Logs:E Pluribus Plures

E Pluribus Plures
CN: intense grief, child abuse mention
Dramatis Personae Bruce, Flicker, Hive
In Absentia	2019-12-10 << Okay. This is going to feel weird. >>
Location <NYC> Bruce's Lab - Stark Tower - Midtown East
This capacious room contains gleaming expanses of lab bench framed with a backdrop of work stations, fume hoods, spectrometers, centrifuges, and other, more arcane research equipment. Also, an extremely advanced coffee machine that the unobservant might easily mistake for research equipment. Holographic interfaces hover over some of the computer terminals, displaying charts and spreadsheets and diagrams. A reinforced isolation chamber occupies one corner, its softly lit interior--visible through a window that stretches across one entire wall--contains folding cot. The soft strains of J.S. Bach's Musical Offering well up out of the speaker system to fill, but not overpower, the space. Notwithstanding the calm and orderly music, the lab is exceptionally untidy at the moment, takeout containers and mugs occupying many work surfaces and items of clothing discarded here and there. The inside of isolation chamber, when one gets close enough to examine it, is even worse. Some immense force has busted displays, dented the walls, and warped the frame of the cot to near-unusability. Bruce himself isn't looking so great, either, slumped in a chair at an L-shaped console in front of a mosaic of 3- and 2-D displays (mostly abstruse charts and numbers interspersed with South American news feeds) eyes bleary and shadowed for lack of sleep. He wears a rumpled purple waffle thermal shirt, ancient, threadbare, and soft, camel slacks, and brown penny loafers. A mala made from polished lotus seeds is looped around the wrist of a hand clutching his phone in a death grip. His mind is a chaos of darting thoughts that he keeps attempting to train into his accustomed pattern, but each thread that he braids in sees another fraying and losing coherence and spilling its contents helter skelter out into his psyche. Here a swell of anxiety about adjusting the dosage of his paroxetine, there a line from a Stark Industries press statement about their missing CEO. He resist scratching where his unkempt hair tickles the back of his neck unbearably, considers getting up for a cup of tea for the fifth time in the last minute but doesn't, fixating suddenly on Idina Menzel's voice as it surfaces, the words vibrating with palpable tension, << ...don't do it, I need you, forget it, I know you, my God how I hate you... >> The Heart Mantra, at least, drones on strong and steady in the midst of this shifting storm. Hive is looking a little lost by the time he gets up to the lab. Kind of wide-eyed, though he's visibly relaxing as he draws nearer. He's blandly dressed, in jeans and workboots and a shabby old corduroy jacket unzipped over a grey flannel shirt; the plastic takeout bag in his hand smells warm and richly spiced from the Thai food it carries. He drags over an office chair, dropping heavily down into it and pushing am empty mug aside to set the bag down in its place. His tongue pokes up under his upper lip, sucks against his teeth as he studies Bruce. "Hello." Bruce straightens in his seat and, with a great expenditure of will, turns to face Hive. He digs frantically through the wild tumble of his thoughts for appropriate friendly greeting protocols to spool up. "How was your day?" << Too generic. >> "I hope--you did not have too much trouble. Finding your way up." His gaze is just a little too intense, just a little to study, until it tracks aside to the food. << Did I eat today? What is today? >> His memory simultaneously conjures a video call with a woman exhorting him to eat and the text conversation he had that morning with Hive, zeroing in on the date and time stamp of the messages. 'I Hate You' continues playing, more coherently now that he's succeeded in spinning it into its own distinct thought-stream to orbit the Heart Mantra. << ...you're going to leave me, so leave me, whatever, it's not like I need you, I need you, don't leave me... >> It's at a significant delay that he says, very quietly, "Thank you." Still doesn't reach for the food, though. Then, "Can I get you some coffee." "Tuesday. I didn't know what you might want so I just got a range. Their tofu larb is the best in the city. Only place that's better than mine." Hive isn't actually unpacking any of the food. He frowns deeply at Bruce, lips twisting to the side. "A machine makes the coffee, right? I don't think I'd trust yours, you look like crap. When did you sleep last?" He's casually starting to gather some of the empty takeout containers, pushing his chair lazily back with one foot so that he can collect them into a stack. Bruce spins up a thought stream about Thai food that he enjoys, and though it disintegrates rapidly he still manages to conclude "I like tofu larb." There's no enthusiasm in this, and indeed no emotional content of any sort--just a rote statement of fact. He is also not unpacking the food. Turns toward the ludicrously overengineered beverage machine instead, frowning behind his thick-framed glasses. "Yes. But it does not bring you the coffee. This one doesn't do that." Looks back at