Beyond, part 2
Bruce
The voices around me were lost in a blur. Medical staff, explaining something that my mind couldn't focus in on through the fog. Thor, patting my shoulder awkwardly and giving some sort of encouragement I couldn’t quite decipher. Where were my glasses? I patted at my pocket, but the button-down I usually wore had been replaced with a blue, papery hospital gown.
Slowly, I became aware that no one else was in the room. Down a hallway, something beeped. This space was bare and empty, save for a couple of pieces of medical equipment, and the rolling cot I sat on.
My chest tightened as panic threatened to overwhelm me. I touched the railing of the cot and it zapped me. An alarm set off, and I jumped, looking around wildly. I wasn’t hooked up to any monitors. What was going on?
The door opened.
“Dr. Banner,” Dr. Cho offered in way of greeting.
I swallowed the panic and urge to vomit as everything crashed in around me. She steadied me as I swayed and helped me back down. I didn’t remember standing.
“You’ve had a long day. Please sit.”
I nodded mutely. How had I let this happen?
“Please fill out the questionnaire on this screen as honestly as you can.” Dr. Cho handed me a tablet.
I tapped my way through the questions almost without thought. I knew what it was. I’d done them a dozen times over… before.
She took the tablet back with a cursory glance and flipped a few pages on her clipboard. “Your friends believe you may have a history of depression and self-endangering behavior. Would you agree with that?”
I shrugged.
Dr. Cho sighed. “Given the circumstances under which you were brought here today, I have received permission from Thor to hold you here for treatment. That being said, I would prefer to have your voluntary participation.”
“I’ll cooperate.” The words tasted thick on my tongue.
“Thank you. Have you ever taken antidepressants?”
“Not since the incident.”
“Dr. Banner, you have been involved in a great many incidents. I’m going to need you to be more specific.”
“I haven’t taken any kind of medication since I irradiated myself and turned into a giant green rage monster that destroys everything it touches, except for the purpose of trying to kill myself,” I spat out. “Is that what you wanted to know?”
Her slight shift in position away from the cot at my outburst was not lost on me. “Yes, that will do. It is in your best interest to resume taking antidepressants. The survey you completed indicates that you are clinically depressed; and all things considered, we’re looking at a more aggressive plan of treatment than talk therapy.”
“Medication doesn’t work the same way on me anymore,” I mumbled. “I tried, at one point, but I couldn’t find something that worked right when I couldn’t go through legal channels.”
Dr. Cho smiled. “Lucky for you, Asgardian medicine may have a workaround. I talked with the healers, and we’re experimenting with a formula for your particular set of complications.” She got up to leave. “Oh, and Dr. Banner? You are on suicide watch. Please do not attempt to leave.”
And she was gone.
The cart of medical equipment went with her. Without it, the room seemed even more bare. Empty screw holes in the walls, scuff marks on the floor, slight scratches in the pristine white paint all remained behind as evidence that the furniture and materials that had once occupied this space had been evicted upon my arrival.
My fingernails dug into the palms of my hands. The room had been emptied for me. Because I wasn’t safe, couldn’t be trusted. Because I was a threat. I couldn’t be left alone with anything dangerous. The clenching of my fists pulled painfully at the stitches knitting the skin of my forearms back together. I shuddered at the sensation, holding my arms tight against my body and rocking, trying to drown out the sea of emotions and thoughts threatening to pour out. I desperately wanted to pull at the tight ACE bandages hiding the damage from view, to bring the evidence out in the open, but my body wouldn’t follow orders anymore.
What have I done? I asked myself silently. They know now. They all know. I felt sick to my stomach.
Without my bidding, images rose to my mind from earlier in the day. Nat’s voice, through the white fog of panic, pleading with me to stay. Tony, swearing with the ferocity of an anger that only ever meant grief. Does this team mean so little to you that you keep throwing it away? I clapped my hands to my ears as the rushing panic overwhelmed all other sound from the spaces nearby and threatened to drown out even conscious thought. I gasped for breath. Guilt pressed in from one side and panic from another, until I wasn’t sure my lungs could move beneath their crushing weight.
As the dam finally broke, grief surged in to fill the gap. Wrenching sobs tore through my body. My last hope had failed. The Hulk had let me die. But even in those moments, the damned experiment wouldn’t let my body go. I couldn’t bear to live, and yet, I couldn’t bear to die and unleash the Hulk forever. This was truly it. I was trapped, and the mask over my secrets, the years of hiding and trying and trying and failing, over and over again, had been ripped away. How do you explain to the people you love that you want to die?
Tony knew. Nat knew. Thor knew. I had seen the pain in their faces, from wounds I had dealt. I wept for the guilt of once again harming the people I loved the most, even as I had tried to protect them from who I was. Secrets this deep and dark were never meant to see the light of day. Could they ever forgive me? Would they ever trust me again? What was next? I couldn’t see a future beyond this point. There was never supposed to be a beyond.
I felt so empty, broken beyond repair. Not even the shield of pretending none of it happened remained to hide behind. I was adrift. Hollow. The tears ran dry into wordless sobs. Guilty. My chest ached with the deep, gasping breaths that still seemed void of oxygen. Broken. Exhaustion crept in, heavy through my skin down into my bones. Lost. This was it. The monster had won. The monster was me.