Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

They cut off his legs first.

Bruce is twenty four, madly in love with a pretty woman named Elizabeth Ross, and a gamma explosion at the lab he works at causes him to be locked away in a dog cage, and destined a fate to be treated like an animal.

They cut off his legs first, and they do it in his sleep.

Bruce distantly remembers the explosion. He remembers seeing the numbers flare, the monitors seize. He and Betty had been working late, exchanging love sick grins over pages of numbers and terminology. Betty had called him a vision, and Bruce had blushed and stammered in the way you did when you couldn’t quite take a compliment. Bruce had noticed it first, and all too quickly he was throwing himself to the enclosed reactor nearby and his limbs were ripped apart.

His skin crackled and sizzled as a broken scream morphed into something larger than himself. Something inside him distantly expanded, growing from turmoil and a childhood of fear, into a mass lump of cancerous anger. Bruce felt his insides flip out of his skin, intestines spilling out of his stomach as his skin tore away from his bones.

He distantly saw green, and then he was gone.

When he woke up, he was in small dark cage in a deep damp building. Betty wasn’t there, and Bruce’s legs were missing.

He lay crumpled, like a thrown rag doll, and when he glanced down at himself, he noticed the two nubs past his knees.

Bruce’s eyes blew wide, his face tending as his aching throat produced a wailing scream, tinged with someone’s voice deeper than his own.

His eyes welled with tears, his own ears rattling as his scream shook the barred cage he was crumpled in. His nails cut into his forearms where he gripped himself, clawing at his skin as he stared at the empty space where his legs should be.

He had lost his legs.

He screamed himself hoarse, and then screamed until his throat bled, and then there was a faint fog surrounding his dark cage, and he was deadly silent in his sleep.

They explained it all when he woke up.

Ross. Thaddeus Ross explained it all. “You’re property of the military now, Bruce. That explosion caused something unexpected inside of you to, how do I put this; wake up. You killed a lot of people, Bruce.” There was a sickening grin to the man’s face. His moustache curled upwards in a sickening grin, an evil smirk, Bruce spat blood as his teeth seemed to dribble out between his lips, and he lisped on her name.

Her precious, sweet, lovely name.

“What about Betty?” His words were illegible.

Ross looked away for a moment, over his shoulder. Bruce was out of the cage, in a bigger, glass one. The cage was in the corner. It was just as dark, but Ross was so close, leaning and looming over him, that Bruce could see him just fine. His legs were still missing.

Ross turned, and the smirk was gone. Joy was sparkling in his eyes, malicious joy.

“You killed her, Bruce.” Ross sneered. Bruce’s heart dropped. “You monster.”

Ross backhanded him on the face, and the monster cried. Bruce’s mouth curled around his sobs, and Ross wiped under Bruce’s nose, over his top lip. He pulled his hand back to reveal darkened blood.

“You understand now, why you’re a danger?” Ross sneered, gripping Bruce’s face with one hand. He was sat propped up against the glass wall, dried blood already sneered behind his head. His hair was matted, his body rumpled. His legs were still gone. “You understand why you’re going to be kept here?”

Bruce nodded weakly, his tooth spilling down Ross’s hand. It left a small trail of blood trickled down his hand, and stained his white suit shirt’s sleeve.

“Good.” Ross nodded once, like everything was final, shoved Bruce’s head into the glass, and walked away.

The glass door enclosed the monster in his cage, and Bruce sobbed as he stared at the empty space where his legs should lay.

-

There was a deep voice in the back of his head, which Bruce ignored in favour of staring down at his legs.

He had been left alone for a week, and hadn’t moved an inch. He could feel his insides start to fail, his immune system collapsing. He could hear the distant ringing of something electric overhead, he could smell when the air of the cage was tinted with drugs. All these new sensations, the heightened abilities, some would consider them super powers; and Bruce sat numb.

His eyes lulled closed, each blink slower than the last. His breath was abnormally shallow, his heartbeat weak and clambering weakly. Bruce hoped this to be the end, soon.

Betty was dead. He had killed her, and many others. He was a monster.

NO.

The voice roared, and Bruce didn’t wince. He did before, last week, when he didn’t want to die. Bruce glanced down at his involuntary mutilation. He wanted to die.

NO.

