Bruce has never not been scared.
He's never not felt guilty.
-
He remembers: Hiding under the kitchen table and staying very, very still, because he's Bad, because he's a Monster, because he made Dad upset again like he always does and he tries to sneak upstairs unnoticed and he doesn't remember what happens next.
(Hulk does.)
In the aftermath he can remember two things: The Fear, and the fact that he deserved it.
-
He remembers: Dad's mad at Mom again and he can hear them in the other room and Bruce knows it's all his fault. He presses himself into the corner and tries very hard to disappear and wants very much to scream but he knows screaming will make Dad madder. So he just presses his hands to his ears till it feels like his skull’s about to explode and wishes he were stronger.
-
It's not always this bad, it's not always this violent.
But even in the quiet, the fear always stays, the world is always a time bomb.
He thinks maybe it's the waiting that's worse.
-
He didn't feel fear when Mom died.
He didn't feel anything when Mom died.
He thinks maybe he went somewhere else during the months following the trial. To space, maybe.
Space. Yeah, he likes that better.
-
He sees Dad for the first time before the trial and everything hits him like a freight train. He's frozen when they ask him to speak. He's frozen on the drive home.
He's certain the judges saw right through him. He's certain he's a monster, a monster who condemned Dad for an accident, a monster who deserves to be punished.
Dad said Hell would be worse than worst day he'd ever had back home. The thought makes his blood turn to ice and he cries that night for the first time in a long time.
The fear is too strong to sleep through. The dread is too hard to shake.
-
In high school, Bruce builds walls. Maybe to keep others from coming in, or maybe to keep himself out. Susan tries her best, but the walls won't break no matter what.
He's a freak and a loner and he talks to himself because no one else will. He sticks up for himself, and for the littler kids who can't.
He wakes up in a hospital bed every now and then. The fear is an undercurrent, a constant companion, but he doesn't care, because he's strong now, and he can put up a fight. He walks the halls with a split lip and bruised knuckles and a pencil always wedged behind one ear.
He gets pretty good at faking confidence.
-
What he has in forgetfulness he makes up for in intelligence and maybe just sheer willpower. He stays at the top of his classes and buries himself in his studies, in competitions, in theories, in research binges.
Science is a refuge, science is safe.
(Though he always looks over his shoulder before he cracks open a book.)
-
He knows he's fucked up.
It's not like he forgets everything that happened, there’s just a detached, clinical air to it. He knows the narrative, it just doesn’t feel like he lived it.
No use dwelling on what could’ve been worse.
But when the kids at parties start reminiscing about their families and some frat boy with the stench of alcohol on his breath prods him too much and calls him a freak, he tries to squash the fear down. "I don't know, it was nice," he says evenly. "I just don't think about it that much."
He has a panic attack in the bathroom and resolves never to go to parties again.
-
Brian came back, because Brian always came back. Bruce thought he’d really lost it this time, because there’s no way they’d release him and no way the man would show up on his doorstep grovelling for refuge like that.
There’s no way Bruce would take him in. But he does, because some stupid part of him wants to believe he’s gotten better. (Because some stupid part of him is afraid of what will happen if he doesn’t obey.)
The weeks following were foggy at best. He tells himself he didn’t want to remember.
He does remember: Brian coming at him - (I can’t believe you thought he’d redeemed himself) - being kicked back into something solid and FearFearFear as those same bony hands are around his throat, but this time he’s bigger, and he’s stronger, and he kicks back, all of him kicks back, and the world slows down and the fear turns to exhilaration as he watches Brian’s skull split open on his mother’s headstone in some sick kind of poetic justice. He swears he can feel her ghost.
He doesn’t know if he’s a monster or a hero for what happened that morning. But the man who’s terrorized him all his life is gone and for a split second he’s not scared of anything anymore except maybe himself.
(One down, one to go, something tells him.)
He tells the police it was muggers.
-
He’s afraid, when he runs out onto the test site to save that idiot kid.
But he’s not afraid for himself.
Bruce doesn’t think, he just acts.
-
When the screaming finally ends and he has the kid lock him in a vault in the middle of a cave in the New Mexico desert, all he can do is laugh at how ridiculous his life has become. If he thought he was a freak before, well!
The monster inside him was nothing new. Honestly, he’s not surprised. He knows he’s fucked up. But now it’s all laid bare for the world to see. Tangible, physical, undeniable.
One incident and he’s already destroyed more than Brian ever did.
And now the goddamn military’s after him.
-
Brian’s voice hijacks his thoughts on the bad days: I should’ve killed you when I had the chance. I knew this would happen all along.
I know, he retorts, Believe me, I’m trying.
(On the good days it’s still there, brought down to a simmer, locked deep in a cage. Sometimes he wonders if it, too, could manifest in this world. He locks that thought away with the rest of it.)
He’s good at hiding, at distance; it’s become habit. This is also nothing new. Shoving everything he owns into a backpack and disappearing off the map is just a step above what he’s used to, really. He tells himself he doesn’t believe in fate, but he’s been practicing for this all his life.
-
He uses cash, barters, keeps himself untrackable. The laptop he uses for research is hidden under half a dozen VPNs and if there’s a God he thanks them for Tor every day. He develops clothes to mask the gamma signature and carries a kit in his bag to clean up his blood.
For all intents and purposes, Bruce Banner doesn’t exist.
Well, did he ever?
(Still, every crack of the floorboards, every set of footsteps passing his apartment, every whisper, every glance, could be Ross’s doing. He moves every few months to keep them off his tail.)
Maybe it’s overkill. Maybe it’s being paranoid. But there’s too much at stake and too much to lose if he’s found out. He won’t let himself be used. He has contingency plan after contingency plan; keeps all his bases covered; stays three steps ahead. Stays fit, in case he has to run. Stays alive, because the alternative just brings the Hulk out.
He’s always afraid.
But he’s used to that by now.
-
Fear doesn’t stop him from helping.
There are people out there who are just as afraid and alone as he is. There are people who can’t afford healthcare and people who’ve been outcasted by society. He doesn’t hate himself so much he can’t see the obvious: He has sufficient medical skills and a healing factor. There’s a tradeoff of some hot meals or a corner to sleep in.
Bruce can’t stand by. It’s nonsensical, it’s contradictory, and it’s going to become his undoing one day, just as it always has.
But he has to mitigate the damage somehow.
(Maybe it’s a way to stay in control.)