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[hyperkinesia]

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text;

[niffin]

[ She's too chicken to do this over any other medium. The issue's too hypocritical, too close to home. Over text, no one can see your hands shake. ]

Dr. Banner,

When you have a moment, could I ask you a few questions? It's about what happened on Cauduceus.

[ She's considered ignoring it and just watching him, insisting on shadowing the classes until her anxieties are assuaged. But her cover's too thin to keep up with that for long. If she does that, then sooner or later someone will actually ask her about physics. ]

Your position isn't in jeopardy. [ What she really wants to see is whether he lies. ] I've been told it was an accident of multiple factors, and you've been recommended by someone whose opinion I hold pretty highly.

But I'd be negligent to you and your students to not try and understand the situation.

text;

[hyperkinesia]

[ The moment she mentions Caducus, he already knows what she's talking about. He can't say he's surprised, honesty - if anything he'd find it weird that she didn't eventually learn about what happened on that planet, and it's not like he's been making much of a point to keep it a secret.

But he has grown a little tired of explaining the situation time and again. So much so that he goes on to send her a long text in response to tell her the whole thing in one go, instead of answering things in little bits and pieces.

Text actually helps in that regard. This way he can write everything down and make sure he doesn't forget anything. ]

Some years ago, I was working with a team in a project about radiation resistance, or so we were told.
We didn't know that it was actually an attempt to replace an experiment that had happened some decades before, Project Rebirth. The intention was to create Super Soldiers.
I subjected myself to the experiment when I thought that we had been successful in achieving our goal. My body was flooded with gamma radiation. I should've died, but I'd been injected with a serum too. I didn't know it was actually a radiation-resistant serum.

So instead of dying, the experiment gave me a monster, the Hulk.
When my body releases certain levels of adrenaline, they cross with the gamma radiation and the transformation happens. Basically, anything that makes my heart speed up too much will make me turn.
I've learned to control it for the most part, but on rare occasions I can still be triggered by outside influences. In Caducus Primary, I was cornered by a group of natives and attacked, which made me lose that control.
It was my fault. I was trying to help people back to the ship but after they warned us to leave and became more hostile, I should have gone back to the ship. I thought I could still help, but it was a mistake with horrible consequences.
Usually he just runs away after some time, but being in a strange world, with all the people coming at him, I think it made him angrier. The planet was pretty brittle too, so it didn't stand much of a chance.

I can do controlled transformations, though. Those times I'm in control. I can help people, instead of hurting them.
But I don't do it unless I really have to.

[ He's honestly starting to wonder if he should put together a file with all this information for people to find easily. ]

I can simply not give the lessons, if you don't want me to. But I'm not going to turn green on the ship. If I feel there's danger that I might lose control, there's a cage on the cargo bay built especially for the Hulk. It wouldn't be the first time I've locked myself up in there as a preventative measure.

[niffin]

[ That he’s volunteered the information in a chunk, instead of just answering what’s needed — it says a lot of things. It says weariness, says preparedness. Says that she's picking at a nasty little scab here.

Alice doesn’t care, doesn’t feel she’s been unreasonable to ask. There were shittier ways to do this, and that’s enough of a self-righteous heat to keep her focused and reading.

It was my fault is part of what she’s looking for, checks off a box on the list. I was attacked is the second. ]

If I didn’t think you should teach, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I told you that your position wasn’t in question, and I meant that. As long as you want to share that with the ship, I'll do everything I can to make that happen.

But I think you’re aware that this isn’t a ship full of ordinary kids. We’ve had violence already. And given the people on-board? There’ll always be potential for more. Any teenager will throw a punch if you catch them at the wrong moment. Let alone former child soldiers, let alone people with superpowers or magic or three-inch razor claws.

As enormously fucking surreal as this is to type: I think that you and I need a plan for what it is you do if one of your students ever comes at you.

[hyperkinesia]

[ It's not unreasonable to ask, not by a long shot. But it's also to be expected that he's a little tired of telling the same story time and again. Still, if anything this conversation tells him that he really should try and put some kind of file about his condition, just so that everyone on board can be informed if they want to be.

But then, he has a feeling a lot of people here would have plenty of information to fill up files of their own - not that Bruce would ever ask them to, but still. Like she says, this isn't a ship full of ordinary people. As a matter of fact, ordinary is a rarity on board the Moira. ]

I don't engage with people like that. If I sense a threat, I run away, and as you can imagine, I've gotten good at spotting threats.
If I really have no other choice, I can do a controlled transformation and stop things from escalating to a much worse situation.

But that's my plan every day of my life, here just as much as it was back home. And I've lived in areas of high conflict without a single transformation for months or years. I can't really offer you more than my word and experiences on this, but short of locking myself up permanently for as long as I'm here, there's nothing more I can do.

