Bruce Banner (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hyperkinesia) wrote2016-05-31 03:50 pm
hyperkinesia) wrote2016-05-31 03:50 pm
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Name: Ricks
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E-Mail: srpontvianne@gmail.com
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Other Characters: N/A
Character Name: Bruce Banner (The Hulk)
Series: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Timeline: Post-Age of Ultron
Canon Resource Link: Bruce Banner (Hulk)
Avengers (team)
The Incredible Hulk (movie)
The Avengers (movie)
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Other relevant appearances and references belonging to the same universe, which will be mentioned during the app:
The Incredible Hulk: The Fury Files (comic)
The Avengers: The Avengers Initiative (comic)
Character History: Robert Bruce Banner was born on December 18, 1969, though he started going by his middle name once he grew up. While he was in college, he met and started dating Betty Ross. After they graduated, they went on to work together at Culver University as instructors, where Bruce met Erik Selvig, another instructor at the same institution.
Both Bruce and Betty were recruited by the US Army to work on a top-secret project, overseen by General Thaddeus Ross, Betty's father. They were told they were working on radiation resistance, but what they didn't know was that the project was actually an attempt to recreate the results of Project Rebirth, from which Captain America came to be, therefore making a new generation of Super Soldiers by mixing bio-engineering and gamma radiation.
Bruce was so confident in his work that he decided to test it on himself to prove its worth. But instead of the desired effects, with the combination of (unknown to Bruce) the replication of the Super Soldier serum and the lethal doses of gamma radiation, he suffered through a violent transformation. This was the first time that Bruce turned into the Hulk, a huge, green-skinned and muscled monster, about 10 feet tall and easily 1500 pounds in weight, an alter ego who, unlike Bruce, seems to have very little intelligence but possesses unbelievable amounts of strength, stamina and resistance and is driven by fits of extreme rage.
Hulk destroyed the entire lab with no care for the people there whatsoever, attacking, amongst others, General Ross and even Betty, who had to be hospitalized. Later on, regressed from his transformation, Bruce tried to visit Betty at the hospital but was confronted by her father. He made him leave and told him that the Armed Forces would be going after him, forcing Bruce to go on the run. At some point while on the run, Bruce traveled to Greenland and tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the mouth. That triggered a transformation, and the Hulk sank to the bottom of the ocean, then proceeded to walk along it until he reached land.
During this time, Bruce was approached by Nick Fury while he was at a bar. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s director tried to offer him a beer but Bruce refused, saying he was a mean drunk. Fury's attempts to earn Bruce's trust proved to be futile, so instead he decided to test his abilities. Provoked by other two undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agents at the bar, Bruce got punched and turned into the Hulk, promptly destroying the entire bar. Fury was surprised by the transformation, and then tried to reason with the Hulk to get him to calm down, but in response he only yelled at him, breaking nearly all the glass in the room with just that. Fury remained unmoving, and Hulk ran out through the wall. After this incident, Fury qualified the Hulk as only a secondary threat. (The Incredible Hulk: The Fury Files)
Bruce eventually settled in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, keeping a low profile job as a worker in a bottling factory, while keeping contact with an anonymous internet friend, Mr. Blue, who was trying to help him find a cure for his condition. He also focused on learning martial arts and breathing techniques to learn how to control his emotions and heart rate. He had not suffered a transformation in five months.
While working at the factory, Bruce cut his finger and blood dripped onto the assembly line. He thought to have found the drop of blood, but he didn't see that another bit of it had fallen into a bottle, which was then filled with soda and later on drank by an unfortunate consumer in Milwaukee. Learning of this incident, General Ross discovered Bruce's location and sent in a team to capture him, led by operations expert Emil Blonsky. Bruce managed to evade the team through the streets of the favela where he lived, but was confronted by a group of men who beat him up. In a rage, Bruce turned into the Hulk, who then proceeded to dispatch not only that group of men, but also Blonsky's team, before he finally disappeared through the forests, and when Bruce came to himself, he was in Guatemala.
Determined to find this cure, Bruce returned to the United States, where he found that Betty, recovered from her injuries, was back to working at Culver University and dating psychiatrist Leonard Samson. He decided to keep his distance and not let her know he was back, and focused on working on his cure. With help of his friend Stanley, a pizzeria owner, he pretended to be a delivery boy to sneak past a security guard so he could retrieve all data from his research to show Mr. Blue, but when he got there, he saw that all the information was gone. Back to Stanley's pizzeria, Betty saw him as he came in, even though he quickly made a run for it. But later on Betty followed him in her car and they reunited, and after he returned to her house with her, she gave him a flash drive with the missing pieces of their research - all that she could salvage before the army got their hands on it.
Samson, worried about Betty, alerted General Ross of Bruce's presence, and he sent out a team to again try and capture him. Blonsky, with his thirst for both power and revenge, volunteered as a test subject on the still ongoing Super Soldier project, and set off with said team to fight the Hulk. Feeling cornered, Bruce swallowed the flash drive with the data so that they wouldn't find it. It didn't take long for him to turn into Hulk, and then going toe to toe with Blonsky who, thanks to the serum, could actually keep up with the monster. They then trapped the Hulk with two ultrasonic weapons, but when he heard Betty's screams of distress, he overcame the weapons and destroyed both tanks. Blonsky tried to go up against him again, but the Hulk smashed him against a tree, breaking nearly every bone in his body. General Ross called for aerial attack, unknown to him that Betty had approached the Hulk in hopes to calm him down and have him turn back into Bruce. But as she did so, a helicopter began shooting at him, unaware that she was there too. The Hulk then covered her entirely to stop her from being hit, and as he destroyed the helicopter by flinging a large piece of metal at it and making it crash into the ground, he acted again as a shield to prevent the fire and debris from the explosion to cause her any harm. Much to General Ross's panic and distress, the Hulk emerged from the flames with Betty passed out in his arms, then carried her with him as he ran off to the Smoky Mountain National Forest.
After spending a night in a cave, the Hulk turned back into Bruce, and from there both he and Betty went to a motel, where he could recover the flash drive, find new clothes and regain some strength. He and Betty kissed and almost went further, but as his monitor indicated the increase of his heart rate, he stopped himself in fear of losing control and hurting her. After a while, they decided to head to New York City to meet Mr. Blue, real name Samuel Sterns. Sterns told them he had developed a potential antidote that could either cure Bruce's condition entirely, or simply stop each individual transformation, though in either case an overdose could kill him. Bruce agreed to give it a try anyway, and after being restrained, he was electrically induced into transforming, and then transfused with the antidote halfway through his transformation, which successfully turned him back to normal.
A thrilled Sterns revealed then that he had synthesized Bruce's blood sample into a much larger supply so that he could use what was in it to enhance human abilities. Horrified by what Sterns had been doing, and dreading to see it fall in the wrong hands, Bruce told Sterns he had to destroy everything. Sterns then went on to say he was sounding a little too paranoid, just as Bruce got shot by a tranquilizer from one of General Ross's snipers.
While both Bruce and Betty were taken into custody, Blonsky, who had made a miraculous recovery thanks to the serum and had stayed behind at the lab, threatened Sterns into giving him a transfusion of Bruce's synthetic blood. Curious to see the effects on the man, Sterns was more than happy to agree to it, though he did so only after Blonsky's informed consent, since the combination of the serum and the gamma radiation could turn him into an abomination. Indeed the mix of the two was enough for Blonsky to turn into a monster even bigger than the Hulk, named later as the Abomination, and as he knocked Sterns aside some of Bruce's synthetic blood fell into an open wound on his temple, making his cranium mutate and expand.
