Diagnostic Criteria

Chapter 1

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

“You are an honorable man, Banner.”

You don’t feel particularly honorable, scrolling through a chart listing the levels of gamma radiation found in blood samples taken from evacuated civilians. So you make some non-committal noise, a little unsettled by what you’re finding and in no mood to deal with a cape-wearing golden retriever someone’s taught to walk upright.

“I’m just a scientist,” you’re about to say, when Thor continues. Something about his tone is cautious, less than entirely congratulatory.

“Now we all know that well. You made a difficult choice, but a noble one. A warrior’s choice, do not be ashamed of it.”

You stop scrolling.

“What?”

“You would have taken your own life, rather than face capture. You know your own nature well, Banner.”

You laugh, and even you know how tired you must sound. You’re used to stupid, insensitive, probing questions, but coming from Thor – who will never understand, who culturally cannot – that’s a new one. It had to be for some reason, of course, something to nudge a man over the edge. Like maybe a dead wife you didn’t know about. Death before dishonor. It couldn’t be that you just wanted it all to stop.

 

“Capture didn’t really come into it, I’m afraid.”

“Then how?”

Thor’s standing closer than you’re comfortable with; he may not even know it. But you take a step back, even if that means turning away from the display you’re working on.

 

“Look, I happen to have a condition.” (And wasn’t that the truth.) “The past few years have been– overwhelming. Things looked pretty dark for a while, and I couldn’t handle it. That’s as much as I really want to talk about right now.”

Concern turns the corners of Thor’s mouth, or maybe he just thinks you’re being evasive, but either way he doesn’t intend to leave. He sets a broad hand on your shoulder.

“You mean the great green one inside of you. Who spat out the bullet.”

It’d be great if he could stop calling it that.

“It’s something I’m living with, it’s not like the other guy. I’m still me, just – very unhappy. And it comes and goes. ” (Not a lot of going any more. When you were younger it used to be practically reversed – you’d get manic, crackling with energy and wit and creativity, useful for pulling all-nighters on research papers and fun at parties. Remember when you used to be funny, Bruce?) “When I’m depressed I push people away. I start taking unnecessary risks. My work in the lab starts to suffer. I get… short with people. I hurt people.”

Is it any surprise people don’t like you when you’re angry?

 

“The Banner I know would never do these things,” Thor responds firmly. But he’s not fooling anyone.

“And what do you know about me? We work together. Sometimes we fight together. It’s not even me you’re fighting with, it’s the other guy, and what do you think about his personality profile? Does he seem happy and well-adjusted to you?”

You’ve been working very hard to keep your voice down, to keep your tone down, but that’s the end of that. Anger flares in your gut, from the usual smoldering fuse to a hot little flame, and you take a deep breath to quash it back down again. Thor blinks with startlement, crossing his enormous arms.

“You have adjusted very well! You are friends with the Captain, the man out of time, with Stark–“

“I don’t have any friends here.” You tag along, you always have. He looks astonishingly hurt. “And there’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s not your fault. It’s It’s nothing to do with all of you, it’s just not what I’m here for. And it’s hard to make any deep personal connections when you’re well-known for being a ticking time bomb.”

“My brother meant to slay himself,” Thor blurts. “On the bridge – I saw him let go.”

You wince a little.

“Is that what this is about?”

“You have heard him speak, you know of his condition. The men of SHIELD have him in a cell. My brother has gone mad. He no longer knows what he does.”

 

You want to shoot back something about Loki ripping people’s eyes out, but you probably shouldn’t be talking when it comes to loss of life and property damage.

 

“When he tried to kill himself, it was before all of this happened, yes? And then he was falling through space for a while.”

You’ve never been that kind of crazy. Loki is psychotic, crazier than a box of hair; compared to that, you’re a case study in well-addressed grief and the success of cognitive behavioral therapy. But something in the scene Thor lays out, the fall, Loki plummeting through sheer void and not dying – if he was conscious for that, color you shocked if he came out the other side with a brain like scrambled egg. Back when anyone apart from Thor cared how Loki felt – despair, days and weeks and years of sheer solitude in despair. And his biology wasn’t really disposed to make it easy for him to check out, either. Maybe less violently (and you tasted despair then, once the change had gone away from you and you were left in the literal actual wreckage of what you’d done) but no less bitter.

