Next up, Bruce and Steve!. This one is about as bad as the previous chapter, so if you skipped the last one (sorry), you should skip this one.
Oh, and there's no Betty in this chapter, and probably not for the whole story.
Nightmares. Every single Avengers dealt with dreams of their past. Of course, no one told each other, but everybody knew.
Bruce was no exception. He probably started having nightmares the earliest (save Natasha), because that's when his innocence was taken.
"Having your mother murdered right in front of your eyes will do that to you," Bruce thought.
…
He was four.
His father worked for the military as a scientist. Bruce rarely saw him, but that was okay. He and his mother lived a happy, normal life, except for the fact that Bruce was four and entering first grade in the fall.
It was because Bruce was curious. Like many children, he asked lots of questions. Unlike other children, he was persistent enough to keep digging, no matter how hard it was. If the book that contained his answer had words he didn't understand, he would look in the dictionary. If the definition didn't make sense, he would ask his mother or keep looking in the dictionary until he understood it. Never mind that it would take all day (like when he asked why the sky was blue, one of his first questions he researched), he would keep looking until he was satisfied with what he found.
Ms. Banner was pleased. Although her ex-husband left her and rarely showed up, he had blessed her with such an intelligent child. She was so proud of her Bruce. However, her ex-husband was what inadvertently gotten her killed.
Bruce still remembers every detail of that horrible summer day.
Both Bruce and his mother were reclining in the living room, reading. There was a sound of a car approaching. Both Banners looked up. They were in the middle of nowhere, at a dead end. The only way a car would have shown up was as if they had been looking for Ms. Banner and her child.
Curious, Bruce's mother looked outside. After a second, she turned around swiftly, with wide eyes. Bruce knew something was wrong, and he asked what it was.
Ms. Banner didn't bother lying. "Bad men are coming. Hide, sweetie, and don't come out, no matter what I say, until I make a raven's caw." She had taken him bird watching once, and Bruce liked ravens the best. He nodded.
"I understand, mother. You hide too, okay?"
Bruce had hidden in a small cabinet up high in the living room, where they had been reading. He could see through the crack in the doors, but he was sure that it was too dark for anybody to see him. Countless hide-and-seek games with his mother confirmed that; she never found him, and she never found out about the place.
When the men came, Bruce was surprised. Although he loved his mother dearly, he didn't know she was worth so many guns. He then realized that they were asking about his father. Why else would they have come? He kept quiet, just like his mother would want him to.
Even when they found her and dragged her, kicking and screaming, into the room where he hid.
Even when she called for him in words, not using their signal they had agreed on.
Even when they tortured her, deranging her in ways no one should have to witness, let alone her child.
Even when they finally killed her, realizing she knew nothing of what they asked.
Bruce understood sacrifice, but that didn't stop his tears.
…
Bruce blinked back tears as he hugged his knees to his chest. Ten years later, and he still felt the guilt of her death. Unfortunately, it wasn't as horrible as his father's death...
…
It was nine years after his mother was killed.
Having no choice, Bruce's father took him in, towing him around like an extra suitcase as he traveled the world, assisting the government and a program called SHIELD.
Bruce didn't know any children his age, except for Tony Stark. Tony's father worked for SHIELD too (along with designing Stark Tower, and running Stark Industries), and their isolation from others remotely close to their age brought them together when they saw each other. They taught each other physics, and shared facts and information that an average adult wouldn't be able to comprehend. They called themselves the "Science Bros," and they were very close, just like human brothers.
Thankfully, Tony sick and at home when the accident happened.
Howard Stark and Mr. Banner were working on a serum.
"Just like Captain America's," they'd whisper when something went right. They were working late in the night when something went wrong.
No one knew what, or who was to blame. The building was completely empty (except for the three) at the time, and Bruce was reading outside the lab. After it happened, the lab was gone, and the remains too radioactive to study. The only evidence was Bruce.
All Bruce could remember was a loud sound. The next thing he knew, he was waking up in a hospital bed, and he felt weird. Strong, but fragile as well. And he could tell they were putting him on some kind of a medication that made his blood pressure high. Bruce had read enough medical journals to know.
The doctors said that there was nothing really wrong with him. Something had absorbed the radiation that would have instantly killed Bruce. But they were hiding something, Bruce could tell. He asked them, but they just kept quiet.
Then Bruce got angry.
Later he understood that the doctors didn't know what absorbed the radiation. No one knew until cameras caught the child turn into a huge, green monster. The monster, later named the Hulk, smashed everything. Killed everyone. As he stumbled out, he shrank back into a boy, only scraps of his medicine gown covering him.
Bruce looked dazed for a moment. Then he looked around, and realized what he did.
It didn't matter that he was weak. It didn't matter that he was naked. It didn't matter that he was unprepared. It didn't matter where he went, as long as it was far away.
Bruce ran.
…
Steve was afraid of heights.
They all had fears. Loki was afraid of the dark after the traumatic prophetic nightmares that ended up being true. Tony was afraid of water after the torture he went through in Afghanistan. Clint was afraid of needles, for some reason, and Natasha flinched at open flames sometimes.
To be more accurate, Steve wasn't afraid of heights. He was afraid of planes.
…
Steve joined the military in 1942, at the age of fifteen.
Of course, his form didn't say that. His form wasn't accurate at all. Once he was accepted, no one cared what his age was. They just wanted him to follow orders like everyone else. Even when SHIELD took him from the ice less than a year ago, they didn't change it, even though the file was wrong by about seventy years now.
Steve had other things to worry about.
How he was supposed to fit in to such a different world, for one thing. The world was so bright and colorful. Every time he thought he knew something, another series of modern common knowledge made itself known to him.
When Steve went under, the world was at war. When he thawed, SHIELD told him America won. They didn't tell him what they lost.
Sorry for the abrupt ending and short history with Steve. If this was a normal story, I'd explain Steve's full background, but because it's a fanfiction, it would be redundant. I know Bruce's history with SHIELD is unsatisfying short, but there will be more next chapter, when I cover Tony.
Thanks for reading.
