"Bruce Banner is dead," Tony said. Well, the image of Tony. There on the concrete wall, close enough to touch, Tony Stark was saying his name. On the bottom of the screen, a text roll announced "Monster dead! Avengers report on matter."
"It had to be done, Bruce was a danger," Natasha was saying, and a moment later, Clint was on the screen.
"Bruce Banner was an animal," the archer growled, anger evident in his every movement.
"We couldn't risk a hunt if he escaped," Natasha added.
And just like that, the screen flickered away and he was left in the darkness once more, cold seeping into his soul and clenching around his heart. Even when his father used to give him ice baths, he couldn't remember ever being this cold. Feeling this alone.
It had to be done.
Just like that. The sentiments a dog gets when it is put down for attacking someone.
And no one said Hulk. It wasn't the Hulk, wasn't the physical monster that everyone was scared of. The Avengers betrayed him because they had seen the animal, the monster, inside his head. His greatest secret. It wasn't Hulk who was dangerous, and now they knew that as well as him.
The only problem was the fact that he wasn't dead. So, either they were lying to the public and had sent him here to be tested on. Or, someone had lied to them.
And somehow, no matter how much he was hurt by them, he knew they would never sentence him to the life of a lab rat. Not Tony. Certainly not Cap. And definitely not Natasha. Barton and Thor probably wouldn't have cared either way, as long as the threat was taken care of.
No, that wasn't fair. He may not have been very close to Clint, but he knew the man was a good one. And Thor was the very definition of the word compassion, at least to his friends.
Was Bruce still a friend?
No. Either way, they wanted him dead. Still wanted him dead. If he escaped, he'd go back to being a hunted animal. An animal pursued by the very people he had once trusted to protect him.
So, what was the point of escaping? Either they knew he was here and would capture him and ship him back, or they would find out once someone reported a Hulk sighting and they realized he wasn't dead. Then, they would hunt him down. And kill him.
Or….. The video was a fake. But the emotions, the speech inflections, even the expressions had been so… them. So regretful, so hollow. Having to kill their teammate had obviously done a number on them. But now, the question was, what had he done?
He didn't remember much of the Hulk's memories, but he recalled enough to know there hadn't been an incident since before he was captured by Ross.
So, what was he missing? The Avengers wouldn't just take him being dead on a word, they would have done it themselves or seen it done. Or, if the tape was doctored in some way, they would have wanted to see the body.
Without warning, his thoughts were cut by another screech emitting from his collar. Not the one that had impaired his hearing, but a fast, high beep that sounded like some sort of alarm. A sharp prick in the neck followed, and all he could feel were the words echoing painfully in his head, almost drowned out by the ringing.
Bruce Banner was an animal. A danger.
Somewhere, deep in his mind, a familiar presence growled. It soothed away the fear and replaced it with a cold apathy. Bruce couldn't feel Hulk, but he was there, lost in the abyss. He wasn't completely helpless, but he was alone. So utterly, unbelievably alone.
Bruce didn't know how long had passed since the room flickered back to darkness. He'd already gone around it several times, feeling the walls and the floor. Concrete, all of it. Better than metal, in way, he supposed. One door, heavily reinforced, hinges on the outside, with barely a seam he could feel. There were also several sturdy rings embedded into the wall, seemingly about every ten feet. Anchor points, for when they decided he needed to be restrained, probably. But in concrete? Either they were stupid, didn't think the Hulk would be a problem, or the rings were attached to a stronger metal beneath the concrete.
Still, anything was a welcome change to metal cells where he was strapped down to a bed constantly. The weakness was starting to get to him. He was severely dehydrated, and after months of limited movement and then days of dangling from a ceiling, he could barely walk
the length of one wall before he had to sag against it. A part of him hoped they would keep him in this room for longer. As long as he could walk and move freely, he could withstand the pain, thirst, and darkness.
But as if to spite him, after only a few more hours, the lights clicked on again, swarming him with pinpricks of heat. It felt like someone had lit a flare on his skin, and then had smashed the flame into his eyes. He leaned against the corner he was in, huddling into a small ball. Over the pain and constant noise in his ears, he didn't hear the sound of a door opening, or footsteps approaching him. Not until a hand on his shoulder tugged him harshly forward, bringing him to his hands and knees on the hard floor.
"Robert, I trust you have had some time to think, correct?"