The Abomination then went on a rampage through Harlem, wanting to get the Hulk's attention. Knowing that only the Hulk could stop him, Bruce convinced General Ross to let him go, which he agreed, and despite Betty's pleas, Bruce jumped out of the helicopter as it hovered the city in hopes that the fall would be enough to trigger a transformation. He turned into the Hulk, and then went on to fight the Abomination, in a long and brutal battle that the Hulk finally won by strangling the other with a large chain. Betty begged the Hulk to stop before he actually killed the Abomination, which he did. In a moment of recognition, the Hulk looked at her and said her name, then fled the scene while being chased down.
A month after the Harlem incident Bruce arrived at Betty's cabin in Bella Coola, British Columbia. There, he focused on gaining control of not only when to transform, but also how to control the Hulk himself, and restarted his meditative training, through which he could control his own heart rate. As he pushed it higher, his eyes turned green and he smiled, being that the first time he showed to possess some control over the Hulk.
He returned to a life on the run then, traveling from country to country. He at least at some point crossed the border from Pakistan to India, where he turned himself into the Hulk to protect some local residents from an attempted terrorist attack. (The Avengers: The Avengers Initiative) Eventually he settled in Calcutta, India, where he worked as a doctor. He was tricked by a young girl into coming to an abandoned house where Natasha Romanoff was waiting for him. Bruce, of course, was not at all impressed, and then she told him that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been watching him all along, and kept some other people from finding him (meaning General Ross). She informed him that Nick Fury needed him to find the Tesseract, an energy source that S.H.I.E.L.D. had had in their possession but that opened a portal to another part of the universe, through which came Loki and stole it, as he wanted to open a portal much wider to let his Chitauri army through and attack the planet. As the Tesseract emitted a weak gamma signature, and Bruce being an expert on gamma radiation, they needed him to find the artifact. Bruce didn't seem convinced that Nick wasn't interested in the Hulk at all, and screamed at her, "Stop lying to me!!", to which she reacted by pointing a gun at him, afraid that he was going to turn into the Hulk. But then he smiled and leaned back, apologizing and saying that had been mean of him, but he just wanted to see what she would do.
Bruce was then taken to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier, where he first met Steve Rogers, who was soon enough sent out to capture Loki when he had been seen in Stuttgart, Germany. He returned with not only the caught Loki, but also Thor and Tony Stark. Bruce and Tony continued working on finding the Tesseract, at the same time beginning some research on Loki's spear, which seemed to have within it the power to control others. During their time together Tony was shown to ask all kinds of questions about the Hulk, and even trying to poke and prod at Bruce in an attempt to provoke him, though Bruce showed that he did very well in keeping himself under control. Then as they spoke about the team suiting up to fight Loki, Bruce said he would read all about it, but Tony said that maybe he could join them. Bruce then said that was the thing - he didn't get a suit of armor. He was "exposed, like a nerve". Tony went on to tell him that to survive that much gamma radiation, the Hulk must have been the one who wanted to even keep Bruce from dying, implying he had saved Bruce's life for a reason.
Tony, suspicious of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s true purposes, put JARVIS hacking into their computers to find out what Fury wasn't telling them. Steve opposed this, but then Bruce pointed out that if S.H.I.E.L.D. was indeed trying to find a way to use the Tesseract as a means of self-sustainable energy, then it made no sense that they didn't contact Tony at all, who was at the moment the leading name in clean energy. Later on, Fury confronted Tony about hacking their systems to obtain classified information, and just then Steve arrived into the lab after looking around the Helicarrier and finding out that S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to use the Tesseract to power up weapons. Natasha and Thor arrived at the lab and an argument promptly broke out, during which Fury said they were building weapons because of Thor in the first place. Finally the argument ended when Fury told Natasha to escort Bruce out, presumably to the cage they had built for him, except that cage was being occupied by Loki. Bruce lost his patience and said that if the cage, which could be released from the Helicarrier with the push of a button, was an attempt to kill him, it wouldn't work, and then went on to reveal that he had tried shooting himself in the head while on the run but the Hulk simply spat the bullet out. He became more and more agitated as he went on to say he had been doing just fine until Fury dragged him back into the mess and put everyone there at risk. The group grew more and more silent, and as he asked Natasha if she still wanted to know how he stayed calm, Steve gently asked Bruce to put down the scepter. Without even realizing it, Bruce had picked it up from the table and was holding it. Then just in time, the computer beeped, and Bruce put the weapon down and went on to check that the Tesseract had been found. Another argument was about to break as each claimed they were the ones that should reclaim the artifact, Thor saying that its power was too great for any human to handle, but they were cut short. Unknown to them, the scepter was also emitting a kind of energy that the people Loki kept under his control were tracing, and they found the Helicarrier. Clint Barton, under the scepter's control and therefore Loki's orders, led a team as they invaded the Helicarrier, beginning by setting off an explosion near the lab. The shock was enough to get Bruce's heart rate higher than he could control, and despite Natasha's efforts to calm him down he turned into the Hulk, then went after her as she ran away from him. Thor intervened and went toe to toe with the beast, able to hold him back somewhat thanks to his own strength and the power of his hammer, Mjölnir. Eventually the Hulk fell off the Helicarrier when he jumped on a jet, which had been assigned to just get his attention but had gotten too close, and crashed through the roof of an abandoned warehouse. He transformed back into Bruce then, to be greeted by a man that had seen him falling, and who also gave him some clothes. Bruce said it was lucky he hadn't hurt anyone when he fell, but the man said it was more like good aim, since he was awake the whole time - implying that the Hulk tried the best he could to crash into an abandoned area.
Bruce was away from the group for a while after that, and only joined them when they were all already in New York, after Loki had opened the portal and let the Chitauri army through. He arrived just in time to stop one of the Leviathans, massive flying whale-like monsters with hard metallic shells who could carry inside it dozens of Chitauri warriors. He said only that his secret was that he was always angry (though this could only be a more dramatical way to say he could control his own heart rate to force himself into an excited or angered state, as it had been shown before), and then he turned into the Hulk, destroying the creature with one single punch. From then on he joined the fight, smashing his way through several Chitauri warriors perched on the sides of buildings, and helping Thor kill another Leviathan as well. He then headed to the Stark Tower, where Loki had set up the machine that kept the portal open, and beat the demigod into submission, leaving him crushed into the floor and wheezing for air. As the Security Council, the ones in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D., ordered the launch of a missile that would wipe out all of Manhattan, Tony flew it through the portal, destroying the Chitauri mothership, his suit shutting down in the progress. This prompted all the aliens back on Earth to die, presumably by the disruption of some kind of neural link. The Hulk caught Tony as he fell from the skies and once on the ground, screamed in his face to make him wake up.
After the battle was over, Thor returned to Asgard, taking with him the Tesseract and Loki, who would be answering for his crimes. From there, the Avengers were seen each going their separate ways, Bruce joining Tony in one of his sports cars as they drove off. Since he showed that he could keep the Hulk under control, Fury helped Bruce so that he could move around in the world without the fear of being arrested or kidnapped.
