Hello Darkness My Old Friend

[notsoangry]

WHO: Bruce Banner
WHERE: South Village Fountain
WHEN: 9/17
OPEN TO: Open to all!
WARNINGS: None yet

BUNKER/SOUTH VILLAGE FOUNTAIN

In the tube, Banner was unconscious. Nothing so restful as a simple dream, that would be too kind, instead his mind was restless. It was a waking nightmare, seeing people turn to dust before his eyes, seeing the looks of pain and loss on the few people in the world he still cared about, and the friend he knew best was missing, gone, who knows where. Everything was wrong. And now he was here. His hair was newly short and gray, his figure average and unassuming, and he woke up suddenly to propulsion that he couldn't possibly be ready for.

This wasn't really the first time he woke up somewhere he shouldn't be, in a place he couldn't remember; this was a common situation. It wasn't even the first time he was in the water, struggling to breathe, his limbs wildly flailing. But it was a rare occurrence that this moment of concern didn't follow with the feeling to the tip of his toes of the other presence waiting. Then again, he and the Hulk had issues. Issues not even close to being addressed. It meant he was vulnerable. It meant many things. Banner finally got himself together and swam up, figuring out which way was up, and broke the surface gasping. To where? To here. Where was here?

Exhausted and with a heavy heart, he sat on the edge of the fountain and breathed deeply, running hands through his wet hair. Nothing seemed familiar around there, but hey, it wasn't a planet geared toward trying to kill him or freak him out. So far. Don't jinx it, Banner. He sat there for a long time, he had no idea how long. He was in no hurry to move. The world was too much right then, and whatever this was, it was a few steps above.

The strangest part of everything was the clothing. The extras. Normally he woke up naked. So there was that one small good thing. It took him awhile before he was up and walking, but eventually it happened.

INN

At first he simply walked around. Nothing was familiar. In fact, he was fairly certain it seemed dissimilar from anything he'd known before. Some things were the same, yes, but Banner couldn't see how the Hulk brought him this far. And he was wearing clothes. What the hell was happening now? Was this another trick from Thanos? That made sense. He clearly liked to torture people. When he saw the inn, he paused. He tried to avoid people most of the time. It was too dangerous, he was too dangerous, except now he wasn't at all and that meant people he walked into could in fact be dangerous to him. He tried to reach out to see if the Hulk was still ignoring him.

There was nothing. No touch. No moment of anger or denial. No feeling whatsoever. Nothing. He was the only on home. At first he couldn't figure out what that meant. All these years later, how could it be? All the years trying to get here, and it just happened when he woke up. Stunned and overwhelmed, he could only stumble over to the outside wall of the Inn and lean against it. Not going in, just hovering there, and then he started to crumble down until he was sitting on the ground, staring off into space.

What was he feeling? Relief? Loss? Fear? Confusion? All of it.

Comments

[houmaprotector]

Alec? Alec prowls. The green is a quiet thought in his mind, a longing. It's hard not to feel ungainly, to feel uncomfortable. He can't move as quickly as he used to and when one lumbers it doesn't make for good company.

Still. The people here seem...understanding. The notion of being set on fire is still on his mind and there's John, a puzzle in and of itself. The strange machine, the people here, how people reacted to his presence.

He sticks to the fountain, willing his powers back into focus so he can speak to the green and ask it where the hell they are - but there's nothing.

And so he walks, past the inn where the others (the humans) stayed. He stared at it with longing before turning, seeing a man sitting there lost in thought. Do I need to preference every meeting with "please don't scream?"

"Are you...lost?" Remember the names and faces Alec. You can do it. His mind had warped to think of plants more then people but still. Any one of them might be the ticket back home.

Inn

[thegreatexperiment]

Sam's vodka still looked like something out of a Rube Goldberg drawing. There were pipes and tubes and glass jars and jugs. Everything was rigged up by string over burners and counter tops. The whole thing had to be disassembled and reassembled every time she used it, or no one would be able to use half of the kitchen. As a whole, Sam tried not to be that person. A dick. Admittedly, it was a habit that came to her naturally in most arenas of her life. But she had surprisingly excellent kitchen etiquette.

Especially for someone who couldn't eat.

She missed eating, as of late. Comfort food, really. A bag of Cheetos or a nice, hot bowl of her mother's Matzo-ball soup. Anything to clear her mind. She was working on her second batch of the day, her eyes following the glittery, shining bubbles as they traveled along her patchwork distillery. There was an art and a beauty to it, but Sam couldn't fully appreciate it today. Every time she blinked, she saw it again. The half-redacted, just-revealed-enough names.

Avery Anderson.

Damn it. Why did he have to be brought into the muddle of her thoughts? It wasn't fucking fair. Her feelings about her big brother were complicated, to say the least. But he belonged to her. She hated the thought of their 'Overlords' taking ownership even more than she hated him for what he'd done to her in their final moments together in LA.

Angrily, she grabbed the nearest glass and threw it against the wall.

Inn

[unraisehell]

Wynonna's been spending a lot of her time here. She has the same sort of lost, stunned look as Bruce, albeit at a lower setting, and it's that look that has her sitting down across from him.

"I'd like to say it gets easier, but I've only been here two days," she tells him. "And to think I thought my hometown was remote and outdated."

Inn

[womanofvalue]

Between Tony working all hours at the forge, guarding the bunker, and trying to educate herself on a world of new things, Peggy's aware that she's probably running herself ragged. Then again, actually changing that isn't something she plans to do, so instead, she's come to the inn to collect on another bit of her tea that she keeps here, needing the caffeine quite desperately.

When she does arrive, there's yet another new face, gaping as if he's seen a ghost. Peggy warily looks at him and decides that tired as she might be, she's also not rude enough to ignore him. "I'm just about to make a cuppa," she informs him. "Will you be joining me?"

INN - After Text Conversation - Around Sept 18th

[minus1twin]

Wanda had a very strange relationship with many of the Avengers. Bruce was someone who she had never had the chance to get to know as a friend because he had disappeared after Ultron's defeat. She remembered Natasha trying to find him, demanding Tony for information about the craft so she could locate Bruce but it all came to nothing. There were stories about him and she's seen the depth to his anger but that wasn't the same as knowing him.

It surprised her that he was so readily to accept her again. She understood with Natasha and Clint. They all had done horrible things in their past and were trying to atone. Steve was hopelessly optimistic, Vision was young and everyone else was following orders. Wanda and Tony tolerated each other and helped each other but it was a business arrangement, it wasn't about being friends or teammates.

Wanda didn't really know how things with Bruce were going to go.

Dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, Wanda sat at one of the tables in the inn. It was in the far back corner but within view of the door. He already knew what she looked like so she trusted Bruce to find her when he was ready to talk. She had some stew in front of her but she wasn't eating it. It's been years since Ultron and her brother's death as well as another year or so of her being trapped in this place. She didn't look like the child Bruce had first seen; now she looked like a solider, weathered by her past but tempered by newer experiences.