>>> reasons to live <<<

one

bruce banner sighed as he looked down at his journal. all his life, he had known the answer to every academic question posed to him. every math problem, every historical event, every scientific equation, but before him was a question that bruce could not answer.

'reasons to live,'  he read the title of his journal entry for what felt like the thousandth time. he had taken the liberty of numbering it one through five already but each number sat blank. he thought about his family. his father had died when he was 11 and he had no siblings. he was 17 now and his mother worked two jobs to support them, so she was never home. this on top of the job bruce had, at a pizza place down the road, where he had been paid under the table since he was 14. the manager was kind to him, but his job made his back and feet hurt and he wished he didn't have to go there after school every single day. he worked everyday from 4pm to 10pm and then had to go home to an empty house and try to make sure his homework was done. he used to try to do it on the bus from school, but it always made him sick.

he thought about his school. he was very smart, some might even classify him as a genius. he remembers how proud his father was of him. he remembers how his father looked, lying in the hospital bed, slowly dying of cancer. he remembers doing his homework and asking his father for help so he would feel less alone. his dad would always say something like, "brucie, you and i both know that you're smarter than i am." he would laugh weakly and bruce would feel his heart clench everytime. he wished that his father was with them now, and that they could be a family again.

bruce also had some friends at school. his best friend, tony stark, was just as smart, if not smarter, than bruce. tony used to make bruce laugh all day long, but since he turned 16 and was able to work longer hours, bruce has had no time to spend with tony. his other friends gave up on trying to spend time with him when he turned down offers for plans a few times in a row. tony and his mother were the only two that texted him now, though those were rare and almost always went unanswered.

bruce sighed and looked at his list again. 'reasons to live,' he read again. he picked up his pencil and tentatively wrote in the number one spot, "tony stark?" bruce was satisfied with his work for the moment so he set the notebook aside and looked at the time. it was 12:37am and bruce had school in the morning but he didn't want to sleep. instead he sat at his desk, scrolling through his phone aimlessly, stopping occasionally to wonder who would miss him if he were to disappear. his mother? sure, she would miss him, but for how long? she could quit at least one of her jobs if it wasn't for having to support him. she would be okay if he died. 'she wouldn't miss me,' bruce decided. tony? tony was charismatic and funny and smart. he could make friends with anyone he wanted to and, for the most part, he did. bruce didn't understand why tony kept reaching out to him, especially after bruce kept ignoring him. he felt like a burden to tony and his social status. 'tony would be much better off without me,' bruce said as he took out his notebook again and slowly erased tony's name from the number one spot. 'i'm only weighing him down.'