For the next few years, Bruce stuck around with the rest of the group, and the Avengers became a more solid and steady team. Through working together on missions and spending time socializing and getting to know each other, they became closer, and Bruce created bonds that he otherwise wouldn't have allowed himself. Aside from Tony, with whom he had gotten along from the start, Bruce developed a particular kind of relationship with Natasha, growing from that of teammates to close friends with clear romantic feelings. Natasha also developed a technique that allowed her to calm down the Hulk and make him transform back into Bruce, which helped a lot during their missions, when a Code Green was called (basically, there was the need for Bruce to transform) and after everything was over it was necessary to stop the Hulk.
After a mission in which they finally recovered Loki's scepter, the whole team made it back on their Quinjet, and Bruce was listening to classical music to calm himself. Natasha came over and told him the lullaby had worked better than ever, and when he showed insecurity about whether he did more good than harm, she tried to get him to see things differently. As she asked him when he would trust her, he just answered it wasn't her he didn't trust.
The team made it back to the Avengers Tower (formerly Stark Tower), and Tony shared with Bruce some of the information he'd managed to find where they'd recovered the scepter. He'd figured out they'd been trying to use the secrets of the scepter to explore artificial intelligence, and he convinced Bruce to continue with the Ultron Program, a permanently active system meant to protect the whole world from any threats, without telling the rest of the team about it. After they left the program decoding on its own, they left to attend a party thrown at the Tower, unaware that in the meantime, Ultron was waking up and viciously attacking JARVIS when he sensed danger and tried to shut Ultron down.
In the meantime, at the party, Bruce kept mostly to himself, eventually making his way over to the bar and sharing a moment with Natasha, in which it was apparently obvious to anyone but Bruce that she was openly flirting with him. Even as Steve later approached him and told him that, Bruce still tried to wave it off by saying it was just how she was, and that it meant nothing. Steve tried to encourage Bruce by telling him that both he and Natasha deserved something good and that he shouldn't let the opportunity for happiness pass him by.
Later on, after the guests left, the team was playing a game in which the team and a few close friends took turns trying to lift Mjölnir. Bruce spent a portion of that time talking to Natasha, and while she didn't want to participate in the game, Bruce did just for fun, pretending to get really mad when he couldn't lift the hammer, but not really coming off as funny as he was hoping to.
They were interrupted when a loud screeching noise came through the speakers, and one of Tony's drones from his Iron Legion came limping out into the room, controlled by Ultron. By his speech alone Bruce was quick to figure out that it was Ultron, and the AI proceeded to send more drones into the room, attacking the team. Natasha dragged Bruce behind a bar and into safety so he wouldn't get triggered, and eventually the fight ended when Thor destroyed Ultron's body.
The team went on to examine what had happened, and Tony learned that Ultron had destroyed JARVIS's mainframe in a fit of rage. Thor became agitated by what Tony and Bruce had done behind their backs and grabbed Tony by the throat, and Tony defended his point of view by claiming he was trying to build a system that would protect the Earth from external threats. Bruce tried to tell Tony to stop arguing when they'd both obviously screwed up, and when Tony criticized Bruce's passive attitude towards the team, Bruce shut him down by pointedly reminding him they'd basically created a murderous AI and let him out into the world. They later learned that Ultron had built himself a new body, and was planning on going to Wakanda to steal Vibranium with the help of Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, superpowered twins from the warring country of Sokovia who held a personal grudge against Tony, and blamed him for their parents' death and a lot of the destruction in their country due to Tony's company's former field of work.
They went to Wakanda to try to stop Ultron from getting his hands on the Vibranium, but the twins took up fighting the team. Bruce stayed in the Quinjet, but Wanda found him and by getting into his head, forced him to turn into the Hulk, and sent him on a rampage through the city of Johannesburg. Tony, as Iron Man, got his Hulkbuster armor and fought with the Hulk, eventually by sheer force and destruction knocking him out, but the damage done to the city had been severe.
The public turned against them for the Hulk's rampage, some even calling for Bruce's arrest, so after regrouping, the Avengers went into hiding, going to a safe house that was actually Clint's home, where the whole team except for Natasha met his wife and kids for the first time. Still devastated by what had happened, Bruce told Natasha they couldn't be together because he would always pose a danger to her. She argued that he wasn't a threat to her, but he sounded doubtful, and he also questioned any potential for a future in their relationship. She showed that it didn't matter, in the process sharing a glimpse of her experiences during her Red Room training, and eventually the conversation ended with the both of them making a vague plan to run away together once they defeated Ultron.
Nick Fury showed up at the farm, much to the team's surprise, who thought him dead. He spoke at length about stopping Ultron, and during the conversation Bruce realized that it was Ultron's purpose to improve his body, to evolve. Remembering Helen Cho's work and the Cradle device she used to reconstruct organic tissue, he suggested they go find her, since he figured that was where Ultron would go. Bruce was brought back to the Avengers Tower by Fury, while Thor left without leaving them much detail as to where, Tony went to the NEXUS base in Oslo to find out who had prevented Ultron from getting his hands on nuclear launch codes, and Steve, Clint and Natasha went on to take the synthetic body from Ultron.
Later on, Tony and Clint came back to the Tower, Clint bringing in with him the synthetic body still in the Cradle, but with the unfortunate news that Natasha had been kidnapped, then left again to search for her. Tony told Bruce that who had kept the nuclear codes from Ultron was none other than JARVIS, and that the AI wasn't actually destroyed as they had thought. Tony tried to get Bruce to help him put JARVIS into the synthetic body. Bruce refused at first, telling Tony it was a bad idea and that this was exactly where it had gone wrong the last time, but Tony told him that this would be the only way they could stop Ultron. Albeit reluctantly, Bruce finally agreed to help him.
Just as they were almost done, Steve showed up with the twins, Wanda and Pietro, and told them to stop what they were doing. Both men refused, with Bruce looking more than just a little angry that Wanda of all people was there and standing by Steve's side. When Steve told them they didn't know what they were doing, Bruce asked Steve if he did, if Wanda herself wasn't in Steve's head. She tried to reason with Bruce, but was cut short when Bruce snapped at her and openly threatened to kill her in a thoughtless fit of anger. The team then started fighting amongst themselves, but then suddenly Thor came in and used his lightning to revive the synthetic body.
The body, now alive, jumped out and came at Thor briefly before he levitated towards one of the windows and just stayed there, looking out over the city. He seemed to show intelligence and a sense of self as he apologized and addressed the team, claiming that he wanted to help them stop Ultron. Thor told them that he had had a vision of this creation and the Mind Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones, that was now in the living body's forehead. The team didn't particularly trust this creation, but seemed surer when he showed he was capable of lifting Mjölnir. Spurred by Thor's own words, they called him 'Vision'.
Finally the team tracked down Ultron in Sokovia, where Natasha was also being held. Most of the team got Ultron's attention by going up against him and his sentinels, so Bruce snuck into his hideout to break Natasha free. Bruce told her he didn't want to turn into the Hulk, and wanted to leave right away instead of helping with the fight. Natasha told him she adored him, pulled him in for a kiss, then shoved him down a well, saying she needed the Other Guy. Bruce emerged as the Hulk moments later, and took Natasha along with him as he jumped and climbed his way up through the flying city of Novi Grad. After landing on solid ground, they each went their separate ways, taking their places in the fight alongside the rest of the team.