You’re not about to forgive him, but suddenly the sheer unmitigated gall of all his plans, his sloppiness, even goading the Hulk into beating him into a sack of meat and splinters, all makes a funny kind of sense. You’re a doctor, and you’re not that kind of doctor, but it doesn’t take a consultation with the DSM-IV to recognize some kind of divine death wish.

“Thor, your brother still wants to die.”

“I forbid it!”

Great, go and tell him that, I’m sure he’ll be thrilled comes out as “That’s not the way it works, Thor. Right now he can’t, in any case, suicide watch is standard for high-risk SHIELD captives. But you might not be who he wants to talk to right now.”

“Am I not allowed to take an interest in my own brother’s safety?”

Maybe it’s because older siblings aren’t really your area of expertise, but this is… you don’t know how to feel about this.

“There’s just not a hell of a lot you can do for him. Right now he hates you.” You may not have firsthand experience with the little shit, but the other guy certainly does, and he’s not his biggest fan either. They’re whipping up some kind of gag for him down in R&D after he made a National Guard representative try to blind himself. “Right now Loki needs a psych evaluation, but that’s going to be a little–“

“A what?”

“They’re going to send in a couple doctors to talk to him, get a little insight on the nature of his, uh, madness.”

You can picture them using Thor for that, actually – the same way they threw Natasha to the wolves to get him to blurt out his big plan. Psych’s never been your specialty, even from the other side of things. You know what you know more or less on your own; letting a trained professional outside of SHIELD’s stable know about the specifics of your situation is asking for a serious misdiagnosis. But whatever they’re doing with Loki – he’s a criminal, a terrorist, in a big way. They’re not going to treat them like Thor’s little brother who got mixed up in some bad stuff and stopped taking his pills. If they do send Thor in there to talk to him, to stir him up – Loki gets violent and there, guess we’ll just have to keep him chained to a rock for the next 80 years. Or maybe not. The only people who still think Loki might be of use to the organization are the ones who haven’t had to deal with him.

“He was not always this way,” Thor says, defensive and pitiful. He looks close to tears. It’s unreal. “He would not have done this in his right mind. He did it to hurt the All-Father, to hurt me –“

“The thing with killing yourself is that it seems like a good idea at the time. It’s efficient, it’s quick, and if you do it right it won’t even hurt. Generally you don’t even care about that. If your brother really did let go, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’d been planning it. It just came into his mind when he was particularly vulnerable.”

Will Thor mistake that for ‘weak’? They aren’t the same thing where suicide is concerned. Maybe you had a long day and the only path to get home takes you over a bridge, and every time you even think about it, you wonder what it’d be like to hit the water. You wonder who’ll take care of your notes when you’re gone and realize you don’t really care. It’s not about feeling bad or good, you could have had a great day and you’d still be thinking, what if, what if, how cold’s the water? If my brains hit the pavement before the rest of me, maybe this time.

You can’t hold a knife without rapidly assessing where best to put it. You can’t cross a bridge without the thought of jumping off of it. You avoid buying new razors and you avoid getting behind the wheel of a car. Little moments. Weak moments.

The fact that you know it won’t work doesn’t kill the urge. It just makes it more inventive.

“Listen, can we take this somewhere else? Mental health is a… complicated subject.”

---

Chapter 2

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

Thor is one of those people who looks like he’s made for a beer in his hand, though without the unpleasant patina of frat boy that usually accompanies that, or borderline alcoholism, in Stark’s case. He doesn’t seem offended that you’re not joining him, or someone just hasn’t told him that you can’t get drunk on black coffee. You aren’t in the mood to drown your sorrows; you’re not sure yet if the other guy can swim.

The leather couches in what must amount to a staff breakroom add to the odd feel that you’re in some kind of session; the Asgardian is sprawled across one with his feet on the armrest, and you’re busy trying to think of questions–

“He wasn’t very popular in Asgard, was he? I mean, he spent time with you and your friends–” Thor had detailed their battle against the Jötnar while struggling to explain how Loki could have found out about his birth, but it had just turned into a lengthy exposition on his own prowess in battle and the importance of teamwork.

Those blond brows furrow a little. Every time Thor has to think about what he’s saying before he says it, and use his indoor voice rather than declaim boldly, it’s a bit like watching a bull do math. “He did not partake in much feasting or gaming but he had – companions.”

