Human Connection [Avengers -- Sprouts & Virginia]

[Virginia Greene]

Theresa had ditched most of her things in several different places on the way back, but kept her black windbreaker. It helped hide the blood that she could feel spreading in several places on the shirt underneath, wet and a little too familiar. Wasn't always hers, but she knew it well. The amount of pain she was in was a warning sign. Not the worst experience of her life, but she knew she needed to get home. One hand was shoved in the pocket of her jacket because otherwise she was in danger of leaving droplets of blood behind as t hey rolled down her fingers from the defensive wounds on her forearm. Her other hand was pressed to her abdomen over the water resistant fabric to keep pressure on the much more pressing injury. She should probably have left the knife in, but there as no way to hide that. A little extra danger was favored over blowing her cover. She'd stumbled the mile back to her apartment building like that, flashing a friendly smile at the two people who'd given her concerned looks. There was always someone out there who cared about other people and was willing to go out of their way even when she was giving off the most serious 'leave me alone' vibes that were probably possible without some kind of superhuman enhancement, so she had started being distantly nice and mastered a friendly but busy sort of expression and posture.

It was a mimicry of thing she hadn't really felt in a long time. A mask slapped on while her mind was elsewhere. Even now, when the pain was intense and impossible to ignore, she was running over the fight in her head while she walked and noting all the points where she'd done things wrong. It had been fine at first She'd caught them following Bruce and diverted the three men to a place where she'd be able to handle things without distraction or civilian danger. There were a million excuses she could have given about how things had ended up this way, but none of them were any good. At the end of the day this was because she had made mistakes and nothing before the fight mattered. One of them had gotten away as well, which meant that they'd be back. It meant that they'd know someone was protecting the Hulk. The game was going to change, and she might not have time to heal before she had to deal with it.

The apartment's staircase railing was rough and in general she tried to avoid touching it because splinters were kind of the worst even when compared to some of the things she'd been through. Right now though she needed to put more weight on it than she'd like to admit so that she could drag herself up the stairs. Things had been getting a little bleary and occasionally spotted black for the last five minutes or so, but that... wasn't a huge problem. She just needed to make it up into her apartment and she could handle it. The stairs in front of her tilted and warped, but she pushed it back the same way she always did and shook her head sharply. In her apartment were medical supplies appropriate for the job she'd been given, including equipment to stitch herself back together again. It was just a flight of stairs between her and her goal. This was fine. Things would --

Her knees buckled, and by the time she hit the floor the little brown haired woman was unconscious. A small smear of blood traced the trajectory of her fall, left because she'd tried to keep herself upright by putting a hand on the wall until she could no longer fight the demands of her body.

She had some ghost of a memory of being picked up, and only knew that it had truly happened because things smelled different. It didn't smell like the hall or her apartment, and it definitely wasn't a hospital. Everything still hurt, which was a pretty good way to tell that she wasn't dead yet, and Theresa forced her eyes open slightly only to shut them immediately afterwards like somehow that would make what she'd seen go away. She was in Bruce's apartment, something she knew only because she had let herself in on one occasion to make sure that she'd be able to protect him in it if things got bad. Fuck. Shit, fuck, and another fuck after that. Her face stayed passive and her breathing stayed slow and calm in mimicry of sleep while the SHIELD agent considered her options. It was far too late for rolling onto the floor and leaping out the window to do any kind of good, so she was going to have to come up with another plan. After a few more seconds of careful fakery the woman opened her eyes again and immediately let out a gasp of distress and started trying to sit up. She could have managed it if she wanted, but a normal person wasn't going to try and truck through that pain so she got a few inches up and then groaned and let herself fall back again. That would get her some worried sympathy and summon the doctor from wherever he was.

 

[Sprouts]

Happy ending, right?

He knew how he was supposed to feel about the whole - thing. He'd spent so many years on the run - Alberta, Idaho, Greenland, Rio de Janeiro, Chiapas and Virginia and New York - that he should have been jumping at the offer to hold still for a while, to just stay put.

The thing was that he had been holding still, back in Kolkata - at least in terms of habitation he'd been holding still, but he'd spent every day moving. He'd spent every day doing something, really doing something and maybe it was small, maybe it was one person at a time and maybe there were seven billion people out there, but it had mattered. He had felt like it had mattered.

Doing things that mattered made it so he didn't have to think about anything else, particularly about himself, and while he didn't generally consider himself given to fits of narcissism, anxiety had a way of making someone self-cannibalize. If he wasn't moving, he was sitting there eating his own brain, just breaking it down, pulling himself to pieces until something shook him hard enough to come out of it and spit himself back out.

