Anonymous asked...
See, Thor's problem is that he thinks of you as a berserkr.
Click here to send Bruce something. Don't let your dreams be dreams.
A crazed, furious man who went for broke in battle and didn't modulate his level of violence. And when all the fun and games were over, there was a hell of a scene to clean up.
Well, that wasn't the most unfounded analogy someone could use. Not if they were familiar with the past version of him and everything it entailed. Before he left West Bengal all those years ago and joined the Avengers, his grip over his condition had been tenuous and fickle, and it had earned him a notoriety as a loose cannon. His teammates had all referenced it at some point or other. Whether these references were blunt, critical, and meant to offend him, or clumsy attempts at deflection and appeasement, he had recognized every moment.
Is that the... Only word on me?
Bruce remembered his first interaction with Steve Rogers, and it bore mixed feelings in him. Much as he admired the man; had admired him since he was a pimple-faced kid trying to survive high school, Steve had only told him what he wanted to hear. He had only been trying to play nice. To put on a show and pretend not to care about the monster of a threat he posed, so he stood a chance of being passed over in the event of an unfortunate accident. It was a patently contrived answer where Bruce had been handled with kid gloves, and it made him more uncomfortable than if Steve had been frank with him.
Not that it hampered Bruce's opinion of Steve. He couldn't blame Steve for covering his ass or taking precautions, and he'd done enough for his country to warrant a free pass. But still, at least people like Tony had been honest from the get-go. It had been a breath of fresh air from the tiptoeing everyone else did around him, because he had never really gotten used to being treated like a glass animal.
Even after he corrected his condition, there had been speed bumps. Because of his enormous miscalculation in Paris and the ugly problem that resulted from that, his work with the team had briefly become a two-step gig where he made a mess, and the rest of the team played pick-up duty. There had been a lot of crabbing from his teammates, because that... Personal situation of his had been cumbersome to deal with, and it caused delays. Romanoff running around, chasing after him, that wasn’t fun for anyone.
And funny, because he did remember Thor mentioning the word "berserker" around that time. But it hadn't been meant as an insult; rather, it had been a key component in Thor's pitch to him about altered states of consciousness, which Viking berserkers had achieved in battle on account of ritualistic medicine. Bruce had concluded that it was some form of hallucinogen, but he hadn't asked for clarification. He remembered Thor's advice on how to induce identical states with analog substances more familiar to humans, which he'd utilized in the field, if not after some... Persistent convincing. He remembered the grandiose ramblings of Asgardian folklore that had come part and parcel with Thor's advice, too, and he'd always humoured it because once Thor was running his mouth, there wasn't much he could really do, frankly, to get him to shut up.
And Bruce had always figured that Thor was giving him a morale boost whenever the mention of berserkers came up, rather than having a go at him, the latter of which he was apparently supposed to believe now.
He didn't, of course. Sorry for not cozying up to that idea.
And pardon his skepticism, but the last time he checked, Thor's interactions with the rest of the team had been equally combative. Some had devolved into scuffles. Thor must have believed those teammates were formidable opponents who could take a spanking, too.
The discrepancy made Bruce snort.
"That would be credible," he said, "if he didn't see everyone that way. You know what happened when he met Steve? And Tony?"
He was pretty sure if someone flew over that mountainside, they would see evidence from where Thor had tried to beat up his future teammates. It would've been easy to tell something had happened from the grooves in the rock, if the trees that leaned away from an invisible epicenter didn't spell it out first. The expanse was remote and unimportant and it received little care from conservationists, so it would've remained damaged, even today.
There was the incident on the helicarrier, too. It hadn't been Bruce's finest moment, but he knew Thor wasn't on his best behaviour either, because amidst the static and the misplaced bits of memory in Bruce's head, he still remembered the gung-ho look on Thor's face.
On the bright side, if he remembered correctly, Thor hadn't blown a fuse since then.