“And the two of you generally got along before he found out about being adopted?”

“We have had our quarrels over the millenia, but there was once a time when Loki rescued me from peril, rather than being the cause of it. I loved him, Banner. I– I do believe that he loved me.”

Thor gestures decisively. He’s pretty free about calling men (and Natasha) his brothers, or speaking of his fondness for good-natured humans, but you’ve never heard anyone else use the word “love” that way and sound like they mean it, rock solidly.

“Maybe he felt less positively about things? Did he and your father generally get along?”

“Loki seemed to think our father favored me. I know not why – he was the cleverer and had our mother’s favor. I was forever causing havoc and finding myself called before our father for some new… yes. I thought him more charitable toward Loki, but perhaps he only meant to spare him the… yes. ”

Thor takes a drink and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, to punctuate a sentence he doesn’t know how to finish.

It’s never going to stop being strange that this Loki and this Odin are father and son rather than occasional allies turned enemies by circumstances. It’s safe to say Loki’s estranged from his family no matter who they were, but the adoption story, sorry as it was, did check out. And breakdowns have certainly happened over less. Loki and Thor are like night and day. Loki is dark and Thor is fair, Thor has a beard and Loki is completely psychotic. Recipe for sibling rivalry.

“You find other ways to occupy your time. I had a career, I guess your brother can find a hobby.”

“Magic was his only pastime. Magic and mischief.” The look that briefly passes over Thor’s face is familiar. The shadow of a family joke that had lasted long enough to see itself turn bitter. “You’ve seen what’s become of that. And the people of Asgard will seek more permanent means to stay his lying tongue.”

There’s something disturbingly final about that. It figures they don’t really do talk therapy on Asgard. Granted, the last time the associates of a human mass murderer had taken a chunk out of New York, there wasn’t really a public outry for his right to a psychological evaluation. Your own assessment hadn’t been terribly flattering either, but this was someone’s little brother now, Thor’s, the big lunkhead, and adopted or not there was no denying that evil or not he certainly wasn’t working alone, and he wasn’t all there.

“Legally SHIELD can’t release prisoners to people who they know are going to torture them. These are extraordinary circumstances, and the letter of the law doesn’t mean much to Nick Fury, but if you can prove there’s substantial grounds they’ll –“

“The people of Asgard are my people, and his people as well. They are hardly baying for his blood, but they mean to punish him for his rebellion and he knows it well. He cannot be killed, but he knows they will try.”

 

You can’t even remember how much you said. Tensions had been high, even Captain Rogers had been saying some unflattering things and the man’s as saintly as you’d expect him to be. (You walked in on what sounded like an apology later, him earnestly telling Stark that he didn’t know what got into him. That was the point, wasn’t it? Nothing had gotten into him. We were all just us a little meaner and a little louder.) Somehow seeing him falling apart was the last straw, squaring off with Stark – the bit about the bullet, you remember that, and it’s not the kind of detail you’d lug out under ordinary circumstances. And not just the part about spitting it back out. But you remember the way that scepter felt in your hand, you remember that vividly, its energy throbbing steadily at you like an answering pulse.

You rub your hands together and hope the feeling goes away. Physical memory isn’t your strong suit but some things you can’t forget. Like the way that bullet felt.

Chapter 3

Chapter Summary

Chapter Notes

“He wanted to wipe out the frost giants. Your brother didn’t just want to die, he wanted everyone else to die, too, and that makes him a harder case to handle. I can talk to Fury if you want me to, see if he can get your brother a doctor for his mind who’s a little more sympathetic to his case. " You say this as if you have a lot of weight to throw around in this organization, well, you do, but not in an expert bureaucratic manipulative sense. You can hardly pull strings on a bad day, and you suspect you won’t be here much longer, in any case. Thor and his psychotic brother will be on their own.

“My brother is a usurper and a teller of lies, but he was no villain before the battle of the Bifrost – he intended to slay the frost giants and all their young, but in the eyes of most that would be no great loss. He meant to win the people’s favor. Our father’s favor. He sought to prove himself, to prove that he was as fit to rule as I, and not soft-hearted. His mind was twisted, but all the rest was only words. He has always been good with words.”

“When your dad told you Loki was adopted, what was your reaction?”

