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It was like Eliot said: when the end came (and Bruce had always known it would come, sooner or later) it arrived not with a bang, but with a whimper.
The day was beautiful. Bruce sat at the corner table of the cafe, staring out at the colorful parade of people and traffic outside on the street. It was just shy of noon in Bangkok, and the city was in full swing. He stirred his tea, sipping it and grimacing slightly in automatic response. He’d grown so used to the chai at the little hole-in-the-wall diner near his apartment in Kolkata that everything else still tasted wrong. He’d get used to the change sooner or later, he supposed. Bangkok certainly had a wealth of options for him to choose from.
He’d been in Thailand for all of 36 hours now. The sheer ease of getting here was still weirding him out; it’d been years since he could go anywhere or do anything without having to resort to everything from bribery to outright theft (of tickets, of passports, of vehicles). But Henrik Mikkelsen had been true to his word, and now there were a good half-dozen visas and a shockingly legitimate passport sitting in Bruce’s beat-up leather bag that gave him access to almost every country in the subcontinent, plus China and Mongolia. All he’d had to do was get on a plane, sit back, and pretend it was a perfectly normal flight.
( “Oh come on,” Bruce had said, flipping through the paperwork when Henrik brought over the manila envelope containing everything he’d need to head to Thailand once their operation was over and all the children were safe. The passport photo of him was good; it looked like Bruce, but Bruce who hadn’t spent the past six years as a fugitive from both international and domestic law enforcement. The name, though. “Richard Twist? Really?”
Henrik had smiled, eyes wide and innocent. Bruce had often thought, back when they’d roomed together, that butter wouldn’t melt in Henrik’s mouth, and it had been more than a decade since med school but apparently some things didn’t change.
“Of course,” he’d said, easy, with only the faintest accent. “Dick to your friends.”
“I can’t believe I agreed to help you,” said Bruce, and swatted Henrik in the shoulder with his passport as Henrik laughed.)
Bruce straightened as the cafe owner came over to his table, a pot of steaming tea in her hands. She was a short woman with her dark hair pulled back into an intricate up-do, wearing a smock over her patterned blouse and skirt; she reminded Bruce faintly of one of his aunts, the one who’d always had something sarcastic to say to his mother. She raised her eyebrows, gesturing at his near-empty mug with the teapot.
“No, no,” Bruce said in Thai, and fumbled as he tried to remember any other phrases. “Er—” His hostess’ smile widened as Bruce floundered visibly. “Finished, thank you.”
“Are you sure you don’t want more?” asked the lady, in English, her accent considerably better than Bruce’s Thai pronunciation, and Bruce sighed, smiling ruefully up at her.
“No, I should get going. Thank you very much,” he added, switching back to Thai just to watch her laugh at how bad he was at it. She walked to the counter and returned moments later with a small tray piled high with tiny, sweet seeds for him, which Bruce took a pinch of before leaving a small handful of baht on the tray as a tip. He grabbed up his leather satchel and headed to the door, waving at the cafe owner as he slipped out.
Technically, Bruce had nowhere in particular to be; he hadn’t even been in the country two full days yet, hardly long enough to be in a time-crunch yet. But one of the things he’d discovered while traveling was that—as far as his own peace of mind was concerned—he felt less aimless and adrift if he gave himself a schedule and stuck to it.
Right now, though, he didn’t even have a clinic assignment yet. He’d come downtown today to meet with the organizers of one of the humanitarian organizations in the city center, to sign up (as Richard Twist, good lord) to work in one of the organization’s no-cost health-care clinics. MHG Health was affiliated with Henrik’s people, which was how Bruce had got the contact and one of the only reasons he trusted them the marginal amount that he did. They were grateful to have him and promised to get back to him promptly about finding a clinic for him to work with, but in the meantime, Bruce needed to find something to do with himself.
Bruce headed towards the bus stop at the end of the block, having more or less decided he might just go back to his rented apartment. He had a few books in his bag to browse, and he certainly had plenty of room for improvement on his language skills. And as much as he wanted to explore Bangkok, it’d be a good idea to keep a low profile for a day or two until he was sure the appearance of the Other Guy back in Kolkata hadn’t attracted more of the wrong sort of attention than Bruce could easily avoid.
He got within about twenty yards of the bus stop when he spotted a stocky man in tan slacks with a dark mop of hair and a familiar sloping nose, and Bruce’s heart sank. Dr. Albert Stephanopoulos was an American expatriate by origin, an internist by training, and a pain in the ass by personal habit. Bruce had met him earlier that morning along with a few other physicians and health-care workers who were looking to volunteer their time in clinics around Thailand. Much to Bruce’s displeasure, the man had latched onto “Richard” as a kindred spirit, and spent a good 45 minutes after the meeting’s end attempting to murder Bruce by way of boring him to death. Bruce had finally escaped by making an excuse about meeting some friends for lunch and tea, and he’d hoped that Dr. Stephanopoulos would be long gone, but apparently he’d found someone else to torment in Bruce’s absence and was only now getting around to leaving the area.
As he if Bruce had spoken aloud, his newest frenemy looked around, and Bruce froze for a few moments before turning abruptly and marching down the alley jutting off from the main road, walking brusquely as though he had somewhere important to be. “Dr. Twist?” called a voice from behind him, and Bruce sped up, turning left at the end of the alley, darting across the road, and turning down another alley a half-block down the new street.
It occurred to him that he’d basically done the adult equivalent of ditching the weird kid with the overbite and aggressive body odor, but even Bruce Banner had limits on his patience. Bruce slowed as he made another turn, amused to realize that he had no fucking idea where he was now. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to get back to the main road; it was more his general lack of knowledge of Bangkok’s layout.
He glanced down the street, tracking past people going swiftly about their business, shopping bags or groceries or briefcases in their arms; past taxis trying to outdo each other in who could most traumatically terrify the pedestrians attempting to cross the road. No one so much as looked at him. To them, Bruce was just another Westerner visiting Bangkok, ready to lose himself in a city that had more important things to worry about.
Bruce smiled. Maybe he could do with a little losing himself today.
* * * * *
The thing about Bangkok was that it was huge. A man could cover a lot of territory if he had a few hours to kill, particularly if he had nowhere in particular to be.
Since unceremoniously retreating from the bus stop, which had been just after noon, Bruce had visited four souvenir shops, a tea shop (at which he spent a good hour chatting in a mixture of Thai and Spanish, interestingly, with the store owner), a huge bookshop at which he’d been tempted to purchase entirely too many books, and a pharmacy. He’d walked past countless other store fronts, sat on three benches to people-watch, fed birds he didn’t recognize in two different parks from a bag of seeds he got at the pharmacy, and taken multiple photos for a group of Japanese high school students on vacation. Bruce supposed it said good things about him that strangers seemed to think it natural to approach him for help. There were worse things you could appear as than “harmless.”
Now, though, Bruce was getting tired, and trying to decide whether it’d be better to take public transport back to the end of town he was staying in (he could read on the bus that way) or whether he should just flag down a cab. He’d wandered so far he’d come to the edge of one of the red-light districts of town, and as darkness was approaching he figured now was a good a time as any to call it a day. Still, no need to hurry.
He was walking slow, a hand on the strap of his bag, absorbed in his thoughts, when from somewhere nearby he heard a loud CLAP, the sound of a piece of wood being slapped hard against another. Bruce frowned; something about the noise was wrong.
It wasn’t the sound of wood on wood at all, he thought slowly. It was much more like the sound of air being suddenly and violently displaced.
Bruce kept walking, looking around him to see if anyone else had noticed the noise, but if anyone had, no one nearby seemed to show it. He’d just about made up his mind to keep going when he happened to glance down the alley leading off from his street and saw a figure disappearing around the edge of a building at the far end. He froze.
The figure was crawling on all fours and was covered in an awful lot of blood—and either Bruce was more tired than he thought, or whoever it was had blue skin.
Bruce stared, and then started forward, but the—person (hallucination?) was gone. “What the fuck,” Bruce muttered, and rubbed at his face. People parted around him like minnows in a river, oblivious to anything out of the ordinary, and while normally Bruce was glad for his natural unobtrusiveness (for the closest value of “natural” available when you have the Other Guy to worry about), right now it just made him feel like he’d been sliced away from reality just enough to be dangerous.
Bruce shook himself. He’s done enough attention-getting in the past few days; the last thing he needed was to go looking for more trouble. But he hadn’t acquired so many degrees in the sciences by having a lack of innate curiosity. He stayed where he was for a few more moments, undecided, and then sighed and started down the alley.
He’d just have a look. Probably it was some weird joke some kids were playing, and there wouldn’t even be anything there. Just one look and then he’d go.
Bruce poked his head around the corner, glancing warily up and down the street. “Hello?” he called, raising his voice slightly. “Is anybody here…?”
No answer. The alley appeared to be deserted. Bruce readjusted the bag on his shoulder and frowned, and just when he was turning to head back to the main road and call a cab, he heard it: a faint noise, like an animal in pain. It was coming from the left, beyond several rubbish bins set against the brick wall. Bruce crept forward, giving the bins a wide berth just in case, and then stopped, staring thunderstruck at the figure huddled against the wall.
Stupidly, his first thought was Smurf.
He rejected it immediately, of course, but he could hardly be blamed for the thought; skin that bright blue only existed in a few examples in Western pop culture. But this person was more Grimm’s Fairy Tales than Disney: blue skin, red eyes, a shock of overgrown black hair, and high curving horns that jutted from elegant brows. At the sight of him, the stranger (Bruce could think of no word more apt) bared white teeth in a warning snarl. Bruce's quick eyes noted a fearful gash that ran down the left side of the stranger's abdomen, an arm held awkwardly against his chest, and no, he definitely hadn’t been imagining a hell of a lot of blood, quite a bit of which stained the shreds of what Bruce thought used to be pants.
The stranger was watching him, Bruce saw, red eyes fixed intently on Bruce as Bruce wavered from his short distance away. "You probably don’t understand me," Bruce said, remembering the thousands of sci-fi movies he’d watched and always wondered but why do the aliens understand English?. "But ...maybe you do." He held up both his hands, slowly, palms-out to show that they were empty, his bag still slung from his shoulder, and then started to advance cautiously towards the stranger, trying to see how close he could get.
It turned out he could get within about ten feet before he earned himself another warning snarl. Bruce stopped, hands still spread, and then slowly crouched, slipping his bag off his shoulder and pulling the knotted cord at its mouth to spill its contents onto the ground, taking care not to obscure the stranger’s view. Bruce was very aware of that heavy regard, and he glanced up again as he rummaged through his belongings. "I want to help you," Bruce said, trying to inject calm into his voice, hoping the tone would carry if the meaning didn’t.
He didn't know why he was doing this—no, that wasn't true. He knew exactly why he was doing this. He just didn't expect to be successful. But he couldn't walk away without at least trying. The stranger had an all-too-human face, one that now wore a guarded expression, but the snarl was gone, at least for the moment. Bruce crept closer, hands empty, his things left to lay where they’d spilled. He got close enough to settle on his butt at the stranger's side, and for a moment they just stared at each other. Up close the demon was even more striking, eyes as red as blood, patterns like scars or birthmarks spiraling in fine lines over dusky blue skin, smeared with dirt and caked with what Bruce strongly suspected was more blood, his black hair matted and dirty. But underneath all the grime was an intelligent face, marked by high cheekbones and a cruel, sensual mouth.
Bruce gestured at the gash in the demon's side. "That looks painful," he said softly. "If you just... lift your arm—" He cautiously reached to move the stranger's arm out of the way, but before he could touch the stranger lifted his arm to one side, grimacing at the movement. Apparently, Bruce would be allowed to examine, if perhaps not to touch. "Thank you," Bruce said, and leaned in closer to peer at the wound.
It was bad; it had probably been worse when the stranger had first suffered it, a jagged gash running from just under the armpit down to the bottom rib, smeared with crusted blood and still oozing bloody lymph. Bruce wondered at how tough this creature must be to have endured an injury like that and not immediately bled to death. "This needs cleaning," he said, glancing up automatically at the stranger's face for permission despite the perceived language barrier.
Maybe his intent was understood anyway, though, because when Bruce retrieved a cloth and a bottle of water from his spilled bag and then crept in close again, the stranger made no move to stop him. He hissed when Bruce rubbed the towel against the dried blood, but he didn't shove Bruce away or try to stop him, and submitted to having the wound cleaned—or at least, the nearest approximation of "clean" Bruce could manage with a moderately unstained handkerchief and one bottle of water. Which wasn't very. But he was used to doing the best he could with what he had. It wasn’t like he’d left the apartment today expecting to do first aid on a blue humanoid.
Once the cloth had turned a disgusting shade of brownish-red and was no longer good for anything, Bruce set it aside, re-examining the gash now that he could actually see more of it. "I just hope half your insides aren't on the ground somewhere," Bruce murmured, squinting at the raw and puckered flesh that lined the wound, troubled by a spot that was particularly swollen. "Usually an injury like this would need stitches."
"I abhor needles," said the stranger coolly, in plain English, and Bruce almost fell over. He glanced up sharply at the stranger's face, meeting that brilliant gaze.
"What, you just remembered you actually speak English?" Bruce straightened, stifling a flash of irritation.
"It's not English," said the stranger, and okay, Bruce knew when he was being sneered at. "It's the All-Speak." Bruce rolled his eyes.
"Okay, fine. Whatever." Bruce gestured at the wound in the stranger's side. "This needs more medical attention than I can give you here. It looks infected, and there's a chance you could have debris inside the wound. If you tell me what happened, that would—"
"No," said the stranger.
Bruce paused. "No, there's no debris inside the wound, or no, you won't tell me what happened?"
"What happened is none of your concern," said the stranger, and now there was outright hostility in his face. Bruce raised his hands again in the universal (maybe) gesture of surrender.
"Alright," Bruce said, voice neutral. It wasn't uncommon for patients to refuse to divulge the circumstances of illness or injury to him, regardless of nationality; it was unusual for their skin to be one of the primary colors. "That's fine." He thought the stranger relaxed a little at that, and Bruce let his hands lower to his lap. "But that infection could get nasty if it isn't treated. I... don't know if antibiotics will help you or not, but I want to at least try to get the injury properly cleaned and irrigated if need be. It'll help you heal better."
"I have no need of your help," the stranger said haughtily.
"Right," said Bruce. "That's why you’re bleeding to death in a dirty alley. I know that’s what I like to do on my days off.”
He didn't want to have to say that; Bruce could already tell that he was dealing with someone who desperately hated being shown his own short-comings. But his alternative was to leave a very badly injured person alone, after nightfall, to fend for himself in a sketchy part of the city, and Bruce might not have finished his medical training, but that still wasn't something he was willing to do.
Also, did he mention that this person was blue.
Bruce was rewarded for his efforts with a deafening silence and a glare that could have curdled milk. "Very well," said the stranger at length, like a queen granting a boon to a courtier. "What are you are proposing?"
"Let me take you to my flat so I can treat your injuries and you can rest somewhere safer for a little while," Bruce said. Normally, he would have suggested taking an injured person to a clinic, but that wasn’t so much an option right now, blue-skinnedness and Bruce’s alter-ego Homo horribilis just two of many reasons.
The stranger's lip curled. "Your apartment," he repeated. "I see. The noble doctor wishes to demonstrate his selflessness by rescuing the suffering monster in his distress. Are you perhaps expecting to free me from my wretched state with a kiss, transforming me into a beautiful princess? I fear this fairy-tale ending will not be to your liking, doctor."
"If you don't vomit all over my sheets and steal my medical equipment, you'll be an improvement over the last house-guest," Bruce said.
"Your choice in companionship clearly leaves something to be desired," said the stranger after a moment.
"You won't get any argument from me about that," said Bruce, and somehow managed not to smile.
* * * * *
Getting the stranger (who, when asked, "What should I call you?" responded with "You may address me as 'Loki'," much to Bruce's well-concealed amusement) home turned out to be less complicated than Bruce had feared. Loki had some tricks up his sleeve, managing to pull some sort of illusion around himself that gave him the appearance of a tall, pale Westerner with dark hair; Bruce sort of thought this version looked like a snooty English aristocrat, but that could have been his imagination. Regardless, it meant the cab ride back to Bruce's apartment required fewer explanations.
Once home, Bruce settled Loki in the one and only bed his new apartment contained, and set about a more thorough inspection of his guest's injuries. Loki's wounds totaled one ugly foot-long gash in his abdomen, one wrist that was very likely broken and definitely at least sprained, and a host of other symptoms that Bruce was having trouble diagnosing, including what he would have called fever, chills, and malaise in a human patient. Field medicine was a hands-on learning experience at the best of times, but there was no manual whatsoever for "blue aliens who appear out of nowhere and refuse to tell you anything helpful about themselves." Bruce was going mainly on instinct at this point, and hoping devoutly it wouldn't steer him wrong.
Right now, for example, he thought Loki was headed straight for a staph infection and sepsis. It wasn't the first time he'd hoped he was wrong about a diagnosis.
"Do you want a pain-killer?" Bruce asked. He kept his eyes on his hands, which were in the process of bracing a splint against Loki's injured wrist and wrapping a bandage to hold everything in place. He had quite a bit of basic medical equipment he’d acquired while in India, frequently having to travel to patients’ houses to care for them, especially when other doctors refused. They didn’t have Bruce’s ‘natural’ resistance to disease, of course, so Bruce didn’t exactly blame them. "I think your stomach injury still has some debris in it, and I need to re-open it so I can irrigate it properly and make sure you don't have any foreign objects in there."
