kore_logs | what doesn't kill you makes you stronger

Entry tags:

what doesn't kill you makes you stronger

Who: The Hulk and you, IF YOU DARE
What: The rampaging Hulk is... you know, rampaging. Feel free to treat this as an open post kind of thing. Team up to battle him if you want, or come in to help rescue someone.
When: Day 50 (from here)
Where: Starting in the town, moving back out into the park (feel free to assume you're pursuing him out there from the town), then he flees into the woods.

There aren't a lot of conscious thoughts in the Hulk's mind right now. The only thing he's sure of is rage -- pure and unadulterated, it flows through him and feeds his strength, feeds his energy, but it's like poison, too. The regular Hulk, the calm one, would prefer rationality over this, but he doesn't have a choice. He doesn't get a choice like Banner, or like any of these other humans. He gets someone pushing Banner's buttons until the Hulk tumbles out mindless and angry and unable to turn it off.

So he'll rage, and he'll smash and destroy until he can bleed the anger out.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If Banner's seeing this and protesting, the Hulk has no idea; anyway, Banner won't remember. What he does feel, and what might be flowing over from a part of the brain usually controlled by Banner, is that he likes this. He likes this very much, and he likes Tony, and he wants to kiss Tony and be held by him, and he doesn't want to give him up. Stupid Banner.

This is what life should be like, he thinks. Not raging and smashing and yelling and being yelled at. Why can't it always be like this? Why does Banner always get to have this, but the Hulk barely gets any choices?

Well, he chooses Tony. He doesn't let up on the kiss, and he sets his hand against Tony's back, cradling him against his chest.

There’s a possibility, however remote, that Tony’s completely misreading this. Anything’s possible, and he has been known to make horrible mistakes. But he’s 99.9999999% sure that the Hulk likes this. The hand on his back, and the fact that the Hulk hasn’t pulled away yet, tells him so. And if he likes it, Tony’s sure as hell not going to stop.

He’s also not really one to maintain the status quo for very long, either. Because if the Hulk likes this, he might like something a little more, and Tony’s a firm believer in giving the best kiss possible. Especially if the one he’s kissing hasn’t had much experience. Then he’s practically duty bound to go for broke.

Broke in this case is humming a soft note of encouragement to let the Hulk that he likes it too, and flicking his tongue along his lower lip. It’s light and slow, the last thing he wants to do is startle him, but it’s deliberate. There’s no mistaking that he’s doing it on purpose, and after a moment to let him feel it, Tony licks at the seam of his mouth.

The flareup of irritation passes as Tony draws his attention again, and the Hulk hums back, though it's really more of a rumble. He doesn't have much experience at all, but some things are filtering in from Banner's end, probably drawn out by the familiar taste and feel of Tony in the first place. He parts his lips, inviting Tony to do what he likes. The Hulk trusts him completely, no reservations.

It's nice to have that with someone, and he's glad that person is Tony, besides. He can give his loyalty to anyone who's deserving of it, but Tony is so fun and kind, and when he looks at the Hulk, the Hulk doesn't feel like he's something different or strange.

He's starting to get lightheaded, but he attributes it to the kiss, what he notices of it at all.

As far as Tony’s concerned, the Hulk couldn’t be in better hands for this. Of course, Tony also has an ego the size of the moon, so that might have something to do with it, too.

He slides his fingers up further into the Hulk’s hair, ruffling it slightly, adding a new sensation to those he’s already providing. But it’s not the only one. The moment the Hulk parts his lips, Tony takes advantage, dips his tongue inside in what promises to be a leisurely investigation of his mouth. He slides it against the Hulk’s tongue, both tasting and offering up a taste of himself.

There's no reason to rush it, not that Tony can see, and since he's betting that this is a huge step for him, he has no intention to start rushing.

Oh, he likes this, and he likes that it's Tony he's kissing. He can't really tell what Tony's doing in so many terms -- the way he's guiding the Hulk, easing him into it -- but he does feel its effects, and they comfort him. He could stay like this with Tony, in the woods where it's quiet (at the moment) and they're alone (for the moment), but he isn't lonely.

