Just Take (Hulk Sized) Baby Steps
Warning: This was supposed to be fluff…it's not. Warnings for potential triggering: miscarriages and child abuse. Seriously; happy ending, but not fluff.
Disclaimer: Nope, still not mine. Someone is seriously screwing me in the prayer department...Maybe it's time to take George Carlin's advice and start praying to Joe Pesci...
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"Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be."-Thomas Kempis
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His father used to beat him.
There are things that everyone knows about Bruce-they know he is brilliant, they know that they wouldn't like him when's he's angry-and then there are the things that he tells no one.
His father used to beat him.
He tells the Captain that his secret is that he's always angry, and this is not a lie. He was angry then, the child of a violent alcoholic who beat him his son and his wife for no other reason than he wanted too. Angry as a young teenager who knocked his father down the stairs to stop him from beating his mother bloody, angry as an older teen who left home in disgust of the man who beat his wife and son and the woman who kept letting him.
It's been years since he was that teen, resentful and hurt, a mean look on his face, and although it would be a lie to say that time heals all ills, Bruce likes to think it's at least helped a bit; helped to make him someone better, even despite the other guy.
Now, there is Bruce, the mild mannered scientist and the Other Guy, the monster, and he likes to think they are separate.
And then he looks in the mirror and sees his father's eyes and fears they are not.
His father used to beat him.
He's always angry.
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Meeting Betty was like…fate-like finding water in the desert and diamonds in the dirt. Even before he was what he is now Bruce was so angry, and Betty just somehow always made better; made him want to be a better man-than his father and then the man that he was. The years he spent away from her were the worst in his life, and not just because of the other guy, and when Peggy brought her back to Tower, it was like life had breathed a second chance back into his lungs.
This is not to say that life is all sunshine and roses, because of course it isn't. Bruce's control on the other guy might be better, but he's still terrified that he'll slip up and hurt someone.
Natasha's occasionally fearful glance still haunts him.
Betty and he argue of this of course, with some frequency because Betty is an optimist who believes the best of him and Bruce…isn't, but they also fight over other, more ordinary things. Him forgetting to eat, her insistence in only drinking soy milk, her guilty pleasure of watching Desperate Housewives and his bad habit of wearing socks that don't match and never ironing any of his clothes.
But no matter what it is; how big or small, they always manage to work something out.
Betty wants children.
Bruce…doesn't.
Bruce has a suspicion that this one isn't going to be something that they can just work out.
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It isn't.
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See, the thing is, this should probably be a non-issue, because the thing most people forget is that to actually become the other guy, Bruce under went about a metric fuck-ton-and yes, that is the scientific term-of gamma radiation. And beyond non-jolly green giants, one of the most common side effects of radiation is male sterility. Hence, there is almost no way that Bruce should ever be able to father a child.
In a horrible sort of way, that knowledge is a comfort to Bruce, because it means he'll never have to that fight with Betty.
The plus sign on the test that Betty just handed him is really shattering that comfort right now.
Bruce may be getting better at his control, but he's never been able to hide anything from Betty-something that is especially betraying him now as Betty takes one look at his face and her eyes shutter as she says, "You don't want it," voice carefully bland, and it's not a question.
Betty's always been a smart woman.
"No, Betty I…" he says, offering up a token protest, but it's a pitiful thing, flimsy and false and it only causes her eyes to dim even more.
He's never been very good at lying to her.
But no matter how he feels about the baby-and god, he cannot think about that right now-he hurts when she hurts and it's so much worse when she hurts because of him. And so he steps forward, hand outstretched in a half thought idea of comfort, no idea of what to say to fix this.
And then the mission alarm goes off.
It shames him that the feeling he has is a strong surge of relief, but that's what he feels, and the look in Betty's eyes, the quick flash of hurt says that she knows it as well. "We'll talk about it later," she offers with a brittle half-smile that really looks more like a grimace, and it's only a testament to how much of a coward he is that he brushes an awkward kiss to her cheek in acknowledgment and then heads for the helipad on the roof that will take them to the hanger.