Loki leveled a look at him that could have meant anything from serious indigestion to a contemplation of how good a bowling ball Bruce's head might make. His eyes were green now instead of red, but no less filled with contempt for that fact. "Your mortal medicine will likely have no effect on me," he said dismissively. "And if you think I am going to allow you to cut me open like a piece of meat—"
"Oh, save it," Bruce snapped, and Loki stopped, looking affronted, but Bruce kept right on going. "You have all these secrets and I really, really don’t care, but if you don't let me manage that infected laceration you are going to die of blood poisoning. And that, I care about.”
Loki scowled at him and looked away. "I don't know why," he said.
"Well, I do," said Bruce. "Are you going to let me operate, or not?"
Loki went so long without answering that Bruce actually started to wonder if he was going to have to leave his own apartment and try to figure out what to do, but when Bruce stood up, Loki's uninjured hand flew out to grab Bruce's wrist. "Do what you must and get it over with," Loki said, and Bruce suddenly found himself the focus of Loki's gaze once again, his face tight and complicated. Bruce nodded.
It was one of the most difficult surgical procedures of Bruce's career, made all the worse by his limited resources and lack of help. By the time he'd sterilized his equipment, assembled clean towels and gauze, gotten a clean hose running from his kitchen to the bedroom, slipped towels underneath Loki's increasingly feverish body, set pots and dish-tubs around the bed to catch the water, and strong-armed his patient into taking a few pain-killers and antibiotics despite Loki's caustic dismissiveness towards them, it was fully dark outside, obliging Bruce to drag every light not affixed to a ceiling into the bedroom in order to be able to see well enough to work.
Bruce did have to give Loki credit; the pain-killers Bruce gave him were nowhere near adequate to much dull the pain of incision, but Loki did not cry or scream or fight him, though his knuckles turned white from gripping the blankets Bruce gave him as Bruce worked. Later, Bruce would find the leather strap he'd given Loki to bite down on cleanly bitten through. Over the forty-five minutes Loki was open on the bed, Bruce extracted some bristly black fur, quite a bit of sand and chunks of rock, and what could only be the broken-off claw tip of some enormous animal. Bruce hoped devoutly he would never come face-to-face with whatever the owner of that claw was.
After irrigating the wound for the umpteenth time, Bruce quickly smeared some antibiotic gel into the incision before it could well with blood completely; whatever else Loki was or wasn't, his blood was the same color as a human's. Then—mindful of his patient's apparent aversion to needles and stitches—Bruce used the last of his surgical-grade glue to seal the wound, holding it firmly together to let the glue cure and being careful to not get his gloved hands stuck to Loki's skin in the process.
Through it all, Loki said not a word, made not a single noise, until Bruce leaned back in his chair with a soft sigh. Only then did Loki lift his head, spitting out the chunks of leather strap and peering at Bruce with fever-glassy eyes. "Are you satisfied, doctor?" he asked, his voice scratchy.
Bruce managed a small smile. "I think I got everything out and you're not dead. That counts as a win in my book, at least for now."
"Not dead yet, at any rate," remarked Loki, and let his head fall back to the pillow with a low groan. "Though it might be preferable at this point."
"Don't fall asleep on me just yet, I need to get some fluids into you," Bruce said, getting immediately to his feet. He disposed of his bloody gloves and went to get a pitcher of water and a glass, and then helped Loki to sit up enough to drink two whole glasses before Loki shoved his hand away. He was unconscious by the time Bruce returned from the kitchen, and this time Bruce had to content himself with carefully removing all the soaked towels from in and around the bed, padding Loki with dry sheets and a thin blanket before withdrawing for what promised to be a long and sleepless night of watching over his patient.
* * * * *
It rained that night.
Normally, Bruce loved rainstorms; they were heavy , even violent events in this part of the world, and he loved to sit and listen to them for however long they lasted, quietly reading a book or even just staring out the window. Tonight, though, the rain served only to make him feel trapped: trapped in an apartment with death and the dying, and he didn't know if Death would be leaving empty-handed in the morning or not.
Loki took a turn for the worse about an hour after his surgery was done. Instead of resting quietly, he started thrashing and moaning in his sleep, muttering feverishly to himself, and nothing Bruce did seemed to help or even pierce his delirium. And Bruce did everything he could: he kept Loki covered, he checked the laceration on his side for bleeding or inflammation, he tried to get Loki to drink as many fluids as possible, he even wet towels and put them on Loki's forehead to try to break his fever, but nothing seemed to make a difference. Loki didn't even seem aware that Bruce was there; several times Bruce heard him cry save me, brother! , cringing away from some faceless danger. Other times, he'd slip into a language Bruce didn't understand, muttering strange syllables under his breath and jerking away when he was touched.
At some small, wretched hour of the morning, Loki finally slipped into a deeper sleep, lying very still in Bruce's little bed. Bruce sat slumped in the chair next to the bed, wiping a hand wearily across his face as he watched the rise and fall of Loki's thin chest. "I swear to God," he muttered, "if you die on me after all of that..." He trailed off, still watching Loki's breathing.
Bruce wished he was back in Kolkata. He’d liked his little house there; he’d been in it for almost two years when Henrik had appealed him for help destroying a child prostitution operation. This apartment was certainly modern enough, but lacked any comforting personality, making Bruce feel like they were in some nameless hotel. He stared out the window at the rain, watching the streaks the raindrops made against the glass pane, listening to the deep rumbles of thunder and wondering what the morning would bring.
He woke with a start some unknown amount of time later, jerking awake in the chair. He straightened, wincing at the crack of vertebrae in his back and neck. He didn't even remember falling asleep, though judging from the fact that it was still dark out, he hadn't slept for very long.
"I would have thought, doctor, that a man of your intelligence would pick a better place to sleep than that chair," said a hoarse voice from close by. Bruce glanced over at the bed and met Loki's sharp eyes looking back at him, his face pale but alert.
"Oh, so you're awake," Bruce said.
"How observant of you," said Loki. "Did they teach you that in physicians’ school?"
Bruce smiled, rubbing some remaining sleep out of his eyes. "No, I think I must have missed that class," he said dryly. "How are you feeling?"
"Magnificent," said Loki. He lay where Bruce had left him, nearly horizontal, head propped slightly up on the pillow, his eyes tracking Bruce's face. "Though I do wish you hadn't spilled half a lake's worth of water on me."
"Sorry," Bruce said. "You were a little uncooperative. I'll get you some dry clothes."
"A towel will do," said Loki, and started to sit up, grunting in exertion. Bruce sat forward to help, but Loki shoved his hand away, straining until he managed to force himself upright, though he shook from the effort. Bruce forced himself to sit by and wait, and when he was confident Loki was not going to pass out again, Bruce got up and went for a towel, as well as another glass of water. Loki grimaced at the sight of it.
"You need to stay hydrated," Bruce said mildly.
"I need to void the hydration you have already forced down my throat," Loki snapped. "Now come here and help me up." Bruce raised his eyebrows, but set the water glass down and stepped over to the side of the bed, crouching to let Loki slip an arm over his shoulders. Loki braced against him, swinging his legs out from under the covers and over the side of the bed, and then shuffled down the hall to the bathroom with Bruce's aid. Bruce waited patiently outside until the door re-opened, Loki glowering at him from under a sweat-matted fall of dark hair.
"My wound feels as though you left hot irons in it," Loki said, scowling as Bruce slipped a careful arm around his waist again, helping him back to the bed. "Clearly you have kidnapped me to torture me to death."
"Lucky for you, my weakness is sarcasm, so you should be safe," Bruce said. "Are you hungry? Do you feel up to eating?"
Loki's lip curled, and he sank into the bed with a stifled groan, not meeting Bruce's eyes as he settled back down onto his back.
"I will eat," he said, "since I can tell you won't let me rest until I do, but know that you will shortly be cleaning up yet more of my bodily fluids that belong inside me. In truth I am starting to suspect that you secretly enjoy it."
"You see right through me," said Bruce. "It's not a party until someone's vomiting blood."
"Your parties sound terrible," said Loki.
"You have no idea."
* * * * *
Bruce didn't know what passed for a quick recovery by the standards of Loki's people, but by human standards, Loki's recovery from a near-death experience was fast; Bruce had seen staph infection victims take weeks or months before they were fully recuperated (he hoped devoutly that Loki did not have MRSA, because it was hard enough to beat in a hygienic hospital setting). He received a clinic assignment on day 2 of Loki’s convalescence, but postponed heading downtown to deal with the paperwork in order to stay close by for fear of relapse or new infection. But aside from that first awful night, Loki's health seemed to stay headed in one direction, even if he was still house-bound.
Loki submitted to being fed, to being helped to the shower and the bathroom, until the third day when he could finally walk on his own, albeit very slowly and irritably. Bruce did not push, did not argue, wasn't much more than a watchful presence sitting by in case the worst should happen. He brought Loki books and paper, tea, water, a wet towel, whatever Loki requested that Bruce could get.
If Bruce was honest with himself, he was going far above and beyond the call of duty, even by the most sanctimonious of standards. He sure as hell couldn't claim nobility of spirit as his basis for behavior. If Loki had been able to maintain his human-like appearance, Bruce might have felt otherwise about caring for him, but although Bruce got the distinct impression that Loki wanted to look as human as possible at all times, he seemed unable to maintain the shape (or illusion) consistently. As often as not, Bruce would check in on him while he slept and see he’d reverted to his blue-skinned form again.
Which made it terrifically hard to not ask questions. But as Loki was not the least bit forthcoming on the subject, Bruce contented himself with what he could glean through observation. Maybe he was just glad to have someone else's problems and mysteries to focus on instead of his own.
He wondered more than once how difficult it would be to return to keeping to himself and focusing on his medical work, once Loki was well and had left him alone again, since he did not seem inclined to stay longer than he absolutely had to. Certainly Bruce wasn’t lonely. He’d gotten used to living by himself. And Loki wasn’t winning any prizes for Most Gracious House-Guest. Bruce would be glad to see him go, really.
The topic came to a head on the fifth day, when Bruce could no longer justify putting off the trip to the MHG Health’s office. "I have to go downtown tomorrow," he told Loki, sitting close by in the chair with a book in his lap as Loki spread a piece of blank paper on the lap-desk Bruce had got for him. Loki picked up a pen and started writing, loping, scrawling letters in some alphabet Bruce had never seen. He rested his injured hand in his lap, concentrating entirely on what he was writing, his penmanship thin and spidery. After another few moments he glanced up at Bruce.
"Forgive me, were you expecting a response?" Loki arched an aristocratic eyebrow at him, in his human guise again for the moment. "What you do with your time is your own business, Bruce Banner. I won't wither and die with you gone for the day."
"Well, that's good to know," Bruce said. "Considering how close you were to it a few days ago."
Loki stared at him. "Tell me," he said. "What are you expecting from me? Some hand-wringing, perhaps? A sobbing, heartfelt breakdown? You chose to take me in and put yourself through considerable inconvenience in pursuit of my health, but I did not ask you for your help."
"Oh, right, so I was just going to leave you there to die of sepsis and infection," Bruce said, with a stab of irritation.
"Perhaps I would have died," Loki said coldly. "Or perhaps I would have lived. But if validation is what you seek, do not ask it of me, because you won't get what you want. I am not here to fix whatever it is that drove you to hide in a city and country not your own."
Bruce laughed, the sound of it surprising himself, brittle in his ears like shards of glass. "There's no one anywhere who can fix that," he said. "Not even you. I don't care where you're from, or what color your skin is." He stood up, shutting his book without bothering to mark his place, setting it distractedly aside.
"Perhaps I have outstayed my welcome," Loki observed, sitting up a little. "In that case—"
"Don't get up," Bruce cut in. Okay, he definitely needed to go. Walk for awhile, maybe. But first— "If the only reason you're here is because I couldn't stand to let you die, then fine, I can live with that. But you're staying here until you're well. You don't have to like it; you don't even have to like me. That's all fine. Just... humor me and don't undo all the work I put into making you better."
Loki was silent, regarding Bruce with an expression he couldn't read. "Very well," Loki said at last. "If that is truly what you desire."
"It is," said Bruce.
"So be it," said Loki, and went back to his writing. "Far be it from me to dissuade you."
* * * * *
Bruce tried his hardest to not dwell on Loki when he headed downtown the next morning. He had help in the form of some disquieting messages from Henrik, warning him that mercenaries had shown up at Henrik’s office, grim-faced soldiers asking after the “great green beast” spotted in the swamps at the eastern edge of Kolkata the week before. He needed to head deeper into Thailand, and soon, and either Loki could come with him or he could fend for himself.
(Henrik further added the information Bruce hadn’t yet known: the name of the man spearheading efforts to pursue him, one Albert Ronson. He was apparently a contractor who’d done work for the American military before; Bruce had no doubt that Ronson had been contracted out by General Ross, since technically the General had been forbidden from going after Bruce anymore. Not that it would stop him. He still considered Bruce’s altered body Army property and nothing he tried would surprise Bruce anymore.)
It only took a few hours to sort through the paperwork for the clinic Bruce would be working at (located just outside Chiang Mai, a nine-hour journey outside Bangkok), but Bruce stayed downtown awhile longer arranging travel for himself and one companion in two days’ time, when his one-week lease on the apartment ended, and then stopped by a grocery store on the way home to pick up some food that wasn’t takeaway. By the time he got back to the apartment, it was well after dark; Bruce wondered if Loki would even still be up.
As it turned out, not only was Loki awake, but he was apparently feeling well enough to be curled up in the apartment's only chair that was any good for reading, a stack of Bruce's scientific periodicals on the table next to him. He didn't glance up from his text as Bruce entered the room. Bruce dropped his bag on the floor and went to splash some water on his face and arms in the sink.
"It'll take more than a whore's bath to clean the stink of the huddled masses off you," Loki remarked from behind him.
"Thanks for pointing that out," Bruce said, reaching for a towel. "I especially enjoy it considering how lovely you smelled during your recent brush with infection."
"It's what you get for bringing your work home with you, doctor," Loki said dismissively. "Speaking of which, what does a physician have astrophysics books laying around for?"
“It’s hardly ‘lying around’ if you dug those books out of my suitcase,” Bruce pointed out, but found himself smiling anyway. "Anyway. Technically, I'm not a certified physician. I finished medical school but I never completed physician training; instead I got my Ph.D in nuclear physics."
He turned around to find Loki staring at him with eyebrows raised. "What, one degree wasn't enough?" Loki asked, but Bruce could have sworn he sounded amused.
Bruce shrugged. "My interests changed. I was lucky enough to have funding and not have to pay it back. So I studied what I wanted."
"And to think I allowed you to operate on me," Loki said, letting the book fall into his lap. "All of your learning, and here you are, living alone in a rented flat with hardly a stick to your name. Was this your goal in life?"
Again Bruce shrugged, carefully noncommittal. "My goals in life have changed over the years," he said. "They're a lot simpler now than they used to be. But then again some of them haven't changed that much."
"Do tell," said Loki. He laced long, graceful fingers together in his lap; Bruce could feel the expectant weight of his gaze.
"'First, do no harm,'" Bruce said. "That one covers most of it. Have you eaten? I'm starving."
"Are you volunteering to cook?" Loki asked. "Should I be concerned for my health? Speaking of do no harm."
"I'm a perfectly adequate cook, I'll have you know," Bruce said, going to one of his bags that he’d left on the kitchen counter, rummaging through it for a few small canisters of spices. Then he went to the bag of groceries he’d picked up on the way home, pulling out a small bag of rice and a pack of chicken breasts.
"I will be the judge of that," said Loki. "I do hope that 'dinner' consists of something more palatable than the rice cakes you have been feeding me thus far."
"Those were nutritional," Bruce said, glancing at Loki and suppressing a grin. "I could have given you chicken vindaloo, but I felt avoiding the whole vomit situation we discussed was a good thing."
"How very proactive of you," Loki remarked, returning to his book. "Very well, if you set yourself or the kitchen on fire whilst preparing a meal, I promise to at least think about putting you out."
"You're such a gem," Bruce said.
* * * * *
Bruce had guessed that Loki would react poorly to the announcement of Bruce’s impending relocation. Turned out he was being generous with his assessment; Loki was an absolute fuck. They started at “I will do nothing of the sort, now stop talking nonsense,” moved briskly on to name-calling, and deteriorated quickly from there.
Bruce was more on edge than he might otherwise have been; he’d gotten another message from Henrik today warning him that getting out of Bangkok was an urgent priority. If Bruce hadn’t had Loki on his hands, he might well have left the country altogether, but although he was out of immediate danger, Loki was in no shape to fend for himself yet. Bruce told Loki so, and actually got the lap-desk thrown at his head for his efforts.
“For the love of God, calm down!” Bruce circled the room, putting the table between himself and Loki, who was leaning heavily on one of the chairs and glaring at Bruce with cold green fire burning in his eyes.
“I am not a child, you wretched little man,” snapped Loki. “If you want go to, then go! Do not put yourself out on my behalf!”
“What are you going to do, then?” demanded Bruce. “My rental on this flat ends tomorrow morning at 10 am! You have nowhere to stay! You don’t have any money, you can’t even feed yourself right now!” He put his hands flat on the counter and took a deep breath, feeling the first rumbling of the Other Guy at the back of his skull, responding directly to the aggression Loki was bringing out in him.
“So leave me,” hissed Loki. “I assure you I will make do somehow without you, doctor, as I have done for several hundreds of your lifetimes before now. But I have no intention of traveling by your crowded mortal buses and trains to some hovel in the middle of a jungle.”
