Bruce has set up a makeshift lab in Wakanda, while the world takes stock of their dead and Wakanda mourns for their king. Bruce isn’t doing anything important, but he needs to do something, so he studies Wakanda’s vibranium supply and attempts to keep Shuri busy.
Otherwise, the grief might just be too much for the both of them to bear.
Bruce also tries very hard not to think about Tony and what form of matter Tony may or may not be at this very moment. He’s only moderately successful.
It’s on the third day of the second week after half of the world has turned to ash that Thor brings Bruce a little green snake. Bruce is baffled, but he tried to be polite about it. Bruce is heartsick, though, so that makes everything a little harder.
Then Thor asks for Bruce to see if the snake is Loki, and it takes every bit of willpower Bruce Banner poses to not burst into tears. Thor is so strong and so keen to smile, he makes it so easy for everyone to forget that he has lost nearly everything.
Bruce pokes at the snake without any further complaints. When nothing happens, the grief on Thor’s face is unimaginable.
Bruce begins spending time with both Thor and Shuri, in a desperate attempt to combat his own grief by combatting theirs.
All the while, every second or third day, Thor brings Bruce a small green animal and asks Bruce to see if it his lost brother. Bruce checks every time, with care and precision, but the result is always negative. It’s awful for both of them, but Thor can’t seem to stop and Bruce doesn’t know how to make him.
This pattern holds for a few weeks, until Thor brings Bruce a beaten and battered lizard. It’d been burned somehow and it looked like one of its limbs had been badly broken. When Thor presents it to him, Bruce honestly isn’t sure if Thor had just brought the little thing to Bruce to see if it could be saved.
“Could you check?” Thor asks, the question quiet and hurt after so many weeks of negative results from Bruce’s prodding and poking.
“Of course,” Bruce says softly, adding his portion of the call and response.
He gingerly picks up the lizard, as the poor also looks like he’d been through the wringer, and gives him a quick once over. Bruce’d been right about the broken leg and the burns were pretty –
The lizard fucking turns into Loki. A damaged, burnt Loki who scuttles backward on a broken leg while spitting blood.
Thor bursts into tears. Bruce bursts out laughing. Everyone has their own way of processing grief and shock and grief turned into shock, apparently.
It’s later, when they’ve gotten Loki a little patched up, convinced Okoye not to kill Loki (”He tried to destroy the world!” she says – “He’s gotten better,” Bruce says), and Thor’s eyes were mostly dry, that Loki finally says through clenched, bloodied teeth:
“They’re in a pocket dimension.”
“Who?” Bruce whispers, stunned.
“Everyone. I told him he’d never be a god. He was just a warlord playing at being something powerful. He should’ve fucking listened.”
every time I reblog this my sister sends me a message to the effect of “thank u for reposting that cat video on your tumblr i have seen it so many times but it delights me every time because their paws are so gentle and graceful”
Who took this picture!? This absolutely PERFECT picture??? It is just… so… perfect. Distilled autumn pastoral fantasy. The colorful mushroom, the curl of the fern and flowers, the muted background foliage, the beady eyes and precise whiskers of the tiny squeakbeast!!! Unreal. Wow.
This is a great video showing some of my favorite things about legless lizards: their tongues look like a cross of a snake and gecko tongue, they have cute blinky eyes, their jaws are much more solid than snakes and they can chew, and many have tougher scales than snakes which is why they have that seam on the sides, it gives them flexibility to eat and breath.
Always love that ‘be a legless tube’ is successful enough a niche in nature that it keeps happening repeatedly.
Happy New Year! 2018 is the Year of the Doggo. This doesn’t officially happen until the Chinese New Year on February 16th, 2018, but we’re so excited about it that we want to start celebrating the awesomeness of our canine friends right away.
Thankfully Bored Panda assembled a collection of dog-related snapchats that are equal parts cute, heartwarming, and hilarious. These are some of our favorites. Click here for many, many more.
