Archive of Our Own ^beta

The sun goes down, another dreamless night
You’re right by my side
You wake me up, you say it’s time to ride
In the dead of night
Strange canyon road, strange look in your eyes
You shut them as we fly
As we fly

– Dead of Night , Orville Peck

Love, won’t you listen to my heart
Darling, can you hear it beating hard

– Threw it Away , Graham Coxon

Bruce wonders if it’s pre-emptive to book a double room. Thor is in the bathroom, and he knows that they’ve said the l-word to each other, but he still just– he doesn’t know the boundaries. He’s never been in a relationship before. He’s also never hit the road like this. His fingers work over the roll of cash in his pocket, dog-earing the corners of fifty dollar bills. The concierge (are they even called that anymore?) gives him the keys to room twelve, and he glances at the door to the men’s room, waiting. It’s not like Thor would get angry if Bruce made the wrong call regarding the rooms, but Bruce wants to get things right . Thor is doing him an incredible favour even just sitting in the passenger side seat. 

Thor and his duffel bag emerge unruffled; he doesn’t bat an eyelid when Bruce unlocks the door to their double room. He just looks for the complimentary biscuits, and then eats the mint on their bed. Bruce hates mint. He goes for a ginger biscuit. 

“This is nicer than sleeping in the car,” Thor says as he collapses down on the bed. Bruce sets his own bag against the wall and rifles through it, taking out a new T-shirt; it’s the one they bought a few days ago that reads I Heart Minnesota , right after Bruce realised that they were going the wrong way. 

“I’m sorry,” he had said. “This is all – I feel like I’m wading through sludge looking for a tiny piece of gold, or something. And not everything comes through clear.” 

“It’s okay,” Thor had answered, reaching over to take his hand. “We’ll get there.” 

Bruce wishes he had that confidence, but he’s still not sure where they’re going and he hasn’t felt the vibrations since, so they’ve been heading aimlessly to Louisiana (Thor wants to try beignets) ever since. Minnesota was a dead end; he feels as if it was so dry there that it sucked all of the spirit from him, and he knows that Thor would probably go all the way to the ends of the earth with him, but it doesn’t feel right to take him there. 

“I’m going to have a shower,” he says. He smells of a week’s accumulation of sweat, crusted over with the vain attempts of his deodorant to cover it up; the hotel is pristine, and white, and clean, and he feels like just touching the bedsheets will stain them grubby. 

“Steal all the toiletries for me,” Thor calls as Bruce steps into the bathroom. It’s a few degrees colder than the room, and he shivers as he starts the shower, trying to figure out the machinations of it. It seems to be one huge dial that adjusts both heat and water pressure at the same time, meaning that he ends up standing under water that feels no stronger than the rain in a storm as he rinses his hair with lemon-scented shampoo. He wonders why every hotel seems to have citrus-scented toiletries. He smells like a lemon. Bruce could kill for a glass of lemonade right now. 

It takes him what feels like forever to work his fingers through the matted sections of his curls, pulling them free; the sensation of the tug reminds him of something, but something that he’s not sure belongs to him . He’s missed that. He’s missed that feeling so much, the sensation of the other , the brimming of the vibrations at the corner of his mind: he leans back against the cool tiles of the shower cubicle, and listens to the brimming of emotions in the pit of his stomach as he untwists tangle after tangle. He remembers his mom washing his hair in the bath when he was a kid; the other feeling is something distinctly different. 

Different how, he asks himself. That’s the only way he’s going to get to understanding what’s going on: interrogating the feelings like he’s in a counselling session. 

Different because it’s unpleasant, he realises. The sensation is something like fear, but maybe darker; fear beyond fear, if there’s something like that out there. He hooks his fingers into a patch of hair and yanks - 

After your mom dies, you forget to go to the hairdresser. She was the one that always took you, and after she’s gone, you forget that it’s important. And you’re nine. You’re not thinking about your own hygiene, not really: you forget to brush your teeth sometimes, and let your fingernails grow until you scratch yourself and remember that you need to trim them down. You bite most of them to the quick yourself. 

You don’t know what the catalyst is. You’re sitting on the couch and you’re doing some homework for school, advanced math problems that your teacher gave you because you were doing so well. You think you’re being good. You think you’re doing well, and then the door slams open and the smell of alcohol is on your father’s breath and you realise that being good isn’t enough anymore. 

He grabs a handful of your hair and pulls you from the couch, shouts at you about something with his beer breath that clouds your nostrils. You lose some of that hair. You take ten dollars of his money when he’s passed out drunk and cut your hair the next week, razor short. You miss the way your hair curls when it’s long enough, because your mom always loved them. You sit on her gravestone on a Friday afternoon and tell her you got your hair cut. Is she proud of you? 

He washes the rest of his hair and doesn’t detangle any more of the matted masses. It feels as if the vision has swallowed him whole with that raw fear, and he stands paralysed for a moment before he scrubs himself down with body wash and steps out, water dripping onto the red mat beneath his feet. Not all of the vibrations and the visions are like this; some are positive, like when he visited MIT on an open day and felt the blossoming of love for it like he’d been there for years. But some are. It’s the pain that makes him look, makes him search, makes him listen to the way places make the other voice inside of him feel in the hopes that he’ll one day find ground zero. He’s never had visions of it. But he knows something happened there. 

Trying to shake off the sensations, he grabs all of the toiletries, dries them with his towel, and gives them to Thor once he’s dressed. He doesn’t dry his hair. It’s still damp when he lies down on the bed. 

“Did you see something?” Thor asks. Bruce would say that he has a sixth sense for this sort of thing if it wasn’t always so obvious . 

“Yeah,” he says. “It wasn’t nice.” 

Thor drapes an arm over him; it’s a weird position, but Bruce finds it strangely comforting. “You smell like lemons,” he says. Bruce laughs. 

Trying to find the Rush Ghost Town with only a giant fold-out map of the entire United States and a field guide to Arkansas is an endeavour that takes Thor and Bruce almost the entire morning following their departure from the hotel, looking much better than when they arrived, and Bruce concedes that he doesn’t think he’s ever been this excited about going somewhere spooky before. It was Thor’s idea. Bruce can’t even abide by ghost tours. 

Though Thor wants to look at all of the abandoned, creaking buildings, Bruce opts to read the sign first. “This used to be the most prosperous zinc mine in Arkansas,” he says. Listening to the whistle of the wind through the expanse of trees, he thinks that there’s something strange about the fact that it’s only really been deserted like this since the 70s, and since, nature has swallowed it up. 

“They used to mine zinc?” Thor asks. 

“Apparently it was a big business in the First World War,” Bruce says. He feels like he remembers something about it, vaguely, from a lesson here or there in high school - or maybe middle. He doesn’t remember a lot of what he learned about the World Wars; it was eventually eclipsed by the encyclopaedic knowledge of the Civil War that he had ended up with by the time he finished APUSH. 

“What was so important about zinc?” 

“They smelt it and use it in construction materials. I think.”

Thor reaches out and takes Bruce’s hand. Bruce looks at him. “Can we go see the abandoned buildings now?” he asks, like a kid in a candy store; Bruce thinks of the times they visited Gnome Chomsky in Kerhonkson and then Elwood in Iowa, two of the world’s largest gnomes, and the excitement in Thor’s face as Bruce had taken pictures for him. Honestly, he’d been intending a serious journey, but every stop-over at every silly state attraction makes him feel better for all the times where he fucks up. 

He remembers Thor kissing him in the gardens in Iowa, remembers the feeling of him grinning against Bruce’s mouth, his hands on Bruce’s waist, and remembers when he said, “Banner, I’d go anywhere with you”. 

“Okay,” says Bruce. “We can go see the abandoned buildings.” 

Most of the town is forest and foliage now, interspersed with buildings, signage, and the abandoned mines. The buildings are preserved, so Thor can’t go in, but he peers through some of the windows. Bruce looks through one and watches the galaxy of dust particles flow in the empty room; there are spiders making a peaceful living in the corners of the windows, and a part of him can’t help but wonder who used to live here and what it used to be like. What it used to feel like. He can only detect the specific vibrations of that other soul, who doesn’t seem to have been to this old ghost town; sometimes it feels strangely quiet in places like these, where all he can feel is himself and his senses don’t extend beyond his natural ones. Though it’s not fall yet, the ground is still coated with leaves that crunch beneath his feet. 

He takes a photograph of Thor in front of one of the houses, and the mines, and then they stop to eat their Walmart-bought lunch. It’s not exactly gourmet , but – everything seems to taste better on a road trip. Bruce eats while sitting on a massive pile of leaves. There’s something nice about the way that nature has been allowed to reassert its dominance; Bruce has always found pictures of abandoned places quite terrifying, but there’s also a thrilling boldness to the way that leaves seem to burst through and ivy resolutely climbs the walls – the permanent reoccupation by nature. Thor reads out online information about the mines. Bruce knows that he isn’t interested, and must only be reading it out for Bruce’s sake. He smiles. 

“Hey,” he says. “Wanna walk by the river?” 

The Rush Ghost Town runs along the Buffalo River, a beautiful and scenic feature of the Ozark Mountains (though, if you asked Bruce, he’d say every part of it was beautiful); for Bruce, the water magnifies him, but for Thor, he just likes seeing pretty places. Thor likes seeing almost everything; the only exception is that he doesn’t like to stop to read in museums, just puts his arm around Bruce’s and lets him explain what Thor points to. It’s worth the feelings that flash through Bruce’s mind to see Thor happy. He’s come so far, for this, for Bruce, for a hunch. 

Usually, Bruce feels traces of places when he’s there. Memories connected to them that flow through him. Sometimes, though, the feelings are so strong that they transcend place. He doesn’t often know why. Things don’t all make sense to him yet. 

“Hey, can I have some of your orange juice?” he asks. Thor passes it over. 

The trees here are so green, and the water is so blue: it’s like colours Bruce has never seen in anything but paintings before, as if the landscape has been saturated with Photoshop. The only time he’s ever left New York before was to go on a weekend to Bruges with his mom once, in the autumn: the leaves crunched beneath his feet and the wind blew cold and all the buildings looked as if they had come from fairy tales. They climbed up the bell tower and looked at the market square down below, everybody looking like specks from the height. Bruce thinks he likes the world. 

He squeezes Thor’s hand, and takes a sip of his orange juice. 

“What is it?” Thor asks. 

“Nothing,” says Bruce. “I’m just thinking.” 

“About what?” 

“My mom.” He thinks about the vision he had earlier, the idea of that alternative him, the one with no mother, just a gaping empty hole in his chest like an abyss; he remembers that feeling, ineffably ghastly, and tries to push it aside. “We went on holiday once. My dad had a conference on in another city, so we went to this city in Belgium together for the weekend. It was really nice.” 

“Let me guess,” Thor says, with that wise grin of I’m from Europe . Bruce looks away with a sharp blush. He couldn’t say why he was blushing; Thor just seems to set him on fire sometimes. “Was it… Bruges?” 

“Shut up. I’m American.” 

“It’s okay. I’ll let you have it, since Bruges is pretty.” Thor leans in and kisses Bruce’s cheek, right next to his ear. His breath is warm. “My family went to Ljubljana for six weeks in the summer when I was fifteen. It was my favourite place in the world, for a while.” 

“Oh yeah?” Bruce watches a river boat scud by across the shimmering clear surface of the water. It’s nothing like any of the rivers he knows from the city, busy with activity and water busy with industrial pollution. “Where is it now?” 

“New York, of course. There’s nowhere else like it.” They walk in silence for a while, listening only to the sound of the river, and the breeze of the wind through the trees, and the birds as they call and respond in sung hymns. Then Thor says, “we should go to Europe together, sometime. I could show you around,” and Bruce feels his heart bubble. To say that he loves Thor is something of a simplification for the way his heart seems to beat in triple time when they’re together; it doesn’t feel like a word that could explain falling asleep in the passenger seat and waking up to Thor having parked in a Drive-Thru with Bruce’s favourite meal, or the way their laughter seemed to harmonise in the gardens in Iowa as if it was always meant to, or the fact that Bruce knows that he can tell Thor anything and everything going on in his restless mind and feel safe in the fact that Thor will listen. He stops, and puts his head on Thor’s shoulder, and they sway there for a while. 

“I’d like that,” he says. 

They get back to the car a few hours later, after they get a little lost, and toss a coin over the driving rota. Sometimes they’re happy enough just to decide themselves; other times, they opt for a range of gambling techniques. Thor wins the coin toss and so takes the driver’s side, letting Bruce take a few minutes to plug his phone into the aux cord and decide what they’re going to listen to: a podcast, an audiobook, music… Sometimes it’s hard to figure out what he’s in the mood for. 

He finds a playlist on Spotify, and turns the volume up. 

“I think I’m going to sleep,” he says as Bob Dylan starts playing. It’s Like a Rolling Stone , which Bruce knows is a little cliché; he likes it anyway. Most of his playlists are cliché, and in his mind it just makes them more fun; it makes it easier for them to sing along. 

He doesn’t actually sleep, not for a while - Thor’s not great with the gears, and occasionally Bruce has to nudge him and murmur “second”, and he watches the road pass by, and thinks about the sound of the river, and eventually the sound of his voice reminding Thor to change gears gets quieter, and so does his mind, and the world, and he lets himself drift off. 

Bruce doesn’t know where they are when he wakes up; it’s dark, and all the freeways look the same in the abyss, and he feels as if he had a dream about something important that he can’t remember. Thor pulls over so that they can eat, and then they swap seats; Bruce says that he’ll drive until the morning. Thor looks at him for a long moment before he buckles up, but says nothing. Bruce is glad, because he doesn’t know how to explain the cloud that’s overtaken him. Thor gives him an extra square of chocolate, though, and Bruce blushes bright red. “Thanks,” he says. He puts on a true crime podcast, and listens to the story of the Zodiac killer as he drives through the endless evening. 

By the time the dark is beginning to make way for the sun, Bruce has switched back to the local radio. The five am slot is dedicated to an hour of punk music, and though Bruce has never really listened to that sort of thing, a weird part of him feels as if he’s somehow heard this before: and not once or twice, but like he knows them, like the melodies are already in his brain. In fact, when The Clash’s Charlie Don’t Surf comes on, it’s more than that - he knows the words, even though he’s sure he’s never actually heard this before himself. It’s as if he’s always known it. 

It’s always the smallest parts of his powers that spook him the most. 

Since Thor is sleeping, he decides to let himself sing along lightly. 

When Thor wakes up, he insists on a hearty breakfast; they find a diner somewhere, because there’s always one somewhere, and Bruce has his favourite of eggs and bacon while Thor has a pancake stack. The jukebox is playing the best hits of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and when Bruce walks in from the bathroom, it’s Why Do Fools Fall in Love?  

“Did you sleep well?” he asks Thor, even though he always knows that the answer is yes, because Thor could sleep anywhere. He likes asking. It feels like a comfortable ritual, an I care about you in different words. 

“Very well, thank you,” Thor says politely as he slurps his milkshake. Bruce doesn’t feel like he should have a milkshake before ten, but Thor pesters him into having a few sips. “Do we know who the Zodiac killer is yet?”

Bruce doesn’t know how to break the news to Thor. He coughs, and Thor implores him to have a little more milkshake. “They never caught him,” he says. “We still don’t know who it is.” 

Thor sits back in shock. “What?” he says, astounded. He shakes his head. “I can’t believe it. I was so sure it was that Allen guy.” For a moment, he looks lost, as if Bruce has just confounded his entire worldview; and then he goes back to his breakfast, as normal. Thor’s strange: he gets emotionally invested in all of the true crime cases they listen to, but is able to switch off completely when they’re over in a way that Bruce can’t. He can’t control his feelings like that. For him, they’re permanently leaking taps that are more of a gush than a leak. “What should we listen to next?” 

“I don’t know,” Bruce says. “You can decide.” 