Bruce exhaled slowly. “It’s not that bad,” he said reprovingly. “Look, I’d rather stay in Bangkok too, but—”
“Then why don’t you?” Loki leaned forward, eyes narrowing. “Why are you in this country at all?”
“That’s none of your business,” said Bruce shortly. He wished devoutly he hadn’t said anything about preferring to stay in Bangkok, because Loki was too smart to let a comment like that pass without notice.
“I’d say it’s very much my business, since you propose to keep me under your protection for the time being,” said Loki. He was watching Bruce intently now, circling around the table to approach Bruce more closely, and it was all Bruce could do not to shove Loki away or back against the wall. “Should I be concerned for my welfare, doctor? Here you are, alone in a strange country, deliberately avoiding the company of others, caring for a stranger far above and beyond your call of duty. You’ve given me no explanation as to why you’re bothering, and now you wish to relocate me to somewhere yet more remote.”
“If you’re asking if you’re safe with me, the answer is no.” Bruce did turn away now, shutting his eyes and focusing on his breathing. This had to rate as one of his absolute worst ideas.
“Is that so.” Loki’s voice was right in his ear now, his breath cool silk against skin. “Why am I here, Bruce?”
“I couldn’t just leave you there,” said Bruce irritably, crossing his arms over his chest, hands clenched. “We had this conversation, you would have died.”
“But I am past that now. Why would you continue to put yourself out?”
Bruce took a deep breath. “Because I don’t know who or what you are, and I don’t honestly care, but I know what people like—what the government or the military would do to you if they discovered you weren’t human and you weren’t strong enough to fight them off yet. Which means that until you’re not turning blue at the drop of a hat, you’re better off staying with me.”
There was silence from behind him for a moment. Bruce felt Loki pace around him, not unlike one of the jaguars he’d seen at the edge of town in India, and he opened his eyes to see Loki staring at him from a foot away, an inscrutable expression on his face. “And how would you come by that kind of information?”
“If you want the answer to that question, you’re going to give me some answers of your own,” said Bruce evenly.
Loki studied him for a few moments, then crossed his arms over his chest. “Very well,” he said at last. “I will go with you, since you are so bent on it.”
Bruce’s mouth twisted. “Don’t sound so excited,” he said sourly.
“‘Excited’ is the wrong word,” said Loki. “‘Intrigued’ would be more accurate.”
“You’re really better off not knowing more about me than you do,” said Bruce, stepping away from Loki, uncomfortably aware of the way that Loki was watching him now: appraisingly, like he was sizing up Bruce for how much he’d fetch at market price. “Let’s just stick to mutual ignorance, everyone will be happier that way.”
“I will be the judge of that,” said Loki. “Now. I believe you were preparing to make dinner.” He went back to the kitchen table and sank down into one of the chairs, crossing one leg over the other, as imperious as a queen presiding over her court.
“You are unbelievable,” said Bruce.
“I aim to please,” said Loki archly, and Bruce rolled his eyes.
* * * * *
Bruce walked into the kitchen at 8:35 the next morning, having done a last sweep of the flat to make sure everything was sorted or put away, eyes on the papers in his hands that detailed their travel itinerary to Chiang Mai. “Our bus doesn’t actually leave till 12:30 pm, so we technically have a few hours,” he said, flipping through the sheets, “but it leaves from the bus depot downtown, so we’ll have enough time to get there and get lunch first. Are you…” He finally looked up, trailing off in the middle of what he was saying.
There was an honestly fucking gorgeous woman sitting on the couch in the middle of the living room, wearing the pants and shirt Bruce had left out for Loki the night before. Black hair spilled over her shoulders, the white button-down stretched just tightly enough for Bruce to be able to conclude that she wasn’t wearing a bra. She had her legs tucked up under her, sitting sideways on the couch, and as Bruce trailed off into idiocy she arched an eyebrow at him. “Yes?” she said, a touch impatient. “Am I what, Bruce?”
“Forgive me,” said Bruce. “For some reason I wasn’t expecting you to, um.” He gestured vaguely with the papers.
Loki smirked. Because it was Loki, obviously, somehow. Bruce was starting to wonder if he was in some kind of cosmic purgatory for scientists, the one where you constantly have biological and physical impossibilities thrown in your face just to spite every one of your degrees. “I have come to understand that for some reason you wish to travel as anonymously as possible,” he (or was it she?) said; the musical accent in his voice was the same, but cast in a different pitch. “I chose the form that seemed least likely to attract attention while in your company. Additionally, I find this form easier to maintain than my male form, and thus decrease the chances of ‘turning blue’ while we travel, as you put it.” Loki got up, unfolding himself smoothly from the couch cushions, hands going to his hips as he cocked his head at Bruce. “I can of course change back if my appearance bothers you.”
“Uh,” said Bruce eloquently, and took a deep breath before letting it out. “No, that’s fine. Especially if it’ll help you keep from shifting into your non-human form while we’re in public.” He re-calibrated himself with an effort, though his brain was struggling to parse the new information. “We should stop by a store before we leave, though, and get you a few bras, maybe.”
“Bra?” Loki crossed his arms (her arms? This was hard) over his chest, unhelpfully focusing Bruce’s attention where it didn’t belong.
“Brassiere? Lingerie? A lady’s undergarments. To, ah, support your… assets.” Loki was staring at him with a look on his face that said he thought Bruce’s IQ was dropping by the moment. “Look, human men are—not the smartest, always, and walking around without a bra on is going to attract a lot of unwanted harassment.”
Loki’s lip curled. “I invite them to try,” he said coolly. “But if you feel it would be best…”
“I do,” said Bruce firmly.
“Very well,” said Loki. “Though I must ask; do you include yourself in that assessment of your species and genders’ limitations, dear doctor?”
“More than you know,” Bruce muttered, and went to get their bags.
* * * * *
The rest of the day was surprisingly uneventful. Despite his very real fear that Loki would find a way to get into a fight with someone and attract far more of the wrong kind of attention than Bruce wanted, they managed to get downtown and drop off their bags at the depot without incident; there were only two suitcases that Bruce was willing to leave in a storage locker, but he didn’t have that much to start with, anyway.
The lingerie boutique Bruce located a few blocks away was more Frederick’s of Hollywood than he was particularly comfortable with, but the saleswoman who attended them was so unflappable and commandeering that Bruce wondered if she hadn’t been a kindergarten teacher in a previous life. Or maybe a rodeo wrangler. Loki’s dramatics didn’t impress her, regardless, and they emerged unscathed an hour later with several sets of lingerie and reasonably multi-purpose women’s undergarments.
(Bruce was glad he’d spent several years studiously modifying his thought-patterns and impulses, because it was—hard, trying to not think about what Loki might look like in the bras and panties the saleswoman picked out. Not to mention a little strange.
Speaking of ‘strange,’ the short conversation he had with Loki about Loki’s preferred pronouns was unlike anything else he’d quite experienced. “So what pronoun should I use for you?” Bruce asked, as they left the lingerie boutique.
Loki arched an eyebrow at him. “Pardon?”
“Do you prefer ‘he’? ‘She’? Something else?” Loki was still watching him with the same look from earlier that morning. For someone with as many degrees as Bruce had, Loki still managed to make him feel idiotic on a painfully regular basis. “I don’t want to be rude,” Bruce continued uncomfortably.
Loki smiled, sharp and full of teeth. “All of your pronouns translate to the same gender-neutral term in the All-Speak, Bruce,” he said. “So it doesn’t matter.”
“Oh,” said Bruce. ‘He’ it was, then. “Are you ever going to tell me what the All-Speak is?”
“It’s fairly self-explanatory, so… no,” said Loki, calmly. Bruce sighed and gave it up as a bad job.)
By the time they’d done a little more shopping, eaten, stopped by a bookstore, and gotten back to the bus depot, they’d endured several more hours of public interaction than Bruce really thought wise for someone in Loki’s condition; Loki had maintained his human appearance without slipping so far, but to Bruce’s admittedly over-attentive eyes he seemed like he was lagging. He went quiet and irritable as they waited to board their coach, and Bruce said as little to him as possible beyond the necessary to get him on board and settled in their row. He made Loki take the window seat, and it was a sign of how tired Loki actually was that he didn’t even give Bruce one snide comment over it, just sank into the seat and stared vacantly out the window.
“How long will this take, again?” Bruce glanced over at the question, asked as the coach finally pulled out into traffic.
“Just under nine hours, barring any weird travel delays.” Loki nodded, and shut his eyes. The next time Bruce glanced over, Loki was slumped fast asleep in his seat under the travel-blanket Bruce had brought along, all the arrogance leached out of his face and replaced with exhaustion. There were dark circles under his eyes, and though his pale skin suited him, particularly now with his more feminine features, cheeks like white porcelain under the dark fall of his hair (oh god was he waxing rhapsodic about Loki’s skin, what was wrong with him)—there was a dullness there, too, one that accompanied extreme fatigue. Bruce had seen it many times before, most frequently in cancer patients.
Fifteen minutes later, they finally got onto the main road north, and Loki stirred just enough to shift position until he was leaning against Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce said nothing, just watched the jungle trees and shrubs roll by outside.
Normally, prolonged travel would put him instantly to sleep, but today he didn’t even bother trying. He knew he wouldn’t be able to doze off, not with everything on his mind.
He found himself thinking about Betty. He hadn’t seen her in almost a year, not since he left her standing in the rubble of Harlem; that had been shameful of him, to run off like that, but he couldn’t look at Betty and not hurt from how much he wanted to be the Bruce Banner who’d been ready to propose to her, and that man didn’t exist anymore. Betty had seemed ready to accept the Hulk, but there was no place for the Other Guy in the relationship Bruce had had with her, had wanted with her, and he didn’t know how to create it, so he had left.
Bruce glanced over, smiling slightly as Loki grunted and shifted position in his sleep. From this position, all he could see was the top of Loki’s head, but this close he could smell Loki, faintly. His hair smelled like sandalwood, which was the scent of the complimentary soaps left in Bruce’s flat by the building owner, with his own faint scent underneath. It was the same basic scent as the querulous, blue-skinned trauma patient who’d bled all over Bruce’s sheets, and of the clever, argumentative man who had found the strength to quiz Bruce on his medical and physics knowledge despite being more or less confined to bed-rest while recovering from surgery.
It was the sameness of his smell that compelled Bruce to finally admit to himself how attracted he was, after avoiding facing it all week. The itch had been burning slow beneath his skin ever since Loki had survived that first night to sit up and insult him while still inches from death; the shock of seeing Loki in female form was just the splash of cold water that jolted Bruce to full awareness.
Bruce lifted his gaze to stare out the window again. His own reflection stared back at him from the double-paned glass, faint over the lush jungle outside. “You must be really hard up, Banner,” he murmured.
“What?” Loki stirred against him, his voice slurred and grumpy at being woken. Bruce cursed inwardly at disturbing him.
“Nothing,” he said, and held still as Loki settled down again. “It’s nothing.”
* * * * *
The ride to Chiang Mai was long. They stopped several times; twice to refuel, and and a handful more to pick up new passengers at signless crossroads. Bruce wondered idly how many otherwise nondescript intersections there existed in Thailand where if you waited long enough, a bus would come by and stop to let you on, whisking you away to some new, unknown location. The little fantasy hit a little too close to home, and he shook it off, carefully dislodging Loki from the resting place on his shoulder as he reached down to their bag to dig out the lunch he’d brought.
Loki sat up, blinking irritably. He reminded Bruce of nothing so much as a disgruntled cat, and he had to suppress a smile, not wanting to antagonize his companion. “Are you hungry?” Bruce asked. He gestured at the plastic container in his lap, in which sat some fruit and a pair of sandwiches cut into halves.
Loki eyed the food, then plucked a half-sandwich and a napkin from the container and sat back with them. “How much longer?” he asked.
“About twenty minutes, I think,” said Bruce. “We can get dinner first and then go to our new flat.”
“Good,” said Loki, and set about eating his sandwich with a fastidious care that Bruce tried not to stare at. He failed, evidently, because after a few bites Loki shot him a baleful glare. “What is it, doctor?”
“Nothing,” said Bruce, too quickly, and averted his eyes, all too aware of the fact that Loki was still glaring at him.
He was saved by their arrival at their destination a few minutes later, which effectively distracted Loki from Bruce’s newfound inability to not make an ass of himself. They let everyone else pile off the coach ahead of them, Loki exiting just ahead of Bruce, who came off last, his arms filled with their few bags. Loki’s nap had not, apparently, cured him of his ill mood, because he said little to anyone, merely stood around with his arms crossed as Bruce located their baggage stowed in the coach’s belly and dug out a small map, trying to locate their final destination.
The city around them bustled with life, even though it was starting to get late. Like much of Thailand, this part of Chiang Mai was an intriguing mix of modern and the very old; other visitors went past them on rickshaws, while a brightly-colored store across the street from them with a large front door advertised iPhones and Samsung Galaxies in its windows. Bruce and Loki walked a short distance from the bus depot to settle on some benches in a small open square, in which were scattered a few food carts and souvenir stands.
A group of young children played with a jump-rope nearby, the street under them scribbled with a complicated grid that Bruce suspected was the local version of hopscotch; a few couples strolled by hand-in-hand, enjoying the leftover warmth of the day. Bruce found himself hoping very much that he did not have to leave here again as quickly as he’d had to abandon Bangkok. To Bruce’s best understanding, the condo that Henrik’s people had helped him arrange was only a short cab ride from here, but he had somehow misplaced the paper that had the address of their destination on it.
“To think I let you operate on me,” said Loki irritably. “I’m lucky you didn’t remove my lung by mistake.” He curled up on a bench, crossing his arms over his chest and one leg over the other at the knee. Bruce ignored him as best he could; there were certain genes that all nerds seemed to have in common, and the tendency to embarrass one’s self in front of the current object of your—attraction, he supposed—was one he’d hoped to have left behind him, but alas. Betty, at least, had found it endearing.
He crouched, rifling through his knapsack, removing the books and maps one by one and feeling keenly exposed. He hated advertising their status as tourists so blatantly, he was so sure he’d had the paper right at the top of the bag…
Something caught Bruce’s attention, and he looked up, frowning, as the noise in the area shifted and he took a moment to quantify what had changed. He focused on the children nearby almost immediately; their laughter had turned to what was unmistakably jeering, a small boy on the ground in a heap as the other kids stood around and laughed, the forgotten jump-rope thrown aside. Bruce pursed his lips, tightening his grip on his bag as one of the boys still standing ran over to the child on the ground and kicked gravel in his face. The fallen boy cringed, covering his face with his arms, and even from this distance away Bruce could see the way his shoulders were shaking.
He shouldn’t interfere. The last thing he needed was more unwanted attention. But then one of the other children darted in and spat on the fallen boy, and Bruce was up and moving before he realized it. He’d taken two steps towards the cluster of children when the tableau in front of him seemed to shimmer for a moment, and then the air filled with shrieks of frightened children as the bully who’d just spat on the smaller child vanished. Bruce froze, staring uncomprehendingly at the fat, pot-bellied pig that ran squealing between the legs of the children, darting in mad circles around the boy who’d kicked the child on the ground.
People were turning, staring in confusion at the children, who were shouting in Thai, too rapidly for Bruce to make out. They gestured wildly at the boy on the ground and at the pig who was still doing laps around the remaining bully. Bruce turned to Loki, and felt his stomach lurch at the intensity he saw on Loki’s face. Loki was watching the drama play out with a small, tight smile on his face, though he hadn’t so much as uncrossed his arms or changed position at all.
“Change him back,” said Bruce, voice low and urgent.
Loki glanced at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said carelessly.
“Loki,” said Bruce. He was suffering the dizzying twin urges to kiss Loki and to slap him.
Loki scowled. “He deserves it,” he said darkly, and sat up a little straighter. Bruce chanced a glance at the children again, and let out a slow breath as the disappeared boy just as abruptly re-appeared, his eyes bulging with fright. Instantly, he burst into tears, scrambling to his feet and grabbing his friend before tearing off down the street. Bruce could almost see a tail tucked between his legs.
“Thank you,” he said under his breath. He turned around and came to sit down next to Loki on the bench, weaker in the knees than he’d like to admit. Loki looked away, his face still tight with irritation.
“Your sense of human kindness is misplaced,” Loki said.
“I don’t like bullies either, but they’re someone’s kids, too,” said Bruce. “But I was under the impression we were trying to avoid attracting attention.”
Loki’s lip curled. “So very intent on being unobtrusive, Dr. Banner,” he said coolly. “One would almost think you had something to hide.”
“There’s a whole list,” said Bruce, bending down to grab his bag again, returning to rifling through it in search of the missing paper. He was elbow-deep in his bag when a small pair of shoes entered his vision, just a foot or two in front of him. He looked up to find himself staring at the boy who’d been the bullies’ target. The boy wasn’t looking at Bruce, though; he was looking at Loki, who was watching the boy with a faint frown.
“Thank you,” said the boy, in Thai. He laced his hands together in front of him, his eyes very large in his face, cheeks still streaked with tears.
Bruce sat up slowly, opening his mouth to translate for Loki, but before he could speak Loki let out a long sigh and bent forward. “Don’t play with such wretched fools,” Loki said, and the words slid warmly over Bruce’s ears, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up for some reason Bruce couldn’t parse. “But you’re welcome.”
“Are you a—?” Bruce’s mental vocabulary blanked on the last word, but he caught the question in the boy’s voice anyway, could read the equal parts wariness and fascination in the way he was watching Loki.