The voice spewed its words, echoing deep in the back of his skull. It was deep, dark, and larger than Bruce’s.

Bruce sat staring at the bloodied floor. He dragged his eyes upwards, faced the closed doorway, and let his lips split apart slowly to leave a gap for his tongue to fall out.

NO NO NO NO NO N-

Bruce jerked his head to the side, the smallest movement to defy the voice in his head. He wasn’t sure how to talk to it, but it wanted to be acknowledged. So, Bruce let blood spill from between his lips, splashing his chest and meeting the rest of his teeth on the ground. Bruce’s eyes fluttered, ready for death to wash over him.

But, as he leaned back, and made himself comfortable, and reached forwards to touch the white light ahead with the tip of his fingers, green overtook his vision.

And his skin crackled open, and his bones broke to rearrange themselves larger, and a deep yet desperate war cry escaped his lips, and his ribs snapped open to fit a wider chest, and he was sent tumbled down down down until he was pushed underneath.

Encased in a green cloud, Bruce fell back into his head, and stayed there.

-

Whilst asleep, or forced into a coma, or whilst his body was overtaken by something larger, Bruce could feel a rapid heartbeat.

Whether it was his own, throbbing against the warm white swaddling he was encased in, he was unsure. But there was a heartbeat, and the distant, fleeting feeling of feeling safe.

Until there was a hit to his shoulder, and punch to his neck, and the swaddling unfurled as his skin cracked back into place.

The two of them became an us, and they screamed out of the same mouth as one shrunk, and one was revealed.

-

Bruce woke up, in his dark animal cage, to a crumpled up body with legs.

They had grown, reformed and grown again fresh as the day he was born. Not a scar to be revealed, no evidence of their absence. Bruce felt the sting of pins and needles were he lay crumpled like a ball of paper, and sobbed in relief.

He had legs.

-

They tried cutting them off three more times. They wanted him hopeless, they wanted him to fit easier in that cage; wanted him melded into whatever shape they desired. Bruce had no free Will, he learnt that early on. Or, it wasn’t towards the end of the torment at least, Bruce had no concept of daytime or nighttime. It was all pain, no routine, they liked to keep him under-stimulated.

The legs kept coming back, and each time they did Bruce couldn’t deny that fitting inside the cage was easier without the appendages. Still, he rather much enjoyed having legs, and decided on the third return that he’d never take advantage of the ability to walk again.

They moved on from his legs soon, getting the idea that they wouldn’t stay off. Whether they grew back, or found their way back to his body to connect, Bruce never knew.

He’d wake up without them, get angry, and come back to himself with them. Each time he woke up, naked, bruised, crumpled in the cage, with a pounding headache, in the dark; there was a deep sated joy in his chest. Something took pleasure out of it all, and Bruce silently thanked it from the nape of his skull.

It screamed YOU’RE WELCOME from his forehead.

-

He learnt, slowly, very slowly, because they started using electricity on him, how to communicate with the mass building and growing in his head.

Bruce first asked it “are you a tumour?”

It replied ‘NO.’

Bruce then asked if “what are you?”

It replied ‘NO NAME. FRESH. NEW. BUT BEEN HERE LONG.’

Bruce remembered unexplainable tempers in his youth, picking fights because someone mentioned his Mama, or picked fun at his body, or why he always wore long sleeves during summer. Bruce never won fights, apart from the battle against his dad. But that was a freak accident, and had nothing to do with the way Bruce saw green fingers wrap around throats of children once his age who asked too many questions about Brian’s disappearance.

Bruce said “that was all you.” It wasn’t framed as a question.

It stayed quiet. Bruce imagined something hulking and large nod back, in its own lumped form.

‘HULK.’

“huh?”

‘HULKING.’

“yeah, is that you?”

‘ITS GOOD.’

-

Bruce called it Hulk, or Hulking, or that other thing, or the other guy (when Bruce could start to indenting the voice as a males, as his own deeper one.)

-

Hulk, Bruce learnt, was confident. Although he wasn’t always right, he was always certain that his escape would allow Bruce’s torment to end.

“i don’t want you to get hurt.” Bruce said once, scared he’d lose the only thing he knew. There was no other routine, there was no choice, there was no escape; all he knew for certain was that Bruce would wake up and he’d hear a hulking voice in his head. He didn’t want to lose the only thing he could talk to, even if he was probably being driven to insanity and finally at the stage of hearing the dead. He’d be seeing them soon.

