bruce banner, LIFELINE

the incident.

"We isolate," Nick Fury entered from behind and commanded everybody's attention at once. Unfortunately including the Hulk's green eyes which narrowed at the recognisable sight of the eyepatch, "And exterminate the threat."

"But it is the doctor, isn't it?" Thor argued, he had taken a certain liking to the shy Bruce and didn't fancy being an accomplice to his extermination.

The Hulk had enough of waiting and with a sudden urgency his tree trunk size legs carried him towards Nick Fury, the root of every single drop of his anger.

"That's the Hulk," Nick Fury's voice remained calm despite the circumstances as he raised his gun and aimed it to the gap between the green eyes, "There is no Bruce anymore."

He fired the shot, if it wasn't a mutated monster in front of him it would have been deadly. Implanted into his skin but instead it had the effect of changing the monster into its true form; a scared man.

The green began to pale into the colour of sickness, the muscles reducing like the air from a tyre. The creature pathetically shrunk into itself, crouching as its thick arms became thin ones clutched around bony knees. The bullet clattered against the floor clean, like the incident had never happened.

None of the Avengers could see the face morphing. They couldn't see the battle scars of the Hulk fall back into the skin of Bruce; slightly calloused and with now slightly more deep set wrinkles.

The only clue the transformation was complete was a harsh and echoing forced breathing becoming audible. Even then a dull green tinge remained on his skin, he looked like he was dying and in a way, Bruce was.

Nobody dared to move, nobody wanted to disturb the only person in the room that truly bordered between psychopath and hero. Nobody wanted to disturb the nest the Hulk had made himself of debris and destruction. Bruce knew it was all there and forced himself to acknowledge that he caused it; he was the bringer of death.

Thinking of death made him feel empty; feeling empty made him think of the only thing that could ever make him feel whole. Bruce cried for Parker Miller and the normal life his deformity stole away from him. He mourned the simplicity he let Parker believe he could offer. He grieved for a love that was taken from him before he could even declare it.

--

They couldn't leave him there. The Avengers were all human despite the masks they wore and after seeing Bruce's shattered before them a little bit of theirs broke off as well.

Unfortunately it was Nick Fury - just beating Steve Rogers - who spoke first after the awkward silence,"I expected better of you Banner."

"Better?" A muffled voice laughed from where Bruce was, it didn't sound like him, "You expected better!" It was a different sort of anger now; the pathetic self-wallowing anger.

"Yes I did," Fury replied, "You are no closer to locating the Tesseract."

Bruce looked up at the man with furrowed eyebrows, "I'd like to see you try and do it." He had resorted to pathetic sarcasm which made Fury even more disappointed. Bruce wiped his nose on the back of his hand and locked eyes with Tony Stark for a second before the playboy swallowed and looked away.

"It looks simple enough." Fury tested the water of his anger.

"Simple! You think it's simple? You have no idea Fury, none of this is simple. Nothing in this damn organisation can ever be simple." Bruce stood up now and staggered as his vision went black. Instinctively he outstretched his arm out to stop any potential help, which normally came from an overprotective Parker. His time nobody had moved a muscle.

"Solve the problem then."

"I'm working on it." Bruce almost hissed. His anger at himself had been completely redirected back to Fury where it had been all along.

"No, you're hulking out."

"Isn't that what you want me to do! I'm just the alter-ego of the monster, you don't care about me." His own words stung, they didn't care about the casualties the Hulk could cause on the journey or the damage the superheroes could do to civilians. Collateral damage was just something to think about at a later date. But that was all Bruce had ever cared about; keeping people safe.

"That's true," The answer startled everybody, the coldness in Nick Fury's tone and the blatantly disregard for any human emotion, "I care about stopping Loki. You can either help me as the Hulk or you can help me as Dr Banner. And so far neither has helped much,"

Bruce bridged the gap between him and the director, his arm had taken on the green colour of his alter ego and the veins where visible against the pulsing muscle. He lifted his limb and placed it in the air in front of Fury's throat. Bruce mimed the action of strangling him as his nostrils flared and every weapon on the room was on him.

"Still not helping." Nick Fury told him and he let a smug smile come to his lips.

Instead of killing him, Bruce smashed his fist against the metallic floor. It sent earthquake like tremors across the whole ship, cracking metal, plastic and everything in between.

Bruce Banner then, without a word or any other action, went back to what was left of his lab.

Once the figure of the scientist had disappeared Fury turned to the others, "That is a technique we all learned back in my day, it's called emotional persuasion."

"Felt like manipulation." Steve pointed out.

"You can call it that Rogers. In fact you can call it whatever you like but it works," Fury turned on the communicator in his ear, "Now get me someone who can clean this hell hole and put 24 hour security on Banner. If I do much as seeing him going to the bathroom unescorted I will be the angry one. And you don't want to see my when I'm angry."