So I wanted to shoot some video to put a smile on the face on someone special. I had to pull this clip separate and share, because look at this happy puff!
Who’s a good puff? Who’s a happy poof? That’s right, this spike-snoot right here!
today at work a man brought a pug in on a leash and that pug was so excited and happy to see me it was as if we were old friends who havent been in contact in 7 years i felt so loved in that moment
today a bassett hound came in and wagged her tail so furiously all of her loose skin started to jiggle and she was so pumped to see me i want more dogs to come into my store they make my life whole and worthwhile
I’m so glad this came back cause a golden retriever named Milly came in today who put her paws on my register counter and wanted to say hi to me and I loved her so much and I scratched her ears and she gave me that classic dopey dog smile
yesterday a girl came in with her boyfriend and in her hand was a tiny tan colored dog that she told me was a chihuahua/pekingese mix and he had a severe underbite and one little canine tooth was poking out and his ears were like bent at the tips and i immediately commented on how amazing he was and she goes omg thanks do you wanna pet him and i was like there is literally nothing more i want to do while being on the clock right now than to pet this incredible tiny dog and he was so sweet and licked my hand and his name was spike
yesterday these people came in and put a blanket into one of our shopping baskets and it started to move and i was like omg whats in there and they set it down on the counter and the blanket kept moving and the suspense was so good like is it gonna be a cat is it gonna be a ferret maybe a lizard and then the smallest chihuahua ive ever seen in my life popped her little head out and licked my finger and i died
A baby german shepherd named Jonathan came in tonight and since i was on the sales floor and not behind a counter i say to the owner omg can i pet this angel and they were like yeah of course and i crouched down and Jonathan ran into my arms and almost tripped over his puppy feet it was 12/10
TODAY a german shepherd named london grabbed one of our lanterns off the shelf and was carrying it around and the owner was like, “london no, we’re not getting that” and gave him the merchandise she was buying instead and he carried it to me and dropped it on the counter at my register and i could have cried
I want everyone to know both London and Jonathan (Jonnie) came in the other day on the same day. Jonnie is much larger since the last time I saw him but still sweet and still acts like a pup, he barked at something in our footwear department. London still likes to carry things and put his paws up on my register to say hello, he carried the insoles his owner bought out the door for her. Also thanks for the notes, it’s nice to see so many people appreciate dogs on here. Another reminder, I see a lot of dogs because I work in a sporting goods store in a strip mall next door to a Petco and we absolutely allow dogs in our store. I live in a mountain town in Colorado and dogs are common here because there are lots of fun outdoor stuff to do with them.
A sheltie in a Petco shopping cart came in yesterday and her name was Sadie and she was so excited to say hi that she jumped out of the cart, onto my register counter, but she missed and Mufasa’d her way to the floor, but she was okay. The owner just let her sit on the counter and she was very well behaved and she gently smelled every item I scanned and also my hand. She was obsessed with her neck being scratched.
today a black lab name paxton came in off leash and he jiggled his way into our back room because the door was open and i yelled He Is Employed! and told his owner that we’d be happy to hire him and then eventually he made his way up to the front by himself and into the register area behind the counter and now he’s my new manager
my boss sent me this picture she took from the window at work today after i left. its not a dog, but it is a goat wearing a cowboy hat.
today a 12 week old dichromatic pitbull puppy named Spot was so tired that he was splayed out on our tile flooring, all four legs sticking out while his people tried on shoes. i asked to pet him and he wagged his tail and rolled over so i could scratch his belly
Today my boss found a lost little Australian shepherd puppy without a collar running around the parking lot and caught her and brought her in the store and I played with her on my lunch break and she was so cute and so sweet and was probably no older than like 9 weeks. Eventually her people came and claimed her. Her name is Panda and she’s in the process of being trained as a service dog for an elderly veteran with one leg.
today a bengal kitten named strider came in and he licked my finger. hes not a dog but hes is very important