‘HULK WONT HURT.’

“you can’t be sure.”

So, anytime Hulk offered to stop it all, to help them escape, to stop the electronic shocks to the throat and the water boarding and the dissection and the pure torment of feeling rats dig into their skin and have his finger nails torn out agonisingly slowly; Bruce always said no.

He deserved it, after all. He had killed Betty. He deserved it all for what he’d done to her.

-

It was Hulks fault, in the end, why Bruce Banner lost his voice.

They had been talking, deep in Bruce’s head. His stomach spilled and spluttered red ink, bleeding a dragged trail of his internal organs spilling out from a jagged cut down his middle.

It was all Hulk’s fault.

“did you know mama?”

‘WHO?’

“the lady. the woman with dark hair. nice eyes.” Bruce was tired, his eyes closed as his chest wheezed pathetically. Throat hoarse from screaming, eyes stinging from crying. He sat perched on the glass, deep in his own head, avoiding it all.

‘OH.’

“did you?”

‘YES.’

“i miss her.”

Hulking stayed silent.

‘HULK.’

“sorry.”

There was a pause. Hulk brought something to Bruce’s attention.

“hm?” His head twitched a little to the side.

‘ESCAPE.’

“yeah, we could.”

‘GO NOW. LETS. HULK ESCAPE. PUNY BANNER TOO.’

“no…”

‘WHY?’

“it’s too dangerous. better to stay here.”

‘GO NOW!’

“I can’t.”

‘HULK STRONG. HULK TAKE BOTH. PUNY BANNER COME WITH.’

“no, that’s not what i mean.”

‘WHAT, THEN?’

“never mind.” Bruce felt himself slip between the cracks, a white light ahead.

He was grabbed at the ankle, and dragged down.

“No. Wait-“ Bruce choked, pawing the floor. His body started to snap. His rub cage expanded, cracking at the force, opening wide.

“HULK COME OUT!” His own voice screamed, tinged deep and desperate. Bruce shook his head, like a wet dog shaking off a flea. But Bruce was the flea, and Hulk a mere pack-less wolf.

“No! Don’t-“ Bruce cried out, but it was too late.

He saw people pointing guns at his face as he was dragged down, into icy water, and forced under by a thick green sheet. He smashed and banged and hit and punched and clawed the glassy ice, but there was no use.

He’d drown under Hulk’s control.

-

They escaped. For a short while.

They were tracked, caught with a net thrown down from the sky, and tried down as gunshots beat them.

Ross returned when Bruce came back.

Bruce wouldn’t be able to drink water without flinching ever again.

-

“that was your fault.” Bruce scolded Hulk, who had stayed quiet since being defeated. He obviously didn’t like feeling small. Go figure…

‘HULK PROTECT.’

“no, you put me- us, in danger. It’s best to stay here, die slowly.”

‘GIVE UP?’

“exactly.”

Hulk was silent, for a pause. Bruce took a breath, and stared at the single half empty (filled?) glass of water ahead of him. Clean, pristine water, ready to drink. Bruce threw up, again. He only spat out drops of bile.

‘CAN’T.’

“can’t what?”

‘GIVE UP.’

“sorry, bud.”

And he was sorry; sorry for himself and Hulk and having to keep Hulk at bay when was safest (for himself) to let Hulk take over completely so he never had to feel a thing again. It wasn’t safest for everyone else, because a naked green behemoth would only cause more casualties; like Betty.

He deserved this pain, he reminded himself. He deserved it all.

Hulk roared, and Bruce didn’t flinch a muscle.

-

Ross mentions a name, Tony Stark, calls him a relentless asshole, and leaves for a while.

Bruce distantly remembers a young billionaire with dead parents, on the tv a lot promoting his weapons. Interestingly, Betty would talk about him most when they collaborated on the Super Soldier Serum together. She found him somewhat attractive, and Bruce couldn’t have disagreed. He kept quiet during those moments, let Betty talk as he worked. It was calming, to hear noise of another person. Almost domestic. Bruce was always a good listener anyways.

