☢ HEADCANON

[gammapulsed]

Just the various things that I've added onto what was given in the 2008 film. Some is taken from general comics canon, some is logically deduced, and some is just from my own personal thinking. The main application history can be found here. I'll add more as they come to me.

• This is basically my take on Bruce's childhood history up until he got to Harvard and met Betty.
  
  It's pretty much taken exactly as is from the Marvel Wikia site, but with a few tweaks to make it even more depressing. I think it's reasonable to assume this is what happened in film-canon as well, considering that the only people we really see Bruce's fugitive-ness personally affecting are Betty, Ross, and Stan the pizzeria owner. There's not even a passing mention of any actual, biological family so we can safely assume they're no longer in the picture for whatever reason.
  
  
• Bruce has never drunk a drop of alcohol. Ever. Not one plastic cup of beer, not one pilfered wine cooler, not even that watered down stuff you get at Holy Communion. He's seen firsthand what drinking can do to a person, how it can turn someone who could have been a decent human being into a raging, senseless monster with fists to match. Bruce supposes this is the one thing he can actually thank his father for.
  
  As an extension of this, Bruce has a tendency to judge those who do drink. If it's just a light one every now and again, and the person in question is overall responsible and careful, then he'll contain himself except for a few disapproving frown and an occasional shake of the head. However, if the person in question is a more frequent drinker, chooses harder liquors, and downs them in quantity (COUGH TONY STARK COUGH), then Bruce will be much colder and distant with that person, and his feelings will become much more apparent about the subject. He might even lecture if he thinks it's bad enough - but it'll take a lot to reach that point.
  
  
• Bruce has only seen his father once since his committal into a mental institution. Aunt Susan was still dealing with her own grief and anger at her sister's murder, but she still felt her nephew should at least visit his own father (the drunken, psychotic bastard). So several months after the funeral and moving into his aunt's modest house, she dressed Bruce up in his Sunday best and drove out to the asylum. He wasn't sure it was a good idea, but he kept his mouth shut and his eyes on his shoes. The orderlies led them into the visitation area, and then brought in Brian Banner. The second he laid eyes on his son, he threw himself at the boy, eyes bulging and fists clenched as he screamed unintelligibly at the top of his lungs. If the orderlies hadn't been there to literally drag him away, who knows what would have happened to Bruce. For his part, Bruce had just stood there and stared at his feet. He hadn't even flinched. Aunt Susan never suggested going back after that.
  
  
• But that didn't stop Bruce from mailing his father a card every Christmas and birthday until the accident. He would always set aside a few dollars and stamps every year to take care of it. He kept hoping that the leaden guilt in the pit of his stomach (and the deepdeepdeepdeep down anger and grief) would go away once he'd handed the card over to the postal clerk, but it never did.
  
  
• Bruce has changed into the Hulk eight times thus far.｟１｠ The original accident that started this whole thing, as seen in the opening credits of the film. Whenever he looks back on it now, he wonders why someone didn't just take a baseball bat to the back of his obviously inflated head, he was that damned arrogant.
  ｟２｠ Bruce originally tried to take a bus out to the Midwest to get away from the General. Of course, using such an easily predicted mode of transportation, it didn't take Ross long to find him. He was sitting in a diner staring listlessly at a cup of coffee, still trying to figure out what the hell happened when the first flashbang was fired through a window. For some reason, only one local newspaper carried the story of some giant, Sasquatch-esque creature demolishing the diner - the hard copy of the article and the few, vague negatives that ran with it were quickly confiscated and the paper was shut down. The proprietor's and author's whereabouts are still unknown. Bruce woke up in the in the foothills of the Rockies in Montana two weeks later. He managed to hitch a ride into the closest town and blanched the hustle surrounding the disappearance of two hikers further south.
  ｟３｠ After that, Bruce worked his way up north, hitchhiking first to Calgary, then Edmonton, then Whitehorse, then Fairbanks. From there he walked the rest of the way (despite all warnings from locals), until he'd found one of the great glaciers up in the Arctic Circle. He couldn't figure out how to deal with this strange new monster, and was set to kill himself by throwing himself off. But he couldn't stop the adrenaline or fear when he fell, and the Hulk manifested. The subsequent destruction caused a large shelf of ice to shatter and reveal a rather patriotically colored relic. Bruce woke up later on the eastern edge of Lake Clark National Park, whereupon he made his way over to Anchorage and got a job in a freighter's galley heading down to Mexico.
  ｟４｠ He got off in Tijuana, and made it all the way to Los Mochis before running afoul of some local toughs out looking for trouble. As a destitute gringo with little more than the clothes on his back, it was a wonder it hadn't happened sooner. Luckily it happened right as he was hitting the outskirts of town, so there wasn't much collateral damage and not that much news getting out about it.
  ｟５｠ The episode in Brazil. Because god knows Bruce didn't have enough problems already - he needed some schmucks from work pounding on him in the middle of a stealth ops team trying to hit him with a tranquilizer. Suffice to say it didn't end well for anyone involved - Blonsky was the only agent left standing afterward.
  ｟６｠ The episode at Culver University while leaving with Betty.
  ｟７｠ The intentionally induced episode in Sterns' laboratory to test the experimental antidote.
  ｟８｠ The second intentionally induced episode to combat the Abomination in the streets of New York City.
  
