Warnings: Character Death, Self-Hatred
Tropes: Afterlife, Angels
Original Release Date: 25 Aug 2018
Square: O5 - Remus Lupin
When Bruce woke up, he was confused. He was on a hospital bed of some sort. He hadn't needed to be in a hospital since 2005 when he first transformed into the Hulk. He looked around to try and gather his bearings. He didn't feel wrong or aching in any way. Not even after...
He blinked.
He'd been with Thor and the rest of the Asgardians.
Thanos had attacked them. He and his followers, children of Thanos they'd called themselves, had killed more than half of the Asgardian refugees.
Hulk had come out, had attempted to stop Thanos. But it hadn't been enough. It hadn't...
He grabbed his chest, feeling for the stab wound he was sure he had. There was nothing but unblemished skin. What was he wearing? He sat up and in the process looked himself over. He was wearing some sort of long, white robe and trousers. He looked around trying to determine where he'd ended up. There were rows upon rows of empty beds in the long, open ward. White sheets on white metal bed frames, pale flooring, cathedral ceilings and blinding sunlight through mullioned windows. There was an air of peace to the place despite the echoing footsteps of an approaching woman. She was wearing a robe similar to his and her hair was pulled up in a 40s-era style nurse's cap.
"Hello Dr Banner," she said as she came close. He was surprised she spoke English.
"Where am I?"
"We call it the Wake-Up Ward but that's not its official name. It's where people wake up after a traumatic death as long as they don't have any other assignation."
"What do you mean? Like Valhalla or something?"
"Exactly. According to your chart," she said, slipping something that looked like a StarkPad out of her pocket and tapping on it twice, "You were with the Asgardians. Those that died in the same event as you have gone to their own designated location. It's all typically based on religious belief but many people come through this room."
Bruce felt a pit forming in his stomach. Sometime during his first doctorate, he'd decided that the Christian faith wasn't for him. When the Other Guy showed up he'd explored other faiths but never truly believed there was a place for him if the Hulk ever let him die. "I don't practice any—"
"That's fine," she said, giving him a smile. She tapped something else on her tablet and then tucked it back into her pocket. "Everyone usually ends up in the same place at the end anyway."
"And the... the Other Guy? Did he?" Bruce asked, hesitantly.
"Oh, the Hulk, you mean? That was a part of you. It wasn't some other being."
"So... I did kill all those people," he whispered. The knot in his stomach was starting to cause cramps. She'd said usually. He had a terrible feeling he wasn't going anywhere pleasant.
She gave him something like a shrug and looked past him to another bed. He looked in the same direction to see someone else just appear. The other person, a woman grabbed at her stomach and gasped.
The nurse patted him on the leg. "Well, now that you're awake and I've explained a bit, it's time for you to move on. Good luck, doctor," she said.
Bruce blinked and from one moment to the next he was someplace new. He was standing in a queue leading up to a desk with a very tall stack of papers in one corner. He couldn't see who was at the desk. A glance around showed him another vast room that reminded him of a police station. Dozens of desks with hundreds of people standing in queues, everyone dressed in similar white robes as him. The ceiling looked strange, like a dome made of glass but the sky beyond it was almost a blinding white and he couldn't look at it without squinting.
"Banner, Bruce?"
He turned to see a man standing beside him holding a tablet in his hands. He pocketed it, gave Bruce a welcoming smile, and offered his hand for a shake. Bruce took him up on it all the while marvelling at the man. He was even taller and broader than Thor and Steve with a muscular chest that wasn't at all hidden by his golden robes. He looked nothing like the angels he'd seen depicted in Catholic mythos but something about him seemed to emanate power. Other than his height and build, however, he looked like any other man.
"Hi, I'm Mike, and if you'll follow me I'll take you where you need to go."
Bruce's stomach cramped again and he nodded, "Right, right..."
They walked past the desk and Mike paused to tell the man working there, "I'm going to go ahead and take Dr Banner to the penitence rooms. 482."
"Right, yes, good," the man said, agreeing and typing something into the holographic computer in front of him. Bruce narrowed his eyes as he looked at the tech and then back to the teetering stack of papers beside him.
Mike chuckled and Bruce was almost sure bells rang somewhere. "It's just for looks," he explained, "We changed the filing and sorting system a couple years ago but people still feel more comfortable with bureaucracy when they see a lot of paperwork. It's right this way."
