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Bruce Banner had never been comfortable in the presence of alcohol. Childhood trauma can fuck you up really bad in a number of ways, and not all of them are noticeable all the time. If the circumstances were right, he could almost forget about it and ignore the bad thoughts screaming in the back of his mind. Almost. Until someone got too loud, moved too fast or said something to bring back everything he was suppressing.They didn't do it on purpose, and Bruce never told them to stop anyway. Sometimes they noticed, though, and then he had to lie. He hated lying to them but telling the truth was just as impossible as forgetting his past.The situation had been fine for while, and his nightmares had been at bay for most of the week. Of course, that was when Thor decided to get drunk.It had been his birthday, the first one on Midgard, and the party was small. Only the Avengers with some snacks, music and enough alcohol to get even Steve and Thor drunk. Bruce attended just because he had to, not because he wanted to come. His presence was his gift to Thor, though the god definitely didn't see it that way.Hours went by and the late afternoon turned into a late evening. They were approaching midnight, but the mood was far from ruined. Steve and Bucky had retreated to their room a while ago, and Bruce had eyed them jealously, wanting to leave for a different reason. Tony and Pepper were slow-dancing to fast music, and Thor was for once drinking Natasha under the table."Another one!" he boomed, and Clint filled up his glass with a small smile, happy to see Nat lose for once. The former assassin clung to her own drink with a slightly pained expression and shook her head when her friend wanted to fill her glass, too. Thor's laugh was louder than the bass shaking the walls.Bruce was leaning against a wall, window in his back, a glass of water in his hand. The smell of alcohol was making him sick, and the noise was overstimulating his sensitive brain.Partys suck, he decided once again and continued solving the equations in his head. It distracted from his environment, which was good, but also gave Thor the chance to approach him from the side. If he hadn't been so caught up in his thought, maybe he would have been able to run from the conversation."Banner!" he called out, his hand landing on the scientist's shoulder, "It is great to see you." Bruce winced from the noise and touch, his body shrinking under the heavy gaze of his friend."It seems like you are having fun." Talking was taking up the rest of his already small amount of energy and the urge to leave grew with every second.Thor laughed again, swaying a bit as brought his face closer to Bruce's."Oh, definitely," he said rather quietly now, and Bruce had enough time to notice the electric blue of his eyes before a pair of lips were pressed to his.Kissing Thor was somewhere between a dream and a nightmare.A dream because holy shit, he was actually kissing Thor, but a nightmare since the taste of alcohol was making him want to throw up and brought back a memory he didn't wish to relive. Any other time, he would have savored the moment, perhaps pressed back into Thor's body and chased after his lips, but he could already feel nausea making its way up his throat.When he pulled back, stumbling out of the embrace, the alcohol seemed to be everywhere, finding a way up his nose and down his throat. His glass shattered on the ground as the muscles in his hand went weak, but he was already running. Heads were turning as he passed them, but he was too far gone to care.The flight response was setting in for once, which luckily meant no Hulk, and the world was tuning out. Reminding himself to breathe he hurried through the hallways to an elevator, sinking to the ground as soon as the doors closed behind him. Thor was calling after him, but his words didn' register in his brain. He vomited once he reached his room, retching over the toilet.There was a familiar ringing in his ear, but the voice was becoming louder with every second, violently taking over control. Memories were flooding his mind with a force he didn't deem possible. Everything hurt. Bruce sank to the bathroom floor, his vision growing static. It was impossible to tell whether his hands were turning green or not, but the deafening silence overshadowed by the screaming was answer enough.His body was curling up into a ball right under the sink, unaware of his environment; he just wanted it to stop.All he could do now was wait. ------Time passed. His body stopped shaking and rocking on the floor, his mind calmed down, and the memories retreated to their spot in the back of his brain. Everything went back to normal.The pain, though, was still there. With it came the usual exhaustion after a breakdown or meltdown or whatever this had been. Possibly both.Nonverbally thanking JARVIS for flushing the toilets and dimming the lights, he gathered himself up and stumbled into his bedroom, unable to think of anything but the wish to descend into nothingness. He could deal with all the damage he had caused tomorrow, right now just the thought of thinking about it made him hurt even more.Bruce discarded most of his clothes before pulling the covers over his still shivering body. Just as he asked JARVIS to turn off the lights, still nonverbal, a knock made his ears ring once again. Fighting to keep another wave of nausea down, he closed his eyes, wringing his hands with as much pressure as he could muster."Sir, Mr. Odinson wants to speak to you. I locked the doors earlier, should I let him in?"God, he really loved this AI."Please, send him away," he whispered and it took all the strength he had left. The feeling of Thor's lips on his was still too prominent and unavoidably connected to the taste of alcohol. He pulled the covers over his head, relishing in the feeling of safety and warmth. Tomorrow he could deal with it. Tomorrow.No matter how deep he tried to bury the darkness of his mind, his mother's echoing screams carried him to sleep every single night.
