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angerissue · 3 years

Text

ID: UNKNOWN.

@mynameisanakin

It was midday in the Catskills, around the time of year when the days were beginning to shorten and darken, and the temperature was beginning to chill. From his glances outside and the occasional wanderings into the hills for some fresh air, he could see the maple trees blushing with a garish shade of candy apple red, the colours vibrant against the unchanging fir and pine. But attractive as the imagery was, when Bruce was indoors and preoccupied, as he was now, it didn't remain at the forefront of his mind, as if it was somehow immune to permanence. His focus was more immediate and didn’t care about the outdoors.

Cloud-bidden sunlight filtered through the windows, mingling with the fluorescence as he wandered down the hall and towards the kitchenette, a clipboard tucked under his wing and the desire for tea on his mind. Over the past few hours of work, his eyes had grown sore and a bit dry; a bit nearsighted from their fixation on the monitors in the laboratory, a problem that even his eyeglasses wouldn’t thwart. He almost forgot what that was like, to suffer the effects of prolonged screen time. Not that it was ever a bad idea to remind himself every now and again; to retain that connection instead of dismissing it.

(He wasn’t sure it would return again, if he did that.)

Regardless, after a good fifteen minutes or so, he would be back in business again and return to the lab. Not that he hadn’t brought some of his work along with him in the interim, because it felt odd, leaving his work unattended if he was enthralled in it to his current extent. Then again, he would be kidding himself to say this project was different from the rest. Piecemeal modifications to the quinjet’s power source were one project in an excessively long lineup of others. Yes — the efficacy of upgrading the quinjet was questionable. It may not have been practical, to invest in a vehicle that lacked proper permissions in the air and could only be used sparingly; with its cloaking, whenever he felt it necessary to slip from one location to another without using the Hulk.

But it remained a pet project nonetheless. The same went for his research into better performance textiles, mass-scale water purification units, and the applications of the Hulk's plasma — an interesting venture, because its ability to heal deep wounds and transport medicine in the bloodstream had shown promising results in mice, almost to the point of unnerving him with its potential. The only hiccups came whenever he contacted his sources, at which time he requested that they solely provide him with the "frail and ailing" specimens. It had always been an uncomfortable conversation; perhaps it was only Bruce's imagination, but he suspected that some of these men and women, while they were indeed fully aware of his qualifications in the sciences, believed he was gathering up sick mice to observe for kicks. He must have seemed like a sadist. It wouldn't have been difficult for them to believe, given he'd conceived of an AI that fit that bill. And he’d heard the murmurings over the years. Whether the infamous Doctor Banner was merely posturing as an unlucky scientist, and truthfully had ulterior motives for all his supposed blunders. The conspiracy theories had been less prominent and discussed since the snap was reversed, his name included in the list of those behind it, but they were still around.

In truth, he merely believed if the mice were on the verge of succumbing anyhow, they could only improve. Nothing he did could worsen their odds further; add more preventable deaths to his conscience.

But those experiments had been put on hold in favour of the quinjet modifications, part of which were attached to the clipboard that he lowered onto the kitchen island. There was only one remaining mouse in the observatory; a white-furred knockout he had affectionately named Eddie, who no longer lived in the lab, but off in the corner of the living room in a small cage. If he turned his head, he would see it next to the sofa.

Sometimes, Eddie joined him in the lab, seemingly at peace even on the big guy’s shoulder, or in his hand.

And Eddie wasn't a rarity in that sense. It seemed that most animals didn't mind the monster's presence. There was something about that state; he was never quite sure whether his presence alone was calming to animals somehow, or whether there was some attribute in his behaviour that was missing in an ordinary man's. Predictability, perhaps. Whatever the reason, when he wandered into the trees and crossed paths with deer, they seldom skittered away from him. They often approached him to say hello. The warblers and white-bellied thrushes never flew away in anticipation of an incident. Generally, the wildlife lacked fear. The doctor could tell this with certainty, because he could hear... Everything. The natural world's impression of him had been an odd lesson to learn, when he first learned it, but it ultimately made him feel better. Unnatural as he was, he felt anything but in these circumstances. It almost made him wonder if the concept of natural; unnatural, was a wholly human construct. A way of labelling, quantifying, and classifying things that were unfamiliar to them, but in the end, could still fit into the world like a missing puzzle piece. In that sense, perhaps nothing was ever really unnatural.

