Tony fought desperately to keep Hulk at bay, but he didn't do the slightest damage to him. At most, he put a little color on Hulk's skin. Luckily, it was noon now; at any other time, sooner or later something would happen to Tony.
No, Rimuru couldn't keep watching. Hulk could make countless mistakes, but Tony could only afford one. If he really got caught, he'd get the same treatment as Loki.
Rimuru put on Dragon Knight, opened a portal and rushed to the battlefield, just in time to see Hulk slap Tony flying.
"Holy shit, Tony, how are you? What a tragic death you've suffered! Don't worry, after your death, I shall care for your wife in your stead; be at ease. I'll take good care of Pepper for you, and I'll take care of Stark Industries too, so rest assured..." Before Rimuru could finish wailing, Tony hurriedly interrupted him.
"Stop yelling. I'm not dead yet, just hurt. What did you mean by all that?" Tony got to his feet and slapped a healing potion onto himself.
"Nothing. I thought you'd logged off early. Anyway, doesn't my Dragon Knight look cool?" Rimuru hurriedly laughed it off and changed the subject.
"Did you finally escape the light armor trap? But why is your armor so flashy? And how did you get taller?" Tony kept criticizing Rimuru's armor and noticed the change in his height too.
As Tony and Rimuru chatted as though no one else were there, Hulk suddenly flew into a rage. Then he made a great leap and ran away. That was right, he ran away.
It turned out Betty had started to exert her influence.
The soldiers at the scene breathed a sigh of relief when they saw Hulk run off. General Ross looked at his badly battered troops and gritted his teeth, but could only order a retreat. Naturally, he also took Blonsky away, reduced as he was to a pile of mush.
Rimuru was the most speechless of all. He hadn't even made his entrance, and it was already over?
Still, it was fine. Looking in the direction Hulk had left, Rimuru figured that although Tony had barged into the plot, it probably hadn't changed much. Next, they would go looking for Mr. Blue. Come to think of it, this Mr. Blue didn't seem like a good person either.
After Blonsky was rescued and taken back, he was injected with another dose of enhancement serum. It felt like he wasn't merely mutated anymore; he'd become a freak.
"Stop blaming everyone and everything. You should be glad you didn't get a chance to step in." Tony scoffed and walked slowly over to the wreckage of a damaged suit of armor, casually kicking aside a warped piece of metal. "You saw Hulk in his berserk state just now. When that guy completely loses his mind, his defense and brute strength are off the charts. I fought him up close in a full Mark Armor suit, and aside from scraping a little skin off him and leaving a couple of white marks, I didn't do any real damage at all. It was like shooting a tank with a handgun."
"If you'd really charged in, you probably would've just taken a beating alongside me. It would've been a complete waste of effort."
"Please, me, get beaten up? Haven't you heard that after three days apart, you should look at a man with fresh eyes? Do you really think my armor is just for show? With the slightest effort, I'm already at the pinnacle of this era, at least twenty years ahead." Rimuru wore a mischievous grin, looking thoroughly pleased with himself.
Tony's face kept twitching as he listened. Rimuru was bragging and bringing up his embarrassing past at the same time. Tony immediately scoffed, his face full of disdain. "Flashy doesn't mean powerful. No amount of fancy showmanship beats real strength in combat. Every upgrade to my armor is for the ultimate performance in an actual fight. Yours is obviously a pretty shell built for looks."
The two habitually fell into trading barbs, arguing happily in the empty desert. The tension from the battle just now had completely vanished.
As Rimuru bickered with Tony, he silently sorted through the plot that would follow.
In the original story, after this battle, Banner would take Betty and evade the military's pursuit. To cure the Hulk toxin in his body and free himself from Hulk once and for all, he would seek out Mr. Blue, Samuel Sterns, who claimed he could study the gamma virus and heal his body.
Everyone thought Stern was the only researcher who could help Banner. He seemed gentle, knowledgeable and well-meaning, but Rimuru knew the guy was no good.