Neither of them spoke as Mike led him past two more rows of desks towards a hallway of tall cubicles. They stopped at a door near the end labelled 482 above a tablet mounted on the wall. Mike tapped at the tablet a few moments and Bruce looked past him. The hallway of cubicles went on as far as he could see.
"Okay, there's already a guy in here but he's been in for a while. Maybe you two can get to talking or something. Might help you both," Mike said. He opened the door inward and wide letting Bruce walk past him into the room. "Good luck," he said before pulling the door closed behind him.
The inside of the cubicle was larger than the outside and it confused Bruce's sense of logic but he walked further in anyway. It was a small theatre. There was a large screen to one side and comfortable looking theatre seating opposite it. He walked down the narrow corridor between the seats towards the screen. The screen was displaying a crazy scene, like a battle of some kind, but there was no sound. When he turned he found a single man with long tangled light brown hair sitting there staring forward.
"Hello?" Bruce asked.
The man startled and looked at him but when he saw Bruce he gave him a smile. "Hello there." His British accent confused Bruce at first because up until that point he hadn't noticed anyone else speaking with an accent. "Welcome to the Self-Hatred Room. My name's Remus Lupin."
"Dr Bruce Banner."
"Nice to meet you, Dr Banner. I suppose you'll want to have a watch of your life, then?" Lupin said, pointing to the screen. He looked like he'd been sitting still for a long time, giving off an air that if he'd been in a forest he would have had moss growing over him.
Bruce turned around to see the screen and saw the Hulk destroying the lab the first time he transformed. He looked away.
He walked closer to Lupin and decided he'd rather direct the conversation away from the Hulk. "Why do you hate yourself then?"
"Are you asking if I can turn into a monster too?" Lupin asked.
Bruce's mouth opened but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what to say to that. Lupin eyed the screen behind Bruce once before cracking a smile at him, like he was making a joke.
"I'm a werewolf."
"Is that a congenital disease?" Bruce asked.
Lupin repeated Bruce's imitation of a gold fish, mouth opening and closing in speechlessness before he barked out a rough laugh. "No. I was bitten when I was four."
There was a loud, feminine shout from beyond the door. Bruce was instantly curious. It seemed so was Lupin. They ran back to the door and opened it to look out. That knot in Bruce's stomach was back, standing in the same queue that Bruce had been in was Natasha Romanoff, with short blonde hair, arguing and demanding to be sent back to where she was.
"You don't understand, they need me!"
"Natasha," Bruce asked, stepping out into the cubicle hallway and taking a few steps in her direction.
She looked up and her eyes went wide. It was the closest to scared he'd ever seen her look. "Bruce?"
Mike jogged towards where Nat was making a ruckus. "Ah, right, sorry. Miss Romanov, isn't it?" he asked. She nodded once and took a step closer to him.
Before either of them could speak, someone else appeared behind her. He had shoulder-length brown hair and looked entirely more shocked than anyone else Bruce had seen in this area. "What the hell?"
"Barnes?" Nat said, turning around.
"What's going on?" he asked, staring at his left hand like he didn't know what to make of it.
Mike waved at them both, "Hi there. Sergeant Barnes, right?"
"Both need to go to 482, Mike," the desk clerk said from behind him.
"Why is the Wake-Up Ward sending them so soon?" Mike asked, his expression hard like he was a bit frustrated.
"It looks like something crazy is happening on earth, sir, they were running out of beds."
"All right, I'll send someone to have a look. It's not time for this yet," Mike said. He turned back to Natasha and Barnes and said, "Right, okay, you two come with me. I know where you're supposed to be." He led them both, looking cautious and ready for a fight, in Bruce and Lupin's direction. He waved a hand at them. "Back in, both of you. You're fine. Nothing's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong?" Nat repeated sarcastically even as Barnes snorted in disbelief.
Mike held the door and ushered the four of them inside and shut the door behind them.
"What's going on?" Natasha asked looking at Bruce and then Lupin. "Where are we and why?"
"So..." Lupin asked with a lazy grin, "How did you die?"
"What?" Barnes asked, stepping closer only to see past him to the screen at the far side of the theatre. "No," he murmured, moving past them to see part of his life playing there. It looked like a forest and a row of army tents. Then the inside of a tent and a lot of bare skin. A husky whispered, "Steve," told more to a story that Bruce wasn't sure he wanted to know.
