tushanshu | 05 ☣ TEXT & VOICE;

[He contains his frustration enough to say evenly,] They're not aliens like you're thinking of. They were huge, mindless, and trying to destroy Manhattan. And end the world. The property damage was a little incidental at that point.

Look, I don't want to argue this with you.

[Especially because she sounds like the voice of self-doubt and criticism in his mind, whispering that excusing even this one incident, which had helped saved the world, arguably done only good, was setting him on the wrong path. That nothing good could ever come out of the Hulk and all of his recent progress with control was a delusion. Bruce had been battling that voice his entire life, and only very recently begun to get the slightest inch of ground.]

Okay, that makes sense, I guess. But why didn't you stay to try to help clean up?

After what you just said, you really think me sticking around is the best idea?

[A pause. He has a point.]

I get it. There's no right choice, so you choose the less wrong one. As long as you remember that it's not your friend.

[Despite his best efforts, his voice tightens as he says,] How could I forget that, Hayley?

In my experience, it's pretty easy if you stop trying.

[Because it's so easy for abusers to look the other way and be pitied and supported.]

[Considering he actively argues with anyone that tries to pity or support him...]

It's been ten years and I've never stopped. [He speaks flatly, not out of a desire to defend himself-- he doesn't owe her an explanation-- but just because it's such an obvious truth. Bruce lives with it every day, has lived with it every day of those ten years.]

Not like that.

[Whenever he's tried to stop, it's been through taking his own life. Even that wasn't allowed to him.]

[Hayley's quiet for a beat, then says with the utmost softness and sincerity:] Thank you.

[He feels his heart tighten at her thanks. Part of him appreciates it, and part of him resents it. Mostly, what he resents is her identification of him with abusers. Bruce feels a deep, confused pain at the idea that he's already the very thing he's been trying so hard to prevent, and maybe it's the accumulation of everything he's been through lately, but his walls are still partially down and he can't let it stand.]

I'm not like that, [he protests, but quietly, almost like he's speaking to himself. Convincing himself, pained.] I've never hurt anyone that I could...

[That he could prevent. Suddenly he's disgusted with himself, voice low and simmering with self-hatred.] Never mind. It's an excuse. I know what I am.

[His father had told him enough times that he could never forget.]

[Hayley doesn't feel guilty for her words, or for trying to make sure that Bruce is on the right path, but it's important that he understands what she means. She shakes her head, even though he can't see it.]

You aren't that guy. But he- it is. And unfortunately for you? You're the only one who can stop it. If you ever forget that, that's when it will hurt the people you care about and that is what I'm trying to prevent. And you are too. That's good, Bruce.

[Because she wants him to see that he is doing good work.]

Edited (pronouns) 2013-10-01 19:18 (UTC)

[He's silent for a few moments before he decides to respond instead of simply quitting the conversation.]

I used to think that. That it, he, wasn't me. I tried to tell myself that, not to... to absolve responsibility, I've never done that, but because it would mean that wasn't who I was.

[With utter finality,] It's just another excuse. I know what he is and where he comes from, and it's me. Everything he does--

[He breaks off, faltering, even more self-disgust lacing his voice, but matched with a kind of resigned acceptance. It was impossible to deny that conclusion, after ten years of dodging it. Bruce had finally had it irrevocably proven to him.]

[Another short silence as Hayley contemplates his words, then she sounds almost awed when she speaks. There's a resoluteness in her voice, as if she's made a decision about him previously lacking.]

Do you have any idea how lucky you are? Most abusers have this sort of like, dichotomy? There's the nice guy that's supposed to be a good person, that does charity work and who everyone loves and whatever. Then there's the dark side that they secretly love, the one who beats people and steals childhoods. But in most of them, it's all blurred lines and gray area, right? It's one guy who claims he can't control it, who uses the good to cover for the bad and he can get away with that because usually no one knows.

But for you.. You have this like, totally separate entity that represents all those things. I mean, yeah, obviously it's really terrible that it exists and that you can't just kill yourself to get rid of it, but.. There's nothing gray or blurry about it. You know exactly what's your own and what's his.

[Her excitement picks up a little as she continues.]

It's like.. It's like the guy that abused you is living inside of you. I mean, it's still you, I know. But you can separate from it. If you can learn to control it completely? He'll probably always be there, but you don't have to be that monster. You can just be Bruce Banner for the rest of your life.

Edited (cw) 2013-10-02 00:34 (UTC)

[At first, he's trying to keep it together. Emotionally distance himself from the sound of her voice, soft and young, awed at his revelation. It was a revelation, a major shift in the way he thought about himself, his place in the world, and who he was. But it's different hearing someone else say what he's thinking himself, especially when she gets the most fundamental aspect, the most crucial thing, blatantly and totally wrong.

His abuse isn't meant to be spoken about. Bruce himself still hasn't said the word, never applied it to himself. He's not an abuser, and if he pretends hard enough, it's almost like he hasn't been abused, either. In any case, Hayley might know it happened, but that was an unwitting fluke and he wished he could erase it from existence. No amount of personal connection was enough to make up for her knowing.