He'd weighed the pros and cons of the outcome and had arrived at a point where he just barely avoided regretting going back to New York, he'd squeaked by, but only by a couple of hairs. On one hand, sure, he'd been part of a team that had ultimately saved the world, that was always a nice thing. He'd also seen a wormhole in the sky and a giant terrifying floating space lizard, both of which most people probably would have considered on the con side of things but he kept those thoughts private. People had to cop to it being at least a little cool, right?

On the other hand, he'd pretty much destroyed New York. That was a con. Big con.

Bruce couldn't precisely remember what he had done - things always got pretty foggy - but he'd tortured himself with enough news reports and cell phone recordings that he was able to piece it all together. He'd even made a map, printed a satellite photo of the city and circled all the spots that he'd had a hand in destroying and when he'd leaned back it had been a globular star cluster that made his stomach sink.

When that wasn't enough to feed his ever-present but-still-growing self-hatred, he'd done the math - he'd destroyed 59­­­­2 square km or 7.7 percent of New York City, the equivalent of all of Manhattan. He didn't need to know those things, there was no use in knowing those things, but he knew them now and he couldn't forget, just like he couldn't forget what he'd done to Harlem, or what he'd done to Culver University, or what he'd almost done to Natasha Romanoff.

That was what burned him most about it. Some guys had alcohol and others had cocaine and some had sex and others had gambling, his problem was his tendency to level boroughs. He'd been clean for a year, no incidents, no smash. He'd had it under control. He hadn't hurt anyone, he'd never wanted to be that person but he had a problem and he'd gotten a saddle on it.

A lot of things were gone from that day, but he could still remember the fear in Romanoff's expression, of all the memories that could have stuck with him it was that one, the open terror in the face of a woman who had already seen all the horrors the world had to offer. He saw that look in his nightmares, it was the same look his mother had given his father during those times she was crumpled on the floor, not knowing if he was done yet, not knowing how many more hits it would take before his anger subsided.

Bruce didn't talk about that. He thought about it plenty. He knew what they would tell him, that he 'couldn't control it', but that was verbatim what people said when they hit their wife or their husband or their kid. That was what everyone said to justify their rage. He wasn't going to justify his rage even if he couldn't stop it - going easy on himself seemed like the equivalent of permitting it. Constant vigilance was the only way, the self-flagellation was just habit.

So there he was in New York and the building-sized giant space aliens still hadn't completely cooled, but the general population had emerged and resumed the pace of their lives, because that was New York, those were New Yorkers, they were used to having to keep going in spite of smoke and rubble and grief and chaos.

And there he was in Stark tower on one of the floors at the top and he could feel Tony staring at the back of his head, knew that his eyes were narrowed like he was trying to see into his skull. He wondered sometimes if that frustrated him, if Stark got annoyed that it was the one thing he couldn't manage if he just read enough about it: mind-reading. He took educated guesses based on personality but a good portion of the time, Tony was astoundingly wrong about the way others functioned. He let him stare for a while and then turned to look at him and Tony didn't look away because he was shameless, and his eyes were narrowed and his head was cocked back and to the side.

"I'm just trying to figure out how we can adjust your wardrobe to better suit your ennui, I don't think that shade of blue is sufficient." Tony said, spinning a wire stripper point-first against his index finger; he was always moving because he had to be, because he would probably shake all of his skin off if he had to stay in one place, like a dog right out of the bath, just vibrating himself down to the bone, "Why so melancholic, Hippocrates?"

"I could be phlegmatic."

"That's not phlegmatic I'm seeing, phlegmatic doesn't get the -" Tony gestured brow-ward, "- financial worry lines."

Bruce reached up and rubbed between his eyebrows.

"Notable that you don't have them." Bruce said.

"I'd need to have financial worries for that." Tony agreed, stepping forward and Bruce had to resist stepping back, he always had to resist it, but he could never hold off the flinch that happened, his hands twiddling. It had only been a couple of days since the incident but Tony had absorbed his tics by now, he didn't stop walking or slow down when he saw the twitch, he didn't take it as a deterrant or a warning sign, he just kept coming.

Bruce wasn't used to Tony and he wasn't sure he ever would be - he wasn't used to talking much anymore, but he especially wasn't used to being touched. And Tony touched people. A lot. He stood with his hands on either side of Bruce, resting on his shoulders, "I have a proposition."

"I'm not going to sleep with you." Bruce said, a wary joke.

