swim trunks for him to step into. He hesitates for all of one second, brow raising, before indulging you and you pull them securely up his legs in a singular motion once he’s fully stepped in.
If you brush your nails across his bare thighs and flatten a hand to his newly covered ass for a second while you do, then that’s your business.
Bruce mutters nonsense at every stray touch, head bent into your neck as he presses kisses to your brown skin and the little hitches of his warm breath curl over your veins.
Fingers curl into your hair and blunt nails scratch softly, pleasantly at your scalp. You let out a deep sigh across his skin and skim your palms over his stomach and up to his abdomen, curbing the urge to drag the pads of your fingers over his nipples with a bite of your lip.
When you pull him in to tighten and then tie the laces around his waist, he gasps and you shiver as his eyes go lidded.
“You’re teasing me,” he accuses, like you're not just returning the favor, his voice low only for its lack of use and Bruce’s own general tendency towards the monotone.
“A little, yeah,” you say, snickering and leaning in to peck him on the lips before continuing, “but we won’t be able to do shit until we’re alone so it’s all either of us is getting.”
“If both of us have to wait, then why do I feel like I’m getting the shorter end of the stick here for some reason?”
“Feel however you want, Honey,” you pull away from him then, reaching down to grasp his hand in yours and starting to drag him along. “I’m getting what I want regardless,” you finish, cackling at the way he scoffs even while still actively letting you lead him wherever without question.
That he takes the time to fold up and tuck Hulk’s disregarded trunks under his arm in your rush, makes your smile soften.
Still, you had a very blue, very cool ocean to enjoy with your man, you both needed to get a move on if you wanted in the water before nightfall. You just needed to find the sunscreen first.
“There’s popsicles?” he exclaims along the way, delivery almost dry despite himself.
A weight sloughs its slimy tendrils from your shoulders as you laugh and tell him to grab you another while digging for your SPF and a large scrunchie to put your hair up.
Both your guys in one day, after months without either, was one hell of a gift.
NOTES: Hope you enjoyed!
I suppose (even when considering Hulk’s characterization in EMH) that I’m writing my version of EMH Hulk closer to a Gravage/Green Scar more than any other alter. If anyone was curious. “Gravage” is my favorite Hulk, though, (even if I do love them all) so that makes sense.
I’d like to point out that I started writing this months before the 2025 Marvel Swimsuit Special came out (but it was nice to actually see Hulk drawn in purple swim trunks; or the remains of Bruce’s, at least).
This little series was also prompted by the premise from the Hulk/Bruce storyline that I’ve read would’ve happened in season three of EMH between Bruce, Hulk, and Betty Ross if the show had continued. I disrespected Hulk and Janet’s canon EMH relationship a bit too here, but during the arc when he was framed I vaguely remember her getting on my nerves so…
btw: if you’d like to leave a comment I’d very much appreciate it!
HULK | BRUCE BANNER (MCU | AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON)
. ⚛︎ *. ˗ˏˋ ⚛︎ ˎˊ˗ *⠀
❝STIMULUS❞ (Hulk & Fem!Reader)
Hulk persists. Even alone. Even when he doesn’t want to be.
Or How Hulk feels when the reader-insert is talking him down after a mission.
SFW, character study, angst and fluff, hurt/comfort (and then hurt again)
Companion fic to “Sensory Input”. (Pic source - Avengers: Age of Ultron)
1k+ words
There’s a thrum that buzzes through his body when Hulk gets to smash like this. When the hurt little people cause him can be easily rectified with his fists and the crushing force of his speed and muscle mass crashing into vehicles and guns and reducing them to scraps.
Even if the constant problems grate, the fact that he can get rid of them — if only for this short time before the next insect takes to bothering him, or bothering Banner to get to him — brings a bone deep satisfaction he’ll likely never be able to quantify.
That fleeting satisfaction cannot be reached until everything that hurts him has been smashed, however, and Hulk is not blind to the soldiers still so readily preparing to shoot at him.
All the while he avoids the team — his team (?); caught between the desire to help and the need to warily stay away in case they turn on him.
Hulk survive. Alone.
And when the alternative was staying in a world that only brought hurt his way, he preferred being on his own too.
“Hey Big Guy,” a voice crackles through his head. Hulk whips his head in the direction of the ear it comes out stronger through; his brows furrow and his lips curl into something of a snarl. “I’m just signing on to tell you the fight’s done and all that. Can you reel yourself back in, and go find Iron Man?”
At first all the voice reminds him of is Banner.
Puny Banner.
He’s inclined immediately to steer clear of it to some degree, shaking his head to dispel the sudden appearance of a woman’s words in his ear so connected to the man who treats him like a plague.
Then the voice speaks again, and the words fully register.
“Hulk, come on. I know your big green ass can hear me. Your tracking dot is literally still moving.”
Stomping towards another wayward weapon — the shooty thing that barraged him with bullets that felt no more painful than mosquito bites, but that made him grit his teeth and growl anyway at how bothersome they were — Hulk tilts his head.
The pounding in his heart that fuels the bulging veins throughout his towering form skips.
The words make sense in that way they always inexplicably do whenever his heart isn’t pounding quite so loudly — Hulk doesn’t question it; doesn’t think to question it — and for a moment he even finds them funny.
He grumbles something of a laugh in response, even as the voice’s connotation with Banner sticks.
Gaze landing on another of those shooty blocks he’d crashed his way through earlier, a mean grin pulls at his mouth. The voice temporarily forgotten, he lunges.
Smash.
He was good at that.
Hulk was the best at that.
Even after he’s ran through and pounded his fists into everything that shoots at him, or that he’s far more occasionally aimed at by Captain America or some other Avenger, he’s still not tired. Is hardly satisfied either.
“Hulk,” the voice comes again, soft and commanding all the same. “You finished now? Ready to head back to the jet?”
Hulk stops stomping through the tepid forest then, powdery bits of concrete raining from his shoulders and the raven hair atop his head, the sound of bad men’s screams left in his wake overtaken by the voice in his ear. Images of a woman he’s grown very familiar with over the last year flash through his mind— kinky black curls, dark glittering eyes, soft brown skin, and the crest of a fond smile aimed his way.
For once in the last decade, too, that bit of good memory isn’t tainted by Hulk’s own knowledge that he didn’t live it.
The gamma giant huffs out a deep sigh, his shoulders droop, and he lets his head stop swiveling (to stop looking for more threats) around him. He can picture you now, the faint outline of you reaching out to him and pressing the pads of gentle fingers over the green skin of his palm. Of your soft grin and the fascinated look you’d given him a few months ago before urging him closer with a tug on his finger.
You’d been wide-eyed, but not with fear.
Hulk holds onto the warmth that reminder spreads through him, grunts a little to urge you to speak again.
With a chuckle, you do. “What,” you joke, voice lilting, “you don’t want to go back yet? Are the rest of the Avengers shit company, Big Guy?”
Hulk sighs again as you talk, jaw working as the air rushes from his nose. It takes a slew of moments before he can work out his response, unused to needing to do more than grunt and growl or being acknowledged in any way that requires he speak at all.
“No,” he grunts, voice rumbling lowly from neglected vocal chords.
From where he can hear you in his ear, you gasp. Without being able to see you he can’t grasp whether that’s bad or not.
His knee jerk reaction is to tense up. To assume you’re upset and that all your words that make him feel light and make his heart slow will turn snarling.
When all you do afterwards is let out a coo, then, Hulk finds himself squinting at a bird perched on a tree and watching him warily.
