Driven Mad (Book 1 in the MAD Series)(An Avengers Fan Fiction)

Bruce Banner

Bruce ran as fast as he could, his heart pounding hard, his vision blurred. He moved so fast that he couldn’t even figure out where he was. He was somewhere in Calcutta. He’d made some jerks mad again by sticking up for some girl he barely knew and he was being chased by them. This was the millionth time it’d happened. He felt lucky that the Hulk Busters weren’t there, too, but that wasn’t going to stop the Hulk from coming out. If Bruce couldn’t slow down and let his heart rate lower, everyone around him was going to get hurt.

His feet moved silently over the streets, but the footsteps of his attackers thudded loudly behind him, getting closer and closer as Bruce lost his breath. His vision blurred from lack of oxygen, he looked for somewhere to lose them. He found a small alley where he may be able to hide. He turned into it and found a dumpster. He had just enough time to climb into it before his attackers caught up to him. They ran past, wondering where he’d disappeared to.

Bruce cowered in the dumpster, which had luckily been emptied but still had traces of dirt and grime. He struggled to lower his heart rate, to keep the Hulk from coming out. If they caught him they would beat him, just like they had already done a hundred times. Bruce typically was able to keep the Hulk from coming out during those pounding sessions, but with the three new members of their little gang, he doubted it. He leaned back onto the dirty wall of the dumpster, hoping he was safe and struggling to lower his heart rate.

After a couple of moments Bruce didn’t hear his attacker’s voices anymore. He figured that they’d given up and it was safe to come out. He sat up on his knees and slowly opened the top of the dumpster, peering out. There, staring him straight in the face, was a big, beefy Spanish man, one of the enemies Bruce had made in Calcutta. Bruce closed his eyes and sighed in frustration, knowing there wasn’t going to be a way out of this beating.

“Hola, gringo.” The man growled, a cruel smile of certain victory on his face. The people in that gang always called him “gringo,” which Bruce had never really understood. One of the men pulled up the lid of the dumpster and another dragged Bruce out of it, slamming him to the ground. Bruce struggled to stand up, to put up some sort of a fight to get these guys to back off, but he knew that he was terribly outnumbered. Seven against one made Bruce’s chances of winning pretty slim. The odds weren’t exactly in his favor.

One of the gang grabbed Bruce from behind, holding him down and keeping him from running. Bruce struggled to break free, wanting to hurt these guys but not wanting the Other Guy to come out and make a mess. His escape attempts proved themselves absolutely worthless. Bruce took a hard punch to the face from the leader of that little gang. Bruce struggled to keep his heart rate down, knowing that no one, not even his attackers, deserved to see the Hulk.

After several blows to the head, face, and gut, Bruce found it hard to keep himself from going over the top and killing them. He took a deep breath and struggled to keep himself together. Blood spilled from his nose and mouth. His eye had swelled shut after a few punches there. His knees began to give out, but the man behind him forced him upright. “Please.” Bruce coughed, begging for them to stop, though he knew that they didn’t have a clue what he was saying.

Suddenly Bruce felt the familiar cold tip of a gun poking into his chest. “NO! Please! You don’t want to do this! You’re going to get yourselves all killed. Please. You won’t like me when I’m angry.” Bruce pleaded in English, but they didn’t seem to understand or care about a single word that he was saying. A frantic Bruce struggled to get away, but he felt like he was sinking in quicksand, the more he struggled to stronger the grip. He heard the trigger being pulled and felt the bullet in his chest, like a hot blade being jabbed into his skin. He cried out in two different types of agony at once. The agony was from both the gunshot and the Hulk being unleashed. He fell to the ground in pain, his eyes turning from brown to an otherworldly green. Then everything went black.