Chapter 6 - Little Bunnies
A/N: Content warning for brief, non-graphic mention of past domestic partner abuse.
"Notice the verbiage that runs through your mind when you're being the most heinous to yourself and come up with a new-and-improved response.
"For example, if every time you look in the mirror, your first thought is yikes, make a conscious effort to change it to hi, gorgeous!
"If you have a complicated relationship with your father and beat yourself up every time you say something awful to him, replace I'm a monster with I'm just a little bunny, working through my issues. And then, of course, apologize to him."
—Jen Sincero, You Are a Badass® (Running Press)
"I didn't even get to wear the dress I picked out," Loki complained. "And I'm still wearing this awful dress Mother conjured, which is not at all suitable for hiking through the mountains."
"You haven't done much hiking," Natasha pointed out. "Thor's been carrying you the entire time."
"You're all still annoyed with me, aren't you?"
"You get that we're lucky to be walking out of Latveria alive, right?"
"Natasha, that's enough," said Bruce. "What happened, happened. Loki understands what she did wrong. Right, Loki?"
"Yes, but I'm not sorry I did it."
Thor stopped walking and released her without any warning. "Perhaps Mother was right; I shouldn't coddle you," he told her as he stepped over her.
"Ow! Thor, that hurt. I think I landed on a rock." She watched Thor's back become smaller as he continued down the path without her.
It was Bruce who came back to help her up. "Are you okay, Loki? You aren't really hurt are you?"
"I think I'm okay," said Loki, sounding pathetic even to her own ears. She might have a couple of bruises, both to her backside and to her spirit, but it was nothing a hug wouldn't—
Bruce turned and started walking away.
"Bruce," Loki cried out, reaching for him as she fell to her knees.
He turned around. "Loki, what are you doing? You said you weren't hurt."
"I knew it. You're-still-mad—ah—at—me," she said, starting to hyperventilate. And you're going to abandon me, just like everyone else.
"I'm not mad at you. I'm wondering if what you're doing now is an act or not, but I'm not mad at you." He crouched down by Loki and lowered his voice. "Do you need your medication?"
Loki shook her head. "No, I don't want it right now. But I give you my solemn oath that I am not acting. I told you how I feel about oaths, Bruce."
"Okay." He called out to Natasha and Thor. "Loki and I are going to stop here for a while. Why don't you guys go on ahead? We can meet you up at that clearing we stopped at before." Once they were gone, Bruce sat down next to her. "Loki, I'm not mad at you," he repeated. "I'm still disappointed in your behavior and I would appreciate it if you could spend some time thinking about how your actions affected everyone else, but I'm not mad."
"I'm sorry, Bruce."
"Are you, though? A minute ago, you said you weren't."
"I'm sorry that you're upset with me."
"So you're sorry that there were consequences to what you did, but you're still not sorry you did it in the first place."
"My mother is marrying another man who is exactly likeOdin. I couldn't do nothing."
"Sometimes things are out of your control, and you just have to accept that."
"They wanted me to live with them."
"We wouldn't have let that happen, Loki."
"Do you promise?"
"I promise we would do everything within our power to keep something like that from happening. You do know that Tony would declare his own private war against Victor Von Doom if he tried to make you stay in Latveria against your will, right?"
Loki nodded; she did know that. She still didn't understand why Tony was so protective of her, but she couldn't deny that he was.
"Good. Now, are you sure you don't need your medication?"
Loki shook her head.
"Does that mean no, you don't need it, or no, you're not sure?"
"Doctor Samson told me that I shouldn't take it unless I really needed it."
"And you're sure you don't? It is okay to take it before you're actually having a panic attack."
"I'm sure. I just need—" Loki couldn't quite bring herself to say it, but she lifted her arms up to Bruce.
