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Thor didn’t consider himself a particularly wise man, but as a Prince of Asgard, he knew his Father’s history like the back of his hand. He had been told stories from tombs of texts about the prophecy, the coming of the Ragnarok. Considering this, Thor really shouldn't have let any detail, no matter how small, slip through the cracks. Still, he thought he should be forgiven, just this once, for forgetting just a few. Even though the details were, in this case, an enormous world-eating wolf.
He could hear Loki's voice now: How could you forget about the very creature who was fated to bring about the end of the world? Oh it’s no matter, he’ll only eat the sun, we’ll deal with him later. But again, in his defense, Hela was proving to be a worthy, if not infuriatingly annoying, adversary. At the moment, his attentions were rather focused on taking her and her forces down.
Thankfully, Thor noticed in a rare moment of pause, Hulk had taken it upon himself to deal with the creature while Thor and his – well, he hesitated to say friends, since it consisted of his brother who had stabbed him multiple times, and a Valkyrie that probably saw him as nothing more than an ant in the larger scheme of things – continued to battle Hela’s army. As the mighty green warrior charged towards the ferocious monster, with all the unblinking fearlessness that could only come from ignorance, Thor turned to dodge Hela’s spear just before landing its mark. After that, his attentions returned fully to the fight.
And for a time, the fight was all there was. Lost in the fury and adrenaline that comes with battle, time passed relentlessly - or slowly, and for the life of him, Thor couldn’t tell the difference. But the battle was making him weary, especially without his faithful hammer by his side. In a moment of weakness, he fell and nearly lost an arm before Valkyrie appeared to stop a blow with her own blade, and Thor could not help but give her an admiring smile.
But she wasn’t looking back at him. Her wide brown eyes were fixated over his head to the horizon, and in a moment, Thor grabbed his own spear and moved to his feet to push her out of Hela’s way. And yet, Hela’s blade was still. Her face was aghast, furious, but frozen all the same. Thor turned around to see the landing past the Rainbow Bridge, and the sight that met him seized him still.
Hulk, not even half the size of Fenrir, the Great Wolf, the Destroyer of Asgard, was holding open the jaw of the beast. To kill Fenrir was something not even Odin himself could do. And yet, here Hulk was, doing the impossible. The sight was enough to make the flowing of the river hold still. All Hulk had to do was open his jaw a few more inches, and the monster would be defeated. Asgard would be spared, and Ragnarok would end.
Yet, Hulk made no move to do so. Instead, through Fenrir’s growls and thrashes, his mighty hands held the wolf still as he…what was he doing? It almost seemed as if Hulk was peering into the wolf’s throat. Thor could summon no reason as to why he would try to kill the creature from the inside when Fenrir was so clearly at his mercy.
Then, Hulk positioned one arm so that his elbow rested the lower part of the wolf’s mouth to hold it open, and with his free hand, reached into the mouth of the beast.
In all his years, Thor had never heard a roar as ferocious as the one that came from Fenrir in that moment, a roar that could will the very trees to cower and bend, and Thor instinctively clutched his blade in anticipation. But Hulk didn’t flinch as he held the creature still and rummaged deeper, as if he throat he was reaching through hadn’t swallowed the hand of the god of war all those centuries before. His brows were furrowed as he looked inside, all patient concentration, and for a breathtaking moment, all Thor could see was Doctor Bruce Banner.
Suddenly, the roar was cut off by a wet choke as Hulk eased his arm back out. The sounds Fenrir made then were horrible, worse than that of the roar. Wheezing mixed with barks that almost sounded – pained.
Thor had to squint to see what Hulk had retrieved from within the beast. It was long, already almost a third as long as Fenrir’s body. An engraved silver blade glinted in the sun, and Thor could see Hulk’s mighty hand was wrapped around a golden hilt. A sword. A sword coated in blood. It dripped from the mighty wolf’s lips and teeth, a river of it. The sounds he made still caused the earth to tremble, but they no longer rung with rage. The sound of a whimper was unmistakable.
Before Thor could even process what was happening – Fenrir was bound to a stone at the ends of the earth till Ragnarok would come, this he knew, but a sword in his throat? – the object was finally removed completely from the creature’s throat. Then, without hesitation, Hulk tossed the giant blood-soaked sword into the river below.
Instead of rising up to lash out, to bite, to maim, Fenrir did the unthinkable: he lay in the ground and curled in on himself, his dark and frightening stature resorting to that of a pup after a whipping. His whimpers sent he waters rippling, as mournful as anything Thor had ever heard, and he felt his chest constrict in sympathy. Fenrir was supposed to be monstrous. He was supposed to be ruthless and terrifying and simple to despise. He was supposed to be the creature that Thor would kill to save the world. But not this. Not this.
