"The streets were rocked yesterday when an explosion of unknown origin destroyed a pharmacy on 18th street. No official casualties have been reported, but a pharmacist and two technicians were thought to have been inside..."
Bruce blinks blearily at the television screen before realizing what it is. The news anchor, a fake blonde woman in a well-tailored suit, sounds so calm, so unresponsive to what she's reading.
He wonders how she manages to do that, talking about death and destruction without a thought. Maybe she should've been the Hulk.
It's like waking up from an incident, except worse, because he remembers all of the worst parts. He can't speculate that things weren't that bad this time, that maybe he hadn't terrorized quite so many people this time around. This time he knows exactly what happened, at least for the majority of the time.
This time it really wasn't his fault, but he can't see past the accusations stabbing him from the inside. If you had been a few minutes earlier or if you hadn't been such a coward or if you hadn't spent 5 years running away...things could have been different. Things would have been different.
So many regrets.
So much destruction and pain.
So much heartbreak.
And, like always, absolutely nothing he can do about it.
Five years had done nothing to her, not physically, anyway. Maybe she looked a little more tired, a little more weary, but her features were still the soft lines of beauty he remembered.
Watching her in her element, smiling while providing a bottle of pills to an elderly customer, laughing at something a coworker said, made Bruce's heart clench, though he can't quite put words to why. But somehow the sight of her through the window digs a hole inside of him, filled with some strange mix of emotions that he thinks he might have had names for at some point but has now forgotten.
He knows he needs to go in, but he can't even get his hand within a foot of the door handle. He wants to have something real to say, something that doesn't sound like its coming out of the mouth of a seventeen year old deadbeat dad, but everything he comes up with sounds either too pathetic or just plain stupid.
Hey. I know I abandoned you and our baby, but could I maybe have a second chance?
I know I'm a terrible ass, but could you possibly forgive me?
He sighs, flattening himself against the wall when her head turns towards the window. It's been 5 years, what's one more day? he asks himself, though the argument comes out weak, even to himself. If he could just figure out what to say -
Fire. There's fire everywhere he looks, and smoke invading his lungs - he's - coughing? - wheezing, why hasn't he transformed yet? Where did the fire come from why was it still burning where was he anyway?
He turns to face the shattered window - when did it shatter? It used to be - he doesn't remember what it used to be, but he thinks it's important, somehow - why could he still think at all?
His heart's beating fast, far too fast, he knows he should fix that but the smoke is burning his throat he knows he should get out of here but what if there's something important, something he should remember...
Something, perhaps, inside the shattered window? He tries to look through the broken glass, but all he sees is smoke and flames and debris and a woman is screaming -
Brianna, he thinks with sudden clarity, and then he's scrambling towards the burning building - he has to go in he has to save her - but there are arms pulling him back, away from the fire no wrong way and there are voices, so many voices...
He's pulled away, and he wonders wildly why he hasn't transformed, his heart is definitely racing quickly enough, and he's certainly not in control anymore, but maybe it's shock or confusion or some strange aspect of the explosion...
Explosion. Yes. Something exploded, behind his head, and he hadn't been able to react because it was too sudden, too unexpected, and now he couldn't see, could barely breathe amidst the haze of smoke and fire and debris.
But she was inside. He saw her inside, just before, he knew she was there, she had been inside. And now there was fire and smoke where she had been, just seconds before, and there's was no way...
His sob gets caught in the smoke in his chest, and he does the only thing he can remember how to do.
Run.
It's silent in the town, which is usual for the middle of the night. He's sitting on his porch (well, in front of his door, anyway) and the stars are shining back at him coldly in the Argentinean sky. The stars used to be comforting, he reflects, but now they're just a silent reminder that he's nowhere near where he should be.
"Some deep thoughts you're having there."
Bruce startles - who could possibly be speaking such flawless English here? He looks up, and standing beside him, hands tucked into the pockets of his black suit, faint smile on his lips, is the dead agent from the Helicarrier.
Bruce had never actually spoken to him, ever, but Tony would talk about him, now and again, if you got him drunk enough and in the right mood. But Bruce was fairly certain that there shouldn't have been a way for him to be standing right next to him.