In a low, terse voice, made all the more disconcerting from how it emerges from the silence without any visual to accompany it, he asserts,] No part of me is my father.

[It's so difficult for him to physically speak the word father that he can't manage anything else. Only seven bare words in response to her monologue, complete refusal. Bruce hates the Hulk, and he wishes he could be rid of the whole mess entirely, but the Hulk has never been an abuser. He's a mindless, destructive force; nothing so deliberately cruel and monstrous as his father. He's a monster, but he's never gone that far.]

[Hayley's quiet. She knew Bruce was abused, but had never connected exactly who it was. His final admittance of the fact and the immediate and stifling parallels between them caused the girl to actually be speechless. Hayley knew how much she dreaded comparing anyone to her own father, let alone accepting that any part of her was a product of his doing. To have done that to Bruce, unintentional or not, was unforgivable and she knew it.

'No, you're not;' 'I'm sorry;' 'I didn't realize.' All the words that come to mind seem so insignificant and devastatingly wrong that it takes her some time before she offers the only thing she can, the least wrong of all possible options.]

Because we make sure we're not. [Not them. She can't help but include herself, the extremely rare vulnerable truth among the sea of insincerity that is Hayley's life.] It's a choice, Bruce. One you make everyday.. and one you can keep making.

[That she doesn't keep arguing with him, tacitly accepts the correction, is a sudden, huge release of tension that had been building him. Bruce was two seconds from hanging up in order to contain his reaction to what they were talking about, knowing no other way to prevent his mounting heart rate. He's staring at his wrist monitor, watching the numbers climb slowly, now leveling off and holding steady.]

I've never needed anyone to tell me that, [he counters almost harshly, unable to speak about this without approaching it defensively. He's so vulnerable just mentioning it peripherally, and here it's so direct it has the potential to cripple him, set him back ten paces on his acceptance.

There's something brittle to his tenor.] I've been doing this a lot longer than you. I've always made that choice.

[He has a point. If she weren't, well, Hayley, then he would be a great person to learn from, a person to pass along his wisdom as she swallows her own experiences. Instead, being Hayley, she remains determined to help him. The thought of an alternative briefly crosses her mind, but it's dismissed. He needs her more than she needs him.

His defensiveness is easily ignored. She would be the same way in the reverse, as she has been before, and so she doesn't take it personally and feels no need to address it.]

I know. But I know that people tell you maybe you can have a different kind of life too, and you want to believe them because you're so tired of making that choice. There isn't another choice. Not for us.

[Bruce doesn't need anyone. He's stubbornly adamant on that. Even the people he'd like to have around, he doesn't need. He's always done without and just because he has some uncommon luxuries while he's here doesn't mean that's changed. Bruce operates on his own, because the scant amount of times he's been given the alternative, he's had the rug swept out from under him.

He's learned not to depend on anyone else anymore. He won't get to keep them.]

What other kind of life? [he asks critically, and somewhat impatiently, uncharacteristic as that is for him. Bruce actively argues with anyone that tries to show him sympathy for is situation, so to say Hayley's preaching to the choir is an understatement.]

I don't have to run. I can be honest. [Here, and apparently in the future back home, with SHIELD's protection.] Maybe I can learn some control. But that's it-- what else is going to change?

I don't need your advice.

[The stubbornness is hardly new, but his flat out rejection of her input is and it takes Hayley a moment to reevaluate. She wraps her hands around her neck to make herself feel better, less careful with her movements when knowing they can't be seen.]

I hope you're right.

[Because his return sounds a little too comfortable with the other guy and that's the last thing that Hayley wants, for Bruce to believe it's not the monster he's otherwise insisted it is. Not everyone can be strong all the time, after all.]

[Stubbornness has always been Bruce's foremost obstacle in anything. It took extraordinary bull-headed determination to hold onto specific ideas for as many years as he had, and part of what enabled that was his ability to block out input from others absolutely.

He has a slew of justifications in any circumstance for why he should. They don't know him well enough (something he ensured was the case), they weren't as smart as him and couldn't understand (true of almost the entire population), they'd never experienced the Hulk firsthand (another thing he actively avoided), they weren't the ones living with it... Hayley was too young, too untrustworthy, and too close to the topic at hand.

It's no effort for him whatsoever to reject her influence as much as he's ever rejected anyone else's, positive or negative. Just as he isn't willing to listen to her, Bruce isn't willing to listen to anyone telling him he isn't a monster, either. He's starting to conclude that he's somewhere in between, not human and not inhuman. Unfortunately, that's no help to him whatsoever.

But he also doesn't want to be mean to her. Just because he shut her down doesn't mean he has to be cruel.] I can manage fine on my own, [he assures her, softer in tone.] But thanks for... not telling anyone. [It isn't lost on him that, as far as he knows, neither one of them has broken their agreement.]

[It again surprises her, another turn. Receiving rejection and kindness is tow is so stiflingly unfamiliar that his soft words make her all the more uncomfortable. She's quiet at first, but then continues with the same tone and determination as before.]

