Demigod Hero

*Bruce Banner*

“Well, I guess I should start with putting something straight. To give me privacy you all were given a file of me that was altered because I asked for it. You all, except for Percy of course, think that I injected myself with a needle containing a concoction that I believed would be like the Super Serum used in Steve, and the end result was the Hulk. In reality it was my father, David Banner, that injected himself. He experimented on himself with mutagens at a genetic level to let the body heal itself, and passed it onto me by blood. At the young impressionable age of three, he drilled into me that emotions were dangerous, that if I let my emotions rule me, people would get hurt, bad things would happen. Before this, because of the genetic passing down of the mutagens, I had already started to show signs of changing, morphing into something else whenever I got angry. So because of the incident at three I pushed my emotions away, grew up without them, and didn’t develope very good social skills. I also didn’t ever morph or change until I was in my late twenties because of that incident.

“He then blew up the Desert Base he worked at because he was caught testing on human blood against orders, and he was fired and told to shut it down. He blew it up by turning off the cyclotron, a cyclotron has a long process to turn it off, by turning it off immediately it caused the cyclotron to explode. This caused me to lose my memories of my early years of life. I was put into the care of Monica Krenzler, who I grew up to believe was my mother. Therefore I thought that my name was Bruce Krenzler.

“I went to college, became a scientist, and worked in Lawrence Berkeley labs. I met a woman named Betty Ross and we started dating. We broke up one day in a cabin in our late twenties. It was because she wanted me to let her in because I was distant, didn’t show emotions or pick up on emotions well, didn’t let her know me as well as I knew myself. She told me that was part of being in a relationship. I replied that I guess we didn’t have a relationship. She asked me why I couldn’t let her in. I told her it wasn’t about letting her in, it was about letting me out. She didn’t understand and neither did I.” I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm down. Everyone was staring at me, throughout talking nearly everyone tried to open their mouth to comment, but I kept on going so I could get out what I could before I had to calm down and shove the anger back.

“Anything need explaining before I continue?” I asked

“Who was your birth mother, you never said.” Natasha asked.

“Edith Banner.” I replied. “Anything else?”

“Thor, Tart me, blueberry if you have it.” Percy said. Thor rummaged through the Pop Tart box he had, found a blueberry, tossed it to Percy. Percy then nibbled on the corner of one, then he suddenly turned ravenous and basically inhaled them. “Well, that had to be the best thing I’ve eaten since I had that cheeseburger two days ago.”

“Was this Pop Tart the only thing you’ve had to eat since that cheeseburger?” I asked, concerned.

“Psshh, no.” Percy said. “I had… a part of a brownie in my pack and they are the equivalent of a meal, among other things that they do. I had that yesterday. It’s not unhealthy, it’s survival, and I’m not about to steal and become a criminal for actually doing an illegal thing.”

“What do you mean by ‘actually’?” Steve asked.

“That’s for my story time, not Bruce’s.” He replied. “Continue on.” He directed at me.

“Right. So, later the labs in the desert base got rebuilt, and I got a job there. Betty and her father had what you would call a falling out. He wanted her to marry some guy of his choosing and do what he told her. Betty, ever a stubborn woman, refused, and pushed away from her dad, and got a job at the desert base as well. They didn’t talk again for years.

“The base labs is where we met, and it became awkward after we broke up. Eventually, we were able to talk without sounding like nervous idiots and we could work side by side normally. We were researching how to unlock the body being able to heal itself against extreme measures, and we were testing it by using radiation. We came close, and the nanomeds we were developing almost worked, but then it failed just like all other times. This time was different though, it had lasted longer than normal, and I wanted to keep on working on it so it would finally work, I knew we were very close.

“The next day after an all nighter in the lab, and an entire pot of coffee, I was ready to test them again. It still failed, but held off the radiation for even longer, I knew we were so close. I made a tweak, and set the machine to shoot again, but something horrible had happened. Somehow the glass cracked, and the gun was about to go off, meaning everyone in the lab, a co-worker, Betty, and I, were about to get a dose of high radiation, from which we would certainly die.

“Once the gun was started, it was a long process to get it to shut down, it was time we didn’t have to do by computer, someone would have to do it manually. The other guy with us, I strangely can’t remember his name for the life of me, volunteered, and went inside. It got even worse, the time limit had decreased dramatically for some reason. I went in to help, alarms were blaring making us panic, which made the situation even worse. For some reason that I can’t understand, at the last second I jumped in front of the beam, taking the full force of the radiation so that the others would live. The last thing I remember before falling was someone screaming.”

