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Bruce had gotten used to dying. At this point, it was more or less a routine. Every week - or every other week, or biweekly, depending on how Ross or the Villain du jours felt, ( and really? Did they have any consideration for a man’s schedule? He has other things to do, you know ) he would die. And a day or so later, he would be revived. It’s unnatural, he knows; his death and subsequent resurrection throws the whole world out of balance, messes with the scales of the living and dead. But Bruce figures that since he already breaks the Law of Conservation of Mass as often as he goes out shopping for soy milk, he figures that the world could just deal.
Frankly, Bruce didn’t understand why people got so riled up about it. Death, that is. Like sure, it may be boring as hell, and the queue may be long and tedious, and the office is horrifically understaffed, but hey, not all deities live their indefinitely long lives with the dream job of being an employee in customer service at the Department of the Dead and Dying. And really, could you blame them? All it was was people who had died decades ago demanding a refund on life. That, or they wanted to speak to the manager.
The first time he had shown up - aka, the time he exposed himself to ungodly amounts of gamma radiation, and consequently hulked out - Bruce was confused, to say the least. He knew he was dead, it was sort of like, a gut instinct, or something.
(And there was a sign that read “ YOU ARE DEAD! ” in large neon lettering hanging above the entrance to wherever the Underworld was. Sort of like a Dante’s Inferno type deal, but instead of the foreboding “ Abandon hope all ye who enter here ,” it was just as if the Devil just had no sense of subtlety. At all.)
That was Bruce’s first impression when he woke up: he was dead. Okay, that sort of made sense. His horrible habit of self-experimentation had finally caught up to him, it seemed. His next impression was of the lanky, weaselly man slumped against an elaborate archway made of skulls. The man saw him, brushed the meticulously placed greasy lock of hair out of his face, and said: “Oh no, this will never do,” as he grabbed him by the forearm and pulled him through a line as long as, well, death, before opening a door and tossing Bruce in. The man took one brief and bitter glance at Bruce, before turning on his heel and shutting the door. Bruce wanted to be affronted, he really did, but all of this had happened in under five minutes and he was still reeling with the fact that he was dead .
The room resembled an office, and contained a significantly less weaselly man sitting at a cheap wooden desk. He spoke with a low voice, and he appeared to be extraordinarily tired.
“What seems to be the trouble?” The man asked in a deep tenor.
“I’m dead,” Bruce stated, still not wholly used to the idea. Plus, the other man had just abandoned him here, left him high and dry. He didn’t know what was going on. Or what the trouble was in the first place, exactly.
“...Yes,” the man replied. His eyebrow twitched with frustration. He picked up a mug full of coffee and downed the whole thing in one gulp. Bruce was almost impressed. “You are indeed dead, or else you wouldn’t be here,” the man plastered a faux grin on his face. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Feel free to take a coupon on your way out. Have a nice day!” (When Bruce looked to where the man ushered, he saw a plastic shelf on the wall with slips of paper that read “ Cash this in by October 31st, 2485, to receive 20% off your worst sin! ”)
“Wait no -” Bruce protested, before the weaselly man who had led him here - rather rudely, might he add - entered the office. “Sorry, Heimdall,” the man apologized, sounding not very sorry at all, “had to go deal with some paperwork. You know how it is.”
Heimdall grunted his assent, essentially saying that yes , he really does know exactly ‘ how it is’ . “Is there a reason you brought me this customer, Loki?” he queried. Bruce opened his mouth, and was about to say “ I’m dead ” once more, before Loki graciously cut him off.
“His soul isn’t completely whole, I’m sure you’ve noticed,” Loki said. Heimdall, in response, stared intently at Bruce as if he was seeing him for the first time. The subject of his gaze fidgeted awkwardly, looking at anything but Heimdall’s yellow eyes. There were a few moments of silence, with the only disruptions being the tick-ticking of the clock on the wall. Heimdall hummed.
“Yes, I see what you mean,” he addressed Loki “About a fifth of his soul is still running around on the mortal plane.”
