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Bruce finds food after about twenty minutes of searching. It’s space noodles, which is better than nothing, so he goes with it.
”You want any?” he calls out to the Warrior Lady. He can't remember her name.
From the cockpit, she says, “No, thanks!”
Bruce makes two bowls anyway because, well... Thor is probably hungry. If not, then it doesn’t really matter. Its not their food. Bruce is also really hungry. A two year coma probably does that to a guy.
Then he mentally slaps himself in the face because he is not getting into That right now.
He finds Thor pretty quickly. He’s sitting at a table in a tiny room, looking deep in thought. It’s not the good kind of thought. Bruce has been in that headspace too many times before. I’s troubling to see it on Thor, one of the few people he knows who’s not yet haunted by the things they’ve seen and done. So, he breathes in deep, exhales, breathes in again, and walks up to him.
“Hey, I found some food!” says Bruce with as much cheer as he can muster. “It’s really good, too.” It’s really not. It’s bland at best and insect-y at worst. If he wasn’t literally starving, he wouldn’t be eating it. Not because of the taste - he’s eaten worse to survive back on Earth - but because he’s spiralling in his own depression so quickly that he’ll be amazed if he doesn’t just give up and throw himself out of this ship by the end of the day.
Thor barely glances at him as he sits down. Bruce slides the bowl over and Thor doesn’t even acknowledge it. After a few moments of awkwardly staring at Thor while he eats - and, god, it’s bad, but he’s so hungry - Thor realizes that he’s not alone.
”Sorry,” he mumbles, sitting back. “I was just... trying to focus.”
Focusing. Bruce nods and thinks on it. He knows what that means. So he says, “Do you know what my father told me before he died?” all casually, like his father wasn’t his father, and talking about him is just an example of how low he’s fallen today.
"No."
"Me neither, 'cause I wasn't there.” says Bruce, smiling. He’d rather cry. “I was too busy obsessing over my gamma ray experiments. I missed my own father's death because I was focusing on my destiny.” He doesn’t usually think about this - what his father would’ve told him. He remembers getting the call, that his father’s cancer was untreatable and he wanted his son to be there, but Bruce had simply thanked the receptionist before slamming the phone back into the receiver and tearing his apartment up for the next three hours.
They called him a week later to let him know his father had passed. Bruce told them that he couldn’t give less of a shit about the body, that they could cut him up for kids needing organ transplants or some medical school that needed a cadaver or maybe just cremate him and throw the ashes in a landfill, but they hung up before he could really start getting creative. He never found out what happened to the body.
It also haunts him in his worse moments - like right now - as he wonders what his father even wanted to say. Ask for forgiveness? Try to justify himself? Tell his son just how much of an abomination he was one last time? Bruce didn’t know. Usually, he didn’t care, but today is a bad day. A very bad day. So he still doesn’t care, but he can’t stop thinking about it.
Thor smiles at him. It’s not a nice smile. "I didn't miss my father's death," he says, frustration and anger and grief coloring his words red, "because he was murdered right in front of me by my sister, who I didn't even know existed because she was kept a secret from me my whole life."
Bruce opens his mouth to offer his condolences. Or an apology. Instead, what comes out is, "I watched my father kill my mom."
That wasn’t supposed to happen. He doesn’t talk about this. He’s never told anyone but his childhood therapists and Betty about this. Thor stares at him, smile long gone and eyes full of shock that will soon be replaced by horror and this is why Bruce doesn’t talk about this, but he can’t stop.
With a shrug, he sets the bowl down on the table. He’s still hungry. “I was eight. My mom did her best, but my dad was just. Literally Satan." Stop talking, stop talking, stop talking. "He hated us. He never let us forget it, whether it was yelling or hitting or locking us up. He was the devil. So my mom finally got the courage to just leave.”
Bruce remembers the feeling of his mother’s hand in his as she lead him down the stairs that night. We gotta be quiet, baby, she whispered to him. Can you be real quiet for Mom? He remembers her terrified face, the way she shook and cried, covering her mouth with her hand because she couldn’t make a sound. Bruce had been scared, but he saw his mom was scared more, so he held her hand tight as he could.
Thor continues to stare, mouth agape and god, why can't Bruce stop talking?
He remembers getting outside. He remembers how it was really late, but he could still see just fine because the lampposts on their street were so bright. He wishes they hadn’t been. He remembers his mother putting him in the car, shaking, but smiling. Thinking they’d done it.
