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Your hands were shaking. No matter how hard you tried to get them to stop. It took a great deal of strength to raise your arm and swipe your key card to gain access to the main door of the Avenger’s compound. It was the weekend, and although crime didn’t take a day off, most of the team wasn’t around. You walked with a hitched-step because the heel had been broken clean off your left shoe. It made for an uneven clack-clomping sound as you hobbled across the entrance room’s floor. You needed ice from the kitchen, in the center of the compound.
The bag on your shoulder was heavy. You were supposed to be spending the weekend at your boyfriend’s house. The strap on the bag was digging into your arm, worsening your pain. But you soldiered on because you were an Avenger. You had suffered through so much worse than this. You stumbled down the west hallway with only the dilapidated sounds of your disheveled shoes as a companion. You only hoped it stayed that way as you neared the kitchen.
Bruce Banner was in a computer room mid-way down the western hallway. He lifted his hands from the keyboard to rub his eyes, attempting to alleviated some of the damage done by the monitor’s glowing light. He rolled his shoulders and stifled a yawn. He knew that digitizing case files for Steve was going to be grueling work, but he hadn’t expected it would be this grueling.
This is what I get for volunteering. The doctor sighed. He had “taken one for the team” as Tony had put it. Everyone else had made plans over the weekend and the Captain really wanted to get ahead on the digitizing. Tony’s excuse was that he wanted to visit Pepper for a few days in Malibu they were going to try and work things out. Clint wanted to be with his family, and Sam had been begging Bucky and Steve to show him around New York for a while. There wasn’t really anyone else around to get started on the paperwork.
Even you, his usual partner in crime, had asked for the weekend off to be with your boyfriend. Bruce shook his head and tried to get back to work, but it was too late. Even as his fingers touched the keyboard again his thoughts stayed on you. One of the few people who knew him before the big green monster, you had been a very good friend to him for years and after the accident you were still part of an even smaller group of people who stuck by his side.
It was only natural that he would eventually begin to harbor romantic feelings toward you. You were his best friend and his rock. You were always there for him when he needed. You kept a spare change of clothes for him at your apartment just in case there was a Hulk emergency on your side of town. You once even pretended to force him to sign up for a yoga class with you, just so the rest of the team wouldn’t find out he was taking extra anger management seminars. As the years went by you and Bruce became closer friends, he began falling deeper and deeper in love with you. Not that it mattered because for the past two years you had been seeing your boyfriend, Derek. Bruce didn’t care for Derek, but he made you happy and so the scientist put up with the guy, until the day he heard your feet unevenly stumbling down the hall.
The scientist heard your footsteps and got up from his workstation. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone else in the building. It was only the middle of Friday night and he wasn’t expected any team members back until tomorrow. He poked his head out into the hall and looked up one direction and down the other.
“Hello?” He called out. No one answered, but he heard the clicking of glass bottles from the kitchen.
“Shit!” You mumbled a few choice words about Tony Stark as you closed the refrigerator door. All you had wanted was a bottle of water and Tony couldn’t buy plastic bottles like a normal person. No! He insisted on buying fancy imported water in a glass bottle. You knew your plan to slink into the kitchen for an ice pack and some water, then disappear into oblivion was not going to work when you heard Bruce’s voice from down the hall. You fanned the majority of your hair forward and pulled the hood of your sweatshirt up over your face, hoping you’d get away with a quick hello and no further questions asked.
“[Y/N]?” Bruce leaned on the doorframe and watched you close the refrigerator. “I thought you were staying with Derek until Tuesday?”
“Yeah.” Your voice cracked. Panicked, you used your shaking hands to open the heavy glass bottle. You drank from the bottle with great care, afraid tipping your head backwards too far would upset the hood that hid your injuries.
“Sorry,” You apologized quietly. You stared forward at the refrigerator and didn’t turn to face Bruce. It was always easier to lie to him when you didn’t have to look into his warm brown eyes. “Yeah, I was supposed to stay with Derek, but he got called away on a work thing and you know I just wasn’t feeling good. This was closer than my place so,” You shrugged. “I just came here.”