“A fifth of my soul - what?!” Bruce exclaimed. This whole situation was totally unscientific. As a scientist, he couldn’t say he appreciated it.
“What a mess,” Loki lamented, ignoring Bruce completely.
“We’re going to have to send him back, you know,” Heimdall said, “this could cause the entire system to crash.”
“I am aware,” Loki sighed, “but if we send this man back, we’re going to have a ton of paperwork,” he said this as if doing a measly thirty minutes of paperwork wasn’t worth saving a whole human life . Or well, four-fifths of one, anyway.
“Yes,” Heimdall said, “I know,” he paused. “Makes me think: ‘is it really worth it?’ you know?”
“Um,” Bruce cut in, “Yes, yes it is worth it, I would say.”
Heimdall turned back to him, and the false grin was back on his face. It didn’t reach his eyes, they were as - pardon the pun - as dead as ever. “What is your name, sir?”
“Um,” Bruce stuttered, “Bruce Banner.”
Heimdall began typing on an ancient computer, which appeared to still be running on Windows 98. “ Robert Bruce Banner?” he asked.
Bruce sighed. “Yeah.”
“Alright Robert, Loki is going to escort you out. We hope you enjoyed your stay.”
Bruce had opened his mouth to protest, to say that “Bruce was just fine, thank you,” but Loki grabbed his forearm and he was awake. Crickets chirped and birds sang. Bruce massaged his temples as he took in his surroundings. His pants were ruined and barely clung to his hips. His shirt was gone.
Then Bruce was struck with blurry, green-tinted memories of him - but not him - smashing around the plateaus and sandy dunes of the New Mexico desert. A sense of foreboding settled in his stomach like a stone.
Later, after he woke up from whatever sedative Ross forced in him, he decided that Loki and Heimdall and the Underworld was just a dream.
The second time Bruce wakes up in the Underworld, he realizes that it wasn’t a dream at all, or even a really weird nightmare. As he sat up from the spot he always appeared in, Loki took one look at him from his spot in the archway, shooed him with a perfectly manicured hand, and said “ No. ”
But Bruce couldn’t leave, because the Hulk was still out, and he had told Loki that, and Loki had given him a glare, and then they went to Heimdall’s office, where Bruce hung out for a bit.
The man was scribbling furiously on a stack of yellowed parchment. It crinkled on occasion, the sound mingling with the ticking of the clock. Bruce decided to speak, because the situation was very tense.
“So,” Bruce said, “What are you working on?”
“ Paperwork ,” He replied through gritted teeth. Bruce backed off; he could tell when someone was being passive-aggressive. Or just plain aggressive, in this case.
So Bruce just sat. And sat. After a while, he began to shake his leg incessantly. His movements rattled the dead potted plant on Heimdall’s desk. The ceramic clinked against the faux wood as it vibrated. The other man seemed to deal with this for a while, before biting out a “ Do you mind ?”
“Sorry,” Bruce said. He put his hand on his knee to keep it from bouncing. Silence settled upon them again.
When Bruce was ushered out by Loki, he swore he could hear Heimdall breathe a sigh of relief.
The tenth time he Hulked out, Loki said nothing to him, just grabbed his arm and pulled him past Heimdall’s office.
“I’m taking you to management,” Loki stated as they came upon a wrought iron door.
And that’s when Bruce met Hela, the Goddess of Death. She was sat atop an obsidian throne, chin propped in one skeletal hand. The sparse light in the Underworld cast shadows beneath her very prominent cheekbones, and her hair fell matted and tangled over her shoulders. She almost looked like a reanimated corpse, ivory like bone and sunken. It was quite a fitting look, Bruce decided, for the Goddess of Death.
“Is this Robert?” she asked. Her tone lilted in odd places, accentuating some words, like a bow across a violin.
“Bruce,” Bruce corrected.
“Yes, sister,” Loki said, “He’s been giving us some trouble,” Loki turned to look directly at Bruce with a piercing glare, “and an exceeding amount of paperwork.” Bruce ducked his head sheepishly before he was struck with a realization. Did Loki say sister? Bruce glanced at Loki and then at Hela. He couldn’t deny that there was definitely a familial resemblance.
Hela hummed and leaned forward, examining Bruce closely. “Yes,” she tsked, “he is quite odd - about a fifth of his soul is still in the mortal realm,”
“Yes,” Loki said, “We realized that a while back, but that isn’t the issue. He keeps coming back, this is his ninth -”
“Tenth,” Bruce corrected.
“- Tenth visit, in a year !” Loki was getting rather worked up. It appeared that Bruce’s very presence frustrated him immensely.
Hela hummed, “And what do you want me to do about it, brother?”
“Make him stop!” Loki cried petulantly, like a toddler. Hela rolled her eyes.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she waved him out impatiently before her eyes settled upon Bruce. The irises looked like beetle shells, black and shiny. Bruce shivered.
“Robert,” Hela said in a patronizing tone, as if she were correcting a young child, “I don’t know what it is that makes you so impossible to kill permanently, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t pester my brother anymore. He is so dreadfully annoying.” she drawled. Bruce was going to say that he couldn’t really control when he came down here, that was more of the Hulk’s call than his, but she ushered at Bruce with one hand before he could speak, and Bruce was revived once more. He groaned as he came to.
After that, Loki just dragged him to Hela whenever he “died”, greeting him with only an annoyed glance and a huff. Eventually, Loki just told Bruce to walk there of his own accord, because he had better things to do than help a man who was so messed up that he couldn’t even die properly. Heimdall had been so kind as to set up a little nook for him in a closet off of Hela’s throne room, which consisted mainly of a Windows 1998 instruction manual, an employee handbook, and a cushion that had been torn off of a broken office chair. Bruce appreciated the sentiment; it was better than sitting with a frustrated Heimdall, anyway.
He had a routine, at this point: Hulk out, die, greet Loki, wave to Hela, sit in his closet and re-re-re-read his two sources of literature, work on his project of folding a thousand origami cranes, and then get sent back to the mortal plane when the Hulk is done destroying things.
Bruce was at 841 little cranes, so far. Heimdall and Loki both said it was a waste of company resources, though the latter looked far more jovial when he said it. Bruce thinks he’s going to wish for something better to do during his time in the Underworld, rather than origami.
The routine was broken on his 104th visit. Bruce was fine with this, because at this point he could recite the entirety of the Windows 1998 instruction manual from memory, and knew every single protocol the Department of the Dead or Dying backward and forwards. All of which are incredibly useless bits of information for the portion of society that is actually alive.
Heimdall had enlisted his help a few times with Windows 1998, however. Bruce likes to think he’s on his good side now. He had actually laughed at one of Bruce’s jokes while he was redirecting his firewall.
When Bruce Hulked out after getting shot with a tranq that could take out thirty elephants, Bruce greeted Loki, (who barely gave him a second glance), peeked into Heimdall’s office to say hello (and fix his mouse sensitivity), walked to Hela’s room, and was met by a bemused blond man who definitely wasn’t Hela and who looked like he belonged on the beaches of California rather than sitting atop a dismal throne made of skulls in the Underworld.
“Who do you think you are?” the blond demands, somewhat threateningly. His voice echoed throughout the arched ceiling of the hallway, like thunder.
“Uh, who do you think you are?” Bruce responds, with an inflection that was entirely puzzled and not at all threatening.
“Answer me first.”
“Bruce Banner,” Bruce says.
The blond squints at him, one eyebrow raised, hand brushing his beard in the universal sign of intense thought. He sits like this for a good half-minute. Bruce shifts his weight between his feet, hating the feeling of being scrutinized. Then, after what feels like forever, the man’s face lights up.
“Ah! Robert!” he says. Bruce blinks.
“Um, well, you see, I prefer Bruce-”
“Yes yes, Bruce,” he waves a hand dismissively, “My sister Hela told me about you. Actually, she told Heimdall to tell me about you, but that matters not. Apparently,” the stranger leaned over, golden eyebrow still arched, “you die quite a lot.”