I took another deep breath and let it out slowly, by the rate I was going, I was going to turn into the Hulk before I even got halfway through my story. “Any questions?” Silence was heard. I looked around, and everyone was staring at me expectantly, they wanted me to continue. ”Okay, then. Well, the next thing I know, I’m waking up in the base’s care unit. Everyone was astonished, that amount of radiation full force with nothing to hinder it should have killed me on its own, but combined with me interacting with the nanomeds, I should have exploded like all of our test subjects. I wish it had.

“Instead, it activated the recessive genes within me, bringing them out at last, it was basically the birth of the Other Guy. Before this, the Other Guy was already there, I heard his voice in my head, me being exposed just gave him more power, gave me the ability to transform into the Hulk. During the night, I was visited by my father, he told me that my name was not Krenzler, but Banner. After he left, I rushed to the nurses station but she hadn’t seen him, and I dismissed it as a dream, I shouldn’t have. In the morning, I had to have blood taken out to run tests. I was now the key to our research.

“I tested my own blood, because if anyone was finding out secrets to my DNA, it was me. ‘Unknown’ and ‘Insufficient Data’ was what I got. Then everything came rushing at me for some reason, images that didn’t happen flashed before me, and memories appeared. And I lost control, I had changed for the first time. Betty found me in my home, and my mind was frustratingly blank. I couldn’t remember anything, not one thing. It’s better now, I can gain control, and remember what happened, but it was a long process getting there.” I breathed in and out while images from that time flashed in my mind. I could remember some of the things I had been thinking at that time, it terrified me, and I noticed my skin was taking on a greenish tinge. I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe slower. When I finally deemed that I was calm enough, I opened up my eyes, my skin was back to normal and everyone was staring at me. “Any questions?”

All was silent and they shook their heads, staring at me intently. “Well, I didn’t realize my story was so gripping.” I said, smirking.

Tony rolled his eyes, “Just continue Big Green.”

“Very well, when she found me I told her that my name wasn’t Krenzler, that I thought it was Banner. In the time I had taken to get dressed and take a shower, flashes of what happened had come back to me. We sat at my dining room table, and I attempted to explain it to her. It was so confusing, I asked her to what was happening to me. All of a sudden there is someone banging on the door, and it’s Betty’s father along with several military police. She is escorted out and I was questioned, but I remained silent and poker-faced. Eventually, he left, frustrated, and I was left under the watchful eyes of the military police. Apparently, my father had contacted Betty, but I wasn’t aware of that until much later. I was interrogated again, but this time it was much more cliched. They even had a lamp they were shining in my face, it was then I learned that I should know something, something from when I was four years old, something about my parents. That uncovered a door, a door that would lead to the answer for that, if only I were to open it. I couldn’t cross that threshold, because I knew there would be no going back after I knew what he meant, and I couldn’t do that. He left again, this time leaving me alone, but watched. They had cut off all contact, forcing me to stay home, they even cut the wire to my home phone.

“Then a phone was ringing, it was my father. I learned so many things in that phone call. Found out that he experimented on himself because the higher ups wouldn’t let him have human test subjects for his research, that he wanted to harness the power that I had unlocked. I told him that I would isolate myself, treat it, remove it, kill it, before anyone got hurt. He didn’t think I could, even if it meant killing myself, I wouldn’t destroy it. I was also told that Betty would be attacked soon, and that he already had my DNA, and used it.” I breathed deeply again. The panic at hearing that information assaulted me again, and I had to push back the Other Guy as hard as I could as I tried desperately to calm down. I stood up. “I think I need to go calm down in a safe environment.” With that, I turned and basically sprinted to the nearest containment room.

When I got there, I barely had time to close and lock the door before I lost control. I fell to the ground as the pain from transforming overtook me. I felt the disconcerting feeling of my bones elongating, my body growing bigger and stronger as the anger took hold. SMASH he screamed, and off we went.

After basically demolishing the contents of the room, the anger started to ebb away, and I fell to the floor as the strength left me and laid there as my bones and body shrunk back to what they were before the anger took over. I took in a deep breath, then let it out, and stood up. I went to the clothes station that was always in the small room outside, and got into sweatpants this time with a loose shirt, these hopefully wouldn’t rip so next time I wouldn’t have to change. I headed back to the conference room and sat back down. I took another deep breath. “So,” I enquired. “Questions?”