Bruce blinked at her, then grasped her arms to pull her up. He let go, but when Loki stood there with her arms still outstretched, he must have finally understood, because he pulled her into a hug, which he attempted to end a few seconds later with a couple of pats to her back. Not ready to end it yet, Loki refused to let go. Eventually, she felt him relax into it and wait patiently for her to loosen her grip. "Loki, are you ready to keep walking so we can try to catch up to the others?"
"Yes, but—I really can't walk in these shoes." It wasn't fair; as Natasha had advised, the dress shoes she had brought had been flats, but she was now stuck wearing the four-inch heels Frigga had dressed her in.
"I would carry you if I could, but you're too heavy."
Loki broke their embrace so she could glare at him.
"I'm not saying that you're heavier than you should be. To be honest, I'm not sure how much you should weigh. Obviously, your bones are denser than a normal human's, but you look healthy enough. We've been over this—"
"What are you saying, Bruce?"
"That I'm the one that's out of shape. The only way I could carry anything bigger than my carry-on bag for any distance is if I turned into the other guy, and I don't want to do that right now."
Loki turned herself into a fluffy black angora rabbit and hopped into Bruce's arms. I'm not a monster. I'm just a little bunny, working through my issues, thought Loki.
Bruce shifted her into one arm so he could use the other to scritch her behind one long ear. "I guess I can manage this. Although I'm kind of wondering why you can turn yourself into a rabbit, but you can't turn your shoes into flats."
／(◕ x ◕ )＼
A thick fog had settled around the clearing by the time Bruce and Loki made it there, and Loki heard Thor's voice before she saw him. "I see my sister has manipulated you into carrying her now."
"It's fine," said Bruce.
Thor shook his head. "It isn't. I'm starting to think we've all been much too accommodating, and that's the reason she thinks she can get away with doing whatever she wants."
"She hasn't gotten away with anything. She's still going to be grounded when we get home."
Loki didn't appreciate being talked about as if she wasn't there, so she hopped out of Bruce's arms, transforming back into a form that allowed her to speak before she hit the ground. "I'm sorry, alright? I just couldn't sit back and watch Mother marry that awful man."
"You can't control Mother, Loki. You have to let her make her own mistakes."
"Everyone keeps saying that. But why is it fine for everyone to tell me what to do?"
"It's different," Thor argued. "You're still a child. As your guardians, the rest of us have an obligation to keep you from doing things that make it unlikely you'll survive to adulthood."
"In Asgard, I was considered an adult."
"True, but you've allowed everyone here to treat you as a child for several months. You even let Tony tuck you into bed—"
"I do not let him tuck me in. I cannot prevent him from stopping by my room to check on me at night."
"It's alright, Loki. You don't have to be embarrassed," said Natasha, the corner of her lips quirking upward. "I wish I had someone to tuck me in."
"He doesn't tuck me in."
"Alright, stop." Bruce had raised his voice in a way that he hardly ever did, which got all their attention. "You two are acting like children too, and if you don't stop teasing your younger sister, she isn't going to be the only one grounded when we get home."
Thor scowled at him. "You cannot ground me. I am ninety-percent certain I am above you in the chain of command."
"Back on the plane, you told Loki you'd be deferring to both me and Natasha on this mission," Bruce reminded him. "Anyway, just leave her alone." Apparently, he thought Loki incapable of fighting her own battles.
"I don't need you to protect me," Loki snapped. "You aren't truly my father, you know." She regretted saying it as soon as it came out of her mouth. Bruce wasn't the one she'd been irked with, but somehow, her inner bunny had transformed into an overstimulated cat, and she had turned her claws on him.
"Be thankful for that, Bruce. Loki killed her true father."
Loki knew that most of the time Thor spoke without thinking, but she couldn't help thinking that he had intended to wound her that time. If he thought her too stupid to know the difference, he had another thing coming, and if she could have summoned a dagger to return the wound with, she would have done it. Instead, she pulled off one of her shoes and threw it at his head. Thor caught it and grinned at her in a way she took as a challenge. She removed her other shoe and rushed him, intending to use the heel to make him look a little more like his father, and they were soon grappling together on the ground, each wielding a shoe as a weapon.
