So. Your maskfic. I've been working up to what I've wanted to say for a couple of chapters now - you write like you really respect Bruce as a character, and I really appreciate that because many authors only cast him to fit their plot or use him as a passive bystander. You treat him as more than just a host for Hulk, and I adore that. However. That being said. You smacked me over the head with these last two chapters back-to-back and I'm almost ready to take it all back. So, thanks. I hate it.
Bahaha – thank you very much for your comments on Bruce. I actually find him the most difficult character to nail down, as I feel like what we’ve seen of him in the films is very reductive in one direction or the other. In the case of maskfic, it was important to me to involve Bruce because of the dynamic in play between the world’s three super soldiers: Steve, the Soldier, and Bruce. I found that to be a very interesting dynamic, and of course this little nugget as well:
[content warning: references to torture]
“He looked at ‘em, the films I mean, for about two seconds.” Tony lifted his shoulder in a half-hearted shrug, and gave Steve a smile that was all teeth and utterly humorless. “Almost a full Code Green.”
Steve closed his eyes. “The evidence of torture…?” JARVIS had walked them through it, later, shown them the areas of accelerated bone growth, the odd precision of those healed over breaks—
“No. He’d seen them before.”
Steve blinked. Before he could open his mouth, Tony bowled him over with a torrent of words. “Not all of them. Not the arm, not the—implants. Nothing identifiable, like the replaced ribs. None of that. But photographs of cell regrowth over time, after—injuries, films showing bone density, that kind of thing, yes. He’d seen it before. Old scans, data, research notes, all of it was part of a docket of research materials he got access to when he won the grant from the MRMC. The, uh, the Army Medical Research and Materiel Command.”
It took Steve a second before the pieces clicked. He chest went cold. “The serum. His research on the serum.”
“Bingo.” Tony over-enunciated and drew out the word, and then hesitated briefly. “They told him—they told him the materials were from the 40s. They told him it was you.”
So yeah, I am way more interested in Bruce than I am the Hulk, because I think his perspective on somebody in the Soldier’s situation is going to be unique.
As for the last two chapters – 😈😈😈 – glad you “hate” it. Things are really ramping up!
Thank you for writing in!!! ❤️