Logs:Vignette: Alter Egos

Vignette: Alter Egos
CN: Some dialogue in caps
Dramatis Personae Bruce, Hulk rift!Bruce	2020-12-09 "Where your Hulk now?"
Location <NYC> NYPD 121st Precinct - Staten Island
There are two Doctors Bruce Banner on this project, and while they share a penchant for staying on their respective sides of the rift, sometimes their duties demand otherwise. Today they are both on the side that is teeming with S.H.I.E.L.D. agents rather than Sentinels, in the partly collapsed ruins of what once was the 121st Precinct. The native of this world has been sequestered a tent serving as a holographic imaging lab, while the visitor is calibrating one of the many, many pieces of monitoring equipment set up at the rift site. Or had been calibrating it. Rift!Bruce sits back on his heels now, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, then brushing off his lab coat as he rises. Prime!Bruce emerges, flinching in the sudden brightness as he heads down the corridor to the holding cells. He stops dead in his tracks when he spots his counterpart, his lips pressing together thinly as he snatches his off glasses from his face--ostensibly to clean them, though the irritation in the gesture speaks loud and clear. "Sorry," rift!Bruce says automatically as he hastens to rise. "I was just wrapping up here. I'll be out of your way in just a minute." His eyes have a hunted look as they flick over his counterpart. "You're not in my way," says the one on home turf. "Take your--" His eyes narrow, not at his counterpart but past him. His words, when he speak again, also do not sound exactly like they're meant for the other man. "Wait, why? I'm safe, it's okay, he's not going to do any--" He doubles over, his body suddenly rippling and expanding under his cloths. "Do you ah, need a tranquilizer?" the visiting Bruce asks, his voice going up half an octave. He starts forward, his hand dropping hesitantly into a pocket of his lab coat. Too late. The transformation is fairly rapid this time despite Bruce's resistance, and a few seconds later Hulk is towering over rift!Bruce, wearing only the dark gray trunks that stretch to fit their considerable larger frame. "BAD BRUCE!" they roar, their voice loud enough to hurt. Bruce staggers back, whimpering. "Look, whatever I did, I'm very sorry please don't hurt me!" Hulk's heavy brows furrow. "Hulk not hurt you," they rumble disdainfully, though something suggests it's still an effort not to shout. "Hulk talk to you. Why you bad? Why you help bad Tony?" Bruce stares up blankly at Hulk. "I'm not--he's not--bad, we're just doing the best we can in an awful situation." Hulk's eyes narrow further. "Bad Bruce took mutant cure!" The voice is rising unsteadily again, though not quite returning to shouting territory just yet. "You help bad Tony put other mutants in jail!" "I didn't take the cure!" Bruce says, quailing again. "Or--I mean--I took it, but it didn't work. It's not like it would have hurt Hulk, anyway--my Hulk. That's been happening since long before I manifested, I would have just...stopped changing. But I'm still a mutant." "BAD BRUCE LIE!" Hulk barks at him, lunging forward and tapping their alter ego's alter ego (gently, by his standards) in the middle of his chest with a massive index finger. "Where your Hulk now? You scared, Hulk protect you." However gentle the tap, Bruce staggers back a step, his hand rising to his chest, automatic and protective. "It's--it's just medicine. I take a ah, sedative. It--it keeps Hulk from coming out." His head head shakes. "I--he--Hulk attacked Tony. More than once. It wasn't safe, I had to protect my friend." There's a long pause while Hulk considers his words. Then, slowly, uncertainly, "You keep lock Hulk up? Never let Hulk out? Because Hulk want to stop bad Tony from making war on Hulk own people?" "He--he was just doing his best," Bruce repeats faintly. "I'm sorry. Tony's all I have, and Hulk--is also me! I have a right to not want to act that way." Hulk's face twists slowly back into a mask of rage. "Hulk not you, Hulk just stuck with you. You hurt many more people than Hulk. You're bad!" Hulk slams a massive fist down on the floor between them, fracturing the already broken concrete further and making all the nearby equipment rattle like another of the many tremors that have rocked the rift site lately. Bruce finally breaks and flees, though granted he doesn't have far to go before he reaches the invisible rift and disappears through it, rooting the autoinjector loaded with his tranquilizer from his pocket as he goes. Hulk lingers there for a moment longer, staring forlornly at the apparently empty space that contains a rip through space. Their huge face is a study in anguish and fury. Slowly, they ease down to sit on the cold, broken concrete, resting their massive head on arms folded around their knees.