Bruce opened the kitchen cupboard. Then, fingers curling around the brassy handle, he carefully pulled the maple tea box from its resting spot, placing it on the counter and carding through the multicoloured packets for jasmine tea. The tea box was one of the few earthier items in the more clinical vicinity. A stark contrast, and definitely a conversation piece that could warrant questions, or at least unexpressed intrigue and curiosity, from newcomers.

Said newcomers would find it hard to believe, but the box had been a housewarming gift from Tony. Bruce theorized that he'd bartered for it from some small-time vendor or nabbed it from a pawn shop; it didn’t have the meticulous, almost machined finish that someone would expect from a mass-produced piece; there were flaws, but they were not the typical quality control issues of that production type. And when he saw the engraved name on the underside of the lid (which he presumed was the maker) and searched for it online, he received very few answers. Sometimes, he considered whether Tony himself had carved the tea box, which could feasibly correlate with his more slower-paced lifestyle as of late; one that was less inundated by bleeding-edge tech. Yet Bruce never asked him. One answer could’ve led to five more questions, or worse yet, he could’ve fallen into another one of Tony Stark’s infamous rabbit holes and had trouble digging his way out again. It wouldn’t have been the worst of rabbit holes; woodworking, but the guy had a wife and a kid. Bruce couldn’t have deprived Tony of his time with them; hard-earned time at that, even if the man himself said it was supposedly fine. Bruce didn’t trust his own judgement, but he didn’t trust Tony’s most of the time, either.

However, discussion of the tea box was nonexistent at the observatory. There were seldom newcomers to ask about it.

But he preferred the solitude. With interactions came problems. Quandaries to solve that wouldn't have manifested otherwise, like worms deep in the earth, invisible until someone rooted through the topsoil and disturbed them, throwing everything out of balance. And frankly, it had been ages since the hardest decision he needed to make was determining the kind of tea he wanted to brew. Since one of his decisions didn’t precede a potentially devastating domino effect, because in the company of others, his actions tended to have that outcome. It had taken him far too long to accept that this was unsustainable.

Nothing justified putting innocent people in harm’s way so he could chum around with his teammates.

Not to mention he sorely missed the calmer, easier days that came before all this; before the accident and the team and the culling. He wanted to restore them in the next few years, and beyond. He wanted to remember what they were like. He wanted to flex this old muscle, after allowing it to atrophy for so long, especially because with that atrophy, he had gradually noticed a kind of emptiness forming inside of him, like he didn’t know his truest ideals or intentions anymore; like he was being moulded by the others until he lost his own identity.

Forging a direction of his own was... Paramount to him.

Not that his years with the Avengers didn't bear validation and silver linings of their own, but the moments were often interspersed among more arduous circumstances, which he’d rather have avoided. A positive event derived from a negative event could never be considered a net gain, because they cancelled each other out. And this was what happened with the Avengers, at an uncomfortably frequent rate... The Sokovia relief efforts were a humanitarian, positive venture, but those efforts only happened because of the genocidal Ultron intelligence that had levelled the entire city. Among others. Bruce still bore the consequences from these antithetical happenings. Much as he tried to dismiss them, they still pricked at him every now and then. The fear he would never undo the public’s distrust of him. The omnipresent sense of never being able to make up for lost time, despite doing so now. This... Identity disorder that had proliferated in his mind like a cancer.

That part, in particular, still felt like a bad dream. Something he couldn’t believe was real, nor could ever be real. He had discounted Tony’s input and suggestions about it when he first heard them, and there were still moments when he couldn't accept the man's diagnosis, because it just seemed so outlandish. He'd done plenty of research himself into so-called split personalities. Bundle theories; ego theories. But nothing seemed remotely plausible or realistic. What happened to him in Johannesburg, at the New Avengers' compound, and less than a year ago in this same observatory; it was like something out of a movie... Pseudo scientific... Alien possession. Implanted memories. Dopplegangers. Perhaps Wanda had put something real in his brain, for all her intangible abilities. Perhaps it would show up as a shadow in an MRI. Perhaps the shadow would move.

