Chapter Text
There came a point each night when the coffee had to stop, and Bruce was forced to succumb to the promise of dreams that would leave him screaming silently into the darkness of his room. The nightmares were worse at Stark Towers. Before Manhattan, in the bustling anonymity of Calcutta, he had let himself believe they had eased just a little. Back then, his dreams were made of indistinct, long gone memories, and only woke him when they showed him Betty. Or his father. But here, in the opulent ridiculousness Bruce liked to sarcastically call ‘Tony’s place’, reminders of who he really was surrounded him. Here, his nightmares hit like a sucker punch, and would not let up.
A few phases of REM were all he could risk these days – just long enough that he could function the next day, but still always long enough for the dreams to catch hold. He had to switch up his routine to stay awake, to stave off the comfort of the tower. And so, he'd read, finding the most uncomfortable place to perch – on the kitchen counter, in the empty bath, out on the balcony with his knees jammed up against the railings. When his eyes started to dry, he'd take off his socks – an accidental trick he’d learned hitchhiking across the country, when no one wanted to stop for a lone weirdo, and he slept in draughty broken-down cabins and the woods behind truck stops – cold feet never sleep. Then, another coffee. Enough to make his stomach grind and contract. Enough to thread a tremor under his skin. When his limbs prickled with inertia it was time to walk. He’d walked every floor and every corridor in Stark Tower, every basement, every parking lot. When his legs ached he made them run, bare feet slapping on smooth, cool floors, padding up quiet stairwells until he stumbled and his breath pushed like knives inside his chest.
Then, the lab. Sometimes Tony would be there still, oblivious of the time and riding a delicate balance of scotch and caffeine. Sometimes Tony would be with Pepper, and Bruce would walk a slow perimeter of the dark laboratory, leading the bots in a clumsy dance. Sometimes he slept there, crouched against the brushed steel cabinets, frozen feet tucked underneath him, a lab coat for a blanket. But wherever he ended up, eventually it would be time to give in. Letting go of control, even just to sleep, was always painful. And the rest that was meant to heal him, to refresh him, to give him a moment of peace before the dread of consciousness returned to hit him in the face – all of it was crushed by the nightmares.
The regular dreams took on a sick sort of familiarity. He dreamed he was trapped inside the Other Guy, awake and powerless as he – they – forged destruction through everything Bruce cared about. Some nights the dreams never came at all, but somehow that was worse. He woke feeling as if he’d been tricked, as if he was due some sort of punishment the following day for the lack of night time penance. The following night would set things right, and in a way, he thought he deserved it. In a way it was a relief. These dreams he knew. These dreams he woke from sobbing and shaking, but these, at least, were normal.
Tonight, something was wrong.
He had crawled into bed sometime past four, asleep before he’d managed to pull the covers all the way up. And when he felt the breathless squeeze of a nightmare take hold, scraping inside his skull, he wondered for a moment if he had jolted awake. This wasn’t how it went. He wasn't inside the Other Guy. He wasn't trapped, he wasn't transformed, and though he could hear Hulk's rumbling roar, it hadn't come from his mouth. Banner opened his eyes to find himself human. Puny. Vulnerable. And yet, the great green monster raged and smashed and hollered across the room.
Banner thrashed in his sleep, fingers clawing at the sheets, trying to hold onto something solid. Trying to fight his way back out of the nightmare.
Bruce stumbled back and fell against the granite-topped bar in Tony's sprawling lounge. He usually avoided this part of the tower as much as possible, having seen the footage of Hulk pummelling Loki into the floor. However much the clip pleased the other Avengers (Tony had a screenshot of it as his personal laptop background), it made Bruce seethe inside: That’s not me. The way the others had looked at him that day, as an ally rather than a beast to be destroyed – that look had been aimed at the monster. The one moment of belonging in so long, and he couldn’t even claim it for his own. And now, in the dream, the beast was free once more, out of Bruce’s control, and this time there was no doubt that it was an enemy. Bruce watched Hulk, far across the vast room, as it pounded furniture to splinters and roars echoed off the walls. A flurry of colour and movement surrounded the beast. Bruce stared, muted, and checked off each friend with a growing sense of dread: Tony, his red and gold suit sparking and smoking as it circled the monster’s head; Natasha and Clint, two dark streaks of deadly accuracy, dodging missiles and trying to get a clear shot; Thor, swinging Mjölnir in a furious circle, lightning crackling at his fingertips; and Steve, crouching behind his shield, deflecting blocks of concrete.
When the projectiles paused for a second, Steve tentatively straightened up and held out an open palm towards the creature, “Just take it easy, Dr Banner, you don't have to do this."