Loki smiled faintly. “I’m worse,” he said, which wasn’t provocative at all. When had Loki even learned Thai? “It’s always better to be worse.” The boy’s eyes widened at that, and he smiled, a huge delighted grin that ran from ear to ear. “Run along before I changed my mind about you, boy,” said Loki, his smile widening too, and the boy let out a peal of laughter, darting off down the street to vanish around a corner.
“When did you learn Thai?” demanded Bruce, in English. Loki arched an aristocratic brow at him as though he’d just asked Loki why he put on pants this morning. When Bruce continued to watch him expectantly, Loki let out a put-upon sigh.
“It’s the All-Speak, Bruce,” he said, and Bruce realized belatedly that he should really have guessed that by now.
“You say that like it’s supposed to mean something to me,” said Bruce.
“It would if you weren’t so ignorant,” said Loki, but Bruce could see the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Bruce gave up. “What did he ask you? I couldn’t make out the word.”
Loki folded his hands in his lap, a peculiarly dainty gesture; for some reason it reminded Bruce strongly of the boy who’d just run off, Loki’s hands so slender and fine-boned. “He asked if I was a witch,” Loki said after a moment.
“Ah,” said Bruce, because he couldn’t think of what the hell else to say to that. Loki said nothing more, just gazed at him steadily, and after a moment Bruce bit his lip and went back to digging through his bag.
* * * * *
Bruce lay awake that night, stretched out on the couch and staring at the ceiling, tired but not remotely sleepy. He hadn’t known what kind of flat they’d be given until they arrived at the leasing office to pick up the keys; turned out it was a one-bedroom. A one-bedroom with a suspiciously large closet, but still. It was clean, quiet, tucked away at the end of the housing complex at the very feet of the mountains, and had all the facilities Bruce most wanted. It even had a dishwasher; Bruce hadn’t had a dishwasher since leaving Rio de Janeiro.
Loki got the bed by default. Bruce didn’t even ask, just took Loki’s things into the bedroom and set him up. The couch was surprisingly comfortable; he’d certainly slept on worse. Loki hadn’t argued, either, having summoned just enough energy to eat the simple curry Bruce prepared for dinner before crawling into bed and slipping into a deep, exhausted sleep. Bruce guessed that using his magic earlier today had worn Loki out, to say nothing of the long journey they’d taken, and though his—guest, his patient (his confusion in describing Loki was turning out to have little to do with his admittedly unusual gender) was doing significantly better in terms of health, he still tired easily. He was glad Loki had consented to stay under Bruce’s protection a little while longer. He shuddered to think of what might have befallen him had he struck out on his own in an uncaring population.
Bruce turned over, facing the back of the couch now, his heart sinking as he followed that train of thought to its logical derailment. One day—soon, Bruce thought, another week, two at most—Loki would be well enough to maintain his illusion of humanity at all times, and Bruce would no longer have any excuse to ask him to stay. Loki would leave, to go God knew where, and Bruce would get back to the business of practicing medicine and keeping his head down. Or worse, Bruce would be forced to confess the truth. That would end badly, he thought. “Starting a land war in Asia” badly.
He sighed, tugging the blanket up over his head and shutting his eyes, trying to focus on something, anything aside from the object of his reluctant affection, fast asleep and presumably oblivious to Bruce’s bad decision-making and painful shyness. Once upon a time, Bruce had had the stones to approach women (and the occasional man). Not that he loved rejection, but there was an appreciable difference in the percent chance he now held of being rejected: “vicious killing monster” scored significantly lower than “brainy, hirsute dork.”
Even if Loki wasn’t immediately repulsed by the Hulk—and Bruce had a few reasons to suspect that he might not—Bruce wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to bring himself to expose anyone he cared to be in a relationship with to the inherent risk of the Other Guy. Strangers’ blood on his hands was more than enough.
* * * *
When things went wrong—and Bruce should have known things would go wrong—Bruce couldn’t even blame Loki, much as he wanted to.
He was at work. The agency had given Bruce two days to get settled at his new flat, and then asked him to come help staff the hospital’s ER for a week before moving on to his preferred floor, which was the Intensive Care Unit. Bruce agreed, and that was how he found himself trying to manage one Aroon Jainukul, a 6-year-old who’d been rushed to the hospital with anaphylaxis from an insect sting, with no nurse. The nurses and other docs all had their hands full elsewhere: a tour-bus had wiped out on a rainy mountain road early that morning, and the ER had descended into total madness, as they were the closest hospital to the scene of the accident despite being a more rural clinic. Bruce had had a hell of a time even discerning what was wrong with Aroon, but his rapidly-presenting symptoms gave Bruce no time for indecision.
Aroon’s mother stood by, wringing her hands and babbling frantically in a dialect of Thai that Bruce couldn’t parse out, not when the child in his arms was gasping for air, his face purpling as his airway swelled shut, red and painful hives humping all over his skin. Bruce cursed, rummaging through a cabinet for an epi-pen as he tried to keep Aroon upright, and he had just worked Aroon’s shirt up his arm when one of the child’s frantic, flailing arms smacked into Bruce’s wrist, Bruce’s thumb on the depressor.
It happened so quickly Bruce didn’t immediately realize what had gone wrong: Aroon shuddered violently, jostling Bruce as he raised the epi-pen, and then Bruce was staring at the spot on his own arm where the needle had gone in. That’s not good, he observed distantly, but now was no time for histrionics; Bruce dropped the discharge epi-pen into his sharps bin, grabbing Aroon’s arm with one hand and another epi-pen in the other. “Help me hold him,” he snapped at Aroon’s mother, in Thai. To her credit, she responded immediately, planting both her hands on her son’s shoulders and helping Bruce hold him still long enough to inject the medicine into the correct patient this time.
He didn’t have much time. Already he could feel his heart-rate rising, no doubt worsened by the biofeedback of Bruce’s panic at the threat of being tipped into shifting here in the ER. But even with the epinephrine injection, his patient still needed saving, and Bruce would kill this child depending on him by running just as much as shifting in this small space. So he focused on his breathing, and gritted his teeth, and got through the business of saving Aroon’s life: intubating the patient, hooking him up to oxygen, and administering antihistamines and steroids. By the time one particularly capable nurse had come to assist him, having finished with her other patients, Bruce could not ignore the thunderous race of his pulse for thirty seconds longer.
Nurse Marhlow shot him a startled look as Bruce staggered past her. “Doctor,” she said, her concern sharpening the French accent overlaying her English, “Are you alright? You’re looking a little green—”
“Migraine,” Bruce gritted out, “gotta go home, medicine—at home. Sorry—” Nurse Marhlow said something else but Bruce was already lumbering down the hallway, his motor function deteriorating as the Other Guy pressed at the back of his mind like a winch being tightened on his skull, crowding out his ability to reason. Bruce ducked out the side exit, gasping as the hot, humid air outside burst against his skin like rotten fruit.
If he’d left sooner, he might’ve been able to make it out into the woods to calm down, but he was so close to transformation that there was no time left. He broke into a run, sprinting for the trees that lined the foothills at the back of the hospital, his pulse skyrocketing in his throat.
Bruce hit the shade of the trees and fell to the ground, and then the world went green.
* * * * *
Contrary to what the few people who even knew about his existence believed, the Hulk was not justan uncontrollable monstrous killing machine.
One day, many years in the future and after long acquaintance, long enough for Tony Stark’s scent to be in the Hulk’s mental catalogue of friends, Tony would deploy miniature electrodes and sub-dermal processors that would help Bruce finally acquire the longed-for data about Hulk’s physiologic functioning. They’d get glimpses of the neural maps that enlarged and took over in the brain when Bruce transformed, see the ghostly MRI imaging of Hulk’s cerebellum and motor cortex; they’d read the map of the predator and hunter Bruce became every time he changed, and cross-reference it against Ardipithecus ramidus and Australopithecus africanus, and other big predators like the gorilla and the jaguar and even sharks, building a code with which to unlock all the Hulk’s secrets.
One thing Bruce knew already, though, and that was the fact that Hulk had an unerring sense of place and time. Hulk didn’t parse it in those terms: Hulk never questioned that he knew where he was, or how. He could smell those things. His nasal bulb would never approach that of the other great land predators, but his senses of sight and hearing more than made up the lack. What was more, the scent of a dangerous predator wafted from every pore in his skin; the only animal stupid enough to challenge the Hulk was man.
He also had an unerring sense of direction. Bruce Banner might wake up in a strange location shivering and lost, but Hulk always knew exactly where he was in relation to where he needed or wanted to go. The sunlight against his skin and the scents on the wind told him everything he needed to know. And right now, Hulk was headed home.
Hulk moved swiftly through the thick underbrush, choosing speed over stealth for the moment. Branches crunched underneath his huge feet, and the earth trembled with every step; small animals fled through the greenery, birds vanished into the sky, snakes slithered out of his path. The initial rush of transformation had faded somewhat, and now Hulk was left only with the low-level urgency that had been building in the back of the Other’s mind for days and days now, like a candle flame. Hulk had only the vaguest sense of Bruce Banner as “self”; he could recognize himself in a mirror, and he would answer if called by either “Hulk” or “Bruce,” but little more than that.
Hulk did not sit and ponder the purpose in his life; he asked no questions about what would happen tomorrow, or what had happened yesterday. Hulk’s moment-to-moment existence was centered around immediate needs: hunger, threat neutralization, asserting dominance.
The current need was simple, and fixed: protect his mate.
The Other had left Loki at home, unattended, still weak, open to any threat who happened to stumble across him. Hulk did not have the option of smashing the Other into a messy pulp for his unforgivable error, though his unexpressed irritation made him move faster through the trees, grunting to himself every now and then and swinging an elephantine fist into an unassuming tree trunk to let off some steam. Hulk had no real idea of what he would do upon returning to Bruce’s flat; the concept of “unable to fit” was not one that slotted well into his mind. The smell of Loki’s skin and the sound of his voice had lit a flame inside Hulk’s primordial hind-brain, and he would destroy anything that got between him and his goal.
He covered the distance to the condos at a staggering rate. Hulk could move faster than almost any land mammal, save perhaps the cheetah at full sprint. He wasn’t traveling at top speed now, though; he’d make far too much noise if he did that, and while Hulk never shied from a fight, he didn’t want to attract attention right now. But even at his “compromise” speed, he still made it back to the jungle behind the condos in under an hour, despite having to take a more circuitous route, his path describing a semi-circle through the mountainous woodlands surrounding Chiang Mai. He’d been forced to go further out of his path than he wanted to avoid all the human dwellings, but finally he slowed, approaching the back of the complex.
A tree-limb splintered off to his right, barely-heard in the thick sounds of the jungle, and Hulk froze in place. His nostrils flared, scenting the threat; a basso profundo growl reverberated in his chest as he bared his teeth in a warning snarl. Neural maps that were small and latent in Banner’s brain lit up inside Hulk’s limbic system as neurons fired, interpreting the pheromones of a lactating tigress very recently pregnant. Hulk turned, spotting the predator not twenty feet away, and in response the tigress let out a snarl of her own, baring inch-long canines.
Hulk answered with a stentorian roar, and in the instant of response the tigress moved. She charged at him, teeth bared, claws extended, 250 pounds of rippling muscle bunched with killing intent. Hulk swung his fist back-handed, knocking her cleanly aside and sending her crashing into a lychee tree. He advanced on the tigress as she lay stunned, eager to smash this threat into nothingness.
He raised his fists as the tigress struggled to get to her feet again, ready to deliver the killing blow, when a rush of cold air hit him from his left side, bringing with it a horrible smell that invaded his nostrils and stung his eyes. Hulk snarled, stumbling as he swatted futilely at the funked air, and at his feet the tigress scrambled into the underbrush.
“Come fight me instead, dragon,” came a voice from behind him, to his left, the same direction as that foul air had come from. Hulk’s eyes widened; he whirled, scanning the green wall of vines and tree-trunks in front of him, searching for the source of that voice.
He spotted Loki within moments, clad in his human male form now, perched above him in the arms of a tall, gnarled tree, and Hulk took a step forward only to stop again. He frowned, perplexed: Loki was also peering out at him from behind a stand of scrubby bushes, and again from behind yet another lychee tree several yards further. Hulk bared his teeth in confusion, bunching his hands into fists. He sniffed the air again, but that putrid stench still lingered, and he coughed, growling in frustration at his inability to scent which Loki was true.
“What’s the matter?” Loki asked, mocking, and Hulk whined. “Not so fun now, is it?”
“Loki go home,” Hulk grunted. He turned around again, planting himself between the multiple Lokis and the tigress, whose scent he could still smell, albeit faintly through that disgusting air-cloud. His own confusion at Loki’s interruption of his fight was second to the knowledge that his mate was in danger from an immediate threat; it was only distantly that Hulk even registered that Loki had never seen him before.
Moments later Loki re-appeared in front of him, materializing as though from thin air. “How do you know my name, dragon?” he demanded. His voice was sharp; he was close enough now that Hulk could smell him even through the lingering stench, fear and anger in his scent, mixing together to muddle his own more pleasant smell. “Did Odin send you? Speak!”
Hulk grunted by way of response, reaching forward to pluck Loki from the ground seconds before the tigress appeared again, lashing a killing paw through the air occupied just moments before by Loki. Loki shrieked in protest, but Hulk gathered him against his chest and turned away, running deeper into the jungle with Loki cradled protectively in his arms.
“Put me down!” Loki yelled. He smashed his fists uselessly against Hulk’s chest, making exactly zero impression against the wall of muscle there. Hulk ignored him, intent on putting distance between himself and the tigress; he knew she wouldn’t follow him beyond her hunting range, not wanting to abandon the cubs she was protecting. After a good thirty seconds of useless shouting and flailing, Loki stopped, panting in his arms. Hulk kept running, not stopping for another five minutes, when he’d put easily three miles between himself and the big cat. Only then did he crouch, setting Loki down on the ground with extreme care, and then sitting on his haunches to peer at him, intent on making sure Loki was uninjured.
Loki took a few steps back, his scent a jumble of conflicting messages. He straightened his clothes, glaring at Hulk suspiciously. “Explain yourself, dragon,” he demanded after a few moments.
Hulk huffed. “Hulk save Loki,” he grunted, and in a normal human his tone would have sounded wounded.
Loki stared at him. “Hulk?” he repeated. “I did not need protecting. How do you know my name?”
Hulk’s brow furrowed. His vocabulary was limited, and he did not know how to answer this question. Loki might as well have asked how Hulk knew his own name. “Hulk protect Loki,” he repeated, and reached out one huge hand, extending a finger. Loki tensed as Hulk reached out to touch him, and Hulk stopped, watching carefully. But Loki didn’t move, and after another moment Hulk finished the gesture, drawing his fingertip along Loki’s clothed torso, tracing the place where Loki had a still-healing scar beneath his shirt.
Loki exhaled, staring hard at Hulk’s finger before raising his gaze to Hulk’s face. Hulk withdrew his hand, finding himself at a loss now he had achieved his purpose, watching Loki stare at him. His chest hurt, too tight, like he couldn’t breathe; he could not understand it.
“Bruce?” Loki whispered finally. Hulk nodded. “Oh,” said Loki, sounding suddenly breathless. “Oh. Oh.”
Loki leaned up then, and Hulk held very still as Loki reached out white hands to touch Hulk’s cheeks. Hulk rumbled softly, the noise low in his chest; in the tigress he had just come close to killing, the sound would have resembled purring. Loki’s face was flushed with color, his eyes very bright; his lip trembled, and he seemed at a loss for words as he stroked Hulk’s face lightly. Hulk leaned his face slightly into Loki’s touch, and a smile appeared on Loki’s face, though he didn’t seem to be aware of it.
“Who calls you Hulk?” Loki asked softly. He reached up to dig his fingers into Hulk’s wiry dark hair, and Hulk grunted, shutting his eyes in bliss as Loki scratched his scalp. “What a dull name for such a magnificent creature. How did you come about, I wonder…”
Hulk rumbled in his throat, lowering himself carefully to the ground. “Hulk smash,” Hulk said, unsure if the question Loki had asked required an answer. Loki chuckled.
“Yes, I can see that,” Loki said. “Mmm. Still. I do not care for that name.” Hulk opened his eyes. Loki was very close to him now, his expression difficult to read. He smelled warm now, though, unafraid and happy. The motor in Hulk’s chest started up again, and Loki smiled at him. “I believe I will continue to call you ‘dragon,’” he said after a moment, still scratching Hulk’s scalp behind his ear.
“Dragon,” Hulk repeated doubtfully.
“Yes,” Loki told him. “My dragon.”
* * * * *
Every time Bruce awoke from an episode was slightly different—he never knew where he'd be, for one thing, and it was a fun game for viewers following along at home to guess what percentage of his pants might remain or whether he'd be altogether nude—but the one thing that was consistent was he needed recovery time post Hulk-out.
The Hulk’s manifest physiology was, of course, nothing short of incredible: no one looked at Bruce’s greener self and was less than impressed. But when Bruce took into account the cellular regeneration, the disposal of lactic acid build-up, the raw efficiency of the Hulk’s metabolism—using that much energy would scrape a normal human out like a shriveled husk—the Hulk started to approach “medical miracle” status.
It wasn’t flawless, however. And depending on how hard and long he’d fought the transformation beforehand, and how much he’d exerted himself during, Bruce usually felt anywhere from simply worn-out to “unwilling participant in Ironman Triathlon” upon awakening. Right now it was definitely more the latter.
In short, he felt like shit.