Hive, eyes fixed determinedly on the other man's. His biometric data from the previous night surfaces as a series of colors and textures that he forces into a stream just long enough to interpret. "I slept last night. Not very much." A sudden cold wash of dread scatters what limited order he had managed to coax out of the chaos in his mind. "The Hulk keeps coming out when I fall asleep." "Hnn." Hive does start unpacking the food, now. Green papaya salad, tofu larb, panang and green curries, mango sticky rice. He puts the stacked old takeout containers in the bag he just emptied. "Do you have any idea -- why? What it... what he does? Wants to do?" Bruce watches the containers come out of the bag with oddly detached interest. "I don't know." He tries to recall the biometric data again, but the information won't call up in his mind and he reaches for his holographic keyboard instead, tapping out a few commands one-handed. A graph with lines tracking pulse rate, movement, and electrodermal activity appears, 2-dimensional but projected in the air above the console. All three lines show gradual down-sloping after 2AM, then escalating ticks about an hour later follow by dramatic jagged peaks, and shortly thereafter flatlining. "I think maybe it's because of nightmares." He reaches out and waves a hand through the section of the graph just before the peaks. "This is a REM cycle. It's similar on other nights, when there's a lot of activity during REM, it comes out shortly after. Here." He indicates the extreme spikes. "I haven't found a way to get the biometric monitor to reliably stay on after the transformation. I have video footage, too, but it's mostly just him...smashing everything in sight." Hive pushes the container of larb salad toward Bruce, setting a plastic spoon atop it. He slouches back in the chair, setting it lazily to rocking. His eyes tick over to the side, briefly skipping to the destruction in the isolation room. "...yeeeah, I guess that's not, uh, ideal." For a moment he's quiet, teeth grinding slowly. "So you just want to... talk to him? That's it? How, uh. How do you see that going? I mean... I guess. If he's..." There's another hesitation. Hive lifts a hand, flutters fingers in the direction of Bruce's head. "You know, in there. I might be able to -- find him. Then what?" Bruce stares at the larb, his mind automatically beginning a rapid series of observations about its shape, size, location, composition, movement, and more--but since these are not threaded together as is his wont, he struggles to draw any conclusions from them whatsoever. It's only after a long moment (and several comically incorrect hypotheses about what Hive expected him to do with the larb) that he slowly picks up the container and takes a bite. In the mean time, he does manage to spin up a stream for processing what to do about the Hulk, and it weaves shakily around the Heart Mantra in time with 'I Hate You'. << Let's look at this calmly, discuss how I hate you, the ways that you've hurt me, though really you haven't... >> "I don't know how he'll respond, but I hope--maybe, if you can find out what he wants, I can..." << Get more than an hour of sleep at a time? Be a functional person? Find Tony and end this nightmare? >> "...figure out an arrangement that's acceptable to us both. Before this, it only came out when I was in immediate danger." A rapid-fire review of memories filled with terror. He shakes his head. "When I believed I was in immediate danger." "What if what he wants is to break shit? Sometimes all I want is to break shit. I'm just not that good at it." Hive presses one palm against the side of the desk. Continues to rock in the chair, though slower. "Nightmares can seem pretty dangerous." This time, when his eyes track back to the isolation room, they stay there. His knobbly fingers press down harder against the top of the workstation. "... I can seem pretty dangerous. When I, uh. Get into someone's head. Might feel kind of threatening already." Bruce frowns. Continues eating, though. The flavor of the food is only gradually working its way toward being registered as pleasure, struggling for attention in the pandemonium of his mind. But once he does finally realize he's enjoying the larb, he eats faster. The sating of his hunger is a distant, neglected thing, surfacing just long enough to be resolved before disappearing again. "I don't know. I guess I'll just keep sleeping in the isolation chamber, until he...stops wanting to break shit? Or stop having nightmares." He pauses, mesmerized for a moment by the reflection of the light in the concave surface of the plastic spoon, then looks up at Hive, perplexed. "Maybe, but I don't think I feel threatened by you, and it seems to be my fear that brings it out." << Am I afraid of him? Certainly he could do plenty of awful things if he wanted to... >> His mind reflexively tries to divert that inner dialogue into its own stream, but the thoughts dissolve when he tries to gather them. He pulls his glasses off, fighting down a surge of frustration. "Though, come to think of it--I guess I'd need to be afraid, to bring it out. So you can even try talking to it. Unless you think you can do that without having it...become me." He shakes his