kore_logs | i must live with my quiet rage

Entry tags:

i must live with my quiet rage

Who: The Hulk and Tony // Bruce and Tony
Where: Out by the woods. // Their house
When: Day 46
What: Tony wants to talk to the Hulk and then also ask his help to catch a saber-tooth cat thanks to an ill-advised bet with Party. // After successfully catching the cat, Bruce and Tony regroup at their house.

Note: You're welcome to have your character hear/notice the Hulk from a distance, but he won't be bothering anyone but Tony (and the log is closed).

Bruce needs to stay calm, but trying to stay calm when he's about to let the Hulk out for something as mundane as a chat isn't easy. He can barely wrap his mind around the concept of letting him out just to... let him out. The cat thing after the talk is weirdly comforting even though it shouldn't be, but it seems like if he's letting the Hulk out, it should be for something... well, Hulk-worthy. That seems like the responsible thing to do, to keep a monster like that concealed as often as possible -- that's been Bruce's life since it happened, his number one goal. Right behind that was keeping out of the hands of the military.

He can accept throwing that away for the sake of saving people, but this... This is so different. He keeps sliding back in his conviction and willingness to do this, but maybe... maybe Tony's right. Maybe the Hulk is... more than a monster. Or not a monster at all.

By the time they get to the woods, he's almost relieved he doesn't have to think about this anymore. He takes a breath and then tugs his shirt off, toes out of his shoes. He's actually wearing the pants Sharon got him for Fake Christmas because they are, indeed, extra-estrechi. He starts to reach to take his watch off, but stops once his fingers slide too much and he realizes there's no fastening because it isn't a watch. Ha. Good. He hopes these bracelets are expensive. Screw you, scientists.

There's a thought to end on. He needs some anger to tug him out, but not too much, so he teases that thought out and then he's changing slowly, his skin turning green and his body reshaping itself, bones growing and muscles expanding. It's still not pleasant, but it's a far cry from acid being poured on his brain, and far more fluid than when he's fighting it off the whole time.

And then Bruce stops having conscious thoughts, and the Hulk raises his head, taking in a lungful of air. Oh, this place still. The woods have metal Hulks in them that aren't better than him no matter what they might've been made out of, so there. He turns and spots Metal-less Man, and no one else. There's no sense of urgency, no smell of a fight in the air, no tension.

"What's going on?"

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There’s nothing like spending all morning building coffins for people. Especially stupid bastards like Phil Coulson, who somehow managed to get himself killed again, despite being surrounded by Avengers. And SHIELD. And every other goddamn person in this town. Tony’s tired. It’s a soul-deep, aching kind of weariness that he just wants to forget. At any other time, he would turn to alcohol, but he can’t do that now.

Hanging out with the Hulk and chasing down prehistoric cats will have to do. And will do, he thinks, as he watches Bruce shuck off his shirt. It will get him out of his head, give him something else to focus on, and that’s something he’s sorely in need of. Maybe it’s a mark of the day’s task, or a silent understanding that what he’s asked Bruce to do now is a little too much, but he doesn’t have a wisecrack to offer about getting naked. He simply stands there, watching in silence, until the transformation takes hold.

He’s never seen it happen from this direction before, always it’s been Bruce changing back, and already he stops thinking about funerals and dead maybe-friends. He thinks only Bruce and the Hulk and the crazy thing he’s about to do. And the saber-tooth cats.

At the question, Tony gives the Hulk a big, warm smile and a wave. Nothing’s wrong, and he tries his best to radiate calm. Not out of fear, but as a new experience for someone who’s used to arriving in the middle of a battle.

“Hey buddy. How’ve you been? I was hoping we could have a talk. You and me. And then some fun, but talk first. You game?”

Edited 2013-03-03 04:05 (UTC)

Tin Man's always been strange to him, or... nice, he guesses. That's what this is. It's nice. Well, it's being nice, though that's also...

He shakes his head, knocking himself out of that thought loop, and he focuses back on Iron Man.

"Talk." He stops, considering that, then makes a move that's almost a shrug. "I don't have anything to say."

That gets a disbelieving stare. “Everybody has something to say. That includes you. Don’t ever believe that you don’t.”

He smiles then, a little sheepish, and rolls his eyes at himself. “I have plenty, though, so, you know, I can ease us into it. Like, okay, remember when Bruce and I weren’t talking because he hated me? Turns out, not really. We’re talking again, and we’re also sort of…”

It feels kind of like asking someone’s father for permission to date, and he can’t help the goofy way he grins at the thought. It also helps him cut to the chase. “Do you mind if I date him? Not that there’s really anywhere around here to go on a date. But, more like, make out, have sex, that kind of thing. Would you mind? If it was me that he was with?”

