Chapter 8
Alice…
She felt like she was floating, floating through the black. There was nothing holding her. She wanted to sink deeper into the darkness, but instead she was floating upward, toward a soft gentle voice that murmured in her ear.
Alice…
Alice…
"Alice?"
Her eyes fluttered open and Bruce's face hovered over her, his dark eyes intense and lined with concern. At first she couldn't figure out what he was doing. He shouldn't be here. She tried to turn her head to get a better look at him, but a dull pain thudded at the base of her skull and lights burst behind her eyelids as she squeezed them shut. That was when she knew she was still alive.
"Damn…" she whispered, but it wasn't because of the pain.
She felt Bruce's hand touch her face, smooth back her hair.
"Try not to move too much. You have a bad bump on the back of your head."
She could barely hear him through the pounding.
"God, why didn't they just kill me?"
She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth. Bruce stared down at her silently, and Alice had to fight the urge to squirm. She wanted to laugh off what she'd said, turn it into a joke about her head hurting, like she would have with anyone else. But she knew, even if she could get a chuckle past the lump in her throat, Bruce wouldn't believe her. He knew what she'd meant. And he wouldn't forget it.
But for now, he didn't say anything. Instead he grabbed a bottle of water and very gently slid his hand under her neck, helping her to slowly lift her head. It hurt like hell and Alice could see bursts of light flashing in front of her eyes.
"Drink this. I don't want you dehydrating."
His voice was still quiet, but it had lost some of its softness. He didn't look her in the eye as he tipped the bottle to her lips and let her drink. She really was thirsty, but she tried not to gulp the water down or choke.
Suddenly she realized that the light she was seeing wasn't just from her pounding headache. Sunlight was streaming through the windows of Bruce's house. When Bruce took the water bottle away, she swore loudly and tried to sit up. Her vision swam and her head pounded and Bruce held her down with both hands on her shoulders. She tried to struggle, but she could barely breathe through the sharp pain that shot through her head and down her neck.
"Dammit get off of me, I have to get to work," she said, her words coming out slightly slurred.
"Alice, stop, you aren't working today," Bruce said soothingly.
"The hell I'm not, I'm already late!" she said, trying again to sit up and again failing miserably, "I was supposed to open the store, I should have been there hours ago."
"I already called the Takeris, they know all about it," Bruce said, still holding her shoulders down firmly, "Everything is fine."
Alice looked up at him, feeling hazy.
"You… You called them?"
Bruce smiled, just a spark of humor back in his face as he relaxed.
"Yes, I called them, the number was in your phone."
"They're okay?"
That wasn't really the question she was trying to ask, but she felt like she was talking through a haze.
"They're fine," he assured her. A little of the softness she'd first heard in his voice was slowly coming back. His fingers brush her temple, "And so are you. You have a concussion, a pretty bad one. I wasn't sure…"
He paused and pressed his lips together for a moment, his throat moving as he swallowed.
"I wasn't sure if you were going to wake up," he said, his voice hoarse.
Alice felt her stomach contract and she balked. She didn't want to hear that roughness in his voice. She turned away, the world swaying as she did, but she didn't care. She couldn't look at him. Why had she let this happen? She should have seen the warning signs. She knew better.
"They must have been in a hurry."
Bruce's voice had lost the edge and was now calm and direct. Alice glanced at him, her eyes squinted. Her head still hurt when she moved.
"What?"
"The muggers," he said, "Your bag is gone, but…" He pulled something out of his shirt pocket, "I found these in a crack on the sidewalk. They must have been in a hurry and missed them."
Nestled in the palm of his hand were her parents' wedding rings. When her fingers clasped around the two gold bands she felt a wave of relief flood through her. She gripped them tightly to her chest, breathing deeply.
"Thank you," she breathed softly.
Bruce nodded, but he stared down at his hands instead of looking at her. Alice could tell that he wanted to say something, but whatever it was, he was keeping it to himself.
"You should try to get some sleep," he said, "The worst should be over now."
She resisted the urge to scoff. The worst was never over. But she was tired, so she closed her eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep.
When she woke again, it was dark. It was raining again. Alice could hear it trickling through the leaves of the trees and pattering softly on the roof. She sat up slowly, testing herself. Her headache was gone and she didn't feel dizzy, but her neck was still sore.
She started to check her watch, and then realized she didn't have it. It was gone, along with her bag. The irony was, her muggers really hadn't gotten all that much. Her payday was the end of this week, so really all they'd gotten was a bag, a watch, and a recording of Tosca. She did mourn the loss of the opera though. She would have to see if she could find another copy for cheap.