head. "I mean without me becoming it. I should go into the isolation chamber anyway, though. This is new territory for me." He sets down the remainder of his meal and also his glasses, rises from his seat with a wince--though the pain and stiffness in his joints is easier to ignore than the abrupt rise of his anxiety--and shuffles toward the corner of the lab without further ado. "Are they his nightmares? Or yours?" Hive reaches for the papaya salad as Bruce eats. Opens it, picks up a fork, taps the plastic tines restlessly against his knee. "We -- I could do plenty of awful things." His brows knit, his cheeks sucked inwards as well. "But I don't want to. Scare you. I -- can try to talk to him. I won't know until we do whether or not you'll -- uh. Change." He stops fidgeting with his fork, just staring down into the salad as Bruce gets up. One of his legs bounces rapidly, the chair bouncing along with it. He doesn't move, eyes fixed down on the untouched salad -- but he follows Bruce across the lab all the same. The touch of his mind against the older man's is just a small pressure, at first, a slow squeezing feeling that bears down for a moment and then pulls back. It's far less subtle in the next moment, the whipcrack-sharp snap of his voice in Bruce's head: << This is going to be unpleasant. >> Rather than raising his voice to answer, Bruce simply switches to replying in his mind, for which purpose he dedicates a largely vacant steam. << I assume they're my nightmares, since he's not out yet while they're happening. >> He pauses at the control panel by the door of the chamber to make sure that it's still fully operational despite the damage done to it, and to set it to seal automatically. << But frankly I don't understand how--this... >> One hand waves in the general direction of his temple. << ...works, so who knows. >> Hive's voice echoes in his mind: << I could do plenty of awful things. But I don't want to. >> He tries to give them their own thread, but it doesn't take and they just continue knocking around aimlessly. << I should warn you, when I'm conscious for the change, it--hurts. >> He manages to subsume the recollection of the ripping agony of his body warping, for the most part, but not the fear that attends it. << It's not as bad if I just let go immediately. But that's frightening, too. >> Recognizing the danger in his rising stress, Bruce hastily enters the isolation chamber, the door closing behind him with a soft hiss. << We'll get on without you, >> Idina Menzel insists, << I'm tough and resourceful, I'm steady and sturdy, and freaking the fuck out-- >> He goes to the glass, catching himself against it at the harshness of Hive's mental voice. But then he nods, a little calmer now that he's safely locked away. One of his hand drops to the elbow of the other arm, fingertips brushing over the soft material of his shirt. << Excuse me a moment. >> He steps out of Hive's line of sight and strips rapidly, laying his clothes on the half-destroyed cot and pulling off the soft purple blanket instead to drape around himself. << I guess that was kind of ludicrous, considering you can see inside my head,>> he muses, leaning sidewise against the reinforced glass window but not looking directly at Hive. Even his inner voice is a little shaky now with, << I'm ready. >> Hive spins his chair away as Bruce steps aside, his back now to the isolation room's glass walls. << Not ludicrous if it makes you more comfortable. >> He spears up some papaya and onion, nibbling on it as he leans back against the desk. << Where is that from? >> A sudden distracted flick of thought, Idina Menzel's agitated voice echoed back to Bruce. << Sounds almost familiar but -- >> He shakes his head, starts to rock his chair back the other way -- halts himself -- just eats another bite of salad instead. << Okay. This is going to feel weird. >> 'Weird', at first, is just a return of the slow pressure. This time it doesn't let up, a heavy vicelike squeeze that wraps itself around Bruce's mind, crushes down, sinks inward in a slow firm thrust. When the hard grip eases it's all at once, a swell of sensation blossoming in its place -- the smell of sawdust, the not unpleasant slowburn ache of heavily worked muscles, voices that sound muffled through walls but ring oddly clearer in their mind (someone not far off is having a very impassioned discussion about what makes a bird a birb; some part of their mind prickles to interject --) (the tang of the papaya salad, sweet and chili and citrus-sour and onion-sharp all at once) (the familiar everpresent throb of headache settled somewhere behind their eyes) And then peace, the rush of other thoughts and sounds fading out. In its place there is still a strong and solid sense of presence, settled quietly somewhere in Bruce's awareness. Hive's voice no longer comes with its sharp crack of pain, and it is shed of the gruffness and choppiness that tends to characterize his spoken cadence. << Sorry, I know that's weird. You alright? >> Bruce tugs the blanket tighter around his shoulders, though the climate control inside the isolation chamber leaves it perfectly comfortable. << It's from If/Then, a musical that was on Broadway a few years back. >> There's a pang of regret here