The Story of Bruce Banner/Hulk (Marvel Cinematic Universe)

Chase of Bruce Banner: Returning Home

Having escaped from the Pingo Doce factory and reverting back to normal, Bruce awoke in the jungle the morning after the incident, soaking and freezing cold. Spotting an oncoming car, Banner asked for help, only to learn he was no longer in Brazil but had made it all the way to Guatemala. The driver agreed to take Banner to a nearby town, which he thanked him for as the driver wrapped the freezing cold Banner up in a blanket.

Taking the advice of Mr. Blue to gather more information on the incident that started his transformations, in order to research a more effective cure, Banner slowly made his way back to the United States, while passing through Chiapas, Mexico, where he became a beggar and received alms to help pay for his journey. Banner managed to buy himself stretchy clothes but suffered nightmares about Emil Blonsky shooting at him.

Within seventeen days, Bruce made enough money and managed to return to the United States of America, heading to Culver University where he knew his research was being kept. While he was still keeping a low profile and hiding behind a Culver University Press newspaper, Banner saw that Betty Ross had continued working at the university and was dating another man, a psychiatrist named Leonard Samson, and Banner quietly left there without being seen.

Bruce paid a visit to his old friend Stanley Lieber, who agreed to give him a place to stay at his pizza parlor. As they sat down for a catch-up, Banner insisted that everything Thaddeus Ross and the government had said regarding his fugitive status was untrue, with Lieber responding that he had never believed the news regarding Banner. They then briefly discussed Ross and her relationship with Samson before Lieber agreed to grant Banner some pizza in order to infiltrate the university as a pizza delivery man.

Using Stanley's pizzas, Bruce returned to the university and attempted to sneak past a security guard to recover his research, claiming that there was somebody upstairs who had ordered a pizza. When the security guard refused to let him pass without clearance, Bruce claimed he risked being fired if he did not collect payment and offered the guard a box of pizza he had not been able to collect on, with the guard accepting the pizza and allowing Bruce access into the university.

Having made it upstairs, Bruce looked inside a room and recalled it once being the same space where they had worked on the Bio-Tech Force Enhancement Project before everything had gone terribly wrong. Entering the room, Banner bribed Roger Harrington with the pizza and logged on to the computer using Dr. Ross' password. Discovering that all the data regarding the project had been deleted, Banner contact Mr. Blue and notified him that the data no longer existed.