Disclaimer: obviously not mine, every character belongs to Marvel.
Warning: brief mention of torture (come on, it's Bruce's nightmare)
A/N: Yeah, uhh, the first part might come off a bit… angsty. Dunno why. And Bruce isn't a timid, shy guy in here. A bit OOC, but I saw him as a wise person (albeit wary) and Tony influenced Bruce in a good way in the AoU.
Bruce didn't run, and isn't with Natasha. Also, Pietro isn't dead. And I forgot the base where they train the new recruits at the end of the movie, so let's just assume that was the SHIELD's basecamp.
(pardon, I only watched the movie once, so it might lack some fine details, /shrugs)
When Bruce saw the twins with Steve, he didn't have time to spare them a thought as he was still reeling with all the possibilities he and Tony could make with the new Ultron Project, aka the Vision. It somehow slipped from his mind that the Avengers were just recently fighting against the mutant siblings and forgotten when he needed to save Natasha. With the fast-pacing events, Bruce let out the other guy, helped with the evacuation of the citizens of Sokovia, smashed lots of bad robots, saw a chunk of Earth exploded, and then regroup with the team at the end of the day in the middle of the crater there was once stood a city. But when Hulk sees the 'mind lady' clearly for the first time, he let out a piercing growl. He roared when he was about to attack Wanda, who looked very scared, ashamed, and very guilt-ridden, and stopped halfway when Captain America and Thor stepped in front of him, hands up defensively.
"No, Hulk, no." Tony said from his side, lifting his face plate and look straight to Hulk's confused eyes.
"She's a friend, Hulk. She's okay," Steve carefully stated as he approached the behemoth. He took a quick back-step when Hulk let out a low, small, scared whimpers, breaking the hearts of the Earth's mightiest heroes.
"Hurt… Stop. Make it stop… Banner not okay…" Hulk rumbled while clutching his head. His eyes locked on Steve, pleading for some relief from the painful memories that played behind his eyelids.
"Did you do something?!" Natasha quickly addressed the witch, her tone was judgmental but she didn't care at the moment. They still have trust issues to deal with later.
"N-no! I swear!" Wanda looked at Natasha with wide eyes, shaking her head quickly. "sometimes—" her explanation cut short as Hulk let out another window-shattering roars, and then ran off, away from his teammates.
"I'll follow him, Cap," Tony flied out and followed his lab partner's alter ego without waiting for Steve's response.
"Well, 'sometimes' what?" Clint asked a little impatiently. He had come to like the woman during the battle fight, but now he remembered that she had played with the team's heads before that led to a Hulk rampage. And he was never happy about a mind-controlling 'mishaps'.
"Sometimes the nightmare can be triggered just by her presence." Pietro answered when the silence went a bit long. "It's not her doing, and everyone has different after-effect." He tightened his hold on her sister's shoulder reassuringly.
"There were no recurring nightmares upon seeing her for I," Thor raised an eyebrow at Steve, who also shook his head.
"A brief flash, but nothing I couldn't handle," the female assassin coolly stated, her face completely detached from emotion.
"It seems that the nightmare had flashed more clearly on the Hulk, and he might have remembered something unpleasant for him to let out such whimper," a hint of sadness creeped out from Vision's crisped words. He studied for a while the expression on the rest of the Avengers; looks of empathy, sorrow, worry, and a brief of anger were flashed on their countenances. But Vision's eyes were locked on the troubled and regretful emotions etched deeply on the Scarlet Witch's façade.
The rest of the team (minus Pietro, Wanda, and Vision who stayed at SHIELD new base) had gone back to the Avengers Towers and had bathed when Tony came, holding the passed out Banner in a blanket, his helmet taken off completely to show his ghastly expression.
"Is he okay?" Clint asked while Thor took Bruce from Tony's hold and carried him to his room, an action he'd done countless times when Bruce was too weary after a strenuous battle. Tony took off the rest of his suit, sipping at the coffee Natasha had given to him wordlessly (thankful for the caffeine-kick), and flopped down on the sofa, shaking his head.
"No, whatever nightmare he had seen, I think it was more made up by memories than by imagination," he let out a shaky sigh, "Fuck, he even pleaded to me to stop cutting him up because he just can't take it anymore, calling me that fucking sicko, Ross, and begged me to just kill him," Tony's eyes went dark at the recollection when he found the tanned-skin Bruce in the forest, leaning against a bark of tree, naked with tear-stained face. The rest of the team could only shudder at the mention of the General's name and Bruce's pleas.
"Should I postpone tomorrow's debriefing?" Steve asked warily,
"No need," Thor's voice boomed over the tension in the room, "Friend Bruce was lucid for a minute when he assured me that he'll be 'up and running' as he said,"
"All right, let the good doctor rest for now. He'll eat tomorrow when he wake up, let's just eat with the five of us," Steve said in his Captain America's voice, sure and clear, even though they all knew that the rest of today's post-battle traditions will be done halfheartedly, if not skipped altogether.
That morning he woke up with a red face, remembering how he had thrown his tantrum at the team, he sheepishly thanked Tony and the rest of his teammates for taking care of him. He was showered with assurances that he was safe, 'it's just a bad dream', and protective gestures; a hug here, a pat there—making him blush even more. Bruce understood that it was just a nightmare playing on his bad memories, and he honestly thought it was no one's fault, mainly because he was used to that kind of nightmares and it was a recurring theme. It caught him off guard because the other guy had seen the nightmare when he saw her, and the other guy had a child's capacity of understanding so it was understandable when he overreacted about the nightmare, mistaking it for a current event and affecting Bruce in some sort of a trance even after he de-Hulked.
