The Avengers Whump & Bromance Anthology
The Death of Bruce Banner
Whumptober 2020
PenPatronus
"We're not naming it Veronica!" Bruce told Tony in a 'for the last time' voice. "Just name it what you name all the other ones – Mark 48 or 49 or wherever you're at." The two friends were in their lab in Avengers Tower. It was two in the morning – the perfect time for Stark/Banner brainstorming sessions. Something just coalesced at 2am. Maybe it was the quiet in the Tower or the coffee they shouldn't drink or the darkness outside the tall windows. Or maybe it was just the mad magic of science on full power when the moon was just right.
"The other ones have names, too, you just haven't bothered to learn them," Tony said. He stood in front of a holographic schematic of the Hulkbuster armor with his arms folded against his chest and one fist under his chin. "How about I name this one, and you name the next one, huh? Compromise? Deal? Bruce? …Bruce?" Tony turned towards his fellow scientist and frowned when he saw Banner leaning heavily against a silver lab table. "Banner, hey, what's up?" Tony jogged over and put his hand on Bruce's shoulder. "Talk to me. What's going on?"
"I, uh…" Bruce winced and slid his hand between two buttons of his button-down shirt, massaging his chest. "I don't know. I feel… Weird."
Tony noticed the sweat on Bruce's brow and the slight shake of his hands. "Hulk weird?"
"No… Human weird. Like, uh… I don't know it's just… My ribs feel heavy."
"Your ribs feel heavy?" Tony felt the heat, then – a furious fever in Bruce's cheeks. "Hey, buddy, why don't you sit down." Bruce nodded. He reached blindly for a chair and only found one when Tony moved it. Banner sat down heavily in it, and put his face in his hands. Tony kept his hand on his shoulder. "I thought you never got sick. Green Giant heals you, right? I mean, he gets shot into Swiss cheese and you walk away."
"God – my head…" Bruce suddenly clamped a hand around Tony's forearm. "Feels like my skull is changing shape. Is my skull changing shape?"
"Not this time," Tony gulped, "but look at your skin." Bruce obeyed. There was a green tint to it. Not Hulk-green but about-to-puke green. It was all over. He felt his own pulse and Tony could tell by the look on his face that his heart was either beating dangerously fast or dangerously slow. "Bruce, maybe we should get you to a hospital."
"Maybe… Maybe I should sit down," Bruce wondered. His words were slow and slightly slurred.
"Buddy, you are sitting – Bruce?" Bruce suddenly started to shake from his toes up to his nose. Tony grabbed onto his upper arms with both hands. "Bruce!" It happened so quickly – as most shocking things do. Bruce fell out of the chair, and would've knocked his head on the floor if Tony hadn't been there to slow his fall and then catch his body. The seizure caused every single muscle in his body to shake like a guitar string. "JARVIS!" Tony called, "call 911! And wake the team!"
Natasha was just about to call it a night and allow herself to drift off to sleep when a voice suddenly said, "Where are we?" Her heart did a loop-de-loop. Bruce was awake and looking at her and speaking and, oh, her heart flipped happily over again. She crawled across the king-sized bed and gave Banner a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. "So… Heaven?" Bruce quipped with a slight smile.
Natasha returned his smile. "Asgard, actually."
Bruce found himself in the nicest bed he'd ever been in, inside the shittiest old barn he'd ever seen. "This is Asgard?"
Natasha put up her finger. She had her phone to her cheek. She winced when a high-pitched buzzing sound erupted from it. "Bad service out here," she joked, winking. "Stark? Yeah. He's awake." She pocketed her phone and returned her attention to Bruce. "This is an empty island far, far away from Odin's kingdom but, yes, this is Asgard." Bruce tried to sit up in bed, but Nat put a hand on his bare chest. "Not yet," she said. "Take it slow."
"What happened?"
"We're not sure. Seizure of some sort. You've been asleep for a week."
"A week?"
Pounding footsteps outside. The barn door opened and Tony and Steve entered. "There he is." Stark clapped his hands together once, then sat on a corner of the bed, opposite to Nat. "How you feeling, buddy?"
Bruce was just assessing that now that he'd gotten his bearings. "Stuff… hurts," he concluded, half-aware that he sounded half-lucid. He reached up and scratched at the almost-beard he'd grown. "Especially my head. It's throbbing."
Tony nodded. His smile was so forced he looked like he was wearing a mask of himself. "Did you tell him yet?" he asked Natasha.
She shook her head vehemently. "Waiting for you to."
"I think that's a job for the team leader." Tony looked up at Cap and spread his fingers out, gesturing for him to speak. Steve almost insisted that Tony be the one to give Bruce the news, but he saw something foreign in Tony's eyes. He couldn't name it, but it was something like a begging expression. Tony really didn't want to do it.
Cap cleared his throat. He moved to stand behind Tony and folded his arms against his chest. "You have a brain tumor," he said. "You're dying."
Bruce snorted. "If I have a brain tumor, the Hulk has already healed it."
Steve shared a knowing look with Tony. "Well, this one isn't healing. It's right above your pituitary gland and it's getting bigger every day. It's pushing hormones into your system that are messing up all your organs. The docs at home can't do anything for you. We were hoping the scientists on Asgard would have a solution, but they don't. And…"
"And?" Bruce prompted.
"We've tried to get the Hulk to come out, to heal you, but it hasn't happened yet."
"Even kicked you in the balls," Tony said. When Bruce glared at him Tony shrugged and said, "For your own good!"
Natasha pursed her lips together and looked down at the sheets covering Bruce's body. "We brought you here in case you change," she explained. "Nothing smashable on this island but us."
"I'll get him to come out and play," Bruce said with a sigh and a roll of his eyes. "Get off the island."
"We're not scared," said Nat. "He's been recognizing us lately. He knows our voices, he knows our faces. The lullaby works most of the time."
"And if he's being a jerk I'll just call in Veronica," Tony said with a sneer.
"We are not calling it Veronica!" Bruce suddenly shivered. "Oh! Do something else to make me angry. Might be working."
"Uh… The flat-earthers are right!" said Natasha.
"Trump is the greatest president the world has ever seen!" said Tony.
"Tony's smarter than you!" said Steve with a chuckle.
Bruce frowned and put his hand to his chest. "Hmm."
"Hmm?"
"Whenever I get a little emotional I can… Feel him. He's this extra weight in me that kind of wakes up and lets me know he's there. I don't…" Wide-eyed, Bruce looked up at Tony. "He's there. I can feel him but… I think he's sick, too. I think… I think he's dying." Suddenly, to the shock of the other three, Banner tossed his arms into the air and shouted happily. "I'm dying!"
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Natasha asked. "This is not how normal people react to a brain tumor!"
"You don't get it," said Bruce, which was true because none of them did. "I've been hoping to die ever since I got the Hulk. I've been trying to die."
Nat frowned. "Don't…"
"Nat, the Hulk is nothing but a dangerous burden. He destroys, he kills. I thought he couldn't be killed but something has changed. If we can get rid of him, the sooner the better."
"That means getting rid of you!"
"So?" Bruce's smile was as wide as his face. "This – this is a miracle!" Nat suddenly leapt to her feet and stormed out of the barn, slamming the door as she left. The three men watched her go in silence – one of them flabbergasted. Bruce cleared his throat. He tried to look Tony and Steve in the eye, but their attentions were on the floor. "You get it, right?" he asked them. Neither replied. "I want you to stop trying to cure me," Bruce ordered. "No pills, no brain surgery, no Asgard magic medicine. Let me die." Tony suddenly leapt to his feet and stormed out of the barn, slamming the door as he left. "What?" Bruce called after him.
Steve sighed and pulled a wooden chair up to the bed. "Bruce," he said, "what would you do if Nat was dying? If Tony was?"
Bruce flinched at the thought. He settled deeper under his blankets and echoed Steve's sigh. "I'd tear the world apart trying to save them."
"And you don't think we'd do the same for you?"
"I don't want you to do the same for me. Don't you see? I don't care if I die. All I care about is preventing the Hulk from hurting people. If that means death, then so be it."
"You are a valued member of this team and an indispensable scientist to the world and, more importantly you're our friend and we love you," Cap said quietly, and all in one breath. "We're not giving up."
"Well, I am," Bruce said, equally quietly. "Happily."
A month passed. Bruce lost weight. He had seizures at least once a day. When he wasn't asleep he was vomiting, and when he wasn't vomiting he was suffering from headaches that almost made him cry. Half of his hair fell out. He could barely walk, refused to eat, felt dizzy, and when he had the strength to he pulled out his IVs. The team tended to him the whole time. But no threat from Thor could get him to eat. Clint tried the "airplane method" with a spoon like he did with his kids, but that didn't work to get Bruce to eat or to laugh. Every physician in Asgard came to see him, but none could help.
Nothing worked. Bruce was dying.
