sixthiterationlogs | It's just you and me (closed)

Entry tags:

It's just you and me (closed)

WHO: Bruce Banner
WHERE: The lady requested a tour. Starts at schoolhouse.
WHEN: Backdated to October 23rd
OPEN TO: Natasha Romanoff
WARNINGS: None, will update here if that changes

Bruce is out and about regularly, but outside of when he's with Tony at home or at the Forge, he spends his time in the schoolhouse. It reminds him of the libraries he used to spend all his time in when he was young. He feels at his best surrounded with books. He has a stack of them next to where he's currently sitting. The how-to section is an absolute delight for someone who loves learning. While his note taking is extensive, especially after having helpful conversations with people post the expo, at the moment he's taking a break to read.

The pick of the day involves survivalist skills for the outdoors. Bruce survived on the run for many years, so he has experience in aspects of this, but not the full picture. Supplementing his knowledge is the best chance for mastery. He's dressed casually, glasses on, and while he's aware that Natasha said she's stop by some time, he tries not to obsess over it. If he spends all his time waiting and trying to awkwardly wear something nicer, it'll come off as trying too hard for him. So he is determined to study and research and read and not dwell on a certain redhead. More than a few times a day.

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It's been almost a week since her arrival--she's tracked the days carefully, not wanting to lose any, to let the place make her complacent--and that entire time has been spent learning as much as she can about everything she can. General topography, wildlife, plants both native and non, the residents and their origins, watching the networked conversations, and of course trips to the bunker to see just how far down the literal and metaphorical rabbit hole goes. Bruce's notes have been a huge help in organizing her thoughts, prioritizing information. They haven't spoken much since, but she's popped in to the schoolhouse once or twice, looking for books to cross-reference for one thing or another. She's done her own sweeps of the town, too, and brief forays into the wilderness that clearly becomes less Earthlike the further out one goes. There's a lot to take in, but she's at least comfortable enough now that she can take a moment to breathe. Maybe get a slightly less urgent tour, with a friendlier face.

"Planning on going mountain man on me?" The words come from nearby, her approach silent as always. She's raided the clothing stores, that much is apparent, though she doesn't seem to have strayed too far from the theme: black leggings, short black boots, black leather jacket slightly oversized, the only color the dark red of her sweater. Nothing fancy, just enough to make her feel like herself again, and that much shows in the tilt of her head as she offers him a quick flash of a smile, gesturing towards his books. "I mean, you could probably pull off the Bear Grylls look, but a beard might be pushing it."

Bruce's love for the library and books led to spreading that passion in the classroom too. He was a fairly good professor in his time, and if he stuck to that, he'd probably be married with children by now, raising another generation of nerds. But he doesn't dwell on that alternate universe possibility anymore. After the last time he saw Betty and that door was shut, he spent his life in the present. Now it is the same. He likes to learn, but he's strategic in what he picks. The wood working and carpentry was his last pick, and that led to some successful attempts at a chicken coop. Before Clint disappeared, he promised to take care of some of his chickens.

He looks up when she speaks. It startled him in the beginning, how silent she is, but he doesn't startle as easily anymore. The last Natasha who was there he didn't see until she was literally sitting next to him. Some things never changed. "You have no idea," Bruce says on a laugh. "If I don't shave daily it comes in heavy." His hair grows fast; it's already starting on the rest of his head, but not long enough to curl yet. "I'd make him look fresh faced." It was a good disguise before, but it didn't feel like him.

He gets up, putting a pencil on the page he was on, giving her a quick once over. "You look ...." Beautiful. "Like you."

Some things don't change. She'd hardly consider any version of herself that didn't feel the urge to sneak up on people a real Natasha Romanoff. Old habits die hard, after all, and it's good to keep people on their toes. She'd been cautious doing that around him at first, before she'd been any more than wary, but she'd quickly learned that Bruce's control was always much stronger than people have him credit for.

He talks, and she tilts her head and studies his face, thoughtful. "I'm trying to picture you with a full professor beard, I just can't quite see it," she says thoughtfully, and there's only a hint of a glimmer in her eyes that belies the teasing. Not for long, though, as he stands and she shifts her weight onto one hip, lips curling in a smile.

"Careful with those compliments, Doctor, you're gonna make me blush," is the faintly dry response. Of course she knows what he means, anyway, but how can she resist a line like that?

"Think I could steal you away from your books for a walk?"