But in the end, however real the problem was (and there was, indeed, a problem; his loss of time and consciousness could attest to this), Hulk hadn't made an appearance since then.

Bruce almost believed, or wanted to believe, these were isolated events. And Hulk wouldn’t appear again.

He suspected that being alone would help with it.

Perhaps his former teammates knew that he needed time alone. Perhaps it's why an unspoken understanding between them had arisen once he'd settled down, here in the Catskills — an understanding that, while they would continue to call each other acquaintances, they wouldn’t bother each other unless utterly necessary, because their paths had wholly diverged now. Because they had attained some new form of equilibrium with each other, unlike the kind that existed when they were all working together.

And perhaps, some part of Bruce feared that if he updated his teammates on all his recent ventures, it would inspire Tony to return to his own work (however improbable the idea was, since his family life had long been a priority for him). Bruce wasn't sure he wanted the competition. He was finally in a place where he could catch up to, and eventually even surpass, Tony's own milestones in the field, and this would become a lot more difficult if Tony was still chugging away. A selfish notion indeed, but it didn't adversely affect Tony in any manner, so while he did feel the occasional pang of guilt about it, he could ultimately shrug it off.

He poured some water into the electric kettle and plugged it into the backsplash. As he waited for it to warm up, problems and solutions for his current project passed in and out of his thoughts. His mind was never quiet, even now during his self-imposed break, and he couldn't help but cast occasional glances at his clipboard, as if it could record all his ruminations without contact.

Soon, the kettle was whistling. Bruce grabbed a mug from the cupboard and began steeping his tea, electing to stand at the counter rather than taking a seat — at least for now. The mug that he chose was made from white ceramic, and it bore a custom print job with a child's drawing on the front — a colourful crayon scribble of Captain America, which was one in a four-piece set that contained artwork of Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, and the Hulk; what the general public deemed the "big four" of the original Avengers. Multiples of this mug set, which was undoubtedly created by an enthusiastic child who loved superheroes, and a supportive parent who indulged the (perhaps misguided) adulation, had been in a fanmail package for Steve months earlier. Steve had originally offered Bruce a mug with the Hulk on it, but he'd turned it down on the chance that if someone found their way into the observatory and caught a glimpse of that mug, and only that mug, they could draw unwanted conclusions. He wouldn't have that. Rather than retracting the offer, Steve made it bigger and offered him all four mugs. Thus, he owned the entire set — Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, and Hulk.

(The Hulk mug received less use than the others, as evident from its comparative lack of tea stains.)

And at last, Bruce took a seat at the island.

He didn’t think about tea much when he was greener. Drinking it wasn’t something he could humour unless he wanted to make himself uncomfortable. But he couldn't deny the pleasure his ordinary self derived from tea — it was nice to wrap his fingers around a warm mug when they were stiff and sore from tapping at a keyboard. It was nice to let his elbows rest on a tabletop and give his shoulders a break, after they had spent hours propping his hands up for touch and gestural commands. He relished the sensations more the longer he abstained from them, the sensation of eating most of all. His transformed self simply couldn't do this without suffering ill effects; he wasn't designed to ingest things. While he could, theoretically, take a sip without swallowing and chew without swallowing, it lacked the fulfillment of the rest of the process, least physiologically. It was like chewing gum, but much more agitating. If stopping before swallowing were that simple, he imagined people would eat all sorts of things and not suffer the consequences, no matter how harmful. Wouldn't that be nice. As it stood, it wasn't possible.

Thus in a sense, the opportunities when he could eat or drink had become something of a treat for him. It was something that only happened if he slowed down a little, and yanked himself away from his work long enough — and spent some time as a frailer version of himself.

Both of these criteria were rarities.

Blowing across the top of the mug to cool it down, he took a swig of tea. Then he glanced down at his clipboard, the graph paper covered with iterations of a new device, both sketches and measurements. He inspected one set of measurements, then he flipped his pencil and scrubbed away a line of writing before thumbing the shreds from the rubber tip.

