Bruce Banner. Robert Bruce Banner
Bruce’s worst enemy is himself.
He knows it, everyone knows it. For him, the battle is everlasting, and it stretches on with no end in sight.
The Other Guy is only one part of what he fights. He knows enough about the Other Guy that sometimes they can cooperate, can act as one, and that makes the situation somewhat bearable.
But majority of what he fights comes from his own mind, his dreams, his fears, his childhood.
He remembers broken glass, remembers curses and screams and complete terror coursing through his body. He remembers blood and abuse, remembers warm, safe arms around him, a shield from the world.
He remembers running, a flight for safety, a flight from the monster that had borne him. He remembers comforting arms and a soft voice shushing him as they run.
He remembers the monster grabbing on and not letting go, cries and screams and roars of fury and unadulterated anger and possessiveness.
The crack of bone on concrete, light fading from dying eyes.
His only haven, gone.
He remembers leaving, leaving the pain and the past.
Years fly by, blurry and monochrome, dark, unmemorable, nothing.
He remembers standing before stone, standing before words etched into stone, moss and ivy creeping across the weather-worn marker.
Head bowed in grief, white flowers placed before it.
And then the pain comes rushing back.
The shuffle of footsteps behind him, the crunch of dirt and gravel beneath his feet as he spins around.
His eyes meet the eyes of that monster, the one that he'd thought he was rid of for life.
Screams and yells deteriorate into fists and brute strength, and it ends with a single shove.
Bone snaps, cracks on protruding moss-covered, engraved stone, and the terror of his life is gone.
His first kill, the only one without the Other Guy, and the only one he'll never be sorry for.
He remembers after that, when he meets the Other Guy, the days, months, years on the run, the exhaustion, the guilt.
The sickening fear and pain and bone-deep exhaustion that dogs him everyday, the want, the desire to just stop.
The sharp, sour, bright tang of metal on the day he gives in.
The spike of pain before everything goes green.
When Natasha calls him in, that's the day his life changes.
The day he finally meets someone who's not wary around him, not afraid and completely brazen. Someone who riles him up for fun, who doesn't care about his problem.
And, he thinks, that's really all he(they) ever needed.
Someone to believe.