'When is a monster not a monster?'
The question had been rattling around in Loki's head for what felt like an age. Since the Bifrost, maybe. Since his sweaty hand slid from Gungnir, dropping into a hell of his own making for the next year. Since before then, maybe. Since his skin went from pale to blue in a single touch, since everything he'd ever built for himself had crumbled into nothing before his eyes.
When was it that someone like him, something who broke and ruined everything he ever touched, couldn't be a monster. It was who Loki was. Who he'd always been. Maybe he hadn't known it, when he was a boy, and everything was bright and shiny. But he'd grown, and the bright light of Asgards perfection hurt his eyes more than it brought warmth from the reflection. Cast him further and further in shadow.
How could Loki be anything but a monster? He was a frost giant. His fingernails blackened and clawed, his eyes glowing red, his skin tainted by heritage marks he didn't want. He'd killed his own biological father. Had witnessed, had been involved in, the deaths of almost all of his family. Had been the one to set Ragnarok into motion.
Screams of innocents, Aesir, Jotun and Midgardian alike echoed in his hearing. The flames of Ragnarok ate up the only home he'd ever known. The bright cacophony of light that was the Bifrost brought ruin upon the planet that had birthed him. The armies of Chitauri Thanos possessed rained fire over a populated civilian city on Midgard.
Loki could not claim to be a good person. He did not even pretend to. Being 'good', even in the loosest sense of the word, was so far out of his grasp he could not even see where he had to go to try and reach it. He couldn't show kindness, bitter as he was. Couldn't save anyone with the blood covering his hands.
But perhaps he was not alone, at least. For in the form of the Hulk he had found his echo. A being of nothing but rage, who destroyed and destroyed until he was too tired to do anything else. Until he had to become a man once more.
Rage had eaten away at Loki. It had eaten at him until it broke through his already cracking exterior, until he was aiming the Bifrost at a planet, until Jotunheim was turning into ash before his gaze. Then once more, with the mind stone pressing it to the forefront. Bringing back the wicked creature that had done horrible things. That had blood under its claws, glowing in its eyes. The thing had brought destruction to Midgard, too.
Worse was that Loki could not say it was rage that destroyed Asgard. It was a simple sacrifice. To allow Thor to live. Loki was selfish. Cruel, and bitter, and hateful. And loving in spite of it. Valhalla could not have Thor. Loki would not give him up.
So he'd kicked and clawed and thrown Asgard to the flame instead of losing his brother. But the Hulk had done the same. Had refused to let go of its rage, had beaten Fenrir, had gone for Hela. Had thrown itself into nothing but danger in order to protect his 'angry girl'. Loki was possessive, but so was Hulk.
Remembering Midgard was bittersweet. He was free, now, because of what the midgardians had done for him. Beaten the mind stone from his head, left him in a crater broken but blessedly free.
It was with fondness that he recalled the Hulk’s snarling rage. Even if it was tainted with a touch of fear. Because it had been the Hulk’s burning anger that had freed him. That had thrown him into the ground, had cracked and broken the bones in his leg, his spine, and left him a mess on the floor. But his touch had been warm. The first he'd really felt since the press of the sceptre to his forehead.
Loki was free. Rage had freed him in the same way that it had condemned him. And that was so ridiculous, and he hated it so much, but that didn't make it any less true. He was freed by the Hulk’s rage.
Set to rights. Back to himself. Even if his self was shattered and broken, a mirror of those things he'd gotten his hands of in his moments of rage. It was back with him. Cradled ever so gentle against his chest, his heart protected by the hands that had destroyed so much. Brought back to him by another pair just the same.
So, Loki thought that perhaps the Hulk, a monster to so many others, couldn't be to him. Because he loved him. And in turn, he loved Bruce.
The man so gentle with his heart, who touched with soft fingers and smiled at him, even with all the wrong he'd done. So much better than him. A monster all the same, not of his own desire.
—
Bruce didn't know what he was anymore. There were so many people. Had so many names thrust upon him, had held them all as they came and lived up to them as best as he was able. He was Bruce Banner, his mother's little boy, her shining star. He was Bruce Banner, Brian Banner's boy. Who had to be sent away because his father drank too much and had killed his mother.
