Disclaimer: not mine!

Again, thanks to all who review! I keep meaning to message you all personally to thank you, but I haven't seemed to be able to find the time :( You know who you are and you are all awesome! I hope you enjoy this chapter as well. Also, bonus points for anyone who can guess/find out the meanings of all the chapter names!

Y.A.

'Well,' he started hesitantly, feeling like the kid at camp sitting with a torch under his chin ready to top all other stories with the most terrifying tale of them all. 'It started in Kazakhstan…'

Bruce speaks the way he always does, slowly and deliberately, each word carefully considered and selected.

'I left New York to spend some time in non-populated areas because sometimes always being around people makes me nervous. The space gives me time to…refresh myself, I guess. So I decided to go to central Asia where there are vast expanses of land that is either uninhibited or home to nomadic tribes, perfect for…blowing off some steam.'

He had managed to keep eye contact with them all up to this point, but admitting to them that part of the reason he had gone on this little sojourn was to allow the Hulk to run loose was somewhat shameful to him. He looked away, out of the window where there were no eyes judging him, or pitying him. He wasn't sure which one he hated more. Judgement, probably, he mused. He'd taken enough pity already to last him a lifetime, he was over that.

He was snapped back from the recesses of his mind by an obviously fake cough, an incredibly unsubtle hint that could have come from no one but Tony. 'Let him go at his own pace, Stark,' Cap scolded and Tony even had the decency to look apologetic, although he always had to have the last word.

'I'm just saying, I think I just aged 20 years here…but hey I'm still looking good!' he grinned and Bruce smiled back because, although Steve and Clint and Natasha thought it was best for him to go at his own pace, Tony understood how he was prone to thinking things through in his mind and forgetting to say them out loud, even when other people were around. That was the curse of spending so much time alone, your own company becoming your only company. Why talk when you already know everything you're going to say? Tony got him like that. It was relieving; he kept Bruce in the world of other human beings.

'I started to feel like I wasn't alone, though, even when my tech told me that there was no one within a 100 mile radius. There was always something just in the corner of my eye that when I looked wasn't there, or the feeling of a presence at my back, but whenever I turned around it was gone. Whispers in my ear that I could never quite hear…

I thought I was going crazy –'

'You already are!'

'Yes, thank you Tony, I am. So…I moved. I crossed into Russia, thinking whatever it was would be left behind in Kazakhstan.' He hesitated, this was only the beginning.

'But it wasn't.' Natasha clarified, looking at him intently, her body language suggesting she was wound tight as a spring ready for release.

'No, it wasn't.' he agreed, looking at her almost apologetically. He wished this whole thing had ended in Kazakhstan. He wished that he could end his story there and then and they could all relax just a little. He couldn't remember the last time he had been really relaxed. He couldn't remember the last time he had got what he wished for either. Wishes were for children and the delusional. Wishes were for fools.

'In Russia it was the same, no matter where I went the same feelings followed me. Shadows and whispers. Only…' he hesitated again. 'Only then the dreams started.'

Four pairs of eyes stared at him. 'I'm guessing they weren't the going to school with no trousers type of dreams…' Tony said, laughing nervously, as ever using humour to mask the fear that was starting to knot his stomach.

'No.' Bruce almost whispered. 'The dreams, sometimes they were more like visions in that some were hazy and others felt so real, like I was living it. They weren't all the same, but I had some more frequently than others. Dreams of water gushing, like a tsunami. I saw a city once, that's not on Earth, with its buildings turning to dust. Screams in my head. Loki…'

'Loki?'

In any other situation the collective gasp might have been funny; it was like having a pantomime audience reacting to the performance of one.

'I saw him twice, but he wasn't alone. I didn't see who was with him, just the feeling of a presence there. Mjolnir buried in sand. Silence in between the screams. A shadow looming over everything.'

He took a deep breath, and they didn't blame him. They were pretty sure that they had never heard him speak so much before. He hated to be the centre of attention and here he was, holding them captive with his story.

'It was all too much for me, I wasn't sleeping as I tried to block out the images. I could almost feel the shadows creeping in on me. I got ill, really ill, and was in a state of delirium for almost two weeks. An old lady took care of me in her hut…'

He paused again, trying to find the right way to explain it to them.

'I don't remember anything from those two weeks. I drifted in and out of consciousness. The old lady, she said that I would talk in my sleep. She said that I would beg for mercy, for help, for god, for anything to make it stop. She said that I cried sometimes and asked to die. She said that sometimes my voice didn't sound like my own and that she thought I was possessed by a demon.'

He looked at them wearily, still bone tired from his efforts to return from them, and from telling his story. He considered how this was going to change everything, knocking them out of the slumber they had fallen into. 'She said that I repeated the same word the whole time, over and over and over.'

He looked up, the atmosphere in the room tense. Even Tony was leaned forward listening intently, so hint of humour creasing his face. Another beat. Bruce broke the tension.

'Ragnarök.

Ragnarök.'