that he never got to see it, a stab of pain at Tony's absence, and a flush of embarrassment that the number stuck in his head is perhaps not as appropriate to his situation as his subconscious seems to insist. But the song keeps looping all the same, << God damn it, you did it, I knew you would do it, you asshole, I hate you, I totally blame you-- >> His vague bemusement at the notion of being warned about weirdness in his present, profoundly weird, circumstances is cut short when the pressure sinks into him. He gasps, the hard-won and admittedly limited harmony of his thought-streams disintegrating altogether. The glimpse of their third body's environs hits him even harder, his sensory processing wholly unprepared for another set of sights, sounds, scents, touch, taste, proprioception, and thoughts. Bruce reflexively attempts to re-spin all this into neat streams as per his habit, but between his already considerable exhaustion and the sheer bulk of information in their minds, he is immediately overwhelmed. Even after the flood recedes, he's unable to gather his own thoughts, careening about his consciousness at random. His body, neglected, slides down to the floor, and his only reply to Hive's question is an aimless, unschooled grasping for comfort--for any relief whatsoever. Something other stirs in the depths of his mind in response to his distress. That sense of presence is also -- well. Not stirring, not exactly. It's been plenty alert already. But now, quick and quiet and more brightly awake than Bruce's own dragging exhaustion, it is busying itself with housekeeping. Dart here, pluck up one strand -- the Heart Mantra where it's half-buried under a cacophony of other stresses. Drop that almost (almost) carelessly into Hive's embrace, flutter-hop off to peck at another wayward thread. Pick up a skein of curiosities and fears about the Hulk, thread these -- loosely around the steady trunk of Hive's mind. Gently pick up that first strand, thread it in a careful secure loop through the other. Flit back to pick out another from the jumble, weave the turmoil of "I Hate You" in around Hive's placid core. Starts to pluck at the other that stirs, deeper down -- but leaves this a moment later, darting off instead to pull a tangled strand of Tony-related anxieties from the mix and begin feeding them through the developing construct. Hive entwines himself seamlessly with this flicker of motion. Reaches out to gently coil between the stray wisps of thought, providing a sure framework to begin looping back through, easily slipping into a muted counterweight to the more rapid flitting. When Flicker shifts away from the stirring presence, he moves to follow it before it can be lost in the chaotic jumble. He does not reach for it, directly; instead stretches slender roots down deeper into Bruce's mind, spreading out beneath that stirring presence in a gentle but gradually solidifying cradle. Bruce relaxes, pulling hard toward Hive without any sense that it's at all odd how his thoughts are being sorted without any expenditure of effort on his own part--nor does he seem much put off that the way they are being sorted is not precisely like his habit. << Sorry, I'm fine. Everything just--came apart for a moment there. It's working again. >> Despite the accompanying embarrassment, his relief is tremendous, and in the wake of this ordeal he settles wearily against Hive's safe, solid presence. He's hardly aware of the other stirring at all. The other, though, notices. At Flicker's fleeting touch it comes partly awake, though it seems less directly aware of Hive taking root all around. Its shape is amorphous, driven by emotion--at present almost entirely fear and uncertainty, though there's a touch of curiosity, too--and struggling toward consciousness. << (Protect Bruce) >> The thought isn't fully verbal, but the impulse, like that of a very young child determined to look after an even younger sibling, is immensely powerful. The entity itself is immensely powerful, and even in its semiconscious state it begins to wrought chemical and biological changes in Bruce's body, though Hive can only observe these indirectly. << Working again. Good. >> With this reassurance, Hive begins carefully extricating himself from the woven strands of thought Flicker has been twining together. << -- I think I found him. >> His quiet mental support remains steady, growing firmer against Bruce's exhausted lean even as the network of roots he has been spreading begin to sprout into their own distinct entity. << Bruce is safe, >> rustles quietly back down in answer to that nebulous emoting. << Bruce is here. What do you need to protect him from? >> Bruce's anxiety spikes again, though with Hive's steady bolstering it remains just that--a spike of anxiety. His intricate, organically woven mental processes keep chugging along. << I'm still here, so...that's--good? >> He's extremely unsure about this. The Hulk also seems quite uncertain, mostly awake now but contained by Hive. << BRUCE SAFE? >> The voice isn't loud exactly, but it's incredibly intense. << IF BRUCE SAFE, HULK NO NEED PROTECT. >> The fear eases and the curiosity burgeons to replace it. << WHERE HULK NOW? >> The entity pushes experimentally outward. Pain