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Later, he will regret this quite a lot.
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He's quiet on the plane, lost in his own thoughts, but that's hardly a big difference from his normal plane behaviour, something that saves him a lot of-good-intended but still unwanted-questions from the team.
The other guy, for all that he's a giant rage monster, is also a pretty simple guy. He likes Betty, and he likes things that make Betty happy, so for him, as long as the baby makes her happy, he's on board with it.
Bruce, on the other hand, is a far more complicated creature.
He likes their life as it is-likes the uncomplicated rhythm they've fallen into, likes her making him eat and him stealing her away from the t.v. And besides, even if he was father material-and he isn't, in any way, and he'll argue this to his dying day because he's right-their lives are hardly child friendly.
Sure Peggy and Steve and Tony and Pepper pull it off, but Tony, for all his faults-coughpokingthegodamnHulkcough-is a man that would cut off his own arms before he'd hurt his daughter, and Steve; well Steve is like star-spangled perfection. Babies and kittens are practically drawn to him, and he's almost pre-naturally good with them; Steve might have super-strength but he'd never lose enough control to accidentally use it on a child.
Bruce, on the other hand, might get mad at his child and smash the little person to a pulp.
No, this is not a good environment for children.
It's not something Betty will want to hear, this he knows, but its how he feels, and they'll have to have a talk about it when he gets back, otherwise the issue will never be dealt with.
Safe to say, it's not a talk he's looking forward too.
But then they land, and naturally everything goes to hell because terror cells, for some bizarre reason don't ever seem to follow the mission plan, and so it's also safe to say that in the clusterfuck that is Thor getting hit by a missile and his lightening almost hitting Bruce, Clint almost falling nine stories to his death before being caught at the last second by Tony and Tony using one of his tank missiles-and the science geek in him can't help but love those little things-to level a building that was unexpectedly full of explosive weapons that the situation with Betty gets pushed back a little farther back in his mind.
But then they return home, a little battered but all members present and accounted for-and Thor, who got hit by a missile naturally doesn't have a fucking scratch; freaking gods-and they're greeted by a sheet white Peggy, and it's safe to say that it returns to the forefront pretty damn quickly.
"Bruce… Bruce I need you to stay calm. Betty is in the medical wing," She starts, but by that time he's already pushed by six agents and his at the wing, his heart rate dangerously close to Hulk inducing levels, because Bruce knows Peggy, and that look on her face means terrible things.
And then he gets to the glass partition that separates the medical wing from the rest of the building and he sees her, and he swears his heart just stops.
There's blood staining her thighs.
Bruce is a doctor; he knows what that means, even without the sheer, utter agony on Betty's face.
Bruce's heart cracks with pain.
He didn't want it-it was barely real and not even enough time to process it and he didn't want it-but there's a weight crushing his chest all the same, choking him, trapping his air in his chest.
But this is Bruce, and Bruce doesn't go red with the impotent rage that is building within him-doesn't black out.
Bruce greens out.
It's safe to say the next few hours are a total loss.
In the end he wakes up in a field, wearing only those damned purple pants, rocks and trees destroyed, but no people hurt.
The other guy hasn't hurt anyone-hasn't let Bruce hurt anyone.
It is not the first time Bruce has thought that he, not the other guy, is the true monster.
It won't be the last.
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See, the assumption that the scientific community made on the Hulk serum was that it was imperfect-flawed. He was trying to recreate the Super-soldier serum-this is common enough knowledge-and the result-the Hulk rather than a genetically superior soldier like Steve-was deemed a failure of the serum-a failure of the science.
Bruce doesn't agree.
Because, over the years in a desperate search to find a way to fix himself, Bruce has been over, and over his notes, and the thing is, the serum should have worked. It shouldn't have created the Hulk, it should have created a super soldier.