Of course, it was Blondie, Bruce knew that voice by heart now. He almost laughed at the "Robert". So, they'd gotten access to his SHIELD files somehow (not all that surprising, since he was 99% sure they were SHIELD. But still, the ploy might have worked on a first year psychology student, but not him. They wouldn't incite obedience by using the name only his father called him. Not to say that the name didn't almost draw a shudder from him, but it wasn't going to have the effect they wanted. Abercrombie didn't seem to notice, though. Instead, he put a single finger under Bruce's chin and lifted his head up to meet his gaze, almost affectionately. Now, he really did shudder.
His captor's eyes shone with malice, all semblance of the well-mannered man gone the day Bruce called his bluff in the labs. Bruce could tell he was still angry about having his sadistic side revealed, but the physicist didn't really care. At least now he could see the man's true intentions. And if SHIELD would put someone like this in charge of him, would condone this torture, he definitely didn't trust them to use any weapons he developed for anything good, and certainly didn't trust them not to use them against the Avengers, should they be able to tweak them.
"Yes, I've had time to think," Bruce managed to growl. His throat felt raw, and he couldn't hear his own words, but he felt his muscles move and sound vibrate out of his mouth. By the look on Abercrombie's face, he got his point across.
"Here is how it's going to be, since we can't play nice. One, you will speak only when spoken to. Two, you will kneel every time someone enters a room with you in it, as I will not have my employees scared you're about to attack them. On your knees, hands behind your back, eyes on the floor. Understood?"
This time, Bruce couldn't hold in his laugh. The man wanted him to kneel, it was almost as hysterical as a comic book villain. At least Loki had been blessed with the threat of authority. This man just had a god complex. Even Ross hadn't gone this far, and the General had been off his rocker for years.
He was prepared for the blow when it came, but it still hurt. Even with the smile smacked off of his face, Bruce couldn't quite rein himself in long enough not to sneer.
"Want me to call you 'Master' too?"
Abercrombie grabbed him by the throat, throwing him to his knees in the process, looming over Bruce and trying to look like a force to be reckoned with.
"No wonder Rogers was so happy to be rid of you. And here I thought he was crazy, having the world's most powerful creature living with you like a house pet, one part a brilliant scientist, the other part brute strength, it would be a dream for any man. But he threw you away without a second look, and now I know why. Despite your 'immeasurable IQ', no matter how much strength your attack dog has, you're too much of a monster to be reasoned with. Too inhuman to predict, to trust," the man huffed, sounding put out. Bruce tried to tune him out, but he couldn't. He was so desperate to hear about his team, about the family he missed. Even if they had betrayed him, he couldn't bring himself not to care. He was fairly sure every word out of his captor's mouth was a lie, but even lies held some semblance of truth.
"Aww, don't want to believe me? You really should. I saved your life, you know. They wanted to be rid of you, even the redhead. She warned me that you were too powerful to control, too dangerous to let live. I argued that we could appeal to your sense of humanity, if you had one. And if that didn't work, we could appeal to your sense of self-preservation. I see that even that has failed, though."
"No matter what you do to me, I won't cooperate. I know what kind of man you are," Bruce spat, working his muscles against the fingers crushing his esophagus.
His captor tightened his hold around Bruce's throat, cutting off the oxygen supply, narrowing the physicist's world to a single focal point, head pounding and fingers weakly grazing the thick-muscled arm that gripped him.
"I know, that. Too bad, it would have been a treat to work with the great Dr. Banner. But, oh well, you are useful in other ways. And fortunately, we don't need your cooperation, just your body," Abercrombie purred, enjoying the blue that was beginning to colour Bruce's lips.
"Give up, Robert. Your friends hate you, your country hates you, and everyone who once cared about you is dead. Because of you."
Bruce could no longer tune him out; instead, he focused on the words. Trying to have it spur his anger, fuel his hate and trigger an adrenaline rush that might allow him to escape. But nothing came, no supportive growl from the darkness of his mind, no surging in his blood, not even a will to fight back. Blackness crept along the edges of his vision.
Just before he faded out, he heard the speaker one last time.
"No one is coming for you, and no one is going to save you. This is your life now. Accept it."
Somewhere, in a part of his brain that wasn't capable of rational thought, a neuron fired, and triggered a single memory. A phrase, said in the voice of the person he trusted most in this world.
It had to be done.