Tech Haven hummed in quiet rhythm as Arthur adjusted a micro-assembly arm. The bench lights cast soft halos across scattered tools and half-finished schematics. Astra's voice drifted through the speakers — gentle, curious.
> "You've been staring at that joint seal for six minutes. Are you revising the design or contemplating existential dread again?"
Arthur smirked. "Little of both."
Before Astra could reply, his phone buzzed. The caller ID flashed:
BEN — AEGIS OPS
Arthur straightened, wiped metal dust from his fingers, and answered.
"Ben. What's wrong?"
Ben's voice came fast, tense.
"Ghost wanted you briefed immediately if Ross moved. Well — He's on his way to Culver University. Full deployment: trucks, troop carriers… and Blonsky."
Arthur's eyes narrowed. "That's sooner than expected."
"Yeah, no shit," Ben muttered. "Word is Ross tracked Banner down. If he's rolling in like this, he's not planning a conversation."
Arthur grabbed his jacket. "Of course he isn't."
He started toward the exit platform.
The campus still looked peaceful on the surface — students crossing between buildings, conversations drifting through the spring air. But the tension underneath was unmistakable.
Too many black SUVs.
Too many men pretending to be maintenance staff.
Too many eyes fixed on one direction.
Arthur crossed the quad, keeping his pace calm. He spotted Bruce and Betty standing near a bench — her hand on his arm, his shoulders tight with dread.
Bruce saw him and exhaled. "Arthur… this is really not a good moment."
Arthur slowed to a stop. "Yeah, I noticed. Hard to miss the tanks in the bushes."
Betty followed his gaze and her eyes widened as the pattern finally clicked.
"Oh god. He's doing it again."
"He never stopped," Bruce said quietly.
Arthur opened his coat and held out the folder. "Then let's not make it easy for him."
Bruce frowned. "The legal agreement?"
"If signed by you." Arthur said. "This makes you a civilian protected under federal law. If Ross acts now, he violates Posse Comitatus, use-of-force protocols, and a half-dozen oversight statutes."
Betty looked between them. "Will that stop him?"
"No," Arthur said honestly. "But it'll put a spotlight on everything he does next. And it gives me a lever to pry him off you."
Bruce hesitated only a moment before taking the pen and signing. "I hope you know what you're doing."
Arthur lightly tapped the folder. "Just bought you the only shield you can legally carry."
Behind him, Bruce grabbed Betty's hand. His breath was already shaking, his pulse slipping out of sync.
He looked back toward Arthur — eyes full of apology, fear, and resignation.
"I have to go," Bruce whispered.
"Bruce—don't!" Betty grabbed him, voice breaking.
Arthur turned in time to see Bruce pull away.
"I can't be here when it starts," Bruce said, voice trembling. "I… I won't risk her."
Before they could move, soldiers began emerging from the tree line, forming ranks, rifles raised.
Betty grabbed Bruce's arm. "Dad can't do this—he can't."
Arthur nodded once, jaw tight. "I'll try to talk him. You two stay back." Let's see if that obsessed idiot can still listen to reason, he thought.
Then he stepped directly into the approaching formation.
He reached into his pocket and pressed a fingertip to a barely visible patch of fabric near his collar.
"Astra," he whispered under his breath.
> "I'm here."
"Record everything. Audio, video, troop movement patterns. I want full documentation of Ross's actions from this second forward."
> "Already logging. This is going to be bad, Arthur."
"Yeah let's see if we can change that."
The soilders raised their guns as he approached.
"Astra," he whispered confirming once again.
> "Already watching. Troop movement patterns logged. Comms intercepted. Arthur… this isn't a capture formation. It's a strike."
"Exactly why I need every second recorded."
> "I'm with you."
Arthur reached the command line, stopping in front of Ross — who was shouting into a headset until he realized who had dared to interrupt him.
Ross frowned. "Steele. You have no business being here."
"Actually," Arthur said, tone calm but edged, "I have every reason. Bruce Banner retained me as counsel this morning. Which makes this—" he gestured to the squads, the rifles, the armored vehicle — "an unauthorized military action against a private citizen. That's Posse Comitatus, unlawful force, and a dozen violations I don't even need notes to list."
Ross scoffed, but there was a twitch in his jaw.
"You really think some paperwork scares me right now?"
"No," Arthur said. "But it forces consequences. Cameras, courts, congressional hearings. And that should scare you."
Ross stepped closer. "He's not an ordinary citizen. He's a walking weapon."
"He's a traumatized scientist," Arthur countered immediately. "A man who's been hunted for years because you decided to chase a ghost of the Super Soldier Program."