The science was right.
Bruce, for many years, couldn't figure out the flaw.
And then Bruce meets Steve-the long dead Captain America; the greatest scientific marvel in the last hundred years-and talks to him, and in doing so he thinks he gets it.
The serum-Erskine's serum-wasn't designed to build a soldier, it was designed to amplify the pre-existing person. A good man becomes a great one-like Steve-and a bad man becomes a worse one.
And an angry man becomes a Hulk.
The flaw was never in the science.
The flaw was him.
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Eventually, he goes back to the Tower.
He doesn't particularly want to-if he had his way he'd just run, find some dark corner of the earth and try his best at rotting away there, but the part of him that fights to be the good guy asserts that he has to go back, and thankfully that part is stronger than the rest of him.
When he gets back there's no anger, no blame from the team-only sympathy-and that somehow makes it so much worse. He took off, lost himself like a coward and ran from his problems, and they should hate him for that, for leaving Betty to deal with this but they don't, and Bruce doesn't know how to cope with any of this.
In the end he finds himself in Betty's room in the medical bay, watching over her as she sleeps. Her face is strained and drawn, even in sleep, and it makes something in his chest ache watching her. He doesn't know how to make up for this-too atone for the pain that his actions have put on her face-but actually watching it must be a good start to his penance.
And then Natasha walks in silently and sits beside him, and he wonders if this is to be a part of his penance as well.
Because, well, Bruce and Natasha function well enough now-they're teammates and they like each other well enough, but he thinks they'll always have a slightly tumultuous relationship. It is in no way her fault, and not even really his; mostly it's just that Natasha dislikes things that she cannot control or best, and the Hulk is both, and dangerous to boot.
He scared her, this woman for whom vengeful gods and alien sociopathic geniuses failed to even phase, and that's not something that sits all that well with either of them.
So, basically, what's he's trying to say is, although they get along well enough, they don't have a massive history of heart-to-hearts.
This one brings the grand total up to one.
Still, Bruce is in no position to question the acts of anyone right now, and so he keeps quiet and listens as Natasha says, to a point somewhere over his left shoulder, "In the Red Room, girls were seen as weapons only. Anything that would have kept us from that was removed."
And then, to his face, baldly, honest like a shotgun blast, "I had a hysterectomy when I was thirteen."
"I'll never have children," she says, more gently, even as he's still reeling "Sometimes, I consider it a blessing, because there isn't any room in my lie for a child, and anyways surely no child deserves me for a mother. And sometimes, I want it so fiercely I can hardly breathe."
"I understand," She says, her eyes fierce and yet unbearably sad, and her hand curls around his, a comfort that he can't deserve. He doesn't answer her-not verbally at least-but his hand curls into hers, and they sit, quietly, and think of things they can't have.
He was wrong; this is not penance, and yet nothing as simple as forgiveness, not that it's hers to give him.
This is understanding-this is empathy-and maybe it's something that he doesn't deserve, but he'll take it all the same.
There is no green in his eyes.
But there are tears.
It's a step.
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Betty wakes up, and this is both a sin and a blessing, because in the end, this really is his fault-all the test show that the gamma radiation in his sperm mutated the fetal development too much to sustain a pregnancy-it really shouldn't have even been possible in the first place, and for that and so many other reasons he doesn't know how to act around her.
There is pain; so much pain in her eyes, but no anger-no blame-and it only makes him hate himself and his cowardice more. In the end they float around each other, the silence uncomfortable and piercing, but still, there is no hate in her eyes, and Bruce doesn't know how to make the pain go away-her ability to function, even haltingly, only seems to know how to make it worse, as he's drowning too deep in his own misery.
The Hulk can smash through granite and iron, but Betty has always been stronger than Bruce.
So Bruce busies himself hiding in hiding in his lab, so he can avoid the Avengers and Betty for a legitimate reason, and although he's more than miserable, for about a week it works pretty well.
