Work Text:
combustion: hydrocarbon + oxygen -> carbon dioxide + water
hydrocarbon.
The sunset above Sakaar is red.
Hulk has always liked this color. Blooming, burning, bloody. He saw red upon his birth, coloring his vision like a prophecy, and he leaves it in his wake each time he fights. Red for battle and red for blood. Red for prophecy, self-fulfilling.
But the reds are different on this strange planet. Every color is more vibrant here – overexposed, as though some intensity dial stuck at halfway on earth was turned all the way up, the reds more than most. Hulk sees them in this world's holograms and its gladiators, its towers and its slums, its blunt swords and its bright liquids. After he won the match today, the Grandmaster toasted him with a glass of something the color of that sun, sinking into a dust cloud somewhere beyond the city.
Hulk tried it, on the Grandmaster’s insistence. It yanked his stomach up through his throat and turned it inside out. He finished the bottle.
Banner would say something to explain the reds. Something about similar photons operating on slightly different wavelengths because of the atmosphere of this planet – the sciencey shit leaks in through the back of Hulk’s mind but he pushes it down.
He doesn’t need science here. Doesn’t need logic or reason or public opinion. Sakaar operates on a currency of rage – a world ripe for a new champion.
When they ask how he wants his new room decorated, up in the Grandmaster’s palace, Hulk tells them to paint the whole thing red.
oxygen.
“Sun’s going down,” Thor says. “I won’t hurt you any more. No one will.”
He reaches out – his hands are so tiny but they’re hardened weapons, capable of slicing Hulk or anyone else apart even without a hammer. Hulk has seen him rip the skies with lightning – and now he’s reaching, palm up, movements slow, as though he actually expects Hulk to echo him.
Banner, he says. Banner, I won’t hurt you. Doesn’t he know Banner is gone – Banner wouldn’t last ten seconds on this world, the reds and greens would tear him to shreds.
And doesn’t he know – Thor is out of place here, too. Thor is blues and golds, Thor is a sky clear of dust clouds and wormholes. Thor is protect the innocent and forgive my brother and he's my friend. Thor is what evolution actually strives towards – this lost planet has no use for him.
Thor is useless here – but Thor reaches a hand, gentle, and smiles like a sunrise.
I’m actually happy to see you.
No.
Hulk’s chest is doing something funny. He doesn’t like it. The champion cannot be defeated by something so puny as a smile.
He rears back.
->
“Hulk like fire, Thor like water.”
“We’re kind-of both like fire.”
“But Hulk like real fire. Hulk like raging fire."
carbon dioxide.
Hulk counts to five.
And then he counts to five a second time, and a third time. Loki told him count to fifty and run out on my signal, but Hulk only knows up to five. Banner knows more but Banner’s shaking inside there somewhere muttering about escape pods. Useless.
It’s getting dark inside the hiding place. Sounds of scraping metal getting louder, sounds of screaming getting quieter. Hulk’s leg is starting to itch.
He counts to five one more time, and charges.
We have a Hulk.
Doesn’t feel quite right for those words to be right up next to each other, we and Hulk. It feels like sharp edges, bitter, blood and salt. But Hulk doesn’t have time for literary analysis or even time to wonder how he knows the phrase literary analysis and so he punches into it, charges into Thanos and sees Thor in chains as he roars.
And then all too quickly it’s turned upside down – Hulk’s back is on the floor, his head is ringing. He tries to lift it – the champion cannot be defeated by some puny purple would-be god – but his legs won’t cooperate – his lungs heave –
There’s a weight pressing down. The size of a mountain or a skyscraper. And then there’s a rush of color and all of it is whisked away into the distance –
We have a Hulk, Loki said. He’s my friend, Thor said. And now they’re specs of ash floating through space. Melting down to nothing.
water.
There’s something unfamiliar on Hulk’s bed.
He sits down on it at first. Hard, flat, with sharp edges poking his fingers when he picks it up. It’s elaborately painted – a pattern of white and gold on a green background, a family of creatures with feathers and long beaks, and a line of strange symbols he doesn’t recognize across the top.
Hulk brings it up to his mouth. Hard edges, stale taste – not food, then. And it’s too thin to be a weapon.
It’s a book.
Hulk grunts at the Banner voice. “Book?”
“Book.”
Thor flops down onto the bed beside him, pushes Hulk over to the right to make room. He’s still wearing his armor and boots, blood from the day’s battle (not his own) matted in his hair.
Hulk lets Thor lean on his shoulder – his hair is soft, ticklish on Hulk’s neck – then hands him the book when he pokes at it.
“Bruce left it for you,” Thor explains. “Thought you might like to learn to read.”
“Learn? Hulk can fight. Nothing else to learn.”
Thor laughs. Hulk’s chest does that strange contracting thing again.
“That’s a good point,” Thor says. “But some people fight with words, and this will help you fight back. Here – I’ll read it to you.”
He opens the book – Hulk hadn’t realized it could do that – to reveal sheets of symbols, accompanied by more drawings of the birds. Thor traces the symbols with his index finger as he reads. And Hulk tries to pay attention, tries to understand this new way of fighting, but he keeps getting distracted by Thor’s voice, low and melodic as the movement of the ocean, pulling in and pushing out but staying steady, staying steady, staying afloat.
What do you think? Banner murmurs as the birds in the story march into the pond, pulled along by the rhythm of Thor’s reading.
Hulk wants to go swimming.
And there’s an odd sensation in the back of his mind that he thinks might be Banner laughing.