He watches it right back, curbs the urge to reach out for it, to feel the soft feathers along it that he gets the sense memory of, only because he knows the destruction his touch can bring.
Giant, balled fists tremble.
Hulk doesn’t want the bird to die. Hulk not too stupid not to know that much.
“Alright,” you murmur sweetly again, and Hulk’s fists unclench with his next gust of breath. He feels a lot less heavy when he watches the bird fly off unharmed. “If you want to relax by yourself, that’s fine. You want me to leave you alone?”
Tiny Woman no leave Hulk alone, he thinks immediately. Translating that sentiment to words as you lapse into patient silence doesn’t come quite as quickly to him, though.
Hulk’s simply too unused to talking, hasn’t said much in general since that one night after fighting Abomination and Betty’s tears and her name stuttered from his tongue.
The only name heavy on his tongue now is yours, however, falling past equally heavy lips as he works his way through the consonants and vowels of it with stilted pauses. In his head it strikes as deeply familiar. In his mouth, however…
“Y/n…stay,” he eventually gets out, words falling like lead boulders at his feet but finally out regardless.
You make a high pleased sound — no matter how muffled — that Hulk registers as such with no small amount of contemplation.
“Okay, Honeybunches,” you murmur, and Hulk finds he enjoys the coiling feeling he gets in his stomach when you call him that.
With a great huff, he sits. Going criss-cross on wet, decayed leaves and partially melted snow. Body crushing fallen branches and leaving an indent in blemished snow immediately.
Hulk doesn’t mind that the snow is seeping water into the faded purple bottom of his pants and that’s mainly because he’s too preoccupied listening to you. To paying close attention to the inflection of your words as you ask him more questions. Asking for more conversation.
For his part Hulk really only answers you through a series of grunts and grumbles. Back to being monosyllabic once more. Talking took too much energy.
In a rare turn you don’t ask him for more than what he’s willing to give, though. Even actively taking what he does give you and interpreting things like his low, short grumble when you ask him about how he likes the cold to mean he’s not a fan correctly.
Hulk likes that.
Large hands curl loose in his lap the longer he sits there with you in his ear. Part of him is angry that he won’t be able to stay like this forever, that something will inevitably come along to hurt him again because that was all his life seemed to ever be: pain and anger, hurt and loneliness.
Another part of him — a part that gets slightly larger the longer he thinks about you and gets to hear your laugh after he chuffs lowly, positively, when you ask him if he smashed anything interesting — envies Banner and the reality Hulk knows to be true that you're his.
Larger parts of him than those can feel his eyes starting to close— wishes for your hands on him again and the unique smell of your scent around him. For your physical presence and the ability to gaze green eyes down on you himself again, not through Banner’s limited perspective.
Hulk frowns, doesn’t think it’s fair Puny Banner gets to have everything while also forcing Hulk into danger he didn’t agree to; only to lock him away in darkness after the pain and the howling fury pumping gamma green faster through his veins has battered him.
Hulk doesn’t want to sleep right then, either, but you snort and call him by that sweet name again and he can feel Banner perk up somewhere in their mind.
“I’m glad the mission wasn’t too hard on you,” you’re telling him, whisper soft and with a tone of voice that brings the imagery of your two-toned lips curling into a frown to his mind.
Hulk frowns for a completely different reason, even as the thought of your upset clenches uncomfortably at his stomach, and gives a rough shake of his head.
Banner’s consciousness prods at his own with more force than before. Hulk stands with a start, heart no longer settled, and swats at it like it’s a physical thing. Hand cutting through the air in front of his face with a sharp thwack.
“Hulk?” you question, the alarm in the call of his name making him queasy.
Or maybe that was the feeling of his eternal organs beginning to grow smaller than he can utilize.
Hulk lets out a deep, caustic growl that trembles the air in front of him, teeth bared.
He looks around wildly, eyes wide and breath fast and more scared than he’d ever appreciate, as he shrinks. He stumbles forward. The large hand he uses to catch himself on the trunk of a tree isn’t as big as he knows it should be. His body shudders succinctly enough he bites down on his molars until they hurt and screws his eyes shut with a wallowing grunt.
He tries to call your name and this time his vocal cords don’t even attempt to work under his own power.
Your voice fades out halfway through you speaking words he no longer has the privilege of understanding.
Then Hulk’s gone.
NOTES: Hope you enjoyed!!! 🫶🏾
Whew! Okay, that kind of hurt my feelings to write and that was not the plan. Like, this was just supposed to be a lil fluff companion piece to the smut in the Bruce fic, but now it’s kind of some fluff and a lot of angst, and I don’t even know anymore.
btw: if you’d like to leave a comment I’d very much appreciate it!
HOW BRUCE / HULK REACTS TO BEING GIVEN A HULK PLUSH (Bruce Banner x Fem!Reader) and (Hulk & Fem!Reader)
Headcanons
SFW, established relationship, fluff, crack treated seriously, hints at canon divergence
Picture source: Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
2k+ words (some of which are from one Spurt - or mini fic - w/ Bruce and another w/ Hulk)
BRUCE BANNER
Bruce stares at you like you’re insane when you come up to him brandishing the plushie Hulk like a trophy.
Of course a second later he fixes his face to smile at you in greeting, even with his hair fluffier than usual from him having been running his hands through it so much and his smile tinged with fatigue, but his initial opinion of the plush itself still doesn’t actually improve.
For your part you remain unphased, making sure he’s not handling anything sensitive as you study the little Hulk in your hands some more before slipping behind his desk and shaking it at Bruce with a proclamation of: “It’s you!”
Bruce laughs at your antics despite the way both his brows have started furrowing, and finally reaches out for the plush.
❤︎
“And people, what? They buy these?”
“They did,” you shrug, you’re not going to sugarcoat it for Bruce. He’s likely to go looking for the distributor on his own time anyway.
Bruce goes quiet then, but it’s the type of silence from him that only half worries you. He was thinking, certainly, but not in a way that would make him spiral. At least not immediately.
“Right,” Bruce hums. He turns the little green plush over in his hands — both having come off his keyboard where he was inputting notes into his computer the moment you walked into his office. “No parent wants their child playing with a toy modeled after a proverbial natural disaster on legs, huh?”
He cracks a small lopsided grin at that, scoffing to himself. You give him a long look in response and Bruce only offers a shrug, ducking his head and reaching up to squeeze the back of his neck for a moment.
Your lips purse.
“I didn’t say that, B.”
He nods, “It’s the truth though, Y/n, I’m well aware of that.” The scientist stands from his stool, leaving the plush beside his keyboard, moving closer to you and wrapping you up in his arms. Softly, he nudges his nose with your broader one and you smile. “Plus, you’re far nicer than me. Of course you wouldn’t have said that.”
The soft, pale inside of his palm presses to your darker skin as he brings up his hand to cup over your cheek. Before you let yourself lean into his touch you give him a measured look, eyes narrowed, but Bruce doesn’t budge despite the apologetic look he’s giving you.
“Goddamnit, Bruce,” you grumble, giving into his touch after pressing a kiss to the inside of his wrist.
The corners of Bruce’s eyes crinkle. He snorts.
“For what it’s worth it’s actually pretty cute,” he looks over the Hulk plushie with a more critical eye before shrugging, “even if it’s likeness is off.”
You heave a sigh.
“It’s too cute,” you guess.
Bruce nods.
“It’s way too cute,” he confirms, the arm he still has around your waist squeezing playfully at you.
Laughing, you shake your head at him, throwing your arms around his shoulders and pressing a quick peck of a kiss to his lips.