“So, you’re basically a green giant when you transform?” Percy asked.

“I guess you could say that.” I answered.

Percy nodded, “That is a power that can help and hinder.” He commented.

I smiled, for him to react that way, it was the last thing I expected. To say that the power was good in ways, but it was also bad. It was surprisingly honest and wise. “After the call, Talbot showed up. He had made an appearance earlier than that. Before I was shot with gamma radiation, he put forth a deal between our science department and Atheon. Atheon was a research industry that would put money towards any idea that was worth their while. They had extremely close ties with the military, and because of which, I said no to the offer. I was not a going to let my discoveries be used in harming innocent people. He had been pulling strings behind the whole thing. From letting my father out, to making Talbot aware of my ancestry and connection with his daughter. He was one sly man. He pretty much tried beating me up, and because of this I changed for the second time. With the thought of Betty being hurt flashing through my mind, it was the only thing that cut through, the only thing that allowed me direction in that time.

“She was at the cabin. It took me, as the Hulk, a while to recognize her. She was scared, of course, and while trying to run away, she almost fell. I caught her, then lifted her onto the roof of her car, so she would be safe. Then the dogs came, genetically mutated Hulk-dogs, made by my father to kill Betty and to weaken me. By this point Betty had gotten into her car. I killed the first one by jumping up and landing on it’s back, reducing it to a corpse that began to melt away almost immediately. I tried to jump on another one, but they anticipated my move, and got out of the way in time. When I landed one bit into my ankle, the other, my neck. I got them off,l and while they tried to get into Betty’s car, I uprooted a tree, and crushed one against the roof of the car, the other got away and we wrestled. I finally got hold of the beast, and choked it to death. Afterwards, I was so tired from fighting the Hulk-dogs, I stumbled to the river and started to change back. After I changed, I staggered up and towards Betty’s car, and pried her door open. We went into the cabin, and I promptly passed out. When I woke up we tried to come up with how to explain it. The farthest we got was that my anger triggers a signal that breaks my DNA, and when it breaks it releases energy, tremendous amounts of energy. A noise from outside caused me to lean out the window, and then I got shot with a tranquilizer dart. And as Betty helped me to the ground, she said that she didn’t know what else to do. And in that horrifying moment, I realized that she had betrayed me. Sold me out to her father so that they could run tests on me and probably weaponize it.

“As military police were sent out to capture my father, he was in the Berkeley labs, and went through the same process. Exposing himself to the nanomeds and then he allowed himself to get shot with the gamma radiation. When I woke up at the Desert Base that was rebuilt, I was given a tour in hopes that I would remember my past. The earliest memory I had was when I was nine, for God’s sake. I was very bitter about it, she said she was sorry, but I told that she wasn’t, that she knew exactly what she was doing when she called her father. I told her that it was the fact that I had been repressing my emotions for so long was the only thing keeping me from giving into the anger, betrayal, and hurt. But what purpose would that serve, really? I told her I felt It watching me and hating me, because It knew we were going to destroy it. She said that they were going to understand it, but I told her that that was the same exact thing.

“At one point I walked into my old house, and got angry about what was expected of me. That what, I was supposed to have some sort of emotional breakthrough, reconcile with my inner child, exorcise my inner demons, find my true self, and then believe that everything would be fine and dandy afterwards? I told her that remembering might kill me, she thought that it would save me. I asked her what would happen if I didn’t want to be saved. She told me that I could choose, but she didn’t have a choice. When I asked why, she told me she loved me. I was surprised, oh lord I was surprised. I wondered how much of that was real and how much of it was wishful thinking on her part to try and get me back to normal. I asked her how it was possible, how was that possible when we didn’t even know who I was? We went back to the base, and I was put back in my holding cell.

“I was beginning to remember. Pretty soon the doors are opening up, and there’s Talbot, and hundred other men with guns pointed at me. He was very blunt about what he wanted. He wanted me to transform so he could get a part of my Hulk flesh and make a fortune off of it. So in order to get through it without letting him get what he wanted, I decided to bottle it up. Bottle it up as hard as I could and bury it deep so that I could let it fly out and transform instantly. It was much harder than I thought, because Talbot was shocking me in order to get me to transform. It was kind of ironic really, the stress was meant to increase my heartrate and make me change, but if he shocked me too much, it would cause my heart to stop. Then he decided to beat me until I was unleashed. It didn’t really work, and I passed out.” I gave another deep breath, as the pain from that day assaulted me yet again. I took several more deep breaths until my heart rate slowed down again, and the anger weakened from a full on migraine to a dull throb. I opened my eyes and look at them expectantly, but they simply waved me on.

