“The Prisons of Our Own Making”
“Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.”
--Ray Bradbury
The Dark Matter Desert
Somewhere Profoundly Troubled...
The darkness stretched on into forever.
Within the inky mass of palpable nothingness, a sound - like thick leather hide stretched impossibly-taut - echoed far and wide into the darkness. Inhumanly-thick muscle fibers flexed and stretched stubbornly beneath the monster’s calloused jade hide. Shadows soaked into the creature’s flesh as the muscle-bound behemoth stood amidst the darkness, clad only in puny, tattered purple pants. Beads of sweat rolled down his colossal frame as he stood there, panting, holding the rage inside. Beneath a tousled mane of short, green, sweaty hair, the monster’s bloodshot eyes scanned the darkness, looking for any sign of escape.
The sound of creaking leather continued with the tightening of the monster’s wide jaw, his obscenely-dense masseter muscles condensing beneath chiseled cheekbones. A guttural sound echoed heavy and weary across the dark, dreary landscape. It echoed against the black sands, bouncing across the unseen dream layers, skirting to and fro against the near-impenetrable darkness. His weary growl finally faded away, dark and distant, like a long-forgotten childhood memory, reclaimed back into the rolling void.
The Dark Matter Desert stretched on for miles. An endless, boundless dream layer - on a scale measured best by astronomers. Not that the beast could comprehend the size, or scope of the Dark Matter Desert, of course.
The creature snarled.
To him, this desert was merely a prison.
A prison he recognized as the mind of the puny creature called Banner.
More than anything in this imaginary world, the creature wanted to be free. That thought alone had almost driven the Incredible Hulk mad with a rage that was almost as endless as the desert surrounding him. It was a perfect kind of rage that had, at the very least, carried him this far.
He had been running for days. He had been leaping for days. He had been yelling/screaming/cursing/raging/growling for days. The Hulk couldn’t remember how long he’d been trying to get out. Time worked strangely around here.
Nevertheless, the Hulk wasn’t tired.
No, no, no.
Hulk would never get tired. Getting tired was something puny, weak people did and the Hulk was anything but weak.
The creature tried to growl again, but it came out as a pathetic sort of pant instead. He took a breath of fresh desert air that transformed into a wide, unending yawn. A yawn that echoed along the desert sands, passing by the eerie plants and strange-looking cacti that were hidden deep in the shadows of the endless desert.
It’s okay, he thought with an ape-like growl. Hulk wanted to rest anyway.
With a mighty thud, the angry creature collapsed against the desert sands, shooting up a plume of dust that swirled up all around him as his tired mind slowly faded away into the infinite span of the blackened sky. The beast slumbered, dreaming restless, fitful dreams inside Banner’s puny mind.
# # # # # # # # # #
Audio Log of Doctor Robert Bruce Banner
Lamenting Upon Unchangeable Circumstances
Present Day
** begin recording **
We’ve all got a little monster in us, don’t we?
Well I can guarantee you don’t have a monster like mine.
Some days, I’m Doctor Robert Bruce Banner. Physicist. Scientist. Doctor. Skeptic.
Successful inventor, nevertheless filled with regret at all the things I’ve wrought.
When I invented and developed the gamma bomb, it was merely supposed to be the unleashing and harnessing of new energies. Energies perhaps greater than those developed from those early days of the nuclear arms race.
In retrospect, I remain aghast at my naiveté. I was enthralled by the research - by pushing the boundaries of science, peeling back at the marvels of creation, and dedicated to allowing mankind the ability to make the next leap forward.
It was a wonderful feeling I had in my heart that day, in the gamma testing bunker. A feeling that I’d achieved something good. That I’d finally made something of myself. That all the things that goddamn useless piece of shit rat bastard father-of-mine six feet under the fucking ground Brian Fucking Banner said I’d never... ahem, all the things that I’d wanted more than anything in the world since I was a puny, pathetic little...ah, since I was a child. Since I was a...
Hmmm. That won’t do.
** redacting the last paragraph of this Banner Audio log...**
** audio successfully redacted. **
That’s better.
For whatever reasons, I followed my passions for gamma research. I created the gamma bomb for the government.
I had no idea that the primary goals of the research, the grants, the funding, and all the rest, was merely to make another Weapon of Mass Destruction that we could use in the next political pissing contest that we might start with another nation, whenever we might decide to start it. Those were things I would come to learn in the days, months, years that followed.
On that day, however - neither side had any inkling of what the bomb would actually bring into the world.
The day of the bomb, a young teenager named Rick Jones drove out on the test field, on a dare, somehow bypassing all that security our friends at the White House posted on the site. (To this day, I have no idea how he’d managed to pull that one off). Unaware of the imminent threat, he just sat there, playing a harmonica of all things. I’ve got to give him credit - the kid did have some brass ones on him. But I wasn’t concerned about that at the moment. The gamma bomb countdown had already started, and no one was going to risk their neck to save him.
No one except me.
As I said, some days, I’m Doctor Robert Bruce Banner. Other days, I’m everything that the news tell you I am. I’m that imminent news threat they run in a black bar along your TV screens, or the news alert they broadcast instead of your favorite show. They’ve got all kinds of statuettes and figures and artworks that bear my likeness (or rather his likeness). TV headlines, periodicals, streaming along the advertisement sections of your screens whenever the government needs a convenient scapegoat for something dastardly, or whenever the anchors want something to scare people about. An eight foot tall mass of ghastly green muscle, that could literally lift the side of a mountain and turn it upside down if he were angry enough.
And he is angry. My God, is he angry. Far, far more often than not.
I cannot assuage his anger; I can merely apologize for it. I can only apologize for not knowing about all the terrible, monstrous aspects of myself hidden deep the depths of my troubled mind. Until my research with the gamma bomb finally, finally let them all out.
The gamma bomb spawned the Incredible Hulk, but we’re never quite sure which aspect of the Hulk I might be:
The Savage Green Hulk - I prefer to think of him as just “Savage.” He is a childish, unthinking brute of unrelenting physical power. An engine of mindless destruction that gets stronger and stronger with rage. He’s the one that turns up more often than not these days. He’s the monster I see most often on the news.
The Cunning Grey Hulk - His intelligence is average, but crude enough for his needs, I suspect. Though partial to the name “Mr. (Joe) Fixit”, he happens to be a sneaky, manipulative, cunning bastard whose strength pales in comparison to that of the Jade Giant, yet whose devious motives are always suspect. Though, he himself prefers to be clad in cleaned, pressed pinstripes rather than the tattered purple pants of his predecessor.
The Idealized Professor - This aspect’s fairly new. He’s a Hulk with my intellect, the physical power of the Green Hulk (madder he gets, stronger he gets) and the devious, cunning tactics of the Grey Hulk. The most heroic version of the Hulk, at least. My issue with the man; however, is that he thinks he’s the best Bruce Banner of us all. I don’t...don’t know how I feel about that, yet.
The Guilt Hulk - A lizard-like creature that’s supposed to represent all my hidden, repressed guilt and shame concerning my ah, difficult childhood. He...he tells me things that I...that I should’ve been...that I should’ve done, to protect my mother from...
Tells me about all the ways that I failed her. That somehow I was the reason she...
...I don’t want to talk about this aspect anymore.
The Devil Hulk - This one claws at the back of my mind, somewhere. He’s a chained monstrosity, whose rage scares me even more that the Savage Hulk’s does. Because, when it comes right down to it, Savage’s rage is ventilated, at the very least. This one’s rage is hidden, buried. He’s been sitting on it for some time now. It’s always the quiet ones you need to worry about, isn’t it?
The Devil Hulk is sitting on a massive pile of rage. Rage at the entire world, I’d say. By our treatment by it, and how it seems to do nothing but vilify us all. I think if he could, he’d try and burn it all down and dance on the ashes.
The Guilt and Devil Hulks are aspects of my personality that I keep locked very, very deep inside myself. They’ve (thankfully) never manifested in the real world. It’s only due to my colleagues Doctor Leonard Samson and Doctor Angela Lipscombe’s intervention that I’m aware of their existence at all.
I should thank Len and Angie for the heads up on those two aspects in particular. Really, I should.
Because Heaven help us all if those two got out...
# # # # # # # # # #
The Office of Doctor Leonard Samson
Daytime Session
Doctor Leonard Samson heard the knock on the door. A nervous, shuffling knock, hiding a deep wall of frustration inside it. The psychologist smiled, glancing at his watch.
His three o’clock was here. Right on schedule.
The green-haired psychologist grabbed his notebook and placed it near his plush psyche chair, glancing at the couch in front of him to make sure it was well-prepared for his guest. He straightened his tie and cracked his knuckles, readying himself for the session. The confident man strode over toward the door, flinging it open with a bright smile and saw exactly who he’d expected:
Doctor Bruce Banner. A colleague, a friend, and one of the most challenging psychiatric patients known to mankind. Nevertheless, all professionalism aside, it was good to see him.
“Bruce!”
”Leonard.”
“Please, have a seat,” the green-haired man gestured toward the couch in front of the plush chair. Bruce noted the man’s physique - Leonard Samson was a massive man, and not even his well-pressed suit could hide mountain of muscle that lay beneath.
Muscle I put there, Bruce thought glumly. My research into gamma radiation. Another aftershock of Savage’s introduction into my life.
Bruce trudged over toward the couch, setting himself down in a huff. Leonard could see the frustration in his eyes from across the room as he strolled over toward his Keurig machine against the wall.
“Anything I can get for you? Cappuccino?”
“No. No caffeine, thanks.”
Samson nodded. “Water then?”
“Yeah, that’ll be fine.”