His whole body hurt like he'd been strapped into an old wooden roller-coaster for ten hours straight, and his head throbbed with every heartbeat, his sinuses and temples in crumpled blue agony; his mouth was as dry and desiccated as though it'd been stuffed with tainted cotton balls, and his eyes had been reduced to shriveled raisins in their sockets. It was all the pain of a horrible hangover and none of the associated fun/bad decision-making beforehand. Only not even the drunkest of frat boys had ever gone on the rampage Bruce's greener half was capable of.
Bruce groaned, the noise muffled by whatever his face was pressed again. He stirred feebly, rolling onto his side and curling up into the fetal position, eyes still squeezed shut. The ground beneath him was softer and more comfortable than it should be; with his luck he'd found some kind of mossy patch to pass out on top of, and he was no doubt covered in bugs by now. He grimaced at the thought.
"Oh, so you're awake," said a voice from close by. "That was sooner than I expected."
The voice was familiar. An alarm went off in Bruce's head; he shouldn't be hearing that voice right now. "Mnuh," he said, by way of response, and attempted to sit up, cracking his eyes open a few millimeters to peer at the speaker.
The sight of Loki seated in the chair by his bedroom door, upright and grinning at him with a terrifying sort of cheer, brought reality crashing home. Bruce sat bolt upright and had to stifle the accompanying urge to pass out. "What—how—" Oh no, oh this couldn't be good, something had gone terribly wrong.
"This is a new look on you," Loki observed. "The good doctor, at a loss for words. I think I like it."
"Please tell me I got black-out drunk and you found me passed out in a ditch," Bruce said.
"That would have been entertaining, I'm sure," Loki said, in the same tone of voice one might use to describe the possibility of cutting one's hand open on broken glass. "Vomiting and drunken blathering, that's definitely never been done before. Luckily for me, I was not subjected to seeing the color of your dinner. Keep guessing, since you seem so inclined."
Bruce mashed a hand against his face, grimacing as his head swam; he gritted his teeth against the nausea that increased with the pounding of his head, and after a moment both abated somewhat. "I... don't really want to keep guessing," he said groggily.
Loki made a moue of disappointment and crossed one leg over the other; Bruce noticed vaguely that he was in his human male form at the moment, and looking quite healthy. "Really, Bruce," he said. "I expect better of you. Very well, I'll fill in the blanks: I got to meet your other, greener half today. I must say, I'm deeply disappointed that you kept him from me for so long."
Bruce went pale as soon as Loki confirmed his dread, and it took him several more seconds to process that Loki had even kept talking. "Oh, god," he said. He put his face in both hands, leaning forward over his lap as the familiar shame swept over him. It had been so long since he’d had an unplanned incident, how could he have let his control slip...
Wait. "Disappointed?" Bruce peered through his fingers at Loki, an unintentionally hilarious gesture that made him look like a child peeking at a scary movie behind the safety of his own hands. "Uh. You're gonna have to... explain that. A little bit."
"Disappointed," Loki repeated. He was definitely smiling now. No—smirking. "The state of suffering disappointment; not receiving the outcome for which one had hoped. A state-of-being experienced when one's expectations go unmet."
Bruce made a noise in his throat that said he was thinking seriously about making up for not having thrown up on Loki earlier. "Did I hurt you?" he asked at length. There were so many questions to ask; this seemed the first and most important one.
Loki gave him a considering look. "Do I appear injured?" he asked.
"No, but..."
"You are ostensibly the medical professional between the two of us. I am no more injured now than I was when you left for the clinic this morning. Which, by the way, appears to have been quite exciting for you to return home in such a state."
Bruce grimaced. "Yeah, uh," he hedged, and then sighed. "I'm having trouble remembering what happened," he admitted. Loki raised both eyebrows. "Oh come on," Bruce said.
Again, Loki smirked. "Very well," he said. "I will be patient awhile longer, until you have recovered more of your faculties. But do not think you have escaped giving me an explanation."
"Ngh," Bruce said.
* * * * *
It took three cups of coffee and two aspirin before Bruce felt capable of showering. He slumped under the spray, barely even upright, eyes unfocused as he let the hot water sluice down his back. Bruce let his mind wander, trying to piece together what had happened that morning.
He remembered the ER; the day had started with the influx of trauma patients from the tour bus accident. Bruce sucked in a breath, wincing a little as he reached for the shampoo and mechanically started to soap up his hair.
Then… He’d been working on a man with a crushed scapula and partially collapsed lung, when another gurney had been rushed in and the head doctor stepped in to take Bruce’s patient. Bruce let out the breath he'd been holding, shutting his eyes. That was right. Little Aroon had been brought in presenting with anaphylaxis, poor kid.
A sharp report from somewhere in the condo interrupted his thoughts, rat-a-tat-tat, and Bruce jerked, knocking his elbow against the tile wall of the bathroom. He poked his head out of the shower curtain, hair still full of soap bubbles. "Loki?" he called, squinting as some shampoo ran in his eye.
Loki appeared almost before Bruce had finished saying his name, wearing one of Bruce's robes, his expression alarmingly gleeful. "There are men in uniforms at the door," he said, before Bruce's lips could form either what are you smiling about or what was that noise.
"Policemen?" Bruce's heart rate ratcheted up a few notches.
"Perhaps," Loki said agreeably, his smile not faltering. Bruce swore under his breath.
"Okay, I'll be right out," he said, or started to, but Loki was already gone. By the time Bruce had rinsed off and emerged from the bathroom, still clad in only a towel, Loki was at the front door, conversing with the men outside in what sounded to Bruce’s ears like perfect English, but what he now knew to be the All-Speak. Or at least, the men were responding in Thai, not English. They weren’t clad in police uniforms at all, to Bruce’s immense relief; they were wearing hospital-issue scrubs, and one of them was in the security jacket of hospital staff.
"We are just here to check on Dr. Banner," the man in front was saying, still in Thai. His demeanor was polite, but his face was as apprehensive as Bruce felt. "He left quickly this morning and appeared in great distress, and has not responded to phone calls." Bruce shuffled up behind Loki, and in the moment between opening his mouth and responding he realized two things at the same time: One, Loki was wearing nothing but that half-open robe, and two, Loki was currently in his female form.
“That’s very kind of you to stop by," said the disarmingly curvy Loki in Bruce's doorway, as Bruce's brain stuttered and died from equal parts dismay and shocked arousal. Loki’s voice was dark like his hair, smooth and full of a smug satisfaction that made Bruce's toes curl. "But I promise I’ve been taking the very best care of him." Thus saying, he leaned back, snaking an arm around Bruce's neck and tugging him against his back; the robe he was wearing slid a few centimeters, threatening to fall open altogether, barely hanging on to his cleavage and exposing a long strip of white flesh down his stomach. Bruce tried very hard not to look as thunderstruck as he felt. Judging from the wide eyes of the two officers in front of him, they didn't have any better idea of how to react to the scantily-clad woman in Bruce's door than Bruce did.
"He was very sick when he came home, poor thing," purred Loki, dragging his new nails along Bruce's neck, making every hair in Bruce's body stand on end. "He could hardly stand up by the time he got back. But he knew I’d be here to make it all better."
Bruce swallowed, struggling to rip his brain out of the power-lock it had frozen into. "Gentlemen," he began, but the younger of the two men shook his head, already backing away, his hand on his companion's shoulder.
"No need to elaborate, Dr. Banner," said the officer, switching to English, heavily accented but perfectly understandable. "We are glad to see you looking in better health and look forward to working with you again tomorrow. Thank you for your time." With one last, stunned glance at Loki, the two men turned and hurried back up the walk to their jeep. Bruce stood in the doorway and watched them get in and drive away, before he found himself being pushed back into the house, Loki slamming the door behind them. His expression was now positively wicked; Loki hadn't bothered to shift back from his female form, and the robe had fallen open all the way down his front now, leaving no remaining doubt as to how human Loki’s current form was.
"What's the matter, Bruce?" Loki smiled beatifically, advancing on Bruce with a seductive sway of his hips, Bruce shuffling backwards until the backs of his thighs caught against the hallway table. "The good doctor, at a loss for words for the second time in one day?"
"What are you doing?" Bruce managed. He brought a hand up in time to catch Loki's shoulder, but Loki kept coming, pressing both of his perfect breasts against Bruce's chest, smiling as he leaned in close.
"Giving you what you have so been desiring," Loki said, voice dark. "Your greener self was very illuminating, dear doctor.” Bruce opened his mouth to respond, but found a pair of warm lips pressing against his before he could speak. His remaining hand wavered uselessly in mid-air, until one of Loki's caught it and brought it to a shapely hip, squeezing his hand encouragingly. Oh my god, went the refrain in Bruce's head, oh my god, oh my god, oh my fucking god.
He ripped himself away from the kiss seconds later, cracking the back of his head against his wall in his haste. "I can't," he said wildly. Loki arched an eyebrow at him, and Bruce yelped as one of Loki's hand slipped under his towel to grope him.
"I would say that you very much can," he observed with a squeeze that made Bruce stifle a groan. "In fact, I would have accused you of being eager."
"That's—" Bruce flushed, reaching down to pull Loki's hand away. "I can't get too excited," he clarified. "Or I might shift again."
Both of Loki's eyebrows went up now. "And you are no doubt afraid of hurting me," he said. Bruce suffered a moment of deja vu as he flashed on the last time he'd had this conversation, with Betty in a shitty motel room somewhere in Virginia. "How very sweet. Your concern is duly noted, doctor. Consider it taken under advisement. However," and Bruce gasped as Loki brought his knee up between Bruce's thighs to nudge at his steadily-hardening cock, "if that is your only concern, then fear not. I have no desire to stop."
"What—" Bruce found himself being kissed again, the swell of Loki's breasts against his chest maddening; a small hand crept into Bruce's hair, scraping nails against his scalp and making his cock twitch with pleasure. "Loki!" Loki broke the kiss at the sound of his name, pulling back enough to glare at Bruce from just inches away.
"Do you want me?" Loki demanded. "Am I mistaken?"
"It's not—you aren't—" So much for that Ph.D. Bruce cupped the side of Loki's face in one hand, trying to form a coherent sentence. "You're not mistaken," he said. I want you so much. "I'm questioning your sanity, but you're not mistaken. But the Hulk is too dangerous to risk releasing."
Loki rolled his eyes. "How I detest that name," he said, dragging a nail gently along Bruce's jaw. "If the dragon appears, I will deal with him then."
"But you can't—"
"I can, and I have," Loki interrupted. "You might not remember your transformation, but I do. I do not fear your sleeping monster." His expression hardened, his eyes narrowing to green slits. "You have no idea what I can do, Bruce," he murmured. "Now take me outside. Then all you have to fear is how far our cries will carry."
Bruce opened his mouth to protest again, but Loki pressed two fingers to his lips, and after a moment Bruce's words died unspoken. Satisfied, Loki leaned in to seal his mouth against Bruce's, wrapping both arms around Bruce's neck as they kissed. After another moment he hopped up, and Bruce slid an arm underneath Loki's butt, helping Loki to wrap those long white legs around Bruce's hips. Bruce kissed back this time, groaning as Loki's tongue slid teasingly along the entrance to Bruce's mouth.
"Let me just get some blankets for us," Bruce said at last. Loki smirked.
"As you wish, doctor," he said.
* * * * *
The only reason they made it outside at all was because of the door that led to the back yard from Bruce's bedroom, and even then it was a close thing. Loki held on to him with seemingly no effort, Bruce's arm lashed around his waist for support, and yanking the sheets off his bed with the other arm was harder than Bruce would have liked. By the time they made it to the yard and Bruce had laid Loki down on the spread of blankets, Bruce was seriously doubting his own sanity for doing this.
The condos on either side of theirs weren’t currently inhabited, he didn’t think, and also it was dark now, which would help with not getting fucking arrested, what was he doing? But Bruce couldn’t deny the dizzying thrill that swept over him as he threw the blankets down onto the ground before lowering himself and Loki onto them.
Loki must have guessed at his mental distress, because as Bruce crouched over him, Loki drew him down for another kiss, dragging nails along Bruce's arm and raising goosebumps even in the warm night air. "Drink of me," Loki murmured, reaching down to wrap a hand around Bruce's erection and squeezing.
Bruce shuddered, kissing back for a few desperate moments before pressing his face to Loki’s collarbone, shutting his eyes to try to calm himself. That put him right by Loki’s extremely-inviting chest, and Bruce slid further down, nuzzling at the swell of Loki’s breasts, cupping one in his hand and squeezing as he wrapped his lips around the other nipple, suckling for a moment till it pebbled on the tip of his tongue. Loki hissed, digging a hand in Bruce’s hair and tugging sharply. The slight flare of pain went right to Bruce’s cock, and it jerked heavily against Loki’s thigh where it was trapped between their bodies.
“Fuck,” he said hoarsely.
“That’s what I was going for, yes,” Loki said, voice already gone throaty with lust. “Are you going to get serious about this, or do I have to push you down and ride you?”
Bruce groaned by way of response, but he did reach down and rub his two fingers against Loki’s mound, grinding hard against his clit, and Loki made a wet noise and yanked harder on Bruce’s hair. He knelt up to crash his lips against Loki’s again, holding his face in both hands and kissing him hard, open-mouthed and wet, with all the pent-up want he’d been suppressing for days and days.
He broke away finally with a gasp, staring for a moment at the way Loki’s eyes had gone dark, the black swallowing up the green. “I want your mouth on me,” Loki said unsteadily, shoving at his shoulders.
Bruce grinned, feeling something hot and needy stir inside him. Later, Loki would tell him later that that was the moment his own eyes went radioactively green, but in that exact second he had no inkling at all. He moved down the line of Loki’s body, Loki splaying his legs open invitingly as Bruce crouched between his spread thighs, licking up his smooth skin to the thatch of dark hair at his sex, biting here and there, leaving red welts in his wake. Loki gasped, dragging nails against Bruce’s scalp as Bruce exhaled heavily against Loki’s cunt. “Don’t tease,” Loki hissed.
“Don’t rush,” Bruce shot back, but his attention was elsewhere. He spread Loki’s sex open, and licked a hot, wet stripe from his asshole across his cunt, up and over his clit. Loki cried out, his thighs going taut under Bruce’s hands for a moment as he tensed. Bruce did it again, his mouth watering at the smell of Loki’s sex, filling his nostrils and turning him single-minded with lust. He pressed in harder, burying his face in Loki’s cunt from nose to chin, jaw working as he lapped and sucked and ate messily at Loki’s sex. Above him, Loki shuddered and moaned, fingers buried in Bruce’s hair.
“More,” Loki panted. “I need more.” The roughness in his voice shot right to the bundle of nerves at the base of Bruce’s spine, a wave of lust rolling through him like molten lava. Loki’s hips started to roll against Bruce’s mouth, matching his rhythm; his cunt was wet with Bruce’s spit and his own juices, and Bruce was hard-pressed not to start rutting against Loki’s leg between his own thighs. He raised a hand, working it between his mouth and Loki’s skin, and pressed two fingers into Loki’s cunt, burying them immediately to the third knuckle as Loki gasped and arched against his hand.
“Yes, give it to me! Fuck…” Loki’s voice had gone breathless, his words shaky. Bruce redoubled his efforts, drunk on the taste of Loki’s cunt and the sounds he was making, the heat around his fingers going right to his cock. He withdrew his fingers, the lower half of his face still buried in Loki’s sex, and pressed a still-sticky forefinger against the tight ring of Loki’s asshole, working the digit slowly in as he sucked at Loki’s clit.
The effect was immediate: Loki cried out, arching hard against Bruce’s mouth and fingers, yanking hard enough on his hair to bring tears to Bruce’s eyes. “Your fingers, Bruce, I-I need—” Bruce pressed the thumb of his same hand into Loki’s cunt, ignoring the building ache in his jaw as he thrust his hand against Loki’s twitching body.
Loki came moments later; Bruce felt the way he stiffened and jerked against his mouth and hand, clenching hard around Bruce’s finger in his ass. He stayed down, mouth working until Loki shoved his head away, twitching and sensitive under him. Bruce sat up, breathing a little heavily himself. He could feel how wet his mouth and chin was with his own spit and the juices from Loki’s cunt; he dragged his fingers through the mess, sucking them off one by one. Loki sprawled out on his back, splotches of color burning hot on his cheeks and his throat, flushed all the way down his chest and breasts from sex.
He smirked up at Bruce when he saw him licking his fingers, and sat up on his elbows, reaching for Bruce with one hand. “Get on your back, doctor,” he purred, and dragged Bruce down, shoving him down onto the blanket. Loki crawled on top of him, and Bruce’s brain chose this moment to remember the dangers of unprotected sex.
“Condom,” he blurted, and Loki’s eyebrows arched.
“I told you before, doctor…” Loki straddled his hips, wrapping a hand around Bruce’s erection and holding it firmly, guiding himself onto Bruce’s prick with a groan that Bruce echoed almost immediately. Loki exhaled heavily as he sank down, eyes rolling briefly in his head, mouth falling open for a few moments in pleasure. “I can handle you,” he finished. He smirked, grinding his hips down against Bruce, and Bruce gasped, thrusting automatically up into the sweet, tight heat of Loki’s cunt.
He lost the plot for a few minutes after that, oblivious to the rest of the world, oblivious to everything but the rise and fall of Loki on top of him. Loki’s hair was damp with sweat, a few strands sticking to his face and neck, the rest falling forward every time Loki bent low over Bruce, dragging another moan from him as he sucked at Bruce’s lower lip.