They were shut down after Captain America was found, with a slap on the wrist for ‘unfinished work’. Straight after, they were working with gamma rays.

Betty didn’t talk about Tony Stark once ever again.

-

‘HULK ESCAPE NOW.’

The doors unlocked, open, freeing. Bruce is staring at it, his fingers cracked whilst one is missing. The ring finger on the right leaves a stub, and Bruce dribbles blood that soaks his tongue from the stream flooding out of his nose.

They had a lot of anger recently, and it was easier to take it all out on him than finding a therapist or councillor.

Bruce’s eyes were blown wide, staring into the blurry distance without his glasses. He had hoped soon that his eyesight would recover without his glasses, but at this point he was starting to doubt Hulk’s ability to fix his poor eyesight.

‘GO PUNY BANNER.’

Hulk roars, beckoning him to escape. He feels Hulk swim beneath his skin, rippling up and down his arms as he tries to shake Bruce’s short legs awake. Hulk is ready to escape.

Bruce is ready to let go.

He sinks under his own body, a larger form taking his place. His eyes are tinted green as someone else takes the drivers seat. Instead of being wrapped up and thrown into the trunk, he’s in the passengers side: He sees and feels everything Hulk does.

They breathe as one, Hulk’s larger gasps of air stretching Bruce’s lungs. They are in time as they step on wobbling legs, larger hands reaching out for balance.

They are close, so close, to escape. Bruce almost smiles, a slight curl to the side of his lips, he feels a bubble in his chest and Hulk laughs with him as their joined bodies step out of the glass cage.

They are free.

They are distracted, celebrating with cheers ranging in two different pitches flowing from one mouth. They give their attacker enough time to hit them on the head, and the us is knocked out completely.

Both are dead to the world.

-

Until Bruce wakes up, a throbbing head in tune to his heartbeat, and an oxygen mask places over his mouth.

His eyes fly open, and his struggling against the tight leather bonds that snip and bite at his wrists, ankles, and middle. He’s strapped down, tight, to what he realises, to his horror, is a surgical table.

The blinding light above him catches the glance of a sharp scalpel covered in blood, held by blood soaked medicinal gloves.

When Bruce tries to scream, his voice is gone.

They have taken his voice, and Bruce can’t find Hulk in the nape of his skull. He can’t call Hulk to come save him, because he has no voice, and he has no Hulk.

Bruce’s mouth opens around the mask, and no sound flows from his lips. His throat clenches as he cries, and then the air he’s forced to breathe turns sweet, and then he’s gone again.

Chapter Text

Bruce keeps two fingers gently pressed against the rough scar across his throat. It’s jagged, from what he feels under his numbing fingertips, and tied with stitches that bobble up his skin. It’s tight, and his throat feels sickening empty.

It’s horrifying.

Bruce lays on the ground, left alone for the past week (not that he’s counting, because he can’t anymore, he lost the ability to think the second his voice was taken), starving. For food, for water (although, not really), for Hulk, for his voice, and most of all; for Betty.

He keeps seeing her. And her face. He hears her voice and her sweet laugh echoing the hallow pit of his mind. It’s torture.

He can’t think himself to distraction, and can’t not think about her because he’s guilty. So, so guilty. He murdered her, after all. She had every right to haunt him mind.

He feels like a cracked mirror, although couldn’t explain why if asked. He knew he was a monster, and that word rattled his brain.

Monster
Monster
Monster

He missed Hulk.

He hated to admit it, but he missed the green tumour in his head. At least, then, Bruce wasn’t so alone.

Bruce feared he had been forgotten. He’d take the beatings and torture if it meant he wasn’t alone.

He rubbed against the bobbling skin, feeling the stitches and wondering how much it’s hurt if he pulled it all out. Like one long piece of string, never ending, slipping between the slashed skin like a clowns handkerchief trick.

Bruce lay on the cold ground, trying to picture ice swallowing him whole. All he could see was Betty’s dead body.

-

Hulk stirred in the back of his head, spread out down his neck and nestled there as if to keep warm. Bruce shot up, bones cracking from lack-of-use for too long.

Bruce went to speak, call out to the Hulk, but nothing came out. His lips flapped like a dying fish out of water.

“hulk.” he said it all in his head instead, using what little strength he had left.

The hulk groaned, like he was awaking from a long long sleep.

