It's not even midnight and my brain has left the building. But I've been working on this fic all day and I really wanted to finish it simply because I just love Science Boyfriends okay. I wrote and deleted that sentence like four times. I'm just gonna stop talking and say that I really hope y'all like this and if you so choose, I wouldn't mind hearing what you have to say. Thank yooooouuuu my lovelies.
Time had stopped.
The earth had stopped spinning.
The voices had stopped talking, his ears had stopped hearing. Faint vestiges of words floated around his brain, but no sense availed. He just stood, the blurry figure of a man in front of him fading with each tick of the clock.
He didn't even know what had set him off this time. He couldn't remember. There was yelling, yes, lots of yelling and pointed fingers and anger.
Anger.
Hot red - green - anger that coursed through his veins; it always did. It was a part of him, one small compartment in the front of his brain trapped inside one enormous, exposed nerve that he knew could snap at any moment. And he hated that; he hated that he didn't know what was happening to him – well, he did know, he just refused to acknowledge it. He had to let it happen. There was no stopping it.
"Bruce?" He couldn't recognize the voice that called his name. "Bruce. Come on. Don't let him get to you. You can fight it. Bruce."
The part of him that was still human recognized his name. Bruce. Not 'Hulk' or the 'Other Guy' – Bruce. Bruce Banner was still in there somewhere, hiding, trapped inside an indestructible cage that he knew he couldn't break.
He thought he felt a hand touch his shoulder and hoped that somehow the warmth would calm his nerves, but he was too far gone. He could feel himself boiling over, his muscles rippling. There was a shout from somewhere across the room and the hand dropped from his arm, but he barely noticed, and neither did the Other Guy.
He was no longer Bruce Banner. He was the Other Guy, the Hulk. Big and green and looming over the others who suddenly seemed so tiny, like they were the ants and he was the boot. Somewhere he knew how terrifying he must have been and how the fear reciprocated in the others, and he tried to reach back and pull that to the front, but then everything was running and yelling and destruction, and the only human thread he'd been hanging onto snapped in two.
He was a monster. The monster. The one the few people he cared about in this world were running from.
After a certain point, he couldn't even tell what he was doing anymore. He was picking things up, throwing things, tearing as many things as he could find, and eventually everything became blurred with dust and hatred.
With a deafening screech, he bounded around a corner towards one of the expansive glass walls of the tower. There was nowhere for him to go, but knowing that he couldn't possibly go back to that tower, he threw himself through the glass anyway. His feet dug into the pavement beneath him as he landed, and he took off in an unknown direction, holding no concern or care for where he ended up.
# #
There was no memory in his mind of when he shrunk back to down his human size or how long he'd been running, but eventually Bruce found himself in a deserted area, hearing nothing but the sound of his own breathing and the occasional call of a bird. The cool breeze whipped around his bare body and he could feel the dried leaves crunching beneath the skin of his feet, and he suddenly regretted that he had run off without a spare change of clothes.
But the Other Guy didn't think about such civil things. In fact, as he knew, the Other Guy didn't think about anything but death and destruction and anger, which left Bruce afterwards to dwell under the consequences, the weight piling up on his shoulders until, one day, it would become unbearable.
He knew, though, that there was no getting out of what he'd become. He'd tried. He'd tried too many times, and felt as if he'd failed more than he'd attempted.
His longing for a way out, however, had evolved. At first, it was only because he hated the division, he hated the split in his mind between himself and the Other Guy. He didn't want to become a case for the psych ward, so he was set on simply destroying the monster, his regrets, and ultimately himself.
Too many lives, families, and relationships had been ripped apart at his fingertips. There was blood on his hands, blood of the innocent, that he could never seem to wash away. But now, it wasn't just the blood and lives of the unknown, the unfortunate civilians that just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now there were others. Others that he cared about, that he loved. Just the thought of those five people, broken like ragdolls between his fingers, the look of fear drawn across their faces, made him quiver with self-hatred.
He had no recollection of what he'd done this time. Everything was just one large blur, smashed into an endless slideshow that was timed too fast. All he could see was the glimmer, that one little glimmer in each of their eyes that just screamed terror. But there was one pair of eyes, despite the circumstances, that still held hope. Two eyes out of the ten that told him someone still had faith.
Tony.
Tony had faith, and Bruce knew that, but unfortunately the conviction didn't extend as far to let Bruce believe it, too.
Finally under the shade of the trees, he sat on the cool soil, cross-legged. Ashamed, he leaned forward and put his face in his hands, desperately wishing that somehow his body would just fade and eventually disappear, when he heard a woman's voice behind him.
