"Spite isn't sustaining as a motivation. And that's not your primary drive." Spite helped, but it was shallow. Changing the world, making choices to help people, it had to come from somewhere else. In the case of a few people, it came from guilt and seeking redemption. For Bruce, it started out from a very genuine philanthropic place. Now it was a mix of motivations. He generally assumed everyone had about ten reasons for every one thing they did, they just weren't always aware of them, or likely to list them in their head like he did.

Bruce witnessed their people turning into ash. He thought at the time that Tony was almost certainly already dead. His mind hadn't gotten to the full scope of how many people were dead, but he knew it was half the planet, and then half of every plant and every part of the solar system. Getting out of this situation just led them to get into the other one. And he was still pretty sure he didn't want to go back, but he also couldn't send Tony back alone. It was all a mess. He still had to have the faith all the same.

"Yeah, I know the variables, but again, we've managed to do a lot of unbelievable things. We'll just have to keep trying." He sighed and reached out to rub Tony's back soothingly. He never really knew the right things to say. It wasn't like anyone was able to talk him out of a dark mood. "And if we're stuck here, for now, we'll have to make the most out of it. We'll share information, get a bunch of brilliant minds together to not blow up things, and survive." It really was the only option at the moment. What else could they do?

"But ...." And this was the truth. "Sometimes it's okay to just not have any answers or any ideas of what to do and to just wallow is uncertainty and sadness for a little while."