One morning, about an hour before dawn, Bruce suddenly woke up gasping for air. The other five were in the barn and all rushed to his bedside. It was Tony that Bruce held a hand out to. Stark took it, and held Bruce's thin, cold hand in both of his, warm and snug in his lap where he sat on the side of the bed. Candlelight lit the scene and a few morning songbirds sang outside the barn. "Think this is it," Bruce wheezed. "You can name it Veronica. Not that you'll need her anymore."
Stark laughed – one of those short snorts that propel tears and snot. "I'd give anything…" he started to say. His eyes filled up with tears, and then emptied. "I fix things. I've always been able to fix things and if I can't, I have the money to pay someone who can but this… Bruce, I have, maybe, ten friends in the world and half of them are in this room… I can't lose you."
Banner managed a smile. "Love you, too," he said. His lungs sounded like they were full of rocks. "Miss you."
"Don't do that. Don't say goodbye," Tony said. Then he relented. "Miss you." Tears poured. "So much."
Bruce closed his eyes and the rattling stones went silent. A squeak came out of Natasha and she collapsed into Clint's arms. Thor put a comforting hand on Steve's shoulder. Tony checked for a pulse and when he found none, he folded forward and put his forehead on Bruce's chest.
And then the Hulk came out. Banner's body stretched and cracked. The five Avengers backed up against the walls as the bed collapsed from the green giant's bulk. Hulk sat up, roared happily, and then gave the others a grin with gravestone teeth. "Hulk!" he roared. "Only Hulk now! Hulk forever!"
"Well he's looking perfectly fit," said Steve.
"Strong as ever," Thor pointed out.
It dawned on Clint a second before everyone else realized what was going on. "You don't think…?"
Tony raced forward. Hulk had to duck his head under the barn's roof – his body took up most of the room – so his chin was close to the floor, at the perfect angle for Tony to punch it. And he did. With all his strength. Hulk roared so loud that the wind he created pushed Tony back against Steve. "Don't—!" Steve advised, grabbing Tony's upper arms. Stark fought him off and approached Hulk again.
"You son of a bitch!" Tony hollered. "You didn't heal him on purpose! You let him die so you could be rid of him!"
"Hulk is Hulk now!" the giant yelled back. "Only Hulk!"
"You giant green dick!" Tony continued. "You nut-less, soul-less asshole! I will fucking kill you, you hear me? I will bury you for this!"
Natasha rushed to Tony's side and grabbed his hand. "Let me," she hissed at him. "Let me try."
Tony blinked red eyes. He wiped his face with his sleeve, gave the Hulk the finger, then retreated to Steve's side.
Natasha approached Hulk. She sat down in front of him, mirroring his crossed legs and the angle of his head. "Hey, big guy," she said. "Sun's getting real low." Hulk snorted at her like a bull. "Do you want to hurt me?"
Hulk blinked big, round, and hard. "No smash 'tasha."
"Hulk smashed," said Nat, accusing. She pointed at her heart. "Hulk smashed bad. Hulk smashed Tony, Hulk smashed Steve, Hulk smashed everybody."
"Hulk not care," he decided after a moment of contemplation. "Hulk just want to smash."
"You wouldn't have said a few minutes ago," said Natasha. "Not with Bruce's heart in you."
"Banner imprison Hulk! Hulk smash Banner!"
"If you smash, you hurt people," Natasha reminded him. "Do you want to hurt people?"
"Want to smash!"
"Bad Hulk!"
"Smash!"
"Then smash me!" Nat stood and spread her arms, turning her body into a cross shape. "Do it!"
Hulk roared. He raised both hands and hammered them down.
His fists stopped an inch from Natasha's hair.
"You wouldn't have done that a few minutes ago," Natasha said. "Not with Bruce's heart in you." She put her hands to her hips and lifted her chin. "Bruce keeps you good."
Hulk retreated. "No smash 'tasha," he repeated.
"You won't," she said, "if Bruce is alive." She waited a few seconds, then said, "Give him back to us."
The Avengers could practically see the gears going in the Hulk's brain. He sniffed and snorted and looked around the room like the answers were hanging on the wall. Then he sighed and reached his finger out for Natasha to take. "Sun… Getting… Low…"
The great monster crumpled like paper. Bones shrunk and tendons shortened. He curled in on himself and suddenly, there he was. Suddenly there was a naked Bruce Banner standing in the middle of the barn looking beyond bewildered. His hair was back. So was his weight. In fact, he'd never looked healthier.
"This can't be Heaven," Bruce deduced. The team didn't answer. They just hugged.
The End
