Disclaimer: I do not claim to own anything copyrighted mentioned within this story, and am making no profit of any kind off of this.

Bruce was laying in his bed at Avenger's Tower, the room dark but for the reading light clipped to his book. It was a collection of Sylvia Plath poems, and he was reading Mad Girl's Love Song for what could have been the thousandth time in his life, but was the sixth time he'd read it that night.

The moment that Loki faded in from the shadows of the room, Bruce had known it, despite the Asgardian prince staying hidden in a darkened corner. The scientist remained calm and simply read his favorite poem a seventh time that night, before glancing up at the villain god.

"I thought you were on Asgard."

Loki suppressed the impulse to startle. He had thought he had still been hidden, and it displeased him that this mortal had managed to surprise him.

"I am on Asgard," he told the man simply.

Bruce nodded with comprehension. "I'm looking at an illusion."

"Not precisely," Loki corrected. "I'd intended to send a simple projection to appear before you, yet as soon as I attempted it my physical form fled into it. I am standing before you, and yet also sitting in a cell in Asgard. It is draining much of my magic, and yet I cannot seem to control myself."

"Why use your fading strength to lurk in my bedroom?" Bruce asked. It was a reasonable question.

Loki frowned a twisted frown at Bruce, his eyes sharp. "I wanted the chance to see the man that defeated me before it was beyond my grasp."

Bruce blinked at him. "I didn't defeat you," he said, going back to his book.

"You did though," Loki hissed, making Bruce look back up. "Do you have any idea the strength that you possess? I live among gods, and you dwarf them. You, a simple mortal mistake. You make the tales of gods and heroes seem laughable," Loki whispered, his voice harsh.

Bruce looked Loki over thoughtfully, his gaze appraising.

"You hate me," Bruce stated simply. The look in Loki's eyes was all the answer he needed. "Not because I beat you though," Bruce added casually, turning a page of his book.

Loki couldn't hold back his look of confusion and annoyance. "How could you possibly presume such a thing?" the god said with anger biting the edge of his voice.

"You're not upset that you were defeated," Bruce explained. "You're upset that I was the one to do it. You wanted to be defeated by one of your heroes, the ones I so heinously overshadowed. You wanted Thor to beat you-"

"Silence!" Loki took a step out of the shadows, rage flashing in his eyes. "I wanted no such thing! Thor is a worthless oaf!"

"Thor is your brother and he loves you."

"I have no brother!" Loki snapped, the mewling of this mortal creature becoming truly infuriating. "The only thing that fool has ever loved is the attention that is thrown at his feet, not me. Never me. All the love in the world is reserved for that hammer wielding cretin!"

Bruce snorted derisively, ignoring Loki in favor of his book again.

"Do not laugh!" Loki said, his voice rising in volume.

"Then don't make me!" Bruce Banner snapped back, the first sign of aggression flashing in his eyes. Loki could not help the tremor of fear that ran through him. The man had been so relaxed, Loki had forgotten what he was. What he held within.

"All you ever talk about is how much was denied you, how much you were wronged, how your parents mistreated you!" the scientist went on, sitting up and tossing his book aside. "Do you really have no idea how laughable that is? How pathetic? Tell me, did your adoptive father ever punch the baby teeth from your mouth? Was your body bruised? Your bones broken? Did he scream at you? Were the only words he ever spoke to you words of hatred, detailed explanations of how you were wretched and worthless?"

Loki stared wide eyed as the human berated him, the rage in his voice splashing vivid color into the images his words painted. There was green flashing in the man's eyes as they locked into Loki's.

"You are a sad, petty, selfish creature," the scientist spat, glaring at Loki.

There was a moment of silence that hung heavy in the air between them, Loki frozen in place as Bruce assaulted him with his disapproving stare.

"I know…" Loki whispered finally, the superiority and disdain stripped from his voice. "I know I am." His eyes burned with something that might have been tears. "They did love Thor more than me," Loki insisted. "I'm right about that. What hurts…" he nearly choked on the words, so unused was he to speaking this earnestly. "What hurts," he continued. "Is that I know they had good reason to. There's nothing I could have done to be worthy of the love that was shown Thor…and no amount of love that could have fixed me. I am simply a monster."

Bruce was looking at Loki curiously, the green drained from his gaze and his eyes returned to a normal brown.

"Why would you think that? Well, obviously, you've done horrific things, but I get the impression that you're not talking about that."

Loki swallowed. He didn't know why he was sharing so much with this lowly being.

"Raise that light," he said, gesturing to the switch by Bruce's bed. Bruce complied, and a dim light filled the room, not quite reaching the corner where Loki stood.

Loki stepped forward, the light hitting him as his pale color drained away, revealing the blue flesh of his other form. Loki blinked at Bruce with blood red eyes, waiting for the other man to respond.