The Hulk hasn't even been awake for five seconds; there's not much to talk about, though he could maybe -- if he thought about it, he could want to ask about the people from the last time he was out when they were all fighting in the woods together. Wheezy Man and Little Man, and Tattoo Face, mostly. But he doesn't really get time to think before Iron Man's moving on, and the Hulk's watching him talk, which is as interesting as listening to him talk.

Except he's not a huge fan of the topic. He doesn't actually care what Banner does, though he'd be angry if Banner kept on hurting Iron Man. He's glad, he guesses, that he and Banner are getting along better if Iron Man's happier now than he was.

But then Iron Man loses him, and then he says sex and the Hulk's face twists. It's maybe the grossest thing he's ever heard in his entire, short, erratic existence.

"You want Banner?" Ick. He's reconsidering his opinion of Iron Man. He's a good guy, but he has terrible taste in friends.

Edited 2013-03-03 04:40 (UTC)

Okay, that looks like a no. Or at the very least, a displeased. Which is about when Tony remembers Betty and the fact that he’s most emphatically not a woman. He isn’t sure how that figures in to Bruce’s interest in him, but maybe the Hulk has absolutely no leeway on the sexuality spectrum and he’s just disgusted him. Except then he mentions Bruce’s name like that disgusts him, and Tony has to revaluate the assumptions that he’s making.

“Well, I don’t know. I mean, I figured I couldn’t have you, so…” The words are no sooner out of his mouth than he realizes that flirting with the Hulk might be a bad idea, not just because of what the Hulk might think, but because of how Bruce might take it too.

“I do.” He sobers up, quits joking around and looks at him, serious and intent. “I want him. I want both of you. You’re both important to me, and I’m not going to alienate one just to have the other. So if me and him are going to do this, I want to know that you’re okay with it. Because if you’re not, then, I don’t know, then we need to figure out something that works. You get a say too. You’re just as involved as the rest of us.”

The Hulk's total existence maybe amounts to a week or so. He hasn't had time to develop or even think about a sexuality; he liked Betty, loved her, still does, but something about that is odd because the feelings are distinctly Banner's. The Hulk can just tell; they taste different, feel different. Like the way he is with the Tin Man. Banner likes him, and that bleeds through; hell, the Hulk can even tell that the Banner does more than like him now. The Hulk likes him too for his own reasons, and that's almost an entirely different strand of emotion.

It's hard to pick apart, and he really hasn't had the time to figure it out. He's only just figured that out, the way to pick feelings apart, the way to even have feelings of his own. It's hard for him to keep up with what Iron Man's asking, especially when he gets so serious about it, and especially when the Hulk's still full of bitterness over the fact that he's having to talk about Banner. In, like, a good way. Like he's somehow responsible for him, him, the one who keeps the Hulk locked up.

"Banner's no good." He still feels grossed out from the idea of him and Iron Man together, and he tries to figure out how to word it. "You can do better."

He pauses again, thinking.

"Flag Man's nice. Try him."

That takes him aback so fast it leaves him reeling, blinking up at the Hulk like he’s forgotten how to understand English. The idea that Tony Stark can do better than Bruce Banner is so foreign and alien to him that he just can’t comprehend it. He still doesn’t know what he did to make Bruce interested in him in the first place and he lives in perpetual fear that whatever it is will lose its potency.

But then the Hulk mentions Steve and Tony’s knocked out of his disbelief by a bark of his own laughter. “Steve? Buddy, have you been checking out Steve’s ass when no one was looking? That’s what this is, isn’t it? It’s okay.” He winks. “I’m not judging.”

He’s not going to keep making light of it either, though, and sobers somewhat. The smile, however, remains. “It’s probably weird to hear it, especially after you saw me moping around over him, but I’m happy. With Bruce, I mean. He makes me happy. He gets me. Not a lot of people do. Hell, most of them think I’m a freak. So unless you’re volunteering for the position, I think Bruce is gonna have to be it.”

He doesn't quite understand Iron Man's flirting. Is it a joke? He's smiling, it seems happy. The Hulk's expression doesn't change, still stuck somewhere in confused, because Iron Man is this whole... thing that he doesn't get. He's a friend. That much he knows and will fiercely protect. He cares about Iron Man, and Iron Man cares about him; he's only ever had smiles for him.

"They think you're a freak?" He sounds surprised because he is. Most humans have only ever been cruel to him. Notable exceptions include the Avengers and the people he's met here, but the majority have been violent and angry. When the Hulk thinks about those humans, his eyes drift to the forest, where the metal Hulks are, where he knows the scientists are, and then he turns back to Iron Man.

"That's why you're friends with the Hulk." He gets it, or he thinks he does. Iron Man likes him because he doesn't think he's better than the Hulk, or that the Hulk is less than him.

He sighs.

"Take Banner," he says grudgingly. "Make him better."

