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Thor had faced witches, warlocks, and beings far beyond comprehension, but the sorceress had been different. Her grudge wasn’t against Asgard or Odin or even the throne—but against Thor himself.
“You golden fool,” she had sneered, her power crackling in the air. “You take for granted what so many are denied. Love. Connection. A soul that answers yours.”
Thor had raised Mjolnir and charged, but she’d whispered the spell before the blow landed.
Her magic hit him like a storm.
“I curse you to walk eternity without your match. No mark, no pull, no peace. Let your heart search forever—and find nothing.”
Thor had dismissed it then. Another failed attempt to rattle a god. But the words sank in over time, corrosive and cruel.
Decades passed. Then centuries. And still… nothing.
While others met their soulmates and awoke with marks burning against their skin, Thor remained untouched. No matter how close he came to someone, no matter how much he tried—he felt nothing.
He began to believe it.
He stopped looking.
When Thor met Bruce Banner, he was not looking for a soulmate.
Bruce was… complicated. Brilliant. Quiet. Tormented. He hid behind science and sarcasm and oversized clothes, always shrinking from attention. And yet, there was power in him—a deep, dangerous, unruly thing.
They met during battle, but they became friends in silence. Conversations over breakfast. Shared silences on long flights. An unexpected kind of comfort.
Thor learned to read Bruce’s tells—the twitch of his fingers before a panic attack, the sharp breath when someone got too close, the rare smile that meant something had genuinely made him happy.
And Bruce? Bruce treated Thor not like a god, but like a person. A frustrating, often ridiculous person—but a person nonetheless.
Over time, Thor found himself seeking Bruce out. For counsel. For calm. For company.
And something in his chest—something long thought frozen—began to stir.
On Midgard, the soulmark appeared differently for everyone. For some, it was a phrase their soulmate would say. For others, an image. A feeling. A sound.
Thor had no mark.
But one morning, years into his time with the Avengers, he awoke with a strange heat across his ribs. Not pain. Not discomfort. But… presence.
He pulled up his shirt and froze.
There, scrawled in a delicate pattern of runes and DNA helix lines, was a mark.
It pulsed faintly with gold light.
He nearly dropped Mjölnir.
He had not touched anyone new. Had not kissed or courted or even hoped.
But he had fallen asleep on the couch the night before, Bruce’s head resting quietly against his shoulder after an exhausting mission.
No one else had been near.
He stared at the mark in disbelief. Then in fear.
Was it real? Could it be?
The curse was supposed to be eternal.
Bruce didn’t notice the change right away. But Hulk did.
The green behemoth, usually triggered by rage or danger, became calm in Thor’s presence. Not docile—but relaxed. Less inclined to smash, more inclined to sit.
Bruce hated discussing the Hulk. But after the third time Thor managed to de-escalate a potentially catastrophic shift with nothing but a hand on Bruce’s shoulder and a quiet, “I am here, friend,” Bruce began to ask questions.
“You’re doing something to him,” he said one night in the lab. “To us.”
Thor looked at him, blue eyes guarded. “I am not doing anything you do not invite.”
“I don’t mean like that,” Bruce muttered, flustered. “I mean… it’s like he trusts you.”
Thor didn’t speak for a long time.
“Do you believe in soulmates, Bruce?”
Bruce blinked. “Scientifically? No. Biochemically, maybe. Philosophically? I don’t know. I think… we find people who make the chaos quieter. And that’s enough.”
Thor swallowed. “I was cursed. To never find mine.”
Bruce looked up sharply.
“Cursed?”
Thor nodded. “An enemy of Asgard. She said I would walk eternity without ever finding the one fate tied me to. I believed her.”
Bruce’s brows furrowed. “And now?”
Thor hesitated.
“I think… she was wrong.”
Bruce noticed the mark two days later.
They were in the training room, Thor shirtless and laughing as he dodged Steve’s shield with impossible grace. Bruce was watching from the sidelines, trying (and failing) to not be distracted by the line of Thor’s shoulders, when he saw it—golden and subtle, glowing softly against his ribs.
The mark.
He knew that symbol.
It was a strand of DNA. His strand. A sequence from his own blood he’d mapped years ago—the one unique to the Hulk, a marker he never shared with anyone.
Except…
Bruce stared.
It was his.
On Thor.
“Thor,” he whispered.
The god turned mid-spin, catching Steve’s shield with one hand before turning to Bruce.
“Yes?”
Bruce’s voice trembled. “Come here.”
Thor crossed the room in three strides. Bruce reached out, fingertips brushing the edge of the mark.
“This is mine,” he said, voice cracking. “This is… how?”
Thor covered Bruce’s hand with his own. “I don’t know. But when I woke up with it, I felt hope for the first time in centuries.”
Bruce didn’t speak for a long moment.
“But I’m not a soulmate kind of guy.”
Thor’s heart sank.
Until Bruce added, voice soft: “But I believe in impossible things. I mean… I turn into a rage monster the size of a building. You’re a literal god. Why not soulmates?”
Thor stared at him.
“You’re not afraid?”
“I’m terrified,” Bruce said with a weak laugh. “But… if this is real—if you are mine—then I think I’ve been waiting for you a long time, too.”
The curse shattered not with thunder, but with a kiss.
Soft. Hesitant. Honest.
It happened weeks later, in the quiet of the rooftop, stars scattered overhead, Bruce pressed against Thor’s chest like he belonged there.
The mark glowed between them.
“I’ve never had this,” Bruce whispered. “Not like this.”
“Nor have I,” Thor said. “But I would not trade it for anything.”
The wind carried away the last remnants of the curse, unnoticed. The sorceress’s magic, old and spiteful, could not survive true connection—could not withstand the quiet, resolute bond between two people who had built something sacred through pain and patience and choice.
Thor had waited centuries.
Bruce had fought monsters within and without.
And now, they had each other.