But Bruce, no matter what his is, is an Avenger, and if there is one truth of being an Avenger, than this is it-you're always waiting for the next kick in the ass.
His, naturally, comes from Peggy, because out of all of the people in this Tower-and he's including Natasha in this-Peggy is the one he happens to think is the most badass. Natasha is lethal when you look at her, and people react accordingly to that; get defensive even when they're not sure exactly why.
Peggy is like your first grade teacher-polite, prim, with a smile like the sun-who also happens to be able to kill you with her bare hands.
If he didn't like her so much, it would probably be damn disconcerting.
If she didn't like him so much, it would probably be damn frightening.
So, it goes without saying that when Peggy walks in, fire in her eyes and her son and his diaper bag on her hip, Bruce knows something bad has happened. And Bruce doesn't have to be a genius-though he most certainly is-to figure out that it's likely something team related; Steve, Tony, Thor, Bucky, Coulson, Natasha and Clint are currently in Russia, dealing with a HYDRA situation at a nuclear power-plant.
Needless to say, even with his burning desire to escape the Tower, Bruce volunteered to sit this one out without even being asked.
Hulk in a nuclear plant.
It's a bull in a china shop, if china shops had the potential to explode and kill millions, rendering the land inhabitable for years to come.
He was glad to sit this one out.
And then, "Bruce," Peggy says, voice entirely no nonsense, cutting a sharp swath across his lab, "I need you to watch James."
He was glad to sit this one out.
"Isn't there anyone…better suited for it?" He says, cringing a bit instinctively, because out of all of the people to babysit he has to be the last on the list, right?
Anger issues, remember? That's sort of the whole reason he's in this mess right now.
"I'm not trying to be insensitive Bruce," she says kindly, and the crux of it is that he can see that she really isn't, even before she continues, "but Pepper's in China with Maggie, Jane is doing that thing in the desert that no one is supposed to know about and she took Darcy with her. And we're not even getting into the baby agents, because they can't tell their arses from the ground."
"You're the only one I trust," she finishes, and then before he can protest to that statement, because he might have a great affection for her and he'd gladly take a bullet-hell, a missile-for her, but watching her first born is another thing entirely she continues quickly, cutting off anything he might have said.
"Look, he likes you," Peggy says, a hint of hopefulness in her tone as she gestures towards him with James, putting him in Bruce's direct eye line.
James gives him what Bruce is pretty sure is a dismissive look, and then says, "Blah," very solemnly, and then goes back to his careful examination of his own fist.
Peggy rolls her eyes heavenward briefly at that before she says, finally, "Please," she says, and it's at that-the plea from a woman that Bruce has never seen beg for anything-that makes him realize how selfish he's being.
Kick in the ass, like he said.
Peggy's damn good at it; it's probably a sign of his deep psychological issues that it only makes him respect her more.
"All right, I'll do it," he says, holding his arms out for the baby as her caves, and the relief in her eyes only makes him feel more like an asshole before she says, gratefully, "You're a life saver," and then slips James into his arms, who after a bit of shuffling blinks at him before he attempts to shove his whole hand in his mouth.
He succeeds, and Bruce is struck by the inextricable thought that he was measuring his fist beforehand.
He wonders who Peggy would feel about some aptitude experiments.
But he'll save those questions for a time when she isn't quite as well armed.
Instead he simply settles for the entirely insufficient, "Go get them," and it's for all that it's got multiple meanings-get them back, get the bad guys-he knows she picks up on them all.
"Oh," she says, a glint in her eyes that promises terrible retribution, and her hands run fleetingly over the gun strapped to her hip like a promise, "I will."
Bruce has no doubt.
HYDRA has no idea what's about to hit them.
And then, almost the second after Peggy has cleared the hallway and can no longer hear them, James takes one look at him, and starts to wail, and it occurs to Bruce that he has no idea what's about to hit him.