Bruce’s orgasm snuck up on him—he’d gotten so good at suppressing his urges and controlling himself that he was honestly surprised at his own stamina, but then all of a sudden a fuse lit inside his brain and there was pressure inside his skull and his vision started to go green. “Loki,” he gasped, and to his horror his voice had dropped an octave in pitch.
Loki immediately leaned forward, a hand going to cup Bruce’s cheek. “Eyes on me, Bruce, think only of me,” he said urgently. “Watch my eyes.” Bruce swallowed, opening his mouth to protest, but Loki hadn’t stopped moving, the roll of his body rough and maddening against Bruce’s cock, his words a hypnotic susurrus that pushed back the cloud in Bruce’s mind. “Stay with me, my dragon,” Loki purred, and clenched around Bruce’s erection, and then Bruce’s climax crashed over him like a wall of water.
He gasped, and for a few short moments he thought he was going to change after all—but then the feeling passed, and he came down, Loki still grinding slowly down against him, riding him through it, face bright with vicious pleasure. Bruce sagged, trembling through the after-shocks. He shut his eyes, letting his head thump back against the squashed pillow.
Bruce spaced out for a few minutes then. He felt Loki slide off him settling at his side, and wondered for a moment if he should go get a wet washcloth, but he’d just had his first orgasm in something like six years; he needed a minute.
"We should go inside," Bruce murmured finally. He stroked a hand up Loki's spine, carding fingers through dark hair that tumbled messily over Loki’s pale shoulders; Loki raised his head to look at Bruce, and Bruce suffered a moment of vertigo where he was uncertain whether the face looking at him was male or female. Probably doesn't matter that much, he observed inwardly.
"Do you not care for the night air?" Loki asked, the way that people do when they mean something entirely different, more along the lines of Why are you so incredibly stupid?
"I like it fine," Bruce said mildly. "But if we spend the night out here, we'll be covered in bugs within two hours. I won't get bitten, but you won't enjoy it if you do."
Loki raised an eyebrow. Definitely female now. Maybe Bruce had only been imagining that moment of nebulousness. "Why is it that I'll be covered in bites but you won't?"
"They don't like the taste of my blood anymore," Bruce said. "I haven't had a bug-bite in six years."
A beetle buzzed by them, and Loki glanced up, lip curling. "Very well," he announced after a moment. "You may take me inside."
Bruce rolled his eyes, but got up anyway, standing up with an effort and pulling Loki to his feet. "Come this way, my liege," he said, gesturing extravagantly towards the doorway that led back into the bedroom.
"Ha, ha," said Loki. "Best to leave the game of wit to others more suited for it, doctor." He got to his feet, drawing his robe around his impressively curvy figure and swept past Bruce into the condo. Bruce found himself staring at the shape of Loki's ass through the robe, and it took him a moment to realize Loki had stopped in the doorway. Guiltily, Bruce jerked his gaze up to Loki's face, only to find a smirk waiting there for him. Bruce couldn't even find the energy to be scandalized when Loki blew him a kiss and let the robe slide off him altogether, puddling in the doorway as Loki vanished inside.
Bruce groaned and rubbed at his face before stooping to gather up the blankets on the ground. His brain was still lagging badly behind the events of the day, and between the unplanned change that morning and Bruce's failure to shift at all during sex, his brain felt like pudding. "Why do I think I'm not actually going to sleep much tonight," he muttered, and tried not to think about what would happen in the morning.
"Stop talking to the beetles and get in here," came Loki's voice, floating out the door like faintly-heard music. "I have better uses for that smart mouth of yours."
"Coming," called Bruce, and snatched up the towel he'd laid down under the blankets, before heading into the house after Loki.
* * * * *
Bruce’s first prediction was right; he got less sleep that night than was probably recommended. He also found it hard to care.
His second prediction, or rather his premonition of morning distress, proved less accurate: when they finally did let off, Bruce slept like a brick, and woke several hours later to a warm body curled against his, Loki’s head pillowed on Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce lay there in bemusement for a good five minutes, listening to the sound of Loki’s breathing and trying surreptitiously to look at his bed-partner without disturbing him.
Loki was still in his female form, and thoroughly naked, which Bruce would have felt worse about appreciating right now if he hadn’t spent so much time the night before exploring almost every inch of Loki’s body with his hands and mouth. Bruce noted, with professional detachment, that Loki’s side-injury was almost totally healed, the pink skin overlaying the injury matching the kind of regrown tissue that Bruce normally wouldn’t have expected to see until three months on, in a human patient, at least.
But he was gorgeous. Bruce’s throat tightened as his gaze traveled along Loki’s serpentine curves, a mile of milky white skin laid over long, taut muscles; if Bruce had not known Loki’s personal habits himself, he might have guessed Loki was a dancer, or did yoga. Bruce found himself staring at the sweet curve of one of Loki’s breasts, remembering biting down on that nipple the night before, remembered the plump swell of it in the palm of his hand. He realized distantly that he was half-hard again already. Or maybe he’d woken up that way, he wasn’t sure. Bruce had gotten out of the habit of masturbating, but apparently his body did not need much practice at arousal to get right back on track.
“Like what you see?” Bruce started a bit as Loki murmured in his ear. He drew back, peering down into Loki’s slitted eyes; when Loki saw him looking, a grin spread across his face, knowing and wicked.
“I think we already established that that’s a ‘yes.’” Bruce lifted a hand, ghosting it over Loki’s cheek for a moment, unsure if it’d be welcome; Loki’s expression flickered, and he sat up, resting an elbow on Bruce’s chest as he studied Bruce’s face, but did not pull away from Bruce’s touch.
“So,” said Loki after a few more moments, “is another round of oral sex in order before I can convince you to make breakfast?” Bruce let out a startled laugh, head thumping back against the pillow as his hand fell away.
“Well I wouldn’t say no, if you’re offering,” Bruce said, “but if you’re hungrier for one than the other, all you have to do is say so.”
“I want pancakes,” said Loki immediately. “The blueberry ones you made before we left Bangkok.”
“Guess that answers my question,” said Bruce, and sat up to swing his legs out of bed. Loki’s hand on his face arrested him before he could get out of bed, but the question died on Bruce’s lips as Loki kissed him hard enough to make Bruce see stars.
“And then I will expect dessert,” Loki murmured, licking into his mouth before pulling away and sliding serenely off the bed. Bruce stared after him, winded all over again.
“I have to go to work at some point, you know,” he told Loki’s back, watching distractedly for a moment as Loki pulled on a pair of lacy underwear before selecting pants.
Loki shrugged, elegantly unconcerned. “Your loss,” he remarked, and Bruce couldn’t argue with him.
* * * * *
The next few weeks were some of the sweetest Bruce had ever experienced. Despite the total clusterfuck of that first day at work, Bruce was able to fall back into a regular schedule at the hospital; his coworkers were both competent and easy-going, and the work itself was just the right mix of crazy and satisfying to hit the sweet spot of Bruce’s workaholic nature. Living as a refugee from the American government for so many years, Bruce could have easily justified abandoning his research and work altogether, in pursuit of simply staying off the radar, but Bruce had always been the type of person to find the best therapy in good work done well.
Of course, the thing that made his days so sweet was the abrupt uptick in the quality of his personal life. Which was another way of saying that while Bruce still thoroughly enjoyed his work, now he couldn’t wait to get home at the end of the day.
(The sex was—well. There was an old joke Bruce knew, “Even bad sex is better than no sex,” but for Bruce it was essentially going full-on Kama Sutra after six years of abstinence, and his sex drive had gone into overdrive at the feast after so long a famine. Loki was quick to demonstrate to Bruce that he was just as devastatingly appealing in any and every form he chose to wear. Not that Bruce needed much convincing.)
By mutual assent, he and Loki had opted to stay away from any discussion of plans for the future. Bruce was less reticent to talk about the Hulk than he would have expected; Loki was intensely curious about every aspect of the Other Guy, and after the initial fear of discovery wore off, Bruce found he was actually grateful to have someone to tell. He hadn’t realized how emotionally isolated it had rendered him, to not be able to truly tell anyone about this condition he lived with every day, and Loki ate up every detail.
“Do you experience sexual arousal while you are transformed?” Loki asked. Bruce flushed, and Loki smirked at him, his eyes dark as the hair that fell in Bruce’s face. They were both naked, laying in Bruce’s bed on a Saturday morning, Loki leaning over Bruce with his long, slender fingers drawing a foreign language across Bruce’s chest.
“I haven’t that I recall,” Bruce said carefully. He reached up to catch one of Loki’s hands, bringing it up to his lips to brush a kiss against Loki’s knuckles. Loki’s eyes hooded as he watched Bruce. “Hulk is—”
“Your dragon,” Loki corrected him, and Bruce smiled slightly.
“The dragon,” he repeated. “Is a fight-or-flight reaction gone wildly out of control.”
“He showed neither when he appeared to me,” Loki observed archly. “He seemed quite content.”
“Yes, well, it’s a working theory,” retorted Bruce, unable to actually sound irritated.
“Keep working, then,” said Loki.
“Duly noted,” Bruce murmured, and Loki bent down to claim his victory with a kiss.
They didn’t actually spend all their time fucking. Bruce almost wished they did; he might have found base sexual desire easier to dismiss than whatever it was he was currently drowning in. The best example of this was the day Bruce came home from the hospital to discover that Loki had covered the white board Bruce had obtained for him with a huge sprawl of calculus equations. Bruce stood in the doorway, staring, his bag of groceries slipping forgotten to the floor.
Loki glanced over his shoulder at Bruce, a marker still in one-hand. “There you are,” he said brusquely. “I was wondering when you’d be getting home. Look at this and tell me if I’ve done this differential correctly.”
“Since when are you an expert on thermonuclear astrophysics?” Because those were the particular equations scrawled across the white-board in Loki’s now-familiar spidery scrawl, equations that described massive interstellar forces and the space-time net between them. “Don’t answer that question, by the way.”
Loki crossed his arms over his chest, his lip curling at Bruce’s question. “Believe it or not, humans are not the first or only species to seek the understanding of the universe’s inner workings,” he said dryly. Bruce nodded; his attention was taken by the sophisticated variation on one of Schrödinger’s equations, and he frowned as he reached a space that Loki seemed to have wiped away and re-done several times.
“This part doesn’t make sense,” he said slowly. He gestured at the math on the other side of the equal sign. “The amount of energy you’d need for epsilon on this side to balance the other half of the equation is huge. That’s more kinetic energy than our sun puts out in a year.”
“Say I could get that kind of energy, though,” said Loki. His eyes were curiously bright, and something about the intensity of his gaze stood Bruce’s hair on end. “Does the math work? Are my calculations correct?”
Bruce looked over the proof again, starting at the left-hand side of the board and following it carefully across to its termination by Loki’s shoulder. “They are,” he said, returning his gaze to Loki. “As far as I can tell. Even if you could get that much energy, though, harnessing it in a way that wouldn’t be catastrophically destructive would be incredibly difficult.” He tilted his head, studying Loki curiously. “Are you planning to tesseract to the end of the universe, or something?”
Loki’s face went tight as soon as Bruce asked the question, staring at him with more mistrust than Bruce had seen in his face since Bruce first found him half-dead in an alley. “What did you say?” he demanded.
“Tesseract?” Bruce raised an eyebrow at him, wondering at the strength of his reaction. “It’s uh, well it’s a geometric shape, actually, but the way I used it—it’s a word from an old novel. A work of fiction. It, uh, it was a word for… bending two points in space-time so that they were close enough to each other to step from one to the other without having to traverse the space in between.” He wished he had a piece of string handy to illustrate.
Loki stared at him. “Interesting,” was all he said, turning back to his equations with an appraising eye.
Bruce watched him, feeling something unpleasant well and burst in the back of his throat. It was on his lips to ask something else, but instead he bent and gathered up the groceries, moving past Loki to the kitchen to put them away. Either he was doing a poor job of hiding his emotions, though, or Loki was a much more perceptive than Bruce had been giving him credit for. He was only in the kitchen for a moment, unpacking the bags of rice and flour, when a pair of arms snaked around his midsection from behind, Loki hooking his chin over Bruce’s shoulder.
“You’re troubled,” Loki noted, pressing his nose to just behind Bruce’s ear. Bruce shivered slightly, his hands stilling on the counter-top. “I wouldn’t have thought that the sight of maths equations would be so upsetting to you, doctor.”
“Oh yes,” said Bruce dryly. “Crippling fear of differentials, that’s me all over.” He sighed. After a moment, he gave in and leaned back, letting Loki support a little of his weight. In his male form, Loki had a few inches of height on Bruce, like most of the rest of the world’s male population.
“Are you ever going to tell me where you’re from?” he asked abruptly, the words out of his mouth before he realized they were coming. He cut himself off before he could follow up with before you leave.
Loki did not answer him immediately, though he didn’t pull away from Bruce, either. “Would it please you if I did?” he said finally. Bruce nodded. Loki let out a long sigh. The noise surprised Bruce; Loki rarely gave away much of what he was thinking, though he’d started to be a little softer around Bruce over the past few weeks. “Very well,” he said, with obvious reluctance. “What is it you want to know?”
Talk about an open-ended question, Bruce thought wryly. He covered Loki’s arms with his own, unable to stop himself admiring the pleasing sight of Loki’s pale skin against Bruce’s more olive coloring. “I guess,” he said slowly, “I just… feel like if I knew more about where you’re from and how you got here, I’d have a better idea of where you want to go.”
“And is where I’m going of some concern to you?” Loki’s voice was quiet, spoken right into his ear.
Bruce felt his face and neck heat, that tightness in the back of his throat coming back with a vengeance. “It is,” he admitted. “More than some.”
“Is that so,” Loki murmured. “Well then, you will have your wish. …as soon as you finish making dinner.”
Bruce couldn’t help it. He started laughing, and he couldn’t seem to stop, not even when Loki shoved him irritably against the counter. It wasn’t until Loki turned him around and played his trump card of kissing Bruce into submission that he finally shut up.
* * * * *
Bruce had spent several years studying the biology of the human body—medical school didn’t wind up being the affirmation of a life’s calling for him the way it had for other people, but it had definitely been fascinating—and then perfecting his understanding of physiology by dedicating himself to the minute details of his own functioning. The slightest change in his own body chemistry now had huge ramifications for him.
Which was why he decided to put off the conversation with Loki about his past until after they’d made and eaten dinner. Rule one of biology and neurochemistry: the human body functions better at anything it does when it’s been well-fed and its blood glucose levels are high.
Afterwards, Loki curled up on the couch and Bruce sat down across from him, attentive and maybe a little anxious. Loki seemed unaffected, although Bruce knew enough by now to tell that if Loki was upset, he wasn’t likely to show Bruce.
Whatever he’d been expecting, whatever revelation he thought was forthcoming, it wasn’t what he got.
“You’re what,” he said. It came out flat, toneless, and Bruce straightened, trying to collect himself.
“A Jotun,” said Loki; his lip curled, and he stared out the window, gazing at something that Bruce strongly suspected wasn’t on this planet. “A Frost Giant, to use the Aesir name.”
“That’s not—look, I wasn’t expecting you to tell me you’re from a mysterious shape-changing group of humans somewhere in second lower Slobovia, or something, that’s not what I’m stuck on, but Asgard? Like—” Bruce groped for a moment, trying to express what about this information was so difficult to get ahold of. “You’re that Loki? The one out of Norse mythology. You’re a Norse god.”
Loki turned his head at that, arching one fine black eyebrow in the most perfect expression of condescension the world had ever seen. He could gold-medal in it, if he wanted to. “Your disbelief in my godhood is touching, Bruce,” he said icily.
“That’s not what I meant!” Bruce put his face in his hands for a moment, feeling sick to his stomach, and almost irrationally angry. “I don’t believe in gods,” he bit out after a moment.
“Oh,” said Loki, “is that so. Tell me, do you plan to stop believing in death in order to avoid your mortal fate? Do tell me how that works out for you.” Now his voice was positively dripping, acidic enough to burn through the floor. Bruce glanced over and was startled to see how vividly green his lover’s eyes had gone.
Bruce took a deep breath. He could already feel the hunger for—for battle, he supposed, tickling at the back of his mind like a candle flame waiting to roar into a full inferno if given half a chance. The Hulk lived closer to the surface with every passing day that Bruce lived with him; you cannot control that which you do not understand or recognize, and keeping the Other Guy at a distance hadn’t ever worked. But that didn’t mean Bruce could give in to anger.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said with an effort. “You have to—” He gritted his teeth. “For a lot of scientists on Earth, 'magic' has always been a word for something that people are too afraid of or too foolish to work at genuinely understanding. It's a cop-out word. Let's just be scared and lazy and call this thing we don't understand 'magic,' or luck, or divine will, or something, instead of trying to understand it and see what that can do for us."
“Divine will.” Loki spat the word as though it was a curse. “We should all be so lucky.”
“Yeah, Odin sounds like a real prize-winner,” said Bruce, trying and failing to not privately boggle at the insanity of talking about Norse legends as though they were the neighbors down the street.
“I was nothing but a prize to him,” said Loki, and Bruce watched as Loki got up off the couch and paced across the room to the window, glaring out it as though Odin himself was in the front yard, waiting to deal out further emotional damage. “Just a pawn in his long game. He raised me to believe I was one of his sons, but he had no intention of ever letting me have the throne in his stead. He’d never let a filthy Jotun rule Asgard.”