“hulk please” Bruce reached out a hand inside himself, hoping for contact.

A larger green hand held his shaking one.

‘Hulk Here.’ His voice was quiet, weak.

Bruce realised it only then.

“you can’t roar.” Bruce said numbly. “i’m sorry.”

Hulk screamed inside, and when Bruce’s skin stretched around his fingers, no words came out.

Hulk shrunk inwards before he truly escaped. He moped, sulking in Bruce’s head.

You and me too, buddy.

-

They were left for a long, long time.

-

One day, a man in black leather, holding a large gun, came in and threw a metal lunch tray of slop and water on a tray. He turned, and left, as soon as he had arrived.

Bruce ate the slop greedily, and forced himself to drink the water. He sat shaking, not feeling the air around him, breathing shallow, afterwards.

They weren’t forgotten, then.

‘USELESS?’

“think so, buddy.”

Their time as experimentee’s were over. They were no longer needed, for there was probably something stronger needing to be dissected.

Ag least, Bruce rationalised, they had the curtesy of still providing a monster enough to keep it alive.

Bruce wouldn’t complain (not that he could, anyway.)

-

Bruce realised they took his voice just to keep him quiet too late.

They obviously got annoyed by his crying, begging, pleading; all the noises Bruce had never realised he had made.

-

Bruce missed noise, real noise. He forgot the old sound of his voice long ago.

-

His scar healed, and Bruce ended up pulling the string of stitches out once he was sure it wouldn’t cause a mess, because there was nothing else to do.

Hulk had gagged at the feeling, Bruce was numbed to it all.

-

Bruce could hear a ringing in his ear, and Hulk in his mind. He only opened his mouth when it was to hard to breathe, or when he ate or drank.

-

They started being late on his delivery-of-slop.

-

They forgot about them completely.

They were left starving in the glass cage.

-

Bruce wondered once why Betty wasn’t there to save him.

He cried silently as soon as her dead face appeared in front of him.

-

There was a bang, deep outside the glass cage. Bruce’s head snapped up to the sound, previously thinking he had gone deaf. The sound was relieving for but a second, before Bruce was scrambling up to the wall, gripping himself tight to prepare for an attack.

This was it. They had finally remembered him, remembered how useless he had become, and were going to finally kill him as a spare.

Finally.

“Oh my god, there’s a man in here.” An American, young voice, bellowed out. Bruce kept his arms across his head, eyes clenched shut. His body tense, his knees pulled up to his chest, his entire body shaking.

This was it.

Someone was sick, the sloshing sound of someone’s stomach contents spilling and splatting across the ground. Bruce flinched, banging his head and going dizzy.

Hulk was roaring, screaming, clawing from the inside. Bruce pulled at his long, matted hair, and yanked hard.

Just get it over with. Please, just get it over with.

No gunshots rang.

Chapter Text

Stark’s music is loud, as it always is. It’s blaring and pounding Tony’s ears as he tinkers, and he’s distantly aware that the music will one day make him as deaf as twenty-pie Hawkeye, but isn’t actively caring to change his habits.

Because like Tony, they die hard.

He’s screwing something in, distantly thinking about Pepper, and hoping she’s okay on the conference Tony should be on (if he was awake before the private jet took off, and only feels a bit bad for that one only because it’s Pepper.) Besides, he tried to reason with himself just to make himself feel better, he was needed here for Avenging, and stuff. Like screwing this last screw into place on the newest addition to the suit. He had plans, but plans, for a call-and-response feature for his babies, but that was far from finished. Tony would have it done in two weeks, if everything went well.

Apparently, as JARVIS cut into his music with as much urgency an ai’s tone could bring, stuff wasn’t going well at the moment.

“Sir,” JARVIS spoke quick, as if someone had messed with his wiring and sped him up a little. He’d kill Clint the next time he fiddled with the wires passing through the vents. “Nick Fury is calling for a group meeting, he needs you all there urgently.”

Tony whistled, put down his spanner, and took off his glasses. He’d poison Clint, that’s how he’d kill him one day.

“Oh really?” Tony smirked, leaning back in his chair and practically moaning as his back snapped and cracked with relief. “What does he need us there so ‘urgently’ for, JARV?”