• Bruce has little to no knowledge of what's happened in the world since 2002-2003. He hasn't bought a newspaper, watched a non-local news telecast, and he sure as shooting hasn't surfed the web. So any references to recent events just go straight over his head.
  
  
• To further the point of Bruce's lack of knowledge, he doesn't know Emil Blonsky. Or, to be more specific, he doesn't know the man's name. He certainly remembers the British accent pistol-whipping him in Sterns' lab, and he recognizes the face as one of those soldiers who came after him in Rio de Janiero (and from vague flashes back to the firefight at Culver, though Bruce tries to forget those as much as possible). But as they were never formally introduced, he's just another of Ross' soldiers to Bruce. Moreover, he doesn't know that that particular soldier became the giant, grey monster that rampaged through New York.
  
  
• Going even further, Bruce has no clue as to the latest exploits of Tony Stark. As in he's completely unaware of the events that transpired in the Iron Man films. Hell, he doesn't even know that there is an Iron Man. The last he saw or heard about the billionaire playboy was on the cover of a supermarket tabloid a few days before the accident. So Bruce is also oblivious to the fact that Stark and S.H.I.E.L.D. are actively looking for him to join the Avengers Initiative.
  
  
• As might be obvious, the Hulk is triggered by an excessively excited physical and/or emotional state. What might not be obvious is that this effectively prevents Bruce from having sex or even masturbating. To get hot and bothered enough to get it on is just enough to make Bruce start seeing green and his wrist monitor beeping like a mother. So it has been over five years since the guy has been able to relieve those needs. Seriously.
  
  
• Bruce doesn't have a name for the Hulk. Most of the time he just refers to it as "it". "Thing/monster inside me" is a close second. He refuses to categorize it as he feels it's some kind of concession that it is a part of him, or that it's not going away.
  
  
• He doesn't like to be called Doctor, for a couple of reasons. The first (and the only one he'll actually admit to anyone) is that he really believes that his PhD isn't that big a deal, nor his other degrees - anyone can get a piece of sheepskin to hang on the wall if they work hard enough for it. It's not nearly as impressive as becoming an actual doctor.
  
  The second is that he hardly feels like he deserves that title after the massive, enormous, gigantic screw up that was the Gamma Pulse Project. He won't mind the title quite so much after he manages to cure himself (...whenever that happens - shut up it will), but until then it's just a not-so-subtle reminder of what a colossal dumbass he was.
  
  The third reason, and the one that he'd never tell, is because his father insisted on the title. Brian Banner was always starved for validation of his own brilliance, always so eager to let people know just how smart he was, and you couldn't have met the man five seconds ago before he was practically reciting his résumé at you. And god help the poor soul who mistakenly called him Mr. Banner after he's made so painfully clear he's a doctor, damn it, and he's worked his ass off to get there, thank you very much. So whenever Bruce hears someone call for Dr. Banner, it's all he can do to not flinch.
  
  
• Bruce adores dogs. It's the unadulterated, unconditional love they have for their masters, the way they bounce up to meet you when you get home, the floppy ears, just everything about them. Before going on the run, he'd never been able to have one of his own between Aunt Susan's allergies, then college dorms, then working round the clock with Betty. Then he was on the run, and whenever there were any strays around they seemed to do their best to avoid him, even when Bruce would offer a morsel or two - as if they could sense the monster lurking within. It was only in Rio that he managed to find a stray hungry enough to follow him home, and he named it Gluon. ...The boy is a nerd, what do you expect?
  
  Once he finally had a dog, Bruce found that he couldn't stop talking to him. It wasn't that much of a surprise - you spend over five years on the run, with no one to rely on? Stuff builds up. He just unloaded everything on the pooch, who took everything in poochy stride, much to his credit. After that first day together, whenever Bruce was home he was talking to Gluon. Just complete running narration of whatever he was doing.
  