"I tried it for a little while. I had the collection of tweed jackets too. But I missed the lab coats and apparently preferred no sleep." Teaching was wonderful, but it lacked the challenge he needed. It was his downfall, his voracious curiosity and appetite for solving puzzles. "Betty ...." Bruce pauses. He knows it's generally not encouraged to talk about exes with current girlfriends, but Natasha isn't his girlfriend, they have no title for what they are. It still seems like a bad call, but he has to at least finish his sentence. It's been thirteen years since they were together. "Hated ... hates ... facial hair." He hurries to add, "As I'm sure her husband knows." Okay, mentioned the ex, but she's married, so it's fine. It's such a strange thing to get anxious over, but he hasn't dated in a long time.

Not that they're dating. Calm down, Banner.

"Looking like you is the best compliment I can imagine for someone." He's looking down when he says it, still shy when he's flirting. But she's asking for that walk, and Bruce couldn't be more eager. "Yes, definitely, I'd love to. The books are great but they could use work on providing small talk." He does have a tendency to talk to himself and to the books when he's alone. And sometimes when he's not.

He steps in front of her to open the door first. "What haven't you seen? The greenhouse? The springs? The mill probably isn't that interesting." He said he'd show hr around, so that's first in his head. Plans. Good plans to entertain her.

If he were any more transparent, he'd be a ghost, she thinks with some hidden bemusement. And yet, it isn't tiresome or awkward. The clearly unplanned mention of his ex, the very careful mention of said ex's current husband, as if she might be a jealous girlfriend. That's never been her style. But then, none of this has ever really been, has it? Who would have expected any of this? They aren't dating, no. They were never that. They were--dancing, maybe. Something interrupted. Maybe this time, they'll have a chance to let it go to its natural conclusion, whatever that might be.

"The tweed I can see." Tactfully, no mention of Betty. Honestly, this is part of the charm of him, too. He might be approaching fifty, but there are moments when he's like a shy teenager, and not in the terrible way, others when he seems like he'll be terribly vital and alive and full of energy and enthusiasm, and all of that is just...Bruce. How he is, who he is. The way he looks down when complimenting her, all earnestness and hesitance isn't something she thought she'd ever see again, and it does something strange in her core. "Now I am going to blush," is her amused reply, and she lets him get the door, following him out into the brisk air.

Where to go is a valid question, though. "I've seen the mill," she says thoughtfully, nodding towards the road leading north. "Headed up to the North Village a couple days ago to see the lake, the bunker. I haven't been south yet, towards the springs. We could start there." While she figures out a place to start with the rest.

There's never been a time when Bruce has been capable of hiding his thoughts and feelings. He thought about trying, because he knows there's value in it. But so much of his energy was aimed at controlling the Hulk, and he didn't have the time to also worry about his composure. In the end, this is him. The social awkwardness, the shyness, the enthusiasm for learning how the world works, and the disastrous decision making. She, on the other hand, is a puzzle. As everyone knows, Bruce loves puzzles. He loves the way her mind works, especially when she lets him in on it.

"You know, one day I might actually find a way to make you blush. We wouldn't be close to even, but it would be an accomplishment." He does impossible things all the time. Flustering Natasha Romanoff would be a worthy addition to that list. Bruce lets her set the pace and feels this intense mixture of feelings in his gut, all becoming the familiar 'Nat's near me' category. He takes off his glasses and puts them in his pocket for now. They're a line of defense, sometimes, hiding his eyes and thoughts behind them, so taking them off intentionally removes that.

"The spring apparently has healing properties. I took a sample to test, although I might need to get a fresh one when I get the right equipment. It's a good thing to know if someone comes in injured. Tony came in stabbed. There's also a vending machine of powers in the bunker, healing is one of them, he used that." Tony's not quite as hesitantly brought up as Betty, but there's caution in it. He wonders if now is the time to break the ice on that, and he might as well pull off the band-aid. "I know things got bad between you two. Between everyone."

"It's rare, but it has been known to happen," she says with a shrug and a small smile. "I'm sure you could manage, if you apply yourself." Flirting is easy, it's always been; one of those skills she's kept honed sharp, a weapon to be switched on and off at will. It's a funny feeling, to be using it deliberately. To be able to just...slip back into this, despite everything after Sokovia. After the farmhouse, really--but she isn't going to question it.