“While unconscious, they stimulated the nerve endings in my brain to cause activity. This made me remember the day the Desert Base exploded. It was also the day my father tried to kill me, and while trying to do so, he killed my mother. This memory caused me to transform. They tried to knock me out with gas, but I broke through the wall. Then they tried to contain me using a foam that was supposed to immobilize me, but I could still move somewhat. It began to harden, making it harder to move, and it covered almost all of me. Then Talbot slams something into my neck, this makes me so angry, I am able to break free of the foam. Talbot and the guards he sent retreated, but Talbot took a gun from one of the guards, and turned to face me. At this point, I recognized him, and grew so angry, I actually grew in size. Talbot fired at me, and since I was bulletproof, and taking up the whole hallway, there was nowhere else for the bullets to ricochet except back at him.

“So Talbot was killed, not by my hand, but his own. The others retreated back farther, closing a panel behind them. But the Hulk wouldn’t let it go, wouldn’t let go how much pain and hurt was caused to us, and went after them, smashing down the door. Due to the extreme light that was used to hinder me, I smashed the ceiling in order to escape, and kept heading upwards until I reached the surface.

“When I change I have no power against the mind of the Hulk, here reason was squashed, I have almost no say in our actions, for most of the time I can only watch. On the surface, we were drawn to my house, the house where I had lived my early years, the house that could unlock so many things. Then the military came, as I had known they would, and blasted us with tanks. They tried to restrain me with chains, but I used them to destroy the tanks. I also used brute force to destroy them. When they saw how strong I was, throwing around a tank like it was a shoe box, they fell back.

“As I was tearing through the desert, they sent a Black Hawk helicopter after me, but it was no match for my speed, and quickly fell behind. They then sent in Comanches as back up, and tracked me. At this point, I had reached rock formations, and, had I been left alone, probably would have transformed back. Unfortunately the helicopters arrived, and sensing they were a threat, attacked them. I downed one, then scrambled up the cliff side as the fired after me. At the top, they fired a missile at me and I fell all the way to the bottom, and angrily made my way back up again. After that I headed west, toward San Francisco.” I took in another deep breath, it wasn’t as hard as the last few times to push back the anger so that was a good sign, I guess. I looked at them, wondering if I had made any sense. I realized now that I had spoken in third person, as if I were observing, spoken in first person, as if I were the person in charge doing all of these actions, and I had spoken as if there were two people involved in this. It might be confusing to them, but to me, it made perfect sense. I was the Hulk, and the Hulk was me, but at the same time I wasn’t the Hulk, I was just me, and the Hulk was just him. The others just waved me on, they didn’t want to interrupt ‘story time’ as Percy put it. So I obliged.

“Meanwhile, my father had guilt tripped Betty into seeing whether she could let him see me. So he was also in San Francisco, in a jail where he could easily break out. And on top of that, he got something different when he mutated himself, he could touch an object, and that part of his body would retain what the object was made of, and basically turn into that object.

“As I arrived in San Francisco on top of the Golden Gate bridge, four airplanes and a helicopter pursued me. When one got too close I jumped on top of it, the plane then flew into the sky. Frost began to form, and I lost consciousness, and fell into the bay half-conscious. Then I gained conscious and headed up to the surface, there I took a breath of air, and headed back under the water. I then headed into the city by using the underwater drains that emptied into the bay.

“At one point, I climbed through a manhole, and arrived on the street, Immediately people freaked, police were called in to get citizens to safety, and SWAT teams sent in, and a fleet of helicopters came roaring in as well. All this and they sent in one person, Betty. I don’t know how it happened, but she got me to change back. I was then immediately put into a containment which was surrounded by lasers that could incinerate me within seconds if I showed any sign of transforming.

“My father was then brought in to see me, horrible decision really. Betty should have made sure he was a thousand miles away from me after what happened with the Hulk-hounds, but he was a good actor, I guess, because he was able to see me. He put himself right next to the lasers, so that if I were to transform he would be incinerated too. I told him I should have killed him, he said he should have killed me. My response was that I wish he had. He then told me he had come for his son, when I was confused he went further, he came for his real son, the one inside me. He said that I was merely a shell, a husk to be torn off at a moment's notice.