“Actually, big guy, I’m friends with you because you’re one of the best people I know.” The Hulk’s too tall, and Tony’s too short, to sling an arm around his shoulders like the way he would with Bruce. So he improvises by stepping up beside him and just leaning against him, like a full-body nudge to the side. “And trust me, I know a lot of people. And have unrealistically high standards. The number of people I trust I can count on my hands with fingers to spare. But you’re one of them.”

He will never understand the belief that the Hulk is a monster. He’ll never understand the fear that he inspires in so many people.

“I’ll take Bruce. No hesitation or argument from me there. But I’m not the one who makes him better.” Tony lifts his eyebrows as he looks pointedly up at the Hulk’s eyes. “You are. This world has been nothing but miserable to you and to him, but you don’t let it stop you. You still help protect it. It doesn’t deserve your help or your protection, but here you are anyway. There aren’t many people like that out there, who have that much heart to care about strangers and assholes. That’s why you’re my friend.”

The Hulk isn't used to being touched in kindness, out of the context of battle. Betty did it, holding him, leaning against him, kind of how Iron Man's doing now. He watches him and isn't sure how to reciprocate or what that would even entail, and then he needs to pay attention to Iron Man's words.

They take a lot of concentration because they're so unbelievable, because he never heard anything like that before in his entire life. He doesn't like the idea that it's his job to make Banner better, when Banner hates him and the Hulk doesn't want anything to do with him.

That's part of the tragedy of their lives; they want nothing to do with one another, but they can't escape, inextricably tangled and woven around one another. There aren't many points of connection between them -- just Betty and Tony, and here Tony is, threading himself in with the two of them and trying to make sense of the knots.

He lets Iron Man's words sink in, and then he sinks to the ground, sitting down next to him, which puts them a little closer, as he isn't the tallest he could be now, either. It takes him a long time to know what to say.

"Some people are friends. Betty. You." He nods at the town. "They aren't so bad. I like to... like people. I..." And here's the big reveal. "I don't really want to be left alone."

Being alone is better than being attacked, but it's also... lonely.

Sometimes, it’s something dramatic that breaks his heart. The betrayal of someone he loved. Shards of shrapnel filleting his heart. And sometimes, it’s the Hulk telling him that he doesn’t want to be alone.

“Listen. This thing?” He taps a finger against his chest, hard enough to make the thunk of impact against the reactor’s casing audible through the layers of his clothes. “Can power my heart for fifty lifetimes. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I haven’t begun to see what I can do with this kind of technology yet. So here’s my point.”

He worms his way a little closer, invades the Hulk’s personal space like it’s the most natural thing in the world. On more even footing now with the Hulk sitting down, Tony leans in and reaches out to touch his face, trying to turn his head to meet his eyes.

“Long as I’m alive,” he says, his voice a vehement hiss. “You are never going to be alone. No matter what. I will always be here with you."

The Hulk feels... vulnerable. That's not an easy task, and an entire army -- alien or not -- can't accomplish it. A handful of words is what breaks him, and he's never felt so cracked open before; it should feel terrible, he would think. It should feel wrong, but there's Iron Man here with him, wanting to be with him for as long as he can.

What he knows about the arc reactor is sketchy, but now that he's thinking about it, the information's filling in. The intensity in Iron Man's words is arresting, and he doesn't know how to reciprocate, doesn't have the vocabulary or the experience with emotions of this kind.

"You promise?" It's true that the Hulk doesn't trust most people. With anyone else that question would be coated in suspicion and mistrust. With Tony? It's more of a plea.

The relationship between the Hulk and Bruce is one likely the most complex Tony’s ever encountered. Gamma radiation created the Hulk, that much he knows, not from some outside source, but from Bruce himself. They talk about each other like they’re different people, and Tony talks to them both about each other like he’s in complete agreement. And they are distinct personalities; the way they speak and interact with the world, it’s clear that they’re not the same. But the Hulk is still part of Bruce. He’s a big green part of him, made of anger and, he’s learning, loneliness, but he’s still an aspect of Bruce.

And Tony cannot abide any part of Bruce being lonely. Not when he’s there to prevent it.

“I promise.” He can’t remember when he’s last sounded this serious to his own ears. “Cross my heart. Both of them. I’m not going back on that promise. Not ever. You and me, we’re in this mess together. For keeps.”

In the kitchen of some random house in some world that wasn’t his own, Tony did his level best to drive home a point to Bruce about monsters. He remembers it clearly. Just like he remembers what he said, only half joking. Well, the Hulk is close enough now, and it’s not just with Bruce that he feels he needs to make a point. So while he’s there, before the Hulk moves, Tony leans in just that last little bit, and brushes a kiss over his lips.

“Thank you doesn’t even begin to cut it, but for everything you’ve done since the moment that experiment happened, I thank you. And I got your back against the whole damn world if it comes down to it. I promise you that, too. Okay?”

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