In that case, Bruce suspected he'd jumped the gun with his retort. It seemed harsh in hindsight, selling his teammate as an irrevocably belligerent crackpot when he didn't have proof. His collaboration with the Avengers had ended months ago, and many of those memories had muddled together and become indistinguishable where timing went. Thor's early blunders seemed fresh in his mind, like they'd only just happened, but he knew it was cognitive trickery, which wouldn't surprise him. His rat's nest of a mind had a nasty habit of fooling him into senselessness. He doubted Thor would be so belligerent nowadays.
The evidence was in their shared habitations over the years. If Thor had ever wanted to barbeque him for stealing the last bagel from the plate, or the last toaster strudel from the package, scenarios that often happened because their rampant appetites had conflicted with each other (par for the course when many people with obscene food requirements lived under one roof), that desire had never come to fruition. If it had, Bruce would have remembered.
He shrugged. "I'll give him credit, though — he's outgrown most of his, ah... Rougher edges."
Bruce often had concerns about revisiting other memories, because he found them to be gravity wells of unhealthy ruminations. Those were downward spirals he didn't want to ride. But he didn't mind reminiscing about Thor. He'd found it fascinating to see the demigod mellow out over the years; to see the peaks and valleys of his warrior's temperament become less extreme, and for want of a better word, less exciting. To see him acclimate to different expectations. Bruce knew it hadn't been easy, because he'd been in a similar boat on Sakaar. He'd experienced culture shock, slack-jawed confusion, and all the mortifying mishaps where he'd offended everyone in earshot. He'd ruined sacred meals by using utensils. He'd interrupted someone's dead ancestor. Sorry, he'd drawn his sword on the unarmed. Sorry, he'd bumbled his oaths.
If Tony had been there, he would've told him to shut up.
Evidently, adapting came with growing pains. Yet Thor made it look easy. He gave Bruce a run for his money there, because whereas it had taken Bruce years to find and adopt a reliable skillset, Thor had absorbed everything like a sponge and put it into practice immediately. His ease and speed of acclimation was wholly enviable to the scientist.
Not that Thor had ever lost his spirit. Bruce was sure if he looked hard enough, he would find a hint of wild anger in Thor's eyes, or a set of hands where the knuckles were a bit too white. Bruce reckoned they had this in common. He still suffered the occasional slip of something more dramatic himself. Something unnatural and not conducive to keeping a low profile. Albeit Thor had outgrown the worst of his vices, just like he had outgrown the worst of his condition. Now if only he could outgrow himself.
That was trickier, much as Bruce hated to admit. He wasn’t exactly the only person at the dinner table anymore.
It was no coincidence that Bruce felt eyes on him, then. That same sharp surprise as anyone else who realized they were being watched.
Mood sobering, his gaze occluded over, and his brow pursed. His mouth was a thin line. A suspicion had budded in his mind, and it told him the conversation wasn't just about Thor and himself.
"Unless you... Mean the other guy."
If that was the case, then yeah. They had him there.
And Thor wasn't the only one who saw Hulk as a berserker — everyone on the team did. They saw Hulk as a threat, mainly because Hulk saw them as a threat, and while the chicken and egg scenario could have applied here, Bruce knew Hulk was the one who started it all, because everything had been peachy until the moment he showed up. Hulk was too quick to judge. Quick to react. He saw trouble in everything and the worst in everyone, and he was always looking for things to pick people apart over. If he had his way, Bruce knew he'd hitch a ride on the next shuttle off Earth and throw away the key. He was probably as happy as a pig in mud when the Illuminati kicked him off-planet, because the prospect of seeing people again had been fractionally low.
Hulk was eavesdropping on Banner's inner commentaries. He knew Banner couldn't hear him no matter how much he shouted, because that was an annoying puzzle he still hadn't cracked. He wasn't gonna bother wasting his breath. But even though he couldn't talk, he was stung.
And you're so different, are ya?
Banner must've been kidding himself. Gotten it into his head that he was perfect. He had everything under control. But he's the one who made a dumb lab with doors that were always locked because he was too much of a wimp to trust people. And Banner thought he was the problem, and the coward?
He oughta point a finger at himself first.
They did the same things, and they wanted the same things. The difference between them was that Banner couldn't admit it.