The hand he had on your face drops from your dewy skin to join the other around your waist like a moth drawn to flame, and you grin as he shifts fast to kiss you back, his grip on you tightening.
You put a finger over his lips to keep him from chasing your mouth for more, staring at him with lidded eyes and a sly curve to your lips.
“I feel it pertinent to remind you that Hulk and you share a face, Honey.” Bruce’s eyes widen and he looks about two seconds away from pressing a hand to his chest and acting wounded. “And,” you say before he can take his hands off you, “that I happen to think you’re both plenty cute. In my humble opinion that is.”
“Oh in your ‘humble’ opinion? Is that what we’re calling it?” Bruce snorts again, but when he kisses you next it’s sweeter than it needs to be.
❤︎
Overall, Bruce doesn’t hate the plush toy, which is nice, he just doesn’t particularly care for it. Though he does raise an amused brow once he tracks down the small Brazilian factory that used to make the plushies, a small fond smile curling his lips.
In general his relationship with Hulk is a lot better than it’s been even before everything with Wanda, but post The Avengers forming (hell, after having helped create Ultron with Tony his relationship with himself is the best it’s been since), so he isn’t disgusted like he once would’ve been by the prospect of a company making Hulk plushies.
The Hulk protected him on Sakaar (even if he did a lot of other things Bruce likes less too), and saved his life during The Battle of Wakanda. Bruce could give the Big Guy his props now. Especially after he himself got to kick ass in the HulkBuster, but could still admit to himself that fighting droves of bad guys wasn’t the type of challenge he particularly enjoyed.
Bruce largely disregards the plush after your initial conversation about it. Forgets about the thing, really. When he finds you one night — after he’s been away with the team for a few days on a particularly grueling mission — curled up on the couch with the plush against your chest and your arms wrapped tight around it he finds a kind of fondness for the little Hulk, though.
Cuddling with the plush like that you cut both the most adorable and the most heartbreakingly sweet figure he’s ever seen.
When Bruce scoops you up to carry you off to y’all’s shared bedroom it’s with a small groan (Hulk’s been in charge for the better part of 72 hours, his body was all bruise and still in the process of completely healing from the prolonged transformation, his ass is exhausted), but it’s completely worth it to feel the brush of your soft kinky hair over his cheek and to have you subconsciously curl into him — Hulk plush still held tightly and smushed between both of your bodies — in your sleep.
By the time you’re both in bed you’ve started to stir awake and give him the ‘welcome home’ he always looks forward to, insistent arms locked tight around his shoulders in a hug as he squeezes you flush to him from around your waist. He still makes sure the Hulk plush doesn’t tumble to the floor in your excitement though, handing it back to you and watching with fond russet eyes as you curl up with it again while he spoons you from behind and presses sweet, longing kisses into the brown expanse of your skin.
THE HULK
Hulk is borderline insulted at first until you explain what it is.
When you first come up to him brandishing his plush lookalike you’re not expecting him to both simultaneously respond like you’re about to burn him in effigy and as if you’re betraying him by trying to replace his big green ass with a plushie, of all things, but you suppose that with his reputation and general possessiveness towards you that you should’ve expected his reaction on both accounts.
After a quick explanation, and a pat of your tiny hand over his giant one in reassurance, you’re good to go though.
Once Hulk’s certain you're not trying to replace him or hurt and piss him off, though….
…Hulk immediately hits you with a “But…people hate Hulk,” and you're so caught off guard that you just blink up at him for a few silent moments.
Hulk has your mind going haywire as you think of an answer for him — vetoing “not everyone,” as an acceptable response almost immediately at the impatient grumble he lets out at you taking so long to answer.
Hulk hears your eventual answer of: “Some people still do, yeah, but a few people definitely don’t. I don’t,” and deflates.
The Big Guy slumps forward, resting his elbow onto his thigh where he’s sitting criss-cross in front of you, so he can prop his head up with his fist as he effectively pouts. You feel horrible that you can’t give him any other answer, but that was the truth and you wouldn’t lie to him; especially when you’d be so easily disproved if the Big Guy actually showed his face anywhere.
Hulk’s public perception wasn’t completely in the gutter, with a ton of work and a good deal of care it could be salvaged some, but he definitely wasn’t trusted by the majority of the public anymore (and the trust he and Bruce did have before the incident in South Africa had been faint at best even back in the day).
❤︎
“Fine.” Hulk gives a great big huff that makes your lips quirk. “Hulk look.” He holds out his hand, and you promptly rise on the tips of your toes to place the Hulk plushie delicately in his palm.
Plush now in his free hand; he doesn’t actually move it from where you placed it, just moves his hand this way and that and gives the toy a grave amount of inspection.
“Hulk never wore purple,” he grunts after a few moments, and you laugh.
Hulk wasn’t exactly wrong though. Bruce certainly wore a lot of purple, it was his favorite color after all, but Hulk didn’t touch the color if he could help it outside of the short block of purple that lined the top sides of his uniform pants.
Hulk’s completely unphased when you lean over his thigh opposite from where he’s propping his head up so you can inspect the plush with him. Even drops his hand enough for you to be able to see it at eye level.
After a few of your own silent seconds you nod and solemnly agree that you’ve never actually seen him wear full-on purple, yes, but guess that the color is for color theory purposes as the plush was made for children and would need appealing color coding to match.
“That’s dumb,” Hulk grunts, but he leaves it at that.
He goes right back to staring at the thing in silence again and you’re perfectly content to let him, humming softly and letting yourself rest your upper body over his muscled thigh.
Hulk runs hot so you won’t stay pressed to him for too long (unless it’s cold, then you’re stuck to him like glue) but his jade skin is surprisingly soft for such a force of nature and he’s never once objected to you climbing all over him.
❤︎
Eventually you reach up to take the plush back (mostly bcs Hulk’s had enough of it and is twisting his hand sideways, so if you don’t take it, it’ll fall) and keep talking lightly with Hulk about Avengers shit and whatnot. Absentmindedly, though, you take to running your thumbs softly over the plush’s head area or through its short tufts of fake black “hair”, self soothing with the feel of the plush.
Hulk notices. Hell, Hulk points it out to you.
❤︎
“Y/n not touch Hulk like that.”
A blink.
Freezing, you pause to look down at your fidgeting hands and the soft colorful fabric beneath the pads of your fingers. Your brows furrow.
Another blink— still from you.
Only after a few more beats of silence — only broken by a grumble from the Big Guy as he shifts restlessly — do you look up and turn your blank stare onto Hulk.
Hulk, whose lips are downturned into a frown and who's also watching you like he’s half expecting you to catch a whole conniption over his words.
What you finally, eloquently, settle on saying is: “What?”
❤︎
And that’s how you end up finding out Hulk likes when you run your nails along his scalp as hard as you can (he’s got some tough ass skin, there’s no other way; and if you wear acrylics or gels they’re gonna need to be strong) and when you run gentle hands over his face. Likes it so much he falls asleep, in fact.
It’s also how you end up with literal tons worth of jade green giant lying flat on his back with his head inches away from your lap while you sit criss-cross on the plush carpet behind him with your back leant against his shoulder and hands working overtime as you essentially pet him.
Call him “handsome” while you brush his hair behind his ears and he’ll crack an eye open to drop large eyes down to look at you then grin hard enough to have you cracking up. Press kisses all over his giant cheeks and forehead and over his closed eyelids and he’ll be eating out of your palm for a week— this shit is dangerous.
Overall, after any misunderstandings have been corrected, he’s more readily forgiving of the plush than Bruce, but that’s mostly because he has the benefit of feeling flattered that you’re so eagerly snuggling with a green plushie made in his likeness even as you’re curled up by his side.
