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3L1R9SS1

1.o

It was under the medical room. Convenience, they said. Medical supplies could quietly be slipped down small elevator systems and nobody would suspect a thing. And that’s how it was supposed to stay. Secret and hidden from anyone except those few individuals involved and the ones that they picked to fill the claustrophobic room.

That was until Tony Stark was onboard. That system existed before the Man of Iron had scoured their files and dragged every single one of their secrets into a burning light to be examined. And it had to be admitted: they had a lot of secrets.

“You get one go around, doctor, and then it’s back upstairs where you belong.” The agent informed mechanically.

“I’m glad you’ve got my place picked out for me.” The doctor responded in a low voice.

Doctor Bruce Banner had not requested to be led to the hidden room. He was in no hurry to discover another line of deep dark secrets that S.I.E.L.D. kept hidden. Chances were, he had reasoned when Tony had pushed him to go, if an organization like this wanted something hidden, it was best kept hidden.

Tony reminded him of the last secret they had brought to light.

The room was smaller than Bruce thought it would be. His first thought was that the accommodations were far from enough for the amount of people here.

“It looks like a sick room,” Bruce commented in a deceivingly calm voice. “Like you’ve cut a select few people away from your society.”

The agent had stopped at the foot of one bed where a young man sat. Bruce slipped on his glasses and picked up the clipboard attached to the metal bar. His eyes flicked from the file to the young boy.

“Some would call that quarantine.” He looked around the room and then to the agent. “Others would say it’s the sixth step of genocide.”

“We’re not killing anyone, Dr. Banner.” The agent replied reproachfully.

Bruce placed the file back in its place and smiled to himself. Reactions were good signs when it came to people.

They moved on.

“The subjects are here because – ”

“If you don’t mind,” Bruce interrupted with only slight patience as he stopped their walk, “I would like to hear it from the patients.” Bruce gave the agent a pointed look that the man shrank back from.

The next patient in line was a young woman. Her hair was cropped short just like every other patient in the ward. The tubes that would have been stuck in her arms were wound around metal rods stuck on the side of her bed. She sat with her legs dangling over the side of her bed, her slipper clad toes just barely brushing the metal floor. A doctor stood in front of her, file in hand, white coat crisp and unblemished.

Bruce slid up next to the doctor and nodded his hello to both her and the patient. On request the file was passed to his hands and he was left alone with the patient. He could feel her gazing at him as he scanned the paper in front of him.

“Clarissa.”

Bruce looked up to see the young girl staring at him still. Her file read her current age as only twenty-seven.

“You’re Bruce Banner.”

Bruce met her eyes for a long moment before he had to drop the connection. “I am.”

“Sorry,” Clarissa apologized sincerely, “but you’re brilliant.”

Bruce smiled as he flipped a page in the file. “Well thank you, Ms…” He flipped back to the first page and scoured it with his eyes.

“Just Clarissa; they don’t use last names.” Clarissa was still staring at Bruce with wonder filled eyes.

Bruce shifted and placed the file on the bed beside her. He grabbed a chair and pulled it over to address the girl at a more even eye level. She moved her eyes down to continue her stare.

“Staring is rude, Clarissa.” Bruce informed her casually.

He held out his hand and glanced towards her arm. She lifted it in one smooth effort of trust. Bruce met her eyes in a stare for another moment before moving his fingers to check her pulse.

“I’m sorry,” Clarissa apologized. “It’s just you’re…”

“Brilliant?” Bruce offered with a smile.

He moved from his seat to retrieve a stethoscope from a hook near her bed. “This will be cold.” He moved the small circle of metal over the skin of her back and asked for deep breaths. Clarissa stuttered through the procedure.

“Let me guess,” Bruce began after putting the tool away. “They don’t like using the close and personal method.”

Clarissa shook her head. “What are you doing here?” She looked at him skeptically as if she didn’t believe he was actually sitting in front of her.

“Just came to check on things,” Bruce passed dismissively. “What about you?”

“They’re fixing me.”

“You don’t look broken.”

“Neither do you.” Clarissa smiled softly. “But you certainly act like it.”

