Chapter 29
“Has he finally come out?” Tony asks.
“Not since the last time you asked,” Steve says.
Tony had thought he was doing a good thing when he made Banner an entire wing to Hulk out in, instead of a tiny cell. Bruce had mentioned his therapist hounding him about accepting the Hulk — and Tony needed a project.
Tony had also thought he was doing a good thing when he proposed those rooms as an alternative option to putting a highly traumatized child back into a cell. But now, after almost a week of Loki refusing to leave the wing, Tony was starting to wonder if that was such a great idea after all.
Loki doesn’t mind the containment wing. It was built to be near indestructible, but also colorful and bright and soft enough to feel less like a cell. It feels almost normal — Peter stops by after school with his homework and Thor stares at him sadly and Tony tries to bribe him to come back out.
They don’t understand why he can’t leave. They don’t understand that he has spent hundreds of years mastering his seidr. He doesn’t have a framework for the way jotun use seidr and has a war’s worth of propaganda memorized. All seidr is dangerous and he learned the first time surrounded by experts and mother and now he’s alone, alone, alone.
A noise by the door catches his attention.
“Please come out for lunch,” Steve says through the door. “You need to eat.”
Loki shakes his head, color swirling under his skin as he flickers from blue to white to blue. The room is near freezing, frost spreading across the floor. “I’m fine.”
Steve sighs. “I’ll bring you some food.”
Loki doesn’t respond. They’ve danced this dance every day for a week.
Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat. Loki lets the rhythm of the repeat soothe him.
Bruce is angry. Bruce said, once, that he was always angry. That was the truth. That was a lie. He’s always angry in the way that teenagers are, when they start learning about injustice. Not thinking about it constantly, but remembering every now and then that the world is not fair and hating the world for it. That feeling of powerlessness and anger is always there — it is not, however, always enough to pull out the Hulk.
Today, it is.
Almost on autopilot, Bruce winds his way to Hulk’s wing. He knows the Avengers could handle him, if they needed to, but he hates the way they look at him after. It’s different when they’re fighting. There, he’s an asset. Here, he’s something between a friend and a charity case.
He barely makes it to the containment unit before Hulking out. Hulk punches the walls a couple times, material so soft that it barely hurts.
Hulk doesn’t like being trapped. But this isn't quite a trap. Hulk does not completely understand.
The Hulk is not, as many assume, unintelligent. He has thoughts and memories, understands that he is Banner and isn’t Banner. So when he sees a boy, white and green and slender, he remembers threat and he remembers army and he remembers stop.
The boy looks up and stares at him. “Do I know you?” he asks.
“Hulk smash puny god,” Hulk adds helpfully.
The boy's confusion clears away. “Oh.” The boy’s eyes (once blue now green red green) are sad. “You’re Banner’s monster.”
“Hulk not monster!” Hulk says. Hulk is different, but Hulk is not wrong. People don’t usually understand that.
“Don’t worry,” the boy says softly. “I have a monster too.”
The boy lets his hands go blue, raised blue lines running up his arms. He lets ice form on his hands and holds it out so Hulk can see.
Hulk just stares. Hulk has seen magic before, evil magic that tried to hurt Hulk’s friends. This magic is beautiful.
Loki puts his hand down, watches as blue fades back into white.
“See,” Loki says. “We’re all monsters here.”
“Puny god needs hug,” Hulk says.
James keeps going back to the museum. It doesn't make sense but he thinks — he knows — he's the same Bucky who grew up with Steve Rogers. Once upon a time, he was James Buchanan Barnes. He had a little sister. He had a name and a life and stood against every single thing HYDRA stood for. He's not sure he can be that man again. But, at least, he can be his own man. Bucky packs up his notebook full of memories and slips out of the museum.