NOTES: Hope you enjoyed!!!!
Bonus scrapped scene: “Hulk not grey either” “I know, Big Guy, but copyright. The distributors probably didn’t want to get sued for using your likeness.” “Still not grey,” he grumbles, expression turning mulish and petulant. You pat him on the arm in solidarity.
I am in a fucking mood I can’t help myself, the Bruce/Hulk stuff just keeps coming.
So, yeah, I went for the alternate version of Endgame (ie: one of the deleted Hulk/Bruce scenes) and changed the story a bit so that I don’t have to deal with MCU “Smart Hulk” and so that I could have Hulk smash from the HulkBuster armor after Bruce and his back and forth where they come to an understanding (also a deleted scene), but instead of kind of erasing Hulk I’m just making it so now he and Bruce have come to an equilibrium together. I’ve also technically retconned the fuck out of Ragnarok, but I don’t go into that here.
btw: if you’d like to leave a comment I’d very much appreciate it!
Bonus(+)Banner —
ahhhh
Also, honestly, it bothers me (to a fictional extent) that Wanda never had to own up to or make up for what she did to Bruce and her making the conscious decision to set the Hulk off in that area of South Africa bcs she was irritated and as a distraction. We know that once Bruce came back to earth and did that ridiculous “Smart Hulk” thing that he had to rebuild his image and public perception of him and that even by She-Hulk: Attorney at Law it’s not stable enough for him to just be around the regular public as a Hulk. Even when in Endgame we see that he’s regained trust and has some amount of celebrity, his position on earth is still clearly tentative. And that’s despite being a big factor in helping save the world.
Bruce had to build himself out of that hole that Wanda dug for him and whatever legal mess and guilt that would’ve naturally followed, Hulk had to sit with that guilt and that confusion (you can see the emotions on his face right before Tony — using Veronica — knocks him out and he’s the one who leaves on the quinjet) then was subsequently erased by the narrative because the writers didn’t want to actually write a Hulk redemption arc, and Wanda got off completely scot free without having to make up for or let herself be rightfully prosecuted for destroying those South Africans’ lives, because the Hulk might not have murdered anyone but Hulk’s rampage (by its very nature) is tantamount to an impromptu natural disaster having torn through that city. A city that Wanda purposely targeted because she was mad at one man, and an infraction that she never made up for or is even seriously mentioned after AOU.
Please just let me slut myself out to this man in peace. (Pic source: Joe Fixit (2023))
1k+ words
Joe believes in the sanctity of his own pleasure, he really does.
The occasional woman draped over his lap, a couple a’ guys’ heads to bust, a cold drink in his hand, maybe one of those custom cigars Berenggetti likes to gift him— as thanks for his stellar work, of course.
Sure, there were always complications. Some schmucks bursting into the casino begging for trouble Joe was just chuffed to bring to ‘em. Tough guys, sometimes with even tougher weapons, looking to take a couple potshots at big green and stupid instead getting the chance to get up close and personal with the fist of the grey-skinned goliath. People from punk Banner’s past who have questions.
All sorts of insects and worms liked to scuttle from their holes to bother him and, agitated and defensive, every time he sent them packing in turn.
All this to say…
…Joe took his pleasure where he could.
Whether in his suite. A crumbling brick building with the silence of victory ringing around his heavy shoulders and fierce scowl. Or a shiny little back alley with the vibrant sounds of Vegas nightlife just slightly muffled around him.
Well, him and present company.
─────
Joe is shockingly talented at keeping his cool in his current position. Silent enough despite his steel colored cock being out and confidently brandished in front of your pretty eyes that nobody suspects what’s really going on around back while he takes his usual smoke break.
Concrete scrapes lightly beneath your knees, the enforcer’s stripped off garnet red coat (matching in color with his tie) and pinstriped suit jacket laid out for you to kneel on the only things keeping you remotely comfortable.
All the while Joe holds himself taunt and grips his stiff member. He drags his bare fist over thick prominent veins, that hand’s white glove long since pulled off and held between his teeth as he works himself over. The muscles in his arms bulge and strain with each stroke from where he's got the sleeves of his crisp white button down folded up his forearm and over his biceps.
The sight of him makes you moan, low and wrecked, and he presses his eyes shut tight. Joe lets out a tortured groan before he can knock open his eyes and pin his gaze back to your umber frame and head of kinky hair, the strap of his black suspenders slipping an inch past the brick of one of his broad shoulders.
The skin of his member is slick with your spit after he had you lapping at and sucking bruises to the best of your ability into its length, and that makes you strangely proud. Your stomach flutters at the image he makes, at the memory of his cock that’d been almost too heavy in your hold and dwarfed your hands.
He’s thick and throbbing and veiny. Leaking enough precum to have your mouth watering and urging you with low murmurs to not waste a drop as his pre falls to your waiting tongue where you have it sticking out the way he likes. You look eager, like his fucking whore, and he loves that shit.
Joe cums with a harsh, bitten off grunt, head knocking back into the wall and making a dusting of crushed brick rain down around you where you’re quickly tumbling after him with your own orgasm. Pussy creaming all over your perfectly manicured fingers and decorated nails as you swallow a load of Joe’s cum.
The whole time he’s making a mess of you Joe curses up a storm, gravely tone appraising and unapologetically steeped with arousal as he talks his shit and calls you his pretty little slut.
Shuddering against him afterwards, you rest your head against the pinstripe fabric of his slacks and catch your breath with fluttered closed eyes.
For a few moments while your chest rapidly rises and falls Joe rests a giant grey hand overtop you tight curls, ring finger and pinkie curling halfway around your neck as you press yourself to him and clean your spent cunt up with the enormous pocket square he brandishes for you.
Like clockwork, right after he’s put himself away and buckled back up, readjusting his clothes with a flourish that’s awfully menacing, Joe lights up the cigar he keeps in his breast pocket. He works his way through it, smoke puffing through his nose and mouth like a grand dragon, all while watching with lidded eyes how your breasts shift as you finish cleaning yourself up and finally start re-dressing.
“We good?”
He takes in another mouthful of smoke, rumbling voice washing over you with thinly veiled fondness as you push away from him and his unnatural warmth.
“Killer,” you confirm, voice soft only for the delicate nature of the situation, before looking him in the eyes and licking the last remnants of his cum into your mouth.
Joe chuckles loud enough at that to make you flush beneath your darker skin, helping you up with one hand in a smooth movement and then seeing you off with a pat on the ass that makes you squeal and has your steps faltering for a second. His big fist reaches over to open the back door for you right after, though, and he laughs again around the cigar held between his teeth when you flip him off.
Even still, the accentuated sway of your hips alongside the marginally exaggerated bounce of your ass as he watches you walk away on clacking heels is very purposeful on your part.
The sly smile pulling at your two-toned lips all the while is even more telling, and you can’t help but to shiver when he whistles lowly in appreciation.
NOTES: Hope you enjoyed!!
I’ve started reading Hulk comics this year and I’m literally so obsessed with all of the Hulks and Bruce (and Betty, omg). A good amount of the storylines I’m reading are also just good af tho so the infatuation was practically destined.
Anyway Joe is fine as hell and dtf enough for me so hence this lil fic.
The variant covers are as follows (left to right) — #1 Windowshades variant by Tom Reilly, #3 variant by E.M. Gist, and #2 variant by Jamie McKelvie.
btw: if you’d like to leave a comment I’d very much appreciate it!