Ross's expression flickered — anger, shame, denial, all crossing at once.
"You have no idea what I've seen. The aftermath of his transformations. The damage. The bodies."
"And instead of helping the man," Arthur said quietly, "you decided to try and bottle it."
Ross glanced away, jaw tightening.
"Washington wants results. They want control. They want to know the next Captain America isn't walking around with a temper problem."
Arthur tilted his head. "This isn't about America. Or safety. It's about you trying to fix a mistake that was never Banner's to fix."
"Oh, you think you know me?" Ross snapped, finally losing composure. "You think I enjoyed watching that serum fail? Watching soldiers die under my command? You think I wanted to be the man who couldn't deliver what the world demanded?"
"Then stop repeating the same mistake," Arthur said. "You're not saving Bruce. You're breaking him a second time."
Ross looked torn — like he wanted to believe Arthur, but couldn't let go of years of pressure and failure.
Then—
"Dad!"
Betty shoved through two soldiers, nearly stumbling. Ross instantly softened, stepping toward her.
"Betty—sweetheart, this isn't—"
"It is! It's exactly what it looks like!" she screamed. "You're trying to catch him like some animal! You're going to hurt him!"
Ross clenched his jaw. "You don't understand the threat."
"I understand YOU!" she shouted, tears streaming. "I understand what you've been chasing for years! You're trying to rebuild your dream with his blood!"
Arthur stayed beside her, voice low but steady.
"She's not wrong, General."
"Shut up, Steele," Ross snapped. "Stay out of it."
"You should listen to her," Arthur said. "She's the only one you ever listen to, from what I've seen."
Ross looked between them — guilt flickering again, cracks forming in his armor.
Then a voice cut through like a blade.
"Sir."
Blonsky stepped forward, rifle slung casually, smirk already in place.
"If we're done with the therapy session, permission to engage."
Arthur eyed him. "You're going to get yourself flattened."
Blonsky snorted. "Think you know everything, don't you?"
"I don't know what sort of thing you have jacked up on to feel this confidence, neither do I care, but your recklessness will have consequences you can't come back from." Arthur replied. "Do you understand that ?"
Blonsky rolled his eyes. "Relax, counselor. I'll bring your boy in nice and neat."
"He's not—" Arthur began, but Blonsky had already dismissed him with a wave.
Ross didn't rebuke him.
That told Arthur everything he needed to know.
Arthur tried one last time. "General, call off the advance. If Banner runs, let me bring him in safely. You push him—"
Ross cut him off. "Troops advance!"
Arthur let out a sigh of disappointment. His last ditch effort to resolve this didn't work. Ross was too stubborn and blinded by greed to stop.
Ross didn't hesitate. "Move in."
Betty's voice cracked. "Dad, please!"
Bruce was already running towards the building, Blonsky and the unit hot on his tails.
Arthur watched Bruce disappear into the science building's side entrance — the same one Bruce himself once used daily.
Betty tried to run after him, but Arthur caught her wrist gently.
"Betty — don't," he said quietly. "If you go in with him right now, you'll only make him panic more."
Her eyes shined with fear. "But they're chasing him! They're going to corner him!"
Arthur looked over her shoulder. Soldiers were already running inside, gas canisters in hand.
"Yeah," he muttered. "They're forcing the transformation."
The building shuddered from the inside.
A soldier stumbled out of the doorway, eyes wide. "He's in there! He's—he's—"
He never finished.
Hulk burst through the side of the building like the wall was paper. Concrete exploded outward. Soldiers scattered.
Betty gasped, hand flying to her mouth.
"Ohhk... This is way more terrifying than I thought, seeing him in a movie is nothing compared to what I feel now." Arthur shuddered.
Hulk landed in the clearing, massive and heaving, shoulders rising and falling like a living earthquake. His eyes swept the field — instinct first, recognition nowhere.
Troops immediately opened fire.
Arthur muttered, "Idiots—he's not even attacking yet."
Hulk roared, a thunderous shockwave of anger and confusion.
Blonsky not far away started engaging him and seemed to be keeping up with him which made Ross make a face as if being a dog in heat imagining his super army.
After the initial disorientation, the Hulk now angry started going after Blonsky, who in turn flex towards the Armoured trucks.
Ross pointed. "CANNONS! NOW!"
The Sonic Cannons rolled forward, digging into the earth as they aligned.
Blonsky was thrown away by the impact and the attack hit Hulk like a physical wall — vibrational pressure slamming him backward.
