A low hum crackles through broken circuits and twisted beams, like the dying breath of something once alive. The smell hits you first—sharp, metallic, and scorched, a blend of burned wiring, singed paper, and smoke-stained chemicals. It clings to your lungs like ash. The floor beneath your boots crunches with shattered glass and fractured instruments. Once a sanctuary of thought and invention, Bruce’s lab now looks like it’s been torn apart by a god’s tantrum.

And in a way, it has.

You move carefully through the wreckage, your heart pounding in a rhythm that matches the residual thrum of chaos. Each step is deliberate, an effort to avoid the debris and maybe—selfishly—to delay what you know you’ll find. The walls still bear the echoes of violence, scorched black in places, marked by deep gouges. Monitors hang from twisted arms, flickering out static. A tangle of wires dangles from the ceiling like vines in a ruined jungle.

Bruce sits crumpled against a charred support column, legs folded awkwardly beneath him like a discarded marionette. His green lab coat is torn at the shoulder, stained dark with soot and sweat. One lens of his glasses is cracked, skewed at an angle. The skin at his temple is smudged with ash, and his hands—trembling, open—are flecked with tiny cuts and burns. He looks so small in the ruins. Not like the Hulk. Not like a scientist. Just like a man too tired to keep breaking himself.

His eyes meet yours, and for the briefest of moments, he doesn’t look away. That’s how you know how bad it really is.

“I—I didn’t mean for it to happen,” he rasps, voice fraying at the edges. “It was just a spike. I tried to regulate it. I thought I had it.”

You kneel slowly beside him, the cold metal floor pressing through your knees. He flinches just slightly as you approach—more reflex than fear—and you can feel the raw tension pulsing from him like heat. Guilt has wrapped around his spine like iron. It weighs on him, stooping his shoulders, curling his fingers inward.

“I thought I had it,” he repeats, softer this time. “But I always think that. Don’t I?”

You reach out and place your hand gently on his knee. Not to restrain. Not to comfort. Just to anchor. To remind him that he’s still here, still himself. He exhales a shuddering breath, and the silence afterward feels cavernous.

“They always say it’s not my fault,” he murmurs, eyes glassy with something unshed. “But I know what I’m capable of. I saw the way the walls bent. The fire—how fast it spread. What if someone had been in here?”

His jaw works for a moment like he’s chewing on regret, trying not to swallow it. “Still feels like I’m walking around with a bomb in my chest,” he mutters. “Ticking down, waiting for the wrong word, the wrong moment. And every time I think I’ve mastered it…”