It's Not Easy, Being Green
Summary: Reflections from Dr. Bruce Banner after Avengers: The Age of Ultron
Disclaimer: I do not own "It's Not Easy, Being Green," Avengers, The Incredible Hulk, I, Robot, or 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I love the other members of the Avengers. But they don't get it. They never did.
The one guy I felt closest to for the longest time was Tony Stark. When discussing scientific concepts needed by the team, he "spoke my language." But when we first met, in the same sentence that showed he appreciated my accomplishments as a doctor of science and medicine, he told me how he was a fan of how I "lose control and turn into an enormous, green rage monster."
Even now, I still can't help but roll my eyes. The team kindly treated my dealing with "the Other Guy" as an untapped power, comparable to the tremendous talents and skills of each other member, and not like a struggle to contain an almost random, unchecked destructive force.
Said force has his own personality, which can be a bit protective of underdogs, but is willing to bash a formative opponent just for the fun of it. Smashing a known enemy is a given.
At least, I hope that's what the Hulk is up to when I think I have any control of him.
It took years to get to a point where I didn't randomly or regularly lose control. Natasha said that the Avengers only wanted me for my knowledge of Gamma radiation. I'll get back to my thoughts on her soon. But for now…
Before I was recruited to be part of the Avengers, it was years since my last outbreak. I'd gone to the farthest reaches from the modern media of Western Civilization as I could get. In Calcutta, everyone only knew me as Doctor Banner, or simply "the doctor," and honestly – that's how I preferred it. But what Director Fury wants, he gets, and while SHIELD did need my expertise, I knew it was "the Other Guy" the Avengers were longing to see.
Oddly, while Tony connected best with me, the only one who truly "got it" was Loki. Yes, he was beyond insane, but crazy does not equal stupid or ignorant. While he couldn't control me with his master scepter of mind control (because no one can control the Hulk, not even me, although I'm getting better at trying), he knew that by setting me off as that enormous, green rage monster, I would be an indestructible force of nature: a one-man hurricane.
Amusingly, at least it is to me, Loki was hoist by his own petard. Everyone put together was able to defeat Loki's schemes, but no one could actually hurt Loki, personally, until he insulted "the Other Guy." He wanted the Hulk to come out to play, and he got more than he bargained for.
Between meditation and other anger management exercises, I had everything as close to under control as I think I'd ever been.
And then Tony built Ultron.
I applaud Tony for his desire to make his AI protect the world. But while he's brilliant at mechanical engineering, it occurs to me that he's never read Isaac Asimov's I, Robot or even understood the subtext of HAL in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey. When AIs have rules to "protect humans" and are left to their own devices to interpret that as they will, they will pick up on humanity's contradiction in existence. We like order. We like chaos. We like predictability. We like surprise. As such, they would try to protect us from ourselves, to our detriment.
My point is not to belabor Tony's shortsightedness in his attempt to save the world. Rather, my point is to address the fact that Tony's creation came about with his design and the abuse of my invention to repair living tissue. It would have been a major medical breakthrough. Heck, it cured Clint, practically (but not actually) bringing him back from the dead.
Unlike Tony, I had read I, Robot. I knew this particular marriage of technology and biology was a bad idea of epic proportions. And it was.
But, again, my point isn't Ultron and its plot to destroy humanity. This time, my point is about me.
I don't know where HYDRA picked up the Maximoff twins, but the twins' real hatred for Stark Industries, Iron Man, and the rest of the Avengers by association, had legitimate causes.
In an effort to incapacitate the Avengers, Wanda was frighteningly more effective than Loki was to set us all off in the wrong mental direction. Only Clint, who is still hurt by his memory of Loki's mind control, was unaffected by her power.
While everyone was forced to mentally live their worst nightmare or relive their worst memory, I'd say that, objectively speaking, mine was more destructive.
My worst fear is, was, and always will be losing complete control of my inner rage monster and unleashing hellish destruction on the world. I don't know how Wanda did it, but that is exactly what happened. I still shudder to think of the damage I wreaked upon New York City. Again. But this time, I actively fought against the Avengers.
When I came back to myself, or at least, back to the consciousness I associate with being Bruce, I was thankful that the authority figures present didn't hold my crimes as the Hulk against me, this time. But I vowed that I would not become the Hulk again. I could not abide to… do that again.
Natasha. Man, I love that woman. While Tony connects with me on a level of understanding science, only Natasha truly understands, on a visceral level, what it means to hate oneself for being the monster that the world at large sees us as.
Understood – since we defeated Loki, all of the Avengers were hailed as heroes. But Natasha has an extensive history of killing people and breaking things. At least, on one level, she understands that the unthinkable consequences of our past actions will haunt us for the rest of our days.
While both of us have unconscionable pasts, especially because of circumstances beyond our control, the thing is this: Natasha can sublimate her drives and skill set into whatever she chooses to use them for.
I never have a guarantee that I can control myself in my other guise. After Loki, I thought I had control. After Wanda, I realized how very little control I actually have.
After experiencing the peace of the Barton Family hideaway, I knew that was what I wanted: to take Natasha somewhere we couldn't be found and live peacefully, quietly, and away from anything in our pasts we didn't want to deal with.
She agreed. This seemed to be a perfect resolution to everything.
I won't even say that Ultron interfered with those plans, although that's part of what brought about our dissolution.
It was her reaction to the fact that the world would come to an end if Ultron's plot wasn't stopped.
I thought I explained why I couldn't become the Hulk again. I truly thought she understood. Or, perhaps, she really did understand, but her sense of duty was more important than my best argument.
The woman I was prepared to escape with and spend the rest of my life with responded to the crisis by throwing me off a cliff.
It had the intended result of me "suiting up," as Tony likes to say.
It also had the unintended result of me realizing that "never becoming the Hulk again" has no meaning to someone who sees the ends as justifying and securing any means necessary.
My lack of control was taken advantage of.
No matter how brilliant, kind, compassionate, or simply passionate I may be, no one will ever respect my wishes. All they will ever truly see is the benefit of me losing control and becoming an enormous, green rage monster.
I don't know where I'm going. I suppose I'll find out when I get there. The one thing I do know is that I intend to go where no one will find me.
It's not easy, being green. It's not what I want to be.