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Acceptance	By : ScereyahaDreamweaver Category: Marvel Verse Movies > Avengers, The Views: 3928 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel (nor the avengers, nor science boyfrinds), It's fandom, nor theses characters, just this interpretation of their relationship, I make no money from this.

Chapter List
- 16
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Another week later Bruce was thankful, for once, that Anthony was up late working in the lab. He rinsed the sink and brushed his teeth, trying to get the taste out of his mouth. He had been in a complete panic when he first woke up, having to immediately try to bring his heart rate back under control, once his head cleared enough to process where he was. He had managed not to have an episode, but he had not managed to suppress the sick feeling that overcame him once he was fully conscious. It had been a long time since a dream had affected him that badly.

His dreams had started pleasant, as they had been since the sudden change to his life about a couple weeks previous. Anthony had taken his hand and was leading him. There had been varying scenery, and it all felt rather abstract, but it was calm and pleasant, full of pleasing touches and soft things; but then the dream changed. He was waking up, in the dream, not sure of where he was, or how he got there, naked as was usual enough for him; and now he could not get the end of the dream out of his head.

In the dream, he had found Anthony, the dream was quite unspecific about how or when, but he was cold. He would have tried to wake him or save him, except that he was so obviously too broken to be alive. All he could do was hold him and cry through the horror. He knew somehow that it was his fault, even if he could not remember. He could not help but immediately think of how hurt he must have been thinking that Bruce did not love him enough to keep him safe or to keep from hurting him; and that his dying thought would have been that he was not loved. It was that, more than anything, which made him feel sick now. Of course, he loved his friend. That was exactly why he thought so often that it would be better for Anthony if he left. He had a few long standing friendships before, and they always ended up getting hurt. The fact that it was accidental really seemed to make it worse, rather than better.

He knew that Anthony wanted him to stay, needed it even. It had taken a long time to regain his confidence after he had left the last time. Anthony was always so ready to doubt that he was cared about, as much so as Bruce was, really. He had, of course, been given good reason for this often enough, but -justified or not- it was not healthy or helpful. When Bruce had left, just after they had gotten truly close to one another the first time, Anthony had taken it really personally. He tried not to think about what had happened all those years ago.

He tried to forget the dream. He wanted to forget it more than anything; it twisted at his stomach and made him feel nauseated, though his stomach was now quite empty. He could not shake the feeling of horror and the tears that kept threatening and making his throat feel tight. He knew he would not be able to sleep, and so it was that Anthony found him looking pale and mortified in the kitchen trying to keep down a cup of un-caffeinated tea, when he finally came upstairs.

Even though Bruce knew it was all a dream, seeing Anthony healthy and innocently blinking at him from the doorway was a great relief. He tried to smile at him, but immediately looked back to his teacup when Anthony’s features fell into a concerned look.

“Bad dream?” Anthony guessed accurately, due to the late hour, and his certainty that nothing else could have justified how pallid he looked.

Bruce pressed his lips together and nodded minutely. Warm arms wrapped around his waist as Anthony leaned his chin on his shoulder, standing behind his seat. He leaned his head back on his shoulder, since it would have been awkward to try to hug him back with his back turned. He breathed deeply to stay calm, but felt the inside of his chest shake.

Anthony’s concern only grew when Bruce let go of his cup and turned on the stool to hug him tightly. He stepped in between his knees to resolve the awkward twist and hugged him back. The bar-style stool was tall enough, but it still did not bring Bruce to his full height when seated. Anthony brought one hand up to stroke his hair, before tucking his own chin down to try to look at him properly. He adjusted his hands and took his turn to kiss the other on the forehead.

“Come with me, back to bed?” Anthony asked him, certain that if Bruce wanted to talk about the dream, that he would.

He was also relatively certain that Bruce did not, in fact, want to talk about it. He could guess what it might have been about; going off of what was likely to have been on his friend’s mind lately. He was not sure he wanted to talk about it either.

“Tony I…” Bruce looked at him with watery, pained and pleading eyes.