"Not yet, anyways." Tony agreed, managing to keep a straight face, "I propose we go and get stewed. Just thoroughly blottoed, off-our-faces sloppy drunk. Wasted, trashed, shit-faced -"

"Curado." Bruce contributed.

"Yes." Tony said, giving him a little shake, "You and me."

"I don't really drink."

"Okay, but what if you did?"

"Not the most compelling argument."

"It might loosen you up."

"It might loosen me up too much."

"So you're saying you will sleep with me, then." Tony said, squinting at him, and Bruce smiled at the floor, so Tony amended, looked down as well, then they both looked up at the same time, "I know what you're saying."

Of course he did. As much as Tony seemed to get a kick out of being the one person in the world who wasn't worried about the Other Guy while in a room with the guy that contained him, he was also aware.

He drank with Tony that night, the first drink he'd had in years by then, a finger of scotch while Tony had two hands worth, and he sat slouched deep into a chair more comfortable than any bed he'd ever slept on and he listened to Tony Stark speak. It was almost lulling, the sentence that had run-on for hours, the explosion of stories and non-sequiturs and insights, the way he got more enthusiastic and soft-eyed as the night went on. He knew, given time, that Tony Stark was very likely to become a dear friend. He knew, given time, that they would create amazing things together.

And he knew, given time, that Tony would understand it when he woke up in the morning and couldn't find him anywhere. That he would ask and Jarvis would tell him that Dr. Banner had packed his things and left at four in the morning, that he'd used one of the laboratory computers to look at the train schedule, that by then he was at least seven hours away from New York and Stark Tower and him and everyone.

He'd had the plan before he'd even left Kolkata. The only way to stay off the radar was to always know the next three moves, but even in India he hadn't gone unnoticed - he didn't know how long SHIELD had been watching him. At least a year, if Romanoff hadn't just been implying.

He'd heard about chikungunya, henipavirus, the leptospirosis and the rubeola. The flood in the Philippines had been unkind and the ratio of doctors was one for every thirty-three thousand residents. Even volunteers wouldn't go, the risk of acquiring meningitis was too high even for the most hardened philanthropists.

He had the good fortune of being impervious to all of it.

He hitchhiked from New York to North Carolina with one trucker and got as far as Alabama with another, then caught an Amtrak from Tuscaloosa to Dallas. He got a last minute cheap seat from there to Mexico City, twenty-one hours in transit with eight stops along the way and he worked on an orange orchard until he'd made the money for a one-way ticket to Manila. He used the remainders to put down the first month's rent on a bachelor apartment in Payatas and when he looked out the window he could see the steaming expanse of Smokey Mountain II, a landfill where the poorest in the city had built their homes, where they waded through a dump site that could swallow them whole, thousands of people in thirteen hectares.

Two years ago, almost a thousand people had gone missing on the site after a landslide.

A few weeks into his work there, while setting the ankle of a woman who had gotten her leg stuck in twisted metal, he watched a bus pull through with iron bars on the windows and white faces staring out at the residents, some of them lifting their cameras, bright flashes going off. Poverty porn, they called it. Slum tours.

Bruce had needed to sit down after that, resting his hand over his heart and telling the Other Guy not to do it.

Some days were harder than others, but that was how it went. He was in no place to complain about his work because he had the good fortune of just being the one who treated people, not being the one who needed to be treated, not the one living on an actual pile of garbage. He sutured lacerations and drained abcesses, he corrected broken noses and casted broken wrist after broken wrist, he gave antibiotics when he could get them and he pleaded his case with humanitarian efforts until they gave him innoculation kits to take with him, but he always ran out before he could vaccinate all of the kids. There were too many. There were always too many to help.

When he got home it was when the sun was just about to rise and he almost never got more than four hours before there was a knock at his door, a small face that had been sent in his direction, frantically telling him about an injury, an illness, a need. He went. Of course he did, what else could he do? How could he - ?

Sometimes he would go back and try to sleep again but he almost never succeeded. From time to time he would just lay down in a softer area of garbage to catch fifteen minutes before someone shook him awake: tulungan. Help.

When December rolled around, Smokey Mountain II was lit up by the surrounding celebrations, all of Manila glowing with lights, parties with abundance every night. One of the children from the site got his hands on a mortar-and-shell firework in the hopes of having a party as well and it had gone off while he was holding it, taking four of his fingers off.

Tulungan, doctor.