Thor considers this for a moment as he eats. “Can we read more of a book?” 

“Yeah, of course,” Bruce says, almost offended that Thor feels the need to ask; but Thor’s just being polite, of course. “Which one?” They’re reading a few books, whatever they happen to be in the mood for: they pick them up at pit stops and read them aloud. Bruce’s favourite right now is Stories of Your Life by Ted Chiang; when Thor read the titular story to him, Bruce had had to pull over to cry. He remembers the feeling of Thor’s arm around him, pulling him in, the sensation of his tears bleeding into the shoulder of Thor’s shirt; he remembers apologising, sniffing, wiping his nose with his sleeve and Thor kissing his temple and telling him that it was okay. 

“I’d like to finish Northanger Abbey,” Thor says. They’d been looking for a copy of something like Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility in a thrift shop, but Northanger Abbey had been the only Austen there: Thor’s been somewhat hooked on it ever since. Bruce never would’ve thought, initially, that it would’ve been Thor’s cup of tea: but under the muscles, he’s like a big puppy dog. He’s soft; he’s romantic. “We need to find out if Catherine is going to get to marry Henry Tilney.” 

Bruce wants to say of course she will, it’s a Jane Austen , but he doesn’t. He just nods. “Yeah,” he says, and tucks back into his eggs. 

There’s a long moment before they leave where they unfold their map of the United States, which is both too big and never quite big enough, and try to figure out where they are and how close they are to Louisiana; their waiter, whose name badge says Clint in a way that looks more like a rude word, helps them out with directions. They’re not that close to New Orleans, yet, but not far away, either - it’s not like it’s across any more states. Bruce is thinking about maybe staying in a hostel in Louisiana for a few days; he’s tired of the car and feels like he needs to stretch his limbs for longer than when he cracks them in the morning. Thor agrees, though Bruce is pretty sure this is just because Thor is excited to see New Orleans. 

Bruce goes to the bathroom one more time, for good measure, and then they step back out into the parking lot. There’s a breeze; it’s not a particularly cold one, but it’s something nice in the heat. He stretches his arms above his head. 

When he turns around to tell Thor that he’s ready to go, Thor kisses him; Bruce starts a little, at first, then melts into it, his hands on Thor’s shoulders. Thor kind of sweeps him away sometimes; he likes it. He doesn’t often understand why Thor’s in love with him, of all people, but he’s so grateful that they’re together anyway. 

“I can’t wait for the beignets,” Thor says with that big excited grin of his. 

“Me too,” says Bruce. “Come on. Let’s find out if Catherine and Henry get married.” 

It’s about another day or two - Bruce sleeps for so much of the journey that he loses time, a little - before they finally arrive in New Orleans; Bruce is at the wheel when they get there, and takes almost half an hour just to find somewhere good to park. He’s pragmatic when it comes to parking; Thor will just park, even if it means that they have to walk for ten minutes through mud and gravel just to reach their destination. When they walk past a church on the way to Café du Monde, Bruce pauses, realising that it’s a Sunday and there’s a service going on inside: there’s singing and dancing that emanates out from it, and the band is playing a hymn that Bruce recognises from his own vaguely Christian upbringing with a name like I can’t feel at home any more . He always thought that it was a little on the miserable side, used to the Fern Jones version, but sung by a gospel choir it’s joyous, a rejuvenation. 

The whole city seems alive with music, jazz and funk and blues pouring out from every corner; the queue out the café feels like it’s a mile long, but the wait goes by impossibly quick, eased along by Thor’s amazement in the city. It doesn’t quite feel like a real place but a place from a novel or pseudo-fantasy film, the streets paved with colourful buildings and foliage spilling out from various balconies. Bruce, who has never felt much inclined in his life to dance or sing, suddenly feels something like an urge to do both at once. 

They get their beignets and eat them on the sidewalk, great sugary things that they are. They taste like childhood, like being five and having constant cravings for ice cream, like hope for the future and the idea of being completely limitless. The world feels like it opens up right there underneath Bruce’s Converse and Thor’s Doc Marten boots. 

“I’m going to move here,” Thor declares as he polishes off his - Bruce doesn’t know if that’s his second or third beignet, or even if it’s his fourth. “After college. You should come with me.” 

Bruce likes that idea more than he expects, as he thinks about it: Thor and him, living in an apartment above a street where the blues play all night, with a cat and maybe a dog. Thor wearing his hair up all the time in that way where strands keep escaping from the front; Bruce wearing loose-fitting shirts in every colour of the rainbow and nobody caring that his jeans are purple; going for beignets every weekend, sitting on this sidewalk, bliss. 

It’s not realistic, but Bruce doesn’t dream a lot, so he lets himself have this one. 

“Okay,” he says, taking a long drink of water. New Orleans is hot - okay, all of America is hot right now, it’s summer, but New Orleans is stiflingly hot like a vacation destination. He’s shiny with sweat already. Thor’s European complexion looks like it’s going to burn in about five minutes, so Bruce breaks out the sun cream and nannies him right there in the street until he can’t breathe for laughing. 

“Have they ever been here before?” Thor asks as he takes some water for himself. 

Bruce shakes his head. “I don’t think so. I haven’t felt anything.” It’s calm that way: he’s free to his own thoughts and his own feelings and doesn’t have to worry about anything else. It’s like the well-needed silence of the library when exams are on. “I think we should stop here.” 

“Okay,” Thor says. 

Their next stop, after they’ve dusted the sugar from their fingers, is the Saint Louis Cemetery. Bruce used to fall asleep to episodes of American Horror Story during high school, and has more than a passing knowledge of the witches and voodoo of New Orleans; he impresses Thor more than once with his casual knowledge. Bruce expects it’s because he’s talking about something that isn’t science. 

“Nicolas Cage has a tomb here,” Thor says, as if to show off his own knowledge. Bruce turns to look at him. 

“Nicolas Cage isn’t dead,” he says. “Is he?” 

“No,” says Thor. “But he bought a tomb here. To be buried in. In the shape of a pyramid.” 

Bruce laughs. “What, like - the National Treasure logo?” 

“I guess so,” Thor says, with a shrug. “And he made his own comic once, called Voodoo Child . Nicolas Cage is very New Orleans.” 

It takes Bruce close to three full minutes to recover from that statement, and his face burns with how much he’s laughed, the muscles in his cheeks sore with exhaustion; it’s the kind of pain he can’t bring himself to mind, though. He breathes through it, trying to stop himself from bursting out into any more spontaneous laughter. Thor looks somewhat baffled. Bruce sounds like he’s run a marathon when he finally wheezes out, “I love Nicolas Cage.” 

“You know there’s this ritual,” Bruce says as they approach the Laveau tomb, “that you can do if you want her to grant your wish?” 

“What is it?” Thor asks. 

“You have to draw an X on her tomb, turn around three times, and shout out your wish. Then, if she grants it, you come back, circle your X, and leave her an offering. That’s what all the crosses are.” 

“I want to make a wish,” Thor says thoughtfully, fishing in his fanny pack for a pen. Thor, Bruce has concluded, might be the only person alive capable of making a fanny pack look that good. “Do I have to shout it?” 

“I assume so,” Bruce says, watching as Thor’s hand finally breaks free with a Sharpie. He tried sniffing fumes from it, once, on the road in Illinois, and it had been an entirely unsuccessful endeavour. Bruce sincerely hopes that they never get that bored again. “Why?” 

“No reason,” Thor says, and steps up to the tomb, finding a place at the top to make his mark. Thor starts his ‘X’ from the right, not from the left, like Bruce would. In fact, he seems to write completely differently, starting his letters wherever he sees fit rather than where Bruce remembers being taught them. There’s something nice about that. Bruce is used to rigidity: fixed numbers, fixed equations, definite answers. Thor is more of an arts student. Bruce didn’t used to believe in that kind of dichotomy, but the more he lives, the more he realises that, for most people, one comes easier than the other. 

Thor turns around three times in such dramatic fashion that he almost makes a fourth, then stares down the tomb as if it’s a bull, and says “I wish for Bruce to find what he’s looking for.” 

“Don’t you think that’s a bit vague?” Bruce asks. Thor shakes his head. 

“She’s a Voodoo queen,” he says. “She’s smart. She’ll know.” 

You don’t know what planet you’re on, you’ve been the Hulk for two years, and your pants are too tight. 

Things could most definitely be better. 

One minute you’re hugging Thor, holding onto him for dear life as if he’ll disappear when you let go; and the next you’re bickering with him, accusing him of only using you to get to the Hulk, and you mean it but also you don’t : what you really want to say is that you’re so glad he’s here and that you’re so glad you’re back, but your mind is spinning and you don’t know what you’re saying until it’s out of your mouth and hanging in the air, and he’s looking at you with exasperation in his face and you wish you were better. 

But somewhere in the midst of all the chaos, in between getting lost and meeting Thor’s cool friend and his brother and being undecided on revenge and flying a luxury spaceship with no guns but some kind of party button, you get the feeling he knows what you really mean.

You thought, when you saw him at first, and realised the situation, that you wished it was someone else here. Tony, or Steve, or Natasha. But now you realise that you were always glad it was him. He trusts you. 

This is what you think about when you think about Thor. 

“I think the people in that car are watching us,” Bruce says, ducking back behind the curtain of their hotel room. It’s a nice one, with a beautiful view of the street below, and he’d been admiring the view when he noticed the car; it feels as if it’s deliberately trying not to be obstinate but failing, and it’s been there since last night, and he worries he’s being paranoid, but he’s sure the people in it are looking right up at their window. He swears they even had binoculars at one point. The other voice in his mind is telling him to get the hell out of dodge, and he’s starting to think he should listen. 

Thor looks out, and he says, “maybe they’re just looking at the hotel”, but he doesn’t sound convinced either. He puts an arm around Bruce’s waist. “It’s fine. It’s going to be fine.” 

Against Bruce’s better judgement, he agrees to go out for breakfast. Thor’s family are disgustingly rich, and he doesn’t mind paying for all these luxuries; Bruce feels bad, but he’s limited in terms of what he can contribute, and for Thor, worries about money don’t seem to be on his radar, so Bruce tries to accept that. Still, he tends to order cheaply from the menu. This morning, he has a breakfast sandwich, and Thor has a crepe. 

“Do you think Marie Laveau will grant your wish?” Bruce asks. He doesn’t mean to sound as prejudiced as he does in the asking, as if it’s a bad thing that Thor might believe in the supernatural - it permeates Bruce’s life, after all - but he’s curious. He feels set apart, sometimes, from all the other forms of magic and psychic abilities he reads about. He feels like an anomaly. 

“I hope she does,” Thor says. 

Bruce can’t help but hope so, too. 

After breakfast, they go to the New Orleans Museum of Art. Bruce doesn’t know a lot about art, but Thor does: things he’s picked up from his family and from the art museums in Europe, and so it’s his turn to explain things to Bruce about art periods and famous artists and how important some of the paintings in the museum are. Bruce isn’t sure if he’s an art person, but he could listen to Thor all day; he reaches out and takes Thor’s hand, and holds it most of the way round the museum. He buys a few postcards in the gift shop to send back to his parents. 

There’s a free outdoor concert in City Park, so after getting some hot dogs for lunch, they sit and listen. The art of road tripping, Bruce thinks, is in learning to appreciate things like this: the sound of music in the streets, eating lunch in the grass, enjoying every moment as much as possible. 

Even the moment where he falls asleep on Thor’s shoulder. 

“I dreamed about you last night,” he says, when he eventually rouses, though he feels as if he’s still half-asleep. “The other person in my head knows another you. He had short hair and wore armour and flew spaceships.” 

“Spaceships?” Thor asks, rubbing circles into Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce is still too asleep to tell if Thor is being incredulous or not. 

“Yeah,” he says. “We were on a spaceship together.” 

When they get back to the hotel, after dinner, the car is still outside. Bruce doesn’t sleep for hours, his mind caught on the image and of the pervasive need to run , and he tosses and turns until Thor puts his arms around Bruce’s waist and nuzzles his shoulder lightly and says it’s alright, love ; and no-one has ever called Bruce love before, not even Thor, and he goes a little slack and touches his hands to Thor’s. He’s warm. Bruce is uncertain, so uncertain, full of maybes and I don’t knows , and Thor just feels so… sure. 

Maybe he isn’t. But he feels it. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, clutching at Thor’s fingers. “I feel nervous and scared. It feels like something is about to go wrong.” 

“If things do go wrong,” Thor says, “we’ll figure them out.” 

“And I’m worried that I’ll never figure it out and we’ll never find out where we’re going. I want to – I want to make things right , or do whatever it is that I’m supposed to do, but what if I never go where I’m meant to go?”

“We’re not going to solve the mystery at two am,” Thor assures him. “There’s lots of time, and I trust you. It’ll be fine .”

Bruce nods, and despite himself, falls asleep easily there, in Thor’s arms. It’s nice. There used to be no foil to his anxiety. 

“No, man, they are definitely watching you,” Sam says. He stays in the room next door; as it so happens, he’s on an interstate road trip of no particular direction with his friends before college, too. He just isn’t on a psychic hunt for answers. Thor met him in the corridor. “If it was just the car, maybe not, but those people in there are definitely looking up. What the fuck did you guys do?”

“Nothing,” Bruce says, picking at a loose thread on his shirt. “That’s what’s creepy.”

“Maybe they want to kidnap you. Are you guys rich or something?”

Bruce looks at Thor. Thor looks at his feet. Sam laughs. “I see how it is,” he says. “I mean, if you two are worried, you should probably get the hell out of dodge. Or I mean - he ain’t here, he’s out for breakfast right now, but Bucky could probably figure out who those guys are. He’s an A+ Internet sleuth. Hell, maybe it’s your parents checking up on you.” 

“My father wouldn’t do that,” Thor says immediately, and then pauses for a moment. “He might.” He looks to Bruce, again, and seems to contemplate taking his hand or touching his shoulder before deciding against. “What do you want to do?” 

Bruce wants to get the fuck out of New Orleans, and also to stay and never leave. “I think we should wait and see what - Bucky, right? - has to say.” 

“Sure. I don’t know when he’s coming back, though, so you two might want to go get some juice. I’m going back to sleep.” 

Thor decides that he wants to have some brunch beignets, and they manage to get a table in the outdoors seating area of the café. Bruce has a hot chocolate, and Thor has some orange juice, and they sit shoulder-to-shoulder and don’t talk much at all. Someone has a dog, who sniffs around at their feet and who Thor dotes on lovingly; it’s a big golden retriever called Groot who eventually settles against Bruce’s leg. 

There are lots of things that they could say to each other; but Bruce falls asleep for ten minutes and, when he wakes up, Thor tangles his fingers in Bruce’s hair and asks him if he’s okay. 

“Yeah,” Bruce says, readjusting his glasses. “I’m okay.” It’s almost cool under the green and white canopy - cool for summer, anyway, beginning to heat up as morning creeps into afternoon, and Thor lets him have the last beignet. They say their goodbyes to Groot, and then wander around the neighborhood for a little while, basking in the summer heat. Thor makes them go into a witchcraft shop, and buys a deck of tarot cards. 

“You’re psychic,” he says to Bruce. “You can read them.” 

“I don’t think that’s how it works for me,” Bruce says. Thor also buys them both a little pouch of stones that are meant to bring them good health, love, and safety, and when they step back out onto the sidewalk, he leans down to kiss Bruce deeply. Bruce has to stand on his tiptoes. Before Thor, he never realised how much every touch could mean; how much just the contact of skin to skin could communicate. He bumps his forehead against Thor’s. 

“Are you still worried if we’re being followed?” Thor asks. “We can leave if you want. It’s okay. Wherever you go, I’ll follow. It doesn’t matter. Whatever makes you happy is what I want to do.” 

“I want to stay,” Bruce says. “I like this place and I really don’t want to go yet. But sometimes I think all we need to do is get out. I want to see what these guys have to say.” He pauses. “Maybe we should’ve gotten them some beignets.” 

“I saved some,” Thor says cheerily; he’s tucked them inside of his Metropolitan Museum tote bag, which is so full that Bruce has to resist asking do you ever clear that out? “I hope they’re not full.” 

“I don’t think you can ever be too full for beignets,” Bruce offers, and takes Thor’s hand for the walk back. 

Sam knocks on their door a few minutes after they arrive, his friends Bucky and Steve in tow. Bucky has dark hair tied up in a bun and the fierce look in his eye of an investigator, but Bruce is more compelled to look at Steve: there’s this energy about him - and Bruce doesn’t think it’s in a psychic sense, but it might be, actually, there’s something about these guys that hums in the back of his head. He’s wearing a black sleeveless turtleneck that shows off his muscles and a few tattoos, and Bruce can’t help but stare. 

Steve notices him staring, so Bruce says, “I like your shirt.” 

Sam laughs. “He wears it because he thinks it shows off his aromantic pride.” 

“It’s because it does ,” Steve says. 

“Now that he’s said it, it makes a lot of sense,” Bruce says. He holds out his hand, and Steve shakes it warmly, even though Bruce realises as he’s doing it that people don’t really shake hands upon meeting casual acquaintances. “Thank you guys so much for helping out.”

“Oh, no problem,” Steve grins. “Bucky loves a bit of sleuthing.” 

“You say that like there’s something wrong with it,” Bucky says. He’s already peering out the window at the car below, and taking zoomed-in photographs with his phone. “Screw you, Steve. I’m gonna become a journalist, and then I’m gonna do an exposé on you . ‘National treasure used to be an idiot as a child’.” 

“That ain’t news,” Sam says. “He’s an idiot now .” 

“So, what brings you two to New Orleans?” Steve asks. 

“The beignets,” says Thor. “Oh, we brought some back for you.” 

“That’s it, Sam,” Bucky says, shooting across the room. “I’m breaking up with you. I’m getting with this guy.”

“I’m spoken for already,” Thor says, offering round his paper bag of beignets. “But I can bring beignets anytime.” 

“This is how you flirt, Sam. With beignets.” 

Once they’ve all eaten, Bucky sets himself and his laptop up at the foot of Thor’s bed and sets to work while Thor talks to Sam and Steve. Bruce doesn’t say much, both because he doesn’t know what to and doesn’t feel like he has to, for once. Nobody’s trying to pester him into speaking. 

All three of them are also New Yorkers – Brooklynites. After this road trip, Sam is planning on some kind of undecided gap year, and Steve and Bucky are going to college to do art and journalism respectively. Sam and Bucky are going out, and Steve is third-wheeling on this trip, but he’s been friends with Bucky for longer. They’re enjoying the nightlife of New Orleans, apparently, but today is their rest-and-rejuvenation day. Sam used to play saxophone and Steve trombone in high school, so they like the jazz here; Bucky is more interested in the folklore and the voodoo and the stories. “If you don’t get cursed, were you really in New Orleans?” 

“Who cursed you?” Bruce asks. 

Bucky sighs. “I spilled a guy’s drink in the gay bar and it went all over his very nice designer shirt.”

“That doesn’t seem like a curseable offence,” Bruce notes. 

“It was a nice shirt,” Sam says. “I’d be mad, too. So if y’all start hearing weird noises coming from our room at any point, you know that guy wasn’t fucking around with his Gucci.” 

Bucky is quiet for a moment, squinting at his laptop screen, and then he spins it around, showing it to Bruce. “The guy in the driver’s seat is this guy, Quentin Beck. He has a doctorate in engineering and used to work for Stark Industries on some high-level projects, from what I can see. But apparently he got fired about three months ago after going off the rails, and made it even better for himself by posting a whole essay of why Tony Stark is a stain on the world. Check it out.” He scrolls, and Bruce is only able to get the gist of the tweets, but - Bucky’s right. Off the rails would be putting it kindly; the tweets feel like they’re foaming at the mouth. “I might have to go out to get a look at whoever’s in the passenger side.” 

“I know about Quentin Beck,” Bruce says, frowning. “He was the chief engineer on - what’s it called - binarily augmented retro-framing. Tony Stark did a talk on it and pledged funding for all the student projects at MIT. It’s why I’m going.” 

“Yeah, I don’t really keep up with science,” Bucky mumbles, turning the laptop back around. “Listen, no offence to either of you, but why the hell is this guy following you ?” 

“I don’t know,” Bruce says. “That’s really weird.” 

“You haven’t, I don’t know, come up with some genius scientific invention that you’re not telling us about? Because it’d really help if I knew. We’re not going to tell anyone.” 

Bruce looks at Thor, who nods at him. “I’m not - it’s not that I have any scientific invention, and honestly I don’t know if anyone except Thor even knows about this, but I’ve got some kind of…” He trails off. “You guys are gonna think I’m crazy.” 

“We don’t use the c-word here,” Steve says. 

“Sorry,” Bruce says. “It’s… it’s just that the story is ridiculous, even though I know it’s real. Sometimes I think that maybe it’s just all in my head and Thor is humouring me. Or maybe we’re both loopy. I don’t know.” 

“Hey, man,” Sam says. “We ain’t gonna judge. There’s all sorts, right? The world is a crazy place. Sorry, Steve.” 

“Dollar in the swear jar,” Steve says. “Not for you, Bruce. You’re new.” 

“I still think a dollar for ‘crazy’ is bullshit, man. Fifty cents.” 

“That’s another dollar, Sam.”

Sam flips Steve the bird. Bruce gets the feeling that they don’t have a real swear jar. Maybe they just have a running tally; maybe it decides who pays for gas at the next stop-over. There’s something nice about road trip rituals. Nothing’s going to be nice when he ruins his new friendships. He runs a hand through his hair. “Well, um, I’m - I’m psychic. I don’t know how it works except that I’m looking for something. It’s not like I have powers. It’s more like I’m a metal detector.” 

“Looking for something? So you don’t know what you’re looking for?” Steve asks. Bruce nods. “Alright.” 

“So they could be following you for that,” Bucky says. “If they know.”

“You don’t think I’m crazy?” Bruce asks, and then raises his hand in a truce to Steve. He’s aware he’s just dropped something of a bombshell; when he hold Thor, who’s been nothing but accepting, it had taken Thor a few days to wrap his head around it. Steve hasn’t even raised an eyebrow. 

“Bruce,” Bucky says, his fingers doing a little dance on the keys as they stutter over a word, “the whole world is crazy.” To his credit, he actually hands Steve a dollar. “If you’re psychic or if you’re mistaken, you’re a nice guy - I hope - and we’re trying to help you anyway. It’s good practice. And if you’re right, hell, we could have a Stranger Things going on here.” 

“I am not offering myself up to die,” Sam says. “Just making that clear now.” 

“I am more than happy to die,” Bucky says, snapping his laptop shut. “I’m gonna go see if I can get a better shot of the other guy. Please all come to my funeral.” 

“I’ll miss you, baby,” Sam says. 

“Thanks, babe,” says Bucky, and shuts the door behind him. 

Bucky takes about an hour outside, while Bruce, Thor, Steve, and Sam all play Uno with Sam’s very dog-eared travel pack. Thor, despite taking far too long to get to grip with the rules (it’s not that he’s stupid , but Bruce gets the feeling Thor just has a hard time focusing enough to listen), is a surprisingly good player; no matter how hard Bruce can attempt to strategise, Thor just has the luck of the draw. Sam doesn’t enjoy losing one bit. Steve just seems to enjoy the drama that the game spurs on; every time a plus four is thrown down, the room lights up as they all bellow at each other. 

Bruce finds himself holding Thor’s hand, every now and then, and nobody says anything about it, and it’s nice. 

When Bucky comes back, Thor has won five games, Bruce two, Steve three, and Sam four, despite his insistence that they were all conspiring against him (Bruce certainly wasn’t). “Okay,” he says, flopping down onto the bed. “The guy on the other side is Ulysses Klaue. He’s a real piece of shit – South African arms dealer. I followed them for lunch, and they kept talking about you like you were a piece of meat, Bruce. It was kinda creepy.”

“Wow, man, you got cannibals ?” Sam laughs. Steve shoots him an appropriately disappointed look. 

“I don’t think they’re cannibals,” Bruce says. “Have you ever read Doctor Sleep ?”

Steve nods. Bucky looks surprised at that. “You think they’re after – your energy? I guess that would make sense. Do you know what the green door is, though?” 

“No,” Bruce says, shaking his head. The phrase feels familiar, like a song he thinks he knows until someone tells him the title and he realises he didn’t know it at all. “I don’t know what that means.” 

“I think we should take a break until tomorrow,” Steve says. “Unless you two want to skip town, which, I mean, I would get it.” 

“It’s fine,” Bruce says, sounding more confident than he feels. He’s already locking his room door in his head, maybe pushing a chair up against it, though Thor might think that’s somewhat ridiculous. “I can maybe – I can try to induce a vision, but it’s usually not the safest, because I have to be underwater.” 

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Steve assures him. Bruce nods. “Do you guys want to go out for dinner later?”

“I’d like that,” Thor says. Bruce agrees. 

Dinner is nice. It’s nice to have companions that aren’t them , and to hear stories from new voices and new places, even if that new place is just Brooklyn rather than Queens. It’s nice to have new friends who seem just as okay with Bruce and his quirks as Thor is, and after dinner, he feels like he’s buzzing with energy, so he runs a bath and Thor finds some white noise on YouTube, and after some functional stripping down, Bruce steps inside. He doesn’t quite need sensory deprivation, and he’s not actually even sure if he needs the white noise at all, but it’s worked so far and he doesn’t want to change anything. Well, he’d like to change that he feels like he’s drowning every time, but that’s not at his leisure, he supposes. 

“Are you sure about this?” Thor asks as he grabs a handful of towels. 

“Yeah,” Bruce says. “It’s fine. If I do it now, I might see more.” 

He’s pretty sure that doesn’t reassure Thor, but there’s nothing else he can say. Thor, to his credit, lets Bruce do what he needs to do; Bruce will make it up to him sometime, let him pick the next book they read in the car or the next podcast – though honestly, they almost always somehow agree. Bruce never saw that coming.

“Okay,” he says. “Pull me out after a minute and a half, right?”

Thor nods, and Bruce submerges himself under the water in one fluid motion, feeling the water rise and slosh at the sides of the tub as he goes. It takes him a moment to detach himself from reality – he doesn’t really know how to, hasn’t mastered this power, just relies on the hope that he’ll reach the other side. Green door , he thinks. He needs to know about the green door. Please. Anything. 

There is a green door. You saw it for a moment when it happened, the first time, when the gamma overwhelmed you and from somewhere under your skin the Hulk woke up; and you see it again in the interlude, when you bridge the disconnect and make yourself the Hulk. You thought there would be the two of you in there, like usual; but he’s gone when you wake up, and all you remember is the door. You claw at Tony’s arm. 

“He’s gone,” you say. Tony doesn’t understand, though he looks like he wants to. He’s telling you to calm down. “He’s gone .” 

You meet Thor in a café in Brooklyn, which is not the part of New York that you know, but it’s the part that he likes the most. You wanted to take him for ice cream, but you feel as if the hipster patrons of a café full of bird’s-nest ferns are less likely to bother you than ecstatic five-year-olds on sugar highs. His hair is growing back, you notice, and because it’s Thor, even this awkward stage of growth suits him. You’ve missed him a lot; but you know he’s hurting, and you know that he wanted to be alone, and so you let him have his time. 

He has enough hair that he can tie it up again, and he has, and he knocks back half of his large mug of coffee in one go. 

Because he’s Thor, he’s said absolutely nothing about the fact that you are large, green, and wearing a cardigan, except to clap you on the bicep and tell you that you look great. Which makes you feel a little better, you suppose. 

But you came here to talk about it, so. 

“I think I killed the Hulk,” you say. He looks at you quite curiously, inviting you to keep going. “I can’t – I used to be able to hear him in my head, but now he’s gone.” You used to hate having him there, his monosyllabic rumbles in the back of your mind, but you feel so hideously empty without them now that you’re not quite sure what to do with yourself than call Thor and just – tell him, at least. He knew Hulk the best, eventually. The Big Guy. “I don’t know what to do.”

“It’s an opportunity to be just you, isn’t it?” Thor says. “You always hated what the Hulk did and who he hurt. Why not show that he – you – can be good?”

That’s a point. 

He hasn’t said anything about the fact that you might have killed a sentience, and you don’t know if that’s good or bad. You think about holding his hand. He looks like he might hold yours. “Be the Hulk with seven PhDs instead of zero.”

You remember when you told him what a PhD was, in the back room of the Grandmaster’s ship, and the look on his face when he realised what it meant that you had seven. You remember him kissing you, your hands coming up to cradle his cheeks. You remember him looking into your eyes, and then the way he smiled at you like you were the sunrise of his birthday. 

Oh God, you have missed him, you have missed the feeling of someone listening and caring and someone loving you who wouldn’t push you to get to the Hulk. 

“Thanks,” you say. “I just feel like I’ve made a mistake.” 

“It’s not a mistake,” Thor assures you. “It’s very cool.” 

You just – there’s no other reaction to that but to smile, and laugh, and the ache in your chest that missed him is beginning to fade. “I’m literally green, Thor. I’m not cool and no one wants to look at me.” 

“That’s not true,” Thor says, accusatory, “because I do.”

The meaning of that hangs in the air. You’re not sure if he meant to say that, but he isn’t going back on it, instead stubbornly holding to it. 

“Thor,” you say, and swallow, and try to find some words to make sense of what’s going on in your head and in your heart. You were never very good at that. He suddenly looks brave again, not ordinary, as if he could face down armies but instead that bravery is for you. 

“You’re going to say something else that’s self-deprecating,” Thor says, “but don’t. I don’t think you’re ugly or unwanted or stupid and I think you’re amazing and so smart and the things you did for Asgard were as brave as any God. I’m sorry you think you made a mistake, but I – I believe in you, Banner.” 

You want to kiss him, which you sure as hell can’t do in public. 

You invite him over to your house, and neither of you really fit on the subway trains. 

You have never loved yourself or any part of you but Thor loves you all already and you want to tell him not to be so foolish but he wouldn’t listen. When you shut the door behind you he’s kissing you, taking your shirt off, whispering things about you that you blush to hear. But you start to feel a freneticism to his touches; it feels like the way you used to bounce your leg in airports waiting for the next plane out to somewhere obscure where you could lie low for a while. You don’t know why, but you suddenly feel sure that this will be the last time you see him in a long time. He’s kissing you that way. 

He tells you you’re stunning, and you still think you’re stunning in the wrong way, and then he’s pushing you back onto the bed and you can feel the reinforced panels straining under the pressure, and you stop thinking. 

You do notice, though, that his arms aren’t hard muscle anymore. He’s a little soft and tender underneath. He still takes your breath away. 

You tell him about the green door. He’s sitting on your balcony drinking straight from the neck of your gallon bottle of orange juice, and he listens, and he says that in some stories he’s heard – not Norse, just stories, the ones that he seems to gather from living a life longer than the great oak trees – the green door is the doorway to hell. In others, it goes somewhere ineffably important. 

“Which one do you think it is?” you ask. 

“The Hulk isn’t from hell,” Thor says. “Frost Giants are.” He laughs, and then reaches up for your hand. “They’re all just stories. It could be nothing at all. Don’t worry.” 

You worry anyway. You’re very good at it. 

Bruce’s lungs are on fire when Thor pulls him from the water, wrapping the towel around him and scrubbing him dry. He gasps in his breaths, raggedly and desperate at first, and then Thor puts a hand on his chest, right at his abdomen, and reminds him to breathe , to take deep and steady breaths until his heart calms down. Bruce’s hands fumble and rest over Thor’s; he can feel a heartbeat somewhere there, one calmer than his, counting out the right number of beats per minute. 

“Hey,” Thor says. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve been better,” Bruce says. 

Thor gives him some space to palm himself dry and put some dry clothes on, and when Bruce emerges only semi-damp from the bathroom, Thor hands him a can of soda from the six-pack in the fridge. “What did you see?” he asks, the carbonation hissing as he opens his own. Bruce shakes his head. 

“Can we talk about it later?” he asks, and Thor says sure , and so instead they watch back-to-back reruns of Catfish on TV until late, when they curl up under the covers and Thor asks if Bruce could read him the last chapter of Northanger Abbey again and Bruce falls asleep halfway through a page. 

He doesn’t have any concrete visions in his dreams that night, just sees flashes from the life he seems to be connected to: another Bruce Banner, one from an unbelievable world where anything Bruce could convey would sound ridiculous. Other countries, other people; he sees someone who looks like Steve. When he wakes up, he puts an arm around Thor. 

“Why do you love me?” he asks. Thor stares through bleary eyes.

“Bruce, it’s nine am,” he says, and when Bruce keeps staring back at him, he sighs, tracing shapes on Bruce’s arm with his fingertips. Bruce isn’t sure what they are. One might be a word. One might be a bee. One might be a stegosaurus. He definitely feels Thor draw the Zodiac symbol on his arm, and feels a faint pang of offence, podcast or not. “I don’t know what you want me to say to that – like, do you want me to do the whole 10 Things I Hate About You ? I don’t know how I could explain why I love you, Bruce, because it’s everything about you. It’s how sweet you are and the way you read books to me like you mean it, and the way you cuddle into me when we’re in bed, and waiting for when I’m lucky enough to have you kiss me, or it’s you having to stand on your tiptoes to reach me. It’s the sound of you laughing when you’re happy, or singing along to songs on the radio when you think I’m asleep. If this is about you thinking that you don’t deserve me then I’ll argue with you until I run out of breath and pass out.” He kisses into Bruce’s hair – which, Bruce reflects, must not be actually that nice. Thor seems to like it, though. 

“Do you ever think about – do you think about predestination?” Bruce asks, and then realises that he’s used the wrong word. “Not – not religiously, I mean, but do you ever think that some people are just destined for things? Maybe that some people are always destined to be together, or – or, that someone is always destined to do the same thing, like in every universe I would come to science.” 

“I don’t know,” says Thor. “I haven’t thought about that. It’s nice to think about.” 

Bruce smiles. It is, a little, even if the other part of it is terrifying, thinking about the other Bruces that must exist out there. He only seems to have a connection with one, one abused as a child and who’s seen enough pain for more than one lifetime. “Okay, can I ask you one more deep question?”

“You’re testing my brain power here,” Thor says, but he doesn’t say no. Bruce swallows. 

He thinks about this all the time, he just–

Well, it’s scary to ask. 

So he shakes his head, and he says, “never mind, it’s okay”, and Thor asks him if he’s sure, and he says he’s sure and then forces himself to crawl out of bed and smooth down his T-shirt and pretend he’s a completely normal and fully functioning human being. He has one of the sodas in the fridge and ignores the nagging voice in his head that says he shouldn’t be having soda for breakfast, because really, the only person stopping him right now is him. Then his mom calls, and he starts feeling guilty, and so he lets Thor finish his soda. 

She doesn’t call that often – she agreed to let him have his grand adventure, after all, so he answers right away. “Hi, mom,” he says, loud enough so that Thor can hear him and flash him the thumbs up; they go through a quick series of gestures that indicate one, that Thor is going for a shower; two, that he’ll be about twenty minutes; and three, that they’ll go over to see if Steve, Sam, and Bucky are awake after. Bruce thinks that he really ought to learn sign language instead. “How are you? Is everything okay?” 

“Everything’s great,” she says, and she sounds so chipper that he believes her. “You know that your dad had that conference at Berkeley this week?” 

“Yeah – oh, has that been? How did it go?” 

“It went really well, and he’ll be back tomorrow to tell me all the professor gossip. But I wanted to check on you! Where are you? How are you guys? You haven’t had any dramatic arguments, have you? But I don’t think Thor’s the type…” 

“He’s not,” Bruce says, shielding his blush and smile behind his hand as if she can see him. “We’re having a really great time. We’re in New Orleans and we had beignets.” 

“Beignets! Oh, my God, it must have been – before you were born, the last time I had beignets. Your dad and I came down one summer on holiday and it was amazing . I’m so glad you’re having a good time. I just wanted to check you were okay, because I know – I know you have issues with the whole asexual thing and I know you’re worried that Thor’s not going to be okay with it forever. But, baby, I don’t think he’s the type to break up with you for that. He loves you. I know you worry.” 

Sometimes he swears that his mom is actually as psychic as he is, but also, he tells her everything. They’ve been close all his life. He goes to his dad for science and school advice, and goes to his mom for life advice. 

“Yeah,” Bruce says. “I was a bit worried, but – the stuff he says makes me really happy. Is that stupid?” 

“That’s just love, Bruce.” 

They talk for a little while longer – about the journey, about the books that they’ve both been reading (sometimes it feels like his mom is on a mission to actually read every single book from their local library, and he swears she could do it if she wanted) and how the neighbour’s cat is and about that ridiculous episode of Catfish Bruce watched last night. Her voice is comforting; he can let the thought of the green door and of the people pursuing him and of all the strange and unlikely things from his visions slip away when he speaks to her. On the phone he’s just Bruce Banner, eighteen, regular human disaster with a penchant for physics. He tells her about Steve and Bucky and Sam, and how relieved he feels to meet someone else who’s ace, because it reminds him that he’s not alone, and how they played Uno until his cheeks hurt from laughing. 

“I’m glad you’re having a good time,” his mom tells him, and he says yeah, me too . 

He hangs up as Thor comes out of the shower, his hair damp around his shoulders; Bruce swears he’s absorbent. He’s wearing a thrifted Empire Strikes Back T-shirt, and Bruce can’t help but smile looking at him. Whatever God brought them together, he’d like to know so that he can leave gifts for them every day and pray with their name. He’s not intuitively religious, but the more things happen to him, the more that he feels the immense need to thank someone or something and if giving the cosmic force of the universe a face helps with that then that’s the way he’ll go. 

When they meet with Steve, Sam, and Bucky, they all go out for breakfast together at a greasy spoon nearby. “Did you figure anything out?” Sam asks, sounding somewhat incredulous, which Bruce has to admit is only fair. 

“I think I’m related to the green door,” Bruce says. “The person in my visions – this other me, he talked about it too. But he doesn’t know what it is.” 

“I’m thinking your best bet is probably to try and lose those two,” says Sam. “Find a neighbourhood or some shit and just drive around. Or keep going on your road trip and maybe they’ll get bored of watching you two eat fucking beignets.” 

“Just because you don’t like fucking beignets, Sam,” Bucky mutters, shaking his head. 

“Hey, I like beignets, but I don’t understand why everybody goes crazy for them.” 

“We have to leave tomorrow,” Bruce says. “I don’t know where we’re going to go, but maybe we should just focus on getting rid of them. Or – or just enjoying the trip.” 

“Get some beignets for the road,” Bucky says, aiming a shit-eating grin at Sam. Bruce hides his own smile in a mouthful of fried egg. “Maybe when you two leave we can try standing non-suspiciously in front of the car and pretend to be lost tourists. Get you a headstart.” 

“You don’t have to,” Bruce says, but barely gets the words out before Sam laughs and says, “I want to, those creepy-ass motherfuckers”. 

“Where are you going to go?” Steve asks. 

Bruce knows that where he should be going is back to New York; it’s the last place he saw in his visions, and the further he goes, the less he seems to be able to sense aspects of the other Bruce’s life. But a part of him wants to just have the road trip, visit all the state capitals and go to more strange places and maybe meet more friends. He wants to be free to spend time with Thor before he has to go back to working out what’s happening. He knows that the summer is eventually going to end, and he’s okay with that. He’d just - he’d rather have spent the summer having a good time with Thor than having been busy worrying about where they were going next. 

“Maybe Sacramento,” he says. “I’ve never been to the West Coast before.” 

“Me neither,” Steve says, grinning. “This is me and Buck’s – what, first time out of New York?”

“I’ve never snuck out of Brooklyn, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

“Okay, are we all ignoring the fact that he just said he wanted to go to Sacramento ? Come on, man. You gotta go to L.A. if you’re going that far out,” Sam insists. “Unlike these two, who are probably going to live and die in Brooklyn and see no variety in their lives ever because they’re white and boring, I have been to the West Coast and it’s pretty fun.” 

“I love it when he calls me boring,” Bucky says dryly. “They want to go to Sacramento, Sam, because they’ve seen Lady Bird and they have taste.” 

Sam scoffs. 

There’s a jazz and soul club that lets in eighteen-year-old patrons (provided, of course, that they keep a fair distance from the bar), so, as the sun disappears in an amber haze over the city, they all decide to head over and have something akin to a night out before Thor and Bruce have to leave. Steve, Sam, and Bucky are staying a little longer in New Orleans and then heading back for the East Coast; they’ve been road tripping for longer and starting to miss the comfort of their beds in Brooklyn. “Not that we’ll be there that long,” Steve says. “Since we’re going to college.”

Bruce almost trips on the curb; Thor catches his arm. Bruce flushes, and in an effort to distract himself from his own embarrassment, asks “where are you going to college?”

“Oh, just Brooklyn College,” Steve says. “Nothing fancy.”

“Can’t take the New Yorker out of New York,” Bucky says fondly, putting an arm around Steve. “Steve is going to be in Brooklyn forever. I’m calling it.” 

“What would I ever need outside of Brooklyn?” Steve asks with a grin. “What about you, Bruce?” 

“I’m going to MIT.” 

Bucky whistles. “That’s nice,” he says. “I’m going to Emerson. They’re not far. We could get coffee sometime.” He glances over at Thor. “Where’s he going? Are you guys going to different places?” 

“He’s studying in England,” Bruce says, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Durham.” 

“Damn,” Bucky says. “Not that I have literally any idea where Durham is, but England is far. Good luck. But, I don’t know, you two seem like you could figure it out. Have you guys been going out long? I’d kinda be scared at this point if I ever saw one of you without the other.”

Bruce blushes. “A couple months, I guess. It just - it feels like he gets me.” 

“That’s good,” Bucky says. “That’s what’s important, right?” 

The jazz club is one of those in a basement, tucked down a flight of stairs; Bruce can hear the joyous sound of trumpets and the low buzz of the double bass as they approach, and he winds his fingers with Thor’s. There’s just something about the sounds of New Orleans that he loves - they’re like nothing he hears in New York, really. New York sounds like sirens and chatter. New Orleans sounds like soul. He could live here someday, maybe. He should mention it to Thor. 

The jazz club is loud, and busy, and full of people listening and dancing; it overwhelms Bruce a little, and Thor guides him gently over to a table, and gestures to him do you want a drink ? 

“A lemonade,” Bruce says, as loud as he can. Thor nods, and then leans in to kiss him on the forehead. Bruce smiles. 

As Thor makes his way to the bar, he glances around for Steve; but he and Bucky are already right in the middle of the dance floor, hand in hand, tearing it up as if it’s where they were born to be. Sam slides in next to Bruce with his own soda, grinning. “Those two idiots love dancing,” he says into Bruce’s ear. “They always say they should’ve been born in the dancehall era.” 

“They should’ve,” Bruce says with a laugh; and then a moment later, Thor is handing him a drink and sitting down. The lemonade is zesty, strong and sharp. This is nice in a way that Bruce doesn’t know how to describe. It’s busy, yeah, too busy for his liking - but as he sits and listens to the music and watches the hectic movement of the people on the floor, he starts to feel like he’s adjusting, getting used to the heat and the cram and the noise. And, yeah, it kinda helps that Steve and Bucky are out there and living their dream. 

When he finishes his lemonade, Thor leans over. “Do you want to dance?” he asks with a grin. Bruce does not want to dance. In fact, he’d rather sink into his seat, but Thor is smiling at him like that, and he - he can’t say no. This is as much Thor’s road trip as his. He swallows. Maybe it doesn’t matter that he can’t dance; no one’s watching, he’s sure. 

“Okay,” he says, and takes Thor’s hand. 

The band are playing an old Duke Ellington standard, one of the riotous ones, the one that seems to bring a whole dancefloor alive in a way that it wasn’t before. Bruce’s feet don’t quite keep up, aren’t made for jiving; he trips over his own, and Thor’s, but Thor is holding his hands and keeping him steadily upright even as they disastrously bash against each other. Bruce wasn’t exactly born with much rhythm, and for a moment he feels a pit in his stomach as he thinks that he must be messing this up so bad and ruining Thor’s time – and then he looks up, and Thor is just so full of unadulterated joy that Bruce almost stops still for a moment. 

Instead, he pulls Thor’s hands in to his chest and kisses him full-force. 

Thor says something that Bruce can’t hear but thinks might be why did I ever have to live without you (or maybe that’s just Bruce projecting, but he goes red anyway), and then they’re just dancing again, all of Bruce’s thoughts and feelings besides euphoria fading away as he listens to the sound of the trumpets, the trombones, the French horns, trumpets cornets euphoniums tubas tenor horns saxophone bass like his heartbeat in triple-time – 

Even when he finally steps back out into the night, it’s still too warm to cool his sweat-soaked skin or his spirits. 

He’s so tired he could just fall asleep the moment they get back to the hotel room, but instead he has a bath, and Thor sits on the toilet seat and shampoos his hair, fingers working through Bruce’s curls and easing the knots out. “Do you use conditioner?” Thor asks as he starts the showerhead again, sending cascades of foamy water down Bruce’s back. 

“No,” he says. 

“It makes your hair soft.” 

“Okay.” 

Thor smooths some into Bruce’s hair, massaging little circles into his scalp. It feels nice, and now that he’s untangled Bruce’s hair, every motion is safe, silky. “Did you have a good time?” Thor asks. God, the conditioner smells good, citrus-y (why is everything citrus scented?); no wonder Thor’s hair is always a wonderful cacophony of fruity smells. 

“Yeah,” Bruce says. “It was really fun.” 

“Good,” Thor says, and then, as he’s washing the conditioner out of Bruce’s hair, Bruce looks up slightly and says, “I love you”. 

Thor rinses the last of the conditioner out, hooks the showerhead back in the cubicle, and puts his forehead to Bruce’s, yin and yang. “I love you too,” he says, and they sit like that for a while, the water on Bruce’s skin slowly evaporating. “I’m happy you had a good time.” 

Bruce emerges from the water when it’s tepid, letting it drain as he scruffs his hair with a towel. Thor finds him a set of clean clothes from somewhere (honestly, Bruce doesn’t care if they’re the clothes from the floor that he wore two days ago or clothes from his bag; he’s not exactly paying attention) and they curl up in bed. Bruce’s hair smells good. He can smell it on the pillow. 

“Hey, Thor,” he says. “Can you read to me?” 

“Of course,” says Thor. “What should I read?” 

“You pick.” 

Thor gets out of the bed, rummages around for a while, and then slides back in at Bruce’s side. He clears his throat. “ Your father is about to ask me the question ,” he reads. Bruce closes his eyes, focusing on the sound of Thor’s regal voice as he reads, taking his time. Bruce sometimes reaches the end of a sentence before he realises what it meant; but Thor never does that. He never makes a mistake in his tone. 

When he finishes the story, Bruce is crying, and when he opens his eyes and looks up, he realises that Thor is, too. 

“I’m sorry,” Thor says, sniffing. “That was a terrible choice.” 

“It was a good story,” says Bruce. “I liked it. It was just… sad.” 

“I think I prefer Northanger Abbey .” 

Bruce likes this story more - he felt like it resonated with him, touched his heart, but instead he says, “me, too”.

“I could’ve gone without ever seeing this car again,” Bruce says as he stares at it, tucked in the corner of the hotel parking lot: there it is, their trusty and wonderfully ugly Mercedes from the 80s that has definitely seen better decades. Steve has come to see them off, the others away to act as distractions, and he chuckles as he sees it. 

“Wow,” he says. “She’s hideous.” 

“I like her,” Thor argues. “She’s very trusty.” 

“I guess that’s the important part,” Steve acknowledges, and he turns to Bruce, pressing a post-it note into his palm. “This is Bucky’s number, since you guys are going to college in the same state. He doesn’t answer his calls but he will answer his texts. Good luck. I hope that you find what you’re looking for, whatever it is, and that you get there safe.” 

“Thank you, Steve,” Bruce says, and is pleasantly surprised when he’s drawn into a hug. Steve is like a big ball of warmth. “Please keep wearing turtlenecks.” 

Steve’s face splits into a genuine grin of mirth. “How else am I gonna show the world that I’m aroace? By saying no to dates? That just isn’t going as well as the turtlenecks.” 

“I don’t know, I just shouted I’m asexual at Thor and it seemed to go pretty well,” Bruce says, and he can see the light in Steve’s eyes change and get brighter with the realisation. 

“I’m glad you two are together,” Steve says. “You’re sweet. It’s important to find someone in your life who understands and supports you – romantically or not; I mean, I’ve got Buck. It’s good that he gets you. Never waste your time on shitty people.” 

“I won’t,” Bruce says. 

“Good. That’s some life advice for you. Now enjoy the rest of your trip.” 

Steve hugs Thor, too, and then it’s over: Thor is driving them out of the parking lot, and Bruce is unfurling their U.S. state map, and they’re passing through the almost-familiar streets of New Orleans as they depart. Bruce is going to miss it; he listens to the music on the street until they’re too far out for any more bands, and then turns on the radio. “I don’t want to go through Texas,” he says, “so – our next stop is Arkansas.” 

Thor, God bless him, doesn’t ask Bruce why. 

“You’re gay,” Natasha says to you, and you are so fucking tired you can’t believe you’re not currently asleep, and you turn your head to face hers. Both of you are lying on the floor of one of the rooms of the Avengers Facility, sprawled out between reams and reams of notes and papers with any information about the Infinity Stones you could scrounge, but neither of you have actually looked at the paper for hours. You’ve just been talking. Tony just got up for coffee. You think you’re going to need an IV of the stuff soon. Thor is in another room. You want to speak to him, but you’re not sure his head is with the rest of him. 

“I’m not,” you say feebly, and she gives you that look of hers that says, uh-huh . 

“I’m not angry,” she says. 

“I didn’t want to be,” you say. “Because - because everyone would know. It’s not like we have secrets anymore.” You pause. “I just want people to stop talking about me like I’m a monster.” 

She takes your hand. Hers is so small, now. “I didn’t love you in the right way, either. I’m sorry.” 

For a little while, neither of you say anything, and just sit in the knowledge of what you’ve said; all the things that you didn’t have the strength or the time to say to each other before. You realise that you don’t know what time it is; it could be evening, or night, or early morning. There’s something sad about the fact that this is what it took for them all to reconnect: catastrophe, and the fall, and five years where people either found their feet or didn’t. You sort of did. Maybe you’re a little wobbly. 

“Do you have a crush on someone?” she asks in that gossipy voice. She’ll never admit it, but she loves a bit of gossip. 

“Promise me you won’t laugh,” you say. 

“I can’t promise that,” she says. You resist the urge to roll your eyes. 

“It’s Thor,” you say in a quiet voice. She gasps. 

“Oh my God ,” she says. “Oh my God!” 

“I’m sorry, what wonderful piece of news did I miss? Is Bruce pregnant?” Tony asks as he walks in, banging the door shut with his foot. You laugh, and blush, and look away like you’re teenagers who have just been caught making out on the couch - even though that’s pretty much the opposite of what you’ve just done. “Is it twins? Are they going to be green?” 

“Green and smart,” you say. 

“You should call one of them Bruce Jr.,” Tony says. 

“Call the other one Natasha,” Natasha says, grinning at you, “even if it’s a boy.” 

You look at Tony, and you realise that this man is the closest thing you have to a best friend because he’s one of the few people you’ve seen in the five year interlude; you’re the godfather to his daughter, who calls you Uncle Hulk, and you were there to watch her grow up, and honestly you love her, and you realise that if you’re going to tell Natasha, you might as well tell Tony. 

“I’m gay,” you say. 

He pauses. “I actually don’t know if I’m surprised or not,” he says, “but congratulations. I’ll pop the champagne.”

Bruce wakes up just as they pass into Oklahoma; Thor is tapping his fingers against the material of the steering wheel, singing along to what Bruce sort-of recognised as Orville Peck. He’s still thinking about the Thorncrown Chapel, about praying there and asking the universe to please, please, just send him the right way. Whatever that way may be. He also can’t stop thinking about the hive of wasps in the other Bruce’s mind. He’s – he feels so much more hesitant , as if every step has to be tread carefully. His love for Thor comes with just as much fear. When he mentioned children, Bruce felt his stomach soar with a gentle joy, only to be quashed by reality. 

There has to be a reason behind this. Him, and Thor, and the other him, and his Thor. 

“Thor,” Bruce says. 

Thor stops singing along to look over, and say “yeah?”

“I love you in another dimension,” he says, and looks over. “That’s not – a figure of speech, but the other me… He loves you and he doesn’t know how to tell you he’d follow you wherever you go.” 

Thor doesn’t say anything for a moment as Orville sings about boys passing by. Bruce knows that was maybe a little too much – maybe the kind of thing that might push Thor away, eventually, the truth which is that he seems to be intrinsically wound into this in a way Bruce doesn’t understand or know how to articulate. 

“Can you talk to the other you?” he asks eventually. 

“No,” Bruce says. “I’m just watching.” 

“So you can’t tell him to just say how he feels?” 

“No – but wouldn’t it be weird, to say everything you feel? As in, everything ?”

Thor shrugs. “Has he said something before?” 

“Yeah, but I don’t know what. I just have these pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that don’t quite fit. It’s – I guess they just don’t know that they’d stay.” Bruce sighs, wringing his hands in his lap. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Thor says soothingly, reaching over to lightly squeeze Bruce’s thigh. “You’ll work it out. In whichever dimension.” He pauses, and then lifts his hand, and says, “oh, shit, I took the wrong turn-off, this isn’t McDonald’s,” and Bruce laughs as Thor struggles his way through a hundred and eighty degree turn in the middle of a busy parking lot. “Stop laughing at me, you can’t even parallel park.” 

“I’m not laughing,” Bruce says, holding his hands up, and then laughs again. 

“I don’t see you offering to do the turn for me,” Thor pouts, and eventually manages to get out, find the right turn-off, and park in an approximation of a space. Thor orders for both of them, and Bruce heads for the bathroom, finding it frankly unfair how Thor’s bladder seems to have so much more storage space than this. He’s always having to stop somewhere to use the toilet. It’s down a flight of stairs, and Bruce lets himself into a stall, logging into the wifi and scrolling through his newsfeed for a little moment of peace before he finishes his business and steps out to wash his hands. 

Above the sinks is a row of brightly-lit mirrors, and Bruce stops as he sees his reflection because –

well, it isn’t him. 

His reflection is huge and hulking with green skin, wearing a V-neck and a cardigan and big glasses, and staring back with different eyes. Bruce wants to look away – it’s his first reaction – but instead he keeps determinedly staring ahead, looking at the other him, wondering if this is a two-way interaction or not or if Bruce has actually just finally lost his marbles.

“That’s new,” he says to himself, raising his hand to the glass and watching as the other hand moves with him. 

He feels a little faint as he ascends the stairs and walks to Thor’s table; but Thor just looks up at him, and beams, and says “I got you a McFlurry!”, waving it in the air. Bruce can’t help but smile, and he sits down slowly as Thor pushes his lunch over. “Filet of fish, fries, and some juice. Then you can have your ice cream.” He winks, and then pauses, taking in Bruce. “Are you alright?” 

“Yeah,” Bruce says, feeling bad for lying but not knowing quite how to explain what’s going on. He’ll tell Thor when he finds the words, he’s sure. “I’m just really hungry. Thanks.” He pops open the box for his Filet-o-Fish, depositing his fries into the empty side and giving them a definitely unnecessary dusting of salt. What he said to Thor wasn’t entirely a lie. He’s hungry. 

Thor reaches across the table, and brushes some of Bruce’s hair out of his face. 

Something stirs in his belly like déjà vu, like the feeling that this has happened in thousands of dimensions; the touch of Thor’s hand to Bruce’s forehead, the tenderness, the yearning and longing in thousands of degrees of intensity. He swallows. 

“Bruce?” Thor asks. “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

“I’m sorry,” Bruce says. “It’s just – I feel – I feel weird.” 

Thor looks at him, and gets up so that they’re sitting side by side. Thor eats one of Bruce’s fries and says, “honey, please tell me how you’re feeling. I want to know and it makes me sad that you feel as if you can’t tell me.” He brushes his lips against Bruce’s temple. “I know that you’re worried that what you say sounds ridiculous or weird or scary to me but I’m here to listen to all of it because I love you and I want to know what you’re going through so I can support you.” 

Bruce sinks into Thor’s shoulder, slowly. He feels bad for hiding things, but better knowing that Thor wants to hear it all – and, well, he feels a lot better being called honey . 

“In the bathroom, when I looked into the mirror, I saw the other me, and – he’s – he’s… big, and green, and that’s just his life now, apparently. But I’m seeing him in the mirrors,” he says. Thor puts his hand over Bruce’s. “Steve, and Sam, and Bucky – I’ve seen all three of them in his life, too. It feels like everything is connected and as if this is all meant to be happening. And…” Bruce takes a long pause, because he really, really wishes he wasn’t in a McDonald’s for this. “I saw the other me, and you, and they had sex, and I think all the time does it bother you that I don’t want to because –”

“Bruce,” Thor says, cutting him off. “You don’t have to explain anything. It doesn’t bother me. It could never bother me. I love you and that doesn’t – that doesn’t end because you’re ace. If there are other versions of us that are having sex, good for them. But all I want is for you to be happy in your way.” 

And then they eat lunch, and Bruce doesn’t know how he’s supposed to cope with the way he feels so overwhelmed by Thor’s kindness, so he goes to the toilet again. 

“Are you going to cry?” Thor asks, catching his hand as he goes. “Are you okay?”

“Good cry,” Bruce assures him, and sobs his eyes out in a stall for five minutes, and when he comes out and finishes his McFlurry, he feels like everything is going to be okay. He’s going to get to where he needs to be, no matter what circuitous route he ends up on. Thor is with him. Thor will always be with him. It’s meant to be. 

The air feels clearer when he steps outside. 

And then he sees Quentin Beck’s car, and suddenly he isn’t so sure of everything anymore. 

Bruce almost falls off a camel at Tulsa Zoo, and ends up with a souvenir photo to prove it. Thor keeps giggling every time he sees it, and there is no other way to describe that laugh but a mischievous giggle. He rolls his eyes, and looks away as indignantly as he can manage, and then the picture is tucked away into Thor’s Metropolitan Museum bag and Thor’s arm is through Bruce’s and they’re heading for a giraffe feeding session. Bruce is aware that they’re both somewhat over the average age of enjoyment for this kind of thing, and yet can’t really muster a fuck to give, like when he used to swing with Thor at the kids’ park near his house in New York, before they even started dating. And then a little after they started, too, hurtling around on the roundabout until Bruce thought he was going to pass out and begged Thor to stop and laughed until his ribs hurt. 

Dating had been kind of a slow process for them; it was all words and hand-holding first, well before Bruce could quite muster the gusto for kissing (it is, as it turns out, an activity as easy as breathing now), a language of palm and wrist squeezes. Most of it had been taking up with Bruce trying to teach Thor science, and Thor trying to teach him history, and both of them sprawled out on Bruce’s floor with an army of coloured pens making study posters. They’d definitely been too old for making posters, but not too old for having fun, and definitely not too old for improving their grades. Things Bruce couldn’t work out suddenly made sense; the things he never understood in class, Thor would explain over lunch or on the way home, his hair in various updos. 

Bruce doesn’t have the words to describe the joy Thor brought into his life. 

Or the feeling when Hela had looked at him and said “fucking fine”, which was the closest she came to I approve of you dating my brother , or the feeling when she had sat down with him and his state map and explained how to read it, or the feeling when he met Thor’s mother Frigga for the first time and she had looked at him and smiled and said “is this him?” and Thor had nodded. 

And now they’re standing here, waiting for the giraffe-feeding session, and Bruce leans against Thor’s shoulder. “They haven’t followed us,” he says. 

“Supervillains can’t be seen having fun,” Thor says, putting a hand on Bruce’s back. 

“Maybe they’re tight-fisted.”

“Imagine seeing Darth Vader with a meerkat.” 

Bruce laughs. “Darth Vader with Porgs.” He pauses, watching the children behind them in the queue jump around. “I guess it means we have a little downtime where we don’t have to worry.” 

And, yes, it’s essentially impossible to worry about anything while feeding giraffes, except that the giraffe might eat your hand. But Bruce doesn’t get that impression, standing there, creature bowed before him, eating from his hand: instead, he feels, for a brief and wonderful moment, just a pure rush of joy, a grin stretching across his face like he’s a kid. Thor is excited, too, and after they’ve thoroughly washed their hands, they get ice cream. 

“I’ve never been to a zoo before,” Thor says, suddenly, as they’re perched on a bench, eating. “My family – we always went to museums and galleries, but I don’t think they’d ever think of coming here. I’m glad we came.”

Bruce smiles. “Me too,” he says. “I’m glad you got to finally see a zoo. And feed the giraffes. And – and I know I said we shouldn’t bother seeing the monkeys, but if you want, we can go see them anyway.” 

Thor, being Thor, loves the monkeys; but Thor, being Thor, loves everything from the tiny reptiles and amphibians to the great big bears to the red pandas. Everything is new and exciting for him, every animal a new experience, and when they finally emerge from the zoo, it feels like there’s a whole new spark inside him. Thor seems tired, sometimes, even though he’s relentlessly optimistic and supportive, as if he needs to sleep for weeks; but now it’s like he’s supercharged, and he looks at Bruce and says, “let’s go to a bookshop and find something new.” 

They find a small one, an independent bookshop with two cats sitting in the doorway like guards that categorises all of its books astonishingly neatly and specifically. Book recommendations are handwritten and all begin with phrases like if you like your sci-fi with twists that make your head hurt, you’ll love this! or for fans of: books that seem gay and ARE gay (Bruce certainly is a fan of those). At the back is a repurposed old chest full of zines: some are made by local artists, authors, and activists; some are apparently classic; and then there’s just a hodgepodge of others. Bruce decides to look at the science books, and the science-fiction; Thor looks at some of the fiction, then the poetry, then the zines. When Thor sits down to read some, one of the cats strides over and bounces up into his lap; Thor smiles, scratching behind its ears. Bruce decides to look for something he thinks Thor would enjoy. 

The thing about Thor is that, when it comes to books and music and films, it’s almost impossible to guess his taste. He’s a strangely odd soul underneath. 

Bruce looks for a long time – books he remembers reading when he was younger, some interesting-looking essay collections, more classics. In the end, he settles on Howl’s Moving Castle , and takes it over to Thor when he realises Thor has nodded off, cat on his lap and zine barely remaining in his hand. Bruce rescues the zine from his hand, and has a look through it himself. It’s about queer experiences, and Thor is on a page about communication and consent, about asking to touch and kiss. The next page is about celebrating queer identities, a colourful spread. The zine is actually quite cheerful, full of the joys that come with being in love and accepting your identity. Bruce buys the book and the zine for Thor, and then wakes him up gently. Thor usually doesn’t wake up to gentle prodding, but since it’s a nap, his eyelids flutter and he looks up, and the cat jumps from his lap. 

“Hi,” he says, dazedly. 

“Hey,” says Bruce. “Wakey-wakey. I think we should go now, alright?” 

“Okay,” says Thor, and stretches as he gets up, almost knocking over a DIY display on feminism; he blanches at the horror of almost making a mess, and makes a face that reads yikes at Bruce, tiptoeing carefully out of the door. The shopkeeper, a girl with expressively ginger hair and a red leather jacket draped like a cape over a shoulder, smiles and says “thank you!” as they leave. 

Bruce decides that he’s going to drive for the next stretch; Thor assembles a series of snacks on his lap and eats them in lieu of a proper dinner as they speed through the night, the sky tumbling through oranges and pinks and then a gradient of dark and navy blues until eventually it’s just a cape of spotted black. He listens to Mitski until he notices that Thor has nodded off again, and then listens to a local country station at a low volume. 

There’s the strangest feeling starting to settle in the pit of his stomach, like – anticipation, maybe. The sense that something is going to happen. He’s just – he’s not sure what . 

They essentially drive right through Kansas; they stop for food, mostly, and at a few odd destinations here and there. They visit the World’s Largest Collection of Smallest Versions of Largest Things, which Bruce finds himself oddly fascinated by; Truckhenge, of course, with its accompanying Beer Bottle City; the Wichita Troll; and the Museum of Odd. They listen to a podcast about a Scottish serial killer called Bible John for most of Kansas, and then switch to the audiobook of The Disaster Artist when Thor’s free audiobook credit comes in. 

What really makes Kansas, though, is when Bruce wakes up from having slept in the back while pulled over, and Thor asks him if he wants to make out, and Bruce is still rubbing the sleep from his eyes when Thor climbs into the back and kisses him until Bruce is pretty sure his mouth is numb. He’s still getting used to his boundaries and where they are, but if there’s one thing he’s pretty sure of – he just really likes kissing Thor. He likes physical contact, likes having his hand held, likes feeling secure. 

Thor has the aux cord, and he’s playing Kendrick Lamar’s LOVE. , and Bruce lies on the back seat still in that haze, and is so glad that he’s here. That everything has worked out like this. He thinks about that scene in The Two Towers where Sam, brave soul that he is, says “even darkness must pass”; and thinks that for him the dark is a cloud that comes and goes, sometimes blotting out the sun and sometimes not. His instinct is to be scared, nervous, anxious; and then at times like these he forgets that that’s his instinct at all. 

He can’t believe at the start of this journey he was still scared to say the word love, or to even book a double-room with Thor, and now they’re crushed in together listening to music, their bodies blurring; where Thor ends, Bruce starts. 

Beck and Klaue are still behind them; but Bruce almost can’t find himself to care as they head into Colorado, because Thor is busy introducing him to Janelle Monáe as the sun takes its place as the crown of the sky. 

“Can we stay in a haunted hotel?” Thor asks as they soar through the highways, everything by the roadside blurring horizontally with the speed. Bruce looks over and makes a face, but Thor presses. “The hotel from The Shining is in this state. I really want to see it.” 

Bruce considers this. Thor wouldn’t usually push Bruce too hard on anything he doesn’t want to do (obviously, he likes to try and convince Bruce to broaden his horizons and ride camels, but he knows that there are limits), so he must either really want to go or have some sort of stake in it. So Bruce says “okay, sure” even though he has a very unscientific fear of ghosts and would really not like to see any in this lifetime. “Where is it?” he asks. 

“Clackamas County, near the mountains,” says Thor, demonstrating a truly surprising knowledge of American geography in that statement alone. He must’ve looked it up. He definitely really wants to go. Bruce doesn’t even know where that is, so he pulls out the map and follows it with his finger. His topography isn’t great. 

“Okay,” Bruce says again. “But I’m not going to be happy if we see any ghosts.” 

“You don’t believe in ghosts,” Thor says, sounding somewhat baffled. 

“I’m just saying.”

“I’ll protect you,” Thor insists, though Bruce senses he’s joking. He runs a hand through Bruce’s hair for a moment, and smiles, and Bruce’s stomach feels as if it might just fall out of him entirely. He wonders if he’ll feel like this forever, every time he looks at Thor, every time Thor holds his hand. He rests his head against the back of the car seat. 

“I want to stop for dinner soon,” he says, and what he means is I want you to touch me . 

Thor or Stephen King may have overestimated the eeriness of the hotel somewhat, because the first thought that enters Bruce’s mind as they drive up is that it looks nice; and then his whole mind feels like it just opens , and he has to stumble out of the car to throw up. Thor puts a hand on his back and rubs circles in the skin there, gentle, as Bruce tries to deal with the overwhelming noise and awareness . It feels now as if there is an open tunnel between him and the other Bruce with traffic he can’t stop. He feels bombarded with other memories and feelings, and squats on the ground until he feels as if he isn’t just going to keel over. 

“Are you okay?” Thor asks, his hand still warm on Bruce’s back. 

“Yeah,” Bruce says. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay,” Thor assures him. “Have some water.” 

Thor keeps him outside for a little while, sipping water, and then when Bruce feels better, they head for check-in.

Bruce remembers, as Thor books a room, wondering at the start of the trip if it was presumptuous to book one room; and now he would feel lonely sleeping away from Thor, without the warmth of his arms or the sound of him snoring, without his hand smoothing over the small of Bruce’s back. He never expected that, in the occasion that he fell in love, he would be so desperate for touch; but now it’s their closest form of communication. There are things Bruce doesn’t know if either of them could say without their hands.

“It feels,” Bruce says as they walk to their room, a small one because they’ve booked in person, “like I can hear everything now.” 

“Does that include where we’re going?” Thor asks enthusiastically. Bruce gives him a sorry look, but Thor puts an arm around him again and squeezes him. “It’s okay. We have time.”

Bruce is starting to think that they don’t, but he doesn’t mention that. Instead, he stops dead in the hallway and points a figure out to Thor; said figure is in the middle of struggling immensely to get his room door open, but Bruce says “that’s Tony Stark, the famous app developer, the MIT guy I was talking about”, which attracts enough attention from Tony to pester Thor into opening the door for him. Tony sniffs. 

“They really oughta work out a better system,” he says in lieu of a thank you, and then shuts the door. 

At least Bruce has some courtesy. 

The hotel is quite old-fashioned, and a little eerie, not aided by the fact that it has an entire room dedicated to the film of The Shining , complete with a cut-out of the twin girls with space for someone to put their head through. Thor fails to convince Bruce to take a photo of him grinning through the cutout, but another guest volunteers as photographer. Bruce wonders if people in the seventies or eighties also found this kind of décor creepy, or if it’s just because it is historical that it bothers him now. 

The other Bruce was alive in the eighties, Bruce realises. Something about this furniture is normal to him; Bruce sees flashes of it in his memories. 

“Do you want to know about the other you?” Bruce asks as they settle into their hotel room, distributing their bags and eating their complementary mints. Thor hums, taking a seat, the bed dipping beneath his weight. 

“No,” he says, crumpling the wrapper of his mint. “I wasn’t given the ability to look, so I don’t think I’m supposed to.” There’s an unusual seriousness to the way he says it: not that Thor being serious is unusual, but he just so often blends seriousness with humour that it’s strange to see it without its partner. 

Then he throws the mint wrapper at the bin and misses by such an extraordinarily wide margin that Bruce chokes with laughter, and the moment passes. 

“Hey,” Bruce says. “Sit with me. I’m going to see if I can see anything.” Thor nods, and starts unlacing his boots, crossing his legs and pressing his knees up against Bruce’s. Bruce adjusts the neck of his T-shirt, loosening the way it presses against his skin. “What does it look like when I’m – looking?”

Thor considers this. “It’s like you go somewhere,” he says. “Somewhere else. And I can’t reach you when you’re there.” 

“I wish I could show you things,” Bruce says. “It’s hard to explain sometimes because it – it seems like it’s about the feeling , not always about what happens.” He wishes that he could say more, say something helpful or useful or good – but instead, he shuts his eyes, and reaches out with his mind’s eye, listening to the babble of the other Bruce’s life and waiting for a moment to surface. He feels like he could see everything, if he wanted, but–

This is new –

There are exactly fourteen days between the battle and when Thor leaves. He didn’t tell you he was going to. You don’t think you are to Thor what he is to you. 

(Is that fine, or does it hurt? Everything hurts. You can’t distinguish the boundaries of your pain.) 

In the fourteen days, he tells you lots of things that you need to hear: that you are strong and that you are brave and that you did it, you saved everyone, you helped beyond helping. He tells you that you are the hero, that nobody is scared of you anymore. He caresses your face. His hands are small on your cheeks. 

“I can’t tell who’s the bigger ass,” Rhodey says after you find out that Thor has left. “Him for leaving or you for not just speaking the fuck up. Okay, I mean, it’s clearly him but how could you not tell him you loved him?”

You put your face in your hands. 

“What if I ruin everything?” you say. Rhodey always speaks the truth, even when it hurts, and you can never hold it against him in the way you could against Tony because Tony could be an ass about it but Rhodey always just sounds like he’s desperate for you to get your life on track rather than aimlessly mock. 

“Thor’s a guy who runs away,” Rhodey says, wisely ignoring your despaired question. “When things get too real for him. Just ask Jane Foster. Dude could be at the front line of a war, but you ask him to talk about his feelings and he goes clammy. You gotta give him a motivation to stay. Tell him you love him.” 

“Isn’t it too soon?”

“Bruce, you literally banged him.” 

“There’s still a refractory period after that and before the love thing, right?”

“Did you read a fucking book on this or something? You say it when it’s right, and when’s right is whenever Thor shows his sorry ass on Earth again.” 

You sigh. Rhodey is drinking wine, but you would need a barrel to get you even tipsy. And you don’t actually drink in the first place, which is probably the more important part. 

“Are you dating anyone, Rhodey?”

“I’m aromantic, man.”

“Then how can you give dating advice?!” you admonish, turning around and staring wide-eyed at him. He laughs. 

“It’s cause I have to give so much goddamn dating advice!” he says, pushing your shoulder. “You’re all idiots.” 

Three things that Rhodey says to Thor when he arrives at the new Avengers headquarters:

• hey, asshole, did you even think about telling us before you left, come on man earth still needs avengers

• where is your arm

• bruce has something to say to you

What you say: 

• thor where’s your arm what happened are you okay we can get you an arm i really missed you oh shit your arm – rhodes – call wakanda –

Bruce’s eyes open. “His Thor is back,” he says to Thor. “He has to say something. He has to tell Thor he loves him – oh, God, he’s not going to.” He claps a hand over his mouth, realising that he’s just talking and that there’s nothing he can do and remembering the hopelessness of being a bystander. Thor takes his hands. Bruce feels tears burning in his eyes and he’s not sure whose they are. “His arm,” he says. 

“Bruce,” Thor says. “Where are we right now?”

“Uh – the Stanley Hotel, Colorado,” Bruce says, letting Thor talk him calm, feeling the softness of Thor’s hands against his. Usually he feels a separation between his different modes of being, but here the distinction feels thin. 

“Do you know what day it is?”

“Is it Thursday?”

“It’s Wednesday.”

“Oh. I mean–” 

“It’s okay,” Thor says, dismissing it. Bruce hasn’t really had an inkling of the days of the week for a while now. Every day is a nameless one, characterised instead by what he did with Thor. “Are you back?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think so, I can feel the sheets.” 

Thor decides to take him out for lunch after that, even though Bruce insists he feels back and grounded in the world, especially after they leave the hotel and his whole head quietens. Lunch is at a fairly nice restaurant, a step up from their usual chains, but Thor says it’s his treat, since he’s made Bruce stop off at a spooky haunted hotel anyway. Bruce isn’t going to complain, and even though he ate recently, he wolfs down his lunch anyway. It’s delicious. 

“Would you cut my hair?” Thor asks as they start walking back, hand-in-hand. Bruce looks over, slowly running a hand through Thor’s long locks. He loves them, loves tangling his fingers in them; they feel like quintessential Thor . 

“You want to cut it?” Bruce asks. “How short?” 

“Short,” Thor says. He gestures to some kind of crew cut with his hands, and Bruce tries to stop himself blanching, but he’s pretty sure the colour goes out of his face anyway. “I’m eighteen. I’ve had long hair for years. I just want a change before I go to college.”

Bruce supposes that makes a lot of sense, but he’s going to miss Thor’s hair nonetheless. “Okay,” he says. “But you know I can’t cut hair, right?” 

Thor shrugs. “You can try.”

“This could go terribly. Really terribly.” 

But Thor insists that everything will be fine, and so they buy a razor and head back to their hotel room. Bruce decides to cut Thor’s hair in the bath, not entirely sure where else to, starting with the pair of scissors he keeps in his backpack to cut tags off and then pushing the razor up and through Thor’s thick hair, watching it all fall away. It’s strange, watching it happen. It’d be hypnotic, if Bruce didn’t feel so nervous. 

“Do you know that C-section babies have better shaped heads than babies who – uh, came out the other way?” 

“What makes a better head?” Thor asks with a little chuckle. 

“I guess they mean that C-section babies have rounder heads. Less weird dips and grooves. I don’t know, I just read it somewhere.” 

“What about my head?” 

“Looks pretty normal under there.” Bruce wonders what it’ll feel like to kiss the bristle of Thor’s hair. Less of a mouthful, he supposes. He’ll be able to run his hands through Thor’s hair without his fingers getting knotted at the sides. He doesn’t know how to feel about that. Something about it gives him a little thrill. 

“Could you do a little design on the sides?” Thor asks. Bruce pauses to stare at him incredulously. 

“I haven’t become a qualified hairdresser just because I’ve shaved your head,” he says, but Thor insists that he could do it, so Bruce decides to opt for some kind of lightning bolt design that looks more like a Z or N on its side. He thinks its looks pretty bad, but when Thor looks in the mirror, Bruce can see his face change: he can see a flash of absolute joy, of comfort in his skin, the exhilaration of a much-needed change. “What do you think?” 

“I love it,” Thor says, slowly running his hands through it. It’s different. It’s actually a really nice sensation. “It’s so good. Thank you so much, Bruce.” 

“Uh, no problem.” 

Thor sweeps Bruce off his feet when he kisses him. Bruce laughs into his mouth. 

Bruce goes out, on his own, a few hours later just to walk around the grounds, maybe try out the maze. On his way back to the room, giddy with his own excitement to see Thor again and maybe kiss him dizzy, he comes across someone struggling to get into his room again – Tony Stark, still struggling with the keys. Bruce walks over slowly. 

“Hey,” he says. “Can I help?” 

“Jesus Christ on a motorised tricycle, please.” 

Bruce shows him the knack to the door – well, not that it’s actually a knack , just the art of waggling the keys around a bit if they’re not turning. And turning them the right way always helps. 

This time, Tony pauses to look at him before entering the room, and what Bruce expects is a thank you, but what he gets is a “you really hit the jackpot on that hunk of yours, huh” and then the door shuts in his face. 

Tony’s right, Bruce thinks. But Bruce doesn’t feel lucky because Thor is hot – though it is undoubtedly an absolute benefit; instead, he feels lucky because Thor listens. Thor is patient. Thor will let Bruce take him on an aimless road trip and pay for all their meals, and not say a word about it. Thor will encourage Bruce to sing along to the radio and Bruce never will but when Thor isn’t looking he’ll mouth the words. Thor will tell Bruce what he needs to hear, whether it’s the truth or not. Thor is always there. 

Bruce feels loved in a way he doesn’t even know how to begin articulating when he’s with Thor. 

That’s why he’s lucky. 

Bruce doesn’t see any ghosts. They stay for two nights: one, they stay up all night watching Paul Rudd movies; and the next, Thor sings along to the Blues Brothers soundtrack for a whole hour. After that, they re-pack their bags and hit the road again. Bruce is excited for California. 

“Are we really not going to Vegas?” Thor asks. 

“We’re not going to Vegas,” Bruce insists. 

Nevada without Vegas is long stretches of nothing, a state of radio silence and deserts: parts of the road feel like they’re from another planet, a stretch of Mars transplanted into the United States. Bruce opts for the soundtrack to Logan Lucky as they pass through the state, listening to John Denver warbling about the country roads of West Virginia. It’s strange to think how far away they are from it, now, how many states they’ve passed through, how much life they’ve lived since leaving New York. 

The problem with Nevada is that Bruce notices that Beck and Klaue are on their tail again; and seriously , this time, so close Bruce starts to feel suffocated, even when he leans against the accelerator and hits the speed limit. 

“Bruce,” Thor says, rotating. “They’re tailgating us.”

“Shit,” says Bruce. 

“Speed up.” 

“We’re at the limit–”

“ Speed up ,” Thor says again, urgently, and Bruce decides not to question him and instead watches the hand on the dashboard creep further and further across to the right of the speedometer. “Bruce, I don’t want to alarm you, but I think they’re seriously trying to drive us off the road.” 

“Oh, shit,” Bruce whines. Fear is starting to overtake him. His hands feel clammy. “Thor–” 

There’s nothing here. It’s fucking Nevada. 

Bruce does not want to think about what’s going to happen if they get driven off the road. 

“Okay,” Thor says. Bruce can almost hear him thinking, the cogs in Thor’s head turning hard as it manifests itself into a gentle frown on his face. “You’re going to want to drift, then we drive in the opposite direction, and the faster we go the faster we’ll be able to outpace them to the gas station.” 

“I can’t fucking drift!” Bruce shouts, immediately regretting raising his voice but not knowing how to manifest his stress in any other way. Thor puts a hand on his thigh. “I can’t even park straight!” 

“You need to turn in and you need to oversteer it. The power needs to be on the back wheels.”

“I don’t know what that means!” 

“Turn and dip the clutch!”

“ I still don’t know what that means !” Bruce yells, but the part of him that drives without thinking about it seems to understand it better than his conscious thoughts: when he starts to turn, he clutch kicks, just enough so that their car whines its way into an almost-drift without over-rotating – Thor is shouting something at Bruce that he thinks might be “you fucking did it, Baby Driver!”, but he doesn’t get to process it, because right as he’s navigating the end of the turn and getting them back on the straight and narrow, Ulysses Klaue rams the car. 

Bruce goes out.

Here is where it starts: 

A testing field in Virginia. This is where you die.

This is where you see the green door for the first time, and this is where it opens, and then you are not dead at all. 

This is it. This is when everything happens. They say you woke up screaming, and have never really stopped, but they never realised that you weren’t screaming for fear. You died screaming for life. You live screaming for it, too. You do not always realise how much you want to live, but the voice in the back of your head does. You curse him for it, for a while. 

There are two moments where you hear the scream for life again: 

one, when Thor kisses you for the first time; 

two, when you click your fingers and save the world and you hear it scream right back.

Bruce wakes up to commotion, and chaos, and to dirt on the ground like the dirt on the testing field. He chokes on the dust he kicked up, and sits up slowly, his head swimming with the impact of the crash, the thought you were just in a car crash refusing to permeate the haze.

He can hear someone calling his name. It’s Thor’s voice. He looks up, and then stands up slowly: in the distance, Thor is shouting at him, for him, restrained by Klaue as Beck walks for Bruce, intimidatingly tall. He has a winner’s confidence, but Bruce doesn’t feel like he’s lost yet. He can still feel energy surging inside him, a different kind of energy from the usual thrum. This energy doesn’t feel like contemplation: it feels like power. 

When Quentin Beck tries to put a hand on Bruce, Bruce cracks him across the jaw with more power than could ever possibly belong to a man of his size, and then begins to cross the desert. Klaue isn’t scared, of course. He spits at Bruce’s feet. 

Bruce doesn’t think he deserves a punch in the face. 

He kicks Ulysses Klaue in the balls, hard and fierce and with a battlecry. 

He can hear the sound of another car pulling up, and starts to bounce on the soles of his feet, more than ready to take on anyone else who thinks they’re coming anywhere near him. He feels charged , as if he could do anything, and then he realises that the people running over are looking alarmed, shouting to ask if everything is okay. 

The force possessing Bruce leaves him, and he passes out again, feeling Thor catch him just before everything disappears. 

When Bruce wakes up again, and properly this time, someone has draped a Hawaiian shirt over him like a shock blanket and he’s sitting in the passenger side of Thor’s dented car. They’re moving, he realises, watching the empty road disappear beside them. It takes Bruce a moment to realise that it’s Thor beside him, his hair still short, zagged at the side. “Thor,” Bruce says, sounding more groggy than he wants to. 

“Hey, baby,” Thor says, soft as a crooner, looking over. “We’re going to stop at the gas station. I found a few friends. It’s all over. Nobody’s following us anymore.” 

“Oh,” says Bruce. “Thor, we need to go to Virginia. That’s the place.” 

“Virginia?” Thor repeats. 

“There’s a testing field near Culver University. I need to go there.” 

Thor nods, taking this in. “Okay,” he says. “Wow. We were right next door all along.”

“I’m glad we got to go on this road trip,” Bruce says, honestly. 

“Me too,” says Thor. “I liked the detour, actually. It was fun.” 

They pull up at the gas station a few minutes later, right behind a bright purple car that Bruce could possibly identify if it didn’t look like such a hodge-podge of a vehicle. He’s not sure that two of the doors actually belong to the original model. It’s not filling up and is instead just parked, but the station clerk doesn’t seem to be paying much attention. Bruce follows Thor into the store. 

“Being awake doesn’t do anything for him,” a voice says. Bruce turns to face a woman staring at him, hand on her hip, flanked on either side by a particularly tall and bulky man who looks weirdly like Maui from Moana and a very short one who looks like his mind is elsewhere. They remind Bruce, in the weirdest way, of Penn and Teller. 

“Bruce, this is Valkyrie, Korg, and Miek. They helped us out earlier.” 

“Hi,” says Bruce. “I’m Bruce.”

“We know,” says Valkyrie. Korg is not anywhere near as deadpan, reaching his hand out to shake Bruce’s. “Kia ora,” he says with a smile. “I’m from New Zealand, which is why I like to say that and why I sound like this.” 

Bruce thinks that being from New Zealand probably doesn’t explain why Korg speaks in such a high register, but he dismisses the thought. 

Thor taps his shoulder, and Bruce turns again. “We should get you something to eat,” he says, ushering Bruce through the aisles and pushing various foodstuffs into Bruce’s hands without really asking what Bruce wants. The only thing Bruce manages to get himself is a small bottle of chocolate milk, which he downs almost immediately after he buys it. Thor pushes a sandwich into his hands, and Bruce decides it would maybe be wise not to check the flavour before he starts eating. (It is a good choice. Bruce does not want to know what that is.) 

“Kia kaha,” Korg says, flashing him what Bruce thinks is meant to be an encouraging smile. 

“I wish we’d stayed in New Orleans forever,” Bruce says, folding himself into Thor’s side. “What happens now?” 

“The car is a write-off, so we’re going to have to fly,” Thor says, and Bruce feels his heart flutter as Thor strokes a hand through his hair. “These guys are going to drive us to Los Angeles, and we’re going to fly LAX to Dulles.” 

“Oh,” says Bruce, looking at the mismatched car. He suddenly develops a deep and unflinching love for their now-written-off vehicle, which he and Thor strip for CDs and glove box snacks. Some are too old or have withered in the heat, but there are still surviving lollipops and cashews, and in the back of Valkyrie’s car, Bruce splits his lunch and snacks with Thor, resting his head on Thor’s shoulder. He feels strange, exhausted in a way he can’t describe. His mind suddenly feels quieter than it has in a long time, a vacuum. But it’s not like it’s completely stopped. It just feels like he’s waiting for something. 

Probably Virginia.

Korg has the aux cord for an hour, and plays Carly Rae Jepsen the entire hour before craning round and asking if either Bruce or Thor want to play anything. Bruce looks at Thor. Thor looks at Bruce. Bruce jabs his thumb at Thor. Thor looks like he’s about to do the same thing back and drag them into a stalemate, then seems to decide that he doesn’t like Carly Rae Jepsen enough to listen for another hour, and accepts it. He starts playing Bob Dylan. Bruce smiles. 

“Oh, God,” says Valkyrie. “You two have awful taste.” 

“It’s Bob Dylan,” Bruce argues. “It’s road trip music.” 

“Yeah, I like listening to music by people who can sing.” 

“It’s his hour,” Korg argues.

Bruce thought that it was going to feel like a long way to California, but they pull in at a diner for dinner later when he says he’s still feeling a little under the weather (to which Valkyrie says “yeah, you kicked the asses of two other guys, no wonder”), and after half an hour of Thor trying to dramatically recount their story and Valkyrie interrupting deliberately to wind him up, Bruce starts to feel better. They start to seem less like strangers and more like people he’s getting to know. 

“We should get milkshakes,” Korg says enthusiastically as Thor finishes the last of Bruce’s fries, and for the first time since Bruce met him, Miek speaks, signing something to Korg, who translates this as, “Miek agrees.” 

Bruce tells Thor to order him a strawberry milkshake, and then heads for the bathroom. For a while, he just sits in the stall, doing nothing at all, staring up at the white ceiling; and then he gets on with his business, and is just in the middle of drying his hands when the door opens and Thor enters. 

Bruce makes a move to say something about the order, but Thor says “I ordered you the milkshake already.” He takes a few steps over to Bruce, putting an arm around him and sinking a kiss into Bruce’s temple. “I wanted to talk to you on your own. When you were fighting Klaue and Beck, it – in your eyes, it was as if you were somewhere else, as if you were having a vision. I want to know if you’re really alright.” 

Bruce bumps his forehead against Thor’s chest and keeps it there, inhaling the smell of him. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “I feel – disconnected. A little. Like – like my feet haven’t touched the ground yet.” 

“But are you okay ?” Thor asks, putting a hand in Bruce’s hair and stroking through it. 

“I think so,” Bruce says. “I don’t feel bad .” 

“Good,” Thor says. “Because you were awesome.” 

Bruce makes an mm into Thor’s chest, and stays there for a while, just enjoying being pressed against his warmth. Then, because it’s the only thought running through his head that isn’t about the violence or the fight or about knowing what he’s capable of or knowing that he was wanted for something, he asks “Thor, why did you want to go to the Stanley Hotel so much?”

“It was for Loki,” Thor says, leaning forward and propping his chin on Bruce’s head. Bruce feels somewhat offended by this, but says nothing, because it also feels nice. “ The Shining is their favourite movie. And I feel like we haven’t been getting on recently. I thought it would be fun to come back and have all these pictures.” 

“That’s really nice of you,” Bruce says, the words turning into a mumble as he pulls back from their embrace and finds himself staring at Thor’s mouth. If he’s perfectly honest, Bruce has a little bit of an asexual identity crisis every single time he looks at Thor: and then he remembers that he’d really rather just kiss for a while and feels no inclination to do anything else whatsoever. And that’s fine. Fuck, even in all the worlds where he’s had sex, it doesn’t change the fundamental fact of the matter that he just doesn’t feel sexual attraction. But he does like making out. He likes being held. He steps onto his tiptoes to kiss Thor, hands coming up to Thor’s face. Thor reciprocates softly, and Bruce decides that he wants to push it a little, deepening the kiss until Thor gets the message, sweeping him up into a hold and pushing Bruce against one of the bathroom walls (Bruce thinks for a full second about the hygiene implications, but then Thor kisses him harder). For a long while, it’s just him, and Thor, the boundaries of their bodies blurring together until it feels as if there’s no distinction at all. Inside his head, Bruce sees thousands of other kisses like these: first kisses, last ones, passionate ones, ones after battles and others before, and it feels as if this is what everything in his life was all for. It was all for Thor , and for being held: physically, and emotionally. 

Thor gets away with himself for a moment, sliding a hand under Bruce’s shirt before his sanity finally clicks in. He pauses, looks up, gauges Bruce’s reaction. 

Bruce nods. 

Thor does nothing more than just press his hand against the soft skin of Bruce’s chest, lets it wander through the trails of hair there, but it still feels thrillingly monumental. 

“We should probably go back to the table,” Bruce says, and so Thor lets him down. “They’re probably thinking we–” 

“It could be a power move to let them think that,” Thor offers. Bruce laughs. He still feels that blossoming of heat and love in his chest, like he’s so excited that he’s just going to spontaneously combust. As they start for the stairs, Thor pauses, winding his fingers in Bruce’s. “That was a really great drift, by the way. Earlier. For a first time.”

“And I have to ask: how do you know how to drift?” 

Thor grins, looking away. “I, uh, used to drag race.”

Bruce stops mid-walk, forcing Thor to stop with him. He’s surprised to hear it, and wants to say something like you used to drag race?! , but instead he opts for “you used to drag race but you can’t parallel park?” 

“Driving and parking are different skills,” Thor says. “Especially when you’re good at driving fast. Which is kind of the opposite of parking, if you think about it.” 

The milkshakes are at their table when they shuffle back in, topped with copious amounts of cream; Bruce uses his straw to scoop up the cream and pretends to be oblivious as Valkyrie looks incredulously at Thor. “Did you two seriously do what I think you just did?”

“Oh, yeah,” says Thor. “He’s fast.”

Bruce chokes on some cream.

Korg drives for the evening, letting Valkyrie have the aux cord: she plays Sleater-Kinney’s Modern Girl , and Bruce is pretty sure she isn’t expecting Thor to belt it out from the back seat. It was one of their early road trip songs – Bruce wants to say it was on repeat most of Iowa – and they both know all of the words, inscribed into their minds. Thor gently jabs Bruce’s leg, imploring him to sing along; Bruce, consistently embarrassed by the sound of his own voice, shakes his head, so Thor sings as if for the both of them. 

Valkyrie doesn’t play any more Sleater-Kinney after that. She has a good playlist anyway. Bruce probably annoys her by always asking what the song is, but, despite that, she never actually snaps. 

During a croissant stop-off for breakfast two days later, Korg tells Bruce that he and Thor are a really cute couple. Valkyrie has given up being embarrassed by Thor, and they’re both having a particularly rousing Dance Yrself Clean sing-and-dance-along for eight am. Thor has a way about him; people can’t help but like him and fall into his orbit. Thor hadn’t been Bruce’s type at all when they met, but the better Bruce got to know Thor the more it had seemed impossible not to fall in love with him. Bruce had never really had any serious crushes before Thor. 

“Do you have a partner?” Bruce asks, taking a big bite out of his pain au chocolat. 

“Oh, yeah,” Korg says enthusiastically. “I have a fiancé back home in Wellington. He didn’t really want to come on a road trip because he grew up out in the country and I think he’s a bit sick of car trips now. Very long. Kind of boring.” 

“They’re not for everyone,” Bruce says. “Thanks for driving us to California, by the way. I really appreciate it.” 

“No problem,” Korg says. “Doesn’t seem very nice of these people to follow you around and try to hurt you. And we’re not in a hurry.” He stretches, big arms up to the sky. “It’s nice that we didn’t go to Vegas, because it seemed very stressful, you know. All those games. Lots of rules to remember. I just like eating lots of different American food, they are very generous here with their portion sizes as I’m sure you know, or maybe you don’t because you’re actually quite skinny.” 

“There’s a trick to it,” Bruce says. “Don’t finish your food, and get the leftovers to-go.” 

“Oh wow,” says Korg. “That’s so smart. You’re a genius. No wonder you’re going to MET.” 

Bruce doesn’t correct him, and just smiles. “Thanks,” he says, and then, gesturing his pain au chocolat, “hey, do you want some?” 

Thor eats two whole croissants, and even though Bruce has just slept, he sleeps more in the back seat, ignoring the showtunes from the front seat (courtesy of Miek’s turn on the aux cord) and stirring every half hour to watch the sky. He listens to Valkyrie and Thor argue about something, and Korg try to sing along to Hamilton , and when he wakes up properly again, shifting his shoulders and cracking joints, Thor looks over at him. 

“Hey,” says Thor. 

“Hey,” says Bruce, and takes his hand. Thor lifts it to his mouth and brushes his lips against Bruce’s knuckles, and Bruce flushes, leaning a little closer to him. 

“Almost there,” says Thor, and Bruce wants to say are we really? but instead he says nothing at all, and just enjoys that feeling of being where he’s meant to be. He never used to know what that felt like. He once thought he never would. 

(And now he knows what Thor’s hand feels like in his, what it feels like to be loved as effortlessly as breathing, knows what it’s like to feel like someone who deserves things–) 

Bruce feels a strong sense of sadness when they arrive at LAX – he knows that it’s only been a few days, but there was something almost familial about travelling with Valkyrie and Korg and Miek, bickering about meaningless things and holding knockout tournaments with categories like ‘songs definitely about Taylor Swift’ or ‘Disney girls who had a sexy phase’, overeating at every diner, Korg declaring every other song to be the best song he’s ever heard. It’s a different energy to when it’s just him and Thor, more charged, and he has that same sense that he’s meant to know them, that they exist in the other Bruce’s life. That they were important . It feels strange to just leave them like this, knowing that he’ll probably never see them again. 

“Don’t get in any more trouble,” Valkyrie says, pointing accusingly at Thor, who raises his hands in a gesture of innocence. She actively tries to avoid all of his attempts to scoop her into a big bear hug, but he’s Thor, so of course she ends up squished against him eventually. Korg is much more forthgiving with hugs, giving Bruce several before they part. 

“Good luck,” he says, and Miek signs something that Korg elaborates as “Miek says good luck, too.” 

Bruce almost doesn’t know what to say to them, because his eyes are welling up. Thor does the goodbye and happy travels for him, and takes Bruce’s arm in his as they start the winding journey to and through security. It’s easier because they just have backpacks, though Bruce has to lose a few toiletries in the process. 

Their flight isn’t until the afternoon, so they have something like lunch at a Starbucks and Bruce takes a nap at their departure gate as Thor goes to buy snacks and more toiletries. Bruce can’t sleep properly for the paranoia that someone might take their bags, so after a while, he swings his legs down and reads another story from the Ted Chiang collection that they’ve not finished yet. He listens to the conversations around him, interesting or banal, and then puts his earphones in and listens to one of Thor’s Spotify playlists as he waits. Thor is taking a while, and he wonders what his boyfriend is up to – internally debating which chocolate bar, or reading the blurbs of all the books on the bestseller shelves? Is he distracted by another shop, or buying himself some cologne? 

Bruce has almost nodded off to Trying to Get to Heaven when he spots Thor approaching, beaming, his arms full of bags. 

“Hi,” says Thor. “I got you stuff.”

What Thor has got includes macarons, two new books for them to read together (for Thor, Pride and Prejudice ; for Bruce, Dead Astronauts by Jeff VanderMeer), an earnest bucketful of pretty stationery (Bruce thinks that he’ll rival any med student with a Studyblr at this rate), more shower gel and shampoo and body lotion and shaving cream, and also two cheesy T-shirts for Bruce. One says ‘I went to Los Angeles and all I got was this lousy T-shirt’, and the other is a picture of a right-angled triangle and the question ‘find x’, with the literal x circled. Right at the bottom of one of the bags is also a small stuffed turtle, which Thor says is because Bruce likes that weird British fantasy book (he means Discworld, but Bruce doesn’t correct him because he’s so floored that Thor not only remembered Bruce mentioning it but that he remembered the turtle ), and Bruce holds it to his chest for a moment before asking Thor if he can kiss him. 

Thor laughs. “Of course you can,” he says, and beats Bruce to the punch. Bruce makes a gentle mmph against his lips, then puts his hands to Thor’s neck and kisses back. 

Thor presses their foreheads together, and steals an earphone, pressing it into his ear. If Bruce has it right, the song is You’re Not Good Enough by Blood Orange. Bruce can feel him moving his shoulders to the beat even as he leans in to kiss him again, mouth to mouth. 

Bruce breaks it off and blushes, feeling the eyes of other passengers on him. “People are staring,” he says softly, and Thor nods, shifting to sit at his side, one arm up and around Bruce’s shoulder. “I love you.” 

Thor smiles. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he says. 

“Really?” Bruce asks. 

“Yeah,” Thor says, his thumb tracing circles on Bruce’s shoulder, which sends little electric currents to the pit of his stomach. “Before I met you I felt like I was just following this path I didn’t even know if I wanted to be on. To make my father happy and be the good, responsible son. It felt like my life was just this template. But now I feel – I feel like I can enjoy the things I’m doing.” Bruce can see in his face that Thor finds it difficult to say this, to admit to any flaw and not be the perfect protector, and he leans in a little to listen closer. “You’ve taught me how to enjoy everything. I never wanted to go to university until I saw how excited you were to learn and now I’m excited, too, because I feel like I want to learn and it’s not an obligation.” 

“You switched your major,” Bruce says. Thor nods. Bruce kisses his cheek, ignoring the voice inside him telling him that they’re in public. “I’m proud of you.”

“I’m proud of you, too.”

The flight is late, of course, because it is an inevitable law of the universe that all flights are late, and Bruce eats almost half of the chocolate Thor bought before they’ve even boarded. During the flight, he reads and Thor sleeps, out like a light despite the roar of the engine. For a while, Bruce just watches the clouds, hypnotised by the view this high up from the ground: he likes it when they come in to land, too, when he can see the world get closer and closer. The view is beautiful. A part of him wants to put his hand to the window. 

It’s almost over. 

He’ll finally know what this was all for, even though he thinks a part of him already knows. He’s going to miss the journey, but he’s glad to have seen it through, too. He never thought he’d see this many states, cross this many borders, sleep so many nights curled up in the back of the car. He never thought he’d have this many experiences of his own, all as thrilling and as vivid as the other Bruce’s – just without the usually intergalactic danger. 

He wakes Thor up on landing, and they both chug another Starbucks before they start figuring out their transport options. “Where did you say?” Thor asks, swirling his coffee. Bruce swears he’s buzzing with the caffeine already, and it’s only been five minutes. He regrets the extra shot. “C… something university?” 

“Culver,” Bruce says. “I think I have better taste in universities.” 

“I think you have better taste in states ,” Thor says. 

They settle on renting a car, since that’ll get them back to New York, too, and as Thor is busy with the particularities, Bruce hovers by the door, eating a chocolate bar. (He’s not hungry, and probably shouldn’t be eating, but he just wants to be having chocolate right now.) Just as he crumples it up and starts to search for a bin, he slowly realises that someone is staring intently at him. He looks up, and stares back. 

It’s Tony Stark. 

“Are you two following me ?” Tony asks, frowning. 

“We were concerned about you getting locked out of your hotel room again,” Bruce deadpans, pushing the wrapper into his jeans pocket instead. “We’ve got a stop-off here and then we’re going back to New York. Are you following us ?” 

“Oh, yeah, got nothing better to do all day than follow budget Baywatch and the love interest from 13 Going on 30 around. You guys’ lives are thrilling.” 

“I don’t look like that guy,” Bruce objects, on the value that he’s fairly sure the love interest from 13 Going on 30 looks better than him. It’s been a few years since he last saw the film; he tables it as a watch-with-Thor venture. Thor likes rom-coms. Thor always cries at rom-coms. He looks over: Thor is still milling about at the front desk, waiting. 

“You lucked out with him, huh?” Tony asks, producing a lollipop from his pocket and beginning to attempt to pick off the wrapper. “He’s hot, and he keeps looking at you like you’re on your honeymoon.” Tony pauses. “Are you?” 

“No,” says Bruce. “I’m eighteen.” 

Tony shrugs. “You never know. The question is: do you want to be on your honeymoon?”

Bruce shrugs. A part of him wants to genuinely consider this question and mull it over, and the other knows it can’t even be a thought until he’s graduated. Everything could be different by then. In a few months’ time, everything will be different. It scares him, even though within him he feels that hum of certainty that he and Thor are destined for more. So instead he says, “yeah.” 

“That’s gay,” Tony laughs, genuinely seeming to crack up into the joke as he breaks the lollipop free and pops it into his mouth. “Okay, okay, you know what, I’m paying for your car rental. It’s on me. Go make out in the back or something.” 

“No,” Bruce says, automatically. Tony raises his eyebrows. 

“That’s a new way of saying thank you ,” he says. 

“I mean you don’t have to,” Bruce argues. “Seriously.”

“Yeah, but I’m rich and why not?” Tony grins. “Go save another stranger who can’t use a key. Or maybe it’ll just be me again.”

Before Bruce really knows what’s happened, he has a rental car fully paid for by tech giant Tony Stark, and he’s in the driver’s seat, doing up his seatbelt and worrying about whether or not he said thank you enough. Tony had told them good luck, and to keep in touch, though he left no phone number. Thor is busy trying to decide what music they should listen to. 

“Mitski or Big Thief?” he asks. 

Bruce hums. “Mitski,” he says. He wants to ask Thor some question he can’t articulate, wants to be reassured of fears that can’t be turned into words; instead, he drives out of the airport, and feels something drop in his gut like the dip on a rollercoaster. It could just be nerves or it could be something deeper and this time he can’t tell and it makes him so anxious he feels sick.

He didn’t think that Thor would notice, but when they stop at a gas station for a bathroom break, Thor puts an arm around him and kisses his temple. It’s not – it’s not the kind of philosophy or discussion that he wants, but really, it’s what he needs , this kind of comfort. Knowing that someone is here for him. 

Nobody can really tell him what’s going to happen. He just has to throw himself overboard and trust. 

Virginia swirls with the memories of the other Bruce, odd memories like kissing girls and ones tainted both with pain and safety. The Hulk is hard for Bruce to understand. He’s so far from it, but so many other Bruces are intertwined with it, and he can’t tell to what extent the Hulk is its own consciousness or a manifestation of his. He’s never actually been here before himself, but he seems to know the way as if it were inscribed into him. Thor lets him drive, seeming to understand that he’s beyond use for right now, that this is Bruce’s world now. 

It’s definitely too easy to just drive into the testing fields, he thinks. It’s Thor’s turn to sleep, leaving Bruce mostly with the radio and his feelings. 

It’s astonishing how poorly protected the testing fields are – Bruce is essentially able to just drive in, and he leaves a reasonable berth between the car and the glowing green door in the centre of the field. Maybe he’s crazy, he thinks, as he steps out and shuts the door. Probably crazy. Definitely crazy. He hears voices and sees things that aren’t there. By all accounts, he should probably be in a hospital. 

But instead he’s here. 

He approaches the door, and opens it, and steps inside of its extraordinary darkness. 

Were you really that short? 

He’s short. He looks like you except that he’s seen God. He doesn’t have the bags under his eyes or the pain written in the joints of his face; he’s a version of you that knows how to breathe. He stands on the footing of your dream. You’re suddenly not sure you’re dreaming anymore. 

He sucks in his breath like he’s about to speak, and then lets it out. 

“What are you here for?” you ask. You know he’s here for something. If parallel universes exist in this way, then there must be thousands if not millions of you out there; and yet he’s here, with you, and so surely he is here for a reason. You’re in the dark. You can see him tripping over his own tongue. 

“Thor,” he says eventually. “It’s – Thor. He’s important. He’s everything.” 

On instinct, you laugh. He starts to look pissed off at you. 

“No,” he says. “You have to tell him you love him. It’s important. You love him. You love him like – it’s as easy as breathing. He loves you too. You just have to tell him. He supports you. He’s what you need. He’s the other part of the puzzle.” 

“That’s very dramatic,” you say. 

“Fine. Ignore all the romantic stuff and just tell him it because it’s how you feel.” 

And you feel it, then, as you begin to decide that maybe you should, quite how much he loves Thor. Fire’s probably an overused cliché, if your high school level knowledge of English remains, but that is what it feels like, an intense burning of love that could scorch the Earth. Love, attention, care, security. That’s what he feels. That’s what you want to feel. 

You want to be with Thor, more than anything. Even if you’re both monumental, brilliant fuck-ups. Maybe that’s what’s better. That you both understand each other and your patterns of mistakes and fears. 

The floor begins to disappear under his feet. 

The door shuts on Bruce, and before he’s even quite aware that he’s standing back in the middle of the testing field, he feels a rush of energy through his body and faints. 

When he comes back to awareness again, he’s almost on the ground but not quite. He blinks away the fog in his eyes, and realises slowly that Thor is holding him, arms strong around his back. “Hey,” Thor says, brushing some of Bruce’s hair out of his eyes. “What happened? Are you okay?” 

“Hey,” Bruce says, putting a hand to Thor’s cheek. “Everything’s okay. It’s okay. I love you.” 

“That’s really lovely,” says Thor, “but it would be nicer if you weren’t on the ground.” 

“That’s fair,” says Bruce. “We should get,” and he pauses there, “lunch.” 

“You and food,” Thor says fondly. “I’m driving this time.”

He helps Bruce up, and puts an arm around Bruce, though Bruce isn’t unsteady at all. He doesn’t feel faint or weak; in fact, he feels almost fine. Except for the vacuum inside his head. It’s quiet, now, so bizarrely quiet as if all the sound has been sucked out of the world: his connection has been cut as quickly as it came, and he takes a seat in the passenger side, feeling as if a bomb has just gone off. It feels like the world is muted and his ears are ringing. It makes him a little sad, even if he’s glad that he managed to achieve what he was supposed to. 

It feels sad because it’s over. The future is now. Bruce doesn’t have a definitive mission to achieve anymore: the road is behind, the world ahead. 

He puts his face in his hands, and cries as if he’s shedding years and years of emotional weight: an emotional weight beyond just him, one that’s been on his shoulders for months and has just been lifted. Thor shifts closer, putting an arm around him and pressing his head to Bruce’s hair. “What’s wrong?” he asks. 

“Nothing,” Bruce says softly. “Just feels like everything’s going to be alright.” 

“Yeah,” Thor says, his voice alive with hope. “It is. It’s going to be great.” 

Bruce smiles, brushes his eyes, cradles Thor’s face, and kisses him. 

Thor is okay. He’s always okay. He’s a God. 

He’s a God and he’s in the medical bay drinking a juice box as you tinker with his new metal arm. It’s been about a week and he’s broken it already, which is typical; in the background, on the stereo, you’re playing The Magnetic Fields and both of you are tapping your feet. You don’t know what it is, but since he’s been back, you’ve felt – closer. Better. Like maybe you’ve both realised what it’s like without the other. 

It’s Thor who starts it, which you actually didn’t expect. You thought, after all that universe preamble, it would be you. The universe works in mysterious ways. It pisses you off a little sometimes. Couldn’t it just be comprehensible some of the time? 

“I missed you,” he says. “I’m sorry I left.” 

“I missed you too,” you say. “Please stay. At least – for a little bit.” 

You’re vaguely aware that one of your favourite songs is playing, Strange Powers . You’re vaguely aware that you’re actually supposed to be fixing his arm and that you’ve been finished and needlessly tinkering for minutes already. You’re vaguely aware of how close you’ve been standing to him this entire time, how many times your elbows have brushed in the past week, how much he’s come to talk to you. You’re vaguely aware of all the people who have called you an idiot for not telling him how you feel. 

You’re quite aware of the fact that Thor has put his arms around you and is kissing you and pulling you in to press against him. You’re quite aware of the fact that you could stay like this forever, and that it feels like you could. 

One of his thumbs brushes your stubble. “I’m going to stay,” he says.