He did not, however, know what to say. He did not want to discuss the dream, nor relive its terrible imagery, but it brought him back to all the doubts he had ever had about this; not their romance, but rather allowing himself to be close to anyone at all. The threat of the possibility of hurting him was enough to make him want to run, but he had no idea where to start explaining. When he looked into Anthony’s eyes he lost his resolve, a hundred doubts being cast onto the doubts he was having, because Anthony was there with him, and it was everything he could ever have wanted. Anthony needed him to be there, and yet he could not help but think that he was underestimating the risk involved. He rubbed his thumbs behind his lover’s ears and held their foreheads together gently but firmly.

“I can’t…" he began again, loosing his wording this time as well.

“Hey, you’re not breaking up with me are you?” Anthony asked, his tone forced light, as if joking, but the question was sincere.

“No, I don’t know. I want… But Tony I can’t risk hurting you. How could I?” He could not find any of the words he needed, but the world was damned if his brilliant Anthony could not figure out exactly what he meant by now.

“No, hey, we’ve been over this, you won’t." he said, running his fingers into Bruce’s hair, fingers desperate to find that anchor, hoping desperately that he would not be forced to say goodbye to the wavy curls he had come to adore so much.

“Tony, I did." he started almost angrily.

“…Or I will… we’ve both seen how this plays out." he said, confusion breaking the anger, and then sadness and guilt breaking through that.

He would never be able to forget the possible futures they had both seen. He knew the design fate had in mind for him; living out his life on this planet beyond all other life, crawling feeble and insane into eternity, loosing himself completely to the least healthy part of his own psyche. What came before that part bothered him more though. The part where in a fit of rage he did finally tear through everything he cared about; friends, family, Anthony. The image of the fragile metal shell, and the soft body inside, torn in half in his hands would forever haunt him. He had tried to run away from him forever, just to prevent that, but either fate, or Anthony, would not let him. He felt sick again, he was shaking, trying to hold something back, and his eyes felt hot and wet. Anthony’s breath felt hot near his nose when he sighed, before pulling back and making Bruce look at him.

“Hey, listen to me. We’ve talked about that before too, well sort of, I talked …and you sort of walked away, but the point is; Why did you do it?” Anthony asked him, as if leading up to something, though where he could possibly go with it Bruce had no idea, and it was not the question he was expecting.

“Because I’m a monster.” Bruce said, half in defiance and half out of grief.

“No, you did it because you were angry. You were angry because you were convinced I didn’t care about you, or you will be, if we let that happen, if I let that happen.” Anthony spoke softly, staying pointedly away from any quips he could make about anger management, because this was not the time or place for it.

Bruce did not want to hear any of this, but the words stuck in his ears and echoed in his brain regardless. He had to recognize that he was right. He did remember enough of his alter ego to know why he was usually angry; something about puny humans always trying to hurt him, and not caring about him. He also recognized that, in a sense, those feelings came from himself, no matter how he liked to separate the other personality’s thoughts and actions from his own. While it was true that the other guy tended to insist on the same separation -and that they had each formed decidedly different bonds and associations- it was also true that most of the hulk’s beliefs about being hated came from Banner himself; and he knew it -recognized it- somewhere in his mind that he did not often go.

“Don’t put this on yourself. You can’t possibly be trying to imply that you somehow disserved my being that angry… that you…I’m responsible for what I do, for how I feel and what I think, no one else.” Bruce started sounding angry again, but was nearly crying instead by the time he finished speaking, though his tone stayed forceful.

He would never hold another person responsible for his actions towards them. He could not recall if he ever had, as himself, but when he thought about it, all it brought to mind was his father; the man who had blamed him, for being the way that he was, for every bit of abuse he put him through. It, in his father’s eyes, had always been Bruce making him punish him, by being wrong somehow. He was too smart, not strong enough, not the right kind of person, every detail of him criticized as not being normal enough because his father feared that he had been born some kind of mutant; all this because of their family’s exposure to radiation from his father’s work. Even if he had been a mutant before the gamma bomb, and if that was how and why he survived and become what he had, it was still insane and wrong to have abused him for being different, and even worse, to blame a child -and the object of his abuse- for it. He did not want to be like that, though he saw that way of thinking surface from time to time in his alter ego and it terrified and disgusted him.