She looked around in the gloom and saw Bruce lying on the floor in the corner of the room. He was using one of his duffle bags for a pillow, curled up on his side with an arm tucked under his head. Alice felt bad that he'd had to sleep on the floor. The mattress wasn't too comfortable, but she knew it had to be better than hard packed dirt. As quietly as she could, so she wouldn't wake him, she swung herself off the mattress and crouched on the floor, watching for any sign that he might have heard her. There was no change in his breathing. He never moved. Alice relaxed a little. A cool breeze blew through the house and Alice saw Bruce shiver and shift a bit. It must not have been quite so cool when he'd gone to sleep because he wasn't wearing a shirt. Slow and silent, Alice gathered up the thin green blanket that she had been using and padded softly to where Bruce lay.
She stood over him for a moment, just looking at him. Since that first night when he'd… changed, Alice had never seen him less than fully dressed. Even in the full heat of summer, when even Alice had wished she could strip down to her underwear, he had always worn shirt, pants, socks, shoes, sometimes even an old sports jacket. He said it made him feel more professional. So as she stood over him in the darkness, she took a moment to appreciate his lean torso, not muscled as she might have expected having seen his alter ego, but lean and defined under a layer of coarse dark hair.
That was when Alice realized that Bruce was handsome. This surprised her. She had never thought of a man as handsome in her life. Cute, hot, sexy, any of the other adjectives that she had used over the years to describe members of the opposite sex, none of them defined Bruce Banner in the slightest. But handsome… That word seemed to encompass everything about him, not just how he looked, but how he behaved, how he spoke, and who he was.
She knelt down next to him and carefully draped the thin blanket over his exposed skin. He stirred and sighed in his sleep. Alice reached out her fingers and brushed back one of his dark curls before she realized what she was doing and jerked back, scrambling to her feet. She glanced outside. The rain had slowed to only a drizzle now. If she hurried she might be able to make it to the hostel before it started up again.
She looked back down at Bruce, still sleeping soundly on the floor, the most relaxed she'd ever seen him. She could feel the tips of her fingers tingling where they'd brushed his face. And she knew she didn't want to be there when he woke up. She slipped out of the house and into the rain.
Something changed after that night. Alice knew it, but she never could exactly put her finger on it. As the days and weeks passed, the rain slowed and finally stopped. The humid air dried out, the temperatures lowered to a reasonable level, and Alice found herself comfortable for the first time since she'd come to Kolkata, which felt like a lifetime ago. Medical work remained steady, even increased as word of the doctor continued to spread.
Bruce was convinced that Alice's mugging had been a direct result of exhaustion. Less than a week after it happened, he quit his job at the shipping dock. Alice, of course, protested this move quite fervently, but Bruce wouldn't hear any argument about it.
"I have everything I need," he insisted, "And I need you to keep your job with the Takeris. The shop is our only link to these people."
Alice was reluctant, but she wasn't left much of a choice. Because Bruce was available full time, he was able to take care of most of the cases while Alice was at work. Alice started to feel like little more than a glorified secretary, taking information and making appointments, and only feeling really useful on her days off. It was awful.
But that wasn't really what had changed. The weather, her work, those things didn't bother her nearly as much as the thing that she could never quite put into words. She caught herself looking at Bruce sometimes, not really staring, just looking at him for no reason when she never would have before. She couldn't seem to unsee what she had seen the night she'd left his house in the rain, unknow what she knew now.
He really was handsome.
That bothered her. It bothered her that she hadn't seen it before, and it bothered her that she kept seeing it now, it even bothered her that it bothered her at all. It wasn't anything new. She'd worked with attractive men before, she'd even dated a bit when the mood struck her. So why was this bugging her?
"Have you ever been in love, Alice?"
The question came out of nowhere, on a cool night by the embers of a dying fire. It startled her and she stared at Bruce for a moment. He was smiling, but his eyes were intense. Alice looked away.
"No."
"Never?"
He sounded surprised. Alice shook her head.
"Nope, never. It's not really my thing."
There was a long pause.
"No," Bruce muttered, a strange, bitter edge to his voice, "I guess it wouldn't be."
Alice glanced back at him. He was staring off into the night, a hard edge to his jaw. She wondered what he meant by that. She decided to ask him something else instead.
"What about you?" He turned his focus back to her, "Have you ever been in love?"
His face softened, the ghost of smile on his lips.
"Yes. I have."
Alice wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her chin on her knees, staring at him over the firelight. It flickered over his face, giving a glow to his smile.
"What was she like?"
She watched as Bruce gathered his thoughts.