I know you can, but you're not on your own anymore.

[Hayley isn't referring to herself. She's referring to Annabeth, who helped set up the garden. To Tony, who she knows Bruce spends time in the lab with. To.. well, whoever else Bruce's friends are. She's never found a reason to keep track and so doesn't care to remember them, but Bruce's inability to run here means that he's not as alone as he'd like to believe. Not anymore.]

You know what you're doing and the last thing you want is for me to keep talking, I know, but I'd feel bad if you did something you could never forgive yourself for and I didn't take the time to warn you beforehand. That's it, okay? So.. thank you, for actually listening.

[And she means it. Even if he ignores her, his taking the time to hear her out is refreshingly considerate. After a beat, her tone shifts to one slightly more solemn.]

I wouldn't tell anyone, even if I hated you. You know that.

[He knows he's not alone anymore. That's been made abundantly clear to him. He just isn't sure how he feels about that-- or how he should feel about it, and how much he should accept it. And he's not convinced that Hayley's giving him unsolicited advice out of the goodness of her heart, or for anything more than selfish motives, indulging her own desire for control.

Bruce might not be alone anymore, but that doesn't mean he's going to grant anyone else the ability to help him. That decision is still under debate. He's taken small, piecemeal steps, calculated risks with specific individuals in specifically determined circumstances. Wholly opening up, though, that's something he's not yet done except under duress, which he's shortly regretted later.]

That could change any second-- me not being alone. [It's dangerous to depend on anyone.] You can help me when you let me help you. I'm not a charity case. [It's his normal, level pointedness, not the edged defensiveness of earlier.]

And no, I didn't know that. [She'd been the first person alive right now that knew, with Tony at this point the second. Bruce hadn't had any idea what to expect; had tried to avoid admitting it'd happened at all. In an effort to keep things as civil as they have been, he expresses some of that as best he can, his voice turning toneless.] The last time someone knew was something like twenty-five years ago.

[The only reason he hasn't shut her down on it already, ten times over, is that Bruce has difficulty being that overtly dismissive to another victim, especially a young girl.]

[His dismissive reply is half-expected at this point and she actually smiles about him not being a charity case, knowing he can't see it. Bruce is about the farthest thing from a charity case that she can think of, so it's actually amusing to hear him state it so outright. His remark about helping her is unexpected though. If she didn't know better, she would guess Bruce was intentionally trying to keep her off balance.

Hiding that humor from her tone, she replies with increased nonchalance.] I don't need help. Besides, the one time I thought I might? You did let me stay, so.

[That's as much as he's getting on that subject. To the latter, her own tone becomes dismissive, her own form of defensiveness.] Come on, Bruce. I won't tell anyone for the same reason you won't. There are just some lines you don't cross.

[Unless they have to be crossed, of course. Hayley full well knows, deep down somewhere, that she would tell people if it was necessary to help Bruce do what was right. But she's still entirely sincere when she says she won't, believing such a justifiable circumstance to be so rare as to deem it nigh impossible.]

[He wants her off balance to the extent that it'll get her off his case, but getting Hayley to let something go is like convincing a dog away from a trail it's scented. She always loops back around to the things he doesn't want to talk about. Bruce isn't too good a person to use slightly combative tactics to put her off if he can, though he doesn't like to use them unnecessarily. His compassion is either his weakness or his saving grace, depending on how fatalistic he's feeling at that exact moment.

Right now, he's itching to be done with anything touching so close to old wounds, but he's not all that fatalistic. He's trying, seemingly futilely, to deter her without being aggressive.]

I'm not looking for help either, [he says firmly, carefully dancing around whether or not he needs it.] So we're even. I just-- wasn't sure. This is, come on, you can't tell me you've ever had a conversation with someone like this before.

[She must know what he means without him explaining it. Bruce certainly has never spoken this frankly to someone else on his childhood, however unintentionally they'd fallen into this accord.]

['So we're even.' Hayley actually understands that sentiment, appreciating its finality in a way that his more aggressive and overt statements failed to produce. She's oblivious to the kindnesses he grants her, the softening of verbal blows and attempts to maintain when he might normally have withdrawn already. Instead, all she sees are the results and, as such, it's that much easier to end the line of thought without comment.]

I don't know what you mean. I actually run around telling everybody. [Sarcasm comes easier than anything else and, somehow, they know each other well enough to understand each others' deflections, dryness, and humor in a strange way. Hayley knows that he'll take the words for what they are rather than any form of dismissing.]

[Thank God. Bruce will take sarcasm-based multi-level conversations over discussing the very real necessity of his self-hatred any day.]

Right. People like us, we're big communicators. Can't wait to have an honest conversation. [The sarcasm might as well be dripping off his words. There aren't many people Bruce feels free to expose to the real depths of his flippant dark humor, but Hayley is one of them.

It's not that he lies much in regular conversation-- he really tries not to. But in terms of emotional honesty, he's been perpetuating intricate deceptions to keep himself at a distance since the earliest age at which he could manage it.]

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