He's content, at peace.

And the lightheadedness swells until he feels pushed off balance, and he breaks out of the kiss dazedly. No. No, it's not fair. He doesn't have the ability to speak to tell Tony what's happening, but he has time for one more sad, fond look, and he strokes his back lightly, before he blinks slowly once, twice. The Hulk's body goes limp, and he lies back, eyes closed and breathing even.

At first, he doesn’t know what’s happening. It’s the look that throws him, too sad to seem like it belongs in the moment. And then it dawns on him, the Hulk’s fading, sliding back into Bruce.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, moving with him as he slumps backward, one hand stretching out to brush the Hulk’s hair back from his forehead. “It’s okay. It’ll be all right. Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up again.”

He doesn’t know how much the Hulk can hear, but he keeps talking anyway, voice a low, soothing murmur as he continues petting his hair. Eventually he falls silent, though it’s some time before his fingers still in his hair and Tony settles back to give him room to complete the change. He’s not going anywhere. Not now, not ever. He’ll be here for the Hulk when he emerges again, and he’ll be here for Bruce now, whenever he wakes up.

While he waits, he shrugs out of his coat and, after a moment’s consideration, slips off his jeans, too. Sitting around the forest in a long-sleeved shirt and boxers is a little awkward, but he figures that walking back to the house in nothing but a jacket after wrecking half the town will be more awkward for Bruce. Tony’s dignity, what little of it exists, can handle it. And he knows he’s got a nice ass. He’ll survive. Bruce’s comfort, what he can find in the aftermath of this, is the most important thing.

The transition is slow and if it hurts, Bruce isn't conscious of that. Or of anything at all. The Hulk retreats, leaving Bruce shirtless with an impossibly destroyed pair of pants draped around his waist. When he comes to, there's a pounding in his head and in his ears, and he groans. He needs to assess the situation and where he is, especially to find out if he's been captured or about to be captured, so he opens one eye despite the pain.

"Tony?" His voice is thick, and he's unsteady as he pushes himself up. They're in the woods and they're alone; that's a start, anyway. "What happened?" And then as things sluggishly slide back into place, he sobers. "Was anyone hurt?"

“Yeah, it’s me. I’m here.” He’s been keeping watch as he waited, and now, hearing Bruce’s voice, turns to face him. His voice is warm, easy, and hopefully, reassuring.

As far as his question’s concerned, Tony doesn’t really know the best answer. What he knows is what he saw on his way to find the Hulk and what the Hulk said to him once he found him. “And as for everyone else, well, no one’s screaming and the place isn’t on fire, so I’m taking it as a good sign. There was some minor property damage, but from what I saw, it’s nothing that can’t be fixed.”

Shrugging, largely unconcerned about it, Tony holds out the jacket and jeans. “How are you feeling? Are you okay?”

Well, Bruce isn't unconcerned about it, but he can't think of too much all at once when he still feels like he's settling into his own body. God, he can't believe he let Kobra wind him up like that, but even still, Bruce wouldn't say he was all that angry, not angry enough to lose control when he's been so good about his control.

"It's like I've been run over by a truck. And completely unrelated to that, I feel like shit." He smiles weakly, very weakly, and then takes the clothes, but he doesn't pull the pants on yet because he's eyeing Tony in his boxers. And it isn't like that; he doesn't have anything to say, his head still pounding too hard, but he gives Tony his best what the hell are you thinking and are you sure about that? look.

“Right, so I’m taking that as a no.” Not that he can really call for an ambulance or do anything about it, and he doesn’t have the suit, so it isn’t like he can carry him home. But he sounds well enough to complain, which means that if Tony can get him back to the house, then he can see about doing something to alleviate those complaints.

He can’t help noticing the way Bruce is looking at him, though, and stares back, forehead wrinkling. “What? So I didn’t think to pack a pair of pants first. Sue me later. For now, just put them on. Sooner we get you back to the house, the sooner I can dig up some painkillers or something for you.”

Bruce can walk; he'll be fine once everything settles, at least physically. He does find a smile for Tony, and he's really glad that Tony was the one here waiting for him, as in, incredibly thankful and grateful. He pulls the pants on and then stands up, wobbling a little, before he pulls the jacket on.

He looks out toward the town, and the pain on his face isn't really from his headache.

"I didn't want them to know what he could be like."

He waits until Bruce is standing before he gets to his feet, staying close enough that if he needs the extra help to keep standing, Tony’s there to offer it. He’s seen that wobble. He’s ready to catch him if he falls.

“I don’t think it’s as bad as you think,” he offers, sparing the town only the briefest of glances. Bruce takes up most of his attention. But so what else is new?

“At least it wasn’t when I walked through it. Besides,” and here his eyes narrow slightly, protectiveness and something subtly darker lending an edge to his voice. “It wasn’t your fault. From what I heard, someone provoked you.”

"And how does that make it not my fault?" It's not like those guys in Brazil. He and Kobra were arguing, that was it. He appreciates the protectiveness from Tony though, he really does. If this were any other scenario, he'd be all for Tony helping to defend Bruce against a town of people who have no reason to trust him ever again.

He smiles tiredly at Tony, staying still to get his bearing, and then he gives up. He feels miserable, he may have hurt people, and he can't even flee the country this time. He steps forward and wraps Tony in a hug, pulling him close and tight against him.

"Thank you for staying with me." And he doesn't mean only that Tony waited for him to wake up.

Much as he wants to come back with a response, he knows that there will be plenty of time to lecture Bruce on how none of this was his fault. He intends to do it, too. At length. Until he gets it through his selectively thick skull that the only person at fault here is this so called Hot Hands, with whom he would feel slightly less animosity if he realized that hot in this case related to temperature, not something sexual.

Visions of punching this faceless individual a few times disappear from his mind, however, the moment Bruce pulls him into a hug. His own arms fold around him automatically, drawing him in tightly as he snorts.

“What was I going to do? Let you streak your way back home? Please. Of course I was going to stay. Where else would I be?” He says it literally, means it literally, too. But there’s an undercurrent in his voice that suggests that of course I was going to stay means something a bit more long-lasting than simply until Bruce wakes from a Hulk transformation.

He hears the meaning underneath, and he hugs him tighter, drawing out their embrace until he feels more balanced, physically and mentally. When he pulls back, he doesn't go far, still holding Tony close. He knows he's unbelievably lucky to have found Tony, and even when he's currently at an extremely low point in his self esteem, he isn't insecure about Tony. And that's... pretty huge for him.

He runs his hands up Tony's side and back down again, quietly gathering himself and drawing his strength from Tony, even with the ridiculousness of Tony being pantsless and Bruce being shirtless under this jacket. It seems appropriately them somehow.

"If we were back home, this is when I'd whisk you off to another country with me." He looks around them at the woods, like he's evaluating. "What do you think? We could make a house out here. A treehouse, maybe. Stanley'd probably like it better."

Tony doesn’t intend to go anywhere either. Just like with the Hulk, he aims to let his actions speak louder than his words. He isn’t going anywhere. He fully intends to stay, through one big green freakout after another. But he gives Bruce his space, too; he drops one arm completely and draws his hand around so it’s resting lightly against his hip, easy enough for Bruce to step away from when he wants to.

“You Tarzan, me Jane?” he asks, grinning. “Actually, right now I think I’m Tarzan and you’re Jane. I’m the one not wearing pants. That totally makes me Tarzan.”

In terms of peacefulness, these woods suck, but he kind of thinks that Bruce is onto something. Glancing around, he hums thoughtfully, giving it legitimate consideration. “We could do it if you want to. Make a little escape from the world clubhouse. Geniuses only kind of thing. If you’re not a genius and you don’t have a tiger, you can’t join. And I mean, put it up high enough and we’d be safe from whatever Stanley didn’t eat or kill or chase away.”

Bruce laughs and it's rusty and tired, but a laugh, and then he starts evaluating the trees right along with Tony. Tony might've taken his hand away, but Bruce isn't looking to let him go; he just wanted to be able to look him in the eye to talk to him. In fact, his grip tightens in Tony's shirt so that he doesn't let go of him as he looks over his shoulders to spot good trees.

