what doesn't kill you makes you stronger

[greenisnteasy]

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.

Comments

[manofiron]

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.”

[greenisnteasy]

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."

[manofiron]

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.