A/N: This started as a tiny fluff ficlet and got completely out of control. Has some references to The Incredible Hulk (2008) movie. Dedicated to all the 4,5 Bruce/Betty fans out there, hope you like it. Oh, and the summary is a line from "If" by Frank Sinatra.
Betty was feeling a little nervous.
She always felt a bit nervous when it came to Bruce, but, strangely enough, not for the obvious reason. His "monster alter-ego" was, in fact, much easier to deal with than the man himself. Because if the former was driven mostly by the desire to be accepted and loved, the latter's motivations were more like a tight-wound ball of deep-rooted neuroses and contradicting issues, and that was even before the accident…
But she loved him. Despite all that, or maybe because of it, and that was why she was here now, on the top floor of the Stark Industries Tower in New York, standing beside the wall-sized windows, feeling a little nervous about meeting him for the first time in two years.
She wondered if he even knew she was coming. From what she gathered, Mr. Stark's "little gift to Banner" was going to be a surprise, and she knew better than anyone that Bruce was not at all big on surprises.
That's when she heard the quiet sound of the elevator doors opening and Mr. Stark's cheerful "Hey, Bruce! I'm not sure if introductions are in order, but in case you've forgotten, it's…"
She turned away from the windows and faced him. He looked good. Tired, as always, with some grey in his hair and some lines around his eyes, but definitely good. And also quite shocked.
"Betty…" he murmured, "what… what are you doing here?"
"I've come to see you, Bruce," she answered calmly. That was a good start, wasn't it?
"So yeah, I think I'm gonna give you two a minute to catch up in private…" amusement was written across Mr. Stark's face and was evident in his voice as he went to the elevator. It was all apparently lost on Bruce though, who seemed not quite aware of the other man, all of his attention focused on her.
"Why?"
And here she hoped that the answer will be obvious enough.
"I was worried for you," she began, a small frown on her face. "You just left, I didn't even know what has become of you. I was at the Culver when I saw the footage of the invasion, when I saw you – well, him – for the first time in two years." She remembered almost dropping the coffee cup she was holding at the moment, relief and fear flooding her at the same time. "I did not know what to think, and then, then there were all these reports about 'the Avengers' and the interviews with Tony Stark and Captain America, but nothing about you… And I thought, maybe my father's got you, like he almost did that last time, and you were here in some cage, locked or drugged or…"
"I'm fine," he interrupted. "I'm not in a cage, they're not forcing me to do anything. I'm… good." He didn't sound that good though. He sounded cold and indifferent and a tiny bit defensive.
He has already recovered from the initial shock and was now quickly regaining the lost ground, bringing the walls back up, shutting everything off.
She tried to tell herself that that was to be expected and that she wasn't in the least hurt by it.
"Good," she smiled a small, but genuine smile. "I was worried, since, you know, it was Stark Industries that helped my father catch you the last time…"
"They did?"
"Yeah, they provided weapons and means to search you out… I thought you knew…"
"No, I did not…" his voice was even, and that was the only quality there was to it.
"And I started to search for you," she continued, "to try and contact you, but everyone was just shutting me off, and then I got a call from Tony Stark himself, asking me if I would like to meet with you…" She thought at first that it was some big joke, then – some big trap, then – some huge miracle. Now she knew that it was a chance. For both of them.
"Too bad he didn't ask me the same thing…" Bruce said looking away from her, sounding just a touch bitter.
He just really didn't like surprises.
"You… did not want to see me?"
He looked her in the eyes again, cold and hard.
"No."
"Alright," she sighed. Of course, that wasn't quite like their last "reunion", and yeah, she has hoped for a little more emotion here, but… She knew what she was signing up to, she knew it was not going to be easy. "Then my visit might be a bit shorter than I intended, but that's not the point…"
"Oh, so there is a point in here after all?"
The words might have sounded offensive to some people, but not to Betty Ross. She knew Bruce well enough to see that it was, in fact, quite the contrary. His stiff, slightly hunched over posture with his hands in his pockets, his inscrutable face and dark eyes that were never quite looking at you – those were the sure signs of Bruce Banner going into defense in depth.
She was determined to lure him out of it.
