a/n: This was prompted by a gif I saw on Tumblr. I'd totally forgotten about the scene where Bruce says, "I don't always get what I want," as he pushes the cradle. Pepper and Bruce talk about the love of his life. Characters aren't mine, and I've moved/deleted things in Bruce's/Betty's canon timeline. I apologize in advance.

As the door to his apartment swung open lightly, Bruce didn't bother to raise his eyes from the computer screen.

"I checked the lab results, and there still doesn't seem to be a change. The levels are the same," he called quietly.

"I'll be sure to tell Tony," Pepper replied, closing the door behind her as she wandered in, smiling, "I was actually wondering if you've seen him." Bruce slid his glasses from his nose and tapped them against his open palm.

"No," he frowned, looking at his watch for the time, "But I wouldn't be too concerned. He's probably out looking for something." Pepper shook her head and lounged on the armchair across from the sofa.

"I'm going to have to get a GPS tracker implanted into his skull," she sighed, "He wouldn't notice. We're supposed to have dinner tonight," she told him, offering a withering look, "I think he forgot."

"He'll make up for it," Bruce said, donning his glasses to check the lab results again. Spending so much time with Tony had allowed him to become a good judge of character. Tony, essentially, was a good person, even if he threw up nearly every defense mechanism in the book to prove people otherwise.

"He will," Pepper agreed, tying her hair up in a ponytail, "That's Tony." She was silent for a moment before she spoke again.

"Bruce?"

"Hmm?" he murmured, foregoing the results for new lab equipment.

"Have you ever been in love?" Pepper asked innocently. Bruce stopped typing and looked up at her. She looked back, expectant. He sighed a little to himself and dropped his gaze back to the computer screen.

"Yes," he said simply, quite anxious for the conversation to end there. But it didn't.

"What was her name?" Bruce closed the lid to his laptop silently and removed his glasses again, studying them as if he had never seen them before. Her name had not passed his lips in nearly two years, but there was not a moment when he did not think of her. She had been his whole world, once. She still is, he thought bitterly.

"Betty," he replied finally, "Betty Ross." Pepper smiled at him and tugged on her ponytail.

"Bruce and Betty Banner," she said softly, "You must have been beautiful together." A ragged edge of a sad smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

"We were..." he trailed, almost to himself, "We were so beautiful..." Feelings were coming to the surface now, feelings that he hadn't thought of in years. He thought of her often, but he never spoke of her. Speaking her name seemed to make the pain all the more real. He knew Pepper's next question before she voiced it.

"What...happened?" Bruce smiled as if berating himself for a past wrong; more of a grimace than a smile, really.

"The better question would be what didn't happen, honestly. We weren't meant to be together," he said, making eye contact with Pepper for the first time since she had begun speaking to him, "She was Thaddeus Ross' daughter, and I worked under him, building the gamma radiation bomb. I still remember the first time I saw her. It was her eyes, I think, that I fell in love with first. They were always so excited, so beautiful and full of life-when she was away from her father. He wanted a son, she told me, and he never forgave her for failing to meet his expectations.

"I can't exactly remember the moment when I fell in love with Betty. For us, it was slow...so slow. Her father...he didn't approve. He all but shoved the new aide, Glenn Talbot, down her throat. But she didn't want him. She wanted me," he said weakly, looking as though even now, all of those years later, he could not believe that she had chosen him. He shrugged, blinking the stinging in his eyes away.

"We had been...involved with each other for nearly five months when my...accident took place," he explained, setting his glasses down on the table between them nervously, "I should have died."

"But you didn't," Pepper told him, leaning forward. Bruce shook his head.

"But I should have." She didn't argue with him then, only gave him a sympathetic look. After a pause, he began to speak again.

"Thankfully, Talbot, Betty, and Thaddeus were out of the facility when the bomb detonated. You and I both know what happened then, no need for me to go into it again." Involuntarily, it seemed, Bruce shuddered before moving on.

"I didn't have the other guy under control back then. I would disappear for weeks and then suddenly reappear, making no excuses and pretending that nothing was wrong. But Thaddeus and Talbot suspected something, and they dug around until they brought the other guy to light," he sighed, defeated, "I didn't want Betty to know what a...monster I had become. But I suppose that I would have told her, eventually. It had always felt wrong, lying to her about who-what...what I was. But I worked on it. It took months, but it finally looked as if I had the other guy under control. I thought. I proposed to Betty, and we were to be married within the month."