What made Bruce huffed out his exasperation was how his teammates acts of protectiveness was also happening even when they're debriefing. Bruce caught the deadly glares his teammates would threw at Wanda during the meeting, making Nick Fury lost his cool as he yelled "would you focus?!" at the Avengers. Bruce felt bad when he saw the terrified look at Wanda's face. He could see her morale spirit was depleting every time she got the glares. Pietro can't do anything except held her hand more tightly and shot the occasional dirty look which were squashed with Natasha's killer stare. Vision ignored (or oblivious to) their glaring match and focused on Fury. Bruce sighed, and he quickly grabbed Wanda's hand (and she yelped in surprise and wariness), get out of the room and went to the deserted hallway as soon as the meeting ended. The rest of the teammates could only look at each other bewilderedly but made no attempt to follow the two mutants.
"Sorry for that," Bruce said while he shrugged his shoulder, letting her hand go while he took off his glasses and put it inside his breast pocket. "They, uh… might come a bit too much, but you shouldn't take it to heart," he offered a small smile, "and I'm sorry if the other guy had frightened you yesterday," he winced.
"Why? I deserved that." Wanda quickly shot him a pained look, "It was my fault that you had that nightmare… I should've just let the Hulk punched me rather than seeing him like…that…" she remembered too clearly the pained whimpers the Hulk had made. "You shouldn't be apologizing to me…" Wanda blamed herself for releasing the Hulk on rampage, for causing his pain, and for her stupidity following Ultron's commands without thinking of the consequences.
"Hey, it's okay," Bruce softened his voice, "it's nothing, really, I've had worse. The nightmare might have taken me off guard the first time, but it's nothing uncommon. Hell, I've turned into the other guy a few times when I have nightmares in the Stark Towers," Avengers Towers, Bruce corrected himself, but didn't voice it out.
"Still…" Wanda rambled off, "you have the rights to be angry at me, they all have rights to be angry at me, I've…" Wanda was at a loss for words.
"There weren't any casualties," except for some expensive property damages, Bruce mused, "and you defected to the right team, I'd count that as a win," Bruce shrugged his shoulder again, this time eliciting a small chuckle from the younger twin.
"You certainly isn't as uptight as I thought," Wanda let out a small sigh of relief knowing that in a way, the doctor had forgave her, even as subtly as he did.
"Well, when you live with a Tony Stark and a green rage monster inside you, uptight would do no good for anyone, and also, maybe I've been living with Tony for a bit too long," Bruce smile as he joked. He had been given a second chance, to become a hero after he was hunted down as a fugitive. He understood completely how to give other people another chance, a chance to right their mistakes and a chance for him to see the two sides of a coin. Besides, with the new recruits, maybe he won't have to unleash the other guy as often as he did. It certainly would be a lot cheaper for SHIELD to take care the massive damages that weren't left by Hulk.
"Yeah, they seem very protective and very avenging," Bruce stopped his train of thoughts when he caught the small distress in her voice.
"We all are very protective, we care for each other." Bruce smiled reminiscing how far they've come since their first meeting on the Helicarrier. "But don't worry, there's no real resentment behind their glares. Scary, yes," Natasha's glare was the scariest among them all, Bruce pondered, "but they'll be okay once they see that you and I are okay, and we are okay."
"Thank you," Wanda's face heat up at the sincere look the man gave at her. She's not used to other people caring and taking her well-being into consideration except for her brother. She flashed him a grin as she thought how lucky she was to be part of a team this amazing.
"Well, let's get back before they send a search party," Bruce held out his hand, unsure why he did that, and yet he didn't pull his hand away. Wanda took his offered hand, unsure why the action made her nervous, and yet she didn't stop herself from grabbing the man's warm hand.
"Good, you've made out with each other," Fury snickered, obviously hinting the innuendo at the pair as they went through the door. Steve and Tony choked at his words. The tension around them had dissipated when both Bruce and Wanda looked calm and fine, content even.
"Well, I don't like to kiss and tell, but maybe we did," Bruce retorted back, unfazed by Clint's shout 'nice one Bruce!' and Thor's confused expression over the unknown Midgardian reference.
Fury snorted, "You certainly had lived with Stark for far too long," at that, Tony made a proud expression, smirking happily.
"Is Bruce learning the right thing or the wrong thing?" Clint asked at Natasha playfully and the Widow Bite's user only rolled her eyes.
Pietro shot his sister a look, but when he met by a smile of her own, Pietro relaxed noticeably and threw his own quips as the banter escalated.
"See? Everything is going to be okay," Bruce murmured, giving her hand a gentle squeeze before he let her hand go. He went to Steve's side when the captain had raised one of his eyebrows at Bruce, waiting for an explanation. Wanda found herself a bit sad by the loss of the human touch, but Pietro quickly draped an arm across her shoulder as he whispered loudly the joke that was aimed at Clint.
She smiled at the joke, but she wondered why the doctor's touch differed so much from his brother's.
Vision smiled softly as he noticed the changes that were happening in front of his eyes. With his vast knowledge, he could determine what those changes would mean in the, hopefully, near future.
~fin~