“Sir, he’s adamant it be now. No questioned asked, as per director Fury’s previous exceptions.” JARVIS sounded rattled, and it put Tony on edge a little bit. Just a little bit, though. He scoffed, but his smirk fell, and he stood to stretch his legs before grabbing his glasses again.

“Sir, please-“

“Alright! Alright.” Tony groaned, giving the curling the stink eye as he put on his glasses again to leave the lab. “Lock up for me while I’m gone, JARVIS. Daddy won’t be gone long”.

JARVIS stayed silent, and as Tony passed the halls to the conference room, there was an even silence across the agents passing him. More nurses than normal rushed past, their faces pinched and comically white lab coats fluttering in the wind, and Tony watched with a perched eyebrow as they passed him without a second glance. He was always noticed, with a glance or sometimes a check-out, by everyone. But not this time; the nurses practically ran past him without a second glance. His chest swam in worry, but just a little bit.

As he turned into the teams conference room, where nearly all debriefs happened (apart from the one two weeks ago, because the team was covered in goo and none of them fancied getting the nice white, actually-comfortable chairs dirty), Tony entered the room with a sleazy grin, although it didn’t quite reach his eyes. The team, in turn, only stared him down like it was a complete crime to be a few minutes late to the meeting, as if that wasn’t normal for Tony anyway. Okay, Tony shot up his hands, in mock surrender, something was definitely going on.

He opened his mouth to make a comment, to lighten the mood and try to get someone to crack a smile, as Tony said something or other extremely witty and boarding hilarious on the silence and angry stares, but Fury beat him to the chase.

“Stark, sit.”

Tony’s mouth slammed shut, and he raised an eyebrow in challenge.

“What have I done this time?” He joked, and nobody laughed. Ouch. Nobody quirked their lip or even slapping him on the side for such a silly joke. Silly, silly, Tony.

Everyone instead seemed to turn their eyes away, pulling their heads downcast with haunted eye bags. Steve’s big arms crossed across his chest, tensing the muscles not to show off - because Captain American was not that type of guy, never had been - but instead a sight of his own panic. The others looked equally distant, eyes shadowed and not just because of the cheap lights SHIELD had installed, for whatever reason. None of them seemed particularly bubbly for this conference.

Tony knew, then, watching how they swallowed thick and took big breaths to calm themselves, that this wasn’t about him at all.

It was about something much, much bigger.

“What do you know about the hobbies of Thaddeus Ross?”

Ah, Tony licked his lips almost anxiously, almost.

“I know some rumours.”

Steve sighed, broad chest still crossed over by large arms. He stepped close, and met Tony’s eyes.

“Sit down, Stark.” He said quietly, and Tony did as he was told, and listened as Fury spoke. Surprisingly.

-

Stark ran out of the room to throw up black coffee and a breakfast bagel into the nearest water fountain.

-

Bruce wakes up to a nurse taking his blood, lots of it, too much of it, as others hold him down. Their grip is violent, evil; nails digging into his arms and leaving deep marks in the skin. He distantly feels binds around his ankles, tripping him up and tying him down to the bed he lays on. He struggles, because contact never leaned into anything good, and there’s people screaming at him right in his ear; to calm down.

Hulk roars, distantly, silently. Bruce hopes they don’t catch the possible green tint to his eyes, or the scar wrapping around his throat, as he thrashes his and Hulk’s displeasure of being tied down and manhandled with rough fists.

As people leave, slowly relent their holds but never once let go, and Bruce feels a pin-prick in the crook of his elbow (and starts to calm down to an almost vegetive state, eyes bleary and dusted over), the people in white coats start to leave. Bruce blinks when he sees shadows floating towards the door, leaving, and then opens his eyes to find the room completely empty, alone.

-

‘HULK KILL ALL’

“yeah sure buddy”

They’ve been left alone for a period of time, Bruce’s internal clock not working right since… well since Hulk, to be honest, but he can’t blame the green beast for that particularly.

‘PUNY BANNER GET UP’

“cant, hulk. the leather…”

It hurts to be tied down, but not only because the ties are nipping and pinching at his skin with every tremor he can’t seem to prevent. His fingers and going a little numb and the skin around the leather of his wrists is going white. It also hurts to be labelled a monster, even if Bruce knows he is one.