"Fascinating…" the scientist whispered, adjusting his glasses and leaning forward to the edge of the bed in order to inspect the god closer. It was not the reaction Loki had been expecting, and he tensed to have the human only such a short distance away from him.

"May I?" Bruce asked, but before Loki understood what he was even asking, Bruce was running a rough fingertip down the hollow of Loki's cheek, his face being the widest area of exposed skin.

Loki lashed out, grabbing the scientist's hand away. A tense moment passed between them, Bruce still kneeling on the bed, Loki standing above him with his hand clenched around the scientist's wrist, staring at him with wide red eyes. There was the clear and distinct impression that a line had been crossed, yet Bruce was unfazed. He merely looked down at the hand that was currently cutting of his blood circulation.

It was pale and soft and appeared perfectly human.

Loki's eyes followed Bruce's gaze despite himself. That was how they both witnessed a curious event.

From the places where Loki's skin touched Bruce's, green began to bleed slowly across his flesh.

By all reason Loki should have snatched his hand away then and there, yet they both stood motionless, fascinated by what was happening. Once the hand around Bruce's wrist was completely green, Bruce's eyes trailed up Loki's body, perceiving the unseen transformation that was likely happening hidden by his clothes. Sure enough, green was soon creeping up Loki's neck.

"What's happening?" Loki asked in a whisper as green ate away at blue.

Bruce looked him in the eyes that were now shifting from red to green.

"You're meeting my monster," Bruce said, rapture in his voice. The Other Guy had left him, bleeding into the fallen prince. Bruce was alone in his mind for the first time in years. A peace so sweet and pure rushed over him.

Loki was now completely green, eyes wide.

"He's…he's worse than I thought," Loki said, the beast present in the god's mind. His grip on the scientist's wrist was now to steady himself more than anything else.

"Let go," Bruce urged him softly, trying to hold back tears. "I'll take him back. He's mine. You don't need to feel this."

"No," Loki whispered, moisture sparkling in his own eyes. "No I think I do need to feel this."

Loki was a murderer. Loki was a tyrant. Loki was not a good person. He had thought that he was all of these things because of wrath. He knew now that he had never known wrath.

"He wants to tear the world apart…" Loki whispered.

"I know," Bruce responded simply.

"Just to make it stop…just to make it stop," Loki went on, listening to the creature raging in his mind. "He doesn't want anything. Not power, or respect, or immortality…no, he just wants it all to end."

"Yes."

A single tear ran down Loki's green face.

"Why don't you let him?" the god asked, truly at a loss. How could this poor human hold this in? Every second of every day? It was unbearable, Loki's blood was boiling. This was torture.

"Because the only way I know I still exist is if I hold him back," Bruce explained.

"You don't want to die?" Loki asked, another tear rolling down his face.

"Of course I want to die," Bruce said, for once feeling as if he didn't need to explain why. After all, Loki could feel it. "But he won't let me."

Loki's green eyes trailed back to his grip on Bruce's wrist. He held his other hand out, and a dagger appeared in it.

"I could do it," he offered. "While I hold him, I could end your life, and he would not be able to stop you dying. You would be free."

Bruce stared at the person who stood before him, the person who had caused so much grief, who had been his enemy, who still was his enemy. As he listened to Loki's offer to slay him, Bruce was acutely aware that this was most likely the greatest kindness Loki had ever thought to show anyone. He saw the pain, and the sympathy in the god's stained eyes.

Bruce wrenched his hand away, and the color rippled out of Loki faster than it took the god to blink in surprise.

The scientist took a deep, shaky breath, accepting the beast back into him.

"No," Bruce said. "No, you would be trapped with him then. I wouldn't do that," he said, his eyes lowered.

Something passed between them, and it was understood that Bruce wasn't speaking of giving a villain and would-be conqueror immense unstoppable power. He was speaking of placing an unbearable burden onto another person.

"I am…no longer disappointed to have been beaten by one such as yourself," Loki said. Bruce looked up at him, a shaken look still in his eyes. That look was returned by Loki.

"You are a greater hero than my brother will ever be," Loki said. It caught Bruce's attention that Loki had referred to Thor as his brother. Sensing the scientist's preoccupation, Loki leaned closer so that the mortal could not escape his gaze. "My brother has saved the world a handful of times," Loki said seriously, Bruce now paying him full attention. "You save the world every second of every day, each moment you hold that inside of you."

"I…" Bruce didn't know what to say. This person was his enemy. Yet he seemed to see a value in Bruce that no one else had ever expressed.

"I'm going back to Asgard now," Loki said. "I don't think that my punishment will seem quite so bad now," the god said with a small smile that shocked Bruce with its genuineness.

"Stay strong Bruce Banner," Loki said, fading away.

Bruce sat in his now empty room, unable to entirely believe everything that had just happened. Had he made it all up inside his head?

He lowered the lights back down.

"Stay strong Loki," he whispered to the darkness.

A/N:

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