"Di ko kaya." Bruce said; all he could do was prevent infection. Sometimes his best wasn't enough. He dragged himself home that morning but every time he nodded off, a firework went off and he woke up with the image of a small, bleeding hand flashing in front of his eyes. He wandered the apartment - there wasn't far to go - rubbing his palms into his face and he stopped moving entirely when he felt the overwhelming urge to hit something, to drive his hand into the wall or through the mirror or into someone's face. He sat on the floor on his knees and he tried to meditate but he fell asleep instead, fifteen minutes then snap-bang, another spray of lights in the sunrise sky. Bruce looked blearily out at the city, out at Smokey Mountain. He just needed a little sleep, and he would be fine.

A knock came at the door. The very quiet voice of self-preservation told him not to answer, but he ignored it as he often did, he opened the door and he found a neighbour on the other side, Rodrigo, a man who religiously brought him meals in exchange for the care he gave his aging mother.

That morning, he held a woman in his arms.

"I found her in the hallway." Rodrigo said, "I think she's been stabbed."

Bruce ran to wash his hands while Rodrigo deposited her on the couch. He applied pressure, he checked for other injuries but the one his hand was on was the worst of it - her forearm could wait - deep enough to go into muscle but it missed the abdominal aorta, as lucky a shot as stomach wounds got. He had no sedatives or painkillers on hand so he used her unconscious state to his best advantage, working fast to seal off the bleeding, to sterilize and pack it, a procedure that would have had someone screaming any other time. He didn't suture it, deep knife wounds were too filthy - it would have to remain open until it had seeped out all of the grime from the weapon and close on its own once the gauze was out.

He did suture her forearm. The wounds - defensive - were shallow enough to clean properly, most of the bleeding had stopped by the time he got to them and he closed them the old-fashioned way, with the finicky stitching of the very precise. They would have to be cut out in a few days.

After that, he waited. He left her on his couch and paced his apartment. He boiled water and made chamomile tea and when the sun hit the dump site in mid-day, he did what he always did and set a bowl of eucalyptus oil by the window, the heat of the day causing the entire apartment to smell of it. He waited, paced, checked her pulse from time to time until he was sure she was out of the woods.

He heard her when he was in the kitchen, a soft groan and he almost took himself out on the tiles in his effort to get out quickly enough. He watched her crank herself up a couple of inches and he came up beside her, put a hand on her shoulder, just allowing his fingertips to make contact before withdrawing like he thought maybe he shouldn't, then doing it again, just in case she hadn't caught the feather-light touch the first time, just in case she was post-trauma frantic or deaf and couldn't hear him when he said:

"Itigil." he paused, corrected himself, "Don't - don't sit up right now, okay? Just lay back down. You're hurt. You're safe, but you're hurt."

 

[Virginia Greene]

She heard him before she saw him. It amused her a little bit, but Theresa couldn't let it show on her face. A scramble like that to try and get to someone he didn't know just because he cared about their well-being wasn't something she really understood, but it was something that she could appreciate. It was one of those things that good people did. She kept on the expression of pain and the slightly uneven breathing that would have been more natural to anyone who'd just been stabbed,even though it felt more fake to her than just gritting her teeth and saying that she was fine. That was how things were supposed to go. She just wanted to be able to handle things on her own, getting help felt wrong. The touch of his fingers was as noticeable as if he'd dropped his hand down with all his weight but she didn't respond to it. Instead she focused on his words because that was what she figured would get through better to someone who'd just been stabbed for the first time and would probably be struggling to keep their composure."I-- yeah. I noticed that part," she said weakly and offered up a grin that did nothing to hide the pain in her expression. It was a delicate game pretending on top of a layer of trying to fake, but it was a skill that she was confident in. Nobody ever nominated agents for acting awards, which was a pity because they were the best at it.

Carefully she pulled her arm out from under the blanket to look at it, only to turn away quickly like the stitches were distressing and shoved her arm back under where she couldn't look at it. His stitching was neat and well spaced, which was about what she had expected. There wasn't unnecessary damage to the skin that she'd been able to see in that brief look. Better than what would have happened if she'd done it on her own like she intended.

She took a few deep, shaky, panicky breaths, closing her eyes tightly like somehow that would push back pain and whatever else Bruce wanted to read her as having from the action. Fear, at least. There was often fear with too much pain, and fear was an expression she played especially well. She wanted him to think that she was trying her best to remain calm. "Where am I?" The apartments all looked a little alike, but that wasn't an observation that someone would be making right now, that was something that got pointed out during small talk over a cup of tea and some crackers while making small talk. "Have you got anything for...?" The words faded off into a grimace. Even if he did, she wouldn't actually take it, any form of pill would be going straight into her sleeve. Tere was still a man out there who would be reporting back to whoever paid him about the situation, and that meant that she couldn't afford to be anything but at the top of her game. That was clearly impossible given the state she was in, but it would be harder if her senses were dulled by medication. Powering through pain was possible, trying to force herself through a medicated haze was much harder.

