Banner's Descent (Audio File Set)

**Banner's Descent** is a collectible Audio File Intelligence series. It consists of six files.

## Files

### To: Tony From: Bruce

Tony, I've been trying to keep my cool, but it's time we acknowledge this breakthrough. Tarleton has completed his initial research and I've reviewed his findings. This isn't an incremental change; this is a game-changer.

We're limited by the amount of the crystals he managed to retrieve, but even the samples he's synthesized are capable of enormous power generation. This is clean, near limitless fuel. Now, I know right now you're thinking of what dumb, giant robot you could build, but we're talking end of the energy crisis. Tony, we're talking a new world.

### Bruce's Journal "Something's Different"

Such an absurd thing to worry about. Too happy. Like the punchline to a vaudeville joke. But there's a... a clear correlation. These last few weeks have been some of the happiest in memory. No, no not happy. Content. Working with the others, finally finding a purpose to what I thought was a curse. It's what I imagine coming home feels like.

But it's affecting the Hulk. He's... different. More reticent to come when I need him, just... by a moment. Not enough that anyone else would notice, but I do. I've reviewed the after-report footage, and I swear, he seems smaller somehow. Perhaps a step slower.

There's an emotional complexity to him that I didn't want to acknowledge. We're tied together... emotions flow both ways, and now that balance has shifted. Contentment isn't the opposite of anger, it's the absence.

So, that's my new anxiety: If I keep getting better... could he vanish entirely?

### Bruce's Journal "Issues With Hulk"

Oh... he's jealous. That enormous idiot is jealous of Monica. Three separate times he tried to take control when I was headed to meet her. They were clumsy attempts that I could resist with the most, you know, basic breathing exercises, but it was like he wanted me to be anywhere but with her.

How much is he conscious of the link between our states of mind? My happiness might feel like an existential threat to him, something his survival instincts are screaming at him to fight.

He never seemed to have a discernible reaction to my relationships in the past. Is it possible he doesn't approve? Or... no, my god, that's foolish. Maybe Monica makes me happier than I've been able to admit to myself, but... but he sees through it. Maybe this time really is different.

And now at work, it's like when we first began with the Avengers. He's less reliable, slower.

God I feel like I am being punished.

### Bruce's Journal "He's Taking Control"

I uh... I need to keep log of my transformations. I woke up yesterday night with zero recollection of change, and two hours of missing time. I found myself sitting naked on an outcropping a few miles from the Chimera . And if I'm honest with myself, I haven't been this concerned for my wellbeing since before the Avengers.

Hulk always knows. Testifying upset me more than I'm willing to admit. I hope Monica was right, I hope that we had to show some... some sense of honest accountability. 'Cause Tony hasn't called me back since D.C.

When it gets bad like this, Hulk takes the reigns for longer and longer. I can't lose complete control. Not again.

### Bruce's Journal "It's Over"

Monica's gone. The person I thought would stand beside me when everyone else would not has left. I'm not even worth the courtesy of a call. Just silence. And I don't even know what I did.

I want so badly to feel angry. But all I feel is guilt and shame. I opened my big mouth in the hearing and I let them down. And I can't take it back. And it might be the end of us.

And now I feel something brewing deep in my core. He is in there, just tormented by everything I've let happened. I want to give in to him. Into the abyss. It's just crushing me, and it's making him sick. Like the awful gravity of it all punched a black hole right through me and into him. And now we're both just empty and hollow.

Before, when my feelings of happiness constricted him, he fought back. I can feel him fighting back against this. But this... it's different. I don't know if he can win. And I don't know if I want him to.

I need to go somewhere we both feel safe. Somewhere we can figure this out.

### Bruce's Journal "Good Night Everyone"

There's nothing left for me, is there? No family, neither by blood or choice. Monica betrayed me... it's so clear to me now, but I somehow missed it. I can't stand the feeling... the hurt. It's crushing me. And my friends blame me, and there's a little of me which blames them for what happened in San Francisco. Even if we were together again, there's too much built up now, it's like a fatal barrier of scar tissue and animosity.

Even this. Sitting in a decommissioned base. Hiding. Waiting for nothing. There's real work to be done. People still need the Avengers. But we are just gonna let all this hate out there and... and... and loathing inside us tear it all apart. I can't do it on my own. He wouldn't mope like this. We all wring our hands when the lion kills the gazelle, but he is beyond this fatal introspection. He simply is.

He deserves to live more than I do, and I don't want to share this body anymore.

Good night everyone.