  
• He's never, ever gotten along with General Ross. Ever. Not from the first time Betty brought him home for dinner in their sophomore year of college. Ross immediately deemed him as unworthy of dating his only daughter and branded him as "a spineless milksop Poindexter", which was only cemented when Bruce didn't rise to challenge him. And it only got worse from there. Every time Betty and Bruce went over to see him for holidays and birthdays and whatever, Ross would always manage to have some young, strapping officer there as his guest, and the rest of the evening would go on as if Betty were the prize mare at a horse auction until Betty's patience was finally pushed past its breaking point. Then Bruce would quietly excuse himself from the room as father and daughter proved that either one of them could legitimately be called "Thunderbolt".
  
  Despite Betty's attempts to convince him otherwise - that she didn't give a hoot what her father thought, that she loved him for him - Bruce always tried to get Ross's seal of approval through his scientific accomplishments. But it didn't matter what articles Bruce had published, or what awards he was given, or whatever he did - Ross always, always, always found him lacking. It would be a baldfaced lie to say that Bruce didn't jump on the Gamma Pulse Project as a way to finally get into Ross's good graces. Betty tried to advise against it, but Bruce felt he just had to do this. And for a while it went reasonably well. Though still blustery and brash as ever, Ross managed a (albeit small) modicum of professional respect for Bruce while working with him, and the fact that he made such rapid progress only bettered their relationship to the point where Ross wouldn't call Bruce any of the thousand names he'd heard all through high school.
  
  ...Of course, then the explosion happened and all that progress kinda went out the window.
  
  
• Bruce Banner was by no means a run-of-the-mill scientist. Before the incident, he'd garnered fame from the international science community for several papers he'd gotten published from the time he was a freshman in college. His treatises in cellular biology and nuclear physics especially have been met with massive acclaim, and it was the general opinion that he far eclipsed the leading minds of the day, including Reed Richards, Charles Xavier, and Tony Stark.
  
  
• Although he displayed this vast intelligence from a very early age, Bruce progressed through his education at the same pace as his less gifted peers. At first this was because his father absolutely refused to let this little mutie get any special treatment because freaks should just be grateful to be in school and keep their stupid mouths shut. ...Ahem. After he moved in with his aunt, she suggested skipping a few grades when his teachers brought up the possibility, but Bruce just shook his head. He'd already been singled out for being different, for being smarter - he sure as hell wasn't going to advertise his brains for anyone to come and beat him up.
  
  Not that he still didn't get his share of swirlies and wedgies and yes, even purple nurples while skating through the public education system, but. It was the principle of the thing, really.
  
  
• During his years on the run, Bruce has had to do some things he's not particularly proud of. (Get your mind out of the gutter right now. Perverts.) Among these things is stealing. Nothing too big, or too valuable - just some food when he was unable to beg or borrow some.
  
  He's also managed to become pretty decent at picking locks, again out of necessity. When the weather was too rough and there weren't enough free corners to huddle in, he'd break into locked lots or chained up shacks. Suffice to say he's squatted a fair number of times.
  
  Even though he's only done these things when he's been even more desperate than usual, Bruce still feels incredibly guilty about it all. He hates that he wasn't able to think of any alternative to doing it, hates that he did it, and hates that he's gotten good at it.
  
  
• Bruce is well aware of Captain America's existence - as the leader of the Invaders back in World War II. Cap, Bucky, the original Human Torch, and Toro are all mentioned in the history books and the wartime newsreels, both as pro-American propaganda symbols and as actual war heroes. Even after the war (and the heroes' mysterious disappearance from the world scene), they were well entrenched in American culture. There's been comic books written about them, some merchandising, even a movie adaptation of their exploits made in the late sixties (Clint Eastwood was Captain America, Horst Buchholz was Bucky, with Yul Brynner as the Red Skull - and yes, it was badass).
  
  By the time he hit college, the Invaders still maintained a small cult following - think Battlestar Galatica before the remake hit Syfy - and were represented at pretty much every comic convention alongside Star Trek and Star Wars. He himself managed to get an Invaders metal lunchbox at one such con, and at a damned decent price.
  
  
• Whenever Bruce starts ripping on himself for whatever reason - a minor mistake, a fumbled conversation, tripping or stumbling over a stray rock, any kind of failure whatsoever (whether it's actually happened or merely Bruce fretting about something) - he hears it in his father's voice."Way to show everyone what a worthless pile of garbage you are, freak. Just goes to prove my point - someone should have wiped you out ages ago. Would have saved everyone a whole lot of trouble. Can you even think of one person whose life wouldn't be better if you had just taken the hint and killed yourself. Oh, wait - you couldn't even do that right, could you? God. What a miserable failure."
  ...Yeah, his brain isn't a happy place to be.