Being weaponless stressed out Theresa out more than pretty much anything else in this situation. Well y'know, beyond the fact that this was the worst failure she'd ever experienced. There was still a man out there and by now he had probably reported back to whoever was paying him, and that meant that eventually at least one person would be here and she wasn't going to be able to protect Bruce with some chairs and a book. She needed to get her hands on a weapon. He didn't really seem the sort who would have a pocket knife lying around to be stolen without it being noticed. On the other hand he also didn't seem like the sort of guy who kept neat track of the cutlery in his kitchen, so the immediate goal was going to be finding a way to get in there and taking a knife so that she could feel prepared again. She could stash it in her sleeve, but that would require having a sleeve first. Her shirt was gone, which was probably to be expected. That could be acknowledged later, now was not the time to pretend to be flustered about it. Maybe in a little while when her questions were answered and she was done pretending that being stabbed was a traumatic situation that was keeping her from being entirely focused.

How did she get out of the more serious situation of him knowing her face? She had memorized the files, had all the information that had been given over by agents Barton and Romanoff, knew everything that could be picked up from following a man around without his knowledge for months without end. Somewhere in all of that information were the things she needed to put together to create a situation where she could get back to work even now that he knew she existed. She couldn't make a bad impression, that was the kind of thing that stuck. And she couldn't put off this thinking until later, the game needed to start now.

Ah. She could make him like her. Tony Stark hadn't been especially cooperative when it came to information but they knew that things hadn't ended on bad terms. She had seen the way Bruce kept people at a distance, she could make him do the work for her.

"Are you the one who stitched me up? Thank you. Also ow."

 

[Sprouts]

There was a lot of guarding happening: shallow breathing - presumably to try and avoid the pain of a deep abdominal wound - keeping all of her body under the blanket, closing her eyes to block the world out. It added up to a lot of pain and Bruce, as ever, was caught between wanting to study someone's expression and wanting to avoid eye contact - he didn't know what it was, he'd just always had a problem maintaining it, preferring to keep his glasses scooted down his nose enough that it was an excuse to look anywhere else. He needed them to read, but they served just as well as a prop for the asocial.

But even without eye contact or copious face-exploring, it was easy enough to gauge that she was in pain - being stabbed didn't tickle.

"I don't," Bruce said, knowing what she was getting at, "I used the last of it out at -" he nodded in the direction of Smokey Mountain but then realized it was the equivalent of a non-sequitur. Everyone in his life at that point was someone who lived in Smokey Mountain or knew him as a local doctor, they were people aware of where he spent all of his time - she wouldn't know that, he was just accustomed to the opposite, "I don't." he repeated lamely, "I'm sorry. The most I can offer you is a cup of tea and a pillow to scream into, though I don't really recommend the latter right now, it would expand your diaphragm and - uh, hurt."

He gestured, both hands out, a nebulous kind of physical apology before dropping them down again. He took a seat on the edge of his coffee table, which was just a formal title for the wooden crate he had salvaged, resting his hands on his knees, as relaxed as a marble statue.

"I did. Yeah. Someone found you on the -" he pointed towards the hallway. It occurred to him that authorities should be called, but Bruce trusted cops about as far as he could throw - no, that metaphor didn't work, he could throw them pretty far. He didn't trust cops, not least of all because he was technically on the run and had been for a long time.

"- is there someone I should try to get into contact with for you?" he asked.

 

[Virginia Greene]

Even if she knew Bruce wasn't looking directly at her, Theresa would have been playing the full game. Of course she could get the tone of voice without the expression but the face helped. It got her into the mindset more, and it was entirely too dangerous not to be doing everything like she needed to while she was in his house. It wouldn't matter where the doctor was, she had to be entirely in character except in the safe space that was her mind. Well, 'safe space' wasn't exactly a great way to describe it.