Stunned by the pitiful sight, Thor nearly forgot Hulk, still only an arm’s reach away. If Fenrir was temporarily felled, the best course of action was for him to either leave the creature alone or finish the job. The wolf could still snap at any moment, though Thor wasn’t sure he had it in him to attack a creature so obviously wounded.
But Hulk wasn’t moving. He stared at the beast, unmoving for several moments. Then, he sat down beside the enormous black wolf, the Eater of Worlds, and put his hand on top of Fenrir’s head.
“Good boy.”
With two words, all the air left Thor’s lungs. For the first time, he wondered how he managed to get Bruce Banner, the Hulk, so utterly, completely wrong.
The drowsy, confused state Bruce woke up in was familiar enough, if in a despondent kind of way. But the ridiculously soft sheets he was laying on weren't. He was able to muster up feeling grateful that he apparently wasn’t in the middle of a destroyed building, or if he was, it was evidently one with extremely comfy rubble. Groggily forcing his eyes open, he tried to realign himself to reality as best he could.
The sight of a slightly larger than average wolf with glowing green eyes dramatically threw a wrench into that process.
He started and sat up more quickly than he should have, and his nausea and dizziness promptly punished him for that choice. As he collapsed back down, instead of landing on luxurious bedding below, a muscle-bound arm caught him mid-fall.
"Slowly, my friend. You battled long and hard, and you need time to recover."
The sight of Thor was less shock-inducing than that of a large wolf, but still somewhat confusing. If there was a battle, he usually woke up like this alone. If he was lucky, he’d wake up on a couch in his apartment in Avengers Tower, with Stark-approved cotton blankets and an empty room. But he hadn’t been lucky for a long time now.
Time was still amok in his head, and Bruce had a hard time remembering why Thor’s hair was suddenly short. Actually, Thor was looking a lot less "prince of outer space" at the moment. Dirt and dried blood stained his arms and armor, and the bags under his eyes seemed bigger than usual. If there had been a battle, Thor didn't look like he took a breather since it ended.
Thankfully, his mind began to supply why exactly Thor's hair was cut sort, starting the familiar train of remembrance he boarded every time Hulk wanted to come out. Bit by bit, memories of the past day came back to Bruce. At least, he thought they were memories.
"Was this...did Loki slip me something, or was this wolf a lot bigger before?"
Thor smiled then, and his shoulders deflated by inches in obvious relief. "It seems that you've gained a new ally. Meet Fenrir."
Bruce turn his head towards said-wolf, who stood and stared at him with his unnaturally green eyes. (Well, Bruce didn’t have much room to judge on that particular trait.) He was a bit bigger than the average sized wolf, but minuscule compared to how enormous he was before, of this Bruce was sure. His fur was a dark black, matted and thick, but thin and deep impressions of lines crisscrossed the fur on his legs, and Bruce instantly knew that scars laced the skin underneath them.
Fenrir took a step forward, ears back, sniffing tentatively. Bruce, finally out of his post-Hulk stupor enough to process that this was a fucking wolf, lay as still as he could as Fenrir sniffed the air around him. It was now close enough to sniff the inside of Bruce’s palm, and just when he was about to pray to Odin or whoever was in charge around here that he wouldn’t lose a hand – Fenrir’s tail started to wag.
The wolf pressed the top of his head into Bruce’s palm, and all of the sudden, Bruce was overwhelmed by the feeling of gratitude and affection. It felt similar to when Hulk’s emotions would resonate under the surface of his consciousness, but these were completely alien and not at all under his control. As he absentmindedly pet the offered head, he realized that, somehow, he was mentally connecting to Fenrir.
Yeah, great, now I get to deal with the volatile emotions of two monsters. But Fenrir began licking Bruce’s hand like a domesticated dog, tail wagging wildly, and he couldn’t help but smile.
Fenrir must have sensed the truth behind the veil of sarcastic thoughts, because he then leapt on the bed and lay firmly by the man’s side, head resting on Bruce’s chest. Bruce couldn’t help but weakly laugh as an absurd thought took him.
“I’m the King of the North.”
“What?” Thor said in surprise.
“He kind of looks like a direwolf - when he’s this size, at least.”
“What manner of creature is that?”
“They’re partners to this – never mind, he’s probably dead by this point anyway,” Bruce replied with a wave of his hand, way too tired to get into the mythology and history of a popular television show in his current state of mind.
“Oh,” was all Thor said, seeming to deflate somewhat, which made Bruce inwardly cringe. That’s how to get them on your side, Banner, refuse to engage in any conversational topic with them. You've got the pariah thing down pat.