The Hulk joined the Avengers to protect the key that could drop the city and cause destruction on a global scale— Ultron's plan all along, as in his eyes the only way to achieve peace was to annihilate the whole of the human race. As Ultron came at them with waves of sentinels, the Hulk engaged with him personally, and ended up chasing him and some of his forces across the city. Far from the battle, Natasha went to look for him later on, but while she was trying to calm him down, she was interrupted when Ultron showed up piloting a Quinjet and started firing at them. The Hulk stood in the way so that Natasha didn't get shot, but now enraged by the attack, he leapt onto the Quinjet, climbed inside and grabbed Ultron, throwing him down onto the ground.
With the battle over and the Avengers safe and having been successful in defeating Ultron, the Hulk stayed in the Quinjet. Natasha tried to contact him via radio, telling him to disable the plane's stealth mode so they could pinpoint his location, but he cut off all communications instead, making it impossible for them to track him due to the jet's cloaking system. The last he was seen, he was flying off to an unknown location— both to the team and likely even himself.
Abilities/Special Powers: In its very core, Bruce is a sort of altered version of what Steve Rogers is, but he differs in the sense that the man, Bruce Banner, shows no visible powers or abilities. However, whenever his heart rate increases to higher levels, or when his emotions get the best of him, most notably anger and any of its variants, he turns into the Hulk. This transformation happens as a result of the crossing between adrenaline and the gamma radiation in his body. It can take him between seconds to several minutes to transform completely, depending on the intensity of the original stimulus, and consequently, the quickness of the initial adrenaline surge. While at first these transformations were beyond his control, he has learned to choose when to have them happen through meditation and training. As the Hulk, Bruce's consciousness is buried deep within, and though he can't control the monster entirely, he can often influence the Hulk's behavior, or at least direct him to where he wants him to be. Still, it's important to mention that, despite the fact that Bruce can increase his own heart rate so that he changes into the Hulk, if he gets caught in a situation of high stress or shock that causes him to lose control of his own state, he'll still transform against his will, even if he tries to keep it from happening. When he transforms in these circumstances, he holds much lesser control over the beast, if any at all.
It's the other guy, the Hulk, who really has the extraordinary abilities, rather than Bruce. First and foremost, he possesses superhuman strength, more than may be expected. He can, for instance, lift cars and throw them as if they weigh nothing. He will rip metal apart like it's made of paper. A normal human stands no chance when going up against him, and even someone like Blonsky, who had been injected with the serum, gets his bones crushed to pieces with just one single kick. He also killed a Leviathan with just one punch, despite the creature's enormous size, weight and hardened shell. His unbelievable physical strength is unmatched save for very few, and it's proportional to his level of adrenaline. So basically, the more he is provoked, the angrier he gets, and the stronger he becomes. Not yet to date has he been pushed to the maximum output of his strength, so as of yet it's not known just how strong he can become, or even if there is a limit to it.
Due to his overly developed muscles, the Hulk is capable of great leaps, not only in height, as he leaps onto walls and from building to building, but also in length, and for long periods of time without tiring. This is especially seen when he runs away most times after he's attacked, and manages to travel across great distances until he is safe and with no one following after him anymore.
The Hulk is also extremely resistant to external aggression. There is hardly anything that can bring him any physical damage, whether it's other people, weapons or simply the environmental conditions. Any and all bullets bounce off of him entirely, and fire hardly affects him either. Temperature differences, from freezing to scorching hot, leave him unfazed, and there is barely anyone who can even match up to his strength, let alone slow him down or hurt him. Even when he fought Thor and he used Mjölnir against him, the hit only served to make him angrier. During his appearances, the Hulk survived multiple caliber bullets being shot at him, ultrasonic waves, explosions, freezing temperatures, energy blasts from Chitauri weaponry, and falls from several heights, highest so far being when he jumped off the Helicarrier and landed in the abandoned warehouse unscathed. Despite this he can still sustain injury, but even then, any damaged areas of his body heal and regenerate much faster and more effectively than any ordinary human. Any bodily harm that comes to Bruce can serve as a trigger for a transformation too, and then the injury will be healed rapidly, as it happened when Bruce tried to shoot himself in the head. His stamina and endurance are also extraordinary in this form, and he can run and fight for very long periods of time. When he is in an enraged state, he can keep this peak of strength for hours on end, and can even grow stronger the angrier he gets.
Third-Person Sample:
Well, he did want to get away, so there was that.
Never mind that out of his choice of places, he certainly wouldn't have picked a pocket universe small enough that he could probably walk from one edge to the other in less than a day. It was far from his world, but he was more trapped here than virtually anywhere else, and he saw the mansion, the gardens, beach and the clear blue skies like a glorified cage of sorts, and it didn't sit well with him. He'd be more alright with it if he didn't happen to be sharing that cage with so many people, people he could and likely would hurt at some point down the line.
But it didn't matter that he couldn't stay here, apparently. It was a decision made for him, and for the foreseeable future, he was stuck here. It wasn't going to stop him from trying to find a way out, though. If not for himself, then at least for everyone else. He could stand to stay here for the rest of his days if it meant being by himself and away from innocent people.
He could also easily ignore how depressing a thought that was. Kind of used to doing that by now, anyway.
Keeping to himself was a difficult task in a place like this, but he was good at it, and he was going to try his best. Using his first few days to explore the areas both outside and inside the mansion, he picked a room as far away from populated areas as possible, and then promptly holed himself up there, or wherever else he could be on his own, trying to start on some work to figure out this place, understand what made it tick, and focus on what might make it stop.
The closets gave him pretty much all he could need, that was a small comfort. It would mean weeks or months might pass before some people in this place even lay their eyes on him, but for all he cared, that was ideal. After Sokovia, after Johannesburg, after... every time he was ripped apart into shreds, he needed to be by himself.
He needed to figure out what of himself was still left, if anything at all. Then he'd start from there.
First-Person Sample:
[ A somewhat disheveled man greets the network, shooting the camera a tired and lethargic look. For a moment his gaze seems unfocused, and the expressions reading over his face make him seem skinnier than he is, the skin a hint dark around the eyes.
But at least he's clean shaven now, so that's a start. ]
Hey. So I've been, uh... looking into things. Quite the set-up we've got here. [ He tries for amused or sarcastic, but it falls flat somewhere in-between. ] My name's Bruce Banner. I've been here for a few days now, so I'll spare you the list of questions you're likely all used to getting by now. Pocket universe, alternate realities, alternate timelines. Different versions of the same people. Through the looking glass. Got it.
[ None of it gives him any peace of mind, but he's used to not getting much of that. ]
I also did a cursory read over the network. Went back a little. [ And by 'a little' he means months, probably. ] I know I've been here before. Or some versions of me, anyway. If anyone here knew those other me's, I'd like to know. I'd also like to know how much exactly you know about me.
[ Not that he's paranoid, but... well, okay, he is. ]
Also, knowing me the way I do, I assume I've done a lot of research on this place, and likely the mirror side if I got the chance. My question is, can anyone tell me where I can find that research, or what's still left of it? Assuming there's anything at all. I don't mind starting from scratch but it'd be nice if I don't have to.
[ He opens his mouth like he's about to add something else, but then just sighs quietly, offering a faint nod. ] Thanks.
DW username:
filiE-Mail: srpontvianne@gmail.com
IM: N/A
Plurk:
Other Characters: N/A
Character Name: Bruce Banner (The Hulk)
Series: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Timeline: Post-Age of Ultron
Canon Resource Link: Bruce Banner (Hulk)
Avengers (team)
The Incredible Hulk (movie)
The Avengers (movie)
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Other relevant appearances and references belonging to the same universe, which will be mentioned during the app:
The Incredible Hulk: The Fury Files (comic)
The Avengers: The Avengers Initiative (comic)
Character History: Robert Bruce Banner was born on December 18, 1969, though he started going by his middle name once he grew up. While he was in college, he met and started dating Betty Ross. After they graduated, they went on to work together at Culver University as instructors, where Bruce met Erik Selvig, another instructor at the same institution.
Both Bruce and Betty were recruited by the US Army to work on a top-secret project, overseen by General Thaddeus Ross, Betty's father. They were told they were working on radiation resistance, but what they didn't know was that the project was actually an attempt to recreate the results of Project Rebirth, from which Captain America came to be, therefore making a new generation of Super Soldiers by mixing bio-engineering and gamma radiation.
Bruce was so confident in his work that he decided to test it on himself to prove its worth. But instead of the desired effects, with the combination of (unknown to Bruce) the replication of the Super Soldier serum and the lethal doses of gamma radiation, he suffered through a violent transformation. This was the first time that Bruce turned into the Hulk, a huge, green-skinned and muscled monster, about 10 feet tall and easily 1500 pounds in weight, an alter ego who, unlike Bruce, seems to have very little intelligence but possesses unbelievable amounts of strength, stamina and resistance and is driven by fits of extreme rage.
Hulk destroyed the entire lab with no care for the people there whatsoever, attacking, amongst others, General Ross and even Betty, who had to be hospitalized. Later on, regressed from his transformation, Bruce tried to visit Betty at the hospital but was confronted by her father. He made him leave and told him that the Armed Forces would be going after him, forcing Bruce to go on the run. At some point while on the run, Bruce traveled to Greenland and tried to kill himself by shooting himself in the mouth. That triggered a transformation, and the Hulk sank to the bottom of the ocean, then proceeded to walk along it until he reached land.
During this time, Bruce was approached by Nick Fury while he was at a bar. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s director tried to offer him a beer but Bruce refused, saying he was a mean drunk. Fury's attempts to earn Bruce's trust proved to be futile, so instead he decided to test his abilities. Provoked by other two undercover S.H.I.E.L.D. agents at the bar, Bruce got punched and turned into the Hulk, promptly destroying the entire bar. Fury was surprised by the transformation, and then tried to reason with the Hulk to get him to calm down, but in response he only yelled at him, breaking nearly all the glass in the room with just that. Fury remained unmoving, and Hulk ran out through the wall. After this incident, Fury qualified the Hulk as only a secondary threat. (The Incredible Hulk: The Fury Files)
Bruce eventually settled in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, keeping a low profile job as a worker in a bottling factory, while keeping contact with an anonymous internet friend, Mr. Blue, who was trying to help him find a cure for his condition. He also focused on learning martial arts and breathing techniques to learn how to control his emotions and heart rate. He had not suffered a transformation in five months.
While working at the factory, Bruce cut his finger and blood dripped onto the assembly line. He thought to have found the drop of blood, but he didn't see that another bit of it had fallen into a bottle, which was then filled with soda and later on drank by an unfortunate consumer in Milwaukee. Learning of this incident, General Ross discovered Bruce's location and sent in a team to capture him, led by operations expert Emil Blonsky. Bruce managed to evade the team through the streets of the favela where he lived, but was confronted by a group of men who beat him up. In a rage, Bruce turned into the Hulk, who then proceeded to dispatch not only that group of men, but also Blonsky's team, before he finally disappeared through the forests, and when Bruce came to himself, he was in Guatemala.
Determined to find this cure, Bruce returned to the United States, where he found that Betty, recovered from her injuries, was back to working at Culver University and dating psychiatrist Leonard Samson. He decided to keep his distance and not let her know he was back, and focused on working on his cure. With help of his friend Stanley, a pizzeria owner, he pretended to be a delivery boy to sneak past a security guard so he could retrieve all data from his research to show Mr. Blue, but when he got there, he saw that all the information was gone. Back to Stanley's pizzeria, Betty saw him as he came in, even though he quickly made a run for it. But later on Betty followed him in her car and they reunited, and after he returned to her house with her, she gave him a flash drive with the missing pieces of their research - all that she could salvage before the army got their hands on it.
Samson, worried about Betty, alerted General Ross of Bruce's presence, and he sent out a team to again try and capture him. Blonsky, with his thirst for both power and revenge, volunteered as a test subject on the still ongoing Super Soldier project, and set off with said team to fight the Hulk. Feeling cornered, Bruce swallowed the flash drive with the data so that they wouldn't find it. It didn't take long for him to turn into Hulk, and then going toe to toe with Blonsky who, thanks to the serum, could actually keep up with the monster. They then trapped the Hulk with two ultrasonic weapons, but when he heard Betty's screams of distress, he overcame the weapons and destroyed both tanks. Blonsky tried to go up against him again, but the Hulk smashed him against a tree, breaking nearly every bone in his body. General Ross called for aerial attack, unknown to him that Betty had approached the Hulk in hopes to calm him down and have him turn back into Bruce. But as she did so, a helicopter began shooting at him, unaware that she was there too. The Hulk then covered her entirely to stop her from being hit, and as he destroyed the helicopter by flinging a large piece of metal at it and making it crash into the ground, he acted again as a shield to prevent the fire and debris from the explosion to cause her any harm. Much to General Ross's panic and distress, the Hulk emerged from the flames with Betty passed out in his arms, then carried her with him as he ran off to the Smoky Mountain National Forest.
After spending a night in a cave, the Hulk turned back into Bruce, and from there both he and Betty went to a motel, where he could recover the flash drive, find new clothes and regain some strength. He and Betty kissed and almost went further, but as his monitor indicated the increase of his heart rate, he stopped himself in fear of losing control and hurting her. After a while, they decided to head to New York City to meet Mr. Blue, real name Samuel Sterns. Sterns told them he had developed a potential antidote that could either cure Bruce's condition entirely, or simply stop each individual transformation, though in either case an overdose could kill him. Bruce agreed to give it a try anyway, and after being restrained, he was electrically induced into transforming, and then transfused with the antidote halfway through his transformation, which successfully turned him back to normal.
A thrilled Sterns revealed then that he had synthesized Bruce's blood sample into a much larger supply so that he could use what was in it to enhance human abilities. Horrified by what Sterns had been doing, and dreading to see it fall in the wrong hands, Bruce told Sterns he had to destroy everything. Sterns then went on to say he was sounding a little too paranoid, just as Bruce got shot by a tranquilizer from one of General Ross's snipers.
While both Bruce and Betty were taken into custody, Blonsky, who had made a miraculous recovery thanks to the serum and had stayed behind at the lab, threatened Sterns into giving him a transfusion of Bruce's synthetic blood. Curious to see the effects on the man, Sterns was more than happy to agree to it, though he did so only after Blonsky's informed consent, since the combination of the serum and the gamma radiation could turn him into an abomination. Indeed the mix of the two was enough for Blonsky to turn into a monster even bigger than the Hulk, named later as the Abomination, and as he knocked Sterns aside some of Bruce's synthetic blood fell into an open wound on his temple, making his cranium mutate and expand.