"Took a while to find you out here." Natasha's voice was somewhat hesitant, but she continued walking towards him anyway. Bruce lifted his head for a moment and looked in her vague direction.
"Why'd you come?" he asked, looking downwards to avoid her gaze.
"Because we were all a bit worried when the… Other Guy took over and ran off," Natasha replied nonchalantly. "Also, I thought you might like some clothes for when you shrink back down." She tossed a navy blue button-down shirt and a pair of jeans to him, which he willingly accepted and clothed himself with as quickly as possible.
"Thanks."
Natasha nodded, leaning on a nearby tree. "So, are you coming?"
"You mean back to the Stark Tower?" Bruce inquired. Natasha's reply was another nod, to which Bruce shook his head. "No. It's better that I don't." He fastened the last button on the shirt, but still stayed seated on the ground.
"Why not?"
His jaw tightened. She was going to make him explain what she'd already seen? "You saw what happened. I'm a threat, you're all aware of that. Always have been."
"Bruce." Natasha sighed, her arms crossed over her chest. "It was one time –"
"No," he cut her off abruptly. "It's happened before. You've seen it, you were there." Natasha opened her mouth to reply, but when she found that she had nothing to say, she closed it again and looked towards the ground.
"I'll take it from here, Romanoff." There was a soft thump behind the two of them as the metal feet of the Iron Man suit hit the soil and took a few steps toward them. Natasha looked at him and gave him a curt nod, glancing sadly at Bruce as she walked away.
Tony inhaled deeply once the iron mask had been lifted from his face. "You're coming back, Banner."
"I'm not." It wasn't in his character to be stubborn, but at this point, Bruce had no choice. "I'm not going to put all of you at risk like that. I don't even know what set me off this time, Tony. How am I supposed to remain in control if I don't even know what pissed me off?"
"Look." Tony stopped beside him and awkwardly sat down, the suit hindering his ability to get completely comfortable. "You have excellent control. I don't know anyone else who has a better anger-management plan than you."
"You also don't know anyone else who turns into an enormous rage monster when said anger-management fails."
"No. But you have a cap on it and can keep it that way. Most of the time." Tony hesitated. "We trust you, Bruce. All of us."
"You shouldn't." Bruce licked his lips. "You're putting your lives at risk by trusting me. That's not something I want to have on my back. I already have enough blood on my hands, Tony, and I don't want yours to join it."
"You didn't hurt anyone today. Remember that." Tony's voice had a sort of stern softness to it, something that Bruce barely recognized. It wasn't like Tony Stark to be so… sincere.
Bruce swallowed a knot in his throat. "It's not about whether or not I did, it's about the potential."
"Which you have a lot of," Tony answered. Bruce gave him a look if disbelief, but Ton disregarded it and continued. "Look, Banner, you're one of the most accomplished scientists out there, which is saying a lot coming from someone like me. You're vital to our team, too. We need you back there. Things aren't gonna go right without you there, mostly because you're the only one with a shred of sense for the most part."
In the back of his mind, Bruce almost believed him. He wanted to, and he knew he wanted to, but refused himself the privilege. Slowly, he sighed and brought himself to his feet. "You just don't get it, Stark, you just don't. When I'm that – that thing, I don't know what or who I am anymore. I don't know who any of you are. All I see are these puny little figures and I just want to crush everything, regardless of what you try to say or how you try to calm me down. It doesn't work, and it never will. I hate the thought of that. I hate the thought that I could kill any one of you, and you might say it's not that easy, but it is. The Other Guy can kill anything he wants. He's not me."
"And you're not him," Tony retorted, somewhat harshly. "You say all of that like you're the monster. You're not. He's just another part of your brain. He's not you." Tony stood up and advanced slightly towards the other man. "I know who you are, Bruce, and that's not it. I have faith in you, okay? You know I do."
His fists clenched out of anguish rather than anger, and Bruce could feel the knot forming in his throat again. "Well, maybe you shouldn't."
When Tony didn't reply, Bruce thought that maybe he hadn't heard, but the cool, metal hand on his shoulder told him differently. The hand squeezed reassuringly, and Bruce thought of shaking it off, but instead let it stay there, selfishly grateful for the comfort.
"You know that you don't believe that." Tony's voice was low and husky in his ear, and it was that tone that usually made Bruce weak in the knees, but this time he continued to stand his ground.
"Then maybe you should."
"Bruce." That was the first time he'd ever heard Tony's voice crack, strained beneath the weight of trying to persuade the inconvincible. "Look, I'm not going back home without you. I'm not gonna let you walk away from all of this."
Guilt-ridden, Bruce turned to look at him. The hard knot in his throat was almost impossible to form words through, but with a broken tone, he responded with two simple words.
"Watch me."