The psychologist poured a glass of water for Bruce as the cappuccino machine mixed a caramel cappuccino together for Leonard. Bruce pondered the precision of water pressures and mix ratios required for the machine to function as it did, idly mapping it out in his mind. He was a scientist above all else. The way things fit together and functioned was fascinating to him. As he leaned back on the couch, trying not to think of anything distressing, Leonard handed Bruce his water and sat down.
Bruce took a sip, and placed it on the table beside him.
“Tell me what’s on your mind.”
Bruce’s expression soured. Doctor Samson sipped his cappuccino and sighed, placing it down on the table next to him. He picked up the pad of paper and repeated his question.
“Oh, come on, Leonard,” Bruce groaned. “Not that tired line again. We both know what’s on my mind.”
Leonard tapped his pen to the notepad. “I’d prefer that you stated it.”
Bruce placed his face in his palm and sighed. “Savage. Savage is on my mind.”
“The Savage Hulk?”
Bruce pursed his lips, irritated.
“No, the Savage Wendigo,”
“Bruce...”
“Yes, the Savage Hulk!” Bruce gestured in frustration. “It’s been the Savage Hulk since we started these damned Avengers-mandated sessions. It’s going to be the Savage Hulk until I’m old and grey.”
“Well, sometimes it’s Joe Fixit.”
Bruce glared at the green-haired man.
“Other times, it’s been the Maestro.”
Bruce continued the glare. Samson softened his expression slightly.
“Bruce, would you tell me what’s troubling you?”
Bruce grumbled, sipping his glass of water and laid back upon the couch. He looked upon the well-muscled psychologist and gritted his teeth.
“Well, now that you mention it, there is one troubling thing on my mind.”
Leonard leaned forward. “And that is?”
Bruce glared angrily at Leonard. “I find it troubling that the psychologist they prescribed me is the same man who almost stole my wife away from me.”
Leonard frowned, tossing the pen and notepad on the table beside him. He gripped the bridge of his nose in frustration, hunching over. “Jesus, Bruce. We’ve been over this...”
“Betty was my wife, dammit! You had no right to try and take her away from me - to try and convince her that she was dating a monster. That was so unprofessional!”
“Bruce, you’re absolutely right. I’m sorry. How many times can I apologize for that?”
Bruce Banner sighed.
“Bruce, I’m your doctor, and your friend. I can’t tell you how inappropriate that was. But we reconciled that issue. Years ago.”
Bruce scoffed. “Ancient history, you’ve said.”
“Besides, we both know that you’re not bringing that up now because you’re actually still mad at me,” the professional in Samson began to speak. “It’s more parapraxis than anything else.”
“Parapraxis?”
“Ah, I’m sorry. That’s the clinical term. You might call it a slip of the tongue. A “Freudian slip”, if you will. A lead-in to what’s really bothering you, without having to actually confront it. You, more than anyone else on the planet, knows how troublesome it is to keep complex emotions buried.”
Bruce grunted, images of utter destruction painted in a fiery jade light echoing through his mind. A blood-curdling, ravenous scream from a mountainous muscle of monstrous might howling soulless and psychotic into the night, destroying everything and anything in his path.
Bruce Banner shook away the images.
“It has something to do with Betty, doesn’t it?” Leonard asked.
His patient remained silent.
“Bruce, please tell me what’s on your mind.”
Bruce sighed, sipping at his water. He leaned back against the couch and rubbed his chin in thought. “I thought about her the other day.”
Leonard Samson hung his head knowingly. The psychologist watched as the frustrated expression of Bruce Banner turned to one of peace and joy. He watched the man let go of the nervousness and tension in his features, becoming his real, true self. Bruce gestured delightedly as he told the story:
“We were sitting in this field,” Bruce began. “This grassy knoll that Betty used to come to as a kid. We’d parked the car in the lot and walked up together, carrying everything for the picnic in our hands. I let her lead me to the spot.”
Bruce beamed. “It was beautiful, Leonard. You should have seen it. The rolling green hills seemed to stretch into forever. There were apricots blooming on the trees. The breeze was perfect and the sun was poking out behind the rolling white clouds. It was almost out of a dream.
“Anyway, I set up the picnic blanket. We took our shoes off and put them on each of the four corners, to hold it down. We sat down, got ourselves comfortable. She smiled - you know that amazing smile of hers - placing the picnic basket beside us. She started pulling out the napkins, the pillows, the silverware - forks, spoons, the works.
“So then, she got this puzzled look in her eyes. I must have had this confused look on my face because the instant she saw it, her face turned beet red with embarrassment. As if I’d stumbled onto some well-kept secret of hers. I asked her what on Earth was wrong. And she said - with the cutest, most adorable look on her face, Leonard - she said:
‘Bruce, I forgot the sandwiches.’
‘In the car? Let me go run and get them--‘
‘On the kitchen table.’ ”
Doctor Samson struggled for a moment, finally bursting out with laughter as his patient did exactly the same. As Samson continued to chuckle, Bruce wiped a tear of joy from his eye and continued:
“My God, you should have seem the embarrassment on her face, Leonard! We’d remembered literally everything else except for those silly turkey and bacon sandwiches. She’d gone over every last thing we needed on the way up, chiding me for almost forgetting to pack napkins, silverware, water bottles. She had insisted we bring the red picnic blanket because that was thicker and softer than the blue one. She had insisted that we wait to leave until the sun was higher, so the hill would have just the right effect.
Hell, she’d even told me to make those sandwiches just right - not too much mayo, crispy golden finish on the bread, two and only two strips of bacon. Even made me throw out the first pieces of toast because I’d made them ‘too bronzed’. Yet, with all that planning, and all that teasing me for my forgetfulness, we still manage to forget those damn sandwiches. The most important part of our picnic lunch together!
“Betty and I laughed. We laughed forever, Leonard. If anyone saw us on that hill, they would have thought we were raving mad. And I remember thinking, her lovely face red with embarrassment and laughter...I remember thinking that this is the woman I want to share the rest of my life with.”
Bruce smiled sadly. “Never thought we’d only have until the rest of her life together.”
The scientist sat up from the couch and draped his legs over the side. His face was twisted in a horrible cascade of anguish and grief, struggling not to let the tears out. Leonard frowned, walking over to Bruce and sitting next to him, the veneer of detached psychologist completely gone. He placed his hand on his friend’s back.
“It’s okay, Bruce. Let it out. It’s going to be okay.”
Bruce wiped the tears away, trying to keep himself from feeling the agony of her loss once more. The scientist was surprised how vividly it hit him, letting out a tortured sigh. “They say that time heals all wounds, doctor.”
Leonard Samson smiled. “No, Bruce. Time just scabs them over. The wounds never really heal.”
Bruce laughed. “That sounds about right, Doc.”
Leonard Samson stood up, pacing the room. Bruce let out a weary sigh as the doctor asked him a question Bruce knew was only there to distract him. “So how are things with the Avengers?”
Bruce, ever thankful, replied with a smile. “Things are....things are good. I feel like I’m doing some good, you know? Using my knowledge to make a difference. Making up for some of Savage’s mistakes.”
Doctor Samson raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? Last time, you’d said it felt more like a cage.”
The scientist pursed his lips.
“Well, I--I didn’t mean a cage necessarily. Certainly not in that tone of voice. It’s just that I--“
Before he could answer, there was a sudden knock at the door. Bruce’s eyes focused on the handle, calculating how many pounds per inch that Warbird kept herself from using to keep the door from flying off its hinges. It was the scientist in him again, pulling his mind away from troubling thoughts.
Self-control. It’s all about self-control.
“Your captor summons you,” Samson smirked.
“Ah, Warbird must be eager to get back,” Bruce forced a smile, standing upright. The nervousness, the tension, the frustration defining his entire posture - Samson watched it all return with a troubled look on his face. “The others get anxious when I’m....not at the mansion.”
Bruce shuffled over to the door, cracking it open. The scientist smiled at Warbird - a reassuring smile. “I’ll be along.”
As she walked out of earshot, Bruce turned back toward the psychologist.
“Monsters deserve to be caged, Samson,” Bruce mumbled, bringing his eyes low. “You know that.”
As the scientist trudged off toward his fate, Doctor Leonard Samson let out a sigh and began jotting down some notes from the session.
“Caged monsters never become happy monsters, Bruce,” he said sullenly, shaking his head. “They just get angry.”
# # # # # # # # # #
Avengers Mansion
The Bedroom of Doctor Robert Bruce Banner
Everything Zen
Bruce sat cross-legged upon his yoga mat. He breathed deeply, relaxing his whole body.
Deep, regular breaths. In and out. In and out. Focus on the sounds of your own breaths, Bruce. In and out. In and out.
The meditation was a routine he’d started for himself since he’d joined the Avengers. Designed, in part, to keep the tortured beast clawing against the back of Bruce’s mind - the Savage Hulk - at bay. In concert with the black arm-band he regularly wore now - which kept track of his pulse and blood pressure at any given time - the meditation techniques were helping to make sure that the only times the Savage Hulk was escaping into the real world, were when the Avengers needed him to.
No more near-homicidal rampages on the Avengers front lawn for the world to see, thank you very much. In and out. In and out.
Things had been good recently for Bruce: He was an Avenger now. Not the Professor-Hulk, mind you, but Bruce Banner himself. By all accounts, the puniest Banner of all, was now using his unfathomable genius to help people instead of hurt them. Using the sheer might of the Savage Hulk for the purposes of good, rather than for simple mindless destruction.
More than that, with the vast resources of the Avengers at his disposal (as well as their sizable medical and scientific databases), he’d been able to make some startling advances on his scientific pursuits:
He’d made a lot of headway on theoretical gamma physics and psychological studies of Dissociative Identity Disorder. ALS - something that had nearly killed the scientist - was a heartbeat away from being cured.