“Your responsibility, like everything. Everyone else can have bad moods, can be destructive, can have destructive or self defeating ways of thinking, can make mistakes, can have quirks and be accepted and normal… But you…” Anthony paused and kissed him on the forehead again briefly, instead of finding a pet name for him.

“you won’t even let yourself be human, okay, to be fair, your bad moods are quite a bit more destructive than most, and I can’t say that restraining yourself -to an extent- is wrong, but you put so much pressure on yourself to be perfect, never make any mistakes, no one could handle that without snapping. And maybe the people around you should be more tolerant, less judgmental, and maybe they should accept you for everything that you are; maybe it’s normal, and maybe it’s not their fault, but it sure as hell isn’t yours, and if you never let yourself be human, how can you feel like one?”

Bruce seemed to sob once, though he also smiled briefly. He stroked the skin and hair under his thumbs firmly and affectionately. He felt profoundly grateful to Anthony. He really did see him as a worthwhile person, inside and out, for everything that he was, and he had never hesitated to try to let him know that; not even when Bruce was ready to turn his back and walk away forever. The fact that Anthony seemed to want to be with him -as lovers or not- so badly, made him feel like he might be right.

Anthony was nearly elated that Bruce seemed to finally be listening, despite the grim context. He had been trying for years, it felt like forever, to get him to see things the way he did; get him to see that he was no less valuable than anyone else, just because of some unfortunate circumstance of biology, just because the world had pushed him past his breaking point so many times. Maybe, if he would finally listen, then Anthony could finally keep him from the fate that loomed menacingly over them and all to himself where he knew he would be safe.

“So stay. Stay here with me and I’ll make sure you feel loved, problem solved. And fate can screw itself, or themselves, or however that works now.” Anthony stroked his thumbs across Bruce’s cheeks, wiping away the two lonely tears making their way lazily downwards.

The atheist’s contempt for the idea of gods, despite knowing a number of them personally, was still humorous to Bruce, so he smirked for a moment as he tilted his head into one of the hands that held him. He nodded once, still trying not to cry, despite that it was a little too late. He knew that he would not be able to use his voice without crying and sounding ridiculous. He reached up to kiss Anthony on the forehead again, to thank him for making everything better, or at least trying to.

“Are we going to bed now?” Anthony asked him sounding abnormally tentative.

Bruce gave him another small nod. Anthony ran his hands downward to take his friend’s and lead him off his seat, and all the way to the bed.

Bruce let himself be led, and then tucked in, Anthony lying down beside him. Normally Anthony curled up against his chest, but this time he pulled Bruce into a comforting hug. He fell asleep to the sound of Anthony’s heartbeat.
~*~
A note from the author:
Well. See, now, there was this thing that I was getting, that people always write Bruce as submissive, to the point of it being very tiring, and really, I don't see it quite working out that way, not so one-sided-ly, especially not late game, and especially not movie-ish-verse. So... of course I couldn't keep it short and sweet, I have to have some sort of twist or turn or at least conflict and so on, I have to write an actual story, but I promise, there is a world of slash to come.
But really... 17 chapters, and nearly 800 views, I am very grateful for the views and I really do hope I'm making some people very happy, but I still only have 1 review. I do need feedback on my writing, it's how you can help be write better, for you, for myself, and for the sake of smut! So if you want to give something back, an honest review would really float my boat...
...that is, the ship I was dragged onto forcibly and where I now serve as prisoner and bard. It's going well. They're still keeping me out of direct sunlight, and they are bringing me food I can actually eat and keeping my blood iron levels up... which you know, between these stories and pictures of Loki has been a bit of a ... challenge.
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Acceptance