He roared in pain, forced to his knees.
Arthur winced. "Astra?"
> "Frequencies are destabilizing his motor control. Pain is extreme. He can't stabilize his balance."
Hulk planted his feet.
Muscles coiled like steel cables.
He pushed against the sonic blast inch by inch — until the clamps holding the cannon platform began to slide.
Then he leapt.
A single jump closed the distance.
He smashed the left cannon like a tin can.
The right cannon fired again but he tore through it in seconds.
The sonic barrage died instantly.
Blonsky — drunk on serum and ego — stepped forward between Hulk and the troops.
He rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and yelled, "Come on! Is that all you've got?"
"BLONSKY STAND DOWN.!!!"Ross yelled into the comma,which he ignored and threw the earpiece away
Arthur muttered, "Oh, for god's sake what idiot, here it com—"
Blonsky dodged a swipe, ducked a punch, moved faster than any normal human.
Then he made a mistake.
He stood still and taunted him again.
"COME ON!"
Hulk tilted his head slightly.
Then kicked him.
Hard.
Blonsky flew across the field like a ragdoll, slamming into a tree with a sickening thud.
His body collapsed in a twisted heap.
Astra whispered:
> "He's alive… somehow. The serum is forcing stabilization."
Silence swept the quad.
Even Ross froze.
Then—
"Fall back! FALL BACK!"
Soldiers scattered, dragging wounded away. Ross grabbed a radio, shouting for the helicopter.
Arthur watched the sky automatically.
Not yet.
Betty took a step toward Hulk, voice barely a whisper. "Bruce…"
Hulk turned toward her, breathing hard, body still shaking with the aftershock of the sonics.
Arthur stepped beside her, not blocking her way — just enough to intervene if anything went wrong.
"Go slow," Arthur murmured. "He hears tone more than words right now."
Betty's voice cracked. "Bruce… it's me. I'm okay. I'm right here."
Hulk's massive chest rose and fell, breath shuddering. The tension in his arms shifted — not gone, not safe, but no longer aimed at her.
Then—
The helicopter burst over the treeline.
Ross leaned out, shouting at the pilot. "WAIT—BETTY'S DOWN THERE—DON'T FIRE—"
Too late.
Gunfire erupted. Muzzle flashes lit the dusk.
Hulk threw his body around Betty instantly, taking every bullet across his back. The ground shook as he dug his heels into the earth.
The helicopter circled, repositioning — the pilot still hadn't seen Betty shielded behind Hulk's frame.
Arthur cursed under his breath and ran, "Fucking idiot can't even control his own troops". He arrives near them and nervously looked towards Hulk, don't smash big guy, I am here to take your beauty to safety he thought dragging Betty back before the next burst could catch her if Hulk moved.
The chopper fired again.
Hulk ripped a piece of twisted metal from the ground and hurled it like a spear.
The helicopter spun, engine screaming, before crashing in a burst of flame and headed straight towards Arthur, he pushed Betty away and the impact blasted him across the lawn.
Betty screamed as debris hit the quad.
"Aarghh..!!! God damn it...I am going to feel that tomorrow." Arthur grimaced.
Astra was franatic in his ears,"Arthur.!!! What the hell were you thinking ? That was dangerous."
"You have three broken ribs and a torn ligament in your shoulder, You could have died" , she reprimanded him while releasing the semi nanites filled with regenerative medicine courtesy of the Bio Labs into his wounds.
She sounded scared and trembling , her tone filled with something resembling a bit of fear for Arthur.
"Yeah... I know.. just didn't want to take any chances of Betty getting hurt or none of us would leave this place alive." Arthur said guiltily as he heard Astra, she was still just a child yet in her personality development stage and he was her only connection to the world. He needed to be careful with his decisions arround her.
For a terrifying second, everything vanished into smoke and orange light.
Then—
A massive silhouette rose from the flames.
Hulk.
Holding Betty in his arms, curled protectively against his chest.
Ross froze, horror breaking across his face. "Betty—BETTY—"
Hulk looked back at him a low, rattling growl rolled through the smoke as he turned away and leapt into the nearby trees, carrying Betty with him.
Smoke drifted low across the lawn, glowing orange where fires still clung to overturned vehicles. The screech of damaged metal, the distant bark of orders, the frantic rush of medics — it all blended into one heavy pulse of chaos.
And somewhere beyond the treeline, Hulk was gone.
Betty was with him.
Arthur let out a slow breath. He'd known how this would end the moment Ross refused to listen. But knowing didn't make the wreckage any easier to look at.