Naturally, of course, because if there is a God then he hates Bruce-because hello, Hulk-it's at that exact moment that Betty happens to walk into the lab.
"Help," he says, entirely pitifully and possibly more than a little bit terrified, their whole mess just for a moment forgotten under his absolute panic at the screaming child in his arms. And Betty, who it's already been established is a better woman than he deserves, takes one look at him, valiantly stifles a chuckle and comes to his rescue, nestling herself into his body to cradle the kid between their bodies.
And, swear to all that is holy, the second that she does, the kid stops crying immediately, like it had never happened.
If this was anyone else's kid, he wouldn't think twice about the fact that a baby just set him up with the woman who's heart he's so terrified he'll break; it would just be an coincidence.
This, however, is Peggy's kid, and Bruce is betting against all reason that it was deliberate.
It bothers him a great deal less than it should.
James, because he is a superbaby and also possibly an evil genius in training, picks that moment to peer about at them angelically and coo.
Oh yeah, this kid is totally doing this on purpose.
"You're good with him," Betty says after a moment, a tentative offering that makes him look over at her, because he's almost an expert at her vocal tones, and this one rings nothing but honest.
"You would have made the most amazing mother in the entirety of the world," he says in return, and no matter how complicated his own thoughts are on his own worthiness as a father, it's nothing more than the truth.
She looks over at him at that, and the love in her eyes makes him want cry, especially after all this, before she gets his attention as she says, simply and with that piercing instinct of hers, "You would have made a much better father than whoever it was who made you think you wouldn't be."
"Agree to disagree," he says in return, because he doesn't want to have that conversation now-not ever really, but especially not now, with this child that isn't, and never will be, theirs in their arms-but it's not unkind, and she smiles softly at him in return, the first one that's looked real in a week.
She stays, and holds his hand, laces her fingers in his, a perfect fit, while James sleeps comfortably in their arms.
It's not much, but it's a start.
Bruce takes it for the gift that it is.
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In the end, it's no more than 24 hours after Peggy leaves that the Avengers return, brought back by the sheer will of one woman who loves her family, and who happens to be scary-deadly, and Betty stayed with him nearly the whole time, only leaving about an hour before the team came back because something in the lab needed her attention. And although they didn't have the talk-the one about kids that he was dreading on the plane-they spent time together like they used to, and it gave Bruce the hope that, despite everything he's done, they can still fix this thing.
So, he's in a significantly better mood when Peggy comes back in to get James, though he can't help but ask, entirely seriously, because this is something that's been floating around the back of his mind for a few hours now, "Why did you let me watch your son? And it wasn't because there was no one-there were others who could have done it; JARVIS could have done it in a pinch even. Why did you insist on me?"
Peggy, because she's a real-and he means it, no sarcasm-class act, doesn't even try to deny it, she simply cradles James close to her heart before she turns to him and says softly, "Because you don't have to be good-guy-you could head back to New Delhi or Dubai or Mumbai and SHIELD would let you. We'd let you-but you stay."
And then, with that devastating British honesty of hers she says, eyes shining with affection, "You aren't a bad guy because of your past or because of the Hulk-the Hulk is a good-guy because you are. And that's the kind of man I want my son to grow up to be."
And then, like the lady she is, she kisses him gently on the cheek, and leaves him standing flabbergasted in the hallway.
Kick in the ass, like he said.
He has a lot to think about.
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A few hours later, he finds Betty sitting in their sitting room on their floor in the Tower.
And although he's been over a thousand ways in his head to start this conversation, he ends up simply blurting into the silence, "My father was an abusive alcoholic that used to beat my mother and me, until I got old enough to hit back. And when I look at myself in the mirror I see his anger and I'm terrified of it." And he rushes through, barely taking a breath, afraid that if he does he'll lose his nerve, "It was never about the other guy-not wanting kids I mean-it was about me, being an unsuitable father."