"Yes," she said, taking a step in his direction. "I'm… glad you're free, glad you're not living in a cave somewhere, glad you have people here watching your back." She hoped to all the gods that he was hearing the sincerity in her voice, seeing the genuine affection in her eyes. "I… I'd like to be one of those people. To be with you, to, maybe, help you, if you let me."
Now, that one was a lie. Relying on Bruce to let her do something like this would only lead to…
"I don't need help."
Yeah, that. Betty even had to resist a smile forming on her face, because that was just so Bruce. She was very frustrated by this attitude back when they just started their relationship: it was always either "I don't have any problems" or "My problems are only mine to deal with". But now… it felt familiar and even kind of home.
It was hard to be frustrated with a man who made you feel home.
"Then I'll just stay," she said softly. "I want to be with you, Bruce."
His lips curved in a bitter, wry smile as he chuckled lightly, his eyes on the floor. "I'm not sure the slums of India or some god-forsaken African village is such a good place for you to be in, Betty," he said, shaking his head. "Especially not with your inability to tolerate heat over 86 °F."
He remembered. She didn't know why it mattered to her so much – him remembering that one small detail about her, but it did. Somehow it made her even more determined to reach out to him, almost to the point of overlooking something he said about…
"What do you mean? You're not staying here?" she asked, a little confused. Mr. Stark never mentioned anything about Bruce leaving the Tower.
"I leave the country in three days," Bruce said, sounding quite set about it. "Look, it was really nice of you to worry about me and to even come visit me," he added, trying to change the subject, "I do appreciate the sentiment, but that's it. I don't want you to stay. It won't work."
The utter conviction in his voice begged for a challenge. "What makes you so sure?"
He sighed and rubbed his forehead before speaking. "You obviously think you still have some sort of feelings towards me, but nothing… nothing good can ever come out of it. The disillusionment will be hard, so let's not even start it all."
"Disillusionment?" she asked, incredulous. "What are you talking about?" She was expecting something along his old "it's not safe" lines, but this was new. "Because if it's about him, I've already been disillusioned about it. I've seen him, Bruce, I've talked to him, I'm not afraid of him."
"Good for you," he said evenly. "Doesn't mean I still want you around, though."
Ouch. That hurt, even if she knew that, again, he didn't mean to offend her, but to protect both of them. It's just that his shields were covered in barbed wire and his walls were surrounded by moats of sharpened spikes. And under this impenetrable fortress there was a dark, convoluted labyrinth, in the center of which Bruce Banner hid himself from the world.
And god only knew what else was lurking in that darkness.
"I'm not going to pretend I know all about you, Bruce," Betty started carefully, taking another step closer to him, relieved that he wasn't immediately backing off. "I'm not even sure there's a single person in the world that does, yourself included. But I know you're broken, hard. So hard that, maybe, nothing will ever fix you." It was there, and no-one who was willing to look could miss it. It was always in his eyes, his face, in everything he did – that shattered, resigned and somewhat empty quality that sometimes made Betty want to slap the sense into him, and sometimes (most of the time) – to just hold him and never let go. "You've got a lot of bad things happen to you, and you've got used to it to the point of thinking that things will always end badly no matter what, but that's not true." She saw him stiffen even more at that, but went on, soft and calm. "And I'm going to try and prove it to you, try my hardest, and you have to give it a try too…"
"Oh, I did," he replied instantly, bitterness mixed with sadness in his voice. "Two years ago, in that motel, I knew it was a bad idea, but I thought 'To hell with it all. We can do it, it will work out.'" He lifted his gaze on her, but it was still guarded, inscrutable. "Guess what – it didn't."
"Yes, because you left and have not even given me the chance to… It doesn't matter," she shook her head. "You're here, I'm here and…"
"Don't you get it?" She practically heard the barbed wire tighten around his steel defenses as his eyes stared pointedly into hers. "I don't want you to be here. I don't want you to search for me and wait for me. That's why I left – I wanted you to finally forget about me and move on…"
"Is that it? Because here I was thinking that you did it out of a desire to 'protect' me in some twisted way of yours."
"Protect you?" he asked, and there was too much fake amazement in that question for Betty's comfort. "Why would I want that?" He seemed to want to say something else, but abruptly stopped, running both of his hands through his hair, his eyes slightly wild, his voice shaky and desperate. "After all, it's not… it's not a question of if, it's not if someone comes after me or something happens to me, or I simply lose it one day and kill you, destroy everything you hold dear… it's when. Because it will – in a month or a year, or a couple – it will happen, and then, after I…" Were his eyes glistening, or was that a trick of light? "There will be nothing left for me, and I will want to die, but I still won't be able to. You'll be dead and I'll have to stay with it, and I can't…" his voice broke at that, and she saw him taking a couple of deep breaths to compose himself. "So no, I'm not trying to protect you. If anything, I…" he trailed off, making some vague gesture with one hand, while the other was covering his eyes.
It was not true. She knew there was no way for him to be sure of the sheer inevitability of such an outcome, knew there had to be something seriously wrong with him to make him come to that conclusion, but she also knew there was literally nothing she could say to dissuade him. That would require a Ph.D. in a field that was far less exact and simple than cellular biology.
But she had to say something, because the silence was too heavy for her to bear.
"You know, I can bring up that old cliché about loving and losing to you…" she attempted to joke, but regretted it instantly. She felt that she had no right to say that after the look of pure panic on his face, after his shaking hands and trembling voice. There will be nothing left for me, and I will want to die…
"I like the one about loving and setting free more," he smiled weakly.
Actually, she liked that one too. It's just that, with Bruce, it was less of a "set free" and more of a "push away" thing. "Look, I understand how with everything that has happened to you, to us in these past years you'd think that keeping me alive was the most important – and the only – thing for you to do, but that's not really true," she struggled to explain. "Bruce, my life…"
"…is exactly the reason this won't work out, Betty! This… this is so… I-I can't give you anything!" he said, a confused frown on his face. "You're smart, beautiful, young. You can have, you deserve so much better. A nice, mentally stable guy who will get along with your father, a family, children, a house somewhere in Virginia, where your mother was from… Playing minder to a neurotic mess of a man slash giant rage monster goes kind of against any of those notions, and I won't let you…"
"I'm not asking for your permission!" she cried out indignantly. "I love you and…"
"No, you don't," he said, as all emotion was quickly swept away from his face. She must have said something wrong, because he was closing off again, retreating back behind the walls and the moats.
"Yes I do! I love you…"
"Would you please stop saying that and get rational for once?" the smallest bit of irritation could have been heard in his voice now.
"What?!"
He said nothing in return, just shut his eyes and clenched his teeth for a moment before looking at her with the same guarded expression on his face. "What you're feeling," he explained calmly, "is a mixture of sentimentality, pity and a foolish hope for it all being all right someday. But it won't. There will be no cure, no way out, and the sooner you realize it…"
"I'm not going to realize any of your nonsense!" She couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. Was that what he told himself to justify keeping her at an arm's length? Did he really believe it? There was no way he actually believed she just pitied him, wasn't it? "I'm not even going to waste my breath disputing it. I. Love. You."
"Why are you making this so hard on me…" he murmured, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"And why are you being so stubborn? You can't tell me how I feel about you. You can't control everything in your life, Bruce, is it so impossibly hard for you to accept?"
"Yes, in fact, it is."
"Why?"
"I'm not going to…"
"Why?"
"Because that's the only way to be sure my life's still my own!" he exclaimed, fists clenched at his sides. "Not… his. Not theirs."
Now, that... that was not okay.
"Bruce… Bruce, honey, you… you don't really mean it, do you?" She hated her voice right now, soft and placating, like the one you would use when trying to calm down an unstable person, and she knew that Bruce hated it too. Because he wasn't unstable or short-tempered, he was just… seriously messed up. He strived for control so relentlessly, equated it with freedom and happiness, incorporated it in every aspect of his life, yet was sure that, in the end, he will always lose. He convinced himself that she didn't really love him, that people didn't really care and that that gave him the right to isolate himself in his little dark place with his fears and his monsters. Realizing all that… it kind of made her head spin just a little. "Say you don't really mean it, because that's… insane," she whispered, coming close to him and putting a hand on his forearm.
Something snapped in Bruce at that. Some wall just crumbled, and for a moment Betty saw the cold wild anger hidden behind it. His breathing was even, but his lips were pressed together tightly, and a shadow passed his face as he grabbed her by the shoulders and brought his face so close to hers that all she could see now were his eyes. Brown mixed with green.