Bruce keeps blinking, and he only knows that he’s been sedated with something heavy and strong because every-time he opens his eyes, there’s someone new walking past. Or the air feels different and that could mean an hour or a handful has passed, or maybe even longer.

His room is stark white. Painted white walls burn his eyes, and even when he closed his eyes he sees the faint outline of the white walls blinding as bright as the sun. The bounds that tie him down are leather, and probably the only thing filled with a colour that isn’t white. Bruce’s skin, or at least the skin on his arms, is near transparent. The ground, white. The bed propping him up, facing the stained white windows in front of him; white. It’s all white, and blinding, and hurting Bruce’s eyes.

He closes his eyes, very slowly, almost delicately, and when he opens his eyes there are two faces staring at him across the window.

His head ducks down, tucking his chin to his chest as he looks straight towards the two through his faint eyelashes. His lips part, going slack in exhaustion. He wants to tell them to fuck off, to please go away, to get him the fuck out of here, but his body is still drugged and sedated; so much that thinking hurts, and he also doesn’t have a voice box; so none of that’s really possible.

Instead, he stares, with fuzzy eyes and immobility. Hulks screaming to get up and fight for once in his life, and Bruce is ignoring him to in turn watch the brunette and the blond outside ‘his room’.

He blinks, without knowing it, and opens his eyes to find that they’re gone. There’s a very distant yell outside of his room, presumably down a hall of some sort because it sounds distant, but Bruce blinks again before he can muster up the energy to decipher, decode, and understand the words.

Hulks still roaring, and Bruce is still tied down, and useless. If someone were to hurt him now, he wouldn’t have the energy to say ‘ouch.’

——

He wakes up, and there’s a brunette man staring him down from a chair dragged in from the outside, sat in the corner with exhausted eyes. Bruce stills, his throat closing in on itself at the stranger so close. He’s in the corner of the spacious room, but that’s the closest Bruce has had someone near him in a long while.

His eyes are still fuzzy, but he makes out facial hair styled perfectly, a glowing chest under a black tight shirt, and fair skin. Bruce pulls gently on his binds, calming his nerves with the pinching leather. It’s all overwhelming, being so close to someone when Bruce had been alone for god knows long (Hulk didn’t count, at least not in Bruce’s head, because Hulk didn’t have a body that was his own, meaning Bruce had control over the beast; but this man, he could do whatever he wanted to Bruce and the frail man wouldn’t have a voice to scream victim.)

The buckles must have made a sound, or the man was waiting for him to wait intently, because the man sits up and starts speaking the second he notices Bruce’s open eyes; and all Bruce hears is a loud high pitched ringing deep in his eye sockets. Which is silly, because Bruce was rendered mute, not deaf.

The man speaks, in a questioning tone, and Bruce squints his eyes tight as he pulls and pulls in distress.

There’s something near his lip, and soon water is gargled down his throat. It’s soothing, it’s cold, it’s bliss. The ice water was almost heavenly enough to bring his voice back.

Almost.

Bruce passed out again, wishing his could say thank you to the blurred figure with dark facial hair.

——

Bruce wakes up again to someone yelling down the hall, outside his room. For whatever reason, he feels a lot more alert than the other times he had awoke from his constant broken sleep.

“-and he’s-“ Someone is telling the loudest, covering other voices and silencing them with desperate screams that crack their voice. Bruce missed that feeling, although he had never been a screamer when angry. He missed the rumble of vocal cords, exclaiming and screaming distress or joy or sadness or confusion.

“Fucking drugged-“ Bruce closes his eyes, and wishes he could move, or go back to sleep again, because this was all getting too tiring and he hadn’t even been awake for a minute yet.

“No! Fuck you!” His door is slammed open, Bruce’s eyes shooting open and seeing a man around his height pace back on fourth in front of him in his bound bed, with trimmed facial hair.

He’s the one from before, the figure, Bruce recalls in his head.

Bruce opens his lips to say something, stupidly he debated saying hello, but his voice calls dead.

It’s alright though, because the man looks up at him just as Bruce closes his lips.

“Oh.” The man says, calming down, or at least trying to, as he came closer towards Bruce’s side. “Hi. Sorry if I woke you. Um. I don’t even know if you remember me, I helped you with the water. I’ve also been saving your ass the past few weeks. They were gonna…”

Bruce’s eyes are wide, and the man must see the deeply nestled fear behind them, so he shuts up.