The pace she sets towards the south is unhurried but purposeful, a stride that gives them plenty of time to chat, to let her watch him as he talks as well as the path. "It's a strange combination," she remarks after a moment, filing everything he's said away. "All the technology in the villages is early twentieth century at best, but there's the bunker with technology somewhere between Stark tech and Asgardian, and then this spring with healing properties--not to mention the other abilities. We all have them, right? Color-coded, like all of us?" Confirming everything she's read so far, everything she's seen. It's not tough to spot a social experiment when you're right in the middle of it.

It's the last part that takes a longer moment to answer, and part of her would rather focus on the here and now and not the complications of the recent past, but it can't be helped. And...this is Bruce. She wouldn't say she owes anyone an explanation, but he deserves more effort than most.

"Things were--complicated," she says eventually, looking away from him and up the road. "I mean, they always were, but even more than usual. There were too many variables, and no one wanted to stop and consider any of them. No one stopped to think. I was just as guilty, but Tony, him and Steve--" the sentence is finished with a wave of her hand. "It isn't going to be a problem here. Not with me. Not unless they want it to be." It...still isn't an answer, exactly. She isn't sure she has one.

"I'll add it to my list of projects. It'll be more fun than a lot of those." Bruce suspects it'll more likely lead to flustering him more than her anyway, but he is determined to at least keep up with her. It feels like the best way to let her know in his tentative way what his intentions are. They can fall back on friends joking if they need to, but Bruce flirts with no one else. He doesn't look at anyone else the same way. He might have trouble finding the words, so he shows it how he can. There was so much he wish he said in the farmhouse.

"Yes, or so I've heard, I haven't showed any powers yet, but I know some people who have. I'm hoping if I can get samples from people and the ability to study our blood, I might know what it is that altered us. Or at least what it looks like." Bruce wants to test multiple things, because that's how he frames what he understands about the world. He also doesn't know if his blood is radioactive anymore. If he can't turn into the Hulk, it's very likely, but if it's still in there, that didn't spell good things for him. "It's an experiment for sure. A scientific and social one." Almost echoing her own thoughts. "It reminds me too much of studies I've seen and done in the past." That's what some science required. Tests, balances, and manipulation. He's a little more sorry now for it now that he's a lab rat, but he's been on of those for years. "What they want from us, I don't know yet. But I think we were all picked specifically."

Bruce stays quiet while she talks about the break up he missed. "They're still not speaking here, as far as I know. They've never been good at understanding each other. Or giving each other a break." He's putting responsibility on both parties in this situation. Bruce cares about Tony and Steve. He thinks they're too different for things to have gone easily. "I hope they can move past it, because I really don't think this is a situation we can let those things get in the way." He's said as much to both of them, but only they can make it happen. "If you can get Steve to talk about things, that would be great. Tony has me to lean on, but I don't think Steve's letting anyone do that for him. I'm worried about him." He's seemed so sad. Bruce knows a lot about sadness and isolation.

"When Tony told me what happened, I wasn't ...." He sighs, wringing his hands. Ross still haunts him, but he's not going to put that on anyone else now. "It was a lot. And that was just me hearing about it. If you want to talk about it, you know I'm here." He glances her way. She opened up to him before. He should have done better when she did. Now he wishes he could do that for her, but it's something she has to choose.

"They both want to drive," she says, and it's not precise but it's closer than most. "Both of them think they know what's best, that they're reasonable men, but they're both used to standing alone. Steve's never really been much of one for sharing. Even with Barnes, I think, and he's definitely out of practice." It's not easy for him to let people in, either. Trust, sure. He's not stupid, but he wants to be able to trust people to want to be good. But letting people in, emotionally, sharing his own burdens and uncertainties--that's never been Steve. She'd tried, still tries, but it isn't easy. She's not going to give up on him here, either.

And ironically, here she is, put in that same space. Bruce offering to listen if she wants to talk, and all she wants to do is crack a joke, play it off, keep this from circling. But isn't that part of how things went so wrong at the farmhouse? Serious words followed by a joke, more misunderstandings one after the other, layered on like a terrible parfait. So--she doesn't make the joke. She doesn't say anything at all for a long moment.

"I missed you. During all of it. Before, of course, but especially during. You always knew how to talk to Tony when he got like that. And you were always good at making sure we didn't forget what we were really doing, why we were doing it. Making sure I didn't forget. I know it wasn't your fault, it wasn't even Hulk's, really, neither of you knew, but--" But. It's important to say, and there's no one else here to hear but him. And whoever put them here, of course, but that's a given. She's no stranger to constant surveillance. The important thing is she says it, instead of just assuming. They've both done a lot of assuming.