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Passing out from exhaustion after he had had a mental breakdown usually did the trick and let him sleep for at least eight hours, no matter how bad the nightmares became. This time, he wasn't lucky.It felt like no time had passed when he awoke, tears still flowing down his face. Bruce could taste the acidic vomit in his mouth, and all energy was drained from his body. Darkness robbed him of every sense of time or space, making his headache worse.Disoriented he tried to get out of bed and into his bathroom, hoping that maybe a shower could turn him into a functioning human again. The lights went one as he waved his hand in front of the sensor. They were dim enough so he wouldn't run against walks but wouldn't give him a meltdown either.Stumbling over his clothes he made it to the cold tiles before retching again, this time there was nothing left in his stomach to throw up. He avoided looking in the mirror as he got out of the last of his clothes and turned on the shower. While the amount of dysphoria he experienced was almost microscopic at this point, he didn't want to see himself in this state of mind. he was too tired to deal with physical self-hate as well.Even though JARVIS had no cameras inside the bathroom, he was still accessible. Since he was unable to talk, a side-effect of the meltdown a couple hours ago, he typed the setting he wanted the lights on into the panel.Hot water engulfed his body, which was now barely visible, and burned his skin, but it was a welcomed feeling. The self-induced pain was so much better than the pain he had no control over.There was a numbness in his body and he felt like he was drifting away from his conscience. Not a new experience but certainly a troublesome one, if his emotions were functioning correctly, that is.Trying to stay in control of his thoughts, he washed his body mechanically, building on his usual routine. When he surfaced from the darkness in his head a few minutes later, he was dressed and back in his bedroom.Dissociating was better than breaking down again, so he accepted his fate for now and tried nothing to make things better. Bruce knew grounding techniques, but the semi-clearness of his head was too nice to give up just yet.His head told him to go straight to the lab and spend the next forty-eight hours working and he was about to do just that when JARVIS reminded him his body needed food to function. He had to thank him later.Bruce made his way towards the kitchen, eyes darting around aimlessly, hands twisting each other hard enough to make the pain reach his dissociating self. The familiar movements were calming, grounding almost, but not enough. Never enough.Steve was there as expected, sipping a cup of coffee while reading the newspaper, a common picture. He acknowledged Bruce's presence with a nod and a smile before going back to reading. Soft music, which sounded like it came directly from the 1930's, was playing over the speakers and the lights were, fortunately, not too bright. Bruce got himself some coffee as well and picked up a bagel, ready to spent the rest of the day (or the week) in the lab when he heard heavy footsteps behind him. Immediately, his body went stiff, all muscles ready to either run as before or fight. Hulk was a distant shout in his mind.His teeth sank into his bottom lip to hold back the sounds which were building up inside of his throat. There was blood in his mouth and a fog in his brain and when Thor came closer, memories started to surface again. He had fought them down four hours ago and could do so again, but he didn't want to. Bruce was just so, so tired of everything. The porcelain in his hands was set down onto the counter by his hand, though he can't remember telling them to move; he can't remember anything. There was his voice again, the smell of alcohol layering over the bitterness of coffee, confusing his mind. Another voice was telling him to stay calm, that this wasn't real, that he was safe, but why should he listen?Monsters are never safe.Suddenly, there was a hand on his shoulder and he remembered.There was his mother, his beautiful, caring mother, her head cracking open on the pavement beneath his feet, her blood coloring the stone red. Bruce could hear her scream, hear the silence when life left her body and her eyes stared at him in quiet horror, blaming and haunting him for eternity. He could feel the hands on his shoulders, shaking him, beating him, throwing him next to his mother to die. He wished he had, he wished his skull had broken just like hers so he wouldn't have to do the same thing to his father right above her grave. More blood, more pain, more hands grasping him and holding him until the darkness swallowed him once more.