“I’m Tony.” The man says, breathing out his name. “Tony Stark. Ross knew me, for a long time actually. God.” The man - Tony Stark - looks away, something deeply guilty behind his eyes: Bruce can read that look well.

Tony Stark, the one Ross had slated a few times. The man had been a passing comment by Ross, not to be heard by such lowlife as Bruce in his cage, but here he now was in front of him, looking very sorry for himself.

Bruce couldn’t say anything he wanted. He couldn’t move, body still numb. He watched Tony with a wide stare.

Tony coughed into a fist, and then looked back up to Bruce. He gave a smile, but it was more of a mere flash of his perfectly white teeth.

“I’ve been saving your ass the past few weeks. They wanted to ‘put you down’, if you get my gist. You owe me, for saving your life.” Tony’s standing now, and Bruce is watching like a hawk and Tony walks around his bound bed and grabbing the glass of water to offer it to Bruce. “I’m kind of like your God, if you want to take it that far. I’ve literally saved your life.”

If Bruce could talk, he’d mention to the man that he had said that before, but Bruce saw the guilty twinkle behind his eyes, and realised that for whatever reason, Tony needed to reassure /himself/ that he had saved Bruce.

Bruce took the water, but never blinked at Tony. Bruce could smell the rich twinge of his cologne; the same smell of money wafting from Ross long ago. Wealth, comfort, money. Bruce would be careful, and wouldn’t make the same mistakes as before.

“So.” The man, Tony Stark, started. Bruce hadn’t had a conversation in years, it was all too refreshing to finally feel spoken to, to have an actual conversation that made more sense than Hulk’s jumbled words pulled together and stuck with endless amounts of glue, making everything else sticky and uncomfortable. “I know we haven’t technically met- now until right now at least, because you’ve been sleeping; but I’ve been trying to save your life and I’ll tell you now, you aren’t safe here. You’re better off coming with me and I can continue to take the piss and argue with those SHIELD fuckers. Okay? Can you agree to come with me somewhere safe and /not here/? It’s just easier for all of us that way…”

Bruce wasn’t given the time to think, not really. Because he had only just woken up properly and had so many questions he couldn’t physically ask.

What he did know, was that Tony Stark smelt rich, and he knew Ross. And this place- did Tony Stark call it ‘SHIELD’? - wanted him dead, out done like a dog; and for whatever reason Tony Stark, Ross’ old friend or humorous foe, wanted him alive (desperately, without explanation.)

“Please?” Stark gripped Bruce’s bound hand, and his fingers were ice coke and he kissed his teeth. “Damn. Your hands are cold. Please say yes.”

Die, or be taken by another rich man with the probable means to torture and experiment on him?

Bruce knew what he’d choose: what he deserved.

A monster would never deserve the comfort of death, the sweet release of being put down like a sick dog. He was sick, disgustingly infected with a giant green tumour who spoke to him in his brain and took over his body if they both got too angry. He had hurt people, killed people. He didn’t deserve to die.

Bruce knew he deserved whatever torture Tony Stark seemed so eager to try on him.

So, Bruce nodded, silent as a mouse, and Tony Stark seemed joyful that Bruce had signed his life away.

Very, very, sadistically ecstatic that Bruce was now his property to train and abuse. And even more so when, Bruce assumed, he realised that Bruce couldn’t talk; and thus couldn’t scream or cry for help.

Tony Stark says something about papers, and about rubbing it in a Director Fury’s face, and leaves with a skip in his step. Bruce watches him go with bloodshot eyes.

‘HULk HATE HIM’

“yeah… you and me too buddy”

‘HULK KILL’

“maybe, only if you have to”

Bruce hopes Hulk can’t read his mind, because he never intends to let Hulk out to kill anyone ever again.

When Tony Stark comes back after Bruce blinks his eyes closed and opens again, he distantly realised he should have been selfish and chosen to die. Or, at least, put up some sort of fight.

Oh well, he’s Stark’s property now. There’s no point in sulking about it all now. The decision is made, Bruce would be punished, and he wouldn’t be able to scream.

Hulk roared agony.