The screen went dark. Lupin had turned it off.
They all looked around at one another and finally, Bruce broke the silence. "Mr Lupin here was just telling me why he hates himself for being turned into a werewolf when he was four."
Nat and Barnes both turned to study the long-haired man. "A werewolf?" Barnes asked.
Nat didn't give him a chance to answer before asking, "You hate yourself for something you couldn't control? How many people did you kill?"
Lupin looked away from them as he answered. "A few." He glanced up at Bruce. "And you? How did you become that rage monster?"
"Hubris."
"And you two? Are you monsters too?" he asked.
"Assassins," Nat answered, deadpan. "What is this place and how long have you been here?"
"This is the Self-Hatred Penitence Room. And... what year is it?"
"2018."
Lupin looked shocked and took a step back, glancing down at his hands. "My son's a grown man." He frowned. "Twenty years. Brutus and Judas left sometime last decade."
Barnes's eyebrows went up in curiosity. "So let me get this straight, you're in this room because you became a werewolf when you were four, might have killed a few people, and hate yourself for it?"
"Yes."
"And to leave one has to... what? Forgive one's self? That's it?"
"Yes."
"Why would you hate yourself for something you didn't do?" Bruce asked. He'd meant the question for Lupin but all three of them looked at him.
"Because I still did it. I still killed all of those people," Barnes answered.
Nat nodded. "I killed a lot of people."
Bruce huffed and looked away, muttering, "But none of you turned yourself into a monster."
There was a sudden choir song that filled the room. Lupin looked up. "Another angel gets their wings," he said.
Barnes, Nat, and Bruce all headed back to the door to look out. Again, Bruce recognised the person standing in the queue. Steve Rogers was there but not wearing a white robe. He was wearing a gold loincloth. Spread from his back was a pair of white feathered wings with at least a four and a half metre span.
Next to him, even bigger and larger than Bruce remembered was Mike. His robes had been replaced with a gold loincloth as well but what stood out the most were the three pairs of wings, white, gold, and black, that sprouted from his back. the largest pair was pulled close to his body but if spread could have doubled Steve's from tip-to-tip.
"Congratulations, Captain Rogers. It's a pleasure to meet you. I hadn't expected you so soon. If you'll come with me I'll show you home," Mike said, pointing up. The domed ceiling had opened and the sky seemed even more overwhelmingly bright.
"Are my friends here? Nat? Bucky?"
"Your lovers? Yes, they're here. Don't worry, they'll be along shortly." Mike patted Steve on the arm and then extended his wings and propelled himself up into the air. Bruce felt the blowback of wind in his hair. Steve followed after a moment's hesitation and then they were both flying up and out of the ceiling and into the light.
Bruce turned back to look at his friends. Bucky was staring up at the white sky beyond the dome looking slackjawed. Nat looked worried.
"Come on," Bruce said, herding them back into the room.
"So how do we get out of here?" he asked Lupin who had returned to his seat in the corner of the front row.
"You forgive yourself," Lupin answered.
The three of them shared a look before Natasha went and sat near Lupin. "So the screen shows your life, right?"
"Yeah."
"Show us yours, then," she said.
As it played, Nat spoke softly to him, a whisper here and there. It wasn't until he was replaying the very end, a battle at a school that they came to his first—and only—kills. When the screen went dark they all sat quietly for a long while. Lupin had started crying.
There was a knock on the door some time later. Mike peeked his head around the stadium seating. He smiled and it lit up the room. "Remus Lupin? It's time to go home."
Lupin stood and walked towards Mike on shaky legs. "Really?"
"Really," Mike reassured him.
Choir song filled the room and Lupin's appearance changed. His long tangled hair was cut short in a style similar to the way he'd worn it while he was alive, his white robes had transformed into a gold loincloth and the white feathered wings that spread out his back were magnificent. Not as big as Mike's or Steve's but they were still a sight to behold. The ceiling of their cubicle disappeared and Mike and Remus took flight, up and out of the dome and into the blinding white sky above. When Bruce and the others couldn't look up into the brightness any longer they looked away and the cubicle ceiling returned.
They shared a look with one another. Barnes's hair had grown a few inches. Natasha's had too. Bruce reached up to feel that his had grown enough to touch the top of his shoulders. "All right," Natasha said glancing between them, "Who's next?"