Bruce barely had time to contemplate the implications behind Hela being Thor’s sister before he responded.
“It sure seems that way,” Bruce remarks. “Where’s Hela?”
“On vacation,” the blond says, leaving Bruce with more questions than answers.
“I see,” he said, even though he really didn’t, “And who are you? Her substitute or something?”
“I am Thor,” Thor exclaimed. His voice was very loud, “Odin - the Allfather - has left me in charge of her position while she’s gone.”
Bruce had read about the Allfather in the employee’s handbook. It was apparent that the man was a rather corrupt CEO, if you could call it that. Bruce didn’t know how a standard business hierarchy would apply to the Underworld.
“And where did she go?”
“Fiji, I believe.”
“Nice place,” Bruce commented.
“Indeed,” Thor commented back.
Bruce realized with some indiscernible feeling that he was making small talk with someone who basically amounted to the (stand-in) King of Hell. He pondered his lot in life, and how he managed to end up here. Then he woke up naked in a crater.
He sighed; just an average Wednesday , he thought to himself.
His next hulk-out was due to a couple of drunkards mugging him. Loki was in his usual place.
“Why didn’t you bother telling me Hela was on vacation?” Bruce asked.
Loki shrugged, then said with a smirk: “It must have slipped my mind.”
“Did it,” Bruce deadpanned.
“Overtime’s a bitch,” was all that Loki gave as an explanation. Bruce sighed and went to his closet.
...which had been disassembled. Over the past dozens of deaths, Bruce had been collecting a few odds and ends - mostly spare office supplies - and had managed to decorate his little nook with his 936 origami cranes and paper snowflakes when seeking out loopholes in HR protocols got boring. All of his creations were sitting in a box beside Hela’s throne, which was now occupied by Thor. A hammer and a few identical red capes had replaced his miscellaneous items.
“What was that for?” Bruce indignantly exclaimed in lieu of a greeting, pointing towards the box of things. Thor glanced at him in surprise when he entered before he seemed to remember who he was and grinned.
“Ah! Rob- Bruce , welcome back!”
“Why did you move my stuff!?” Bruce was quite protective of his things in the Underworld. They were basically the only things he owned, at this point. Thor looked at the box.
“Oh,” he said, perplexed. “This is yours?”
“Yes!”
“Oh. I thought it was garbage, or a lost-and-found, or something,” he commented.
That was fair, the contents of the box were basically a few dry ballpoint pens, a broken stapler, an obscene amount of origami, and the employee handbook and Windows 1998 user’s manual. All of which could easily be regarded as trash.
...But still.
“Well, it isn’t. It’s mine,” Bruce said, “and I’d like it back, as well as that coat closet, please.”
“I’m using that closet though,” Thor responded, “for my coats.”
Bruce opened his mouth to retort, rather disgruntled, before he woke up in a jungle. He shouted in frustration, causing a flock of birds to startle and fly away.
He deliberated on hulking out and going back down there to get his closet and his stuff back before realizing that he had bigger problems than a few (under)worldly possessions.
Bruce will admit that he maintains a bit of a grudge against Thor after that. He liked sitting in that closet, thank you very much. It was the closest thing he had to a house. He hasn’t had a house in years. And dammit, he was sick and tired of losing everything he owned.
So the next time he visited the Underworld he stormed right up to the closet and proceeded to take all the stuff that was in it out. Or he tried, at least. The hammer was too heavy for him to lift. Thor watched him, wide-eyed as Bruce made a mess of red capes and other garments before smiling lightly, slightly amused, when he attempted to move the hammer.
“Bruce. That hammer is Mjolnir; only the worthy can wield it,” he spoke like he was chiding a child, all patronizing.
Bruce marveled at the structural integrity of the closet briefly. Was the closet worthy? Whatever. It only made Bruce more determined to move it, just to spite Thor. He tugged on it, using all 90 pounds of his weight.
“I implore you to stop. You can’t lift it.”
