Pretty heavy chapter incoming. I think I first scribbled this down just after She-Hulk came out and it's just been sitting in my drafts ever since. I decided to try my hand at writing something from the perspective of Jennifer Walters. Warnings for implied child abuse and attempted suicide. The usual stuff that comes with a Bruce-related chapter in this universe.
The Signs and the Silence:
Bruce was the only other kid at family get-togethers. Naturally, Jen spent every Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Fourth of July, and a bunch of random family dinners unrelated to holidays hanging out with him. Most of the time, they raided the board game cabinet of whichever family member's house they were at. Jen's own house had the best selection; Grandma and Grandpa only had jigsaw puzzles and word games like Scrabble and Boggle. She didn't enjoy playing those games with Bruce because he was two years older and therefore knew more words than she did. So, on this particular occasion, they chose a puzzle. It was supposed to be a bunch of National Parks, but after two hours they only had the edges and some of the signs with words on them.
"I'm bored," she complained, resting her head on her hands. "Do you think dinner will be ready soon?"
Bruce only shrugged, his focus still on the puzzle. He never talked as much as Jen, but she didn't really mind because he was a good listener.
"Bruce! Jen!" Uncle Brian's voice called from upstairs. Upon hearing his name, Bruce flinched so hard he dropped his puzzle piece. Jen furrowed her brows at him. "Dinner's ready!"
Bruce heaved an audible sigh of relief.
"Are you okay?" Jen asked.
He nodded.
"Why'd you get scared?"
"Nothing," he quickly blurted out. Bruce got to his feet and started towards the stairs. "Come on, we don't want to get in trouble for being late."
Jen happily followed him up the stairs. Looking back on that memory, she recognized what a red flag it was for Bruce to flinch at the sound of his father calling his name. But at only four years old, she'd been completely oblivious at the time. Jen didn't begin to understand the signs until she was maybe ten. But because no one else in their family ever said anything about it, Jen kept her mouth shut.
At age six, she found a bloodstained shirt under Bruce's bed while looking for a checker she dropped. He told her he fell and got hurt playing outside and she believed him even though she knew Bruce would much rather read a book than play outside.
She questioned why he wore long sleeves to a Fourth of July barbecue when it was almost a hundred degrees outside, but she didn't ask. Jen did notice, however, when Bruce rolled up his sleeve a bit to scratch an itch but yanked it back down when Uncle Brian looked at him.
At Thanksgiving when she was eight, Jen accidentally dropped her mother's gravy boat and shattered it. Her dad got to his feet to go fetch the trash can, and Bruce, seated next to her, thrust out his arm and moved to get between her and Dad. He seemed confused when Dad headed into the kitchen rather than towards them.
Christmas the following year, the Banners didn't come at all. Jen's mom explained that Bruce was sick, but Jen didn't believe her. She'd never seen Bruce sick with anything worse than a cold, and a cold wouldn't have stopped them from coming to Christmas.
Every time they went swimming, Bruce kept his shirt on the whole time. He said it was to prevent sunburn. But it wasn't the presence of the shirt that grabbed her attention; lost of kids wore swim shirts. It was the way it clung to his back when it inevitably got soaked. There were little ridges, always in the same spots. Some stuck out more than others. Jen tried to smooth one out one time, thinking it was just a wrinkle in the shirt. Bruce flinched and smacked her hand away. After that, he rarely ever turned his back to her while they were swimming.
One day when she was twelve, Jen came home from school to find her mother in tears at the kitchen table. "What's wrong?" she immediately asked, sitting down beside her.
"Bruce is in the hospital," she croaked.
"Why? What happened?"
Mom took a deep, shuddering breath. It sounded and looked like she'd been crying for a long time. "My brother…" She curled her hands into tight fists. "Is a despicable human being that I cannot believe I ever let set foot in my fucking house."
Jen recoiled at the fury in her voice. She never used language like that. Ever.
"He's been hurting Bruce," Mom explained, and suddenly those little puzzle pieces from over the years fell together to form a grotesque picture.
"He hurt him that bad?" Jen asked.
"No. Bruce…hurt himself. They think he was trying to kill himself."
Jen's world ground to a halt. Bruce, who she saw so many times a year, who she considered more of a brother than a cousin, had suffered so much at the hands of her uncle that he wanted to die. And at no point had she had any idea.
"Is he gonna be okay?"
"Aunt Rebecca said he's out of immediate danger."
"And Uncle Brian?" Jen had never wished ill on anybody her entire life, but she wanted her uncle to suffer for what he'd done.
"She spoke to the authorities. He'll be taken care of," Mom said grimly.
Jen nodded her approval. Then she hugged her mom. They sat together for several hours. Jen's chest hurt from the weight of the situation. All those times she noticed something off with Bruce, she could have said something. But she did nothing, and her silence almost killed him.