shoots through Bruce's body, and he curls into a fetal ball, stifling his cry against his arm. The adrenaline and terror reaches the Hulk at once. << BRUCE HURT? HULK PROTECT! >> << Please stop. >> The spike of fear and pain ripples through Hive, too, filtering in faint dappled motes down through his mental pathways, but despite this his voice is quiet, gentle. The sinewy-strong columns of roots and trunks that have grown down -- grown back up -- to wreathe Hulk's form are not as gentle, lacing together in a solid twining bulwark against that pushing. << It hurts Bruce when you do that. >> It comes with a shared echo of feeling -- muted, filtered through Hive's awareness and context. Hulk pushing, Bruce recoiling, but now from Hive's own vantage point -- set at once within and apart, able to see both cause and effect. << You hurt Bruce when you do that. I think you want to help him. I'd like to help you. >> Only part of this trickles back up to Bruce. Hive's voice has tightened, a little stiffer, a little more carefully controlled. << He -- wants to protect you. He thinks he's keeping you safe, I think. >> The Hulk stops at Hive's explanation, though plainly quite confused by it until the shared sensory information comes, as well. With that, the transformation aborts and the pain fades, as well. Still, fully alert now, the second consciousness residing in Bruce's brain has taken the form of a hulking green man with improbable bulging musculature on a broad frame, displaying no discomfort whatsoever with his utter nudity. << HULK NO HURT BRUCE! >> he protests. << YOU HELP. >> Then seems to notice the roots twining around him for the first time. << WHY HULK STUCK? >> This is more fearful than angry, but the anger *is* there, and growing. Bruce doesn't reply at once. A surge of old, fragmented memories wells up and he shrinks from them pre-emptively, then scrambles to organize them before they overwhelm him again. This time he has some limited success, spinning the disjointed moments into something resembling a coherent narrative: Bruce as a very small boy, fascinated by objects around him but shying from his parents; their patience wearing thin with a firstborn who won't speak, who tears his clothes off, who screams and strikes them when cross; Father growing steadily more abusive, blaming Mother for Bruce's oddness but not sparing the child, either; Bruce turning further and further inward from the pain, imagining a monster who would keep him from harm, pouring all his uncomprehending terror and rage into this being he called "Hulk". << Oh, no. >> Bruce's inner voice is small and frightened. << Did I--make him this way? I didn't--that's not--I never meant to-- >> His head shakes physically. << I hate you, I hate you, I hate that I hate you, I hate that I love you, I love you, I--loved you. >> The song threatens to spill out of its woven path, but the structure holds it fast. << I don't need him to protect me. We'd both probably be a lot safer if he didn't. >> << I don't know. >> Uncertain or not, Hive's voice comes back steady and quiet in answer to Bruce's small one. << I'm not really sure how this works. He's here, whether you need him or not. He seems -- >> There's a hesitation, here. An uncomfortable shifting as longer thinner branches quest downward, searching, then pause. Feelings flutter back up to Bruce -- a raw intense protectiveness, ferocious and impulsive and determined. Powerful. The feeling of Bruce as a child reflects thoughtfully back, monstrous rage and anger but somehow guileless. << ... young, >> Hive concludes, hesitantly. Around Hulk the thick stalks grow thicker, twine closer, a lush but secure thicket that rustles quiet and calm overhead. There's a restrained feeling that threads itself down into Hulk's consciousness -- a gentle sort of apology, a wordless overture that carries no concrete offer but a peaceful intention. << We didn't want you to hurt Bruce. When you -- push like that, >> this comes with a mental echo, a feeling of Hulk's experimental pressure, << that hurts him. I'm hoping there's a better way. I'm still learning all this, too. Can you work with me on this? >> Bruce is quiet for a moment. Even in his mindscape, the recently gathered thought processes slow to a crawl for just a moment. Then his anxiety about the Hulk spins up into high gear, working through his fragmentary knowledge of the other in his mind. << I think it--he came about when I was very young myself. Maybe he just...never grew up. >> This thought process starts to creep past its bounds, and Bruce methodically gathers the fear in tighter, weaving its ends back in--imitating Flicker's darting approach, but keeping the smooth, tidal sweep of his accustomed pace. By degrees he settles. << Alright. I'll talk to him...if he's willing, and if you're able. >> Hulk's anger recedes slowly with Hive's explanation, though to some extent it is the sense of safety in his method of confinement that calms him. << Hulk no want hurt, >> his mental voice is quieter now, if a bit sulky, muffled somewhat as he curls in on himself. He doesn't actually specify who he doesn't want to hurt. << Hulk strong. >> For all his certainty in this, there is some trepidation as he adds, << Hulk work with you. >>