His mind works in over-drive, picks up a notch in speed as his options are considered and dismissed. Somewhere buried deep under the calm surface Thor wants to pull the trigger, the part of him that didn’t care about bloodshed and was overgrown by reason and sensible thinking. The man is obviously stalling but the comments did strike a nerve that narrows the blond’s eyes ever so slightly and tenses already taut muscles even further.
There was dirt of course, a big steamy mountain of it that would eventually catch up with him, but the intruder could not have picked a worse reason to sway the guard from the man who had taken him in. Banner – in all his at times overly stoic and ruthless glory – had treated him with a kindness the young man had not experienced up until that faithful day a few years ago, and while most bought and manipulated loyalty out of their employees Thor’s loyalty was neither bribed nor coaxed out.
‘ You are assuming my life is not good to begin with ‘ he half-snorted the retort with a minor tilt in his head. ‘ You also assume this is not exciting to me, and that I want a clean slate. You assume a lot my friend.’ Lips purse in mild amusement and the step forward is agonizingly slow, barrel now aimed in a straight line at the man’s head. ‘ That was strike two, last chance. Who are you and why are you here?’
‘Friend.’ If the situation was a little less– life threatening he might have laughed at that particular choice in words. They weren’t friends, even if he did find the right way to talk himself out of this and convince him to switch sides. But now was neither the time or the place to laugh about things. Especially not something like that.
“If I’m assuming things, then I’m gonna go ahead and assume you’re scared of leaving, and that’s why you’re turning me down. Which I don’t blame you for, I’d be scared of a brute like that too.” Anyone who’s anyone’s heard the stories of Banner’s anger issues and the effects it has on anyone, and anything, that gets in it’s way. “He can be a real mean son of a bitch can’t it? People with temper’s straight outta hell are like that.”
The rat’s eyes flicked between the gun and those eyes that were narrowed at him. “We can give you some protection. Keep Banner from getting anywhere near you until things have calmed down.”