"Uh, Bruce—?" Something in Natasha's voice made Loki look, and she saw Bruce doubled over. His breathing had changed, and though she couldn't see his eyes, in her mind's eye she saw brown irises tinged with green. Loki froze, and when Thor noticed, he paused and looked up as well. He then released the choke hold he had had her in, dropping her shoe and grabbing Mjolnir the walking stick from the ground where she had fallen.
Natasha grabbed Loki by the wrist and pulled her off the ground, pushing her in the direction of the trees.
（;≧-≦）;;
Maybe they had all gotten a little too used to Bruce's seemingly endless patience and forgotten why he'd had to develop it in the first place. "This is your fault," Natasha told Loki, as a tree which had been ripped up by its roots flew past them, too close for comfort.
"How is it my fault?"
"It just is." Natasha pulled Loki down behind a fallen log just in time to save her from being hit with yet another uprooted tree. "Stay down here. I'm going to try to talk him down."
"No!" Loki grabbed her around her waist.
"It's okay. Hulk won't hurt me, at least not on purpose. It's Thor he's angry with."
"I'm not so sure that's true. Please Natasha, just let Thor handle him. If he gets hit with a tree, he can walk it off."
"It will be okay, Loki. Just let go." Natasha pried Loki off her, one finger at a time. While she appreciated Loki's concern for her, she needed to get to Bruce. "Just stay here and stay down," she repeated, once she had freed herself.
She ran in the direction that the tree had been thrown from, and when she came within a few feet of Hulk, she stopped and put out her hand. "Hey, Big Guy. Sun's gettin' real low."
Hulk snorted, then ambled towards her. She reached out to touch the inside of his wrist, but before she could, Hulk grabbed her, wrapping his thick fingers around her forearm. Then he smiled at her, but something about theway he was smiling—maybe it was just that she couldn't recall seeing Hulk smile before—made her uneasy.
= = o(◎益◎;)
Thor dodged another tree that had been thrown at him. "Ha. You missed me again!" Another object whizzed by his head in a whir of black and copper red. "Ha. You—wait, was that Natasha? That is bad form, Hulk! You mustn't throw people! I think it is time for us to end this." Thor swung Mjolnir around in a circle, allowing it to gain momentum. Then he released it in the direction he thought Hulk stood but couldn't see him for the fog.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then he heard Hulk laugh. "Stupid god missed!"
Thor furrowed his eyebrows, lifted his hand and tried to call Mjolnir back to him. Then he waited. And waited. Thor sighed, wondering if it might have gotten caught on something. Or worse, he'd thrown it so hard this time, off the side of a mountain, that it wasn't going to stop; it would keep going around in an orbit around Midgard's circular globe without hitting anything. He started running in the direction he had thrown it, hoping that he might catch up with it.
█▬▬== ◟(`ﮧ´ ◟ )
Natasha had been gone for much longer than she should have been. At least Hulk had stopped throwing things, but the quiet made Loki uneasy. The sun had started to disappear behind the trees, and she wondered if she ought to stay where she was or head for Sokovia on her own to meet up with Clint. Or maybe she should go back to Latveria, and hope that Frigga would be willing to open a portal back to New York for her, and that Doom wouldn't try to make her stay on as Princess of Latveria.
She had a feeling that someone had told her what to do if they got separated, but she hadn't particularly been listening. She wished she could contact someone, but even if she could have gotten cell service out here, which she doubted, she didn't have her phone. That was in her bag, which was still back at Doom's Castle. Natasha, who must have anticipated having to make a quick exit that morning, had only grabbed her bag and Bruce's before their audience with Doom. She had explained later that she hadn't brought Loki's with her because it didn't contain any supplies necessary for their survival, but Loki wondered if it wasn't just because Natasha had been annoyed with her.
