The Desert Years, 2006-2012
Sevierville, Tennessee/New York City, May 2006
Bruce is well away from Culver by the time he even has a moment to think about calling Tony. He operates mostly on instinct for the first few days, once he realizes what the Army wants out of him.
He’d been in shock at first—from the serum and the gamma radiation, from the transformation, from hurting Betty—but Ross’ words had shocked him out of it.
“You’re a weapon,” Ross had said with atavistic greed, and Bruce had remembered why he’d refused to work for Stark Industries—for Tony—all those years.
Bruce hadn’t wanted to make weapons, and now he is one, and Ross wants him, wants what’s inside of him. Ross wants to study it, to cut it out of Bruce and use it.
All unwittingly, Bruce had made himself into a weapon, and he damn well should have known better. Tony had warned him, and Bruce had disregarded those warnings, and now look where he’s at—in a cheap motel room in Tennessee, after having hitchhiked, too afraid to use anything but cash lest the Army find him.
And he could call Tony. Maybe he should call Tony. They could figure this out together.
But Bruce has already hurt Betty; he’s lucky she even survived. He isn’t entirely sure what will set him off, or if it will happen again. He can’t be sure that Tony will be safe, and Bruce isn’t willing to risk him.
Bruce isn’t willing to risk anybody he loves.
He wonders what the Army will tell his aunt and Jen, if anyone will contact Tony. He wonders if Betty will say anything, or if she’ll go with the Army’s story.
His hand hovers over the telephone receiver, and then he pulls back.
Bruce can’t call Tony until he knows his triggers, until he can be sure he won’t hurt Tony the way he hurt Betty. If it’s strong emotion that causes the transformation, Tony will be especially vulnerable. Anybody Bruce cares for will be vulnerable, and his best bet is to lose himself among strangers.
Maybe, someday, he’ll be able to call Tony and tell him that he’d been right. Tony will be insufferable about it, of course, but Bruce can deal with that.
He lies back on the bed, fully clothed, and allows himself to imagine how that conversation might go.
~~~~~
“Sir, you have a phone call from Jennifer Walters,” Jarvis announces.
Since Tony has specifically ordered Jarvis to patch through any calls from Jen or Elaine, he says, “Put it through, J.”
“Jen, what’s up?” Tony asks as soon as he’s sure they’re connected. He’s elbows deep in an engine, using it as a distraction from worrying about Bruce, who should have called by now.
“Have you heard from Bruce?” she demands. “I can’t reach him, and he completely missed Mother’s Day. He never misses that.”
Tony feels his worry coalesce into a hard knot of dread. “Have you tried calling him?”
“His number’s been disconnected,” Jen replies. “I tried calling Betty, and I left a message, but I haven’t gotten a response.”
“Let me look into it,” Tony replies. “I’ll call you back as soon as I know anything.”
“Mom’s really worried,” Jen says anxiously. “I know Bruce has been distracted by this project, but it’s not like him to just drop off the face of the planet. I mean, he’s been sending flowers to Mom on Mother’s Day since he was thirteen.”
Tony wishes he’d called Bruce before now. It’s been a week since Bruce had been scheduled to try the serum out on himself, and Tony had assumed that Bruce had just been too pissed off to call him.
It wouldn’t be the first time they’d fought badly enough to cause a breach, but one of them always caved and picked up the phone, or sent an email. Jen’s call is the first indication that something might have gone really wrong.
“I’ll call you in a few hours,” Tony promises. “Tell Elaine that I’m looking into it.”
He hangs up and says, “Jarvis, pull up everything you can find on Bruce’s secret project that I’m not supposed to know about. Pay special attention to communiqués between Ross and anybody else involved in the project.”
While Jarvis works on that, Tony tries remotely accessing Bruce’s computer with no success. He has a little more luck getting into Bruce’s email, but there’s been no activity—at least none going out. There’s no indication that Bruce has read his emails either, which is unusual.
Tony is beginning to think that it’s a long shot, but he shoots off an email and starts digging a little deeper.
“It appears that Dr. Betty Ross is in the hospital, sir,” Jarvis says as Tony’s poking around in Bruce’s files.
Tony stiffens. “How badly was she injured?”
“She was in the ICU for two days,” Jarvis replies. “She’s currently in stable condition and is expected to make a full recovery.”
“Was Bruce admitted?” Tony asks.
“There’s no record of Dr. Banner being admitted to the hospital,” Jarvis admits.
Tony takes a deep breath. “Keep working on it. Dig a little deeper.”
He stumbles upon gold as he’s looking through Bruce’s files, discovering the exact process he’d planned on using in his super soldier experiment. Tony wishes he’d snooped earlier, that he’d followed through on his impulse to kidnap Bruce until he came to his senses.
Because if what he’s reading is accurate, Bruce had been planning to expose himself to a fatal amount of gamma radiation. The fact that Bruce has dropped out of contact, and Betty is in the hospital while Bruce isn’t, suggests that things might not have gone very well.
After a moment’s consideration, Tony calls the physics department at Culver. Secret government experiment or no, the Stark name means something, and departmental secretaries tend to have access to a lot of information. They might not know everything, but even the most salacious gossip tends to have a grain of truth.
“Physics department, Jan speaking,” comes the pleasant voice.
“Tony Stark,” he says smoothly. “I was wondering if you’d help me get in touch with one of your faculty members in regards to a funding opportunity.”
“Mr. Stark?” she queries, momentarily flustered. “I’d be happy to help however you need. What faculty member did you want to reach?”
“Bruce Banner,” Tony replies.
There’s a long, somewhat awkward pause. “I’m sorry, but Dr. Banner is no longer employed by Culver University.”
“But that’s perfect!” Tony says, injecting some enthusiasm in his voice. “It means that nothing will interfere with him coming to work for Stark Industries.”
Jan lowers her voice. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, but I have no way of reaching him. Dr. Ross is in the hospital, and we’ve been told to inform security if Dr. Banner turns up.”
“Is he responsible for Dr. Ross being in the hospital?” Tony asks, his tone conspiratorial.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Jan replies. “He was always so polite to me, I just can’t imagine that he’d do something like that.”
“Thank you, Jan,” Tony says and hangs up.
He’s torn on what to do next. If Bruce is in trouble—trouble that Tony can get him out of—it would make sense to keep their relationship a secret, even now. No one will ask questions about something they don’t know exists.
But that doesn’t help Tony figure out what happened to Bruce.
“I have the information you were looking for,” Jarvis announces, and begins displaying email after email. They’re clearly meant to be internal, and they talk about an accident, an overdose of gamma radiation, and the termination of the project.
Someone had helpfully attached a report, and the data indicated a fatal exposure to gamma radiation. If Betty had been hurt during the course of the procedure, and Bruce had been killed, that would explain everyone’s reticence.
He’s about ready to call Jen back when she phones him, Jarvis announcing her call again, and Tony can immediately tell that she’s crying.
“What happened?” he demands.
“Some Army officials just turned up at Mom’s front door,” Jen says, sounding as though she’s trying to get herself under control. “They said Bruce made a mistake. He was exposed to a lethal amount of radiation, and his mistake put Betty in the hospital. They don’t think he’s going to make it.”
Tony frowns. “Do they know where he is?”
“They’re trying to find him, but they don’t think they will in time,” Jen says, her voice hitching.
Tony doesn’t like the sound of that, but he also feels as though he’s missing something big. “Okay, let me give it a shot,” Tony says. “Maybe I can come up with something. I’m going to do everything I can, okay?”
Jen sniffs. “Not even you can work miracles, Tony.”
“But the Army might not be telling you the whole truth,” Tony argues, having been party to many a lie involving “training exercises.”
“Why would they lie to Mom?” Jen objects. “We’d find out!”
Tony can think of a few reasons that they wouldn’t, but he doesn’t say as much. “Just hang in there. Tell your mom I’m working on it, okay? I’ll call her tomorrow, no matter what I find.”
“Thanks, Tony,” Jen replies. “You know Mom always thought of you like another son.”
Tony smiles. “Your mom is the best, no question. Talk to you soon, Jen. Hang in there, okay?”
He keeps it together for her, but he thinks it’s probably a bad sign that the Army has told Elaine that Bruce isn’t coming home. They don’t like being wrong, and they probably wouldn’t have said as much if they thought there was any chance of Bruce turning up.
Unless, of course, they’re planning on making sure that Bruce doesn’t come back.
“Sir, I have a communication from General Ross,” Jarvis announces. “I’m afraid the news isn’t good.”
“Let’s hear it,” Tony says.
He doesn’t recognize the voice, but he trusts Jarvis’ programming. “We should consider the program a total bust with the loss of Dr. Banner.”
“Are you sure we can’t retrieve him?” comes the question.
“No, I’m certain of it,” Ross replies. “Banner should be considered KIA.”
Tony takes a deep breath and pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes. It’s not conclusive, he tells himself. There’s the possibility that Bruce is alive, and if he is, Tony’s going to find him.
If there’s no body, there’s still hope—but he can’t tell Elaine and Jen that. He can’t give them false hope.
What he can do is make sure they’re taken care of, quietly, and under the radar.
Tony can’t help but feel responsible. If he’d done something differently, if he hadn’t pushed so hard, maybe Bruce wouldn’t have used himself as a test subject.
And if Tony can’t save Bruce now, he can at least ensure that his family is taken care of.
“Jarvis, call Elaine Walters,” Tony says quietly.
She doesn’t answer, so he leaves a message. “Elaine, it’s me. I’m so, so sorry. Call me if you need anything at all.”
Undisclosed Location, Ontario, Canada, July 2010
“…still no word on billionaire Tony Stark, who went missing two months ago in Afghanistan when his convoy was attacked.” The radio announcer’s voice has that same bland concern that Bruce has been hearing for weeks. They don’t know Tony, and they probably don’t care about Tony, the person. All they care about is the story.
“It’s not looking good,” the co-anchor says. “With no ransom demand forthcoming, and no sign of Mr. Stark, it’s unlikely he’ll be found alive.”
“That means Stark Industries is likely to pass to Obadiah Stane, but Tony Stark will leave some—”
Bruce twists the knob viciously, and the silence that follows in its wake is deafening.
He’s been traveling all over the world for the last few years, looking for a cure, and he’s come up empty. His heart rate goes up, he gets angry, or he gets stressed, and he causes an incident, usually with a lot of property damage, if not loss of life.
And now, there’s no cure, and Tony is likely dead. Bruce can look forward to a long life on the run from the Army, no contact with friends or family for fear Ross will go after them to get to Bruce, and no hope of seeing Tony again.
If Bruce had to deal with just one of those things, he might not have dug out the gun, but it’s just too much.
He hadn’t realized until now how much he’d relied on the idea of Tony as a safety valve, someone he could always call if he really needed to.
And that just makes him feel worse, because it means he’d be using Tony, just like Obadiah Stane had accused him of doing years ago.
But it doesn’t matter because Tony is gone, and it’s possible they’ll never find the body in the Afghan mountains. Bruce had tried emailing Betty right after his fuck up, when he’d gone on the run, but he hadn’t received a response. He can only assume that she hadn’t wanted anything to do with him after he’d nearly killed her.
He’s so fucking tired—tired of running, tired of being hungry and cold and afraid all the time. He’s tired of being angry, and tired of losing control, knowing that he’s a danger to everyone all the time.
Bruce is tired of hurting people. He’d never wanted that—he’d never wanted to hurt anyone.
And now it seems he can’t do anything but hurt people.
He figures he has two options at this point—he can turn himself into the Army, let them figure out how to contain the Other Guy, and accept that they’ll take what’s inside him and weaponize it.
Or he can take himself out of the equation entirely.
Bruce’s hand shakes as he stares down at the gun, and he swallows hard. This possibility has been in his mind for some time, but now he doesn’t think he has a choice.
Eventually, he’ll be caught, and they’ll use him, or what’s in him. Or he can make sure he doesn’t hurt anybody else.
There’s no choice at all, really.
He walks out of the cabin, not wanting to cause a mess. He’ll go into the woods, and maybe, eventually, someone will find his body. Or maybe nature will do its own cover up job, picking his bones clean and scattering them to the four winds.
When he’s deep in the woods, he kneels in the deep mulch of the underbrush, and he puts the muzzle in his mouth.
And when he wakes up later in tattered garments, miles from where he’d been and the gun nowhere in sight, Bruce feels nothing but bitter disappointment.
Malibu, California, July 2011
Tony wanders upstairs in search of more coffee, having run out in the lab. He’s been working on a variety of projects, including a couple for SHIELD.
He still can’t believe they didn’t want him for their stupid Avengers Initiative. And after all he’d done to ensure world peace! This new relationship with Pepper isn’t even quite enough to take the sting out of the rejection.
Well, no matter. They’ll have to come to him eventually. He is Iron Man, after all.
Although he’s still a little surprised to find Coulson sitting in his living room. He’d known they would come back to him, but hadn’t expected them to show up so soon.
“Agent,” Tony says. “What are you doing here? Need my help saving the world already?”
Coulson holds up a file. “We need your special skills on a project.”
“What, the arc reactor? The suit? My enormous brain?” Tony asks, pouring a cup of coffee. He pointedly doesn’t offer Coulson one.
“Your endless capacity to annoy people,” Coulson says.
Tony rolls his eyes. “I think that’s just a side effect of idiocy, particularly in the presence of my superior intellect.”
Coulson ignores him, which is probably his superpower, now that Tony thinks about it. “General Ross was in charge of a secret project utilizing Dr. Erskine’s super soldier experiments from the 40’s. The World Security Council wants to bring one of his subjects on board, which would be a very bad idea.”
Tony keeps his face impassive with some effort. “I’m not sure what that has to do with me.”
“We’d like you to convince Ross to hand the Abomination over to us,” Coulson replies, setting the folder down on the coffee table.
Tony makes no move to pick it up, remaining standing as he sips his coffee. “Who was this guy before he volunteered to be a guinea pig?”
“Career solider by the name of Emil Blonsky,” Coulson replies. “Excellent soldier, but a tad on the ruthless side. The serum hasn’t done him any favors.”
Tony swallows down his disappointment. “When was he exposed?”
“You remember that disturbance in Harlem?” Coulson asks. When Tony nods, he says, “That was him.”
Tony snorts. “So, when you say that you want me to convince Ross to hand this guy over, what you mean is that you want me to annoy him so much that he refuses to play ball.”
“They did say you were a genius,” Coulson says with a bland little smile.
It’s always been a long shot, that Bruce had somehow survived, that he’s out there somewhere. Tony’s faith had been somewhat renewed after Afghanistan; if he could survive three months in a cave with a bunch of terrorists and having an electromagnet shoved in his chest, what’s to say that Bruce hadn’t done the equivalent?
But Bruce had never contacted him, and there’s been no word in the last five years. Of course Ross would continue his project after Bruce had failed, and this Blonsky’s existence seems like another piece of evidence that Bruce hadn’t made it.
“When did this guy turn into the Abomination, or whatever you called him?” Tony asks.
“Last year,” Coulson replies. “Ross recruited him.”
He would have, Tony thinks, deeply bitter. If not for Ross, Bruce would still be alive.
And maybe Bruce could have made another decision; he could have come to work for Stark Industries. Looking back, Tony thinks he understands a little better why Bruce had refused. He’d thought he was making the world a better place, rather than making it worse.
He takes the folder abruptly. “I’ll do it. I think I can guarantee that Ross will want nothing to do with you or SHIELD after I get done with him.”
Coulson raises his eyebrows. “You seem enthusiastic about the prospect. Is this about that run in you had with him in Africa?”
Among other things, Tony doesn’t say. “He’s a bully,” he says dismissively. “I’m not a fan of bullies.”
He gives Coulson a half-salute with the file. “He’ll be out of your hair in a couple of days.”
Tony taps the folder against his leg as he jogs back down the stairs to his workshop, and once he’s inside, he tosses it among the engine parts and other assorted detritus, sets his coffee cup down and just breathes.
He wants to throw things, the old grief rising up and pressing in on him, and then he shoves it aside.
“Jarvis, do me a favor and send Elaine flowers,” Tony says. “The message should read I’m thinking of her.”
He never remembers her birthday—although he does remember Mother’s Day every year in Bruce’s memory. But when Tony thinks about Bruce, when he’s missing him terribly, he’ll send Elaine or Jen flowers, or give them a call.
Bruce would probably approve.
“Of course, sir. Would you like me to file a flight plan to General Ross’ current location?”
“I’ll leave tomorrow morning,” Tony says.
He’s about to ask Jarvis to pull everything on Ross or related to Ross again, to start going through the information for the hundredth time, but Pepper calls out, “Tony? Did I just see Agent Coulson leaving?”
“SHIELD wants me to run an errand for them tomorrow,” Tony says. “It shouldn’t take much time.”
She’s frowning when he looks at her. “Are you okay?”
Tony forces a smile, crossing the distance between them to kiss her. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just a thing with General Ross. I hate that guy.”
“I remember you saying as much,” she replies, amused now. “Do you have a little time for me?”
“I always have time for you,” Tony says, lying grandly, grateful when she doesn’t call him on it.
He’s grateful that Pepper has shown up when she did, because he could use the distraction.
Tomorrow, he’ll put the screws to Ross, and Tony is going to enjoy making him squirm, even if SHIELD and Ross never know that he has an ulterior motive.