Granted, he hadn’t figured out how to lower the gamma radiation of the cure to negligible, rather than safe, levels. Lest all those cured of ALS and other neurodegenerative disorders wanted to end up gamma-pegged like the massive Doctor Samson, Bruce was better off continuing his research slowly and steadily, rather than the brash, impulsive leaps of faith he used to take which led to inventions like the gamma bomb.
The fact that Bruce had a stable home at the Avengers Mansion meant that he’d been able to make steady progress on all these fronts. Best of all, he was able to keep it backed up in the massive Avengers database.
Bruce sighed, his thoughts drifting back to yesteryear and his days as a troubled drifter, or a man on the run: So many leaps forward in medicine, gamma therapy, theoretical physics - utterly destroyed, or simply abandoned, all due to one bad adrenaline rush.
The scientist grumbled. The thought of so many good ideas tossed to the winds simply sickened him, as it would any good scientist.
So many ideas, lost to the sands of time...
A gilded cage is still a cage, Bruce...
“Huh?” Bruce Banner’s eyes popped open suddenly. His lips pursed as he scanned the room.
Where did that thought come from? the scientist questioned. A telepath? Mind control? A psychic suggestion? Or...
Bruce Banner stopped once he realized the truth.
Clenching his teeth, he closed his eyes again, denying the aberrant thought.
The scientist began calculating the amount of dark matter that was thought to exist across the universe, losing himself in a mass of field theories and graviton wakes until he drifted off into a fully relaxed state upon the yoga mat.
Sometimes, the meditation simply calmed him. Eased the troubled presence of the Hulks inside his mind.
Other times, however...
# # # # # # # # # #
The Las Vegas Strip
The Nevada of Banner’s Subconscious Mind
Nocturnal Rendezvous in Grey
The brilliant sheen of glamour and opulence shone brightly off Doctor Banner’s wide glasses. The good doctor managed a frown, watching the thought-forms in Fixit’s dreams smoke and drink, gamble and loiter, and fill an otherwise wondrous cityscape with a gamut of carnal lust and homicide sins.
From out of the darkness, the scientist heard the heavy trudge of fat dress shoes against cracked pavement. A cry of pain, a sudden crack, and then a hoarse, weary moan echoed from around the dark alleys behind one casino in particular.
The scientist grunted. He took a few steps towards the sounds of brutish, cruel, back-alley things happening, knowing what he was in for.
“Puny Banner,” a voice growled mockingly from the darkness.
The scientist’s face bristled slightly, adjusting his glasses and scanning the darkness. He saw a ripple of shadowy grey flesh and a wide, cruel grin of fat, white teeth.
“Fixit,” Bruce Banner grumbled. “Why wouldn’t it be you?”
“Welcome back, Puny Banner,” Joe Fixit smiled, stepping out from the shadows. Bruce tried to hide his disgust as he listened to the sounds of the screamer intensify, knowing Fixit’s cronies were working the poor man over somewhere in the shadows behind him. The scientist almost wanted to look, but the Grey Hulk’s massive frame (and the lack of streetlights behind them) blocked everything else from view. Bruce could only imagine the poor man’s suffering behind them.
Just the way Joe Fixit wanted it. It was his mind also, after all.
The grey behemoth twirled his cane magnificently, as his massive musculature bulged against his pin-striped suit and tie. He tilted his wide-rimmed hat in a mocking hello. “Just ain’t the same without you here.”
As if in response, both men heard a thunderous roar from the distance. Anyone else might have mistaken the sound for distant thunder, or a wind howling down from the heavens. Yet both men knew better - there was more hellish than heavenly concerning that sound.
Banner lifted his head up, glancing toward the dark horizon. He pursed his lips.
“Aw, lookit that. You’re being summoned, Brucie.” Fixit smiled menacingly.
“How’s Savage?” Banner asked.
“Monosyllabic. Consistent, non-stop temper tantrum with periods of rest in-between,” the grey giant twirled his cane, tapping it in tune with each howl of the unseen howls. “The usual.”
Bruce squeezed the bridge of his nose tightly in frustration, breathing fully and deeply - as if the action might calm him somehow. The scientist was a small, speck of a snowflake next to the granite giant standing before him. Imperceptibly, he shook and shuddered in tune with the sound of Savage’s roar.
Fixit glared toward the noise and grunted. “How’s the squeeze?”
“The squeeze?”
“You know, the redhead?”
“The red--you mean Marlo?”
“Yeah, yeah. How’s Marlo doing these days?”
“Extremely married.” Bruce grumbled in response. “Still.”
“Ah, that’s too bad,” the Grey Hulk smiled. Bruce could see the sadness in the grey monolith’s eyes despite how much Fixit tried to hide it.
“Never give up, do you?”
The grey brute waved a hand nonchalantly. “Ah, Rick Jones is a good guy an’ all. But a babe like her deserves a real man, one that can give her the good ol’--“
“Oh yes,” the scientist stopped Fixit in his tracks, smiling. “Because that worked so very well for you the first time.”
Fixit tapped his cane down hard as a deep, guttural snarl suddenly escaped from the back of his throat. The hulking giant pointed a menacing slab of a finger at the tiny scientist and spoke through clenched teeth. “Listen here, you smug little--“
A savage roar drowned out whatever came next. Bruce raised an eyebrow as the Grey Hulk glared at him angrily. The silence between the two men seemed to stretch across the dark forevers inside Bruce’s troubled mind.
The bolder one of the two decided to break the silence.
“Charming, as always, you are,” the scientist smiled icily as he trekked his way across the darkened plains of his mind. “I’m off to greener, quieter pastures. Please feel free to go break some legs or do something appropriately brutish.”
Fixit raised an eyebrow, and snarled his fat lip at him. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Bruce Banner turned back toward Fixit with a glare. He refused to let the Grey Hulk goad him into a pointless argument. He knew how Bruce had felt about their time in Vegas as a leg breaker and as a hustler.
‘A waste of potential’ and a ‘brutish use of resources’ were words the gamma physicist had used during their last argument. It had not gotten any better from there. Banner felt no need to relive it.
With a final twirl of his cane, the Grey Hulk slid back into the shadows from whence he came.
“Be seein’ you...Puny Banner,” he said mockingly.
# # # # # # # # # #
Bruce Banner’s Tortured Mind
A Grassy Knoll Somewhere Outside the Dark Matter Desert
Two Professors Talk
A gentle breeze whisked across the grassy hillside, leaving the bright-green grass swaying lazily in the springtime winds. Bruce listened as the leaves of the trees swelled and swayed with the relaxing, soothing sounds and smiled.
An idle thought blossomed into the scientist’s hazy mind: It was beautiful, Leonard. You should have seen it.
The rolling green hills stretched into forever, taking the scientist’s breath away. The apricots were blooming upon the trees as a warm, gentle sun washed down over all, poking out intermittently behind the rolling white clouds.
Almost out of a dream, he thought, from nowhere. Almost out of a dream.
It was the same, Bruce realized. He was somehow standing in the exact same grassy hillside he’d told Leonard about this morning.
Bruce smiled, and let himself get caught up in the delightful memory. The memory of a time when things seemed so much brighter. When he seemed so much happier, so carefree.
When he wasn’t so alone in the world.
Tension and pain ebbed into his lonely frame. The scientist shivered suddenly, the winds seeming harsher. The memories cutting like knives, like daggers, against his bare skin. The memories stabbing at him. Taunting him.
He needed something to block the pains of the past. Something that could block those pesky emotions that Bruce Banner hated so very much.
He decided that chlorophyll was the answer.
Specifically how much chlorophyll would be necessary in each blade of grass for them to appear so perfectly bright and rendered so precisely in this particular shade of green. Recalling his trigonometry, he began to discern at what angles the light rays needed to leave the sun, travel to the earth, deflect through the atmosphere, bounce off the atomic structure of the standing grass and strike against his eyeball, allowing his optic nerve to process the image.
He smirked.
Ahhhh, science, he thought, bemused. And Betty always assumed you were the distraction. Nothing was ever messy about you, science. There’s always one, orderly, perfectly-rational solution to any given situation wherever you’re concerned.
Bruce breathed out slowly as the piercing winds faded, leaving only the calm, soothing sounds of nature and the lovely sounds of orderly, physical laws at work. The scientist trekked across the hillside, keeping the painful memories at bay with delightful science until he found what he was looking for.
Two lovebirds, relaxing upon one spot on the grassy knoll in particular. A spot that Bruce could never forget. The familiar picnic blanket, with four shoes holding down each of the four sides.
Two lovers sitting atop the blanket, gazing into each other’s eyes.
”I thought I’d find you here,” Bruce Banner spoke softly as he approached the pair.
Of course, in this instance, one of the pair was a towering mass of emerald muscle, clad in logger man’s plaid and overalls (It was so hard to obtain clothes that fit such a gargantuan body mass these days).
The Professor-Hulk, Banner thought.
The other was a stunning brunette woman, clad in that same flowing dress with the blue flowers she wore that day, on the knoll. The scientist smiled, gazing at his beloved wife as he approached the pair.
“Betty.”
The behemoth, who had very well-kempt green hair and a strong, squared jaw, brought angry emerald eyes to bear upon the scientist. “No one invited you, Banner.”
“Didn’t need an invite,” the scientist bristled, adjusting his glasses. “It’s my memory too, Professor.”
The Professor stood up. “So what are you doing here?”
“I see you finally caged Savage up tight,” Bruce said, adjusting his glasses.
The Professor glanced off in the distance, listening to the faint sounds of screaming. He smiled with wide Hulk-like teeth. “Ah, you mean the Dark Matter Desert.”
“Yes, that.”
“Yes. I thought of that one day as I was reading an article on dark matter,” the Professor said confidently, placing his hands on his hips as he thought back. “Approximately 85% of the mass of the universe is thought to be dark matter. So, me being - well, me - I had an idle musing: ‘Boy, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could contain that savage beast in an area with that much room for him to bounce around in? At least he wouldn’t be able to smash any of the other matter in the universe if he’s only punching around in the darkness?’ And so, the Dark Matter Desert was born in my mind.”
“I believe that was my idea,” the scientist remarked, placing his hands inside his flowing white lab coat.
“Our idea, Banner,” the Professor harrumphed. “We are the same person, after all.”
“Allegedly,” the scientist scoffed. “If it were up to me, I’d say we need to gather more data to test this hypothesis of yours.”
The Professor smirked. “Ever the skeptic. Eh, Bruce?”
“Any good scientist is a skeptic.”
“Or any scientist in denial.”
Bruce glared at the towering mass of muscle, crossing his arms. “Speaking of denial, how is Betty doing these days?”
The Professor glared down at the brazen scientist, a flash of anger twinkling across his eyes. His hands made an audible sound as they coiled up tightly into massive green fists. “Don’t. Go there. Banner.”
“There’s been talk about me feeling caged up recently. What, with the conversation I had with Leonard today and all.”
“That sounds like a personal problem, Bruce.”
The scientist chuckled mockingly. “So I’m thinking that there might be some truth to that after all.”
“Oh, do tell,” the Professor chortled, turning away from Bruce as he stared across the grassy hillside, trying not to listen to the little man.
“Being with the Avengers. It’s wonderful, being recognized for my intelligence instead of just the brute strength of my alter egos...”
Alter egos,” the Professor let out a derisive snort and crossed his arms, obviously offended.
Bruce gritted his teeth and continued. “...but being an Avenger - a superhero - was always more your thing. Wasn’t it?”
The Professor glanced backward at Bruce. “What about it?”
“So it occurred to me: Why is it that Savage Hulk keeps resurfacing instead of you?
The Professor continued to glare at the scientist, the silence hanging long and heavy between the two men.
“So I have a theory...”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Well, you’ve got that Dark Matter Desert built up around Savage real nice, but he always finds a way to escape it, doesn’t he?”
The Professor glared. “True. I haven’t found out how he does it, yet. I’m...I’m not even sure he knows how, but--“
“--but he always gets out. Because he wants to get out.”
“Of course,” the Professor said. “He’s always trying to get out.”
“Then there’s the cunning Grey Hulk - Joe Fixit.”
“Of course.”
“Who likely could figure his way out if he tried,” Bruce said, pacing back and forth, lost in his analysis, “but in the real world, his Marlo is gone. Married to Rick Jones. His life in Vegas is over. There’s no going back. BUT, in the Vegas of his mind...”
“I see what you’re getting at,” the Professor said. “He’s got whatever he dreams of in here. Why would he want to leave?”
“Now you’re getting it,” the scientist beamed. “A gilded cage of his own making. That’s why he’s still here.”
“Naturally,” the Professor said.
“So, why’re you still here?” Bruce pointed an accusing finger toward the green tower of might before him. “Why are you still inside your cage?”
“Okay, I’ll bite, Banner,” the Professor growled. “Why am I still in my cage?”
Bruce and the Professor glared hard at one another, until the smaller scientist finally broke the stare-down contest and gazed at the woman sitting on the picnic blanket next to them. Turned away from the green giant, Bruce Banner squatted down next to the beauteous woman beside them - gazing upon her features as if he were inspecting a sample in a microscope. “Wonderful likeness, isn’t it?”
The Professor cocked an eyebrow, his eyes growing wide with rage. “What?”
“This woman. Sitting here,” the scientist said, gazing at the smiling form of Betty Banner. “Wonderful likeness of my wife, wouldn’t you say?”
“The hell do you mean?” the Professor snarled, circling around toward Bruce. “That’s Betty you’re talking about!”
“Looks like her. Talks like her. Breathes like her,” the scientist inhaled sharply. “Even smells like her.”
“Get the hell away from my wife,” the Professor growled, his features darkening as he brought his face mere inches from Bruce’s. “I won’t ask you again.”
The scientist met the behemoth’s steely gaze with one of his own. In a low, angry growl, Bruce Banner replied: “My wife. Is dead. You lovesick idiot.”
“GODDAMN YOU, BANNER!” the angry Professor shrieked, backhanding the tiny man in a furious rage. Bruce Banner’s body flew effortlessly across the hill, slamming hard against the tumbling grass. The small, fragile scientist’s body contorted in several sickening, unnerving directions as his frame drug a long, hideous crater against the grassy landscape.
Like a hungry, rabid dog, the Professor launched after Bruce, pummeling at him over and over, slamming the helpless scientist farther and farther away from the love of his life, until the Professor finally stopped as a sudden, knowing calm washed over him. He gazed upon the wreckage he’d made of the grassy knoll and, with a thought, undid the labyrinth of craters he’d made of the once-beauteous hillside.
The Professor panted - angrily chiding himself for letting Banner goad him into that kind of action - and slumped into a sitting position against the gnarled grass. He slammed a massive green fist into the ground out of frustration, just as Bruce’s shattered body crawled its way out of the wreckage beside the sitting Professor. The broken corpse hideously shifted and contorted itself together until it had fully reassembled into the slim, frail form of Bruce Banner. Only slightly worse for the wear, of course.
Bruce Banner adjusted his broken glasses, wiped a smear of blood off of his scuffed-up face, and smiled smugly. “See? Lying to yourself doesn’t really get you anywhere. You just end up beating yourself up for it.”
The Professor gazed down at Bruce Banner, glowering. “You know, Banner. Sometimes...I really fucking hate you.”
“Really?” the scientist said, “No kidding. Never could have guessed that one. You’re far too brilliant for me, Professor.”
Bruce dusted off his lab coat and walked over to the sitting green giant, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “When you’re all done feeling sorry for yourself, we could really use you in the real world. Until then, have fun with your Galatea.”
The angry scientist trudged off across the hillside, disappearing in a wisp of unsettled dreams. The Professor stood up, pumping his fists open and closed in a dismal effort to calm himself down, and trudged toward the still-sitting form of his late wife.
As the battered hillside reassembled itself in his wake, the Professor sat down on the picnic blanket with the most beautiful woman in his world.
The woman that - despite the entire argument between himself and that puny, intruding scientist - hadn’t moved a fraction of an inch.
“Just you and me now, Gala--Betty,” he said, stroking her chin.
The thought-form of Betty Banner smiled up at him with loving, yet lifeless eyes. A tear rolled down his cheek, terminating at his chiseled-green jaw line. Anguish colored his features as he sighed heavily, brushing a stray hair from out of her eyes.
“Just you and me.”
# # # # # # # # # #
Avengers Mansion
The Bedroom of Doctor Robert Bruce Banner
Everything Not Zen
Doctor Robert Bruce Banner awoke with a start.
“Jesus!” he breathed out, listening to the beeping of his armband. Glancing down, he saw the black armband’s digital display flashing bright-bright green. “Goddamnit!”
Cursing himself for drifting off to sleep, Bruce Banner gritted his teeth and focused on his breathing. Pushing away all the thoughts of the Hulks, of cages, of deserts, and of Betty. Pushing away all but the most serene of influences, the gamut of relaxing scenes he’d trained his mind to play during times like this. Relaxing symphonies, and concertos. Soothing physics equations, and puzzles to solve.
Anything to keep the Hulks - any of them - at bay.
BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP!
BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP!
BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP!
BEEP-BEEP. BEEP-BEEP!
BEEP-BEEP. BEEP-BEEP.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
BEEP.
BEEP.
BEEP.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Beep.
Bruce let out a long, relaxed sigh, collapsing against the yoga mat in a sweaty huff. “That was too close.”
He focused on relaxing, taking deep regular breaths for a full three and a half minutes before sitting up, promptly chastising himself for nearly losing control.
Toweling off, he walked over to his worktable and noticed something new.
A simple, nondescript white envelope.
Snail mail, he thought. For me? At Avengers Mansion?
He regarded the envelope suspiciously, rolling his eyes at the lack of return address and the astoundingly-pristine penmanship of the letter-writer.
No. Not suspicious at all, he mused sarcastically. Why would it be?
Picking it up, he slowly slid his finger through the top, neatly slicing through the lip of the envelope. Curious, he unfolded the letter that lay tucked neatly inside. A picture caught the light suddenly as it slid out from within the letter, falling gently to the floor.
However, it was the contents of the letter itself, which left Bruce Banner’s eyes nearly popping out of his skull:
Bruce,
Don’t fret, old friend. Your pretty Betty is still alive. The government creatures have been lying to you.
Regards,
Mr. Blue.
Bruce’s breath caught heavy in his throat. The scent of her perfume hung heavy on the note.
However, laying face-up on the floor, was the picture that had been nestled so snugly inside Mr. Blue’s letter.
A picture of Betty Banner, naked as the day she was born. Suspended in a catatonic state in some bizarre cryonic chamber. In a dark laboratory, with a timestamp no more than five days old.
Government markings. On the walls.
Bruce Banner’s brown eyes went wide, a hushed whisper upon his lips. And then, they went green.
# # # # # # # # # #
Next Issue: Questions abound as we delve into the mystery: How is Betty alive? Didn’t the Abomination kill the crap out of her? Who’s been hiding her? Is there a conspiracy? Plus, does Bruce Banner finally transform into the INCREDIBLE HULK, or doesn’t he?? And which Hulk does he become, anyway? You’ll have to read the next issue to find out, gentle reader.
Unless you want Hulk to smash.