"We're all kind of loners, in our own way. It's why I doubted it could work. You get a bunch of damaged people in one place, even with a common goal, and it's fragile." It's a pessimistic outlook, but that's where he lives. Except. "But we wanted it to work. We started to try to be more than separate pieces. In our future, we do come together as one for a fight again, and for that brief time, it was easy to remember what could've been." When things were too bad to fight anymore, they made it work. And it wasn't enough.

"This whole thing, it's too personal to them. They can't think rationally. Maybe if they cared about each other less, it would be easier." And that was the crux, in his mind. Whatever Steve and Tony thought, they cared deeply, otherwise it wouldn't have hurt so badly. "Tony I can handle, I know how he thinks, what he's going through. I wish I could be there for Steve, but I don't know that he'll let me. He's gone down a dark road. I know what that's like." Bruce knows what it looks like too. He knows the kind of sadness that weighs on someone until all they have is shadows in their eyes.

His heart warms that she missed him, and then it hurts. Miscommunication was a problem for them. When he got close, she withdrew, when she got close, he withdrew. He didn't want to do that now. "Natasha ...." He's torn, because the truth is harder, and he wants easier. He'd rather curl up in the words I missed you and stay there. He reaches out to catch her hand, a bold move for him, but it's to stop them for a moment. "When I turned back, I immediately asked Thor how you were. If I could have been there for you, I would."

He wants her to know what his priorities had been, before he continues, his fingers curling around hers gently. "But if I had been there, Ross would have tried to take me." That he knows to his very bones. Try, because it wouldn't have worked with the Hulk, but more people would be hurt. "I would've been a liability to all of you."

Edited 2018-11-02 17:16 (UTC)

It's why she'd doubted it, too. Bruce had always understood her better than most people would think. But she'd doubted plenty, even after their fight against the Chitauri. Sure, they could come together for the big things, but the little ones? The missions in between, just as crucial to the continued security of the world, but less flashy, the things that were less clean-cut? She would never have expected it to work.

And yet it had. They'd been a team, and being part of that team...it had meant more to Natasha than any of them knew. She was a loner, and she worked best on her own, and she still could, but it was better, with them. Fighting with Steve, verbal sparring with Tony, quiet moments of understanding with Bruce. She was better for having them, these thousand little vulnerabilities. Clint hadn't said anything, but he'd seen it, too. Laura had understood. And in her own way, she'd shown them all, or tried to, to tell them that staying together was the most important part of all of this. That they were stronger as a whole.

Maybe that's why it had hurt so much. How easily it all fell apart. She hadn't expected it to be easy. She hadn't expected it to hurt.

Bruce stops her with a hand, fingers curling around hers, and for the first time in a moment she looks at him, the motion turning her to face him as they stand in the road, already past the lines of houses. She looks at him like she can read every word in his eyes, and maybe she can. At least, enough to know that he means what he's saying.

The hand she places on his shoulder is deliberate, a way to draw his focus. It's important he understands. "We wouldn't have let him." None of them. That was the point. Not separating the team. Driving together. Steering through these troubled waters. "You were never just a liability, Bruce."

Bruce saw the team as a form of redemption, but also the first time in years he felt like there were people he could exist around. Not without fear, fear was his constant companion, but he felt present. He stayed in one spot. He lived in the center of New York City and only occasionally considered running again. Sometimes what he wanted to run from was the idea of belonging anywhere. Everything he cared about was taken away eventually. For that time when they were doing okay, when the Avengers were loved and he worked with Tony and joked with the others, he was almost happy.

Watching it dissolve in person would have been too hard. So he understands, at his core, how hard it was for her too. Neither of them believed easily in better lives. They both were lulled into hoping again. It was truly unfortunate. She went through that, and she missed him, had counted on him to provide something for the team they needed. He smiles, sadness in the curve of it, shaking his head. "Tony, Steve, and now you all said that. But it's what it would have come down to, Nat. All of you against Ross and whoever else he'd convince, which would be many, after Johannesburg."