"Agent Coulson," he greets dully. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?"
Coulson's smile widens a fraction. "This isn't about me, Dr. Banner. This is about you."
"Are you real?" Bruce asks, though he doesn't really expect an answer. If his mind is creating mirages of the dead to talk to, he must be farther gone than he thought.
"Let's focus on the problem here, shall we?" Coulson replies smoothly. "You seem to be stuck in somewhat of a sticky situation, wouldn't you say?"
Bruce swallows before looking away from the man-who-looks-like-Coulson. "If you're here to talk me into going back to New York - "
"Who says I'm here at all?"
Bruce presses his fingers against his temples, willing himself to either wake up or come up with some test to prove that Coulson is only a dream. Finally, when he can't think of much of anything at all, he says, "Well, perhaps you should sit down."
There is perhaps nothing stranger than seeing a man in a professional suit and tie settling down in the dirt in front of a tiny hut in rural Argentina, Bruce thinks.
A dream, then. Definitely a dream.
"So, Dr. Banner. You seem to have made some interesting decisions recently."
God. Even his dreams are mocking him now. "I don't have to explain myself to you."
"Of course not," Coulson agrees. "I was just thinking about how proud your father'd be."
Bruce is so shocked that he just stares at Coulson for a long moment before finally the words catch in his brain and he has to close his eyes to avoid their accusing glares. "What did you say?" he chokes out.
"Oh, I just meant that you're carrying on the family tradition, right? Abuse and neglect are very similar, you know."
This time there's no shock to blanket the anger, and Bruce has to fight harder than he has in years as the Hulk rages behind his eyes. He can't escape the internal images, the whiskey bottle exploding behind his head, the beet-red face inches from his own, the voice screaming "you tell anyone about this, you little shit, and you'll get the same as her...
A little boy, huddling in the corner, crying, while a red-faced man rages at him, gesturing haphazardly while slurring through threats. The boy peers through his fingers and sees the woman on the ground. She's still not moving. Why? Why won't she get up and help him? There's blood staining the linoleum, seeping through the clothes, and the little boy sobs all the harder at the sight.
Hatred doesn't replace his fear until weeks after, when hot seething anger overrides any other emotion he felt. He barely feels anything at all when finally, years alter, someone hears his father talking after he's been drinking, boasting how he'd "put the bitch out of her misery" and calls the cops. He's institutionalized two days later, but his ten year old son feels nothing as he watches them take his father away.
No. Must not think of such things. He's gone. Too much anger, too much hate. He hast to stay in control. Always in control.
When he finally pushes all of it back to where it belongs and opens his eyes, he's alone in the dark under the cold stars.
Your father'd be so proud.
Continuing the family tradition.
Your father'd be so proud.
So proud.
There's a stinging pain in his cheek, and a woman standing above him, shaking his shoulders brutally. She has fiery red hair that he feels in distantly familiar, but she's yelling and shaking so he can't really tell.
Another stinging pain, his other cheek - oh, she's slapping him, he understands now - and screaming something at him, pushing him away, but what is she saying? What does she want?
He runs, because he knows how to do that, knows how to run like its his job, he understands that. He doesn't know where he's going - it doesn't seem to matter, anymore, so he just runs and runs and runs until running is the only thing his brain can think about.
The boy - Robbie, he reminds himself - seems content to play with his action figure on the floor, which Bruce is grateful for. He's never actually played with a child before, and doesn't want to start now, not with his brain in its current catatonic state.
He watches the gold and red Iron Man figurine zoom around the living room in the little boy's hand, complete with dramatic sound effects that he doesn't think Tony's suit would ever have made.
Bruce alternates between watching the fight scene on the living room floor, and staring at the TV screen that is playing the news, although he hasn't really understood any of it apart from the short segment about the explosion yesterday.
He doesn't even have a picture of her, he reflects suddenly, as he watches Robbie play.
For the first time in nearly 30 years, Bruce wants to cry.
He rubs his hand over his face wearily.
"Aunt Natasha said you're my dad," the boy says. "Are you?"
Bruce closes his eyes for a long moment. "Yes," he finally says, opening them again. "I guess I am."