--Ray Bradbury
The Dark Matter Desert
Somewhere Profoundly Troubled...
The darkness stretched on into forever.
Within the inky mass of palpable nothingness, a sound - like thick leather hide stretched impossibly-taut - echoed far and wide into the darkness. Inhumanly-thick muscle fibers flexed and stretched stubbornly beneath the monster’s calloused jade hide. Shadows soaked into the creature’s flesh as the muscle-bound behemoth stood amidst the darkness, clad only in puny, tattered purple pants. Beads of sweat rolled down his colossal frame as he stood there, panting, holding the rage inside. Beneath a tousled mane of short, green, sweaty hair, the monster’s bloodshot eyes scanned the darkness, looking for any sign of escape.
The sound of creaking leather continued with the tightening of the monster’s wide jaw, his obscenely-dense masseter muscles condensing beneath chiseled cheekbones. A guttural sound echoed heavy and weary across the dark, dreary landscape. It echoed against the black sands, bouncing across the unseen dream layers, skirting to and fro against the near-impenetrable darkness. His weary growl finally faded away, dark and distant, like a long-forgotten childhood memory, reclaimed back into the rolling void.
The Dark Matter Desert stretched on for miles. An endless, boundless dream layer - on a scale measured best by astronomers. Not that the beast could comprehend the size, or scope of the Dark Matter Desert, of course.
The creature snarled.
To him, this desert was merely a prison.
A prison he recognized as the mind of the puny creature called Banner.
More than anything in this imaginary world, the creature wanted to be free. That thought alone had almost driven the Incredible Hulk mad with a rage that was almost as endless as the desert surrounding him. It was a perfect kind of rage that had, at the very least, carried him this far.
He had been running for days. He had been leaping for days. He had been yelling/screaming/cursing/raging/growling for days. The Hulk couldn’t remember how long he’d been trying to get out. Time worked strangely around here.
Nevertheless, the Hulk wasn’t tired.
No, no, no.
Hulk would never get tired. Getting tired was something puny, weak people did and the Hulk was anything but weak.
The creature tried to growl again, but it came out as a pathetic sort of pant instead. He took a breath of fresh desert air that transformed into a wide, unending yawn. A yawn that echoed along the desert sands, passing by the eerie plants and strange-looking cacti that were hidden deep in the shadows of the endless desert.
It’s okay, he thought with an ape-like growl. Hulk wanted to rest anyway.
With a mighty thud, the angry creature collapsed against the desert sands, shooting up a plume of dust that swirled up all around him as his tired mind slowly faded away into the infinite span of the blackened sky. The beast slumbered, dreaming restless, fitful dreams inside Banner’s puny mind.
# # # # # # # # # #
Audio Log of Doctor Robert Bruce Banner
Lamenting Upon Unchangeable Circumstances
Present Day
** begin recording **
We’ve all got a little monster in us, don’t we?
Well I can guarantee you don’t have a monster like mine.
Some days, I’m Doctor Robert Bruce Banner. Physicist. Scientist. Doctor. Skeptic.
Successful inventor, nevertheless filled with regret at all the things I’ve wrought.
When I invented and developed the gamma bomb, it was merely supposed to be the unleashing and harnessing of new energies. Energies perhaps greater than those developed from those early days of the nuclear arms race.
In retrospect, I remain aghast at my naiveté. I was enthralled by the research - by pushing the boundaries of science, peeling back at the marvels of creation, and dedicated to allowing mankind the ability to make the next leap forward.
It was a wonderful feeling I had in my heart that day, in the gamma testing bunker. A feeling that I’d achieved something good. That I’d finally made something of myself. That all the things that goddamn useless piece of shit rat bastard father-of-mine six feet under the fucking ground Brian Fucking Banner said I’d never... ahem, all the things that I’d wanted more than anything in the world since I was a puny, pathetic little...ah, since I was a child. Since I was a...
Hmmm. That won’t do.
** redacting the last paragraph of this Banner Audio log...**
** audio successfully redacted. **
That’s better.
For whatever reasons, I followed my passions for gamma research. I created the gamma bomb for the government.
I had no idea that the primary goals of the research, the grants, the funding, and all the rest, was merely to make another Weapon of Mass Destruction that we could use in the next political pissing contest that we might start with another nation, whenever we might decide to start it. Those were things I would come to learn in the days, months, years that followed.
On that day, however - neither side had any inkling of what the bomb would actually bring into the world.
The day of the bomb, a young teenager named Rick Jones drove out on the test field, on a dare, somehow bypassing all that security our friends at the White House posted on the site. (To this day, I have no idea how he’d managed to pull that one off). Unaware of the imminent threat, he just sat there, playing a harmonica of all things. I’ve got to give him credit - the kid did have some brass ones on him. But I wasn’t concerned about that at the moment. The gamma bomb countdown had already started, and no one was going to risk their neck to save him.
No one except me.
As I said, some days, I’m Doctor Robert Bruce Banner. Other days, I’m everything that the news tell you I am. I’m that imminent news threat they run in a black bar along your TV screens, or the news alert they broadcast instead of your favorite show. They’ve got all kinds of statuettes and figures and artworks that bear my likeness (or rather his likeness). TV headlines, periodicals, streaming along the advertisement sections of your screens whenever the government needs a convenient scapegoat for something dastardly, or whenever the anchors want something to scare people about. An eight foot tall mass of ghastly green muscle, that could literally lift the side of a mountain and turn it upside down if he were angry enough.
And he is angry. My God, is he angry. Far, far more often than not.
I cannot assuage his anger; I can merely apologize for it. I can only apologize for not knowing about all the terrible, monstrous aspects of myself hidden deep the depths of my troubled mind. Until my research with the gamma bomb finally, finally let them all out.
The gamma bomb spawned the Incredible Hulk, but we’re never quite sure which aspect of the Hulk I might be:
The Savage Green Hulk - I prefer to think of him as just “Savage.” He is a childish, unthinking brute of unrelenting physical power. An engine of mindless destruction that gets stronger and stronger with rage. He’s the one that turns up more often than not these days. He’s the monster I see most often on the news.
The Cunning Grey Hulk - His intelligence is average, but crude enough for his needs, I suspect. Though partial to the name “Mr. (Joe) Fixit”, he happens to be a sneaky, manipulative, cunning bastard whose strength pales in comparison to that of the Jade Giant, yet whose devious motives are always suspect. Though, he himself prefers to be clad in cleaned, pressed pinstripes rather than the tattered purple pants of his predecessor.
The Idealized Professor - This aspect’s fairly new. He’s a Hulk with my intellect, the physical power of the Green Hulk (madder he gets, stronger he gets) and the devious, cunning tactics of the Grey Hulk. The most heroic version of the Hulk, at least. My issue with the man; however, is that he thinks he’s the best Bruce Banner of us all. I don’t...don’t know how I feel about that, yet.
The Guilt Hulk - A lizard-like creature that’s supposed to represent all my hidden, repressed guilt and shame concerning my ah, difficult childhood. He...he tells me things that I...that I should’ve been...that I should’ve done, to protect my mother from...
Tells me about all the ways that I failed her. That somehow I was the reason she...
...I don’t want to talk about this aspect anymore.
The Devil Hulk - This one claws at the back of my mind, somewhere. He’s a chained monstrosity, whose rage scares me even more that the Savage Hulk’s does. Because, when it comes right down to it, Savage’s rage is ventilated, at the very least. This one’s rage is hidden, buried. He’s been sitting on it for some time now. It’s always the quiet ones you need to worry about, isn’t it?
The Devil Hulk is sitting on a massive pile of rage. Rage at the entire world, I’d say. By our treatment by it, and how it seems to do nothing but vilify us all. I think if he could, he’d try and burn it all down and dance on the ashes.
The Guilt and Devil Hulks are aspects of my personality that I keep locked very, very deep inside myself. They’ve (thankfully) never manifested in the real world. It’s only due to my colleagues Doctor Leonard Samson and Doctor Angela Lipscombe’s intervention that I’m aware of their existence at all.
I should thank Len and Angie for the heads up on those two aspects in particular. Really, I should.
Because Heaven help us all if those two got out...
# # # # # # # # # #
The Office of Doctor Leonard Samson
Daytime Session
Doctor Leonard Samson heard the knock on the door. A nervous, shuffling knock, hiding a deep wall of frustration inside it. The psychologist smiled, glancing at his watch.
His three o’clock was here. Right on schedule.
The green-haired psychologist grabbed his notebook and placed it near his plush psyche chair, glancing at the couch in front of him to make sure it was well-prepared for his guest. He straightened his tie and cracked his knuckles, readying himself for the session. The confident man strode over toward the door, flinging it open with a bright smile and saw exactly who he’d expected:
Doctor Bruce Banner. A colleague, a friend, and one of the most challenging psychiatric patients known to mankind. Nevertheless, all professionalism aside, it was good to see him.
“Bruce!”
”Leonard.”
“Please, have a seat,” the green-haired man gestured toward the couch in front of the plush chair. Bruce noted the man’s physique - Leonard Samson was a massive man, and not even his well-pressed suit could hide mountain of muscle that lay beneath.
Muscle I put there, Bruce thought glumly. My research into gamma radiation. Another aftershock of Savage’s introduction into my life.
Bruce trudged over toward the couch, setting himself down in a huff. Leonard could see the frustration in his eyes from across the room as he strolled over toward his Keurig machine against the wall.
“Anything I can get for you? Cappuccino?”
“No. No caffeine, thanks.”
Samson nodded. “Water then?”
“Yeah, that’ll be fine.”
The psychologist poured a glass of water for Bruce as the cappuccino machine mixed a caramel cappuccino together for Leonard. Bruce pondered the precision of water pressures and mix ratios required for the machine to function as it did, idly mapping it out in his mind. He was a scientist above all else. The way things fit together and functioned was fascinating to him. As he leaned back on the couch, trying not to think of anything distressing, Leonard handed Bruce his water and sat down.
Bruce took a sip, and placed it on the table beside him.
“Tell me what’s on your mind.”
Bruce’s expression soured. Doctor Samson sipped his cappuccino and sighed, placing it down on the table next to him. He picked up the pad of paper and repeated his question.
“Oh, come on, Leonard,” Bruce groaned. “Not that tired line again. We both know what’s on my mind.”
Leonard tapped his pen to the notepad. “I’d prefer that you stated it.”
Bruce placed his face in his palm and sighed. “Savage. Savage is on my mind.”
“The Savage Hulk?”
Bruce pursed his lips, irritated.
“No, the Savage Wendigo,”
“Bruce...”
“Yes, the Savage Hulk!” Bruce gestured in frustration. “It’s been the Savage Hulk since we started these damned Avengers-mandated sessions. It’s going to be the Savage Hulk until I’m old and grey.”
“Well, sometimes it’s Joe Fixit.”
Bruce glared at the green-haired man.
“Other times, it’s been the Maestro.”
Bruce continued the glare. Samson softened his expression slightly.
“Bruce, would you tell me what’s troubling you?”
Bruce grumbled, sipping his glass of water and laid back upon the couch. He looked upon the well-muscled psychologist and gritted his teeth.
“Well, now that you mention it, there is one troubling thing on my mind.”
Leonard leaned forward. “And that is?”
Bruce glared angrily at Leonard. “I find it troubling that the psychologist they prescribed me is the same man who almost stole my wife away from me.”
Leonard frowned, tossing the pen and notepad on the table beside him. He gripped the bridge of his nose in frustration, hunching over. “Jesus, Bruce. We’ve been over this...”
“Betty was my wife, dammit! You had no right to try and take her away from me - to try and convince her that she was dating a monster. That was so unprofessional!”
“Bruce, you’re absolutely right. I’m sorry. How many times can I apologize for that?”
Bruce Banner sighed.
“Bruce, I’m your doctor, and your friend. I can’t tell you how inappropriate that was. But we reconciled that issue. Years ago.”
Bruce scoffed. “Ancient history, you’ve said.”
“Besides, we both know that you’re not bringing that up now because you’re actually still mad at me,” the professional in Samson began to speak. “It’s more parapraxis than anything else.”
“Parapraxis?”
“Ah, I’m sorry. That’s the clinical term. You might call it a slip of the tongue. A “Freudian slip”, if you will. A lead-in to what’s really bothering you, without having to actually confront it. You, more than anyone else on the planet, knows how troublesome it is to keep complex emotions buried.”
Bruce grunted, images of utter destruction painted in a fiery jade light echoing through his mind. A blood-curdling, ravenous scream from a mountainous muscle of monstrous might howling soulless and psychotic into the night, destroying everything and anything in his path.
Bruce Banner shook away the images.
“It has something to do with Betty, doesn’t it?” Leonard asked.
His patient remained silent.
“Bruce, please tell me what’s on your mind.”
Bruce sighed, sipping at his water. He leaned back against the couch and rubbed his chin in thought. “I thought about her the other day.”
Leonard Samson hung his head knowingly. The psychologist watched as the frustrated expression of Bruce Banner turned to one of peace and joy. He watched the man let go of the nervousness and tension in his features, becoming his real, true self. Bruce gestured delightedly as he told the story:
“We were sitting in this field,” Bruce began. “This grassy knoll that Betty used to come to as a kid. We’d parked the car in the lot and walked up together, carrying everything for the picnic in our hands. I let her lead me to the spot.”
Bruce beamed. “It was beautiful, Leonard. You should have seen it. The rolling green hills seemed to stretch into forever. There were apricots blooming on the trees. The breeze was perfect and the sun was poking out behind the rolling white clouds. It was almost out of a dream.
“Anyway, I set up the picnic blanket. We took our shoes off and put them on each of the four corners, to hold it down. We sat down, got ourselves comfortable. She smiled - you know that amazing smile of hers - placing the picnic basket beside us. She started pulling out the napkins, the pillows, the silverware - forks, spoons, the works.
“So then, she got this puzzled look in her eyes. I must have had this confused look on my face because the instant she saw it, her face turned beet red with embarrassment. As if I’d stumbled onto some well-kept secret of hers. I asked her what on Earth was wrong. And she said - with the cutest, most adorable look on her face, Leonard - she said:
‘Bruce, I forgot the sandwiches.’
‘In the car? Let me go run and get them--‘
‘On the kitchen table.’ ”
Doctor Samson struggled for a moment, finally bursting out with laughter as his patient did exactly the same. As Samson continued to chuckle, Bruce wiped a tear of joy from his eye and continued:
“My God, you should have seem the embarrassment on her face, Leonard! We’d remembered literally everything else except for those silly turkey and bacon sandwiches. She’d gone over every last thing we needed on the way up, chiding me for almost forgetting to pack napkins, silverware, water bottles. She had insisted we bring the red picnic blanket because that was thicker and softer than the blue one. She had insisted that we wait to leave until the sun was higher, so the hill would have just the right effect.
Hell, she’d even told me to make those sandwiches just right - not too much mayo, crispy golden finish on the bread, two and only two strips of bacon. Even made me throw out the first pieces of toast because I’d made them ‘too bronzed’. Yet, with all that planning, and all that teasing me for my forgetfulness, we still manage to forget those damn sandwiches. The most important part of our picnic lunch together!
“Betty and I laughed. We laughed forever, Leonard. If anyone saw us on that hill, they would have thought we were raving mad. And I remember thinking, her lovely face red with embarrassment and laughter...I remember thinking that this is the woman I want to share the rest of my life with.”
Bruce smiled sadly. “Never thought we’d only have until the rest of her life together.”
The scientist sat up from the couch and draped his legs over the side. His face was twisted in a horrible cascade of anguish and grief, struggling not to let the tears out. Leonard frowned, walking over to Bruce and sitting next to him, the veneer of detached psychologist completely gone. He placed his hand on his friend’s back.
“It’s okay, Bruce. Let it out. It’s going to be okay.”
Bruce wiped the tears away, trying to keep himself from feeling the agony of her loss once more. The scientist was surprised how vividly it hit him, letting out a tortured sigh. “They say that time heals all wounds, doctor.”
Leonard Samson smiled. “No, Bruce. Time just scabs them over. The wounds never really heal.”
Bruce laughed. “That sounds about right, Doc.”
Leonard Samson stood up, pacing the room. Bruce let out a weary sigh as the doctor asked him a question Bruce knew was only there to distract him. “So how are things with the Avengers?”
Bruce, ever thankful, replied with a smile. “Things are....things are good. I feel like I’m doing some good, you know? Using my knowledge to make a difference. Making up for some of Savage’s mistakes.”
Doctor Samson raised an eyebrow. “Oh really? Last time, you’d said it felt more like a cage.”
The scientist pursed his lips.
“Well, I--I didn’t mean a cage necessarily. Certainly not in that tone of voice. It’s just that I--“
Before he could answer, there was a sudden knock at the door. Bruce’s eyes focused on the handle, calculating how many pounds per inch that Warbird kept herself from using to keep the door from flying off its hinges. It was the scientist in him again, pulling his mind away from troubling thoughts.
Self-control. It’s all about self-control.
“Your captor summons you,” Samson smirked.
“Ah, Warbird must be eager to get back,” Bruce forced a smile, standing upright. The nervousness, the tension, the frustration defining his entire posture - Samson watched it all return with a troubled look on his face. “The others get anxious when I’m....not at the mansion.”
Bruce shuffled over to the door, cracking it open. The scientist smiled at Warbird - a reassuring smile. “I’ll be along.”
As she walked out of earshot, Bruce turned back toward the psychologist.
“Monsters deserve to be caged, Samson,” Bruce mumbled, bringing his eyes low. “You know that.”
As the scientist trudged off toward his fate, Doctor Leonard Samson let out a sigh and began jotting down some notes from the session.
“Caged monsters never become happy monsters, Bruce,” he said sullenly, shaking his head. “They just get angry.”
# # # # # # # # # #
Avengers Mansion
The Bedroom of Doctor Robert Bruce Banner
Everything Zen
Bruce sat cross-legged upon his yoga mat. He breathed deeply, relaxing his whole body.
Deep, regular breaths. In and out. In and out. Focus on the sounds of your own breaths, Bruce. In and out. In and out.
The meditation was a routine he’d started for himself since he’d joined the Avengers. Designed, in part, to keep the tortured beast clawing against the back of Bruce’s mind - the Savage Hulk - at bay. In concert with the black arm-band he regularly wore now - which kept track of his pulse and blood pressure at any given time - the meditation techniques were helping to make sure that the only times the Savage Hulk was escaping into the real world, were when the Avengers needed him to.
No more near-homicidal rampages on the Avengers front lawn for the world to see, thank you very much. In and out. In and out.
Things had been good recently for Bruce: He was an Avenger now. Not the Professor-Hulk, mind you, but Bruce Banner himself. By all accounts, the puniest Banner of all, was now using his unfathomable genius to help people instead of hurt them. Using the sheer might of the Savage Hulk for the purposes of good, rather than for simple mindless destruction.
More than that, with the vast resources of the Avengers at his disposal (as well as their sizable medical and scientific databases), he’d been able to make some startling advances on his scientific pursuits:
He’d made a lot of headway on theoretical gamma physics and psychological studies of Dissociative Identity Disorder. ALS - something that had nearly killed the scientist - was a heartbeat away from being cured.