"We shouldn't go too deep or we'll invite trouble on ourselves. Near the edge of the woods and high up..." He smiles at Tony, squeezing his hips. "I like it, Tarzan."

Fantasy worlds are so much easier than the real one. His smile dampens and turns bitter as he lowers his eyes, still holding on tightly to Tony.

"I might need a hideout after all this."

The second Bruce lowers his eyes and seems to deflate, Tony reaches out with his free hand, slides his palm along his cheek and ducks his own head in an attempt to get him to look at him.

“What, seriously?” His disbelief is genuine, as is the way he wrinkles his brow. “Come on. Everybody here loves you. So Hurricane Hulk came ashore for like five minutes and the gazebo died a painful, horrible death. So what? He didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t do anything wrong. The gazebo was an eyesore. Honestly, everyone’s better off.”

It isn’t that easy to assuage what Bruce is feeling and Tony knows it. He thinks about what’s happened before, how the military and SHIELD knew who else kept coming after him because of what he’d done in New York. He thinks about all of the times Bruce and Hulk have expressed their loneliness, their belief that they truly are monsters. He thinks about running, and how it’s easier to run than to stand and watch everyone else run away.

Somehow this conversation turned into a Tarzan metaphor, and if that’s the way it is, so be it. Tony strokes his thumb along the ridge of Bruce’s cheekbone, searching through his memory of the book for something appropriate. “I am Tarzan of the Apes. I want you. I am yours. You are mine. We live here together always in my house. I will bring you the best of fruits, the tenderest deer, the finest meats that roam the jungle. I will hunt for you. I am the greatest of the jungle fighters. I will fight for you. I am the mightiest of the jungle fighters. You are Jane Porter, I saw it in your letter. When you see this you will know that it is for you and that Tarzan of the Apes loves you.” He smiles, lifting his eyebrows in encouragement. “So buck up. Whatever’s out there, you’re not facing it alone, Jane. Tarzan and his mighty lion—er, tiger stand with you.”

No, Bruce doesn't think everyone loves him or that what the Hulk did could be waved away with a nickname like Hurricane Hulk, but Tony succeeds in distracting him with his speech. He's smiling by the end of it and just a little floored. Okay, a lot floored.

"Did you just recite that from memory?" He laughs softly, then kisses him. There's a slight desperation in the kiss that isn't immediately apparent in Bruce's demeanor, but he does need Tony right now. When they get back to the house, he's going to have to absorb what's happened on his own for a while, but he needs Tony to pull him onto solid ground before he can do that.

"You're a dork. And thank you." He means that sincerely, and he hears that at the end. Tarzan of the Apes loves him. He can't respond to it right now, but he files it away, and he kisses Tony again, lovingly.

"Let's go back to the house."

Getting Bruce to smile is, largely, the point of the whole show, and the fact that he is leaves Tony feeling satisfied that he could do something. Maybe not erase what’s happened, or make facing the people in town any easier, but right now, Bruce is smiling. And Tony’s such a big proponent of living in the moment that he’ll take it as a win.

He accepts the kiss gladly, welcomes it now – nothing has changed for him and he’ll do anything he can to prove it - the same way he welcomes it during any other situation. And he accepts the second one just the same, as he does being called a dork. He is a dork. He’s made peace with that.

“Some day, my eidetic recall of the shit I read will come in handy, mark my words.” It’s his turn to kiss him, quick and just barely there on the corner of his mouth, before he slings an arm around Bruce’s shoulders and turns them toward the house.

If anyone sees them – the barefoot, shirtless doctor who could almost pass off as fully clothed if he closed the jacket, and the loud, obnoxious guy in his underwear and shoes who looks like he’s doing the hungover version of the walk of shame – he knows they’ll make an odd sight. But Tony’s okay with that. More than okay. Because they’ll get through this, and if he has anything to say about it, Bruce will be the happier for it. Somehow.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

what doesn't kill you makes you stronger

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject