tushanshu | 05 ☣ TEXT & VOICE;

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05 ☣ TEXT & VOICE;

Looking to gather some info. Please respond with succinct list of what you would consider unalterable laws of reality in your home dimension, e.g. gravity, conservation of mass, particular laws of magic.

Will attempt to compile results into meaningful commonalities across dimensions. Maybe there's a universal law somewhere.

Would prefer text response if possible. Thanks.

B. Banner

[The message is then repeated in audio, if preceded by Bruce clearing his throat, for those that can't read English.]

[Voice | 60% encrypted to castmates & established CR.]

Finally got fed up with everyone talking over my head and made a trade to see my future.

[A beat.

In utter, dry exasperation,] You're all nuts. What kind of teamwork was that?

[ooc: Bruce is now post-Avengers! If you're not sure if you're established CR, ping me and I'll let you know if they're included, but feel free to play fast and loose.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Excuse you. Jim raises an eyebrow.]

I think you'd have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a team anything.

[Maybe Bruce was a people person once upon a time, but-- hell. Times change. Jim's expression twists briefly, wry.]

But you're not the sort of guy who'd stand there and do nothing in a crisis, either. You care about people, even if it's not the way people usually mean when they say that sort of stuff.

[Ugh. Jim is unfortunately right in all respects, and it's simultaneously soothing and irritating.

Bruce glances away from the camera.] I know. I can't do nothing. And they used that, got me to come in by telling me they only wanted me as a scientist. It put me right where he needed me. Loki.

[He exhales slowly, says humorously,] I'm such a sucker.

It's not being a sucker.

['You jackass' is kind of hinted at in his tone. Jim has a very low bullshit threshold at the moment, sorry Bruce. He knows you can take it.]

I'd put money on the fact you knew it was a trap and went anyways because there was a chance you could do some good. Real good.

[He can take it, it's true. He's not even ruffled. He can be self-involved and distancing, but Bruce tends to admit when he's wrong and he has to concede this point, too.]

Probably, [he admits.] You don't get to-- experience it, you just watch it. But it's funny that you...

[He trails off, starts again.] When I first arrived here, I had everyone telling me that I'd-- that this would happen. I'd join this team, and I was dependable. Romanoff said she was surprised I'd stuck around.

But I think that's why. [It's a little raw, the way he says it. Bruce hasn't had anyone to say this to that isn't involved, and somehow it comes spilling out; he keeps talking whole sentences past when he'd usually stop. Maybe it should be easier to attribute something positive to himself, but Bruce has never found it easy, and he's forced to conclude that it's correct.]

That's what I said to her. That it'd been a long time since I was able to accomplish something good. [Instead of just running.]

Banner.

[It's his 'listen to me I'm a captain' voice.]

You left because you didn't want to hurt people. You gave up everything - every human comfort, every tie to your old life because you wanted to keep people safe. If you can't look at that and see the good in it, you're crazy. It doesn't matter how you see it, I'm telling you -- it's one of the most selfless things I've ever seen.

[His head jerks up to listen at that tone, but then what he hears gets more and more hard to take. It's the truth, it's all the truth, and he can't deny that. Yet Bruce has never had it stated so baldly to him, never had anyone but Betty look him in the eyes and tell him that he was a good person with any real weight behind it.

Not until coming here. Not until meeting Tony. And not until now.

It's mostly his own fault. Bruce doesn't let anyone get close enough, know enough about him, to be able to say things like that. It's hard for him to hear, a direct counter to the quiet voices of his past telling him otherwise, and his expression starts to crumble. He's not invulnerable, he's not inhuman, and having everything from his future thrown on him at once while he still wasn't over what'd happened in Death-- his walls aren't where they should be.]

I had to take responsibility. [Whether it's meant as a protest or an explanation, he doesn't know, but it comes out hoarse.] I'm the one that did it-- unleashed it. Me and... Betty and the general.

I couldn't do anything else.

It still came from trying to save people. You were working on saving people from radiation poisoning, that's-- you didn't unleash anything. You made a mistake, but you had good intentions, and yeah, it doesn't erase making the mistake, but it changes the connotations.

And don't be stupid, you could have done a million other things. You could have sold the formula or whatever to the government, you could have stopped caring about what might happen to other people. You could've capitalized on it. You could have robbed banks or-- I don't know, whatever people did in the 21st century. What you did was a choice you made to do the best in a bad situation.

[He drags a hand down over his face tiredly.]

You ever going to forgive yourself for it?

[Whereby 'it' is 'the Hulk']

[He has to press a hand to his face as Jim keeps speaking, and leave it there, hand curled at his forehead and hiding his expression as he breathes. This is true, too. Jim has this uncanny talent at being right and Bruce wishes that he didn't, because it's somehow so much harder to accept the good things than the bad things. He has so much experience accepting the bad things: they're awful and weighing, cowing him with stone after stone of responsibility laid on his shoulders, but somehow soothing in their familiarity. Bruce knows how to deal with them.

This he doesn't know how to deal with. He starts with his breathing, like he always does when he's out of sorts, meditation experience drilled into him relentlessly until he counts automatically in his head, until he's settled and even.

When his hand lowers, he just looks tired, but less like he's being slowly torn open. In fact, he does smile tiredly at him, more his normal self-consciousness than the bitter humor from earlier.]

Maybe when no one else is paying for it anymore. You ever going to forgive yourself? [Bruce doesn't know what he'd have to forgive himself for, but he's sure that there's something. No one can speak with as much personal conviction on the topic as Jim does without doing it themselves, and it's easier to shoot back in a verbal parry than answer the question honestly.]

[It's a chess move, and he'd been prepared for it. Still, he has to briefly hold his breath to stop himself from snapping out the first thing that comes to mind. If Banner wants to needle him, fine.]

This isn't about me.

[He surprises himself, with the patience in his tone. Kyle's influence.]

[Bruce doesn't need patience. He's itching to let some of the tension out and he's practically a professional at releasing bitterness and conflict in small, tenable tidbits, without escalation. It's impossible to stay calm and level all the time; that he's found out the hard way. Sometimes you have to give in to your critical urges, and Jim is a safe avenue to do that, in a world that is very, very unsafe to Bruce.]

It could be. We do a lot of talking about me.

[He grits his teeth. Jim hides a lot of what he deals with behind his ability to care for and reach out to others. It keeps the worst of it at bay, where all he has to do is toss all the darkest memories he has a few table scraps every once in a while.

He's silent for a while. And then, when he speaks, he sounds completely detached from the actual content of what he's saying. Sometimes, the only way to use your weakness is as a weapon.]

So you want to - what, listen to my bullshit sob stories? Come on, man, do you actually care?

[Weakness has been his weapon his whole life. That was the genesis of the Hulk. So Bruce isn't phased by this at all-- if anything, he feels better able to handle it.]

Yeah, I do, [he says evenly.] You wouldn't tell me a sob story. You'd tell me something you... that you had to get out.

[He knows that because that's how it works for him.]

[He wants to argue. Even opens his mouth to start. Snaps it shut again. Does he think Bruce is capable of being manipulative? Yeah, he does. But against him? He doesn't think so. It's too much like pulling punches, and Jim has fought for the gloves-off version since that talk they had in the lab.

He exhales.]

There's nothing I have to talk about.

[It's very, very firm. His demons, his problems. He deals, and he moves on. The 'Fleet psychiatrists all hate him because he tells them exactly what they want to hear and then asks them out for dinner, picks their brains apart until he knows best how to deal with them. His reputation does so often precede him.

Jim spreads his hands a little, in view of the camera.]

Pick an era.

[Blow for blow. He'll make Bruce fight for it too.]

[Bruce can be manipulative, but he doesn't enjoy it. He utilizes it against people he considers enemies or potential enemies, people he distrusts, and maybe he doesn't strictly trust Jim with everything-- but he trusts him a little. Enough that he isn't pulling his punches, believes that he doesn't have to and the conversation still won't escalate.

Part of that is not pretending that he'll push more than he does. He does care. Yet Bruce isn't going to play the game of prying emotional admissions out of Jim; he's not going to be responsible for doing the thing he loathes other people doing to him. In the mandatory counseling he'd had to go through as a teenager, he'd chewed up and spit out his therapists, gone utterly silent for the whole hour or talked circles around them with mounting anger, saying nothing of substance.

Bruce knows this game. He doesn't want to play it. If Jim wants to talk to him, he wants to listen, but he won't force anything. He won't be forceful.]

Look, I get it. [There's an air of confession to his words, opening up instead of being combative.] You don't have to talk. I know you can deal-- that's not the point.

Sometimes you just... have to let out a little so it doesn't blow up in your face. If you want to, I'll listen. [With a breath, bracing himself for the admission,] You've listened to me. It's fair.

[Quietly,]

It's not about fair, Bruce. It's about being friends.

[He has to smile a little, perhaps unexpectedly. After everything he's gone through in Keeliai, and after finally seeing how the team is formed, Bruce accepts this much more readily than before.]

I'm not all that fair to people that aren't my friends, Jim.

I'd have to say that's bullshit. Otherwise we wouldn't have gotten this far.

[He doesn't put up with a lot of shit from other people for no reason.]

We got this far because you weren't scared off, [he corrects.] Or you're reckless. I'm not sure which.

[He didn't mean to end up friends with him. Bruce rarely means to be friends with anyone. It just sort of sneaks under his radar and happens, but it's true that until they get to that point, he isn't at all concerned with being fair. He can be kind, he can take chances, but fair, no; not when life has never been fair to him.]

[Sourly,]

You know, I'm pretty sure you argue with me more than anyone except my first officer and my CMO.

['You jerk.' It's not implied seriously, though.]

Funny, that sounds like a compliment.

[He snorts, amused. But some of the tension's gone.]

Well, let's see. My first officer's gone. I got to see my future - in which - by the way - out of four hundred and thirty four people that get killed I am the only one that gets brought back to life courtesy magical medicinal tribbles [He knows Bruce will remember that incident] and I'm having a really bad hair day today.

[That last part is said with wry humour.]

[He hadn't been sure that would work, but something about Jim reminds him very much of Tony. It's not the same-- the issues are different-- but the way they approach them is eerily similar, and it looks like employing the same tactic had worked. He'd gotten Jim to open up without prying intrusively.

What he says instantly sobers him, humor draining away. Bruce doesn't mean to ruin the levity they've attained, which makes it easier to speak about things like this. It's just that his own survivor's guilt is considerable, and he's lost so many people himself... He empathizes with this too well.]

They never ask before they bring you back.

[He drags a hand down over his face. Jim's made a career out of holding things together by inelegant stitchwork and willpower, but the cracks are there and they run deep. For a moment, they're blatant.]

I won't lie to you, man. I wish I'd stayed dead.

[It's the first time he's even dared to think it. But it's true. As much as he's glad to be alive, the weight-- of losing so much and being the only one to gain anything back, is damn near killing him all over again.

He snorts, then.]

You know what did it? Radiation poisoning.

[There's a beat, and then it surprises a huff of bitter laughter out of him. Bruce slumps like his strings are cut, and he huddles forward, stretching a hand to rub against his neck.]

Jesus. That's... that's perfect. [The surprise of it startles a more honest admission out of him than he was intending.] I'd wish I'd stayed dead, too. I have wished it. I'm going to be irradiated my whole life.

[There's a resigned easiness to the way he says it. Bruce has had a lot of time to come to terms with that.]

Lucky us, right?

[Gallows humour has never been his wheelhouse, but he's had a hard time shaking it lately. He mimics Bruce's gesture unselfconsciously, rubbing at the back of his neck and letting his fingers rest there a moment, working out the knots there.]

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