The Abomination then went on a rampage through Harlem, wanting to get the Hulk's attention. Knowing that only the Hulk could stop him, Bruce convinced General Ross to let him go, which he agreed, and despite Betty's pleas, Bruce jumped out of the helicopter as it hovered the city in hopes that the fall would be enough to trigger a transformation. He turned into the Hulk, and then went on to fight the Abomination, in a long and brutal battle that the Hulk finally won by strangling the other with a large chain. Betty begged the Hulk to stop before he actually killed the Abomination, which he did. In a moment of recognition, the Hulk looked at her and said her name, then fled the scene while being chased down.
A month after the Harlem incident Bruce arrived at Betty's cabin in Bella Coola, British Columbia. There, he focused on gaining control of not only when to transform, but also how to control the Hulk himself, and restarted his meditative training, through which he could control his own heart rate. As he pushed it higher, his eyes turned green and he smiled, being that the first time he showed to possess some control over the Hulk.
He returned to a life on the run then, traveling from country to country. He at least at some point crossed the border from Pakistan to India, where he turned himself into the Hulk to protect some local residents from an attempted terrorist attack. (The Avengers: The Avengers Initiative) Eventually he settled in Calcutta, India, where he worked as a doctor. He was tricked by a young girl into coming to an abandoned house where Natasha Romanoff was waiting for him. Bruce, of course, was not at all impressed, and then she told him that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been watching him all along, and kept some other people from finding him (meaning General Ross). She informed him that Nick Fury needed him to find the Tesseract, an energy source that S.H.I.E.L.D. had had in their possession but that opened a portal to another part of the universe, through which came Loki and stole it, as he wanted to open a portal much wider to let his Chitauri army through and attack the planet. As the Tesseract emitted a weak gamma signature, and Bruce being an expert on gamma radiation, they needed him to find the artifact. Bruce didn't seem convinced that Nick wasn't interested in the Hulk at all, and screamed at her, "Stop lying to me!!", to which she reacted by pointing a gun at him, afraid that he was going to turn into the Hulk. But then he smiled and leaned back, apologizing and saying that had been mean of him, but he just wanted to see what she would do.
Bruce was then taken to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier, where he first met Steve Rogers, who was soon enough sent out to capture Loki when he had been seen in Stuttgart, Germany. He returned with not only the caught Loki, but also Thor and Tony Stark. Bruce and Tony continued working on finding the Tesseract, at the same time beginning some research on Loki's spear, which seemed to have within it the power to control others. During their time together Tony was shown to ask all kinds of questions about the Hulk, and even trying to poke and prod at Bruce in an attempt to provoke him, though Bruce showed that he did very well in keeping himself under control. Then as they spoke about the team suiting up to fight Loki, Bruce said he would read all about it, but Tony said that maybe he could join them. Bruce then said that was the thing - he didn't get a suit of armor. He was "exposed, like a nerve". Tony went on to tell him that to survive that much gamma radiation, the Hulk must have been the one who wanted to even keep Bruce from dying, implying he had saved Bruce's life for a reason.
Tony, suspicious of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s true purposes, put JARVIS hacking into their computers to find out what Fury wasn't telling them. Steve opposed this, but then Bruce pointed out that if S.H.I.E.L.D. was indeed trying to find a way to use the Tesseract as a means of self-sustainable energy, then it made no sense that they didn't contact Tony at all, who was at the moment the leading name in clean energy. Later on, Fury confronted Tony about hacking their systems to obtain classified information, and just then Steve arrived into the lab after looking around the Helicarrier and finding out that S.H.I.E.L.D. was going to use the Tesseract to power up weapons. Natasha and Thor arrived at the lab and an argument promptly broke out, during which Fury said they were building weapons because of Thor in the first place. Finally the argument ended when Fury told Natasha to escort Bruce out, presumably to the cage they had built for him, except that cage was being occupied by Loki. Bruce lost his patience and said that if the cage, which could be released from the Helicarrier with the push of a button, was an attempt to kill him, it wouldn't work, and then went on to reveal that he had tried shooting himself in the head while on the run but the Hulk simply spat the bullet out. He became more and more agitated as he went on to say he had been doing just fine until Fury dragged him back into the mess and put everyone there at risk. The group grew more and more silent, and as he asked Natasha if she still wanted to know how he stayed calm, Steve gently asked Bruce to put down the scepter. Without even realizing it, Bruce had picked it up from the table and was holding it. Then just in time, the computer beeped, and Bruce put the weapon down and went on to check that the Tesseract had been found. Another argument was about to break as each claimed they were the ones that should reclaim the artifact, Thor saying that its power was too great for any human to handle, but they were cut short. Unknown to them, the scepter was also emitting a kind of energy that the people Loki kept under his control were tracing, and they found the Helicarrier. Clint Barton, under the scepter's control and therefore Loki's orders, led a team as they invaded the Helicarrier, beginning by setting off an explosion near the lab. The shock was enough to get Bruce's heart rate higher than he could control, and despite Natasha's efforts to calm him down he turned into the Hulk, then went after her as she ran away from him. Thor intervened and went toe to toe with the beast, able to hold him back somewhat thanks to his own strength and the power of his hammer, Mjölnir. Eventually the Hulk fell off the Helicarrier when he jumped on a jet, which had been assigned to just get his attention but had gotten too close, and crashed through the roof of an abandoned warehouse. He transformed back into Bruce then, to be greeted by a man that had seen him falling, and who also gave him some clothes. Bruce said it was lucky he hadn't hurt anyone when he fell, but the man said it was more like good aim, since he was awake the whole time - implying that the Hulk tried the best he could to crash into an abandoned area.
Bruce was away from the group for a while after that, and only joined them when they were all already in New York, after Loki had opened the portal and let the Chitauri army through. He arrived just in time to stop one of the Leviathans, massive flying whale-like monsters with hard metallic shells who could carry inside it dozens of Chitauri warriors. He said only that his secret was that he was always angry (though this could only be a more dramatical way to say he could control his own heart rate to force himself into an excited or angered state, as it had been shown before), and then he turned into the Hulk, destroying the creature with one single punch. From then on he joined the fight, smashing his way through several Chitauri warriors perched on the sides of buildings, and helping Thor kill another Leviathan as well. He then headed to the Stark Tower, where Loki had set up the machine that kept the portal open, and beat the demigod into submission, leaving him crushed into the floor and wheezing for air. As the Security Council, the ones in charge of S.H.I.E.L.D., ordered the launch of a missile that would wipe out all of Manhattan, Tony flew it through the portal, destroying the Chitauri mothership, his suit shutting down in the progress. This prompted all the aliens back on Earth to die, presumably by the disruption of some kind of neural link. The Hulk caught Tony as he fell from the skies and once on the ground, screamed in his face to make him wake up.
After the battle was over, Thor returned to Asgard, taking with him the Tesseract and Loki, who would be answering for his crimes. From there, the Avengers were seen each going their separate ways, Bruce joining Tony in one of his sports cars as they drove off. Since he showed that he could keep the Hulk under control, Fury helped Bruce so that he could move around in the world without the fear of being arrested or kidnapped.