Reworking certain components of the quinjet, in a sense, reminded him of the time he designed the observatory. And he missed the design process, frankly, because it gave him a substantial sense of control in comparison to his accommodations at the Avengers facilities, where he could adjust his spaces but not overhaul them entirely; after all, the locations were not his own. Back when he designed the observatory, he could choose doors that locked on his own command, and ones that were tall enough to accommodate both his guises. He could choose the ratio of open space to smaller, more amniotic rooms. So while he didn't build the place, his input on the floor plans made it feel more like home than anything else.

The entrance faced south and opened up into the main floor, which held the kitchen and living area. The latter space was dressed with a few sofas and a coffee table, and boasted large, open windows that easily permitted the morning sun. If one ventured further into the floor and passed through a closed door, they'd find the laboratories, and living quarters which consisted of his own room and a guest ensuite (it was still unfurnished, given the circumstances), or they could take one of two staircases. The first was a nautilus shell of a metal staircase that spiraled up into the dome, the room fitted with a massive telescope that passed through the paneled ceiling. The second was a straight staircase that led into the basement. The clutter of unused equipment against the pallid walls was evident the moment someone ventured down there — as were the control panels for the power source, which manifested as a sizable column of green light wrapped in thick glass. It originated in the floor of the basement and continued upward, stopping at the ceiling.

It was a proof-of-concept work, but unlike the towering arc reactor back at the Stark Industries headquarters in LA, which eventually gave way to the miniaturized version used in Tony's armour, this was not a publicity stunt for the doctor, but a means to an end. It was purposed as a self-sustaining, cyclical energy source that allowed Banner to work off the grid and operate the lights, appliances, and other power hogs without reliance on external sources.

And there were many of these power hogs. The refrigerator, dishwasher, and laundry unit on the main floor were the least of it — the two laboratories in the deepest part of this floor were outfitted with machinery and computers that never took a snooze, because in most cases, neither did he. (It felt somewhat... Gratuitous to sleep, when the monster didn't need to sleep at all.) The first and larger lab contained the bulk of these devices, being the place for heavy-duty conceptualization and fabrication, like a production line of sorts. It wasn't unusual for novel tech to be scattered throughout the vicinity, sitting pretty on desks and carts in readiness for completion. The second lab was smaller; more old-fashioned, and had less computers, containing the typical assortment of beakers, graduated cylinders, and other apparatus for chemical and biological experimentation instead. Fume hoods, eyewashing stations, and sinks in case of chemical spills were also present, but he never needed to use them. Not for the lack of incidents, but because it had become less of a hassle to hastily undress and, as Tony had consistently put it, "Hulk out" and allow his body to deal with the issue with utmost certainty of negating it, rather than spraying himself with water and hoping for the best.

(His condition could heal wounds; injuries, but not scar tissue. It was the reason he still hadn’t lost the chip of a scar beneath his eye, which he incurred so long ago that his memories of the incident were shrouded. It was odd, knowing something so small wasn't a match for his healing capabilities, while more... Grievous injuries never left a scratch on him.)

If he wasn’t already “Hulked out”, which was the norm.

Nonetheless, the chemistry lab could still be used for engineering in a pinch, if he referred to one of the few computers therein. The observatory ran on a single closed network, so the files were accessible from anywhere within its walls. It was difficult to access this network even if someone did manage to sneak into the building, however; he had made sure of it. Secluding himself from the rest of the world was only one way to ensure his privacy, and it was part of a bigger equation. Therefore, even the doors, not only to the labs but the living quarters and the generator room, were chronically locked and required a biometric scan to open, and it was of a certain kind that only someone with his condition could provide.

So if someone entered the building, they could wander around the kitchen; the living room, and find their way to the first bathroom, but everything else was behind those locked doors. This was for the better, because Bruce valued his privacy, and because guests might be uneasy if they realized the building ran on radioactive isotopes. Not unlike a neutered bomb.

He remained at the island for a few minutes. Uneventful, for the most part, save for the ideas and questions that were tumble-drying in his brain, wearing down both ends of his pencil.

Uneventful.

Then he saw the tea in his mug twitch.

He looked to the mug, intent on confirming the occurrence, suspecting he may have hallucinated somehow. No, he wasn't. It happened again. There. And then, something trembled in the soles of his feet.

