Every now and then, a shiver of anger would creep up on Bruce from the deep well he had within him and he would just relax into it and let it pass, smothering it by analysing and considering and ultimately rejecting or accepting the impulse that had spawned it. But then there were the times when he had to stop, and look at it, and feed it with whatever he could until it was too big to fit inside him – until the Other Guy came out.
And since the Incident there were now times – rare, so very rare, but they happened – when he would relax into warm sheets and search for the anger in the most oblique way possible, edging around it to make sure it was still there, and he would realise that he didn't feel angry at all.
Just sad.
-
Twelfth Day Post-Incident, or Thereabouts
The kids couldn't get a word more out of him that day, not on that subject, but Bruce could see that Loki had been disturbed by the findings. The evening meal was spent as one long, awkward silence from everyone but Tony, who chattered away in his usual manner about this and that and what he'd found out or done that day. Bruce liked the boy, but was glad when Loki sent him to bed with a quiet word and a story. It gave him time to think, which was ultimately the reason he found himself still awake long after everyone else had gone to sleep.
His mind churned away, leaving him unable to quite drop off. Loki's answer to Clint's earlier question – whether this was going to affect them or not – had been unsatisfactory to say the least, and it kept his thoughts circling back round to the problem when he would have much preferred to nod off. It did, however, mean he was awake to hear the footsteps outside his door and the request from Loki to speak to Nick Fury.
"There is a problem," he head Loki say. Apparently they had found a phone or something, because he hadn't heard anyone arrive. "It seems that I made a slight miscalculation – I need to remove the spell myself, rather than wait for it to collapse on its own."
A pause was next, and Bruce leaned carefully forward in his bed in an effort to hear the conversation better. There were no creaky floorboards on the Helicarrier, but there was plenty of metal and he would have to avoid making noise if he wanted to listen and not be noticed.
"They're dying."
Bruce's heart almost stopped, and he felt out of breath even though he was gulping in air enough to feel dizzy. Distantly he could hear the conversation continue and tried to focus on that instead of Loki's bare statement.
"The spell is feeding off them – I have a feeling the person who cast it was either incompetent or cruel, to force the people of SHIELD to watch as their protectors perished as children from something they could neither prevent nor understand," Loki was saying, and Bruce could feel his eyes stinging. He wondered if Loki had had anything to do with all this – if this was another lie like when he told them they were alright.
"I am cruel," he could hear Loki admit. "But not that... deliberately. And I would not harm a child in my care; only those who got in the way of my plans by accident or another's design."
A pause.
"Cast your aspersions, if you will. But I am the only one who can lift this, and you know it. Now, I have business to attend to."
Bruce didn't hear Loki approach, but if he was honest with himself the man could have been clomping around with a brass band following and he wouldn't have heard a thing – he was too focused on not hyperventilating. It wasn't until the side of the bed dipped on one side that he jerked his head up and found him sitting there with a paper bag in his hand.
"Apparently, it is best if you breathe into this," Loki said, offering it to him. When Bruce had taken it, he placed his hand carefully on the boy's back and rubbed it in circles. He supposed Loki was trying to calm him down, but all Bruce could think of to do was gasp out the broken fragments of a question.
"Did you – are we –"
Loki hushed him.
"Concentrate on breathing. I would have preferred you not to have heard that," he said, and Bruce could hear a note of regret in his voice. "There is no point in worrying when there is nothing you can do, and I sought to prevent any of you being afraid of a future that I will not allow to occur."
"You can't – know –"
"I can," Loki said firmly.
"You lose a lot though, right?" Bruce asked. The bag seemed to be working – he could feel himself calming down. Or at least, breathing properly again. Tension thrummed through him as he thought about the lies Loki had told, and the gall the man had to be so calm when everything – everything – was going as wrong as possible. But he supposed it was easy for him. He wasn't the one dying.
"I do not have my usual distractions," he smiled, somewhat ruefully. "And you did not know me when I triumphed as a younger man."
"And that makes it okay?" Bruce asked tightly. "That makes it alright?"
"It makes it better than if I were an incompetent," Loki told him.
"But you can fail. And we wouldn't have known if you did – we would have died ignorant," he snapped.
"I would not allow that to happen. If it seemed that was likely –" Loki began, but Bruce had had enough.
"You lied!" he shouted, grabbing his pillow from behind him and throwing it across the room. That felt good, but not enough – so he threw the lamp, too, and it smashed so satisfyingly on the wall.
"Stop that," Loki said firmly, raising his voice. "You will wake the others."
"Who cares? They should know," he accused, and flung his clock at the man. Loki deflected it easily, batting it aside with his hand like it was nothing. Bruce wanted to throw more, wreck more and more until the pristine perfect room was as broken as it took so it would reflect how angry he was; but the anger had already wrenched itself into gnawing guilt upon seeing it almost hit his carer.
Instead, he curled his legs up with his back against the wall. Guilt may have been burned into him, but he wasn't going to let that stop him getting some answers.
"Now, where did you learn manners like that?" Loki asked calmly. There was no sign of the raised fist or hateful glare he was expecting, and that made Bruce brave.
"My father doesn't like me - he thinks I'm a monster. That means he isn't always very... nice," Bruce said defiantly with a twisted sneer, breathing more easily as the tension left him. "I guess I learned it from him."
He flinched as Loki reached out with surprisingly inflexible arms and pulled him to his side. He pressed his face into Bruce's hair, and the teenager could feel him shake a little.
"Fathers can be cruel to those they think are cuckoos in the nest," he said softly, with a careful and hoarse whisper. "Whatever you are, you are yourself – you need no such validation as a man like that can provide. Now, I did lie. I did, but can you see why?"
"No," Bruce muttered.
"Can you imagine Tony hearing this? How frightened he would be?" Loki asked gently but insistently. "Or Steve, perhaps, with all he faces already in this new and strange world? You panicked, and you have far less to worry you. Perhaps Clint or Natasha would be able to cope with this news, but is it fair that some should know and some should not?"
"I don't know," Bruce shrugged.
"Of course not," Loki said with a slight laugh. "Why should you know the answer to that? These are questions I have to deal with, not you, and I decided that the risk of permanent harm was not enough of a concern to share with any of you. I will fix this."
"Do you promise?" Bruce murmured into his knees.
"Hm?" Loki asked.
"Do you promise? You keep your promises, so is this a promise or just something you're saying?" he replied more clearly.
"I promise I will do all I can to avoid disaster," he allowed, "and that I will bend all my talents to the task of returning you all to your rightful state."
"Hardly a guarantee," he scoffed.
"Never ask me for a guarantee, Bruce. You will never get one," Loki smiled. "Are you feeling well enough to sleep?"
"Mm. Can you, I mean – nevermind," he said. He wasn't surprised when a wave of tiredness swept over him – partially because he was too tired to be surprised. It had been an eventful night.
Loki appeared to accept that Bruce wanted him to ignore his last aborted request, pulling back the covers from underneath the boy and gesturing for him to slide under. When Bruce complied, he tucked them in around him. It was oddly comfortable and strangely soothing to be in a duvet cocoon.
"Would you like a story? Tony seems to find them reassuring when he goes to bed – perhaps they will work the same magic for you," he said.
"Okay," Bruce replied sleepily, smiling a little that Loki had understood that he didn't want to be quite alone.
"Alright. Now, many years ago there was a wise king with two brave sons, Leifr and Tofi..."
With Loki's voice calm and steady in the background, Bruce soon drifted off into sleep.