Chapter 16

Well, that was...unxpected. Though I'm certainly not going to complain about it.

Jen presses herself closer against me, muttering to herself in her sleep, the bedsheets lying in a heap on the floor next to our clothes, because as it turns out, gamma-mutates run pretty hotblooded, and lying next to one is like having your own personal green furnace. I'm still not sure why she decided to jump into bed with me, I've only known her for a few days, hell I don't think I've even told her my real NAME yet, but when friggin She-Hulk climbs into your bed in the middle of the night, I sure as hell wasn't going to turn it down.

"What the hell- Jen?! What time is it-MFF?!"

I'm drawn out of the half-slumber I've slipped into when I hear the bed next to mine creak, followed by the sound of clothes being removed. I barely have time to register what's happening before a very naked Jen climbs on top of me and presses her lips against mine. For a few moments, I'm too surprised to do much more than lay there, but I finally gather my wits enough to kiss back, before we break apart.

"...not that I'm complaining, but what's going on right now?"

"I really hope I don't need to explain that to you, because otherwise this won't be nearly as fun as I had expected."

Smartass. "I meant more in the sense of "Why now?" and "Why with me?" Again, not complaining, just checking."

She kisses me again "Like you said earlier tonight, "because I felt like it"."

I know I REALLY shouldn't be questioning this but I have to put it out there "I didn't help you and Bruce just to get in your pants, Jen. I wasn't even thinking about this."

"I know, that's why this is happening. Well, that, and all that power is pretty damn hot. Reality warping is supposed to be pretty versatile."

Well, haven't had a chance to try it out for that yet, but a first time for everything

Turns out one of the advantages of my powerset is I can give myself as much super-toughness I want, letting Jen go all-out so to speak without risking breaking me in half, which is a bit of an issue for... well, everyone with super strength, but gamma-mutates in particular. There's a reason for why Hulk's dating life was so bad before he met Caiera, and it wasnt just that he was constantly on the run from the U.S Army.

Jen stirs, her eyes slowly opening "Mmmff.... you awake already? I thought you'd be out for hours at the very least. I must be losing my touch."

"Hell, I'm not even sure I actually still need to sleep or not. I just haven't wanted to try, because a sleep-deprived reality warper seems like a bad idea if it doesn't work."

"Fair enough" Jen smiles and slips out of the bed before stretching her arms over her head "Well, it's not dark outside anymore, so I'm guessing it's early morning?"

I shrug "I think so, but this IS an alien planet, for all we know this is the midnight daytime or something. Though Bruce would probably have mentioned if they had something like that, so yeah, early morning seems about right. Honestly, I sort of lost track of time after last night."

"Mmm, it's been a while since I didn't have to hold myself back at all, I don't get to do that often. Sorry about waking you up in the middle of the night like that, like I said it was kind of a spur of the moment thing."

"Nah, out of all the things I've been woken up for in the middle of the night, that was probably in the top 3. Top 5 for sure."

She laughs as she picks her discarded clothes up from the floor and places them on her mostly unused bed before turning back to me "Well, we probably have a few hours before the feast begins, you want to go check out the showers?"

"Sure, but you know I can just will us to be clean, right?" Jen shoots me a blank look, her arms crossed over her chest. "...unless that's not what you meant?"

...

After an unecessarily long shower session and conjuring up fresh sets of clothes for the two of us, Jen and I finally make our way out of the guest chambers and into the palace itself, which is already beginning to bustle with activity, as workers are busy with repairing and cleaning up the damages caused to the citadel during the war. A group of lizard-like aliens are trying to raise a fallen pillar, and I stop briefly to help, the pillar quickly putting itself back together and reattaching to the ceiling much to their surprise.

"You know, now that I think of it, couldn't you just fix the whole palace like that if you wanted? Or even the whole planet, it looks pretty banged up." Jen asks as she watches the workers check the pillar, making sure it's actually fixed.

"Probably, but I'm guessing Bruce wants his people to rebuild themselves, remind themselves that it's not the Red King's world anymore. Plus, I have a feeling Caiera would see it as me stealing her husbands glory or something."

Jen nods "Yeah, she... she's kind of nuts, isn't she?"

"Yep, a life on a death world under the whims of a brutal tyrant will do that. Though I'm sure she'll warm up to you eventually, you are her sister-in-law after all! They're going to need someone to babysit someday too, so you better Hulk Babyproof your apartment when we get back. And considering the kind of kid those two are likely to have, I don't mean babyproof it for the baby's safety, I mean for the apartments."

Jen suddenly develops a rather interesting facial twitch at the thought I just put in her head, but our conversation is interupted by the pretty red-skinned woman I remember from the Warbound walking up to us. "Earthlings? Could you follow me, please?"

"Oh, hey, Elloe right? What's up?"

"The Green King wished to speak with you before the feast, he's waiting for you in his private chambers."

.....

Much to our surprise, it's not the Hulk that's waiting for us inside the chamber, instead we're met by a scrawny, unassuming man with messy brown hair, dressed in a simple tunic that still seems to be too large for him. Jen gasps as she sees him.

