Imagine If You Assembled The Avengers: Volume 3

Snapped (Banner x reader)

"If we do this, how to do we know it's gonna end any differently than it did before?"

Bruce looked around the room at the group that barely represented the Avengers anymore, with Tony now all but completely shattered and heavily sedated and Thor teetering on the brink of joining him. Steve and Natasha were like he had never seen them before, uncertain and almost timid compared to the strength they each once carried with ease. Rhodey was covering his fear with prime sarcastic wit, while Rocket looked at James as if he had found his attitude's soulmate for the first time. As well as he could read this group, Bruce also worried that they could see equally through him; he was barely a shell of his former self, hollowed and eviscerated after the snap that took so many from the universe. He couldn't bring himself to say it aloud, and he would deny it if asked directly, but he didn't care much for those who were gone; not in the way he should, or the way he wanted to. He only cared that Thanos took away the one good thing in his life, the one constant, the one who saw him for him, and who was equally loved by the unlovable enormous green rage monster.

He dared to take you.

~~~

Years before, in what felt like an eternity now, Bruce had met you under less than ideal conditions, in a beaten and bare shelter in Calcutta that was a risky choice on your part given that it could never withstand the Hulk had he transformed. He was lured there by a young girl pleading for his help for her father, only to find you standing in the hut alone and waiting for him after a perfectly executed plan.

"Who are you?"

"(Y/N) (Y/L/N)."

"Are you here to kill me, Miss (Y/L/N), because that's not gonna work out so well for...everyone," Bruce answered nervously, his hands gently wringing together. Even within himself he couldn't tell if his anxiety was from holding the other guy back or from the attraction to you that he was trying to deny; he doesn't often get what he wants, after all.

"No, of course not," you reassured, "I'm here on behalf of SHIELD."

"SHIELD," he scoffed with a hint of disappointment in someone he had yet to know. His mind instantly began to race, feeling the energy within himself building and knowing that anger that would be soon to follow if he couldn't keep his own imagination under control. You had told him that it was just the two of you there, but as much as he wanted to trust you, he was far too smart for that, and he didn't need even one of his seven PhD's to see that you were playing him to get your way. Somehow though, he honestly didn't mind the game you had presented for him to join.

An opportunity to save the world was secondary, and not nearly enough to have been the reason for him to so readily follow you onto the helicarrier that brought him into the team which would become his dysfunctional family. Saving the world was noble and he felt that he owed it in repayment for the terrors that his alter ego had left as a recent legacy; what he cared more about now was that he knew he saw a glimmer of interest in your eyes, and not the fear that he was used to receiving every day. He saw a hint of hope of what could be, and for the first time in as long as he could recall, he felt truly brave because it would take every ounce that he had to follow you into any battle you asked of him.

But once you were all together in the same room for the first time, floating perilously over the Earth with Loki waiting for his moment to destroy what was barely created, he was only scared of one thing; his mind began to doubt you and he hated the feeling. He hated the feeling of hating you before he had a chance to prove himself completely wrong.

"Did you know about this?" Bruce snapped at you as you entered the lab, pointing to the screen filled with weapons that SHIELD had been perfecting through the Tesseract. It was damming evidence that Fury could no longer deny, thanks to Stark.