Soon, it snowballed into a low-grade rumbling.

He tried to pick apart the reason. There were no trains this far out; nobody would dare budget an endeavour like building a railroad in these plateaus, nor was the area prone to tremors and earthquakes; he had ensured this when he was initially scouting the location.

The lights began to flicker.

With it, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

Something was burning. It was a rubbery smell, like raw cable set aflame, mixed with the metallic tinge of static electricity. The tremors in the building were growing, small bits of dust and debris falling onto his shoulders and into his tea from the ceiling. And then, down in the basement, Bruce heard something fall to the floor with a deafening clatter.

His nerves kicked into gear. It was the kind of painful, adrenaline-fueled pulse that came from a sudden surprise.

He abandoned his drink, leaving the kitchenette and hurrying down the stairs to the basement, fluorescent lights running overhead like road markings. As he descended and reached the bottom of the steps, which opened into the basement's storage area for unused lab equipment and furniture (both were abundant, insinuating their owner was a bit of a pack rat and preemptive planner), his direction turned to the generator room. He needed to discern what was happening, and potentially shut off the power if there was a leak. Plutonium was polite if it was stable, but not in other situations. Potentially this one.

When he opened the door and entered the room, he stopped in his tracks. The siren kicking in over the PA system was the least of his worries; that much was expected and normal, if not slightly disconcerting, with the memories of a certain accident at Culver University that it conjured up. But the issue was worse than he'd anticipated, and as it sunk in, his throat seemed to plunge down into his stomach like an elevator in freefall.

The cell was pulsing. The green light became dimmer, then more vivid and brighter, oscillating between the two intensities. This effect became quicker and quicker until it escalated into a strobing effect, cell alternating between a dim glow and a blinding brightness like the chromatophores of a squid. And it was creaking; moaning — as if under duress; as if pressure was building within the glass and prone to bursting free any moment.

He’d never seen this before. Theories stirred and began racing in his worried brain, the first of which... Something must have been overloading it. Somehow. Experience told Banner he must have missed some important factor when he was first designing it; some misplaced detail that would only manifest over the long term. There wasn't a possibility of cross-contamination; there wasn't a possibility for anything except his own errors; nobody else was involved in this. But whatever the case, he needed to shut it down immediately.

But he couldn’t walk forward. Some part of him, however small, told him it wasn’t safe anymore.

Intuition, perhaps.

If he contemplated it more, he may have wondered if Hulk was stopping him from proceeding. If Hulk was calling him stupid. Reckless.

Again.

He was smart to wait. Before him, the chamber cracked, a hairline fracture creeping down the glass in incremental movements. This was all it took. The building heaved, and with a rising shriek that sounded eerily akin to the arrival of a nuclear bomb, the entire chamber exploded, blinding light erupting and shards of thick glass snapping and spraying out into the room like bullets. High pressure followed suit, knocking the wind from his lungs and causing him to lose his balance, gusting him back as he flew into the concrete wall and collided with a dull crack. He collapsed into a heap on the floor, ears ringing from the explosion.

And with a domino reaction of popping glass from above, and an electrical shudder, the lights went out.

Quiet. Still. Dark.

Heart pounding, loud in the blood barrier of his brain, Bruce staggered to his feet in the darkness, wincing as a sharp pain lanced through his lower back and threatened to lock the muscles. Glass crackled and crunched underfoot as he steadied himself, his skin stinging from newfound cuts. His breaths were strained and hurt his throat with every exhale. The inside of his nose felt wet. He smelled blood. He didn’t know what to do; shock had washed over him.

Can’t see... Can’t see. Oh god.

A few moments later, the backup generator kicked in. The room was bathed in a dim, eerie yellow, incandescence winning over the earlier fluorescence. Shadows blotted in the corners of the room and occluded the furniture, as if the recent darkness couldn't recede entirely. A chalky dust floated in the air, irritating the doctor's eyes and tickling his nose and throat. He sucked in a shallow, tense breath, and coughed from the dust that filtered down into his throat and lungs, lifting his elbow up to his mouth to muffle the sound. In concurrence, the air around him whorled in a puff of microscopic debris as, mind buzzing with adrenaline and unable to focus on anything except the damage before him, he tried to assess how bad it was.