It was coming, the hard parts. I can stop, he reminded himself, I can stop now and keep myself under control. He had never told the entire story to anyone before, not ever. He hadn't been able to. He wasn't quite sure why he was explaining the entire thing to Pepper, but he found that he could not stop. With every word he spoke, the pain of heartbreak returned, threatening to leave him breathless. He wasn't sure why he couldn't stop, but he didn't question.

"And then?" Pepper asked tentatively, somehow knowing what he was going to say before he said it. Bruce drummed his fingers on his knee as he looked past Pepper, past the open window, past the buildings and the sky outside.

"We were exchanging vows. She was so unbelievable in white, so pure and so innocent and so..full of life. And then I was attacked. An old enemy of the other guy's resurfaced, and he shot me with gamma rays. I don't remember much after that, but I know Thaddeus was seriously injured, and Talbot had taken Betty away so that I wouldn't hurt her," he paused, taking a shaky breath, "I was so stupid," he admitted, "I thought that I could keep things under control. I believed that I could lead a normal life. But I couldn't, and I'd had no right to drag Betty into things. She must have been so scared," he murmured, swept up in a memory. With a start, he noticed that Pepper was crying silently, and he reached out to comfort her.

"I didn't mean to upset you. I'll stop," he offered, handing her a handkerchief. She shook her head.

"It's just...it wasn't your fault, Bruce. The Hulk-" But he smiled ruefully.

"We are the same person, Pepper," he told her, "That makes everything that he does my fault. You understand why I don't like it when the other guy takes over." She nodded, and he sat back, eyes moving restlessly from one object to another. It had been stupid, bringing up all of these events, these emotions that he had so carefully suppressed. They did him no service whatsoever. But still he went on.

"Shortly after that, while I was on the run, Betty and Glenn were married. It was while they were on their honeymoon that Thaddeus was captured. Talbot ran to his rescue, and eventually succeeded-only to be taken prisoner himself. Betty was told, falsely, that her husband was dead, and she suffered a nervous breakdown. I heard of it, and I knew that I needed to fix it. I owed it to her; it was because of me that all of these things had happened. Thaddeus halted his manhunt for me long enough for the other guy to find Talbot and bring him back to Betty. As long as he made her happy, I told myself that I didn't care. As long as he kept her safe, I respected him. Because that was one thing that I couldn't do: keep her safe. But he was relentless, and he followed me to Japan. He died there, but it wasn't at my hand. It wasn't by the other guy's either.

"Betty found out that her father had attempted to have me killed, and she turned on him. Days later, he had disappeared completely. Selfishly, I came back to her. There was nothing to stand between the two of us but the other guy. And he drove us apart again. I explained to her that I could control him, that I was no longer a slave to him. But she wanted me rid of him, and it couldn't be done. It still cannot be done. So we split again, and this time I was the one who disappeared. For three years, I experimented and researched until I produced a procedure to separate me from the other guy. It had been, seemingly, a success, and I returned to the base. I explained that I was cured, and within the next three months, we were engaged again, Betty pregnant with our child. On our wedding day, Thaddeus reappeared. He promised that he would kill me if I married his daughter. I managed to deal with the situation without transforming, but it was too late. Betty miscarried." Bruce stopped and curled his hands into fists, knowing that he wouldn't be able to speak until the emotions passed. His whole world, in a single afternoon, had gone away. Betty, their child, their marriage...their happiness. Pepper was devastatingly silent as he finished.

"Her father took her away from me, then. I haven't seen her since; I haven't tried. I don't know what's happened to her." He forced himself to fold his hands, and he glared down at them hollowly, pointedly ignoring the raw heartbreak in his chest. The story was complete. The story was complete, and yet, he felt no relief. He felt no absolution. Instead, he felt the same way as he did when it had happened. Raw. Broken. Exposed. Guilty. But this time around, he knew what to do with these emotions. He knew how to control them. And that made him a better man.

"You say was," Pepper observed finally. Bruce nodded and picked up his glasses again.

"I don't believe that she's alive. It's...easier that way. To manage? It helps."

"But she might be alive!" Pepper exclaimed, sitting up suddenly, "Tony could find her. It would be nothing to-" Bruce silenced her gently with a raised hand.

"I know you mean well, Pepper, but I can't," he whispered, "I can't. I would rather believe that she's dead and no longer suffering than believe that she's alive somewhere, hurting, being kept prisoner, and I hate myself for it. I believe that she's dead to make myself feel better for what I've done to her." Bruce stood, unsure of what to do with himself then. Pepper looked up at him for a moment before they embraced.

"You never let them see," she commented gently, stepping back.

"We all have our weaknesses," he allowed quietly, shoving his hands into his pockets, "And she is mine."