He laughs, grimly. “I was hurt, at first. Then I thought that it explained a great deal. Did your father sire other sons, Banner?”

No, no brothers and no sisters. Only you. Only you. Sometimes you wondered, hoped even, but if this was how it was with just the two of you – your father works very hard so we can have such nice things, Bruce, you need to be more careful. When you were older you realized with fear what he might do to a daughter. You stopped wishing for one. What if the hypothetical sister hadn’t been dad’s in the first place? What scrutiny would that have put on you?

So you smile the thought away, and rub a hand through your hair. A shower is probably in your immediate future after this, and maybe a shave, you’ve definitely gone longer than this without basic personal upkeep in the interest of one project or another, but people are looking at you here, and it behooves you not to look like too much of a deranged mountain man. Reserved, neat. The “prickling stubble, dirty tee shirt” combo works better on Tony.

“Not to my knowledge. I’d rather not talk about my family, Thor. It’s kind of a sore subject.”

Thor shifts back, puzzlement in his perpetually squinting eyes.

“You think this is easy for me to discuss? The Allfather’s mad bastard?”

“Of course not,” you say in conciliatory fashion. (‘Bastard’, now?) “But I want to keep the focus on you. We all know how he reacted. Just tell me what your first thoughts were when you found out you and your brother–” You’re in it now. “–wasn’t the same species.”

And now you watch Thor, hot-blooded scion of the Aesir, struggling to put proper words to what he feels.

“I had suspected as much, that we did not share the same parentage, but the Queen was our mother just the same. I was– angry that it had been kept from us so long. There were things I would not have said if I had known. But I was also… relieved, that this was why he thought me no longer his brother. He thought that I would come to hate him. He wanted me to find him hateful. I would rather believe him mad than have him think so little of me.”

The leather creaks and groans as Thor leans forward, resting his hands on the table’s edge. His hair is draggling out of its small ponytail, and his expression is darkly unreadable.

“I refuse. My brother is far from his senses, he has forgotten his place in our household. He needs no doctor– even if the worst comes, he is under my protection. I will not let death claim him, and anyone who would harm him must first reckon with the might of Thor.”

Thor’s smoky rumble of a voice has risen to a bold, declarative near-shout. He might not be shouting at you, but his eyes nevertheless are on you. How… big of him. How kind.

“… all right, then. Very good, Thor. I think we’ve done about all we can do here, I’ll put your bottle in the recycling.”

(Ah, yes, Dr. Banner is trying to be green.)

You reach to take it – from the tabletop, taking anything that even once contained alcohol directly from Thor’s hands seems a little foolhardy. Foolhardy anyway, as his hand seizes your wrist like a vise and you can feel your pulse take a jump. Start counting, start breathing, one, two, three, four, five, six until your lungs are too full and you can register that Thor’s teeth are bared and his face is level with yours.

“You would have me abandon my own brother–”

Start counting, start breathing, breathe and hold and go tight. If men shouting still bothered you, you’d have an even bigger problem on your hands every day of your life, in Kolkata or on the subway. You don’t like the subway, in any case. Keep a lid on things and simmer. Keep a lid on it and watch him, you can’t help it.

“I really don’t think you want to do that, Thor.” His grip looses but his eyes are still level on yours, his posture still half a crouch, all ready to spring. You’re rarely the tallest man in the room, and right now he makes you feel small. The big guy has strong feelings about that. They batter away like a second pulse in your gut, hammering hot and red.

“You said it yourself, you know my brother’s mind. I will not rest until his mind is his own again.”

“That’s not what I said. Your brother and I have nothing in common except really big personality problems–”

“It is not the monster that I speak of, Banner. My brother’s will is strong, I know no man to best him in his art – you are both wise. Loki lacks control. How am I to give it to him? Tell me how to help him and I will do it, just as any man would for a brother.”

“Why are you still trying to help him? Why bother?”

Why bother? Sometimes things get broken and they stay that way, sometimes things can’t be fixed, in fact overall things get worse, not better. Why bother? Why persevere with the one who hurts you? You know all about things that can’t be fixed. Controlled, forgotten, lock them up and throw away the key but you can’t kill them.

“Loki is everything I am not, but he is the brother of my house. The House of Asgard does not back down from a challenge, nor do we suffer our own to die.”