For the next few years, Bruce stuck around with the rest of the group, and the Avengers became a more solid and steady team. Through working together on missions and spending time socializing and getting to know each other, they became closer, and Bruce created bonds that he otherwise wouldn't have allowed himself. Aside from Tony, with whom he had gotten along from the start, Bruce developed a particular kind of relationship with Natasha, growing from that of teammates to close friends with clear romantic feelings. Natasha also developed a technique that allowed her to calm down the Hulk and make him transform back into Bruce, which helped a lot during their missions, when a Code Green was called (basically, there was the need for Bruce to transform) and after everything was over it was necessary to stop the Hulk.
After a mission in which they finally recovered Loki's scepter, the whole team made it back on their Quinjet, and Bruce was listening to classical music to calm himself. Natasha came over and told him the lullaby had worked better than ever, and when he showed insecurity about whether he did more good than harm, she tried to get him to see things differently. As she asked him when he would trust her, he just answered it wasn't her he didn't trust.
The team made it back to the Avengers Tower (formerly Stark Tower), and Tony shared with Bruce some of the information he'd managed to find where they'd recovered the scepter. He'd figured out they'd been trying to use the secrets of the scepter to explore artificial intelligence, and he convinced Bruce to continue with the Ultron Program, a permanently active system meant to protect the whole world from any threats, without telling the rest of the team about it. After they left the program decoding on its own, they left to attend a party thrown at the Tower, unaware that in the meantime, Ultron was waking up and viciously attacking JARVIS when he sensed danger and tried to shut Ultron down.
In the meantime, at the party, Bruce kept mostly to himself, eventually making his way over to the bar and sharing a moment with Natasha, in which it was apparently obvious to anyone but Bruce that she was openly flirting with him. Even as Steve later approached him and told him that, Bruce still tried to wave it off by saying it was just how she was, and that it meant nothing. Steve tried to encourage Bruce by telling him that both he and Natasha deserved something good and that he shouldn't let the opportunity for happiness pass him by.
Later on, after the guests left, the team was playing a game in which the team and a few close friends took turns trying to lift Mjölnir. Bruce spent a portion of that time talking to Natasha, and while she didn't want to participate in the game, Bruce did just for fun, pretending to get really mad when he couldn't lift the hammer, but not really coming off as funny as he was hoping to.
They were interrupted when a loud screeching noise came through the speakers, and one of Tony's drones from his Iron Legion came limping out into the room, controlled by Ultron. By his speech alone Bruce was quick to figure out that it was Ultron, and the AI proceeded to send more drones into the room, attacking the team. Natasha dragged Bruce behind a bar and into safety so he wouldn't get triggered, and eventually the fight ended when Thor destroyed Ultron's body.
The team went on to examine what had happened, and Tony learned that Ultron had destroyed JARVIS's mainframe in a fit of rage. Thor became agitated by what Tony and Bruce had done behind their backs and grabbed Tony by the throat, and Tony defended his point of view by claiming he was trying to build a system that would protect the Earth from external threats. Bruce tried to tell Tony to stop arguing when they'd both obviously screwed up, and when Tony criticized Bruce's passive attitude towards the team, Bruce shut him down by pointedly reminding him they'd basically created a murderous AI and let him out into the world. They later learned that Ultron had built himself a new body, and was planning on going to Wakanda to steal Vibranium with the help of Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, superpowered twins from the warring country of Sokovia who held a personal grudge against Tony, and blamed him for their parents' death and a lot of the destruction in their country due to Tony's company's former field of work.
They went to Wakanda to try to stop Ultron from getting his hands on the Vibranium, but the twins took up fighting the team. Bruce stayed in the Quinjet, but Wanda found him and by getting into his head, forced him to turn into the Hulk, and sent him on a rampage through the city of Johannesburg. Tony, as Iron Man, got his Hulkbuster armor and fought with the Hulk, eventually by sheer force and destruction knocking him out, but the damage done to the city had been severe.
The public turned against them for the Hulk's rampage, some even calling for Bruce's arrest, so after regrouping, the Avengers went into hiding, going to a safe house that was actually Clint's home, where the whole team except for Natasha met his wife and kids for the first time. Still devastated by what had happened, Bruce told Natasha they couldn't be together because he would always pose a danger to her. She argued that he wasn't a threat to her, but he sounded doubtful, and he also questioned any potential for a future in their relationship. She showed that it didn't matter, in the process sharing a glimpse of her experiences during her Red Room training, and eventually the conversation ended with the both of them making a vague plan to run away together once they defeated Ultron.
Nick Fury showed up at the farm, much to the team's surprise, who thought him dead. He spoke at length about stopping Ultron, and during the conversation Bruce realized that it was Ultron's purpose to improve his body, to evolve. Remembering Helen Cho's work and the Cradle device she used to reconstruct organic tissue, he suggested they go find her, since he figured that was where Ultron would go. Bruce was brought back to the Avengers Tower by Fury, while Thor left without leaving them much detail as to where, Tony went to the NEXUS base in Oslo to find out who had prevented Ultron from getting his hands on nuclear launch codes, and Steve, Clint and Natasha went on to take the synthetic body from Ultron.
Later on, Tony and Clint came back to the Tower, Clint bringing in with him the synthetic body still in the Cradle, but with the unfortunate news that Natasha had been kidnapped, then left again to search for her. Tony told Bruce that who had kept the nuclear codes from Ultron was none other than JARVIS, and that the AI wasn't actually destroyed as they had thought. Tony tried to get Bruce to help him put JARVIS into the synthetic body. Bruce refused at first, telling Tony it was a bad idea and that this was exactly where it had gone wrong the last time, but Tony told him that this would be the only way they could stop Ultron. Albeit reluctantly, Bruce finally agreed to help him.
Just as they were almost done, Steve showed up with the twins, Wanda and Pietro, and told them to stop what they were doing. Both men refused, with Bruce looking more than just a little angry that Wanda of all people was there and standing by Steve's side. When Steve told them they didn't know what they were doing, Bruce asked Steve if he did, if Wanda herself wasn't in Steve's head. She tried to reason with Bruce, but was cut short when Bruce snapped at her and openly threatened to kill her in a thoughtless fit of anger. The team then started fighting amongst themselves, but then suddenly Thor came in and used his lightning to revive the synthetic body.
The body, now alive, jumped out and came at Thor briefly before he levitated towards one of the windows and just stayed there, looking out over the city. He seemed to show intelligence and a sense of self as he apologized and addressed the team, claiming that he wanted to help them stop Ultron. Thor told them that he had had a vision of this creation and the Mind Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones, that was now in the living body's forehead. The team didn't particularly trust this creation, but seemed surer when he showed he was capable of lifting Mjölnir. Spurred by Thor's own words, they called him 'Vision'.
Finally the team tracked down Ultron in Sokovia, where Natasha was also being held. Most of the team got Ultron's attention by going up against him and his sentinels, so Bruce snuck into his hideout to break Natasha free. Bruce told her he didn't want to turn into the Hulk, and wanted to leave right away instead of helping with the fight. Natasha told him she adored him, pulled him in for a kiss, then shoved him down a well, saying she needed the Other Guy. Bruce emerged as the Hulk moments later, and took Natasha along with him as he jumped and climbed his way up through the flying city of Novi Grad. After landing on solid ground, they each went their separate ways, taking their places in the fight alongside the rest of the team.