Loki reached into the pocket she had created with her magic—not a dimensional pocket, but a regular pocket made of fabric, hidden in her voluminous skirts—and pulled out her other cell phone, the one none of the others knew about. She flipped up the lid and checked the bars on its anachronistic black and green display. As she expected, it was getting full service, since it didn't rely on Midgard's cell phone towers. She considered dialing the only number in its contact list, but she'd been told that she was to use that lifeline only in the direst of situations, and she wasn't certain that the situation warranted it.
She had begun to suspect, however, that the situation did warrant taking one of those pills Doctor Samson had prescribed for her. It would be a lot easier to decide what to do if her heart wasn't racing, and she didn't feel so lightheaded. Bruce had had them, and usually, he kept them in his wallet—but what had even happened to his wallet when he transformed into the Hulk? It might be back in the clearing, but she wasn't even sure what direction that was in at this point.
Loki stared up at the dimming sky, certain she was going to die, though she couldn't say what was going to kill her. Hypothermia and dehydration were the first two things that killed mortals in these kinds of survival situations, weren't they? At least she didn't have to worry about encountering a predator, because she could always turn herself into something farther up the food chain.
Perhaps she should use her emergency phone after all. But no, she could wait. It hadn't been that long, and one of the others might come back for her. She tried to focus on taking deep breaths in through her mouth, holding them in, counting to four, and then slowly letting them out again. Then she tried to focus on the things she could feel, see, hear, smell, and taste—the grass underneath her, the branches swaying in the twilight breeze, the chirping of whatever kind of chirping insect they had in the mountains on the Latverian-Sokovian border, the smell of pine trees, and the taste of mountain mist when she stuck out her tongue.
Loki felt a little better. Eventually, someone would come back for her, so it was best to wait where she was. If she didn't, she'd probably get in trouble, because then they would come back looking for her and she wouldn't be there. But what if they don't come back? a little voice whispered to her. What if you've been abandoned? It wouldn't be the first time. You've been such a horrid brat the past couple of days, they'll be glad to be rid of you.
Loki felt like a pit had opened under her, and she'd have fallen into it if she hadn't remembered what Doctor Samson had told her. Not all the voices in her head were hers, and whenever she heard a voice that told her negative things about herself, it would be helpful to stop and think about whose voice it was. Who did it sound like?
The answer came to her almost immediately. "Your birthright was to die," Odin had told her,"as a child cast out onto a frozen rock. If I had not taken you in, you would not be here now to hate me." That sounded fairly in line with her current line of thought, didn't it? As usual, the voice in her head telling her that she'd be lost if it weren't for him, that she hadn't been born with the innate right to live, let alone to be loved, was Odin's.
"They'll come back," Loki whispered to herself. Even if they didn't, she would still be alright; even if everyone else failed her, she would always have herself to rely on.
(:_」∠)_ - they will come back, right?
When Bruce woke up, the first thing he realized was that he'd been sleeping in his underwear in the woods, and that there were leaves in his underwear and something crawling around in his hair. Which unfortunately, wasn't a completely unfamiliar scenario. The next thing he realized was that he was alone, he didn't know where in the woods he was, and he didn't have anything at all with him or anyway to contact anyone, which, familiar situation or not, was still bad.
He tried to remember what had happened the night before, but as usual, what he remembered felt like a bad acid trip. He thought he remembered throwing things at Thor. He also thought he remembered throwing Natasha. He told himself that she would be alright; after all, she was pretty good at landing on her feet. What had happened to Loki, though? She wasn't a "god" like Thor anymore, or a spy trained in acrobatics like Natasha. Her magic was still a little unreliable. If he had hurt her, that would be unforgivable.
"Friend Bruce, is that you?"
Bruce pushed himself off the ground and turned in the direction of the voice he had heard. He felt relief to see Thor grinning and waving at him, as if he had already forgotten the fight between him and Hulk. Though now that he thought of it, Thor had probably enjoyed himself; he always did seem to be in a good mood after a fight, which Bruce always found a little annoying, given that all he usually felt after a fight was disorientation, exhaustion, and nausea. Then he remembered what had set Hulk off to begin with. "You shouldn't have started a fight with your sister, Thor."