"Is it?" he hissed, as the green swirled in his irises, slowly filling them. "Is it really? Look!" and the green lit ablaze, singeing her. "Look me in the eyes and tell me I'm insane for pushing you away, as far away from it as I can. Tell me I'm insane!" he cried at her, but that wasn't a threat or a challenge she heard in that cry.
It was a plea, desperate and hopeless.
"What? Are you telling me that you are going to be the first human test subject?"
"Yes. Look, your father has been pushing for the beginning of the testing for a couple of months now, and he's threatening to cut off the financing if we don't show him some viable human testing results by the end of the next week…"
"That doesn't mean that you have to be the guinea pig! Father has to have some kind of volunteers from his men or something…"
"There's no way we'll find and process a suitable military volunteer in such a short time."
"Well then tell him to wait for it, wait till we get ready…"
"But that's exactly it! We are ready, or as ready as we will ever going to be. We processed all of the Dr. Erskine's files we were able to put together, and the miniature dose of the gamma radiation will be our substitute catalyst. It will work."
"I'm not so sure. We need… we need more time, more research. Rushing out into this is… it's insane."
"Is it? This is our lives' work, Betty, a breakthrough as powerful as Erskine's own, but with so much more possibilities, so much more potential and strength to it than military could have ever dreamt of! Think about it, just for a second, think about losing it all to bureaucracy and the General's foolish refusal to continue the financing and tell me I'm insane…"
It was a cry for help.
"You're not insane," she said simply, softly. "You're just very, very afraid."
He closed his eyes and relaxed, his hands falling to his sides. Now that the outburst has ended, he looked kind of apathetic to everything. Done.
"That's right," he whispered and opened his eyes. His beautiful brown eyes. "Sorry. Sorry I…"
She shook her head. "You have to stop it. Stop being so afraid."
"No," he replied calmly, moving past her to the windows. "It's what keeps me going, keeps me focused. It's what keeps people alive."
"It hurts you."
"Not… really," he said, trying to sound sure, though it was not really clear whom he tried to convince. "I've got used to it. You know, these two years I've spent in India… I've got used to a lot of things. Have come to terms with a lot of things. This too." He turned to face her. "And I don't want you to feel… obligated to care for me for the sake of good old memories and out of pity…"
"But that's…"
"No, please, let me…" he ran a hand through his hair, as words were pouring quickly out of his mouth. "I- I can't, it's just… First they track me down and ambush me and make me…" he winced briefly before continuing even faster, as if afraid he was going to get interrupted. "And there are all these 'superheroes' in their flashy costumes, and then there's Tony, being all… himself, and then there's the invasion, and the other guy following orders for Christ's sake, and S.H.I.E.L.D. making claims on me, and I swear I've met more people in the last week than I did in my entire life and… then, then there's you, and it's just, I don't know, I just want…" he looked at her helplessly. "I need to be left alone."
It was one of those moments now, when the dents appeared and the cracks showed, and Betty wanted nothing more than to cover them with her fingers, to hold them for him.
"No one needs to be alone, Bruce, especially not you," she said, once again closing the distance between them, reaching out, putting her hands on his arms. "I don't know, maybe that's just something you've got used to while running away from me, but that doesn't mean it's actually good for you."
"It's best for everyone," he countered calmly.
"Not for me it isn't."
His brow creased in confusion as he looked her in the eyes. "I- I don't understand why this matters to you so much? Why are you so determined on throwing away your life like that? Betty, I want… I want you to be happy, why can't you see that?"
She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream and stomp and pull her hair out, because god, was it too much to handle right then and there. Because Bruce sounded so disconcerted and desperate and sorry, and why, for the love of all that's holy, should he feel sorry? Why should he even apologize for something like that, what the hell was going on in his head?
"Why can't you see that I want to be happy with you?" she whispered quietly.
"You won't," he whispered in return, and the barely contained pain in his eyes told Betty that, maybe, he wanted to cry too.
She knew what she was getting herself into, even before she accepted Mr. Stark's offer. She knew it'll be hard, that he will make it hard, on himself as much as on her, without even consciously trying, just by being who he was.
And it didn't really help that she just loved, loved so much who he was.
She swallowed the lump in her throat and began slowly. "I want to be with you, Bruce. I know I've said that, like, ten times in the last ten minutes, but I do. But only if that's what you want too." She sighed. "The problem is that I can't really trust you to know what's best for you."
