Chapter 4: Control

"No, please father...don't do this."

A younger version of Bruce Banner sat on the floor of his home looking up at an older man with fear in his eyes.

The older man held a half empty bottle in his raised hand and he seemed intoxicated by his unfocused and muddled expression.

"Shut up you brat."

"AH!"

The man cracked the bottle down onto Bruce's head, leaving a dark bloody gash from the broken glass.

"What's happening?"

A woman came running out from the kitchen to where Bruce and his father were. Once she saw Bruce's bloody face she let out a loud shriek.

"Oh dear lord, my baby!"

She ran to her son and carefully lifted his head to take a better look at the gash.

"Oh no we need to call the ambulance. How did this happen Brian?"

"Hmm?"

Brian stepped forward with bloodshot eyes. His steps were shaky and his chest kept heaving as if he was suffering from some type of lung problem.

Although he stared straight at his wife his focus was on something else.

"Don't...don't get in my way Rebecca..."

His lazy and haggard tone set off alarm bells in Rebecca's head as she immediately noticed his drunken demeanor.

And that was when she saw the broken bottle in his hand as well as the shattered glass stuck in Bruce's face.

"D-did you do this Brian?"

She stood up and got up in his face, extremely mad at him for what he had done to her son.

"...Don't blame me...it's his fault."

"His fault?"

Rebecca lifted up her hand and bitch slapped her husband across the face with a loud smack.

"How dare you blame him! He's just a child!"

Brian touched the red mark on his face, a disturbing expression slowly forming.

"Y-you..."

"You? You what? How can you hurt your own son?"

"You bitch!"

Brian's hands wrapped around Rebecca's throat and he squeezed as hard as he could.

"...Do you know what I've done for you...for him? Do you realize how much I've sacrificed?"

Rebecca choked, her unspoken words trapped in her throat as slight noises of resistance came out of her mouth.

"...The hours I've spent slaving away...the years of my life spent on a stupid brat and a worthless whore..."

"Mom!"

Bruce saw his mother being strangled by his father and couldn't find the strength to move. The furious face of his father from throughout his childhood had deeply traumatized him.

"L-let go of her!"

Realizing the situation was far more dangerous than when his father had other drunken bouts, Bruce finally did something and ran up the stairs, grabbing the loaded pistol his father hid under his bed.

But by the time he ran back downstairs it was already too late. Rebecca's body had been dropped down to the floor, completely motionless, while his father stood over her with a malicious smile.

That was when Bruce lost all sense of reason and thought as he fired the pistol at his father's head.

Then the young 8 year old Bruce Banner collapsed, gun in hand with his two dead parents slumped on the ground, one with a bullet in between his eyebrows, the other foaming at the mouth.

'Is this what made you what you are Banner?'

I've always detested these types of backstories, they make a character feel as if their entire personality hinges on one event that happened in their lives rather than something they naturally developed over time.

Perhaps that was why I saw Sasuke's memories as such burdens. So much so that I had to spend multiple months just trying to get rid of his influence on my own mind.

'Although, Sasuke's case is much worse than Bruce's.'

To Bruce, this sole tragedy in his life would most certainly shape his character and personality but it wasn't as horrific as Sasuke. Or at the very least Bruce managed to deal with his trauma better than Sasuke did.

There was a reason my chakra was so putrid and dark despite not actually belonging to Sasuke. The pain left from the Uchiha clan massacre affected even me, someone who wasn't even involved in the matter.

'Hopefully I'll get another card that can offset Sasuke's hatred. Untill than I'll nurture the Hulk to be the perfect henchman.'

Thankfully this repetitive scene of Bruce's father killing his mother was enough to completely stop either Bruce or the Hulk from doing anything.

'It really does seem that this version of the Hulk is far weaker than most of his other variants. He really is just a creation of Bruce's hate.'

If this Hulk had been some crazy demon that couldn't be killed I'd have no choice but to dip. I'm lucky this is a weaker version of the Hulk.

'I'm definitely making this motherfucker my dog.'

Having a rabid green dog on a leash that only I can pull, hell yeah that's a good idea. I'm a fucking genius for thinking of this shit.

'The difficulty in maintaining a genjutsu on the Hulk is also fairly easy, it's not mentally straining or too chakra draining to do. The only real problem is that I don't know how to trigger the transformation of Bruce into the Hulk.'

'But that can all be fixed with experimentation, and I have the perfect target to experiment on. I hope spider boy has grown into a man since the last time I've seen him.'

Peter had been getting actual publicity ever since our previous encounter. It seemed that my presence put a great ton of pressure on him to improve.

As for whether or not Peter can actually fight the Hulk...well, probably not but he won't die. Especially since I'll be there to stop the fight when things get rough.

'There might be a problem in this plan depending on whether the news that I took the Hulk gets leaked. I don't want to make the Akatsuki seem responsible for what the Hulk did. No no, it's much better to direct the public's hate towards the government, which is easy since a large portion of the population already hates the government.'