Bruce bit his lip. He sensed there were deep waters here, things lurking that he didn’t want to get too close to until he knew exactly what the hell had happened, but Loki’s pain struck too close to home for him to not respond to it. “So let me get this straight,” he said after almost 90 seconds had passed, when Loki had lapsed into another brooding silence. “You were raised as a member of Asgardian royalty, but you’re actually a—Jotun, which are the Asgardians’ sworn enemies, and your f—Odin did this for political gain. Is that about right?” Loki nodded once, still staring out the window.
“I’m sorry,” Bruce said, because he couldn’t think of what else to say. “That’s rough.”
Loki’s lip curled. “He raised me up to hate Jotunheim, told me that one day I would rule, that I was special—” Bruce had never heard such impotent fury in his life— “but all along it was just another one of his illusions. And when I tried to claim what I had been promised my entire life, I was cast out into darkness. Odin’s golden son will one day be king, and I have naught but my dreams of revenge to warm me.” Loki stalked across the room, pacing from one window to another, as though the new one would perhaps yield a more pleasing view.
“I’m sorry,” Bruce said again, and Loki whirled on him, sneering.
“Spare me your pity, Dr. Banner,” he snapped. “You know nothing of my pain.”
That stung. Bruce sat up, rubbing his temple irritably. “Well, actually,” he said, “I suppose now would be as good a time as any to mention that my father was an abusive alcoholic who murdered my mother in front of me.” At this, Loki froze, fixing him with such a startled expression that Bruce had to stifle the urge to apologize, like he’d just broken something valuable, but he plowed ahead anyway. “He beat her because she wouldn’t let him hit me, almost every day for five years after my fifth birthday, and then he cracked her head open on the concrete the day we tried to leave him and I spent the rest of my childhood hating every one of my foster parents the way my dad had hated me. So.”
Loki stood where he was, muscles in his jaw working convulsively, as though he was trying to chew his words before letting them past his teeth. “Please tell me that you have smashed your worthless sire into a thousand tiny pieces as the dragon,” he said finally. There was a weird tightness in his voice; it took Bruce several seconds to notice that his hands were balled into fists, and were shaking ever-so-slightly.
“He was dead way before I even went to medical school,” said Bruce uncomfortably. “But even if he wasn’t, I wouldn’t.”
“Why not?” Loki demanded. His nostrils flared, eyes showing too much white around the vivid green irises. “What did he do that deserves a stay of your vengeance?”
“What would it accomplish? It wouldn’t bring my mother back, it wouldn’t make my childhood any better.” Bruce realized abruptly that he’d crossed his arms over his chest at some point, that he was curling into the couch as though for protection, but whether it was protecting himself from Loki or protecting Loki from the Hulk, he wasn’t entirely sure. He could feel himself reacting to the hostility in the room, despite his best intentions.
“Oh, how noble,” Loki sneered. “Yes, do move on! Let us forgive our enemies and give them our blessing! Shall I lay down and apologize to Odin for daring to think I deserved better? That I deserve to rule as the prince he always told me I was?”
“I didn’t say that,” snapped Bruce before he could stop himself. “I’m not some kind of saint, okay?” He sat up, his heart beating too fast in his chest; he needed to calm down. Something was going to go wrong, and fast.
“I beg to differ, dearest.” Loki advanced on him, and it was all Bruce could do not to leap over the back of the couch and go running out the door: Loki moved like a predator, radiating threat and anger and despair like some kind of fucked-up cologne. And it was more than a metaphor—Bruce realized with a stab of horror that he could smell those emotions, that Hulk was already starting to light up parts of his brain. Then Loki was in his personal space, snapping Bruce’s attention back to the moment.
“STOP!” He was up and moving before he could stop himself, putting the couch between himself and Loki, who stopped and stood where he was, fists still clenched. “Stop,” Bruce repeated, breathing hard.
Loki bared his teeth. “Stop what, Bruce?” His voice trembled; with a shock like a splash of cold water, Bruce realized that Loki was on the verge of tears. “Stop wanting revenge? Stop wanting to make Odin pay? Stop being the monster under the bed?”
“I have to go,” Bruce said unevenly. “I have to calm down, or—”
“That’s right,” Loki said viciously. “I forgot, you’re afraid of him. Go then! Run from your monster, as you insist on doing. Tell me if you succeed in escaping him at last.” Loki turned away, stalking back towards the window and pressing a hand against the glass; with the part of his brain not busy struggling to keep the Other Guy from forcing his way out, Bruce saw the way frost spread on the surface of the glass, fanning out from Loki’s fingertips; could hear the crackling of the particles rapidly compressing even from the other side of the room, and that was the last thing that registered before he pushed out the door.
He stumbled out onto the street, turning and walking rapidly towards the main road, needing to walk, to breathe the night air until he was calm. He walked until the stitch in his side replaced the one in his skull, and then he bent over, panting, the pressure behind his eyes finally starting to ebb.
Bruce hated himself more than a little for running in the face of Loki’s misery. Not that Loki had helped the situation at all—Jesus, if there was ever a candidate for a good therapist—but Loki had finally opened up to Bruce about his past, and Bruce had gotten so upset he’d had to bail. Bruce shut his eyes, shoving the heels of his palms against his eyelids until stars burst at the front of his vision.
He’d only ever told one other person about his parents, and that was Betty. It had taken two years of dating before Bruce had admitted exactly how awful his childhood was, the true extent of the abuse, and how his mother had been killed at the hands of his father. And it had taken another two years before he’d told her about the bomb in his high school, and how his father had really died.
What the hell did he think he was doing? This whole situation was a goddamn mess. Bruce was so far out of his league it was a wonder he was even on the same planet. Bruce stood up, staring towards the lights of Chiang Mai, trying to decide whether or not to go home yet.
Ultimately his own solitary nature won out. Bruce caught a taxi into town and ate in a corner of a noodle bar, listening to the happy sounds of other guests enjoying a night out. He let their idle conversation wash over him, as textured and physical as the scents of garlic and tamarind and peanut oil that escaped from the kitchen every time a server disappeared into the back room. Bruce inhaled a plate full of noodles and drank four cups of tea before his mind finally calmed, and he left the restaurant feeling more even-keeled, if not necessarily better.
He would apologize to Loki, first and foremost, for running off on him, Bruce decided. He didn’t think Loki would have run off, though to be honest he didn’t really have any gauge—
A faint whistle cut the air by his ear, so brief Bruce almost didn’t hear it, and then a sharp pain stabbed his neck. Bruce staggered, clapping a hand to his throat and finding something sticking out of it, smooth metal that ended in flared wings. “Fuck,” Bruce said, and yanked it out, wincing. He turned around and saw men in dark camo uniforms spreading out from the bushes that lined the street behind him, all of them leveling weapons at him, and even as he reached for the rage inside him he knew it was too little, too late. Darkness swept over him in a wave, bringing with it a lethargy and a weight, numbing his limbs, and by the time he’d hit the ground he was already out cold.
* * * * *
Time went funny for a few days.
At least, Bruce thought it was a few days. Truthfully, he had no idea where he was, how he’d got there, or how long he’d been there. He flickered in and out of consciousness, but every time he tried to claw his way out of the loopy, toffee-thick mess of delirium to awareness, he was met by a hard wave of nausea and aches, like every inch of his body was covered in bruises and someone had fed him sour milk.
Pain pierced his daze a few times. Sharp, pointed pain: needles pricking his arm, the inside of his elbow, the meat just below his biceps. One such event dragged him above the soporific haze he was in long enough to notice the fact that he was strapped down to a gurney in a dank, white-washed room, no windows and only one door. It seemed slanted to him, built at an angle, but for all he knew that was the drugs.
“What are you doing to me?” he asked—or tried to; it came out more like “Whhh yhhh fhhh?” The woman in white scrubs patted his shoulder and went back to fiddling with one of the clear tubes running into his arm. Bruce heard a beeping noise, and turned his head minutely; a fat metal monster squatted close by, its face dotted with baleful red eyes that blinked at him in a rhythmic pattern. Tentacles ran in and out of its face. Bruce noticed his own delayed fear reaction the same way a researcher would note the number of times a mouse pressed a lever for food; dispassionately, from a distance.
He waited. It wasn’t a monster; he knew that, somewhere. After a moment, the monster coalesced into something less menacing: a machine, reading his bio-signs, surely.
It occurred to him that nothing he was seeing was a surprise, and that in itself could be a problem. He’d expected this to happen—if he was ever caught, the army would learn from their previous mistakes and realize that no physical force could actually stop the Hulk, so they’d resort to keeping Bruce from transforming at all. He was honestly sort of surprised he wasn’t dead, dissected and analyzed in hopes of re-creating the monster inside him with fewer control issues. He knew there was a reason he wasn’t dead, knew even that he was familiar with the reason, but it refused to come to him. He couldn’t think why it was bad that this was what he expected. Thinking at all hurt.
He needed to transform. He tried to reach inside himself, dig deep for the core of rage that seethed at his center, but the Other Guy didn’t stir. Bruce was stuck, stupefied with whatever they had him on, suspended in thick, cloying solution like a fetal pig in formaldehyde.
The tech said something, but it was fuzzy, unintelligible as though there were cotton balls jammed in his ears. Bruce tried to turn his head to look at her again, managing it just in time to see her sliding a needle into the slotted entrance to his IV line. She thumbed the depressor, emptying whatever it was into the plastic tube. Stop, he tried to say, but speech was a Sisyphean task, his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth. No words came. Bruce shut his eyes.
Time fragmented. He opened his eyes. The woman in scrubs was gone. A man and a different woman stood by, both in white lab coats; their speech burst the candy bubble of Bruce’s consciousness. Syllables and diphthongs flitted past him; a few coalesced into actual words. “…severe agranulocytosis…”
“—symptoms consistent with radiation poisoning…”
“… deterioration… liver functioning—”
“—just has to survive three more days—”
Again the words blurred out of coherence. Bruce groaned, trying to lift his hand to do who knew what, and the man in the lab coat turned to the machine next to Bruce, pressing a button. The machine whirred, and liquid slid through one of the IVs attached to Bruce’s arm.
The world receded, dragging Bruce’s consciousness with it. His last coherent thought was to hope that he died of radiation poisoning before they could extract the secret of the dragon from his DNA.
* * * * *
“Wake up!”
Bruce groaned. He hurt. He shut his eyes tighter, trying to will himself back into unconsciousness.
Someone laid hold of his arm, and dear god their hands were cold, ice-cold, like touching the surface of a frozen pond. Bruce cried out, cringing away from the sudden bite of nerves. “I said wake up!” The voice was familiar, and thick with emotion.
Bruce’s eyes snapped open. A figure stood over him, blue-skinned, red-eyed, the face contorted with rage. The vision was frightening, yet Bruce sagged with instant relief in the split seconds before recognition hit him. “Loki,” he blurted. The fury in Loki’s face cleared a little, and Loki leaned over him, and for a moment Bruce expected that ice-cold touch on his other arm, but instead he felt a jerk and heard a sharp snap—Bruce’s brain went to the sound of ice cracking apart on water, but the sound was denser, more metallic—and then Loki was sliding an arm under Bruce’s shoulders and helping ease him to an upright position.
“Howzhou geddin?” Bruce’s head lolled as Loki sat him up; he shuddered, nausea rolling through him, starting at his head and sloshing down his spine in a sickening drunken wave. He pitched sideways and would have fallen over if Loki weren’t there to brace his weight. “Oh, god…”
“Hush, I’ll tell you later,” Loki said tightly. “You must transform, Bruce. We need the dragon to get you safely out of here.”
“Can’t,” Bruce said blearily. “Drugs. Can’t… wake him up.” He shuddered, twisting away from Loki to be quickly and painfully ill over the side of the gurney. Loki held him up, pulling him close again as the spasm passed and Bruce sagged, moaning in misery.
His head was clearer now, though, the pain and disgust sweeping some of the taffy from his mind. You are never more your true self than when you are in pain, said a voice from his past, and then the ghost blew away. Bruce peered at the door, noting the way it had been twisted off its hinges; he could hear alarms going off in the building, ringing hollowly down what must be a long corridor. He wondered what time it was; he didn’t know how long he’d been here, or even where ‘here’ was; his assessment of his own level of misery wasn’t nearly revelatory enough to give him any sense of the passage of time. Loki tugged at him, turning him so that Bruce could swing his legs over the side of the gurney, and then Loki came to stand between Bruce’s thighs, a hand on each of Bruce’s shoulders, helping support him.
“Look at me,” Loki said. His voice slid over Bruce’s skin like a physical presence, smooth as silk. Bruce let out a breath, fixing his eyes on Loki’s face. “Focus on me, Bruce. Listen to my voice, think only of me.” Bruce nodded slowly. Loki’s horns swept up from his forehead, his black hair falling freely over his shoulders, his eyes blazing clear and red; Bruce spared a stray thought to wonder what the guards must have thought when they’d seen him, what storybook horror they’d thought he was.
“Not a monster,” he mumbled, unhappy at the thought. Loki arched an eyebrow at him.
“Not yet, you aren’t,” Loki said, and Bruce wanted to correct him but Loki kept talking. “But you will be. We need the dragon. Do you hear me, dragon? I need you.” Loki’s words swept over him, and again Bruce had that sense of physicality, like hands were actually caressing his skin. He felt something inside him responding to it, a tug on deeper levels than his conscious mind went—like a sense memory triggered by an unexpected smell. “Awaken, dragon,” Loki whispered. His eyes shone like star fire.
Inside Bruce, something answered. “Loki,” Bruce said hoarsely. His voice had dropped three octaves, a low rumble in his own ears.
Loki smiled, and it was all teeth, wild and undiluted pleasure, Bacchus at his revelry. He opened his mouth to say something else, but a roaring had filled Bruce’s ears, and then the world went green.
* * * * *
Years later, when he’d go over the event with Tony and try to understand what had happened—Bruce had no intention of ever repeating that experience—repeated testing would conclude that heavy doses of sedatives and anti-psychotics had dropped Bruce’s white blood cell count to dangerous levels, allowing the latent gamma radiation in his blood to overwhelm his system, his own altered DNA slowly poisoning him. Bruce would ultimately conclude that if Loki hadn’t shown up when he had, Bruce would have slipped permanently into his drug-induced coma and then died from major organ failure without ever regaining consciousness. It further confirmed what he’d already long-suspected: for whatever reason, transforming into the Hulk was the key that allowed his systems to flush all the toxins out of his bloodstream, via some process that still wasn’t clear to him no matter how long he studied it.
But all of that meant nothing at the time. Instead, he got a wash of light and sound and color, overlaid with a terrible disorienting sickness, nausea that wouldn’t be shaken off no matter how hard he tried. He remembered snatches of events: people fleeing in front of him with terror in their eyes, their screams echoing oddly in his skull. Then coming to somewhere in the middle of the jungle, curled in agony, down on all fours: his limbs were green, still, but strangely small, not Hulk-sized but Banner-sized. A voice whispered soothingly in his ears, and then he was vomiting again, bringing up a foul brown sludge that burned his eyes to smell, rank with acidity, like toxic waste.
More screaming. Men with guns, bullets flying at him and biting at his face and shoulders like angry bees. Rage so powerful it cancelled out every sense, the violent urge to destroy. Fingers in his hair, a weight on the back of his neck, like something (or someone) small balanced astride his shoulders.
Then nothing.
* * * * *
Bruce awoke to the sound of birds.
He opened his eyes, staring up at an unfamiliar jungle canopy. Not that the jungle was ever exactly familiar, but Bruce was fairly certain that creeping vines like that didn’t grow anywhere near to cities; if he wasn’t mistaken, their flowers were poisonous. Which meant—
His head throbbed. Ow. Apparently it meant that he needed to not think too hard.
“You’re awake,” said a voice from nearby; Loki, sounding at once pleased and relieved.
“I’m not dead, at least,” Bruce confirmed, and coughed; his throat was sore, for some reason not immediately apparent to him. Loki’s face appeared above him after a moment (male and human; why was that a surprise?) and then an arm was under Bruce’s shoulders, helping him to sit up. Bruce leaned into him until his head was no longer spinning.
“How do you feel?” asked Loki.
“Like shit,” said Bruce. “But something tells me that’s still an improvement.” He looked at Loki for a long moment, trying to cudgel his lagging brain into working. “What… happened?”
Loki’s mouth twisted into something that might have been a smile. “Do you remember anything at all?” he asked, instead of answering Bruce’s query.
Bruce shook his head. It didn’t hurt as badly as he’d been afraid it would. “Well, not nothing,” he amended after a moment. “But nothing specific. No details.”
“That is probably for the better,” Loki observed. “As it has not been a pleasant five days for you.” Loki wrapped his arm around Bruce’s waist, helping him to lean against a tree-trunk, and then he got up, retrieving a bottle of water from the pile of assorted gear in the center of the clearing. “Here, drink. We will get you food as soon as you can stand.”
Bruce leaned over, accepting the water bottle and drinking down almost half of it before pulling off with a soft gasp. “Where are we?” he asked. It seemed the most pertinent of the many questions waiting to be answered.
“Indonesia,” said Loki. “I believe the island’s name is Sumatra.”
Bruce stared. “How,” he managed, and the shadow of a smile came across Loki’s face.
“You forget that one of my nicknames is ‘Liesmith,’” Loki said lightly. “But I am not sure whether we have been pursued, so when you are feeling stronger we must keep moving.”
Mutely, Bruce held out an arm. Loki raised an eyebrow at him, but when Bruce kept his arm out Loki came to him, kneeling next to him again and allowing Bruce to draw him close. Bruce leaned against him, shutting his eyes, and after a moment an arm came around Bruce’s shoulders, long fingers sliding through Bruce’s shaggy hair.