Thor frowned at him. "It was only a little play fight, Bruce. If I had been serious, Loki wouldn't have been able to hold her own against me in her mortal form."
That was true, now that Bruce thought about it, but— "I'm pretty sure Loki wasn't playing. What you said hurt her."
"It was only the truth," Thor said. "I suppose it wasn't a good time to bring it up, though—"
"No, it wasn't."
"I apologize, my friend."
"Don't apologize to me, apologize to your sister."
"I will." Thor's grim expression turned back into a grin. "Are you going to ground me, Bruce?"
Bruce rolled his eyes as he shouldered his way past Thor in the direction he hoped would lead back to the clearing.
(;; ・・) ヾ( ´・・｀)_中
Natasha's right arm was red and swollen, but at least it was just the one arm. It wasn't twisted in any odd angles, and nothing was sticking out; hopefully that meant it was a clean break. She cradled the arm against her chest as she made her way back to the place she had left Loki.
She'd decided it was best to wait until morning came and the fog cleared, because otherwise, she might have been wandering around the mountainside for the rest of the night. Loki better not have gotten it into her head to go looking for her or to go on without the group. If she had to spend all day searching the mountainside for her, she was going to kick her ass, because the one thing she had told Loki when they'd started the trek through the mountains on their way there was that if she somehow got separated from the group, she should stay in one place and wait for someone to find her.
Luckily, she found Loki where she had left her. Asleep, she looked almost innocent, especially with the bunny ears that had stuck around after her transformation back into a normal-looking girl. They twitched in her sleep, and Natasha wondered if she even realized they were there. She took out her phone, which still didn't have any cell service, and took a picture before gently nudging Loki's shoulder with her boot.
"You look like crap," said Loki, once her eyes had focused on Natasha.
Natasha felt a little better about waking her up now. "Thanks. You don't look the best you've ever looked either, but at least it looks like you got some sleep. Come on, get up. We need to go back to the clearing and hope that Bruce and your brother have already made their way back there."
(≖͞_≖̥) ~(´ｰ+｀)
When Loki walked into the clearing, looking a little shaken but healthy and in one piece, Bruce felt a surge of relief. He felt the urge to run towards her and pull her into another hug, but stopped himself when he saw Natasha. The sick feeling he had been feeling all morning seeped right back into his stomach. She cradled her arm close to her chest, and her hair hung in limp strands over her eyes. "Natasha, what's wrong with your arm?"
"Don't worry about it. It feels like a clean break."
"Broken is broken. Did I—why am I even asking? I know I did. I'd apologize, but I'm not sure there's a way I can apologize for something like this."
"Just calm down, Bruce. I've had my arm broken before."
Bruce shook his head. This was every bit as unforgivable as it would have been had he hurt Loki. He had just completely discounted the idea that Natasha could be hurt badly, because she hardly ever got hurt when they were on missions.
"It's alright, I just tripped and fell."
"No. We both know you're lying, and that's not going to help anything." How many times had his mother told their neighbors not to worry, she was just clumsy? The bruises on her arms were from walking into the patio door. When she'd broken her wrist, it was from falling down the back steps, and no, no one had pushed her—
"Bruce, it's fine. It's my fault for not reading the situation correctly, and for that matter, I could have fallen better."
"If I hurt you, it is in no way your fault." Natasha took a step backward, and Bruce realized he'd raised his voice much more than necessary. The worst part of it was that Loki stood there looking between them uncertainly, and Thor seemed to be at just as much of a loss.
Natasha stretched her neck in the direction of the trees, indicating that she wanted Bruce to follow her. Once they were a good distance away from where they had left Thor and Loki, Natasha stopped. "Look, I understand where this is coming from. I did your psych eval for SHIELD, remember? I know more about your formative experiences than I have a right to."