Betty gestures to the space on the couch beside her, making a 'sit down' motion, and although the restless energy he has prefers that he stand, so he does, and once he has she places her hands on his cheeks so that they frame his face before she says, softly and heartfelt, "You're not him-not by a long shot. You are every good thing that has ever happened to me, and we'll do this together."
"I might not ever be able to give you children," he says, not willing to let the issue drop, and he means in more than one way-biologically and emotionally.
Betty just nods, and the tiniest glimpse of pain in her eyes tells him that she knows what he means, before she says, with enough conviction to make it true, "Then we'll have dogs or cats and be the cool Aunt and Uncle. And of course there will be times when it's hard, but we'll have each other. That's always been enough for me," she finishes, and the level of belief in him, in them in her eyes makes him want to get down on his knees and worship her as the goddess she so rightfully is.
"I don't deserve you," he says instead, and for all that he means it, he already knows that it's not enough to ever let her go.
"Agree to disagree," she says, a teasing sparkle in her eyes, and then she curls into his side and finally cries, long, harsh sobs, mourning in the way she's been denying herself, and although a part of it makes his heart ache, he know it's healthy.
Bruce holds on, and promises to never let go.
They will survive this.
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It doesn't get back to the way it was right away-this is not a fairy-tale, recent evidence in their lives to the contrary-and the first person to make a Beauty and the Beast joke is getting Hulked-but it gets better.
He still has his issues and his insecurities, but now they talk about them, and although talking about it and about the baby is still painful, it lances the wounds to a degree, and after a while, they get back into the rhythm of them-of Desperate Housewives secret marathons and the look of doom when he forgets to eat; of laughing together and just being happy at the little things.
It's not perfect, but then it never was, and Bruce isn't looking for perfection. He loves Betty-all of her imperfections and flaws-and she loves him the same way-even his big green imperfections.
It's not the life he would have chosen, but he can't think of a better one.
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He doesn't really count the days, especially not when he's down on one knee, asking the only woman he's ever been in love with if she'll marry him, but later he'll realize that it's been almost a year to the day that she handed him that fateful test, and later he'll realize that the day can cause him joy and not just pain, and he'll be happy about that.
But right now she says yes, and so Bruce isn't thinking much beyond that, and kissing her within an inch of his life.
When they finally come up for air, Peggy, little James sitting cheerfully on her hip and stiletto strapped to her other thigh-safely out of James's range- is the first thing he sees, sticking her hand gracefully out in front of Fury.
Fury places a hundred dollar bill in it.
And then announces, like it's a given, that he's officiating.
No one disputes with him.
And then Tony takes that moment to beg for the right to tell the General about this, and as Betty makes a show of considering it-and she'll probably let him, because his girl has a wicked mean sense of humor-it occurs to Bruce that this might have been where they were heading all along.
It doesn't bother him anymore.
Because maybe one day they'll get a dog and be the cool aunt and uncle to the children in the Tower, or maybe they'll be the live in babysitters, but Bruce knows that whatever happens, they'll be alright.
Maybe, just maybe, one day they'll adopt, and Betty will have the chance to be the mother she deserves to be, and the chance to be a better father than his own.
Yeah, he can see that being in his future.
He's still angry, but only sometimes.
Mostly he's just in love, and living a life that isn't perfect, but that makes him happy.
He wouldn't have it any other way.
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FIN
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A/N: Hey guys, sorry for the wait! My little sister, who I only see once a year came to visit for a month and so I had to put her ahead of writing. Add work getting crazy busy and the fact that this fic zigged at whump and just wouldn't let me get back to the fluff this one took a bit of time to get right. But I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, even though it's a little darker than my usual fare. But, for anyone still interested, this series isn't done yet-we've still got the Sif/Coulson, Sif/Loki thing, and a Darcy/Bucky fic is definitely in the works, so please stay tuned for those, and as always, enjoy, and reviews and constructive criticism are welcome.