Before he could dwell further, though, Bruce was struck with a still kind of sadness, that for once was not his own. Fenrir whined and Bruce worried that the Hulk was going show up to comfort him again, exhausted Puny Banner or no.
“What happened to him?” Bruce asked Thor, now petting the wolf’s side like it was the most natural thing in the world, and, okay, uh, wolf. That turned into a bigger wolf. But, strangely, his fear seemed to be completely…gone. Fenrir’s – thoughts? Emotions? – felt genuine. Probably the most genuine thing he’d felt from anyone or anything else in a very long time. And at the moment, Fenrir was projecting nothing but loyalty towards Bruce. Too much, perhaps; Bruce almost choked on a chuckle at the swelling of protectiveness that suddenly radiated from Fenrir as his attention fixed on Thor.
But at the question, Thor’s smile fell.
“Many years ago, long before I was born, there was a prophesy. That Fenrir would one day grow large enough to swallow all of Asgard whole. So –“
“You tricked him.” Bruce couldn’t explain right now how he knew, but as Fenrir growled, the truth appeared in his head as easily as his own thoughts. Something to try and figure out later, but he had just bonded with a world eating wolf. The scientific goings-on could wait for now. “Not you, but – Odin tricked him into getting imprisoned, right?”
Thor nodded. “I knew that he was destined to bring about the end of Ragnarok, and about his imprisonment. But I did not – I did not know about Tyr’s sword.”
He didn’t know who Tyr was supposed to be, but it didn’t take much to gather his sword was the one that stuffed him bloody. Bruce rubbed Fenrir’s coat in an attempt to soothe the pain and confusion, not his own and yet so hauntingly familiar, before he echoed Fenrir’s desperate thought:
“Why?”
At this, Thor sighed. “Apparently, he was making too much noise.”
And that feeling, the familiar rumble that threatened to rupture to the surface of his mind, that was definitely from the Hulk. Bruce took a deep breath, and suddenly, Fenrir’s attention was back on Bruce, the ebb of concern flowing towards him almost instantly calming him down and settling his own beast within him Apparently, who needed deep breathing exercises when you had a telepathic wolf?
“Thor, no offense, but your father has made some pretty shitty decisions.”
“I know,” Thor replied, no trace of the defensiveness in his voice that was there when Bruce insulted Loki all those years ago. Instead, Thor just looked defeated. “They treated him like a monster, and so a monster he became.”
Looking down at the wolf on his chest, Bruce let out a dark chuckle. “You too, huh?”
He had meant to try and say it through their new link and didn't realize he had said it aloud. But Fenrir leaned eagerly into Bruce’s strokes across his forehead, and Bruce got caught up in how nice it felt to pet a – kind of dog? – again, he didn’t notice how long Thor had been silent
“Thor,” he said as he turned towards the larger man who seemed lost in thought, with an expression of pain severe enough to cause Bruce to both worry and be angry with himself for not noticing it sooner. “Thor, are you okay?”
Thor closed his eyes, looking like he was trying to compose himself, which didn’t make Bruce any less concerned. With furrowed brows, he reached out and put a hand on top of Thor’s clenched fist.
“What is it? What happened? Is everyone else okay?” He thought he had all of Hulk’s memories now, and their connection was easier, but he wasn’t sure he was at the point where he could trust himself. He had a pretty bad history of repression, after all. Maybe Hulk wasn’t willing to share one of the worse things he’d done when he had control.
But Thor was smiling a wry, self-deprecating smile. A thought appeared unbidden, that such a smile had no business being on Thor’s open and eager face instead of Bruce’s. But when Thor opened his eyes, he almost looked like he was rolling them in fond exasperation, all trace of that darker grin gone.
“I am well, as are the others. We lost some good soldiers to Valhalla, but Valkyrie was there to see them to their new home. She wanted to tell you that it was an honor to fight by your side, and that she hopes she won’t see you again too soon.”
Bruce snorted. He didn’t know what was more unlikely: that there would be another Ragnarok where Valkyrie would need to show up and fix Hela’s mess again, or that Bruce Banner would ever go to the halls of Valhalla.
“Loki?”
“There have been… conversations. That are still in process.” Thor looked away for a second, embarrassment and awkwardness twisting his posture and hunching him over. “At least nothing has resorted to chains. Yet.”
Not for the first time, Bruce felt pity for the God of Thunder dealing the shitshow that was his family. It wasn’t like Bruce’s own family portrait was squeaky clean.
