Sunlight stabbed into Bruce’s eyes. He was freezing cold, and there was something hard pressing into his side. He sat up, trying to get his bearings. There was always some amount of memory loss after turning back from the Hulk. The last thing that he could remember was landing the quinjet in the outskirts of a small city. There had been some kind of alien threat, the Dragr, Thor had called them. That was it.
Bruce got shakily to his feet. He was naked, of course, and the ground around him was a mess of rubble and broken glass. Two-and-a-half walls still stood of whatever building he had crashed into. Luckily, it seemed to be empty of any current or former human life. It seemed to be a gift shop, with signs advertising white water rafting and rock climbing. The best he could do for clothes was an oversized sweatshirt that fell just past his waist.
The next step was to find his friends. He wandered through deserted streets, his eyes peeled for any sign of life. As he drew closer to the city’s center, he could make out bodies. They weren’t human, so they must have been the Dragr that they had fought. Bruce began to feel hopeful that maybe the casualties had been low, that they had dealt with the threat swiftly. But if that was the case, why was there so much destruction?
The Avengers were in the square. It was in an even worse state than the streets around it. Hundreds of alien bodies were strewn all over the ground. The buildings around the square had been completely demolished.
Cap sat on a chunk of broken concrete in the middle of the clearing. His eyes were fixed on the ground in front of him, but they darted up when he heard Bruce’s footsteps. He stood up, holding his left arm gingerly in his right. His helmet was gone, revealing an exhausted expression that still couldn’t mask the clear pain that he was in.
“Banner-” He began.
“What happened?” Bruce cut him off.
“The city was evacuated before the Dragr got here.” Bruce was distracted from Steve’s words as he looked back over the scene before him. Tony and Clint were both sitting on the ground with shellshocked looks on their faces. The side of Clint’s face was bleeding from a series of scrapes that ran down to his chest, completely ripping his suit apart. It was like he had been grabbed and dragged across the ground. Suddenly a new question came to Bruce’s mind.
“What did I do?”
“It’s not your fault-”
“What did I do?” His voice was getting angrier now, a slight growl creeping in. He could see Steve flinch.
Steve sighed heavily before beginning. “We followed the plan. You stayed behind in the quinjet as backup. The Dragr were coming too fast, and we needed the Hulk.” Bruce’s stomach was sinking with every consecutive word. “If it weren’t for you, we’d be in a much worse spot right now.”
“But?”
“The Dragr have some kind of venom. You, the Hulk, got bit a couple times. We didn’t realize what it did until Romanoff tried the lullaby, and then it just made you angrier.”
“Is she okay?” Bruce’s skin felt like ice.
“Thor’s flying her to the nearest hospital.”
“And the rest of you?” Bruce gestured to Steve and Clint. “I did that?” He could feel himself starting to spiral. He needed to get away. He needed to-
“Banner!” Steve’s voice was firm, but kind. “You with me?”
“I can’t do this anymore,” Bruce blurted.
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t be the other guy anymore. It’s not worth the risk.”
“We all know that risk, and we know what we signed up for-”
“I’m not fine with that risk,” Bruce snapped. “Why does no one ever ask about that? Maybe I’m not okay with putting you all in danger. One bad mission is all it takes. You got lucky this time.”
Steve looked like he wanted to keep arguing, but decided not to. “I hope you’ll reconsider.”
“No,” Bruce shook his head. “I’ll go back to the compound and grab my stuff, but after that I’m leaving.”