"Bruce!"

Bruce Banner smiles and nods at her "Jen. I wanted to see you again in human form atleast once before you head back to Earth, and you can probably guess why I don't spend a lot of time as Bruce Banner around here. Caiera and the rest of the Warbound knows, but I don't think my other subjects will be as impressed by a nerdy human as they were by the Hulk."

Jen doesn't answer, she simply walks up and hugs him, while I stand back, letting them have their family moment. Finally, she pulls back. "I still can't belive it. Bruce Banner, king of an alien planet somehow seems more belivable than Bruce Banner, with a a wife and a kid on the way. I'm happy you've found somewhere to belong... but I'm still going to throw Stark through the wall for sending you into space in the first place."

Bruce shrugs awkwardly "In his defence, he didn't know he was sending me here, from what I understand he wanted to send me to an uninhabited forest world, but there was some kind of spatial alomaly that sent me to Sakaar instead."

"Yeah, the issue here was sending you into space, not where you eventually ended up. Stranding you on some random planet isn't much better." She sighs and shakes her head "Nevermind, I'm just glad you're okay despite everything. But if you ever ask me to babysit for you and Caiera, I'm not doing it at my place, I'm still paying for it!"

Bruce blinks in confusion "I'll... keep that in mind?" He turns towards me "I really must thank you as well, Mr Ginnungagap, if you hadn't found those explosives in the warp core... well, I'd rather not think about it, I can feel the Hulk stirring just at the thought of it. Both you and Jen are welcome on Sakaar anytime you want. I suppose travelling here won't be much of an issue for you."

"Speaking of which, I wanted to give you something before we left, Mr Banner." I open my hand and a small plastic model of Earth, about the size of a baseball, pops into existance inside it. "I know you've done a lot to fix up the planet, but let's be honest, space is dangerous, so I wanted to leave this with you. It's an emergency beacon of sorts, if there's ever a threat that you guys can't handle on your own, just hold this and focus, and I'll know and pop over to help. You and your Warbound can handle almost anything the universe can throw at you, but it's better to be safe than sorry." I toss the model to Bruce, who catches it with an awed expression on his face.

"Thank you, I... I appreciate the offer, more than you know." He carefully places the model on the table next to the massive bed, taking one last look at it before turning back around. "Now, let me show you what Sakaar has to offer"

.....

It's late afternoon back home by the time we step through the portal back to Earth. Well, I step through, Jen sort of hangs off me, because as it turns out, even a Hulk can drink too much space wine. It tasted like wine anyway, I have no idea what it's actually made from.

"Let's go, you lush. This is what happens when you drink weird space booze!" We walk from Sakaar right back to Jen's apartment, since I figured she'd probably want to sober up in her own place rather than my pocket dimension meeting place. Though I'm pretty sure she's not nearly as drunk as she's acting, and just wants to mess with me.

"Aw come on, I just wanted to have a few drinks with my cousin just in case I'll never see him again!" she says overdramatically as I deposit her on the living room couch.

"Never going to see- You realize I can just walk across space anytime you ask me, right? Hell, I can just make you something that let's you teleport to Sakaar anytime you feel like it! You probably have an easier time seeing him now than you did before!"

"Thaaat's not it" she tries sitting up but slumps back down again "He's going to have a family of his own now, not to mention a whole kingdom to run! No room for cousin Jen there. He'd never say it, but I know he needs to build a life away from all of this. I don't want to get in the way of that..." She sighs and lies back against the armrest as she kicks off her boots and drop them to the side. "Bruce is gone, the Avengers are gone, Steve is dead, Stark and Reed are... I know things could be a hell of a lot worse, but it feels like everything I know is going away."

"Yeah, tell me about changes" I move her legs aside, giving me room to sit down "I was just some regular jerk til I woke up one day with a ridiculous amount of power, power that it's a constant struggle to not misuse. I like to think I've used them atleast somewhat responsibly, but you know how it is, some people don't think you're being responsible unless literally all you do is save cats from trees or something. I mean, I wasn't a particularly moral person before, but I didn't have any power then. Now that I do, I'm terrified I'm going to turn into something...horrible. Because trust me, it's happened to others before."

"The fact that you're actually worried about it puts you a little ahead of the curve" Jen says, draping her legs back over my lap "I guess we both need to get used to the new status quo, not like I've never gone through life-altering changes before. This is just another thing to work around." The Time Gem appears in her hand, floating just above the palm "Speaking of Stark and Reed, you know there's no way those two aren't working on something to get the gems back."

"Yup. Any thoughts?"

"Well, I was going to suggest you just teleport them into the sun or something, but let's call that Plan B. For now, I'm planning to bury them up to their necks in legal trouble, because there is no way they've managed to completely cover their tracks on all the crap they've pulled so far. The question is, where do we start looking?"

An old, vague memory from the comics nags at the back of my mind "I might have an idea on that. I'm going to have a little talk with Ben Urich and see if he knows more than he's been telling."