It should be touching, that they'd all fight for him, and he appreciates it in theory. They care for him as more than a weapon. But for him, that's worse. "He used his own daughter to get to me. I can't let him do that to any of you." He's paranoid, yes, but with very good reason. Thirteen years later and the man haunts him. The idea of him using Tony and Nat to break him, that's a very real possibility. Secretary of State. Bruce squeezes her hand, letting the one on his shoulder try to keep him in the place he is, not in his fears. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, "this isn't about me, I keep dwelling. I want to be your shoulder. I want to be ...." He sighs, glancing up at her finally. "Someone you can count on."

He's still not understanding. It's okay, she expected that, and even though she's tired of everyone always assuming it has to come to a fight and a grand gesture, it's to be expected. After all, what have the last ten years conditioned them to expect? "That's why I was with Tony," she says, and her fingers squeeze his slightly. "The Accords were inevitable. Sokovia, Johannesburg, they were an excuse. This has been coming since the day Tony went on live television and came out as Iron Man. It just caught up to us. I wanted us to back the Accords, because if we were there from the beginning, we could control how it went. Keep people from being locked up in places like the Raft." She wonders if Tony's told Bruce about that yet. It's not a kind thought, but it's a valid one.

Honestly, it's the last of what he says that maybe is the part most reflective of why things went so wrong. Fortunately, she's had time to reflect on that. "It's about both of us," she corrects gently, carefully. "And about Steve, and Tony, and Wanda, and Vision, and all the kids Fury found through Project Insight." But she knows what he means. She knows, which means a clarification she hadn't known was necessary the last time.

"But this, specifically? It doesn't work if it isn't about both of us." She isn't making any promises. She can't. The situation is too strange, too fluid. But even if it isn't what it was, even friendship--it can't work just one direction. She's learned that much.

Bruce listens and this is why he wanted her thoughts on it. Tony's views he understands without question, but he's well aware they're biased. That's the only real information he has about it, so she's making a broader picture of it. "I don't blame the people for being uncomfortable with what we were and wanting to push accountability." He and Tony could hold themselves accountable for Ultron, but it's not as if the civilians who suffered for it could know that. It's the hands that drafted the Accords he doesn't trust.

"I think it all played out the way he wanted it. An excuse to arrest superheroes and throw them into a prison no one can get to." Yes, he knows about the Raft. Yes, he's furious about it. His jaw tightens briefly at the thought, and then relaxes because there's nothing to do about it here. The in-fighting certainly helped Ross out. "If there was a unified front, maybe ... I'm not sure. I wasn't there." Maybe they could have made it work, if the fight for Barnes didn't happen. "We found that unification at the next big catastrophe, but it'd been two years of none of you speaking to each other."

She's right. It's about all of them. It's about both of them. "This specifically?" He asks quietly. He knows they've been dancing around it, and it's not as if he's expecting an answer or a promise. He wants to look away, or down at the ground, but instead he forces himself to look straight at her. He can't keep hiding. "I know time's passed for you, and I'll respect whatever you want to do. But I want to be very clear with you." Miscommunication was one of their problems. Bruce takes her hand on his shoulder and brings it to his cheek, a gesture she made once in the farmhouse, but he got scared off. "I still feel the same way about you, Nat. The window is not closed on my end, it's wide open, you can climb through it whenever you're ready." It's a strange metaphor, but he used it before, so it's as good as any. "But if you want to close it for good and go back to being friends, we can do that." So she knows she has an out.

"There wouldn't have been anything wrong with it if it was about accountability. We both know it wasn't really about that." She's had a lot of time to think about it, the last few weeks. What could have been done differently. She's never been one to dwell, but there's a difference between dwelling and going over choices and situations, to see what could have been done differently. To learn what to watch for, the next time.

She supposes that's why she should have seen this coming. Bruce has never been one to do anything halfway, has he? It's one of the things she'd always appreciated about him, one of the intriguing things about him. So much control to keep the Hulk in line, and then never anything held back at all, once his mind was made up. And so here he is, doing it again. She won't lie to herself. Hearing him say that it's not over, that he still has feelings, hearing him say that they could have the things they'd only ever...it's tempting. It's so very, very tempting. She's thought about that day so many times. Both of those days. The farmhouse, the prison cell in Sokovia. All the other days before, learning the steps to the dance they'd found themselves in.

She could say yes. She could kiss him, and they could try this again, without the Hulk, without anything to come between them. But this place--she isn't the first Natasha to be here. She's the third. And while she doesn't want to leave him, or this place--not while there's so much to learn, so much to puzzle out--she knows she can't make promises. What if she's gone tomorrow, like the others? What would it do to him? She doesn't want to hurt him, not even unintentionally. As unavoidable as that is sometimes. As unavoidable as it'll be if she says no. She doesn't want to say no. She's afraid to say yes.