The power source was gone. It had taken some of the walls with it, opening up the generator room into the rest of the lackluster basement. He looked up and noticed vein-like cracks throughout the ceiling, congregating into a massive hole where the power source had once inserted. A sickly yellow light poured in from upstairs, slivers of light bleeding in from the surrounding cracks. Instruments and tables from the lab upstairs had fallen through the floor, which were now strewn before him, the furniture and other apparatuses dented and mangled beyond repair from their impact with the floor. Metal trays were bent in half. Carts were relieved of their equipment as they lay dead on their backs, wheels still rolling in their casters. He saw his work, some pieces near completion and others in the beginning stages, destroyed. He didn’t know how far the damage extended past this.

Breathe.

He did, and then he gave another muffled cough, cheeks puffing. The entire place smelled like pig iron and ozone. He looked to the center of the incident, where the power source had been reduced to a smoking pile of dust, broken glass, and metal. At its peak, he saw a shape.

Breathe, Banner.

It was a man. Or, it looked like one. Bruce wouldn’t assume he was ordinary simply because he looked so; he’d been on the receiving end of that phenomenon too often himself.

And this man came from... Nowhere. Materialized, from thin air. There’s no way he could’ve snuck into the lab.

He stared at them, eyes intent. Words didn’t come; they were stuck behind his teeth. He wasn’t sure what he would tell them, anyhow. Every inch of him was on edge, and at the same time, too stunned to muster any kind of reaction; worst of all, this wasn't a simple case of misinterpretation and overreaction on his part. Whatever this person had intended, and whatever justifications and explanations they could give, they had just destroyed what felt like a part of himself, ripping months and months of his work apart like inconsequential sheets of tissue paper and rendering it useless; useless; as if he needed any more problems; what would it take for people to leave him alone and stop dragging him down?

He did what the public asked of him; he stepped out of the spotlight. Graciously. He never wanted it in the first place, not the way it was given to him. He never wanted to be known; half-known, at least, for the notoriety of the Hulk’s temper tantrums; those events were the direct antithesis of his lifelong plans and goals, and he was done with stitching up the wounds it kept opening up. Severing his connection to violence, and keeping his distance from it, he’d become so certain over the years, was imperative for progress. But once again, as it always happened in the past, violence had found him instead. Even here.

Courtesy of his new and egregious... House guest.

His jaw set. He could feel his fists coiling up, trimmed nails digging into the meat of his palms.

(Tch. If you’re gonna chew them out, then chew them out, dummy. Don’t make me do it for you.)

Bruce's anger was enough to pull him from his stupor. He stumbled towards the man, steps unsteady but intentional. His voice was hoarse, uneven; close to catching in the dryness of his throat, and it was coloured by pain and disbelief from what occurred, but it remained full of the accusation and animosity he wanted to convey. The intent to single them out. Pass off the blame to them. No amount of shock would quell that, nor would the unknown nature of the newcomer; their unknown capabilities. It simply wasn't a factor when it came to the intentions that ailed him. He needed to get their attention.

He needed them to understand what they’ve done.

“Hey!”

Perhaps they would already know it, with the wreckage scattered around them. But he was almost hoping that wasn’t the case. Much as he couldn’t admit it, he wanted the honours all to himself... To yell; to accost them; to blame someone else, because he seldom had the chance, and it was clear as day who the guilty person was in this situation; maybe it was him, but probably not; he wouldn't accept it because if that were the case, a stranger wouldn't have landed in the middle of the room with smoke trailing from their clothes.

They did this. They did this.

His vision flickered.

And if words didn’t get through to them, some part of him had always found pleasure in the alternative.

#( in control. )#( verse ) rayleigh scattering.#mynameisanakin #mynameisanakin 1 #coming in hot with bruce's continuous semi-denial of his did #and eddie wasn't a thing before i wrote this but... eddie.#bruce could use a tiny animal friend.#i should probably make a new verse for this because #uhh there's a lot. lol.#i'll figure out a name eventually.#anyways - let me know if you need anything changed here!

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