He appeared to help Banner without asking for anything in return, but he was full of schemes, obsessed with Hulk's gamma energy and mutated genes. He had been using Banner all along, secretly studying and replicating Hulk's power. He even desperately wanted to absorb Hulk's mutated abilities, hoping to gain complete control over them, utterly consumed by forbidden mutation research.
The later birth of Abomination was also closely connected to this Mr. Blue.
At the thought, some of the playfulness faded from Rimuru's eyes, replaced by a trace of gravity.
In the original plot, Tony hadn't barged onto the battlefield, and Rimuru hadn't intervened. The story had progressed steadily. But this time, Tony had joined the battle ahead of schedule and disrupted the original pace. Even so, the central storyline hadn't changed. Banner's desires, Stern's ambition-everything was still on its predetermined course.
"Hey, Tony." Rimuru put away his playful expression and turned to Tony, who was checking the damage to his armor. His tone grew more serious. "Haven't you considered that there's no escaping the Hulk problem? General Ross retreated this time, but the pursuit won't stop, and Banner can't keep hiding forever."
Tony paused and looked up. "Of course I know that. But right now, there's no way to eradicate the gamma mutation completely, so all we can do is remain at a temporary impasse. Don't tell me you have a solution?"
"Have you ever thought about recruiting Bruce Banner? He has seven doctorates. He's a bona fide high-IQ genius. Bring him into Stark Industries."
"Recruit Banner?" Tony repeated. There was no emotion in his voice, but Rimuru knew he was listening. "The... original self of the big guy who can crush my latest armor like a soda can whenever he gets angry?"
"The very same soda-can maker with seven doctorates." Rimuru spread his hands, repeating what made Banner exceptional. "Think about it, Tony. General Ross is hunting him as a weapon because all he sees is Hulk's destructive power. But have you read his research papers? His understanding of gamma radiation, biochemistry and even interdisciplinary energy conversion may be deeper than that of most people in the S.H.I.E.L.D. database. All he needs is a lab where the military won't suddenly burst through the door, and a boss who won't make him worry about his research being used to create supersoldiers."
Tony fell silent for a moment. In the distance, General Ross's troops were gathering their remaining soldiers and carrying away the wounded and the unconscious Blonsky. The scene was a mess, a stark contrast to the clean, orderly, futuristic labs at Stark Industries.
"Pepper will kill me," Tony finally said, but Rimuru could hear the keen interest in his voice. "Recruit a scientist who's wanted by the military worldwide and has a green demolition crew living inside him? That would bring the company endless hearings, legal trouble and PR disasters."
"Oh, come on," Rimuru scoffed. "You're Tony Stark. Trouble became your middle name when you stood in front of the whole world and announced, 'I am Iron Man.' Besides, what are you afraid of? You have a top-notch legal team, JARVIS can hack into any system, and you can get S.H.I.E.L.D. to back you up. And then there's..." He pointed at himself. "Friends like us who don't exactly play by the rules. Most importantly, you can give him what he really needs: protection, resources, and a chance to use his intellect to create rather than destroy, to heal rather than hurt. That's a lot more persuasive than Ross's cages and bullets."
Tony turned to face the direction in which Hulk had disappeared.
"He is a genius," Tony finally admitted, his tone growing pragmatic.
"I've read some of his early papers. His ideas about gamma rays and cellular regeneration were astonishing. If he can control the big guy, or even just suppress him effectively, his value far outweighs the risk.
"And..." He paused, a trace of typical Stark arrogance mingling with genuine admiration on his face. "Seven doctorates. Now that's good taste."
"Then it's settled. Once this mess is over, we'll recruit him into Stark Industries. So, do you have a plan?"
"The plan is, first we find him." Tony tapped the side of his helmet. "JARVIS, scan Hulk's jumping trajectory and analyze the possible landing area. At the same time, pull up all of Dr. Bruce Banner's public and nonpublic research history. Focus on finding anonymous collaborators or consultation records connected to New York, especially those related to independent biological or radiological research. I don't think he'll go far. He must have a reason to stay."