Bruce eyed her carefully.

Clarissa moved suddenly to search under her pillow. She pulled out a packet of paper stapled together at several points. It looked well worn.

“Mr. Stark has been down here a few times.”

“Tony’s been here?” Bruce asked. His eyes were suddenly watching the papers like they were a particularly angry snake.

Clarissa gave a silent confirmation as she flipped through the papers with a small smile. “He told me you would end up down here too and that maybe I should read up. He gave me a few papers of yours to read, told me which ones were his favorites. I’m far from a genius, but even I can see the work you’re doing.” She closed the packet of paper and placed it carefully next to her.

“What are they fixing about you?” Bruce asked. “I don’t see anything irregular.”

Clarissa smiled her soft smile, but there was a sudden bitterness surrounding her. “Huntington’s.”

An icy silence fell over them. Bruce felt the sudden urge to drop his gaze and stare at the stark white of the bed sheets.

“They’re – ” He had to clear his throat. “They’re fixing – they’re curing this?”

Clarissa reacted in a way that spoke volumes. She was used to people spluttering and losing track of their words when she told them what was wrong with her. “No.”

Bruce looked up.

“Don’t you know why we’re here, Dr. Banner? I thought Mr. Stark would have told you.”

“I wasn’t even aware of Tony’s visits to this ward.”

“They’re improving human subjects.”

Bruce blinked and let it sink in. “Experiments?”

“Sort of, yeah.” Clarissa looked thoughtful. “They’re trying to get a serum right.” She grinned. “I guess Captain Rogers just wasn’t enough, huh?”

Bruce’s chair screeched across the metal floor as he pushed it back forcefully and stood. He turned to walk away without a word.

“Have you ever lost control, Dr. Banner?” Clarissa called. He halted and turned towards her again. She was watching him calmly, but he could easily recognize the look in her eyes.

Clarissa was tired.

Bruce had the distinct feeling that she knew the answer to her question. But what else could she have asked that would stop him from storming off?

“I’ll lose control,” Clarissa said quietly. “It will start slowly at first, but, eventually, I’ll turn into nothing but a mess of jerking movements. I might even hurt someone.”

They both watched each other sharply, both waited for a reaction. Reactions were good things.

“I don’t want to lose control like that, Dr. Banner. It’s a place you can’t come back from.”

“This is a suicide.” Bruce guessed doubtlessly.

Clarissa shrugged her shoulders. “If they perfect this thing, I’ll be cured. If they don’t, then I’ll probably die.”

“This is stupid.”

His heart was already starting to speeding up, his teeth were grinding against each other, and he could feel everything in him boiling.

“Dr. Banner, with all due respect, I don’t think you understand.” Clarissa said slowly.

She was telling him that he didn’t understand what it was like to lose control?

“Dr. Banner,” Clarissa started again, “you can come back.” The sudden smallness of her voice eased his tensed jaw. “You’re not broken.” She met his gaze unwaveringly. “I am.”

*

Bruce had been chewing the nail on his thumb until the skin started to peel. His arms were closed tightly over his chest, eyes looking anywhere but at the man in front of him. Tony Stark sat silently at the lab table, his eyes fixed anywhere but on Bruce. Nick Fury was having no problem staring down the doctor.

“She’s an innocent girl.” Bruce said for the hundredth time in the past hour.

“She volunteered.” came Fury’s worn response.

“If I can just dive in here – ”

“You don’t get to say anything.” Bruce snapped off harshly. He took a deep breath and screwed his eyes shut. Tony resumed sitting silently like a scolded child.

“She’s an innocent girl.” Bruce repeated.

“She volun – ”

Bruce slammed his hands on the table. Tony jumped and Fury tensed. “I don’t care!” Bruce shouted. He retraced himself and closed his eyes again. “She has a death wish. The girl is slowly decaying inside her own body. Did you expect her to turn down an offer at even the slightest possibility of an escape?”

“Then hope for an escape and be happy for her, Dr. Banner.” Fury stated simply.

“I won’t,” Bruce disagreed. “What did you tell her?”