Granted, he hadn’t figured out how to lower the gamma radiation of the cure to negligible, rather than safe, levels. Lest all those cured of ALS and other neurodegenerative disorders wanted to end up gamma-pegged like the massive Doctor Samson, Bruce was better off continuing his research slowly and steadily, rather than the brash, impulsive leaps of faith he used to take which led to inventions like the gamma bomb.
The fact that Bruce had a stable home at the Avengers Mansion meant that he’d been able to make steady progress on all these fronts. Best of all, he was able to keep it backed up in the massive Avengers database.
Bruce sighed, his thoughts drifting back to yesteryear and his days as a troubled drifter, or a man on the run: So many leaps forward in medicine, gamma therapy, theoretical physics - utterly destroyed, or simply abandoned, all due to one bad adrenaline rush.
The scientist grumbled. The thought of so many good ideas tossed to the winds simply sickened him, as it would any good scientist.
So many ideas, lost to the sands of time...
A gilded cage is still a cage, Bruce...
“Huh?” Bruce Banner’s eyes popped open suddenly. His lips pursed as he scanned the room.
Where did that thought come from? the scientist questioned. A telepath? Mind control? A psychic suggestion? Or...
Bruce Banner stopped once he realized the truth.
Clenching his teeth, he closed his eyes again, denying the aberrant thought.
The scientist began calculating the amount of dark matter that was thought to exist across the universe, losing himself in a mass of field theories and graviton wakes until he drifted off into a fully relaxed state upon the yoga mat.
Sometimes, the meditation simply calmed him. Eased the troubled presence of the Hulks inside his mind.
Other times, however...
# # # # # # # # # #
The Las Vegas Strip
The Nevada of Banner’s Subconscious Mind
Nocturnal Rendezvous in Grey
The brilliant sheen of glamour and opulence shone brightly off Doctor Banner’s wide glasses. The good doctor managed a frown, watching the thought-forms in Fixit’s dreams smoke and drink, gamble and loiter, and fill an otherwise wondrous cityscape with a gamut of carnal lust and homicide sins.
From out of the darkness, the scientist heard the heavy trudge of fat dress shoes against cracked pavement. A cry of pain, a sudden crack, and then a hoarse, weary moan echoed from around the dark alleys behind one casino in particular.
The scientist grunted. He took a few steps towards the sounds of brutish, cruel, back-alley things happening, knowing what he was in for.
“Puny Banner,” a voice growled mockingly from the darkness.
The scientist’s face bristled slightly, adjusting his glasses and scanning the darkness. He saw a ripple of shadowy grey flesh and a wide, cruel grin of fat, white teeth.
“Fixit,” Bruce Banner grumbled. “Why wouldn’t it be you?”
“Welcome back, Puny Banner,” Joe Fixit smiled, stepping out from the shadows. Bruce tried to hide his disgust as he listened to the sounds of the screamer intensify, knowing Fixit’s cronies were working the poor man over somewhere in the shadows behind him. The scientist almost wanted to look, but the Grey Hulk’s massive frame (and the lack of streetlights behind them) blocked everything else from view. Bruce could only imagine the poor man’s suffering behind them.
Just the way Joe Fixit wanted it. It was his mind also, after all.
The grey behemoth twirled his cane magnificently, as his massive musculature bulged against his pin-striped suit and tie. He tilted his wide-rimmed hat in a mocking hello. “Just ain’t the same without you here.”
As if in response, both men heard a thunderous roar from the distance. Anyone else might have mistaken the sound for distant thunder, or a wind howling down from the heavens. Yet both men knew better - there was more hellish than heavenly concerning that sound.
Banner lifted his head up, glancing toward the dark horizon. He pursed his lips.
“Aw, lookit that. You’re being summoned, Brucie.” Fixit smiled menacingly.
“How’s Savage?” Banner asked.
“Monosyllabic. Consistent, non-stop temper tantrum with periods of rest in-between,” the grey giant twirled his cane, tapping it in tune with each howl of the unseen howls. “The usual.”
Bruce squeezed the bridge of his nose tightly in frustration, breathing fully and deeply - as if the action might calm him somehow. The scientist was a small, speck of a snowflake next to the granite giant standing before him. Imperceptibly, he shook and shuddered in tune with the sound of Savage’s roar.
Fixit glared toward the noise and grunted. “How’s the squeeze?”
“The squeeze?”
“You know, the redhead?”
“The red--you mean Marlo?”
“Yeah, yeah. How’s Marlo doing these days?”
“Extremely married.” Bruce grumbled in response. “Still.”
“Ah, that’s too bad,” the Grey Hulk smiled. Bruce could see the sadness in the grey monolith’s eyes despite how much Fixit tried to hide it.
“Never give up, do you?”
The grey brute waved a hand nonchalantly. “Ah, Rick Jones is a good guy an’ all. But a babe like her deserves a real man, one that can give her the good ol’--“
“Oh yes,” the scientist stopped Fixit in his tracks, smiling. “Because that worked so very well for you the first time.”
Fixit tapped his cane down hard as a deep, guttural snarl suddenly escaped from the back of his throat. The hulking giant pointed a menacing slab of a finger at the tiny scientist and spoke through clenched teeth. “Listen here, you smug little--“
A savage roar drowned out whatever came next. Bruce raised an eyebrow as the Grey Hulk glared at him angrily. The silence between the two men seemed to stretch across the dark forevers inside Bruce’s troubled mind.
The bolder one of the two decided to break the silence.
“Charming, as always, you are,” the scientist smiled icily as he trekked his way across the darkened plains of his mind. “I’m off to greener, quieter pastures. Please feel free to go break some legs or do something appropriately brutish.”
Fixit raised an eyebrow, and snarled his fat lip at him. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Bruce Banner turned back toward Fixit with a glare. He refused to let the Grey Hulk goad him into a pointless argument. He knew how Bruce had felt about their time in Vegas as a leg breaker and as a hustler.
‘A waste of potential’ and a ‘brutish use of resources’ were words the gamma physicist had used during their last argument. It had not gotten any better from there. Banner felt no need to relive it.
With a final twirl of his cane, the Grey Hulk slid back into the shadows from whence he came.
“Be seein’ you...Puny Banner,” he said mockingly.
# # # # # # # # # #
Bruce Banner’s Tortured Mind
A Grassy Knoll Somewhere Outside the Dark Matter Desert
Two Professors Talk
A gentle breeze whisked across the grassy hillside, leaving the bright-green grass swaying lazily in the springtime winds. Bruce listened as the leaves of the trees swelled and swayed with the relaxing, soothing sounds and smiled.
An idle thought blossomed into the scientist’s hazy mind: It was beautiful, Leonard. You should have seen it.
The rolling green hills stretched into forever, taking the scientist’s breath away. The apricots were blooming upon the trees as a warm, gentle sun washed down over all, poking out intermittently behind the rolling white clouds.
Almost out of a dream, he thought, from nowhere. Almost out of a dream.
It was the same, Bruce realized. He was somehow standing in the exact same grassy hillside he’d told Leonard about this morning.
Bruce smiled, and let himself get caught up in the delightful memory. The memory of a time when things seemed so much brighter. When he seemed so much happier, so carefree.
When he wasn’t so alone in the world.
Tension and pain ebbed into his lonely frame. The scientist shivered suddenly, the winds seeming harsher. The memories cutting like knives, like daggers, against his bare skin. The memories stabbing at him. Taunting him.
He needed something to block the pains of the past. Something that could block those pesky emotions that Bruce Banner hated so very much.
He decided that chlorophyll was the answer.
Specifically how much chlorophyll would be necessary in each blade of grass for them to appear so perfectly bright and rendered so precisely in this particular shade of green. Recalling his trigonometry, he began to discern at what angles the light rays needed to leave the sun, travel to the earth, deflect through the atmosphere, bounce off the atomic structure of the standing grass and strike against his eyeball, allowing his optic nerve to process the image.
He smirked.
Ahhhh, science, he thought, bemused. And Betty always assumed you were the distraction. Nothing was ever messy about you, science. There’s always one, orderly, perfectly-rational solution to any given situation wherever you’re concerned.
Bruce breathed out slowly as the piercing winds faded, leaving only the calm, soothing sounds of nature and the lovely sounds of orderly, physical laws at work. The scientist trekked across the hillside, keeping the painful memories at bay with delightful science until he found what he was looking for.
Two lovebirds, relaxing upon one spot on the grassy knoll in particular. A spot that Bruce could never forget. The familiar picnic blanket, with four shoes holding down each of the four sides.
Two lovers sitting atop the blanket, gazing into each other’s eyes.
”I thought I’d find you here,” Bruce Banner spoke softly as he approached the pair.
Of course, in this instance, one of the pair was a towering mass of emerald muscle, clad in logger man’s plaid and overalls (It was so hard to obtain clothes that fit such a gargantuan body mass these days).
The Professor-Hulk, Banner thought.
The other was a stunning brunette woman, clad in that same flowing dress with the blue flowers she wore that day, on the knoll. The scientist smiled, gazing at his beloved wife as he approached the pair.
“Betty.”
The behemoth, who had very well-kempt green hair and a strong, squared jaw, brought angry emerald eyes to bear upon the scientist. “No one invited you, Banner.”
“Didn’t need an invite,” the scientist bristled, adjusting his glasses. “It’s my memory too, Professor.”
The Professor stood up. “So what are you doing here?”
“I see you finally caged Savage up tight,” Bruce said, adjusting his glasses.
The Professor glanced off in the distance, listening to the faint sounds of screaming. He smiled with wide Hulk-like teeth. “Ah, you mean the Dark Matter Desert.”
“Yes, that.”