“Uh-huh.” You still weren’t looking at him, but you knew your best friend well enough to know that his eyebrows would be drawn in together and his arms folded over his chest. “And wearing my old sweatshirt, did that just happen too?” You looked down at yourself, still careful not to jostle the hood. He was right. You were wearing one of his old sweatshirts that he’d asked you to hold on to in case of “Other Guy” related emergencies. You’d found in the backseat of your car. It, along with a pair of sweatpants, were two clean items of clothing you had on hand when you hastily changed in your car in the Compound’s parking lot.
“I guess so.” You shrugged. “I’m gonna go in my room and get some rest.” You bent to pick up your bag off the floor, but you misjudged the weight of the glass bottle in your other hand. The bottle slipped through your fingertips, landed on the floor and shattered. That was your final breaking point. You sank to the floor and sobbed with your head in your hands.
“Hey, [Y/N], don’t worry.” Bruce strode across the kitchen and crouched down beside you. He knew better than to say it was just a glass of water. Bruce Banner knew better than anyone that sadness or anger is always so much more than just one broken bottle.
“Tony and his stupid glass bottles.” He mumbled instead. He extended his hand to help you away from the broken glass, but as he twisted to do so, he noticed the clothing spilling out of your bag. “[Y/N]? Is that, blood?” You didn’t answer him. You didn’t even look up to see what it was he was asking about. That only confirmed Bruce’s suspicion, so without asking, he reached over and pulled the suspect items from your bag. The reddish brown was already beginning to stain into the fabric of the t-shirt you’d been wearing before you changed in the car.
“[Y/N],” Bruce’s tone became very serious. “What happened to you?”
“It’s nothing.” You whispered.
“This,” He waved the t-shirt at you, “is not nothing.” His wasn’t shouting. On the contrary, his tone was very calm and measured. Which only made you nervous. You knew that tone well. It was the one he used when he was worried or on the verge of exploding.
“[Y/N], I can figure it out, without you saying it. It was Derek, right?” Bruce reached out and gently pushed back your hood. You were still crying when he tilted your chin up with his forefinger. “My god, Buttercup.” He leaned back on his heels to take in the sight of your whole face.
Your right eye was puffy and swollen. It would probably look a lot worse within the next few hours. There was a large cut that ran diagonally from your top lip to your chin. Little droplets of blood mixed with your tears as you wept. There were smaller cuts and bruises layered on the rest of your forehead and cheeks. Some were from that night, others were older, but Bruce was seeing it for the first time now that he knew the truth behind your hundreds of little white lies.
Bruce wanted to be angry. He wanted to drive up and down every street in Washington, D.C. until he found Derek Warner. He wanted to rip the guy limb from limb for doing this to you. But he couldn’t be mad. In that moment, the man who was always angry could only feel one thing; heartbreak. It wasn’t that you weren’t strong. You were strong as hell. Probably the only person on the team who could give Natasha a run for her money.
But you were precious cargo to Bruce. Something he had always admired from afar and up close. You meant the world to him and the idea that someone as strong and amazing as you could be hurt by someone as weak and small as Derek made him feel sick to his stomach. He didn’t want to go rip Derek to shreds, because that would mean leaving you alone. And what you really needed, was for someone to remind you what it felt like to be taken care of. What it felt like to be loved.
“Buttercup, your face.” He choked back a sob of his own. “How could someone do that to your face?” Bruce shook his head. “Leave this mess. I’ll clean it up later. Let’s get out of the kitchen in case someone else comes home, okay?” You nodded and let Bruce help you too your feet.
Bruce escorted you to his room, he didn’t want to take you back to yours where pictures of you and Derek were tapped to nearly every wall. Out of habit you climbed onto Bruce’s bed, like you had so many times before. You had cried on his pillow almost as many times as your own over the past decade. He laid down next to you. You scooted over so that your head rested on his chest. He wrapped his arms around you and held you. He rubbed your shoulders and kissed your forehead and promised everything we be alright.
“Don’t ever leave me, Muffin.” You begged him. “I need you.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Buttercup.” He promised. “And I’m never going to let anyone hurt you like that again.”
“I love you too.” You sniffled.