“The truth.”

“What did you tell her?”

Fury let out an even breath. “We told her that we were close to a breakthrough that could change the entirety of human genetics.”

“And you didn’t think that was a bad idea?” Bruce hissed. His arm lashed out to point a sharp finger at the closed lab door, towards the hidden hospital just on the other side. “That girl sat there and told me she was ready to die. She isn’t even thirty years old and she doesn’t care if this killed her!” He ran a hand shortly through his hair and resumed gnawing on his nails.

“Dr. Banner, our work is safe and progressive.”

“Is it?” Bruce snapped. “Is that why you don’t use names? Is that why I had to count through the alphabet to figure out who I was talking to?” He made a face between disgust and fierce anger. “3L1R9SS1,” Bruce scoffed. “Real clever.”

“We can understand your empathetic state, Dr. Banner. But we assure you that all precautions are – ”

“Being made for your experiments.” Bruce finished harshly. Fury frowned, but let it go. It wasn’t a lie.

“She’s so young.” Bruce tried again. “She doesn’t want to spend the last of her years on a hospital bed. She has time before it sets in. She can – ”

“Clarissa Scott’s symptoms have already advanced. The disease will take over in a matter of three years.” Fury cut in smoothly. He looked at Bruce with the closest thing he had to sincerity – knowing. “The best place for her now is in a hospital bed.”

The lab door closed behind Fury with a soft seal of air. Bruce practically collapsed into a chair. The silence was strained.

“She really likes your work.” Tony cleared his throat.

Bruce slowly removed his face from his hands and fixed Tony with a stare. He waited silently, his jaw working tightly, his heart slowing, and his mind counting repeatedly to ten at a slow, measured pace. When he was the closest to calm he was going to get, he resumed his former position.

“I think she’d like to talk to you about it,” Tony continued. “She’s no super genius, but she understands explanations. She’s got a vocabulary.”

“Can you not tell me anything else about her?” Bruce asked quietly.

“Sorry.”

Bruce could have started at the sincerity in Tony Stark’s voice. He looked up again, but fixed his eyes on the far wall. “You want me to talk to her?”

“It would make her day.”

“Convince her everything is okay?”

“You understand her.”

“No, I don’t,” Bruce said immediately. “But she understands me.” He added.

“She needs that,” Tony prompted seamlessly. “Being able to understand something that isn’t numbers and formulas that I lay in front of her, or test results they rattle off for their own sake.”

Bruce suddenly let out a bitter laugh. “You,” He said in a tone that was either somewhere far from or far beyond anger. “You showed her my work, built her a dream; just so you could make it come true.”

Tony didn’t deny it.

“And you almost released a raging monster in the process.” Bruce stood from his seat and paced slowly towards the lab door.

“I trust you.” Tony answered confidently.

Bruce didn’t pursue the subject, but Tony thought he heard the doctor mutter an “I’ll do it” before leaving the doors to shut securely behind him.

Notes

Thought I would put this up here as it would probably get more feedback if it wasn't buried under other fandom and original works.

Huntington's, if you don't already know, is real. We discussed it in Biology class a while back (when I was still taking the class) and watched a few videoes on how this affects not only those diagnosed with it, but also the people around them. And it really resonated in me. I would suggest studying it a bit. It's a very emotional thing. I set out to write an original story about a young girl diagnosed with Huntington's. It would explore her emotions on knowing this was happening to her and knowing she ony had a limited time. However, I also thought, "Wouldn't this work perfectly for Bruce?" I saw the connection of "losing control" and had to do something about it.

So feedback is apprecited :)

Comments

Well-written and really made me think and focus. Great to have Bruce in the limelight!

On Your Left On Your Left
4/17/14
This is beautiful but also quite heartbreaking. You wrote this brilliantly well done, I'd love to read more, but if you feel it's best a oneshot, then it's great that way too.
Maya Stormborn Maya Stormborn
9/17/13
I subcribed to this story only to see that you haven't done anything with it. :( It's really good and I hope that you continue with it!
misshannahstark misshannahstark
8/12/13