Hulk tossed its head and roared at the ceiling.
"That's not me!" Bruce yelled, but his voice couldn't carry across the thick air of the dream. Could they even see him? How could the Other Guy even exist separate from him? The buzzing tendril of connection that should have been inside his head, linking him with the rage, with the uncontrollable power, was gone, and the feeling of emptiness made him feel sick. Bruce struggled to his feet, suddenly aware of how weak and defenceless he was. Just a human. Just a man. Hardly remarkable at all.
"Steve, get away from him," he shouted. This time someone heard. The beast’s head snapped up and its gaze fixed onto Bruce’s face. But there was nothing human in Hulk's eyes. Bruce reached out with every synapse and every straining thought to make the Other Guy hear him, but there was nothing – just empty static. With something that sounded like a laugh from the depths of hell, the creature reached up and yanked at a steel support from the ceiling, bringing down a portion of the floor above on top of the Avengers.
Sweat leeched out of his pores, drenching the bedclothes and leaving him panting for breath. Bruce flinched as the crashing of concrete and glass and metal reverberated through his head.
Bruce's voice died in his throat. For a moment, Hulk was completely obscured from view behind a billow of dust. After a pause that seemed to last forever, a flurry of gunshots and arrows and explosives erupted from around the beast. Tony, his suit grey with dust, emerged from the wreckage, boosters glowing vengeful in the low light. Bruce saw the others, too – moving slower than before, dishevelled and streaked with blood, but alive, and fighting onward. And when the smoke drifted away, there the green giant stood, unharmed, snarling at the petty irritations that insisted on trying to bring him down. Bruce knew then that they would fail. He knew what he – what Hulk – was capable of. He threw himself forward, scrambling on his hands and knees over the rubble towards the beast. Maybe if he could make a physical connection he could get back inside its head, regain control, make it stop.
A metal arm slammed into Bruce's chest, knocking him flat on his back. Tony flipped up the visor of his helmet and grinned his stupid grin. "Hey buddy, what are you doing out of your monster?"
"I have no idea." Bruce clawed up handfuls of mortar and stone, shook the dust out of his hair. The thickness of the nightmare almost felt more real than the half-dead sleepwalk of the daytime. "It's a dream," he told Tony, "It’s not possible. We're not connected anymore."
"Well, you might want to think about waking up," Tony quipped, unfazed, though his smile barely hid the grim focus in his eyes. And then he was gone, boosters flaring behind. Bruce flung up his arms to protect his face from the flame and smelled singeing hair.
To his right, the curved windows looking out over the city exploded inwards as lightning streamed through the room and into Thor's hammer. The Asgardian swung the weapon in a lazy arc and sent the electricity shooting straight at Hulk. For a second, the beast staggered, dropping to one knee and wailing out a low, horrifying tone as it clasped its head in its hands. At the same instant, Banner felt a jolt of white hot fire sear through his own brain and collapsed to the floor, curling into a ball with his head tight between his knees. Flashes of green vision appeared behind his eyelids: Pepper running down a corridor, broken glass raining down around her; a Stark security team lying broken and bloody in the wreckage of the lab; Agent Hill in one of the tower car lots, reaching for her gun – and then out of nowhere, a giant green hand that sent her bouncing off the far wall.
Bruce lay tightly coiled in the centre of the bed, a nest of twisted sheets surrounding him. Weak, hoarse cries escaped his lips. His eyelids flickered violently, revealing the whites of his eyes, splintered with green.
When he opened his eyes again the monster was back in full swing, stamping towards Thor as he drew a dome of crackling air from around him into Mjölnir. But before the god could strike again, Hulk grabbed the impossible hammer and thrust it under Thor's chin, lifting him up by his throat. Lightning exploded and Thor convulsed within a terrible ball of white fire. Thunder clapped through the room, sending the rest of the Avengers to the ground with their arms covering their heads. Bruce could feel the electricity through the floor, burning and sizzling against his flesh.
And then: silence. The sudden absence of light and sound felt like the room had turned into a vacuum. Bruce raised his head to see Thor collapse forward onto Hulk's fist. The creature peered down at the god distastefully and promptly flung him through the smashed windows. The hammer dropped to the floor with a clang of finality.
In the lull that followed, Bruce made another rush towards the creature but this this time it was Steve who pulled him back. The Captain grabbed him by the shoulder and sent him stumbling back behind the bar. "Dr Banner, you need to get out of here."
There was no time to explain to Steve what the hell was going on – Mr Logic would have tried to contest it, wouldn’t have understood that it was Bruce’s responsibility, Bruce’s fault. He pulled himself back to his feet in time to see Hulk backhanding Tony, mid-flight, into a pillar.