Bruce wanted to scream. Instead, he huffed petulantly and sat against the wall, glaring daggers at Thor.
“Why do you want to sit in there so much?” Thor asked after a while.
“So I don’t have to talk to annoying stand-in kings of Death,” Bruce snapped.
She was scary, but at least Hela left him alone.
Bruce had taken to sitting pettishly against Thor’s throne, elbows crossed and bottom lip out in a pout. He still held a grudge against Thor for the whole coat closet fiasco. Though this was soon to change.
Bruce remembers a time when a child wandered into the throne room, a helpless and flustered Loki trailing behind.
“Brother-” he started. The child Loki had followed in wailed loudly, effectively cutting him off, and Bruce realized that the girl was crying, and had been for a while; her face was red and fresh tear tracks trained down her cheeks. He felt a pang of intense sympathy rush through him.
“ M-mommy…! ” she whined pitifully, like a kicked dog. Bruce felt his heart wrench, and was about to get up and help her, but Thor had beat him to it.
“Everyone was complaining about the noise-” Loki started to explain, but his mouth closed with a click when Thor gave him a look.
“Hey hey hey ,” Thor spoke comfortingly, “It’s okay, it’s alright…” Thor was the epitome of gentle as he lead the hiccuping girl away. Loki gave Bruce an unreadable look before leaving as well.
Bruce had thought a lot of things about Thor, but he never thought that he could be nice or gentle or fatherly or any good thing, really.
...Huh.
After that Bruce began noticing other things about Thor, like how he seemed to glow radiantly, even in the cold dim lighting of the throne room; his hair golden and shining like a halo hovering above his head. Like how his eyes were very blue. Like how he would yawn and moan almost obscenely when he stretched, totally unapologetic. Bruce would hear the noise and his face would flush, because come on , who does that ?
...Thor, apparently. Bruce wondered what other noises Thor could make. He forced himself to not think about it. But forcing himself not to think about it meant that he thought about it anyway, only more often. Bruce never thought he would have a...a thing for the jock type, not in a million years. But Thor wasn’t just a jock, anyway, Bruce would come to realize. He was smart in astronomy and languages and theatre. And those muscles -
Bruce threw his head back, frustrated with himself. It bonked the hard armrests of the throne. A short exclamation of pain escaped his mouth.
“You alright, Bruce?” Thor asked, peering over the side of the throne, genuinely concerned.
It only made Bruce blush more.
“‘M fine,” he grumbled, face incredibly red.
Damn it.
It had been almost a year without an incident. A year without seeing Thor. Bruce thinks that’s a good thing, because he had really been in deep, there, and Bruce couldn’t afford to be in deep with anyone .
Yet, he still found himself thinking of the man. He wondered if Hela was back yet; he hoped she wasn’t, because Thor really just livened up the Underworld - for lack of a better word - and Hela...didn’t. Bruce couldn’t find out if Thor was still there without hulking-out, however, which simply wasn’t an option. He couldn’t risk the lives and livelihoods of so many people just to see his crush . Come on.
But it seemed he wouldn’t have to.
At first, Bruce thought it was just someone who looked very similar to him. Like, eerily similar. But then he heard his voice; loud and confident and low, like thunder, and wow, it really was him.
“ Thor? ”
The man in question turned to look at him. “Ah! Bruce, I never expected to see you ‘ up here’ ,” he winked. Bruce’s brain short-circuited.
“Uh, yeah. Me neither.”
“It’s been a while, eh? Good for you,” Thor slapped a heavy hand on Bruce’s shoulder. He was making a comment on his lack of recent hulk-outs - or deaths, he supposed.
“Yeah,” he said slowly. There was an awkward silence. Bruce realized that he was just short enough to stare at Thor’s lips without being suspicious.
Steve, who had been standing nearby, asked, “Oh, you know each other already?”
“Yes,” they both said in unison, looking for a way out of the lull in the conversation.
Then Bruce heard another familiar voice. One that was exceedingly duplicitous. He turned towards the video feed on the wall.
