Holly Potter and the Midlife Crisis (Hp x Mcu) by Enigmaris

Chapter 11: Horcruxes and Hulks

Summary:

Bruce is having an off day and Holly knows from personal experience that the best way to get out of one's head is to go and help someone. Holly just had no idea what sort of help Bruce would want to offer.

Everyone has off days. That's what people always say isn't it?

"Oh, I'm having an off day."

It's how they wave off a frown, a curt response or a mistake. Simple. Easy. Clean. No one questions someone having an off day. It happens. You forget, you forgive. Mistakes are wiped away with just a few words, hurt feelings let go with the barest explanation.

Bruce doesn't get to have off days. Days where he has a nightmare and didn't sleep well, days where he's jumpy and prone to lashing out. Those days aren't for him. He isn't allowed the privilege, the freedom of it. An off day means a destroyed city and dead children. An off day calls out the military and destroys one more place that he's found to rest his head. He told Cap once that he was always angry, but that it was more than that. Bruce was a man who had so much inside of him and it never had anywhere to go.

Not that Bruce had been one to express himself before the lab accident.

Thoughts like these circled Bruce's head as he sipped his tea and tried to pretend that everything was fine. There wasn't any reason for him to be feeling like this. He'd been sleeping, but not well. He'd felt hot all night long, his dreams had seeped out through his pores drenching him in sweat. He'd been so wet that for a moment he'd been convinced it wasn't sweat but blood. In the back of his mind there was a rumble and a complaint.

A spike of pain through his head. Green traveled up from his bones and into his flesh, into his blood, into his skin. Bruce took in a deep breath and pushed it down. Down deep so far that it almost hurt. That's where the hulk belonged, in the dark and far from reach. A monster to be chained and blocked for safety. No matter how much it ached. Because something in him ached today.

Bruce was a scientist, first and foremost. He knew that describing the pain in him as if a part of his soul was being carved and chopped up with every second, he kept the hulk at bay wasn't helpful. This pain was fake, something conjured up by his mind or perhaps something sent by the hulk. It wasn't real. The human body couldn't feel pain like this. There weren't the nerves in the center of the body that could replicate this. Bruce had seen the diagrams. He might not have been that kind of doctor but he could still read.

His hand shook so much he spilled hot tea.

Bruce closed his eyes and focused on the burning coming from his knuckles. That was real, that was present. Real was good. Very little seemed real today. He needed real, valid, provable. His hand hurt because he'd spilled hot tea on it. Observation, Hypothesis, Test. It was all there. It was all he wanted. All he needed.

"Bruce?"

He nearly jumped out of his skin at the voice being directed at him. He turned his head to see Holly Potter looking at him in a way that made it clear she'd been trying to get his attention for a while.

"Yes?"

"There's leftover risotto in the fridge. Smells like it's going off. Mind if I bin it?"

"Go ahead."

"Great." She said turning to leave Bruce alone. She paused. "Are you okay?"

"Just having an off day."

He expected her to scoff and tell him that she knew exactly what he meant even when she definitely didn't. He wanted her to do that. He should be alone. No one should ever understand or even try. Betty had tried and look where that had gotten them. To his surprise she moved a little closer to him and lifted a hand as if she was going to check for a fever. Her hand paused in mid-air as she thought better of it.