“And you?” Bruce asked again with emphasis, just now noticing that his hand was still on top of Thor’s, which had finally unclenched somewhat. Thor hadn’t pulled away, and Bruce didn’t particularly feel like letting go, though he couldn’t say why. Maybe because of how utterly disheveled he looked, a reminder that the other man had gone through the whole getting-enslaved-and-shipped-to-a-foreign-planet-to-fight-random-aliens plight, same as Bruce. Granted, for a little less time, but he couldn’t imagine it being any more fun. He looked like he had hardly had a second to breathe.
Thor looked at him then, and Bruce had a hard time deciphering what was in his gaze. It wasn’t analytical, but he felt studied all the same. Fenrir swished his tail, a question in the air, but before Bruce could ask a third time, a massive hand suddenly covered his.
“Bruce,” he started, then paused, clearly struggling to find the right words. “This – this isn’t your realm.”
“Yeah, I know,” Bruce replied hesitantly, kind of hoping that he wasn’t getting booted off of Asgard already, considering he wasn’t sure he could stand upright yet.
“No, I mean –“ Thor pursed his lips before continuing, and his words were saturated with an eagerness that caught Bruce off guard. “This isn’t your realm, but you saved it anyway. You saved us all. Even though you had every right not to.”
“Pretty sure you played a part in it, Mister, um, lighting infused body.” Thor’s hand was starting to feel very warm, but Bruce still made no move to pull away. “Besides, you’ve saved Earth tons of times.”
“To right the mistakes I’ve made since I was sent there, and afterwards I went to fight of my own accord. But you had just been freed from enslavement. You could have gone home.”
“Not sure where that’s supposed to be at the moment,” he said, voice cracking, and Bruce’s walls were falling so fast in the face of Thor’s complete and utter sincerity, he was even having trouble wrestling up a sarcastic remark.
But before he could get the chance to worry about saving face, Thor suddenly took Bruce’s other hand and enwrapped both of them with his own. It didn’t feel like an entrapment; it felt like an offering. Bruce wasn’t sure he deserved it.
“I’m trying to say thank you, Bruce. Not just for fighting, but for staying. And seeing what none of us could.”
It was the first time since he had turned into the Hulk that anyone had ever thanked him, and Bruce was stunned silent. He wanted to argue against it, but Thor’s blue eyes reflected some unknown regret, and a longing that was so strong, now Bruce was the one having trouble with words. So Bruce stayed silent, trying to process the warm heat in his chest that had nothing to do with a monster wolf’s head on it.
“You are welcome here in Asgard for as long as you wish it.” He gave Bruce’s hands one final, gentle squeeze before letting go. Bruce was surprised by how keenly he felt the absence of Thor’s hands around his.
“All of Asgard sends their thanks as well. Odin held a ceremony and feast in your honor.”
“Oh God,” Bruce muttered, leaning back into his pillow, the moment broken.
“I had them do it while you were unconscious,” Thor said with a knowing grin, and Bruce was reminded of how perceptive Thor could be.
“Thank God. Thank you, specifically, thank this God.”
Thor laughed then, an actual proper laugh. Though the moment of thanks had been promptly swept under the rug by Bruce’s charming inability to receive attention, a warmth still hung in the air between them. Maybe Bruce was tired enough to not try and push that away at the moment, at least, because all they did then was sit in silence with tired smiles on their faces.
With a cough, suddenly Thor stood up.
“You must be starving. I saved you some food from the feast, I’ll bring some back to you and then you can get some rest.”
Bruce didn’t exactly know Asgardian etiquette, but he was pretty sure there were servants whose job it was to bring him food. Thor really did look awfully tired, especially now that he was on his feet, shoulders slumping and his gait slow. He should rest, too. This is what he told himself, at least, and that it had nothing to do with enjoying being in Thor’s company. Or that thanks that was still settled comfortably somewhere underneath his skin, curled around what could only be the Hulk’s happy sigh.
Bruce looked down at Fenrir, whose ears then perked in lazy curiosity, then relaxed at Bruce’s question. Whelp, ten minutes into meeting and Bruce and Fenrir were communicating non-verbally with ease. Which was kind of scary, but also kind of nice. Tony was going to be so jealous.
“Actually,” Bruce said as Thor made towards the door. “If you – I mean, once you take care of yourself and get an actual bath, because as touched as I am that you stayed by my side, you really do stink –“
There it was, the laugh again. When was the last time anything was this easy?
“I could…I don’t know, tell you about direwolves. As much as I know about them, anyway. The show’s still running, but I could get you up to date at least before we go back. Then we could binge it once we do.”
The other man nodded, as if he knew exactly what Bruce was talking about, before a wide smile broke out on his face. And for a millisecond of moment, Bruce wondered if he had somehow ended up home after all.