seriousfic: (Default)
[personal profile] seriousfic
Title: Staring Back At Me
Fandom: The Incredible Hulk
Timeline: Pre-movie
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,016
Characters/Pairings: Bruce/Betty, General Ross
Summary: Bruce on the run, Ross on the hunt.



Bruce was thinking of Betty when the bombing started. He was thinking of how it had been three years since he’d last seen her, three years he’d spent trickling down out of Culver, hunted across the Midwest, then through Texas to the Yucatan and through South America. Years of research into curing his condition, only to hit dead-ends, with his work constantly interrupted by the good General Ross.

That made him angry; started his watch beeping. A tiny little warning ping, rapping him on the forehead to remind him to watch his temper. He thought of Betty instead. Three years. Five years since they’d met at a conference in Switzerland. Four years and seven since “keeping in touch” had turned into a relationship. They’d have been married by now, if it weren’t for the thing behind his eyes, in his blood. Maybe have kids. Not that he wanted kids, not after his dad, but it’d be nice to have a legacy that wasn’t destruction and terror.

Three years on the run had found him in a small Mayan village. His research had hit another dead-end and he was going back to medicine… making splints, setting broken bones, diagnosing illnesses. When the work didn’t keep him occupied, he tried to brainstorm a new way to fight back against this thing consuming his life. And when that didn’t work, he thought of Betty. He was glad he’d clipped that picture out of the newspaper. Without it, he would’ve started to forget the shade of her eyes.

He took the picture out of his trusty backpack and the world deafened him. Like a switch had been flipped on his hearing. He got up, realized he couldn’t without shaking, and saw the settling dirt kicked up by the explosion.

From there, he didn’t remember much. The villagers were running, he was marshalling them away from the explosions and the pinprick-distant flares of shells being fired, and the monster wanted out of its cage. He could feel his eyes turning green, a sensation so weird he couldn’t even describe. But it was the same kind of relief as picking a scab. Then the villagers were on a bus and he wasn’t and then he was alone again. The bus had gone over a bridge and he hid under the bridge, covering his ears so that the only thing he could hear was the beep of his watch as it tracked his rising pulse.

Bruce wasn’t thinking of Betty anymore. He was thinking of his childhood, of his mother and father arguing and then the punches his father threw as the explosions got closer, digging into the dirt and water like stabbings, and when he opened his eyes and saw the water rushing under him his reflection had green eyes.

***

He’ll be leaving soon, so it doesn’t matter. They’ll all know by now of the rampaging beast that destroyed both government troops and the drug dealers, that left the jungle pregnant with smoke and flame. So he finds a phone and calls the operator and tells her the American number he wants to be connected to. As soon as he’s said it it’s like he’s shared a horrible secret, gotten it off his chest. He can breathe again.

“Hello?” Betty’s voice is as refreshing as a dip into a cool lake. It’s just so… soothing after all the roaring and explosions and the gunshots that still clatter through his head.

“Betty. I love you. I’ll always love you. Please don’t hang up.”

He hears a gasp on the other end and something break. Maybe she dropped something.

“I don’t have much time. Please, just… do you still…”

“Of course I do. Always.”

Bruce feels the weight of an engagement ring he had to pawn a long time ago. “Thank you. So much. I can’t even tell you…”

The sound of the call being rerouted is as discordant as a false note at a piano recital. Then the General’s voice, equally jarring. “Banner.”

Bruce’s voice drops a hundred degrees. “Ross.”

“It’s over. We have you. Come in peacefully. We can work something out.”

Bruce smiles bitterly, because he’s so very tired but just the thought of this wakes him up like a nightmare. “Sure. Just as soon as I get rid of this thing inside me.”

“Damnit, Banner, we can help.”

“It’s not a weapon, it’s a curse. And I’m getting rid of it before it hurts anyone else. My God, man, your own daughter…”

“It’s funny you should say that.” And even the illusion of cordiality is gone, back to the dry-wood gruffness of Thunderbolt Ross. “Because just now I’m writing a letter to the parents of that poor guy you killed in Mexico. You remember him? Driving the tank?”

Just flashes. Pain, pain that wouldn’t stop, so he threw something at it to make it stop. Just like someone might swat a fly. “Yeah. Yeah, I remember…” It’s a pathetic excuse, and even he knows it, but it must be said. “You put him in my way. Didn’t you know what I would do, what would happen to him?”

“Sacrifice. With gamma weaponry, the lives saved will far outweigh those lost to gain it. Think of all the people who died to create the atomic bomb.”

“No, I’m thinking of the people who died at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I’m thinking of your daughter.” Lying there, battered, bruised, because he couldn’t control it. Just like dad couldn’t control it.

“We know where you are. Your consent is not a requisite here!”

Bruce looked back at the forest fire getting closer. “Come get me.”

He hung up and sat down to wait. In a war zone, there would be no collateral damage. It would be just him and Ross. And he was just angry enough not to care who the general stacked up between them.

It was Betty that stopped him. He thought of her eyes, and how they would look at him if he gave in.

By the time Ross arrived, he was gone like blood washed away in a river.

Profile

seriousfic: (Default)
seriousfic

April 2017

S M T W T F S
      1
23 45678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30      

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 12th, 2025 01:33 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios