bruce banner, LIFELINE

the catch.

Parker had to force herself not to cry. She thought after everything, after all her preparation and mental talks she would be able to function next to the Hulk in person. She was wrong, in fact she knew that without Loki tightening his hold her she wouldn't be standing.

She caught his eye and tried to not to watch his failing nostrils in her peripheral vision. Catherine Parker tried to find Bruce Banner, she knew he was there but through the green skin and bulging muscles, the lanky scientist that didn't have time to be clean shaven but couldn't stand the thought  of a beard, was hard to find. In fact the moment she saw the Jekyll to her Hyde standing in front of her the furthest she had felt from Bruce in a long time.

Parker saw Spider-Man next to him and she forced herself to breath deeper and deeper, and she felt Loki's arm move with her chest along with the staff scraping her skin. Then she felt his forearm tense and she resorted to shallow breath from her nose. 

The world wasn't slowing down for Parker as Loki stared at the pair and they watched her. Chaos still rampaged outside behind the figure but Parker felt like she had been left behind.

"Take one more step and she dies," Parker didn't want to die. She didn't. It seemed in the space of twenty minutes that had become a real possibility; the Hulk could survive anything and Peter probably could too but Catherine Parker worried about herself. The women could deal with any amount of emotional trauma but physical danger was terrifying, "I mean it. And don't you try anything Spider."

Neither of them moved, Parker finally tried to free herself. She squirmed in his grasp and kicked with her legs to no positive avail as Loki seemed indestructible. Peter flinched, Parker wished she could see his eyes through the mask and Bruce's behind the Hulk but it just happened that she was struggling to see anything at all from hers.

Her vision was becoming blurred around the edges as if her brain isn't processing her surroundings. It scared her especially as she saw the convulsions of the Hulks face. It was confusion, two sides of the same person who aren't afraid to kill the other one for dominance.

Loki laughed but didn't stop staring at the Hulk; it was Bruce's love verus his mind control. And soon an inner torment was going to spill into the real world. Peter realised he was in just as much danger as his sister but he wouldn't grant her captor the satisfaction of his surrender.

"Bruce..." Parker whispered, she hoped it would help. But it didn't, it made her throat close up even more. She wasn't saying it through a phone, her lifeline had finally answered but he felt closer when they were thousands of miles away.

Bruce looked at her, the little part of the scientist fighting through. He wished he had never seen it, never seen the drop of blood running down the sceptre and the wrinkles forming on Parker's forehead. He had always tried to keep her young, keep her happy and now neither of them were.

"Hulk." Bruce's neck snapped again and he clenched his knuckles, with Loki's words,  "That's his name." Parker shivered and tried to free herself again but it was useless.

Before she had been the tough one; she had outrun an archer, she had put together the puzzle pieces but now she was fragile. But that was okay. Because she was human. Not a hero, super or not. She was a mere mortal , "Or shall I call him the Beast? You're the Beauty anyway,"

Parker knew she wasn't a princess even though her prince was standing right in front of her.

That goes for you too Webs, you move, she dies." It was either his naivety or love for Parker but Peter didn't even allow his fingers to move but they were ready. Ready for whatever he would have to do because there was no way he was letting his sister come close to dying. Not again.