"No," Bruce whispered. Steve’s head whipped around to see what had drained Bruce’s face of blood. The beast plucked the Iron Man from the wall and twisted the suit into an inhuman shape. The screech of steel lanced through the air, discordant against Tony’s screams. Bruce’s knees gave out as the sound of Tony’s agony abruptly stopped and Hulk dropped a mangle of red and gold to the floor.
"No!" Bruce made to vault over the bar but Steve's slammed the shield into his chest and held him in place against a wall of clinking bottles.
"I can't protect you," Steve said, anguish tearing the words out of him. "And you can't protect yourself."
Bruce scanned the nightmare scene, fighting hyperventilation.
Clint was trapped in a corner, out of arrows, unable to put weight on his left leg.
Natasha's face was dark with blood as she rushed Hulk from behind, a gun in each hand, barrels blazing.
The beast caught her by the waist, its thick fingers coiling around her body, pinning her arms to her sides.
Clint lurched forward but the monster shouldered him into a pile of rubble. He didn’t get up again.
Natasha’s head whipped from side to side – no air in her lungs to make a sound.
Steve released the pressure on Bruce's chest and darted towards her, but before he had taken three steps, a dull crack split the air. Natasha's copper hair fell across her face. Her eyes no longer focused. Hulk growled with pleasure and tossed her body away, onto the mess of glass and wood, steel and stone. She landed limply – a useless broken thing.
Bruce let out a roar of his own, ripping up his throat and pouring out of him as he folded in two. He grasped for the anger that was always there – forever simmering, seconds away from boiling over – but there was only a void. There was no power, no indestructible beast within him. All he found was the futile fury of a simple man.
Steve kept on running, pausing only for half a second when Romanov fell. Hefting his shield on his arm, the captain headed straight for the beast, and for a moment it looked as if he might pull off the manoeuvre he had begun – a leap onto Hulk’s knee, then the shoulder, swinging around behind where he could strike more safely. But the Other Guy saw it coming. Mid-jump, Steve met a giant fist and then the floor.
“Steve, move!” Banner yelled at him. “Get up!” But the captain was too busy shaking a concussion out of his head and didn’t see the enormous foot rising behind him.
Bruce tried to close his eyes but they wouldn’t obey, as if the Other Guy's green eyes controlled him from across the room. Look, it said, inside his head once more. Watch your friends fail. Just like you always will. The giant foot came down on Steve’s skull with a sickening crunch and Bruce slid down the wall to the floor, twitching as if he had been electrocuted.
#
The Other Guy was back in his head, its grumbling voice like a jagged knife, taunting his helplessness, telling him how his friends had died afraid, how they had begged for Bruce to save them.
#
Exhaustion dragged him down with a heaviness that felt as if it might push him right through the floor. Bruce struggled to his hands and knees, bucking against the force that was desperate to escape, sending all his concentration inside himself.
His groans took on a growling edge. His bones tried to stretch, his muscles screeched beneath his skin. Past the power of speech, he held tightly onto the word ‘no’ inside his head, compressing it into a tiny ball, attempting to curl himself around it. The only power he had left was his refusal to let go. But trying to hold onto the Other Guy was like trying to hug a waterfall, and Bruce was barely conscious – the dream had drained him of energy and his body begged for oblivion. Just let Hulk take over...
Every time, at least for a moment, he truly believed it might kill him. Every time, a thread of doubt: this time might be the one that erased Bruce Banner forever and replaced him with that thing – that inconceivable thing.
“No!”
He battled for a tiny chink of focus, a sliver of light that stretched between him and the beast – he couldn’t let himself fall, he couldn’t pass out now, he had to keep that little ‘no’ alight. It glowed inside of him, eking itself slowly outwards, spreading wider and brighter until it gradually began shutting down the monstrous power that was so eager to be loose. Bruce gulped for air as the pressure died away. Human senses returned in a great sweep of terror, pain, and a juddering irregular heartbeat that should have had him in cardiac arrest.
Bruce let his forehead drop to the carpet and waited for his breathing to slow. Tears and sweat stung his eyes. A blurred vision of red lay before him – but at least it wasn’t green. There was an empty sort of relief to be back to the present, to the ever-looming threat of losing control. He was too tired to raise himself off the floor, too tired to care about the hot blood pulsing from the curved slice in his arm. Maybe now he could sleep without dreaming, for just a moment…
No, said a voice from deep within. Not the Other Guy this time – somewhere between them. No sleep. Get up, Banner. You’re bleeding. Get up.