"She's a scientist," he said, "A biologist actually, brilliant, respected, fiery, and stubborn as hell."
"And pretty of course," Alice said.
Bruce looked up at her and smirked.
"Oh naturally, she's gorgeous."
Alice smiled, "Sounds like a match made in heaven. What happened?"
The smile faded from his face and his eyes dropped to a patch of grass he was plucking at.
"I did."
Alice pressed her cheek to her knee.
"What do you mean?"
Bruce paused, collecting his thoughts again. Alice waited patiently. She hadn't meant to go this far, but it was too late to turn back now.
"We were working together on a project, a serum for the government. I thought it was going to keep people safe," He clenched his fists briefly in the grass, then relaxed, "I know better now."
Alice watched him carefully, captivated by the emotions that flickered across his face as he spoke.
"Being the cocky son of a bitch that I am, I tested it on myself. And when the gamma radiation hit my system…"
He glanced up and smiled bitterly.
"Well, you've seen what happened next."
Alice felt a lump of terror in her throat.
"Did you…? Did she…?"
Bruce dropped his eyes again.
"No, but she got hurt pretty badly. I don't even remember what happened, it was all a blur. And when it was over, when I saw what I'd done, I just left. I didn't want to worry about hurting her again and, maybe even more importantly, I didn't want the government getting hold of whatever was inside me. So I disappeared."
There was a pause.
"Have you seen her?" Alice asked, "Since the accident?"
Bruce smiled vaguely.
"Once. I went back, looking for a cure," He looked up at her, "Only there is no cure. This is who I am now, who I'll always be. And this..." Bruce's eyes lingered on the broken house, the dying fire, the slums in the distance, "This is my life. But it isn't hers. She would have come with me, if I'd asked her. But I didn't, because this isn't who she is. It's who I am. And those two things will never be the same again."
He didn't sound bitter or angry, only resigned and a little sad. Alice stared across the fire at Bruce as she realized, all over again, that there were layers and depths to him that she might never uncover, things she might never know that had shaped him, not just into the monster, but into the man he was. And the glimpses that she got made her question everything in her own life. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. She wasn't really sure how she felt about anything anymore. And that was more frightening than any green science experiment.
Once again Bruce caught her off guard.
"Tell me a secret, Alice."
She felt her stomach twist and she jerked up, staring at him, terrified. He was looking at her over the fire glow with a determined set to his face.
"You know my biggest secret, the thing I've been working for years to keep hidden from everyone. And I feel like I know next to nothing about you. I don't know where you come from, the people you love, what made you who you are…"
"Does it matter?" The panic building in her throat made her words harsh and short, "You know me now. Why does it matter where I come from?"
"I'm just trying to understand you," he said, his voice soft, but she could hear the edge in it, the patience ebbing.
"Maybe I don't want you to understand me!" Alice said, her voice rising as her panic bubbled over, "I never asked to be the keeper of your secrets, I never asked you to tell me your life story, why do you need to know mine?"
"I need to know why you wish they'd killed you!"
Her heart stopped. She stared across the fire at Bruce, his face twisted with emotion that he was obviously trying to keep in check, eyes closed in concentration, breathing deep and even. She knew exactly what he was talking about, but she asked anyway, trying to give herself time to think.
"What do you mean?"
Bruce opened his eyes and she could see his impatience burning there. But he answered her anyway.
"When you were mugged, and I brought you here, you said, 'Why didn't they just kill me?'. Why did you say that, Alice? I need to know."
Alice stared at him across the fire while a thousand lies that she'd told a thousand times whirled through her mind. She could make any one of them convincing, she'd worked hard at it for years. But something stopped her. Bruce was smart, the most brilliant man she'd ever known. What if he didn't believe her? Even worse, what if he did? Both thoughts equally terrified her and she didn't know why. So she did the only thing that she could do, the only thing she had left.
She scrambled to her feet and grabbed her bag from the tree branch where it hung, slinging it over her shoulder.
"Alice…" Bruce said, rolling smoothly to his feet. She could hear a tinge of fear in his voice and she almost stopped, but she pushed through it.
"I'm tired, I'm going to bed," she said, trying to keep her voice level.
"Alice, wait…"
He took a step toward her, but she swept past him, taking long strides down the dark street.
"Alice!"
He could have followed her, caught her and kept her there if he wanted. But he didn't. She could hear his voice fading behind her. He wouldn't make her do anything that she didn't want to. He was a good man, just like she'd said before. For once, she wished he wasn't.
When she'd made it out of the slums and she was sure that she wasn't being followed, she slid into a deserted alley, crouched against the wall, and cried.