He was Bruce Banner, who tried to become like Captain America, and became something else. Something twisted, and wicked, and not at all like Steve Rogers had been. Because the serum had made everything stronger? Because the anger he'd felt, all his life, at his father, at the people who bullied him. At his mother, who didn't have the strength to leave, even though she wanted to. The anger had been stronger than the little boy he'd been who had smiled, once upon a time.
So now Bruce Banner was sometimes Hulk. And Hulk wasn't a man with seven PhDs. Hulk didn't worry himself staying away from the people he wanted to see out of fear of hurting them. Hulk was the thing that tore out of him when he lost control, the same monster that his father had been but stronger.
His father had not wrecked Harlem. His father had not turned into something so distinctly inhuman. His father had not used the excuse that it wasn't really him, doing those things. Bruce didn't want it to be him. Didn't want those massive green hands, the glowing eyes, the anger that built and spilled and destroyed everything it touched.
Hulk had taken everything. Betty, his life. Had taken him from his planet, even dumped him in the midst of space on a trash planet. Hulk had taken his sanity and torn it to shreds in a fit of rage.
There were times that Bruce looked at himself in the mirror and saw his brown eyes shift to green. Saw his jaw wider, saw his face distorted. Felt his muscles pulsing and growing when they were not. Sometimes, Bruce didn't know if he was really Bruce Banner anymore.
Not when Hulk lived so close to the surface.
And then Loki had, suddenly, shifted blue. Had stared at him, with eyes a shade of crimson red he'd only seen in distant memories of the Hulk. In splashes of blood against concrete, against his green skin.
It was beautiful. Loki had seemed so frightened of it. And Bruce had understood, had wanted to yell with the joy of it, to have someone who knew how his life had gone. To know what it felt like to be something else, suddenly. Something you couldn't love about yourself.
But, at the same time, he had wanted to yell and scream and rage. But as Bruce. For Bruce related reasons. Not because someone had hurt him, or someone he cared about, but because he knew that now, knowing this about Loki, he wouldn't be able to call Hulk a monster anymore.
He would have to reach a hand to the part of himself that had felt like ruination for so much of his adult life. The part of himself that came out whenever he was so frightened he could hardly breathe, the part that came out when he felt himself becoming his father. And he'd have to tell it that he was wrong. Bruce Banner, smart as he was, was so so wrong.
Because Loki had said, feather soft, that he was a monster. That he was nothing more than a creature that broke and broke and took and took, and then returned to himself feeling so empty. And Bruce understood.
Bruce's creature was the Hulk. But Loki's was always there. He reckoned with it now, but it had always lurked beneath the surface. So it wasn't a monster. It couldn't be.
Loki was too soft to be as cruel as he believed himself to be. Would reach out to care for those he loved. Even if he held too tight, if he hurt because he didn't know how firmly he should hold. But Hulk was the same. Bruce understood. Hulk didn't mean to hurt him. Only wanted to protect him. So he was shoved back, and Hulk took over, because Hulk had to keep him safe.
Not anymore.
Bruce pressed gentle kisses to the ridges of Loki's face that he hated so much, and cradled his clawed hands, and stared into his eyes. His perfect, blood red eyes.
And he smiled. And smiled, and smiled. Hulk did too. Hulk was there for Loki too, in the way they clutched Loki close, in the way they warmed him at night. In the way that Bruce wanted to keep Loki with him, for as long as he possibly could, wanted to protect him.
Hulk was kind. Hulk wasn't a monster. Because Loki loved him. Bruce wasn't a monster because Loki loved him.
Just the same, Loki wasn't a monster because they loved him so fiercely in return. Loved the way he was so cautious, so fearful, so gentle. Didn't know Bruce's strength, even when he had been thrown around by the Hulk only a few years ago. Loved how he made Bruce feel human again, made him feel soft and vulnerable in a way that was so frightening and so thrilling.
Loved how he made Hulk feel good. Feel like he could be good. Like an actual person, and not the abstract creature Bruce had made him into.
Bruce loved Hulk too, for the first time, and Hulk, who had always protected him, had always loved him, only felt warmed in return. And their begrudging partnership was all the better for the interference of a miserable God of Mischief.