Gray.

A wave of high-intensity energy particles, invisible to the naked eye, made a very visible explosion. General Ross, an outspoken cynic, would swear he saw Bruce’s bones light up green through his silhouetted body.

But Bruce didn’t move. The explosion didn’t seem to affect him, at least not forcefully. He stood there, mouth agape, contorted in pain. It was only when Betty opened the door of the shelter that they heard him screaming.

What no one noticed, what not even Bruce himself realised, was that he had died. 

The sudden wave of gamma rays had passed through his brain, and shorted out all electrical activity. And a second later, before his body could even realise it, before his muscles could even loosen enough to fall to the ground…

Something had brought him back.

It was a momentary blip, closer to the rapid directional switch of alternating currents than the sudden shut down and reactivation of the human body, and even though Bruce could not pinpoint exactly what happened, he knew it had been agonising. 

It was like the darkness behind your eyelids, gone in the span of a blink, except that it was far, far deeper, and far, far worse.