Then he remembers his father shouting and his mom slamming the car door shut as she turned and screamed and Bruce could only watch when his father took her head in his hands and-
“And he killed her. Right in front of me.” Bruce doesn’t remember that part - the bloody part. The space between his mother's last breath and the pavement. That memory is Hulk’s. Its the one thing that Bruce is okay with him keeping. "If the neighbors hadn't called the police and they hadn't gotten there when they did, he probably would've killed me, too."
Thor stares at him for a good twenty-seven seconds. “That's... horrific.”
”Yeah.” Bruce is still hungry, so he grabs the bowl back and starts eating again. Maybe the food in his mouth will shut him up.
They sit in silence again. Its awkward, so horribly awkward, but Bruce can't do anything about that now. The self-loathing gets worse and worse. Really, he could just die, now, and that'd be great. Very appropriate. He wishes he could.
"Both of my parents are dead," says Thor, slowly, breaking the silence. When Bruce looks back at him, he looks... nervous. He won't meet his eyes. "My mother was... murdered, as well. By an enemy of Asgard." His face darkens. "I thought Loki had been murdered, too. I held him as he died. I only found out he was alive a few days ago."
Bruce swallows before talking, choosing his next words carefully. "That sucks."
Thor breathes deeply. Sighs. "And my family, it's like we're... cursed to fight amongst ourselves while everyone else suffers for it." He leans back and Bruce suddenly sees just how tired he is. "Then, there's my sister, Hela. I don't even know if I can beat her."
Bruce has been stunned into silence during Thor's entire rant. But it's that last comment that, somehow, has Bruce sitting up and immediately forgetting his recent promise to shut up. "You're Thor, you could kill your sister." Well. That's not something Bruce ever thought he'd say.
"Yeah, I'm Thor without his hammer."
He scoffs. "You're not the god of hammers!" Bruce puts his bowl back on the table as he continues. "You're the god of thunder, right?"
Thor shrugs, still not looking at him.
"Hey." Bruce, not thinking - he just can't stop and think today - reaches out and holds Thor's wrist on the table. Thor startles, then finally turns from staring wide-eyed at their hands to Bruce's face. "You're the god of thunder. You're a prince! Or king, now? I don't know. Just- You're a hero. Not because you had mewmew-"
"Mjölnir," corrects Thor. There's the tiniest smile on his face.
"Yeah, that. It was cool and all, but that wasn't what made you Thor. This?" He waves up and down in Thor's general direction. "This is Thor. This is you. I don't know how, but you can beat your sister and save Asgard. Or whatever we're trying to do. You've saved the day a hundred times before. I watched you do it! You got this, hammer or not, 'cause you're you. You got this."
Thor is staring at him again. For a tense, awful minute, Bruce is sure that he's overstepped a line and is about to fall right back into Depression Central, but then-
Thor pulls his hand back just enough to turn his palm upward so that he's holding Bruce's hand. "I don't know what I've done to deserve your belief in me, Banner, or the trust to share such stories from your life, but..." He says all of this slowly, softly, now looking at Bruce with a very intense expression. "I will do my best to earn that faith. Or feel like I deserve it."
His hand is warm and big in Bruce's. His gaze flickers between their intertwined fingers to Thor's bright blue eyes. "Call me Bruce," is what he ends up saying, more quietly than he intended.
They're very close, suddenly. "Thank you, Bruce."
"Oh." Bruce's heart skips a beat. Oh. Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no- "No problem." His voice definitely doesn't break, but Thor is now even closer, and-
Valkyrie - yes, that was it - walks in to say, "We're here," so Bruce and Thor practically spring apart like repelling magnets. She just blinks at them.
"I- Yes, thank you, we- Yes." Thor smiles awkwardly up at her. Bruce's whole body is hot and he feels very embarrassed and also very, very, very stressed.
Valkyrie squints at them for another moment. "Whatever," she mutters, before her eyes light up as she reaches over to punch a space caterpillar right next to Bruce and eat it.
He and Thor stare at each other while her footsteps fade away.
"Right," says Thor, standing up slowly.
Bruce happily stays where he is. "Right."
Thor points out the door. "I'll just..."
"Okay! Okay." He points at his lap. "I'll- I'll stay here for a minute."
"Oh. Um. Alright."
Bruce waits till he can't hear Thor's speed-walking anymore before banging his head against the table. From a very dark, damp place in the back of his head, the Other Guy laughs.
He mentally flips him off.