Bruce stopped six feet away from her and stood looking down at his feet. He wasn't sure what she thought she knew, but she was right, she had no right to know things he hadn't shared with anyone before—not Tony, not Leonard, not even Doctor Sofen. He pushed the twinge of anger he felt down, knowing that it wasn't safe for him to feel. Luckily, there were plenty of other emotions to bury it under, namely shame, guilt, and fear.
"I promise we can talk about what happened later, but it's going to be problematic if you're afraid to come near me. For one thing, I could use your help setting my arm."
Bruce looked up at her and took a couple of cautious steps forward, trying to prove to himself as much as Natasha that he wasn't afraid. "It would be better if we just put it in a splint for now and got you to a hospital as soon as possible. I don't want to try to set it without getting an x-ray first—"
"I've set it myself plenty of times before. Like I said, I'm pretty sure it's a clean break. If you don't want to help, I can do it myself."
"Please don't. If you don't set it properly and it heals that way, you might need surgery later." And then, he would feel even worse than he already did, if it was possible for him to feel worse.
Natasha's lips pursed together, and Bruce thought she was going to protest again, but after they had stared at one another for a long moment, she was the one that backed down. "Fine, you win. If it will make you feel better, I'll go to the emergency room like a normal person."
"Thank you," said Bruce, feeling somewhat relieved, but not better.
Bruce followed her back to where Thor and Loki were waiting for them. He wondered if Thor had used the opportunity to apologize, as close as they were standing to one another. Whether or not they had spoken at all, he suspected they had fought with one another so frequently over the past thousand years that they had their own shorthand for apologies. He had noticed it before; they would fight, and a few moments later, one of them would make some gesture or facial expression that wouldn't have meant much to anyone else, and then both would go on like nothing had happened.
"Ah, Bruce!" Thor said, smiling broadly at him. "I hope you and Natasha had a nice little chat. We didn't hear any of it, of course."
Loki kicked Thor in the shin as she cleared her throat. "You know, I am beginning to feel guilty about skipping out on Mother's wedding. I think we should go back."
Bruce's mouth worked, but he couldn't quite figure out what to say to that. Natasha beat him to it. "Loki, are you trying to trick us into going back so you can try to stop your mother's wedding?"
"No, I promise that's not what I'm thinking. Were Gungnir here, I would swear an oath upon her. Now that I've had some time to think about it, I think Doom might not be so bad as we thought, and that if this is what Mother wants, we should be supportive."
"Doom might not be so bad," Natasha repeated, as if trying to work out what the words meant.
"I mean, he's just kind of a dork, when you get right down to it. He took me down to his lab to show me his giant potato-battery. He seemed to genuinely want to bond with me. Besides, anyone who has the good sense to choose green as their color, and me as their heir, can't be so bad."
"And you've forgiven Mother for her harsh words?" asked Thor.
"To be fair, what I did was wrong. Wrong enough that I knew it was wrong, and you know I'm working with a moral compass that's been partially demagnetized at the best of times. And even though Frigga was upset with me, she still called me her daughter. She has never denied me the way Odin has, even when I told her she was not my mother."
"We are still closer to Latveria than to Sokovia. They must have some sort of emergency medical services." Natasha winced, although when Bruce made eye contact with her, she tried to cover it up by yawning.
Bruce winced out of sympathy and didn't bother trying to cover it. He just wanted to get on the plane and go home, but Natasha needed medical attention, and he wasn't feeling up to doing much but going along with whatever the others decided to do, nor did he feel he had a right to express an opinion. For what he'd done to Natasha, he deserved worse than to have to walk back into Latveria in his underwear.
...φ(ｰ￣*)
Author's Note:
Obviously, I've taken some liberties with Bruce's backstory, as many fanfiction authors before me have done. All we really know about MCU Bruce's parents is that Bruce could never impress his father, and that he was too busy with his research to be there when he died.