Her fingers rest lightly on his cheek as she looks up at his face, eyes searching his, lips parted slightly like she's halfway to speaking. It takes a long moment before she does. "I know it's getting a little chilly out these days, but do you mind leaving it open a little while longer?" There's that faint teasing tone to her voice, something soft and a little wry. "I've got some things to figure out, out here." She needs to figure out if she's going to stay. If any of them are, if there's any guarantee--as if there ever is in the life they lead. But she still adores him. She can't just turn and walk away from that. Not again.

Bruce already had the time here to think about the past, to think about his choices and what he might have changed, and also to think about the things he wanted if he could get them. He's so used to never getting anything he wants. He thought maybe they could run off together, but a part of him knew even before she pushed him over the edge that it could only end in tragedy. It wasn't just children and a family they could never have, there were so many other things he wasn't capable of offering her. But he was here, Hulkless, and that meant the nevers were turned into maybes. He could imagine a world without the Hulk, and he imagined it with her in it.

He smiles down at her, and since she knows he can't hide anything, his reaction is sincere. He's not disappointed and he doesn't plan on pushing any more than that. The grand gesture on his end, at least to start them off, was done. Bruce is generally more comfortable when the ball was in the other person's court anyway. He nods, respecting and understanding that processing needs to happen. He's had time to get there. "I'll leave it open even when it's freezing," he replies on a similar tease. Bruce brings up her hand to press a sweet kiss to the knuckles and then lets her take it back. If she decides the answer is no and they go back to being friends, he can live with that better, knowing at least he tried.

He knows that Nat won't want to linger too long in a moment she's uncertain of, so he tugs her hand affectionately and gestures for them to keep walking to the springs. "Outside of all the Ross stuff, I do wish I'd been there to help level Tony out. Rhodey's an amazing person, but he's not great at playing devil's advocate." Bruce is very permissive of Tony too, but he challenges him when he doesn't agree. They volley thoughts and disagreements regularly. It's a different relationship, not better or worse. "I'm sorry that you had to basically be the only level headed one at the table."

He's doing this for her, too, she realizes; not keeping her in the moment, not letting it linger too long. Moving on, now that he's said what he has to say. It's a strange feeling, knowing that, knowing that he knows her well enough to know how to walk that very careful line between distance and intimacy. Hell, it's a strange feeling thinking that they're getting to have this conversation at all. Any conversation. Some part of her...she doesn't know. Part of her expected to never see him again. Part of her expected him around every corner.

He lets her pull her hand away after a brief kiss to her knuckles--again, something unexpected and still not, a very Bruce gesture while being more forthright than she'd expect from him--but she doesn't necessarily want it back. She'll take some time to get some distance later, to process everything, but for now, it's not bad to have just a little of that closeness. If nothing else, they'd been friends. They could have been more, might still be more, but at the very least, they'd been friends. So it's easy, to loop her arm through his as they walk. It's not as hard to walk side by side with him as it might be with Steve or Sam or one of the other looming presences in her life. Bruce has always known how to match her, even if he doesn't think he does.

His words make her shake her head, though, not necessarily entirely a negative. "I wasn't. I tried--I did try, to explain that us staying together was the most important thing, that the rest ultimately wouldn't matter if we did--but even I'm not perfect. I tried to manage the situation. You know I've never been very good at managing Tony." She'd done her job, once upon a time, and he'd made it the hardest job of her life. Rhodey had helped, but..."But Pepper wasn't there, and Steve--Peggy had just died, and everything was still raw from SHIELD, and we just...fell apart." It's easy to tell the story like it's just a collection of facts. She's good at reports. But there's something raw in her voice, too, a faint huskiness that belies how strongly she still feels about the whole thing. "Part of me wishes you'd been there. Part of me is glad you weren't. I don't know if I could have made the same choices." It's a simple admission, but a bigger one than most people might realize. He should realize.

Bruce smiles, light and content, when she loops her arm in his. With him the smallest of gestures mean something. The only person he actively touches in his life is Tony, because of their trust, but it doesn't mean Bruce hates affection from anyone else. It's the opposite. In many ways he craves it, but it's never been something he's had a lot of. His mother died when he was young, his father was a psychopath, his other relatives were distant, and all he had were professional relationships outside of Betty from then on. And the Hulk made it impossible for him to feel safe for others, so touching him meant touching the Hulk. She could walk with him like this every day for a year, just that, and he'd be happy.