The Hulk joined the Avengers to protect the key that could drop the city and cause destruction on a global scale— Ultron's plan all along, as in his eyes the only way to achieve peace was to annihilate the whole of the human race. As Ultron came at them with waves of sentinels, the Hulk engaged with him personally, and ended up chasing him and some of his forces across the city. Far from the battle, Natasha went to look for him later on, but while she was trying to calm him down, she was interrupted when Ultron showed up piloting a Quinjet and started firing at them. The Hulk stood in the way so that Natasha didn't get shot, but now enraged by the attack, he leapt onto the Quinjet, climbed inside and grabbed Ultron, throwing him down onto the ground.
With the battle over and the Avengers safe and having been successful in defeating Ultron, the Hulk stayed in the Quinjet. Natasha tried to contact him via radio, telling him to disable the plane's stealth mode so they could pinpoint his location, but he cut off all communications instead, making it impossible for them to track him due to the jet's cloaking system. The last he was seen, he was flying off to an unknown location— both to the team and likely even himself.
Abilities/Special Powers: In its very core, Bruce is a sort of altered version of what Steve Rogers is, but he differs in the sense that the man, Bruce Banner, shows no visible powers or abilities. However, whenever his heart rate increases to higher levels, or when his emotions get the best of him, most notably anger and any of its variants, he turns into the Hulk. This transformation happens as a result of the crossing between adrenaline and the gamma radiation in his body. It can take him between seconds to several minutes to transform completely, depending on the intensity of the original stimulus, and consequently, the quickness of the initial adrenaline surge. While at first these transformations were beyond his control, he has learned to choose when to have them happen through meditation and training. As the Hulk, Bruce's consciousness is buried deep within, and though he can't control the monster entirely, he can often influence the Hulk's behavior, or at least direct him to where he wants him to be. Still, it's important to mention that, despite the fact that Bruce can increase his own heart rate so that he changes into the Hulk, if he gets caught in a situation of high stress or shock that causes him to lose control of his own state, he'll still transform against his will, even if he tries to keep it from happening. When he transforms in these circumstances, he holds much lesser control over the beast, if any at all.
It's the other guy, the Hulk, who really has the extraordinary abilities, rather than Bruce. First and foremost, he possesses superhuman strength, more than may be expected. He can, for instance, lift cars and throw them as if they weigh nothing. He will rip metal apart like it's made of paper. A normal human stands no chance when going up against him, and even someone like Blonsky, who had been injected with the serum, gets his bones crushed to pieces with just one single kick. He also killed a Leviathan with just one punch, despite the creature's enormous size, weight and hardened shell. His unbelievable physical strength is unmatched save for very few, and it's proportional to his level of adrenaline. So basically, the more he is provoked, the angrier he gets, and the stronger he becomes. Not yet to date has he been pushed to the maximum output of his strength, so as of yet it's not known just how strong he can become, or even if there is a limit to it.
Due to his overly developed muscles, the Hulk is capable of great leaps, not only in height, as he leaps onto walls and from building to building, but also in length, and for long periods of time without tiring. This is especially seen when he runs away most times after he's attacked, and manages to travel across great distances until he is safe and with no one following after him anymore.
The Hulk is also extremely resistant to external aggression. There is hardly anything that can bring him any physical damage, whether it's other people, weapons or simply the environmental conditions. Any and all bullets bounce off of him entirely, and fire hardly affects him either. Temperature differences, from freezing to scorching hot, leave him unfazed, and there is barely anyone who can even match up to his strength, let alone slow him down or hurt him. Even when he fought Thor and he used Mjölnir against him, the hit only served to make him angrier. During his appearances, the Hulk survived multiple caliber bullets being shot at him, ultrasonic waves, explosions, freezing temperatures, energy blasts from Chitauri weaponry, and falls from several heights, highest so far being when he jumped off the Helicarrier and landed in the abandoned warehouse unscathed. Despite this he can still sustain injury, but even then, any damaged areas of his body heal and regenerate much faster and more effectively than any ordinary human. Any bodily harm that comes to Bruce can serve as a trigger for a transformation too, and then the injury will be healed rapidly, as it happened when Bruce tried to shoot himself in the head. His stamina and endurance are also extraordinary in this form, and he can run and fight for very long periods of time. When he is in an enraged state, he can keep this peak of strength for hours on end, and can even grow stronger the angrier he gets.
Third-Person Sample:
Well, he did want to get away, so there was that.
Never mind that out of his choice of places, he certainly wouldn't have picked a pocket universe small enough that he could probably walk from one edge to the other in less than a day. It was far from his world, but he was more trapped here than virtually anywhere else, and he saw the mansion, the gardens, beach and the clear blue skies like a glorified cage of sorts, and it didn't sit well with him. He'd be more alright with it if he didn't happen to be sharing that cage with so many people, people he could and likely would hurt at some point down the line.
But it didn't matter that he couldn't stay here, apparently. It was a decision made for him, and for the foreseeable future, he was stuck here. It wasn't going to stop him from trying to find a way out, though. If not for himself, then at least for everyone else. He could stand to stay here for the rest of his days if it meant being by himself and away from innocent people.
He could also easily ignore how depressing a thought that was. Kind of used to doing that by now, anyway.
Keeping to himself was a difficult task in a place like this, but he was good at it, and he was going to try his best. Using his first few days to explore the areas both outside and inside the mansion, he picked a room as far away from populated areas as possible, and then promptly holed himself up there, or wherever else he could be on his own, trying to start on some work to figure out this place, understand what made it tick, and focus on what might make it stop.
The closets gave him pretty much all he could need, that was a small comfort. It would mean weeks or months might pass before some people in this place even lay their eyes on him, but for all he cared, that was ideal. After Sokovia, after Johannesburg, after... every time he was ripped apart into shreds, he needed to be by himself.
He needed to figure out what of himself was still left, if anything at all. Then he'd start from there.
First-Person Sample:
[ A somewhat disheveled man greets the network, shooting the camera a tired and lethargic look. For a moment his gaze seems unfocused, and the expressions reading over his face make him seem skinnier than he is, the skin a hint dark around the eyes.
But at least he's clean shaven now, so that's a start. ]
Hey. So I've been, uh... looking into things. Quite the set-up we've got here. [ He tries for amused or sarcastic, but it falls flat somewhere in-between. ] My name's Bruce Banner. I've been here for a few days now, so I'll spare you the list of questions you're likely all used to getting by now. Pocket universe, alternate realities, alternate timelines. Different versions of the same people. Through the looking glass. Got it.
[ None of it gives him any peace of mind, but he's used to not getting much of that. ]
I also did a cursory read over the network. Went back a little. [ And by 'a little' he means months, probably. ] I know I've been here before. Or some versions of me, anyway. If anyone here knew those other me's, I'd like to know. I'd also like to know how much exactly you know about me.
[ Not that he's paranoid, but... well, okay, he is. ]
Also, knowing me the way I do, I assume I've done a lot of research on this place, and likely the mirror side if I got the chance. My question is, can anyone tell me where I can find that research, or what's still left of it? Assuming there's anything at all. I don't mind starting from scratch but it'd be nice if I don't have to.
[ He opens his mouth like he's about to add something else, but then just sighs quietly, offering a faint nod. ] Thanks.