“Then he leaned in and told me that he had a cure, for him. That his cells could also transform, absorb energy, but they were unstable. He told me that he needed my strength, that he had given me life, so now I must give it back. He talked of destroying world order, of me being in him. I told him I’d rather die. He told me that I would, and then I would be reborn the sort of hero that was on the earth before civilization infected humanity. He was udderly crazy and power hungry and demented, that man. As my mother used to say, he was crazy as a soup sandwich, but he was brilliant I’ll give him that.

“So when I jumped up, hoping to be incinerated rather than pulled into whatever plans he had for me, the soldiers at the control panel were, understandably, jumpy and they immediately started up the machine. When my father saw heard the machine come on, he tore open a wire, and put the ends in his mouth. He became charged with electrical energy, and used its power, which he had absorbed, to create an electromagnetic wave that knocked out all of the power in the hangar.

“Due to this, I transformed and punched him out of the hangar. We battled, but everytime I hit him, my energy and power was transferred to him, making him stronger. At one point I threw a rock at him, and due to him transforming into any material that he touched he turned into rock as well. Since I could pretty much desolate rock, I was able to turn him into dust quickly. When I was finished, particles of him had landed on me, I brushed them off, and they regained power, transforming into a version of the Hulk. We wrestled on, and then I remembered something, something that was the key to defeating him, I would forgive him, and give him my energy willingly.”

“No way! Bruce, it must have worked, but it generally sounds like a stupid idea.” Tony burst out.

“Not really,” Percy said thoughtfully. “By sending almost all of the Hulk’s energy into his dad, who already had enough energy to look like the Hulk, that much would have overloaded his system. It would open him up to absorb energy from anywhere else, like water or earth, and eventually it would be too much energy, and he’d explode. It’s either that or once he depleted the energies around him, he would start to absorb the next closest energy, himself. Also, if Bruce had died in the process, then he eliminated the two Hulks from the world, doing what he said earlier, killing it before it hurt anyone. By this point I’m assuming that you’ve learned how to take control better, and you don’t cause too much harm unless necessary, considering the military isn’t gunning after you.”

Everyone stared, I was shocked myself, but I smiled at him and said, “You are right Percy, and that was very well put, it was exactly what I had in mind at the time. Of course, the Hulk didn’t really know my plans, but the memory had thrown him off, he wasn’t sure what he was angry at anymore. So when my father took our hand and held it to his stomach, he couldn’t fight him off. My father absorbed the energy, and as he did so, I melted. Eventually the energy was too much, and it went of control. He was still taking on energy, it wasn’t stopping. It started bringing in more energy, and they collided, the moonlight, the air, the wind, until there was nothing else to absorb, and his body searching for more energy seeked out the closest thing, himself. As he stumbled to a hilltop nearby, a thermonuclear missile was fired at him, and he exploded, it was too much energy to hold. That explosion still haunts me, it was so humongous, it engulfed the sky.

“Somehow, I survived, and I woke up on the opposite shore of the lake. I immediately got out of the country, required a fake ID, and moved around a lot after that. I went to gurus, and other teachers to learn how to control my anger and heart rate. I wore a heart rate monitor, and tested myself, seeing how high my heart rate could go before I inevitably transformed. I worked odd jobs, and at one point became a worker with red cross for many years. At one point soldiers came and tried to confiscate the medicine that these people desperately needed. The were about to shoot a child, so I transformed, it was a bad decision really. Gave people fear that I was still alive. I moved once again, changed identities for what seemed like the thousandth time, and became a town doctor. That’s where Shield found me, they sent in Natasha who had paid one of the girls whose father I treated to bring me to my house, as I generally made house calls. There, I was brought to the helicarrier, which was Shield headquarters. And that’s it, I could go into what happened after that, but that pertains to the Battle of New York.” I looked around the table and opened my mouth, and got interrupted.

“Yes, Big Green, we know, question time. I got nothing, how about you guys?” Tony asked.

Shoulders were shrugged all around, as Fury watched with an emotionless stare. “So, Clint, looks like you’re up.”

“God, I regret volunteering for second so much right now,” Clint grumbled. And like me, he took a deep breath, then began.