He listens as she works through her feelings about what happened, and it makes sense. Nat is brilliant, but she's not perfect. "You were put in a difficult position. I'm pretty sure no one could have talked them through it once Bucky got involved." Steve isn't rational when it comes to his friend. Bruce understands that intimately. He can't be rational about the people he loves either. "I could give you some pointers on how to handle Tony. It's basically all predicated on the fact he cares too much about everything and he reacts badly when he thinks other people don't care as much. If you let him know you care, it breaks down his defense mechanisms quickly." And that's a key part to how he and Bruce so instantly connected. If there's one thing people can be certain of with Bruce Banner, it's how much he cares.

Dark eyes widen slightly at the admission, because he knows what it means to her. He wants to kiss her knuckles all over again and treasure it. "Any situation where I'd have to pick between you and Tony and something else would have been a living nightmare." Even with Ross on the other end. He wonders if he'd be able to choke through Ross, if he'd pick his love for them over his hatred of his enemy, and he frankly doesn't know. He wishes he could say it would be them, no question. "You told me you dreamed you were an Avenger. I know how much that dream meant to you." Technically, she picked it over them running away together. It was the right thing to do, but it was still a choice.

"It isn't over, Nat. I'm from the future, and we all come together again, to fight for a common cause. We were reminded of why we came together in the first place."

"No, I don't think they could have. I tried--my history with him is...complicated, and Steve knows that." Steve had never forgiven himself for not being able to save Bucky on that train, and she and Bucky had never met without trying to kill each other before this place, so. Things were what they were. She isn't going to try and relive those moments, try and pick and choose what she could have done differently, better, what choices could have changed the course of history.

And people were what they were, too, which is why she pauses for just a moment, still walking along, but looking up at Bruce with a expression that's a combination of surprise, amusement, and resignation. "You do realize that you just told me to talk to Tony Stark about my feelings?" He should understand the absurdity of that statement. Even if it is the easiest way...well. She and Tony had never been the best at talking. And she's never been good at sharing her feelings, especially with someone incredibly adept at weaponizing them. She can respect skill when she sees it, even begrudgingly.

And yet...and yet. And yet she also knows that Tony cared about what they were doing. And yet she knows Bruce cares about him. And yet, she wasn't the only one who believed in that dream. "I don't know if I want to ask, considering we came together in the first place because of invading aliens and a conquering god," she says instead, and while her voice is light and amused still, there's a serious cast to her expression. She saw the fracture that drove them apart before. She knows the scope of what it would take to bring them back together.

"Yep, I realize that, and I'm aware of what a big ask it is. You might be surprised if you do though. Why do you think it was so easy for him to slip into my life, and why he's always so kind to me? I'm one big ball of open feelings." People knew where they stood with Bruce. Tony saw the gaping loneliness and sadness in him, and how it mirrored his own, so they filled that hole up together with friendship and brilliance. He knows Tony could have versions of that with other people, if he could just find the ways that made them tick. "I know you two are never going to be best friends, but I also think leaving a lot of things unsaid and raw won't help either of you in the long run." And almost like reading her mind, he adds, "you two shared a dream, you know."

Bruce falls silent as they walk, finally getting to the hot springs, and turning around in his head the pluses and minuses of letting her know. It's such a heavy burden. It weighs on him, and he's never been more serious, looking at her and then at the water. "There's a lot going on for you, Nat. Just like I don't want to force this," a gesture between them, "on you right away is the reason I'm not sure sharing is helpful right now. But yes, it's something that big that brought us back together." Bigger and worse and catastrophic. She has enough on her shoulders.

"But hey, I got to wear Veronica, how funny is that?" Bruce turns to face her again, trying to get that smile back. "I won a fight as me and not the Hulk for the first time ever. In a super suit, but still. I'm taking the win." It was the only win. He points at the spring. "The water has healing properties. If anyone gets seriously injured or comes through the fountain that way, bring them here. It's temporary and not a full cure, but it's something." He drops her hand for now to move over to the spring and lean down, letting the water circle around his fingers. "I want to do some testing if I can to understand what chemical compound allows it to do that, but I have limited tech here."

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It's just you and me (closed)

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