“Thank you,” Bruce murmured, almost lost against Loki’s skin. Loki said nothing, but a moment later Bruce felt the soft press of lips against his temple; if Loki noticed the suspicious dampness against his throat, he did not see fit to mention it. Finally, Bruce took a deep breath and leaned back, enough so that he could see Loki’s face; Loki was watching him with a soft look.
“Tell me everything that happened, please,” Bruce said quietly. Loki pursed his lips and then nodded.
The telling took longer than Bruce expected. He was appalled to learn that he’d been in Ronson’s facility for almost two weeks before Loki had managed to track him down, through the boy they’d rescued from bullies, of all unlikely people—his name was Sunan, and he gleefully told Loki that no one had bothered him since that day by the bus depot. Sunan’s mother worked in the restaurant nearest the facility Bruce was being held at, and he’d heard her worried conversation at night about the strange cries she’d heard coming from the building across the street; when Loki had come through town asking after Bruce, Sunan had been the one to tell him where to look.
That had been almost a week ago. Once Loki had located the building, it had taken him all of 24 hours to break into the facility and locate a Bruce on the edge of total organ failure. The real miracle had been drawing out the dragon from the depth’s of Bruce’s drug-addled brain, somehow triggering the runaway adrenaline response that allowed him to transform, so that he could fight their way out of the compound.
When he got to the part where Bruce transformed, Loki paused, watching Bruce with a careful expression. “You don’t remember much, do you?” he asked after a moment.
Bruce shook his head, his stomach sinking. “How many people did I kill?” he asked, with an effort.
Loki held his gaze for several long seconds before telling him, and when Bruce crumpled over with his face in his hands, Loki’s arms went around him again, stroking his hair and letting him shake.
“It was no more than what they had coming,” Loki told him, when Bruce had calmed a little, the worst of his shock receding. “There was no one in that stinking charnel house who did not know what they had signed up for.” Bruce looked up finally, finding a complicated expression on Loki’s face. Loki smiled when he saw Bruce looking at him.
“I know you think I shouldn’t be upset,” Bruce began tiredly.
“Correct,” said Loki. His voice held no judgment. “But you are upset, regardless.” Bruce nodded slowly, and Loki sighed. He stroked a thumb across Bruce’s lips, clearly working something out in his head; Bruce sat quietly and waited, knowing better than to prod. Finally, Loki shook his head. “When you woke, I had thought to convince you to take your vengeance on the ones who did this to you, on the people who have wronged us both,” Loki said. “But I already know you would never agree to such a plan.”
Again Bruce nodded. Loki smiled at him, somehow sad. “You have such might at your disposal,” he said wistfully, “and yet you refuse to use it, until you have literally no other choice. I do not understand why you insist on allowing yourself to be victimized.”
It was Bruce’s turn to sigh. He was tired and he still felt little better than warmed-over death; now was not exactly the ideal time for this conversation, but it seemed they were going to have it anyway.
Finally, he spoke. “If I play this game,” he said, “If I… if I play the role everyone thinks I’ve been cast in, and act like the monster everyone thinks I am, then I’ve already lost, because the minute I try to get revenge or try to force them to leave me alone, I’ve already proven them right—that I’m a dangerous monster. The game is rigged against me, no matter what I do. So I refuse to play. I’m opting out. I won’t let them define who I am.”
“They won’t let you opt out, though,”Loki pointed out. “No matter how far you run, you will be followed.”
“Yes, well.” Bruce smiled thinly. “How’s it go? You can’t win, you can’t break even, and you can’t get out of the game.”
“Don’t quote the laws of thermodynamics at me, Bruce,” said Loki, but the reproof had no heat. Loki had a distracted look in his eyes now, frowning, though Bruce suspected it wasn’t him Loki was looking at at all. Finally, he blinked, eyes refocusing. “I still think it’s a waste,” he said.
Bruce shook his head. “Revenge is the real waste,” he said. “Years spent planning how you’ll prove them wrong, only to realize you were letting them control you all along. Real revenge is learning how not to give a damn about the people who hurt you at all.”
Loki stared at him. “I think you must have hit your head at some point,” he said finally. Bruce smiled. “Come on, let’s get you fed before you start quoting the Bhagavad Gita at me.”
“How do you even know what that is,” said Bruce.
“I do read,” said Loki impatiently. “Shut up and put on some pants, Bruce. As lovely as it is to have you naked in front of me, I don’t feel like sharing the view with the locals.”
“Oh,” said Bruce. “Yeah. Pants.” Loki rolled his eyes and stood up, but Bruce felt a little better anyway.
* * * * *
Bruce had experienced a lot of nasty things over his thirty-eight years of life. Some of them he’d long since learned to block out, like the shadow of abuse that lay over much of his childhood. Some of it he couldn’t properly remember at all, like his hazy memories of the time he’d nearly died of a staph infection before realizing it wasn’t just your normal bout with flu virus and getting some damn antibiotics. And some of it he’d never forget, like breaking his leg in two places when he was nineteen and had fallen out of his lofted bed while having sex with Melissa Goldthwaite, and had had to be carried out of the dorm on a gurney.
His recovery from the cocktail of medication that he’d been kept on at Ronson’s compound was not quite at the top of the “worst life experiences” list, but it was pretty far up there. Bruce was very glad that he did not remember much of the worst of it; Loki told him that he’d spent five miserable days cycling rapidly back and forth from Banner to Hulk, spending no more than an hour or two in each form at a time before shifting violently again, in misery no matter what form he took. Bruce was unsurprised to discover he’d lost ten pounds over the three weeks he spent captive and then recovering from it.
(The irony of his near-death experience did not elude him. Bruce couldn’t say that he ever really wanted to die, so much as just hit a particularly low point, but Ronson had done a significantly better job of actually nearly killing him than putting a bullet in his mouth had ever achieved.)
Loki was—attentive. He rarely left Bruce alone for long, doing a shockingly skillful job of negotiating with whatever locals they encountered (though to be fair, he had the All-Speak, and mostly what Bruce had was a constant headache). Whatever lingering weakness or ill effects Loki might still have been enduring from his own recent injuries, he gave little sign. But there was a distance to him that Bruce could hardly fail to miss, ill or not, and he tried not to think hard about it, or wonder how soon he’d be cooking for just one again.
If they had pursuers, Bruce wasn’t aware of them. A few times he caught Loki standing outside of their apartment (or hotel room, or beachside shanty, wherever they happened to be staying), head bowed and lips moving rapidly, a look of intense concentration vanishing from his face the moment Loki noticed Bruce was watching.
“You know, at this point I’m pretty aware of the fact that you can do magic,” Bruce pointed out, the third such time this happened. “I mean. I watched you turn a kid into a pot-bellied pig. You don’t really have to hide it.”
There were still what Conan Doyle would have called “faerie lights” lingering in the air, winking slowly out of existence in the deepening gloam. It was five days after Bruce woke up sick as a dog in the middle of Sumatran jungle, and they were on a beach in Fiji. Bruce liked it here. The people of the nearest village had been very friendly, and the sound of the sea slowly whispering its way up the beach was soothing.
Loki turned to stare consideringly at Bruce; the last faint glow of whatever spell he’d cast lingered in the air, bringing out an unnatural shine in his green eyes. “I was making us un-found,” he said after a moment, his tone measured. “One of the components of the spell is that it cannot be observed during its casting; the act of observation nullifies the shielding effect.”
Bruce blinked. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?” he asked. “I would’ve gone inside.”
The corner of Loki’s mouth quirked. “I suppose I am not yet accustomed to being freely given what I ask for,” was all he said, and went inside, leaving Bruce standing on the beach wondering what in the world that meant.
Turned out that Loki liked Fiji too. Either that, or his ‘unfinding’ spell worked, because he expressed no desire to pack up and relocate again. They spent three idyllic days there, doing little more than reading or walking the length of the beach, sometimes talking and sometimes simply existing together. Bruce found himself persuading Loki to come down with him to the high tide line, laying out a blanket and undressing them both and paying slow, wistful worship to the flat planes of Loki’s stomach and the angular grace of his jaw.
They fucked on the pile of blankets and clothes, Bruce’s hands on Loki’s hips as Loki rode him, head thrown back, white skin gleaming with the sweat of their exertions. When they were done, they lay for awhile in silence, tangled together and still naked; the evening was more than warm enough around the belt of the world to walk around nude if you had the chance.
“You’re sad,” said Loki after awhile. He sat up slightly, propping himself on one elbow to gaze down at Bruce.
Bruce returned his gaze, struggling for a moment with his endless urge to hide or deny, and then nodded. “You’re leaving soon,” he said softly.
Loki’s eyebrows went up. “Do tell,” he said, but the disdain he tried for didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Bruce smiled, a wry twist of his lips. “Am I wrong?” He lifted a hand, tracing the fading outline of Loki’s once-brutal scar along the side of his abdomen, now faded to a faint white, like the scar Bruce had on his hip that he’d gotten when he was twelve. Loki exhaled, and in a move that surprised Bruce, he lifted a hand to cover Bruce’s with his own, stroking his thumb along the backs of Bruce’s knuckles.
“Am I not your uninvited guest, Dr. Banner?” Loki asked, very quietly. “What is your human saying? …Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”
“If a cowboy shows up to ruin our wedding, I am gonna be so angry,” Bruce said, and grinned despite himself at Loki’s expression, equal parts quizzical and annoyed. He shook his head a little. “I want you to stay here,” he said at length; Loki gazed at him expectantly, and Bruce bit the inside of his mouth. “With me. I don’t want you to go.”
“And what would I do, if I stayed?” Loki tilted his head. He let go of Bruce’s hand and reached out to tuck a strand of hair out of Bruce’s face. Bruce sighed.
“I don’t know,” he said tiredly. “I hardly know what I’m doing, aside from trying to stay out of trouble.”
“It may break your heart to hear this, but you’re doing a poor job of that,” said Loki seriously.
Bruce snorted. “I try not to want things for other people, because that’s a dangerous habit to get into,” he said finally. “But I want you to do… whatever will make you happy.” He exhaled heavily, lifting his eyes to stare past Loki at the moon, sitting fat on the horizon, seemingly half-in and half-out of the ocean. “I guess I was hoping maybe somehow that would include me.”
“Do you think so little of yourself?” Bruce looked over, taken aback at the tenderness in Loki’s voice, and when their eyes met, Loki smiled. “I cannot stay here, Bruce,” he said gently. “I—” He blew air out through his nose, the corners of his eyes crinkling in irritation. “Midgard is under the protection of my brother. Sooner or later, he would find me here. If I am to truly leave the past behind, it cannot be done on Earth.”
Bruce nodded, his surprise at the revelation of altered plans not quite cancelling out the lump forming in his throat, despite his best efforts. “Makes sense,” he said. “Where will you go?”
“I am as-yet unsure,” said Loki. “Probably I will start with one of the other known realms. But I already know there is so much more to be found than Odin ever told me.” He traced a design on Bruce’s chest, and Bruce’s eyes widened as the design remained in his finger’s wake, gleaming as though drawn in stardust. “Come with me,” Loki said.
Bruce was so distracted by the glowing outline on his chest that the words took a moment to register. “What?”
“Come with me,” said Loki again. His face was bright, eyes very intent.
“I can’t,” Bruce said automatically. “I, I…”
“This is your chance to opt out, Bruce,” said Loki softly. “I do not think you will get a second one.” He studied Bruce’s face for a moment, a faint smile touching his lips. “I should think a scientist like yourself would love the chance to get out of the game.”
Bruce stared up at his lover’s face, feeling—frozen, jammed, like a pressed button that had gotten stuck. He couldn’t seem to un-hang from the loop his brain was on. A dozen different people flashed in front of his eyes, and with a lurch he realized abruptly that he hadn’t seen any of them more recently than a year and a half ago, and some much longer ago than that. There was literally nothing holding him here.
“How soon would we leave?” he asked dazedly.
“As soon as you are willing,” said Loki. Bruce wondered how long he’d been waiting to have this conversation. He swallowed.
“I need a day,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. To think. To be sure. He’d never be sure. He needed more time, he needed—he needed to not let Loki leave, to go where Bruce would never find him again. As if the thought summoned the deed, Bruce wrapped both arms around Loki and pulled him down, kissing him hard. Loki fell forward on top of him, the fall of his hair brushing soft as feathers over Bruce’s cheeks as Loki laughed into his mouth.
“I am not going to steal off in the night, I promise,” Loki murmured, between kisses.
“If you do, I’ll smash everything, I swear,” said Bruce. He felt Loki smile against the corner of Bruce’s mouth.
“Do not tempt me, dragon,” he purred, a hand sneaking into Bruce’s hair and tugging. “You cannot say such things and expect me not to want them.”
“Oh, right, because it’s totally my fault you have such shitty self-control.” Bruce squawked as Loki abruptly rolled him into the sand, retaliating by shoving Loki into the water, which had crept up to just a few feet from them. It dissolved into something like a wrestling match, ending with Bruce covered in grit and sand and laughing helplessly as Loki stood over him, panting, trying for ‘irritated’ and not quite managing it. He gave it up as a bad job after a moment, grinning down at Bruce as Bruce tried to catch his breath.
“You’ll pay for that, Banner,” he said.
“God, I hope so,” said Bruce.
* * * * *
When the SHIELD operatives found the beach front house, it had clearly been abandoned for some time. The villagers in the nearest town had been reluctant to give Black Widow any information, for some reason; she would have thought it fear of the Hulk, except that by all reports the Hulk hadn’t been sighted since the disaster at the military compound outside Chiang Mai, and that was almost two months ago. She wondered if they were protecting Banner.
There was nothing in the building. It was little more than a shack, really; all one room, plus a bathroom with a door that slid closed to give privacy to anyone using the toilet. All the furniture was intact, as were the dishes, but there were no clothes, just one or two books, no other personal belongings. She looked around the room dispassionately, knowing that their target had somehow slipped away again despite all their best efforts. She didn’t quite understand how—they’d had no trouble tracking Banner to Calcutta and then Bangkok, but after that he’d seemed to slip away, as though he simply didn’t exist concretely enough for detection.
“Widow, report,” said a voice in her ear. She reached up and tapped her speaker on.
“Nothing here, Coulson,” she said. “He’s long gone. No sign of whoever he was with, either.”
“Dammit. I don’t suppose he was careless enough to leave anything behind?”
“Negative, the house is clean—” Widow broke off as her eyes fell on a book sitting out on the counter. She’d disregarded it at first; books of poetry and verse were common in vacation homes, and there was no reason to think that Banner had brought this one with him, or that it would provide any information even if he had, but now she recognized that it seemed set out very deliberately, equidistant from the edges of the counter it was displayed on. “Hold that thought, I may have something,” she said into her mic.
It was a book of poetry by Rumi—common enough for this part of the world. The book was old, its pages yellowed and dog-eared from much reading; she opened it and checked the publication date: 1963, the year Kennedy was shot. There was a marker in the book, a thin strip of cloth. Widow flipped the book open to the marked page and stared at the words on the page, a faint frown creasing her face.
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Black Widow blinked, slowly. She read the poem over again, and then stared out the front window at the sea, a strange chill settling on the back of her neck despite the heat of the late afternoon. “What did you find?” asked Coulson in her ear, jarring her momentarily.
“A book of poetry marked at a certain page. I think it’s a message,” she said. “For us. For whoever came here looking for him. Banner’s gone. I don’t think we’re to find him again until he wants to be found.”
Coulson exhaled; she heard the rustle of his breath over the mic at the other end. “Fury’s not gonna be happy,” he said.
“I’ll take Fury angry over Banner angry,” Widow said evenly. She looked at the book again, skimming over the faded black print, and then shook her head, replacing the marker in the same spot.
“Well, if there’s nothing else there, you should head back to the Triskelion, then,” said Coulson resignedly.
“Copy that, Agent,” Widow said. “Leaving now.” She switched off her mic and stood in the center of the room, just listening to the sound of the sea. The prickling sensation on the back of her neck did not subside; if anything, when she looked out the window again, it increased.
Natasha Romanoff had not succeeded in her job as long and as well as she had because she ignored her senses. Training and skills were important, but the ability to read a situation by whatever means necessary was what had saved her life or pulled a mission out of a dive on more than one occasion.
Fury would want to keep looking for the Hulk. Out of sight was not necessarily out of mind, after all, and the incident outside Chiang Mai two months ago proved that SHIELD wasn’t the only interested party when it came to the green monster. But Widow couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever window of opportunity they’d had to find Banner and retrieve him had passed.
She took a deep breath and straightened, letting the air out slow. Banner would reappear when he was good and ready. Right now, he was no longer her problem.
Widow left the house. A peace settled over the place, the only noise the slow murmuring of the water wandering in and out over smooth sand. An hour passed, then two, the light filtering in through the window first growing in brilliance and then abating as twilight approached. The only person to visit the house since it had been abandoned two weeks prior had been gone for four hours when the last sliver of the setting sun disappeared into the water. Had Black Widow remained behind, she would have had something much more interesting to report to the head of SHIELD.
In the moment when the last ray of daylight vanished, new light that was not remotely terrestrial in origin shimmered into existence in the center of the cabin. It glowed and pulsed, twisting in and over itself and filling the entirety of the cabin like a miniature Aurora Borealis, transmitting its pre-programmed message to a place light-years distant. The display lasted for all of ninety seconds, shimmering through the full spectrum of visible light and then beyond. Then it vanished without even a sound, leaving nothing behind.
Two minutes after the sun set, the house was empty, as if there had never been anyone there at all.