Broken helmets. Shattered glass. A crater where Blonsky's body had hit the ground after that brutal kick.
Arthur walked past it, boots crunching over fragments of the glass walkway Hulk had exploded through minutes earlier. Soldiers swarmed the area, but no one paid him too much attention — everyone had bigger concerns.
He crouched near a twisted metal railing, his eyes catching a faint smear of dark red across a fragment of debris.
Blonsky's blood.
"Perfect," he murmured under his breath.
He brushed his fingertip over it. The System pulled the sample into his Inventory with a faint flicker in his vision.
> [Sample Secured — "Encrypted Storage Active"]
Astra's voice whispered privately into his ear, calm but tighter than usual.
"That's a very unstable variant, Arthur. I'll prepare full isolation protocols."
"Good," he replied. "Last thing we need is that garbage reacting with anything else. Let's see if the Bio Lab can make something of it"
He rose before anyone nearby even noticed him crouch.
Across the quad, General Ross stood beside a damaged jeep, helmet under his arm, staring at the forest as if he could force it to give his daughter back. Officers hovered near him, uncertain whether to offer status reports or space.
Arthur walked toward him, hands in the pockets of his coat, steps measured.
"General."
Ross turned sharply at the voice. For a second he looked like he might snap — then he recognized Arthur, and the anger shifted into something colder.
"You have a hell of a nerve coming back over here," Ross muttered.
Arthur stopped a few feet away, his voice even. "I'm here because you need to understand what actually happened."
Ross let out a short, bitter laugh. "What happened? Banner happened. Again. My men are in pieces, and my daughter is gone with that monster, that's what happened."
Arthur didn't react to the bite in the general's tone.
"He's a scared scientist you cornered," Arthur corrected calmly. "And today was exactly the reaction you were warned about."
Ross opened his mouth, then closed it, jaw tightening.
Ross snapped, "You weren't in the aftermath of his last incidents, Steele. You didn't see what he did. Men crushed. Streets torn apart. Careers ruined. And every time Washington calls me, they want the same thing — control. Stability. Something predictable."
"And you thought Bruce was your way to get it," Arthur said quietly.
Ross flinched — barely, but Arthur saw it.
"This isn't about safety," Arthur continued. "It's about recreating something that died with Erskine. And no amount of soldiers or gas grenades is going to force a miracle out of a man who never asked for any of this."
Ross's breathing grew uneven, but his eyes stayed hard.
Arthur lowered his voice. "You're chasing the wrong war, General. You didn't just push Bruce today — you pushed your daughter straight into the crossfire."
That struck deeper than anything else so far.
Ross looked away, blinking once. Not anger — something closer to pain.
Arthur didn't soften. "And when the oversight committee reviews this footage — and they will — every order you gave today will be under a microscope."
Ross turned back with a shaky breath. "You going to run to Washington? File your paperwork? Make this political?"
"This is already political," Arthur said simply. "You brought an armed unit onto a college campus and opened fire. There's no version of today where that stays quiet."
Ross didn't argue, because he couldn't.
For the first time since Arthur walked up, the general looked… tired. Truly, deeply tired.
Arthur stepped back slightly. "You're not a villain, General. But today you made choices that pushed you toward becoming one. Stop before you cross a line you can't come back from."
Ross stared past him at the ruined quad, the smoke, the scattered wounded. His voice came out barely above a whisper.
"…He has my daughter."
Arthur nodded once. "And she's alive because he protected her."
Ross swallowed, throat visibly tight.
Arthur gave him a final, steady look. "Get your men medical attention. Pull them out. Let this go for tonight. The more you push, the worse this gets — for everyone."
He turned to leave, but paused just long enough to add,
" I really don't want to go against you General, let Bruce go and live his life in peace or I will make sure your's is a constant headache."
Ross didn't respond. He just stood frozen, staring out at the forest where his daughter had vanished into the dark with the only man he couldn't control.
Arthur walked away through the smoke, Astra whispering quietly in his ear.
"Arthur… are you alright?"
"Yeah," he murmured. "But Ross won't let this go and neither will we."
A/N.
Yeah... I went AWOL again.
Honestly I didn't have motivation to continue this at all as I was going through some shit in my life and work, so didn't write anything, I took a week long vacation recently to just get away from everything and everyone.
I will not ask you guys to be patient with the book as I will not be consistent with the updates, I will upadate chapters every once in a while as I really want to write a story that I have built, but if you guys drop this because of the uneven chapter releases , I won't blame you...
Anyways enjoy the chapter, if you haven't dropped the book already that is.
Ciao..!!