For the record, one single punch or shove won't trigger me. I was gunned down, back in Caducus Primary.

[niffin]

I appreciate that word, and I understand that there's only so much you can convey. This kind of thing doesn't even happen where I'm from; I can't imagine living it.

For what it's worth, you don't come off as Mr. Hyde or anything.

[ Or like anyone that needs to be full of bullets. There are implications there that she doesn't know how to begin to address. Do you send a "I'm sorry you got shot" card? Is there a protocol for that?

The problem, when she gets down to it, isn't with Bruce. But Alice can't shake the sense of threat that still crawls up her spine. It's a risk. It's a risk that she never even suspected, or thought to look for, and she's terrified that she won't be able to keep pace with it. It makes her want to bite.

It'd be easier if he'd willingly transformed. Then it wouldn't be an unknown. Then she'd have the least idea how to handle this. ]

When you say that you can produce a controlled transformation, can you describe what that means? Practically. Are you capable of contacting people, still making rational choices? Can it lead into a full-blown incident?

[hyperkinesia]

People usually refer to me as Jekyll, actually.

[ And he's a doctor and everything too, figure that. Not that he ever turns into the Hulk for the same reasons as Jekyll did in the book, but she gets the gist of it, he figures. ]

I can control him. I decide his actions and direct his thought process. He can recognize people like that - friends, acquaintances, enemies, and so on - and he won't go on a rampage throughout the ship. Of course as you can imagine, even a tamed elephant can destroy a few things in its path, but I'd say that's better than punching a hole through the hull.

I get that you're worried, believe me when I say I'm always worried myself. Being in an enclosed vessel with all kinds of people while traveling across space isn't exactly what I'd pick as the safest place to be, but I've adapted. It's the most I can do. Giving lessons won't really make me more of a risk to anyone.

If anything or anyone triggers me aboard the ship, it won't be the students I might have.

[niffin]

That was sort of the joke.

[ She has to joke, or she's going to shout.

Would it be safer to just be him, all the time, so you wouldn't accidentally transform? She wants to ask it, but she won't, can't bring herself to. Despite everything, that's not fair to him, and she knows it.

It would've been safer for everyone if she'd stayed a spirit — but that's not a life that's worth living. ]

If you do ever punch a hole in the hull, please make a skylight. [ Wouldn't any hole be? ] And if you run into any students you think might be a danger to others —

[ Chara. She means Chara. ]

— Please let me know. I can always see about moving them to a different group. I want to have your back here, and I'm still grateful that you put your name forward for this.

[ And she's going to start screening a hell of a lot more carefully. ]

[hyperkinesia]

[ Whatever reaction she'd have to all this, it wouldn't be a first to Bruce. Really, he's probably seen them all at this point— especially on board the Moira.

She could ask it of him, but he wouldn't do it. It wouldn't have been safer, for starters, not to mention that the only way to keep a transformation going indefinitely would be to continue provoking and spiking the Hulk, offering triggers for the adrenaline to keep flowing. And Bruce has had people wanting to do that, not in the same way that Alice is thinking, but people wanting to cage him up like an animal, only to release him and the monster into the middle of a battlefield. It's nothing he'd have ever agreed to, not in any context. ]

I'll keep that in mind. [ He can't help but smile at the attempt at humor, forced as it might be. ]

I'll let you know, yes. And if you happen to know of any students I should be particularly careful around, tell me. I won't go around spreading their name or anything, I'll just keep an eye out for them, and if I feel like I can't handle the situation, you can see about taking them from my classes.

[ He genuinely understands her concern there. And he knows people well enough to know that there are dangerous, crazy types who would love to poke at Bruce just to see the other guy, and would even relish in the chaos and destruction he would leave in his wake. He's met people like that before, even. ]

[niffin]

[ There's a common thread there. About anger, about becoming someone that you're not, in ways that are at once all too literal. There's a common thread, and it's the kind that she's never going to spool into view. ]

Thank you. I think a lot of these kids could use someone looking out for them in a good way, too.

I recommended Alphonse Elric ask after advanced tutoring with you. I think you'll find him both enthusiastic and skilled. I'll stay in contact.

Hope your evening goes better from here, Dr. Banner.

[hyperkinesia]

I'll try my best.

[ He knows this entire situation must be much more difficult on the kids than on the adults on board, especially when some of them are taken away from their homes, their families, and find themselves with no support whatsoever here. The least they can do is to try and offer some of that support, to be sure they know they're not completely alone and they have people they can depend on and go to if they need anything. ]

I know him, actually. He's made his interest very apparent already. But thanks for the heads up.

And thanks. I'll talk to you later. And let me know if you need help with anything.