He smiled a weak, wry smile. "I'm sorry, but I can say the same thing about you."
She didn't know how he did it. How he always found something to smile about, while staying the stubborn pessimist he was, and managed to make her smile in turn.
"Well, then we'll have to work on that one, right?" she asked with forced cheer, promptly squeezing his arms before letting him go and moving towards the couch. All these emotional showdowns were getting a little bit exhausting. "There should be some sort of compromise we can reach."
"We're talking life and death here, Betty, and there's really no place for a compromise," Bruce said, giving her a skeptical look.
"No, we're talking mostly your stubbornness against mine," she countered, "and I believe we can think of some kind of a deal…" There had to be a way, there was always a way, something that will help her cause without instantly scaring Bruce away. "How does this sound: these three days you've got left in the Tower, I'll stay here too. With you. I'll make you your morning coffee, you'll play piano for me in the evening and I'll be damned if I won't kiss you goodnight at least once," she smiled at him. "And after three days, if you're not still terrified by the very thought of letting me near you, and I'm not suddenly 'disillusioned' about my feelings for you, I say I'm packing my things and buying the second ticket to Mumbai. First class."
"And if…"
"If that doesn't work out, well, then I will leave you to wallow alone in your carefully controlled misery and will never disturb you again."
For a longest moment he didn't say anything, just standing there, by the windows, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the floor, and she took that moment to take another look at the man she was trying to win over so persistently it was almost pathetic.
He looked old. Not just older, though the difference between him when they last met and him now was evident, but simply… old. He did not just have "some" grey hair, there was actually more salt than pepper there, and why would a man in his early forties have so much grey hair anyway? Why would he be so weary and rigid, so frail and meek yet so frustratingly stubborn, so determined to take the responsibility for the lives of all the people around him, so painfully gentle to others and yet so ruthless to himself?'
There was no explanation whatsoever as the questions just kept piling up, each more depressing and pointless than the others.
Why had it all happened that way? Why were their lives like that, why was the world so cruel, why couldn't she just hold him and kiss him and make all his fears go away?
Her vision was becoming blurry, and that was probably the reason she hasn't noticed him moving from the windows and sitting down on the couch beside her. The silence stretched on, heavy and thick. Bruce was still not looking at her, wringing his hands in his lap, frowning slightly, and when at long last he spoke, his lips barely moved and his voice was hardly louder than a whisper.
"I lied, you know," he said. "I did want to see you."
"I know," she replied just as quietly.
He nodded absently, but said nothing. There was another long pause before he finally lifted his gaze on her and asked simply "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why are you making this so hard…" he whispered, a weird mix of longing and defeat in his tone.
She shrugged, as if the answer was obvious.
"It's going to be hard, Bruce. And painful," she said simply and put her hand over both of his, stilling their nervous wringing. "You know, they say that, in the end, all you can hope for is the love you've felt to equal the pain you've gone through. God knows, you've gone through a lot of pain…"
"It wouldn't even tip the scales," he said, and that small sad smile on his face was the most beautiful sight she had seen in years. It disappeared quickly though, replaced with a frown. "But I can't… I can't…"
"You can," she cut him off, pouring all her conviction and faith in those two words. "Maybe not right now, not right away." She smiled, remembering his words from before. "But in a month or a year, or a couple… It's just a question of when."
He chuckled weakly and put both of his hands protectively around her delicate hand. She knew he would not say it, he did not dare to say it, but it was there nevertheless. She saw it in his eyes, because now they were open, just for her, just for a little while, but enough to see that he was ready to put away his fears and doubts and give it all a chance. Give them both a chance.
It was all she was asking of him, really.
And then suddenly he laughed, lightly and reservedly, like he always did, but genuinely none the less.
"What?" she asked, curious.
"Oh, nothing," he waved off, still grinning. "It's just, I just thought that whatever comes out of it in three days…" he shook his head as if in disbelief, "it will be all Tony's fault."
She laughed at that too.
And somewhere a few levels lower a man with a metal heart turned off the security feeds on his tablet and went to pour himself a glass of scotch, thinking that, maybe, there was some truth in the old saying about giving gifts feeling better than receiving them after all. Because that one right there? It felt damn good.