I mean…look at the material tho 😆🫠:
(pic source — incredible hulk annual #16 & incredible hulk #370)
plus a lil bonus Bruce; and I didn’t even include the ass shots.
THE HULK & BRUCE BANNER (AVENGERS: EARTH’S MIGHTIEST HEROES)
. ⚛︎ *. ˗ˏˋ ⚛︎ ˎˊ˗ *
❝JUST MY LUCK❞ (Hulk x Fem!Reader) and (Bruce Banner x Fem!Reader)
Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross tries to pull one over on the Avengers when they go to get Bruce Banner released from government detainment; acting as their consultant, however, you’re more than primed to go head to head with the General for your partners’ freedom.
SFW, arguing, my shit understanding of military procedure of any kind, drugged characters, some angst, some fluff -professional!irritation!reader
This exists purely because I want to scream at Ross every time he shows up on the screen or in comic panels. (Pic sources: “Hulk vs The World” - S1EP3 & “Gamma World, Part 2” - S1EP13)
4k+ words
“Actually, Stark…”
Uh oh.
You knew Ross not being the one to intercept you all once you got to the Raft wasn’t a good sign.
Talbot, your escort for the afternoon, turns around so he can look Tony in the eyes where his helmet’s faceplate is popped up.
“…we’re pushing for him not to be released, if you’d like to sit in on the meeting,” Talbot finishes, the Major’s mustache twitching as his eyes pass distastefully first over the teams’ leader and then the rest of the Avengers in turn.
Dark blue eyes then stick to your form where you’re standing behind Steve.
Teeth clicking together, you don’t let yourself shift like you want to. His gaze is a physical enough thing you want to shrug it off— want to flip him off too for good measure, but that’s beside the point.
Talbot’s lips quirk as he glances over you, something sharp in his gaze that reminds you conveniently of a rat in that moment.
Except the rat would be far cuter.
The man doesn’t say anything more though, only waiting for Tony’s affirmative before starting down the poorly lit hallway again.
When Talbot turns down a corridor that is clearly not leading to a secure containment cell you can’t even pretend to be surprised. In all but name this was an ambush after all.
And now you were officially irritated.
The room you all are led into is large for a conference room, but there’s absolutely no mistaking it as such either. It’s also packed with plenty of official looking people with all sorts of indicators of military rankings you don’t know or care to know.
Clint curses as he comes up behind you and notices the sheer amount of people in the room and seems to recognize the direct importance of at least a couple of them.
For your part you hardly spare them more than a seconds glance upon entering, eyes sweeping across the crowd in search of one thing and one thing only.
Or one person as it were.
The sight of him once your gaze lands on the dark corner they’ve got him tucked into makes your breath hitch.
The sight of him in prison orange ill-fitting enough to be baggy over his pale frame makes your blood boil and you barely stop yourself from sucking your teeth as you lay eyes on him for the first time in nearly two months.
Bruce’s brown eyes are far away and sunken, dark bags diminishing his usually wry gaze and hands twitching intermittently where they’re strapped down at his sides.
The back of your teeth grind together without your say-so, molars twinging.
Yeah, you didn’t care if you had to fight this entire room, nothing short of death was going to keep you from getting him out of this place.
─────
By the time the meeting’s officially begun your gums have begun to twinge with every press of your molars and Ross has been talking so much shit for the last twenty or so minutes you’re surprised he isn’t throwing it up too.
Just then he starts up about Hulk being an out of control beast without a conscience and it’s so absurd a claim you can’t stop yourself from commenting out loud, even if it is just to yourself.
“Huh,” you scoff, rolling your eyes while staring at your hands in your lap, “that’s a lie,” you grunt quietly.
Not quietly enough it would seem.
From across the room Ross instantly jerks his head up to look at you, the frown already etched onto his face turning severe as if he’d not noticed you until then.
If only you had the same privilege of ignorance when it came to him.
Jaw working as your mind reels, you look the man head on with an arch of one of your brows.
Catching his attention might not have been a part of the plan you’d been attempting to form in your head but you weren’t in the business of giving Ross any inches.
You’d just have to think on your feet.
“Stark,” Ross starts, voice tight, “control your—”
“—Yeah, no,” you assert, talking over him with a level tone and completely skipping over Tony in the process. He knew better than to answer for you anyway. “I’m not Stark’s anything, General. He doesn’t control me.”
“Hn,” Ross grumbles, grinding his teeth together. The ‘somebody ought to,’ goes unsaid but you can see it in the clench of his jaw and the way he tries to…to glare you into submission or some shit.
‘Hn’, indeed.
“Fine,” he grounds out, “Do you have something to add?”
He speaks as if he thinks he’s tripped you up. A large part of you wants to make him regret giving you the room.
Even still, for a moment you contemplate not stirring the pot, taking the out and letting someone else handle him, but really the choice is obvious. There Bruce was stood up in the corner chained and shackled to hell on a stretcher like he was Cletus Fucking Kasady or something, power suppressor collar locked tight around his neck with probably enough sedatives in him to kill an elephant given just how impossibly high he looked, and actively struggling to get a good read on the room.
Bruce’s eyes were so unfocused and glassy, his head so heavy, that you barely caught your frown before the wider room could see it upon first seeing him. Let alone hid the show of emotion how you would’ve liked to as a whole.
Ross wanted to keep him, that much was obvious. But he didn’t care about the man or the so-called monster, which was just as easily noticeable.
General Thaddeus Ross wasn’t fit to keep Bruce Banner or The Hulk safe — captured, sure, but unlike the others on the team that wasn’t something you even remotely cared about — and seemed too inclined to keep them tortured and in easy reach to be experimented on instead for your liking.
“I do,” you say. Tony looks surprised when you glance over to him, but it’s about the only request for permission he’s going to get from you. When he nods, just once, you turn back to Ross and his crossed arms and you smile. “I think that over the years the General and the military have proven untrustworthy when it comes to matters of The Hulk.”
One man huffs in the back, curls cropped short and that same air about him that Ross has. The type of urge to commandeer everything that gave you hives on a good day.
You grit your teeth. Today was not a ‘good day’.
“We captured that beast, didn't we? Banner’s been dozing in his cage for weeks before today, a non threat.”
Cage.
The way your eye twitches is small enough you’d bet no one without a heads up display or enhanced vision could see it.
You shift in your seat, gesturing to the wider room.
“Only after breaking form, though, correct? And stop me if I’m wrong, but both times you successfully captured Hulk were S.H.I.E.L.D or the Avengers not present and providing crucial aid? So it’s just the same to say that the Avengers have an even better track record of keeping Hulk out of trouble than even the Hulkbusters do, and a room is about as much containment to someone so powerful as Thee Hulk as a cell is.”
“You’re proposing we treat that thing like a—”
“Like a person, yeah. It’s no coincidence that both times you captured the man was because he was reasoned with or otherwise distracted by saving an agent’s life. The Hulk is a person, and he can be stabilized after an episode — which rarely happen without provocation by the way — just like any other man.”
“Other men don’t usually possess the ability to tears tanks apart with their bare hands, Miss.”
“Other men also usually don’t respond rationally when being shot at…” you lean forward to read the man’s name off the gold plate pinned to his breast, “…Fortean.”
Immediately, he clarifies you on his rank, on the fact that you should put it in front of his name. As if you respect him enough for that; these people were lucky you haven’t devolved to schoolyard taunts yet considering just how little you respected them.
“Sure,” you shrug. Fortean grits his teeth, standing up a little taller as he fixes his mouth to say something that he’ll want to be cutting but you know you’ll just blow off.