“Yes. I thought of that one day as I was reading an article on dark matter,” the Professor said confidently, placing his hands on his hips as he thought back. “Approximately 85% of the mass of the universe is thought to be dark matter. So, me being - well, me - I had an idle musing: ‘Boy, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could contain that savage beast in an area with that much room for him to bounce around in? At least he wouldn’t be able to smash any of the other matter in the universe if he’s only punching around in the darkness?’ And so, the Dark Matter Desert was born in my mind.”
“I believe that was my idea,” the scientist remarked, placing his hands inside his flowing white lab coat.
“Our idea, Banner,” the Professor harrumphed. “We are the same person, after all.”
“Allegedly,” the scientist scoffed. “If it were up to me, I’d say we need to gather more data to test this hypothesis of yours.”
The Professor smirked. “Ever the skeptic. Eh, Bruce?”
“Any good scientist is a skeptic.”
“Or any scientist in denial.”
Bruce glared at the towering mass of muscle, crossing his arms. “Speaking of denial, how is Betty doing these days?”
The Professor glared down at the brazen scientist, a flash of anger twinkling across his eyes. His hands made an audible sound as they coiled up tightly into massive green fists. “Don’t. Go there. Banner.”
“There’s been talk about me feeling caged up recently. What, with the conversation I had with Leonard today and all.”
“That sounds like a personal problem, Bruce.”
The scientist chuckled mockingly. “So I’m thinking that there might be some truth to that after all.”
“Oh, do tell,” the Professor chortled, turning away from Bruce as he stared across the grassy hillside, trying not to listen to the little man.
“Being with the Avengers. It’s wonderful, being recognized for my intelligence instead of just the brute strength of my alter egos...”
Alter egos,” the Professor let out a derisive snort and crossed his arms, obviously offended.
Bruce gritted his teeth and continued. “...but being an Avenger - a superhero - was always more your thing. Wasn’t it?”
The Professor glanced backward at Bruce. “What about it?”
“So it occurred to me: Why is it that Savage Hulk keeps resurfacing instead of you?
The Professor continued to glare at the scientist, the silence hanging long and heavy between the two men.
“So I have a theory...”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Well, you’ve got that Dark Matter Desert built up around Savage real nice, but he always finds a way to escape it, doesn’t he?”
The Professor glared. “True. I haven’t found out how he does it, yet. I’m...I’m not even sure he knows how, but--“
“--but he always gets out. Because he wants to get out.”
“Of course,” the Professor said. “He’s always trying to get out.”
“Then there’s the cunning Grey Hulk - Joe Fixit.”
“Of course.”
“Who likely could figure his way out if he tried,” Bruce said, pacing back and forth, lost in his analysis, “but in the real world, his Marlo is gone. Married to Rick Jones. His life in Vegas is over. There’s no going back. BUT, in the Vegas of his mind...”
“I see what you’re getting at,” the Professor said. “He’s got whatever he dreams of in here. Why would he want to leave?”
“Now you’re getting it,” the scientist beamed. “A gilded cage of his own making. That’s why he’s still here.”
“Naturally,” the Professor said.
“So, why’re you still here?” Bruce pointed an accusing finger toward the green tower of might before him. “Why are you still inside your cage?”
“Okay, I’ll bite, Banner,” the Professor growled. “Why am I still in my cage?”
Bruce and the Professor glared hard at one another, until the smaller scientist finally broke the stare-down contest and gazed at the woman sitting on the picnic blanket next to them. Turned away from the green giant, Bruce Banner squatted down next to the beauteous woman beside them - gazing upon her features as if he were inspecting a sample in a microscope. “Wonderful likeness, isn’t it?”
The Professor cocked an eyebrow, his eyes growing wide with rage. “What?”
“This woman. Sitting here,” the scientist said, gazing at the smiling form of Betty Banner. “Wonderful likeness of my wife, wouldn’t you say?”
“The hell do you mean?” the Professor snarled, circling around toward Bruce. “That’s Betty you’re talking about!”
“Looks like her. Talks like her. Breathes like her,” the scientist inhaled sharply. “Even smells like her.”
“Get the hell away from my wife,” the Professor growled, his features darkening as he brought his face mere inches from Bruce’s. “I won’t ask you again.”
The scientist met the behemoth’s steely gaze with one of his own. In a low, angry growl, Bruce Banner replied: “My wife. Is dead. You lovesick idiot.”
“GODDAMN YOU, BANNER!” the angry Professor shrieked, backhanding the tiny man in a furious rage. Bruce Banner’s body flew effortlessly across the hill, slamming hard against the tumbling grass. The small, fragile scientist’s body contorted in several sickening, unnerving directions as his frame drug a long, hideous crater against the grassy landscape.
Like a hungry, rabid dog, the Professor launched after Bruce, pummeling at him over and over, slamming the helpless scientist farther and farther away from the love of his life, until the Professor finally stopped as a sudden, knowing calm washed over him. He gazed upon the wreckage he’d made of the grassy knoll and, with a thought, undid the labyrinth of craters he’d made of the once-beauteous hillside.
The Professor panted - angrily chiding himself for letting Banner goad him into that kind of action - and slumped into a sitting position against the gnarled grass. He slammed a massive green fist into the ground out of frustration, just as Bruce’s shattered body crawled its way out of the wreckage beside the sitting Professor. The broken corpse hideously shifted and contorted itself together until it had fully reassembled into the slim, frail form of Bruce Banner. Only slightly worse for the wear, of course.
Bruce Banner adjusted his broken glasses, wiped a smear of blood off of his scuffed-up face, and smiled smugly. “See? Lying to yourself doesn’t really get you anywhere. You just end up beating yourself up for it.”
The Professor gazed down at Bruce Banner, glowering. “You know, Banner. Sometimes...I really fucking hate you.”
“Really?” the scientist said, “No kidding. Never could have guessed that one. You’re far too brilliant for me, Professor.”
Bruce dusted off his lab coat and walked over to the sitting green giant, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “When you’re all done feeling sorry for yourself, we could really use you in the real world. Until then, have fun with your Galatea.”
The angry scientist trudged off across the hillside, disappearing in a wisp of unsettled dreams. The Professor stood up, pumping his fists open and closed in a dismal effort to calm himself down, and trudged toward the still-sitting form of his late wife.
As the battered hillside reassembled itself in his wake, the Professor sat down on the picnic blanket with the most beautiful woman in his world.
The woman that - despite the entire argument between himself and that puny, intruding scientist - hadn’t moved a fraction of an inch.
“Just you and me now, Gala--Betty,” he said, stroking her chin.
The thought-form of Betty Banner smiled up at him with loving, yet lifeless eyes. A tear rolled down his cheek, terminating at his chiseled-green jaw line. Anguish colored his features as he sighed heavily, brushing a stray hair from out of her eyes.
“Just you and me.”
# # # # # # # # # #
Avengers Mansion
The Bedroom of Doctor Robert Bruce Banner
Everything Not Zen
Doctor Robert Bruce Banner awoke with a start.
“Jesus!” he breathed out, listening to the beeping of his armband. Glancing down, he saw the black armband’s digital display flashing bright-bright green. “Goddamnit!”
Cursing himself for drifting off to sleep, Bruce Banner gritted his teeth and focused on his breathing. Pushing away all the thoughts of the Hulks, of cages, of deserts, and of Betty. Pushing away all but the most serene of influences, the gamut of relaxing scenes he’d trained his mind to play during times like this. Relaxing symphonies, and concertos. Soothing physics equations, and puzzles to solve.
Anything to keep the Hulks - any of them - at bay.
BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP!
BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP!
BEEP-BEEP! BEEP-BEEP!
BEEP-BEEP. BEEP-BEEP!
BEEP-BEEP. BEEP-BEEP.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
BEEP.
BEEP.
BEEP.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Beep.
Bruce let out a long, relaxed sigh, collapsing against the yoga mat in a sweaty huff. “That was too close.”
He focused on relaxing, taking deep regular breaths for a full three and a half minutes before sitting up, promptly chastising himself for nearly losing control.
Toweling off, he walked over to his worktable and noticed something new.
A simple, nondescript white envelope.
Snail mail, he thought. For me? At Avengers Mansion?
He regarded the envelope suspiciously, rolling his eyes at the lack of return address and the astoundingly-pristine penmanship of the letter-writer.
No. Not suspicious at all, he mused sarcastically. Why would it be?
Picking it up, he slowly slid his finger through the top, neatly slicing through the lip of the envelope. Curious, he unfolded the letter that lay tucked neatly inside. A picture caught the light suddenly as it slid out from within the letter, falling gently to the floor.
However, it was the contents of the letter itself, which left Bruce Banner’s eyes nearly popping out of his skull:
Bruce,
Don’t fret, old friend. Your pretty Betty is still alive. The government creatures have been lying to you.
Regards,
Mr. Blue.
Bruce’s breath caught heavy in his throat. The scent of her perfume hung heavy on the note.
However, laying face-up on the floor, was the picture that had been nestled so snugly inside Mr. Blue’s letter.
A picture of Betty Banner, naked as the day she was born. Suspended in a catatonic state in some bizarre cryonic chamber. In a dark laboratory, with a timestamp no more than five days old.
Government markings. On the walls.
Bruce Banner’s brown eyes went wide, a hushed whisper upon his lips. And then, they went green.
# # # # # # # # # #
Next Issue: Questions abound as we delve into the mystery: How is Betty alive? Didn’t the Abomination kill the crap out of her? Who’s been hiding her? Is there a conspiracy? Plus, does Bruce Banner finally transform into the INCREDIBLE HULK, or doesn’t he?? And which Hulk does he become, anyway? You’ll have to read the next issue to find out, gentle reader.
Unless you want Hulk to smash.