Then turned back to Thor, and mouthed “ Loki? ”, to which he responded with “ Yes ,” with a rather sad and regretful expression.
Bruce wanted to inquire more on the subject, but then Tony was there, and Bruce was talking science.
He didn’t notice how Thor stared at him in amazement the whole time he rambled off numbers and statistics and strategies.
Thor and Loki aren’t there when he hulks-out on the Helicarrier. Makes sense, considering they’re both on the Helicarrier along with a fifth of his soul. Bruce hangs out with Heimdall, who sighs when he walks in.
“Why is Loki evil suddenly?” Bruce asks. He thinks it’s a fair question, because Loki hadn’t seemed evil before, just...greasy, in every sense of the word.
“Must’ve gotten fed up with it all,” Heimdall sighs again. He sighs a lot, Bruce notices. Bruce gives a sympathetic hum in response. Heimdall pulls up a heaping stack of parchment. “I can understand why.”
Bruce wakes up in a pile of rubble, an old man talking to him.
He shows up in Heimdall’s office a few hours later after he hulks-out in Manhattan, Heimdall greets him by asking, “Busy day?”
This time Bruce sighs as he nods and says yes.
Later, they get shawarma. Well, the ‘Avengers’ - or whatever their team is called - get shawarma. It just so happens that Thor and Bruce are both Avengers.
...It isn’t a date.
Although Bruce kind of wants it to be.
“Can you…” Bruce trailed off, wondering if what he was about to ask was insensitive, “...eat? You know, with the whole…” he gesticulated vaguely, trying to convey ‘stand-in God of Death’ , “thing?” When he closes his mouth, he reflects on what he had just said, and thinks it’s the worst and most awkward sentence he’s ever uttered in his life.
Thor smiles. “Yes, Bruce, I still eat. Even with the whole,” Thor waves his hands in the same manner Bruce had, “thing.”
“Oh, okay,” Bruce said, “that’s good. Then you should try the tahini sauce with that…” he pushed the small container of sauce over to Thor, who reached for it just as Bruce was about to move away.
Their hands touched. Thor’s were calloused and riddled with scars. Wide palms dwarfed his.
Their eyes met; brown stared into electric blue. Bruce forgot his opposition to making eye contact because wow , they’re even prettier when they aren’t illuminated by the dim candlelight of a macabre throne room.
No one pulled away. And for just a moment, time seemed to freeze. Sparks flew - literally and metaphorically; Thor was covered in static electricity.
“Wow, this is cliche,” Tony remarked as he reached past their hands to grab a piece of pita bread.
Bruce also found it cliche when he and Thor were making out on one of the many balconies of Stark Tower later that night, illuminated by the lights of Manhattan, glittering like clusters of manmade stars. They were wrapped in each other, wind whipping their hair in their faces.
“I forgive you for moving all my stuff out of the closet, you know,” Bruce breathed after their lips had parted.
“And I forgive you for putting all your stuff in my closet,” Thor rumbled back, eyes glinting. Bruce made a face like he had just eaten something rather unappetizing.
“Well, I forgive you for owning a hammer that’s stupid,” Bruce retorted petulantly.
“How is Mjolnir stupid?” Thor questioned, his tone only light and playful.
“Who would make a hammer that only one person can hold? It’s inconvenient,” Bruce said, tucking a strand of golden hair behind Thor’s ear.
“Oh yeah?” Thor took on an affronted air. “Well, I forgive you for smashing my brother into a pulp.” Thor tried to hold a serious face, though a smile was tugging on his lips that were stained red from kissing.
“Oh,” Bruce said, “was that something that I did?”
“When were you going to tell me that the reason you die so much is because you get all big and green?”
“Uh...that’s more of a third date thing, isn’t it?” Bruce stuttered.
“Okay, then I also forgive you for not telling me,” Thor said, pressing his forehead to Bruce’s with all the gentleness in the world.
Bruce gave a tentative smile, which morphed into something more eager, “Now that all is forgiven, can we go back to kissing?” he asked.
And they did.