“Now, Y/n,” Ross cuts the younger man off, pressing him back into the corner like a good obedient lapdog, and swinging the conversation back in his control. “Our hands are the most capable to keep Hulk from sowing destruction everywhere he goes, even if you think being nice to it and letting it play dress up with the Avengers is a suitable containment method that doesn’t account for the fact that everywhere the Hulk goes destruction follows.”
Rogers pipes up before you even can. “Pardon my forwardness, General Ross, but any destruction caused while we fought beside Hulk was due to the impromptu establishment of a battle field in civilian spaces by our enemies, enemies which we stopped with the help of Hulk. The Hulk is a hero, and he was doing his job the same as any other Avenger, Sir.”
Ross smiles, it’s not pleasant but it isn’t condescending either. Lucky Cap.
“And before he joined your team? What of the destruction that followed him then, Captain?”
“Well,” you cut in, doing away with caring about being too forward entirely, “that was mainly you and the Hulkbusters, so the answer is fairly obvious.”
To that Ross stares at you for a second, mouth ticking, and then promptly lets out a gruff bout of laughter. The other military personnel and military officials in the room give a resound chuckle as well.
It echoes around the room for a couple of seconds and each new laugh feels like needles burrowing deeper and deeper into your brain.
You didn’t tell anything nearing a joke so the only reason for this was that they were all laughing at you.
“I’m sorry,” you pipe up, unlocking your jaw to speak after swallowing down the angry tremble you could feel crawling up your throat, “I don’t recall telling a joke.”
Despite your words the room still sobers at everyone else’s own pace and you can’t help but to wish the man would drop dead when you chance a look Fortean’s way and catch the smug upturn of his mouth.
Hulk probably wouldn’t approve, Bruce definitely wouldn’t. You don’t think either would object to you socking him in the jaw though, knocking the smirk right off his face.
“Apologies, Miss,” Ross grunts once he’s finished, eyes glinting. “You’ve provided me with my counter argument though, haven’t you? Or the Captain did. We responded to Hulk’s presence after he made an impromptu battlefield out of a civilian area and people got hurt at his fault when we engaged in our duty to this country. We did our jobs”
“That’s not how I see it.”
Ross stops just short of glowering at you, pausing in the pointed looks he’s giving the officials in the room to narrow his eyes your way.
“Well then you’re seeing it wrong.”
“No.” Ross’s eye twitches. It’s visible. Same as the vein that protrudes across his temple. You cross your arms, shrugging even as you narrow your gaze on him a little more in tandem. “Is it incorrect to assume that you track both Bruce Banner and The Hulk, General?”
“It’s not.”
“Good,” you hum, tapping a steady rhythm with the pads of your fingers into your forearm. “How about the target on sight orders for them both? That true as well?”
“Yes,” Ross says, voice dropping down. He’s wary about where you’re going with this but isn’t sure of your angle yet, most likely.
Thaddeus Ross wasn’t an idiot — especially where being a tactician was concerned, and that was all the props you’d ever give the man.
At the very least it meant he was giving you something of a challenge.
You nod to yourself, biting back a smile, “And you would agree that most times you catch up to Bruce Banner he’s not at immediate risk of transforming?”
“Not always, but—
“—And that provocation of the target — already agitated or otherwise — never fails to escalate tensions and make the situation more dangerous, correct?”
There was more to it than just Bruce or Hulk’s temperaments though, and you knew that well. But fighting the Hulk angle here wouldn’t be as helpful — even though every time Ross’s team have ever ran into Hulk already in control was because he was dealing with an even bigger threat, saving people, and the only thing the Hulkbusters ever succeeded in doing in those situation was exasperating the collateral; simply put Hulk wasn’t the unfathomable monster everyone wanted to paint him as, but paint their hearts out people would regardless — as you’d want with this audience, so stressing the Hulkbusters being nothing but a trigger in an otherwise calm situation was what you’d do.
Ross shifts to run his hand over his mustache, lips pursed.
“That’s…an affirmative, but—”
“So then, if you stand by your word, of course, you admit that any collateral damage caused by Hulk after you or your Hulkbusters have arrived on scene is not the fault of Hulk himself since you actively and willfully provoke him into violence and initiate battle in civilian areas with him for your own means?” You pause to swallow, blinking faux innocently up at Ross in the process, “Whatever they may be,” you finish, raising your brows at him in challenge before relaxing back into your seat.
Everything was in his court now.
You’ve put him in an uncomfortable place. He’s either got to admit that all his tracking down of the Hulk is no more than posturing on his part, posturing that willingly puts civilians in danger for little acceptable reason, or he’s got to admit exactly what it is he wants the Hulk for to a room of the type of military personnel who cared about at least appearing too civilized for human experimentation and the utilization of mind controlled bio weapons.
“Now I did not say that,” Ross says in a huff.
You just shrug. If the shoe fit and all that.
“You’d think finding a better strategy than shooting a barrage of ineffectual weapons at a man in public who gets stronger and less coherent the angrier he gets would tip you off that you are indeed not as capable as you think you are at keeping your constituents safe,” you reiterate, expression remaining unchanged.
“Nonsense,” Ross snaps. Looking around at the officials in the room he seems to get even angrier at the contemplative looks on their faces. “What are you all doing? This woman hardly qualifies as a superhero, let alone an Avenger. She doesn’t mean jacksquat as far as this conference is concerned.”
“But, General—”
“Don’t ‘but general’ me, Stevens. Buck the hell up!” He swings his head around after chewing the younger man out then, and when his gaze snaps back to you he bares his teeth. “You! You and your bleeding heart bull! What do you know about the danger that monster inside Banner poses?”
Sucking your teeth, you stand, roller chair threatening to topple over in your rush.
“Oh get real,” you snap lowly, planting a hand on the table and leaning over it in a bid to match Ross’s big irritated movements and gestures toward you, “Hulk hasn’t been a serious threat to human life in years.”
“There’s no sufficient evidence of that!”
“As much as I’d been worried about that too, Thunderbolt,” Tony starts quickly, voice turning mocking as he tosses out the other man’s nickname, “the stats don’t lie. Hulk hasn’t caused actual human collateral in…ever, really.”
Ross glowers his way, “I have men who’d say otherwise, Stark.”
Tony shrugs, “Frankly, Ross, if they can still say anything at all then you’ve already disproven your argument here.”
“Exactly,” you sniff, rocking back on your heels and crossing your arms. “And it wouldn’t be too hard to prove that over the last few years Hulk has saved more lives than he’s ever truly hurt either.”
Some of the Suits in the room begin nodding shallowly to themselves.
At the sight of them Ross starts up another sheet of yelling in your direction: “You damned blight, who do you think you are, you’re nothing,” he rattles in the next breath, but doesn’t get any further than that before you take personal offense.
“Um, hello!” you say, voice rising for the first time the entire meeting as you attempt to talk over him, “is your name either of my parents’?”
Ross sputters at your question, “What?”
“Exactly! So don’t come up here yelling at me like I’m some child! Only two people get to just barely yell at me, and you’re not either of them, so you need to come better!”
“You don’t get to talk to me like that,” he growls out, clearly stopping himself from advancing towards you with a sneer. “Women your age have no damn respect. You are a subordinate, act like it!”
“First of all: not your subordinate,” you clarify, face scrunching at the idea alone. “Second of all: I wasn’t aware that as a so-called ‘subordinate’ I couldn’t speak my mind, you must want a pack of mindless slaves that agree with your every word if that’s the case.”
He grins something nasty.
Behind him Fortean scoffs.
“Oh I see. I don’t care what goddamn race you are, insubordination is insubordination—”
“—I literally didn’t say anything about race. I said that with the way, as your so-called ‘subordinate’, you do not think people should talk back to you in ways you personally deem disrespectful is akin to you wanting a bunch of slaves working under you.” Scoffing, you shake your head. What a pack of clowns. “Last time I checked slaves aren’t allowed to oppose their Masters, General, whereas subordinates are meant to keep you in check which requires opposing opinions to be—”
Ross starts to stammer badly enough you’re stopped from continuing because you honestly aren’t sure he'll be able to hear you over the stuttered flapping of his gums, the gnashing of his teeth and the blood rushing to his face at an alarming speed.
Not that you gave a fuck about his health, but still.
He stutters for a few more seconds, fists balling where you can see them from where his arms are now crossed tightly across his chest, before eventually giving up with a harsh curse and pointing angrily at you, voice going up an octave or two.
“Missy, you will get off of my base right now! I’m not running a hen house. Talbot, escort her out!”
Both your eyebrows jump towards your hairline. Your response is on the tip of your tongue too: ‘Missy’! Excuse you, I am a grown ass woman, but, again, you’re stopped before you can get anymore riled up by a sudden bout of noise.
When you knock your head up to lock fiery brown eyes onto the source of the sound towards the back of the room you do so fast enough for your neck to crack.
A snort.
Someone’s laughing.
Your eyes narrow.
Unlike last time, no one else is joining in, however. No, instead everyone’s looking at a still drugged Bruce — who your eyes finally land on before promptly widening as his bleary gaze locks coherently onto yours for less than a second. It’s an eternity of a second, though.
In the meantime Bruce’s snort turns into stilted chuckles that swiftly morph into low gasps of laughter as his shoulders shake and his heavy head lists to the side.
Then, against all odds considering the boatload of drugs he’s visibly on and the suppressor collar around his neck, he starts to transform.
Bruce’s voice shifts to Hulk’s in the ensuing moments and his voice becomes significantly more disruptive even above the sound of the collar snapping in half. Hulk breaks out into booming laughter with a bellow of: “Flustered Ross?”, absolutely amused by how fucked up you’ve gotten his oldest foe.
“Wha—? Bruce— Hulk,” you cut yourself off, just staring at the jade giant as he full belly laughs, head thrown back and everything.
It’s adorable.
A little bit of you perks up at the rumbling sound and the heaviness that’s been anchoring your feet, making every step harder and heavier than the next, seems to lift.
Every non-Avenger in the room freezes bar Ross, who twitches and seems to get notably redder around the edges.
Honestly though, you don’t think anything would have supported your case any better than Bruce — your sweet, usually dry humored man — laughing so hard he cedes control to Hulk, who’s laughter is even more infectious. In real time you can even see the officials in the room having their perceptions shift as well.
Didn’t hurt that the evidence of their ineffectual Hulk containment methods when Hulk actually wanted out had just clattered into pieces on the ground either.
A little giggle bubbles past your lips almost in spite of the fury still firing through you. Alright, Ross’s beet red flush and slew of tripped over words in the face of confrontation from a black woman who was no better than a civilian skill wise was pretty funny.
For the first time since the team and you were redirected to this stupid fucking room the anxiety and irritation tightening your abdomen to aching relaxes.
Subconsciously you feel yourself sigh, straightening up from where you were leaned over the table to better get in Ross’s face the same way he felt he needed to get into yours first, and shifting to pop your back in the process.
Shit you were wound up.
You had to get yourself together because Ross’s ass was not worth putting all this strain on your body.
Eventually Hulk’s boisterous laughter peters off naturally. A smile sticks to his face still though, a boyish type of grin that shows enough teeth to make most of the big men strewn throughout the room shift uncomfortably and have your stomach fluttering welcomely.
Shoulders dropping and jaw unclenching you smile over at him in turn, his green eyes locking onto your brown for a slew of moments before some Suit clears his throat— then immediately ends up loosening his tie as that drags Hulk’s attention squarely his way.
The man clears his throat two more times before he finds his nerve, “Well the way I see it the best course of action to keeping Hulk…stable would be to let the Avengers keep an — um — eye on him and Bruce Banner. As I see it, at least,” he adds in a rush at the unblinking stares the Hulkbusters start giving him.
Ross seems to double take: “What,” he barks out, “you can’t be seriously considering this!”
“General, I think it’s about time we consider the option of least resistance.” And the Suit considers you now, gaze on you noticeable but one that you refuse to return with anything but a bland expression and raised brow. He sighs. “Not constantly waging clearly avoidable war on The Hulk, especially when the money going into the Hulkbusters can be utilized better elsewhere, seems like a solid plan to me, and I can only imagine my compatriots agree.”
Ross sputters for a few moments, Fortean’s frown crests hard enough you hope it sticks, and then the General’s mouth shuts with a snap. His pivot to turn your way is accompanied by a low growl from Hulk, but for once Ross is mad enough at someone else to not blow the rumble out of proportion.
“Get out,” he snaps, and like ants all the people who aren’t his (or The Avengers) in the conference room scatter.
You’d laugh if it weren’t so pathetic. Ross was only one single goddamn man, explosive anger or not.
Staring him down you cross your arms, cocking your head and hip and not hesitating to let a smirk grace your dark lips.
“Bitter?” You question before he can start.
Behind you some one of your partners’ teammates snorts.
You’d put your money on Clint.
Ross snarls and turns sharply to Tony somewhere behind you and to your left, features twisting nastily.
“Stark, take your team and get her the hell out of here now!” He jerks his hand towards the entrance, pointing some more. “She’s the most disrespectful, surefire example of why women shouldn’t be apart of discussions like this I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting—!”
When you laugh it’s a mean melodic thing. Overly loud just to be as obnoxious as you can manage.
The others start to move around you too, mainly Cap and Clint, to push past Ross’s unit and get to Hulk. When they start releasing him from his bonds and he stomps from the trolley he’d been tied to, two feet finally firmly planted on the floor and making the room tremble for a moment, the Hulkbusters collectively recoil and bristle all at once.
Somehow you find it in you to laugh a little harder. Apparently it was your turn to bust a gut in Ross’s face.
Talbot and Fortean glowering your way in response makes you feel doubly accomplished on top of everything too.
“Oh, screw you, Ross! You’re nothing but a sore fucking loser on a power trip and, quite frankly— ah shit!”
In one singular movement you’re swooped up. Eyes widening you gasp, hands flying down to grasp onto the nearest thing you can as your balance is thrown off. Really you needn’t have worried though, the lighter palms of brown hands — the lightest part on you beside the bottom of your feet, honestly — meet the stern knuckles of warm green skin and your spirit instantly re-enters your body as you realize what’s happening.
Unfortunately though you’re covering ground too fast for it to mean much.
Ross shouts, “God-damn—” and then he’s cut off and you can’t do a single thing about it.
Well then.
Doors close with an unsatisfactory but resounding finality in your face, the image of Ross red and belligerent lost behind it, and you scowl; still huffing and puffing even after being swept up into a carry by the very man you were arguing over.
From where you’re being carried partially laying over Hulk’s shoulder, you glare at the empty corridor he’s stomping down with the rest of the Avengers, heart hammering in your chest.
That’s when you’re finally aware enough for it to truly click that you’ve been tossed over his shoulder and you balk.
“Hulk!”
“Y/n relax now,” Hulk rumbles, large thumb patting you on the back from where he’s holding you to him.
At that you have no choice, really. You slump. Arms hanging limply at your sides and head resting on his shoulder, you pant too. Sucking in large gulps of air and trying to get your heartrate back under control before your anger spurs on a headache.
“Alright, fine,” you mutter into green skin, relaxing into Hulk’s hold, “but only because you said it so nicely.”
Hulk hums. It’s too pointed to be anything but him calling you out on your bullshitting, but you’re too tired to riff on him in your defense and start a playful back and forth right then.
“Well,” Tony chirps from the corner of the large industrial elevator once you’ve all finally settled back into it for the day, “At least you riled old Thunderbolt up enough for him to let us go with the Big Guy pretty easily.”
Lips splitting into a grin, even slightly out of breath as you are, you push up from Hulk’s shoulder a little and turn your head to the side so you’re not staring at the side of his neck and the wisps of green hair that curls some at the base of it.
When Tony sees the smile on your face he balks. By the time you’ve started up a sheet of poorly held back laughter he’s caught on.
“I should’ve known,” Tony snorts, shaking his head. “You did have a plan.”
“Of course she had a plan,” Hulk intones, tone deadly serious even though you can feel the way he huffs out a laugh.
“Hold on,” Clint starts, “you mean you picked a fight with Ross on purpose?”
“Sure did,” you start, curling back into Hulk’s hold and turning away from everyone else again. “Ross hates Hulk, yeah, but he can’t stand a woman stepping up to him either. I knew if I screwed him over he’d focus on tempering my loud mouth more so than fighting to keep his arch enemy or whatever.” You raise a limp hand to wave in their direction, “Plus, with only Cap as backup somebody had to pick up the Hulk Defense slack.”
“Okay, don’t do us like that now,” Tony complains, the metal of the Iron Man suit clanging lightly as he shifts.
“Oh, I’m gonna,” you scoff. You snort too, though, as a bout of Hulk’s more subdued laughter reaches your ears and shakes your entire body. “Just a little.”
Still, you didn’t miss the team’s broader unwillingness to stick up for the bigger and greener of your partners before today, though— and your reclusive white man too, by extension. Hulk didn’t miss it either, you'd bet, and some definite developments would have to come of that.
For now though, that could wait till you were no longer in a fucking American military base.
Once this was all over, and things settled back down, you’d have to ask Hulk if he wouldn’t mind letting you talk to Bruce. If Bruce wouldn’t mind coming up for a conversation.
That was something for later though, for now you’d just let your nerves calm and bask in not having to worry about walking.
Without another word you curl more securely into Hulk’s hold, tucking your head into his neck, your umber skin and tight curls brushing over the protruding veins there, and move one of your arms up to wrap around Hulk’s neck.
As you all make your way down the elevator and back to the quinjet you’re fully content to keeping silent. Fingers tangled lightly in the dark hair at the base of Hulk’s nape, you lean in to press plump two-toned lips to his skin in a lingering kiss.
Hulk huffs. Big hands secure you to his chest even more than you already are and his thumb and forefinger squeeze fondly, delicately, around your waist, his giant head leaning just enough to press lightly over yours for a second.
Eyes watering, you smile into him, hands trembling in his hair as you hug him harder.
You missed him, and you missed Bruce (missed the knowledge that he was safe even when you couldn’t directly talk to him because Hulk was safe) and that had strained on you badly.
At least you had them back now though. And this time around you’d be far meaner and a lot less lenient about parting from them again.
NOTES: Hope you enjoyed!!! Didn’t expect that this would be the first fic out of all the Bruce/Hulk fics I’ve started this year that I’d post, but it worked out anyway.
Also, honestly, I forgot how the episode began and was sequenced so this is more inspired by “The Deadliest Man Alive” - S2EP22 episode of EMH than a rewrite of it. Fortean is here too so that doubly doesn’t support this being a direct rewrite; I just needed to throw some shots his way too though so that’s why he’s here.
And the title is from the Coco Jones song bcs I was listening to it on repeat while finishing writing this, the fic isn’t inspired by the song tho.
btw: if you’d like to leave a comment I’d very much appreciate it!
❝BURNING IN LOVE❞ (Betty Ross | Red She-Hulk x Fem!Reader)
Just a little “R&R” with Red.
NSFW-ish, established relationship, sexual tension at most, kink, sadism, slight masochism, teasing
Go for Betty— I am unimaginably happy to be getting a Betty fic posted! (Pic source: incredible hulks (2011) #629)
500+ words
It’s like a pool of fire laying along your back, soothing for all it absolutely shouldn’t be, when she presses you to her chest and reaches around your body. Bright red hands, nearly triple the size that they should be, plant themselves on your hips and squeeze.
A soft, hiccuping gasp falls past your two-toned lips as you shudder against her. All that warmth against your skin — her red a sharp contrast to your rich brown — is both too much and not enough.
When you shift in her hold it’s purely out of indecisive instinct. Hard to decide whether you want to lean into her grip, her hands traveling slowly to wrap around your waist and keep you in place now, or if you want to lean back into her.
The urge to turn your head just enough to plant the pudge of your cheek onto her bicep and just rub against her and take in more of her heat is one that has a whine bubbling up your throat. Even superhumanly muscular as she now was, her body was still flesh, still gave enough beneath the pressure of your touch to make you sigh.
“Aww,” a rough feminine voice coos, breath fans across the side of your neck just hot enough goosebumps couldn’t hope to form. “Cozy aren’t we, Honey? You wouldn’t try and leave now right?”
Betty’s voice is like velvet siphoned through speakers, its new natural base rumbling up your throat despite her low tone. In response you hum, matching the feel of that base with your own lighter tone, pressing yourself back into her even more and opting to press your smaller hands into Betty’s too for good measure.
Fingers, slim in comparison to your lovers’ and a mortal umber in contrast to her preternatural crimson, drag delicately over Betty’s rough knuckles. You wrap them around to circle your fist around her middle and index fingers then tug, asking silently for her to press into you more.
Against your overheated skin her palms are practically scalding. Turning you pleasantly and horribly pliant against her.
Entirely at her mercy.
The pocket of control, reassuringly constant, that she could count on you for in a life where everything seemed intent on trying to render Red powerless and Betty sniveling despite the steel in her spine.
“Mmm,” Betty chuckles, drags her pointed nails just a bit too harshly up the side of your thighs, ruddy welts forming in their wake all while your legs tremble, “you trying to light my fire, Honey?”
“Yes,” you gasp, shuttering into her. “Fuck yes, Red. Please?”
Betty doesn’t kiss you — can’t kiss you, not with the acidic nature of her yellow edged saliva — but she does coo. Broad hands drag back down your thighs before a hand lifts to land a resounding smack against the skin she just welted and warmed.
The yelp you let out doesn’t take long to shift into a wrecked moan.
Red’s guttural answering groan briefly vibrates the air around you.
Her touch turns the slightest bit softer afterwards. Rough, sturdy pads of her fingers rub down your tender, flushed skin as if to offer comfort.
The sharp grin you can just make out flashing in your peripheral when you gaze up at her ruins the intention. If only slightly.
Betty chuckles, a low growl builds in her throat, and you don’t get to know anything but her for the next twelve hours she secrets you away for.
NOTES: Hope you enjoyed!!!❤️
Oh my gosh, Bettyyyy— ahhh! I’m actually really excited to finally be getting one of the Betty fics I’ve been working on posted, even if this Red Shulkie fic is the shortest of the few. She’s my girl fr.
Also, this isn’t a spurt simply because I wanted to add a picture.
The amount of red color coded characters I’m collecting is getting kinda funny atp.
btw: if you’d like to leave a comment I’d very much appreciate it!