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"I keep hearing him."A whisper in the dark, a confession so full of shame it made his own heart ache. The light was long gone, and a cold emptiness remained, more pain than comfort for once. He had found safety in it, a long time ago, when it had meant he wouldn't have to see the shadows grasping for him, wouldn't have to see his face. Somehow, the abuse had been easier to take without it.He could remember her smell, a haven for a drowning child; her voice anchoring him and sending him to sleep. All he wanted was to hear her again, to see her smile one last time if just to erase the memories burned into his head. He remembered cold stone under his hands, a name under his fingertips. After that, nothing but blood.Fingers and fists were ghosting over his skin again, his voice a low whisper in the back of his mind, always there, waiting. Curling in on himself his fingernails dug into his palms, the sweet pain reminding him of the present. Bruce didn't want to get lost in his own mind again. No one dared to touch him. Talking, yes, but never touch. Touches had been infrequent before; if he got lucky once a week a hand brushed over his shoulder on accident. They had gotten better with it, though, and he was thankful for that. Now he couldn't even remember what a human skin felt like."I'm sorry."For everything. There was no one to hear his confession.**Days went by, and he lost his ability to feel them. Nothing felt real, not even his own body. At some point, he cut open his hand on accident and watched the blood drop onto the floor, heartbeat after heartbeat, until it stopped on its own. Someone with a voice like static asked about the blood on the floor, but he couldn't speak. They left him alone after that.Work kept him going, kept him upright when everything became too much. Retreating to his own mind, he forgot about his body. More static as they reminded him to eat. He did, just to shut them up, not that he could taste the food anyway.He snapped out of it eventually, not that he had wanted to. Drifting was easy, living wasn't.A hand on his shoulder was all it took and he crushed the test tube in his hand, the glass embedding into his skin. The pain shot through him, he could feel his face moving and heard a hiss escape his mouth. At once, the static was gone and color returned to his grey world, sucking his mind back to earth. He missed dissociating immediately."Fuck, Bruce, are you okay? I'm sorry, you've been standing here for an hour and-""I'm fine."It was an automatic response, they both knew it wasn't true. Tony pushed a clean-ish cloth into his good hand, already searching for gauze. With his pain feelable again, Bruce hesitated for a second before starting to pull out the splitters in his palm. His eyes started to tear up as blood pooled in his hand and colored the white sleeve of his lab coat red.There was music playing, he noticed, carefully putting the glass shards onto the table. When had the music started?Tony came back to a neat pile of bloody, broken glass and a silently crying Bruce. He had no idea why he was crying.No questions were asked, he wrapped up his friend's hand, cleaned the table and sent him off to bed with a murmured "I understand".**Bruce decided to eat with them again the next day, his hand already healed.The night had been spent sleepless for the most part, when he had woken up in cold sweat after two hours of rest his vision had been green.Walking to the kitchen seemed to last forever and a second at the same time. Everyone was sitting at the table, talking and eating and enjoying the morning. Coffee smell drifted toward him and his stomach growled in response.The chatter stopped abruptly as soon as they saw him. Thor stood up from his chair, half-eaten bagel in front of him. He whispered something to Natasha, who nodded after a glance at the scientist in the doorway and was about to make his way out of the room when Bruce raised his voice."Stay. I'm fine."A lie. The smell of alcohol was already suffocating him again, but he went toward the table anyway, face frozen in what he hoped looked even remotely friendly. He could feel his stomach cramping more and more with every step and when he eventually sat down, he doubted he could eat anything at all.Tony slid a cup of coffee over the table to him with a smile and started talking again. Bruce was thankful for it and eventually relaxed against the back of his chair after the tension in the air had dissolved. Sitting next to Clint at the edge of the table was nice, he forced no conversation onto him and acted as a barrier between himself and Thor, who was eyeing him from his place a few chairs away.For the next hour, all he did was drink some more coffee and keep quiet while everyone else engaged in conversation. No one dared to bring up the incident or his admittedly strange behavior over the last weeks. Every Avenger had some kind of trauma and respecting each other's boundaries was an unwritten rule if you wanted to live in the tower. The only problem with that rule was the fact that Bruce had never told anyone about his triggers or experiences, he could already see the talk coming. When Tony finally excused himself to get back to his work, Bruce didn't hesitate and downed the now cold liquid in his mug before hurrying after him. "Wait." Thor's quiet voice stopped him halfway through the room and made him freeze on the spot. Talking to him was the last thing he wanted to do, but he still signaled Tony to proceed to the lab without him. He turned around slowly and fixed his gaze on a button of Thor's white shirt; eye contact has never been his strength."I just wanted to apologize. I violated your boundaries and my drunkness isn't an excuse. Your friendship is important to me and I will give you the distance you need."Stars, he sounded so soft and kind and not at all like his father. Thor would never hurt him as he did and still."I - appreciate the apology," he mumbled, digging his fingernails into the soft skin of his palms to keep his thoughts in order. Sometimes he absolutely loathed his fight or flight response, especially the fight part. Since his vision was still clear and not green, he decided to continue the conversation, even with the rest of the Avengers watching them from the table."Look, can we just forget this whole thing? I can't even completely remember what happened the second time I passed out and-""Second time?"Shit.