No pain pills? That was a little bit concerning for his work. She had things SHIELD provided but there wasn't exactly a way to get it to him without bringing any sort of attention to herself. If his job was easier it would make hers a little easier, but there was no way to do that. Her eyes followed his nod towards the mountain and she stared at it for a moment before looking back at him. Even if she hadn't known what he was doing it wasn't exactly hard to read some amount of meaning into the gesture. "Oh." It was the dejected little sound of someone realizing that her short term future contained a whole lot of pain, and she put on her best 'I'm trying to put on a strong face' face. "Well I'll survive. Probably." Bleh. In her mind she was crafting an optimistic woman who tried not to be a bother and had as endless an amount of positivity as someone could reasonably have, but it was the sort of sweet that rubbed her the wrong way. Being herself usually had a certain set of outcomes and none of those were what she was going for at the moment. Instead she was going for the mask of someone who'd be found agreeable and appealing.

His offer got a little wince in response. "It already hurts." Screaming was something Theresa didn't much care for anyway. It annoyed her, she hated it when other people did it. She didn't bother to dig deep into herself to find out why, though it would really be less of an excavation and more taking ten seconds to dust something off and look underneath it. It was work she wasn't willing to do right now though, so she didn't. Better things to do than reflect on all the reasons she was a mess. If she did too much self reflection she'd be less effective. Everything got shoved in a box in the back of her brain where it couldn't bother her. it left her more room to focus on the matters at hand. She didn't want tea either. Tea she wasn't actively opposed to though she didn't really see the point because coffee was a thing that existed, but drinking something right now seemed pretty unappealing. She'd need to pretty soon because staying hydrated was important when it came to healing, but her preference would be for cold water.

"No." No time was left on that answer so that it wouldn't seem like it was a thing to dwell on. He hadn't asked her what had happened, but she should probably get that out. It was better if he didn't wonder. "I," she hesitated for a moment, "for some reason I thought it would be best to go home." It had been a traumatic event, that she wasn't thinking clearly and instead was seeking the safety and comfort of a place she knew definitely wasn't outside the realm of belief. Human beings were stupid creatures of habit. "Someone tried to steal my bag. I should have just given it to him, it was so stupid of me to..." she trailed off, closing her eyes again. Pretending someone could mug her was honestly a little bit degrading. She could basically feel the disapproval of the gruff man who'd done most of her basic training. But he'd have been disapproving anyway, she hadn't exactly done well today.

"Oh shoot," apparently she was going to be someone who didn't like to swear, "do you have my jacket?" She jolted a little like it was something pressing she'd just thought of, not something she'd been planning for the last second, and then settled back down uncomfortably. "My key is in there." People slipping their key into their pocket instead of their bag wasn't uncommon. Everything she needed was in the pockets of her jacket because she pretty much never carried a bag. Purses were a thing that people could grab and yank and use to strangle someone, none of which were things that Theresa was really interested in having to deal with. It worked fine now because she rarely carried a wallet with her while following Bruce around, to make sure that there was no sort of identifying information on her in case something happened.

Her wallet should still be in her backpack, which at least meant that if he offered to go get her clothes from her own place she wouldn't have to worry about him finding it unless he went snooping. But she didn't really want him in her apartment so for the moment she wouldn't bring up clothes and play someone who would probably be distressed if left alone.

 

[Sprouts]

"Yeah," Bruce said, nodding vaguely at her mention of it already hurting, he gestured in the general direction of her midsection, "Yeah, it already hurts because you were stabbed." He said it in all earnesty, but an instant later it registered that it might not have been the most tactful approach to the whole thing - it was just that people didn't always remember what had happened to them when they came out of it. He didn't, most of the time. Usually he couldn't even figure out the time of day.

He listened to her explanation: a mugging. It had been his second guess, his first and his knee-jerk one was a domestic dispute, that maybe she'd crawled from another apartment to get away from the guy with the knife, either just aiming for distance or aiming herself in the direction of the place known by all the neighbours as the one with the doctor in it. He hadn't wanted to ask in the off-chance she didn't want to tell - sometimes it was like that, a runner would come to his door and bring him to who needed him, and it would be a bullet wound or a knife wound and the story was always that there was no story. Sometimes people didn't want to talk and he could get behind that, he often didn't want to either.

"Go easy on yourself, it's the guy with the knife who should get berated, right?" he said, looking down at his feet, searching for something he could say. This was where he was meant to have a bedside manner, but it wasn't something he'd ever needed to develop - chemicals didn't need comforting and cells didn't need kindness, "A guy jumped me for my wallet a few years back and I went fetal, I swear. Like a - a shrimp."

Great job, Banner.

He glanced around himself at her question, then got up and went to the entryway of the apartment, picking up the black jacket that had simply been dropped on the floor, stripped off of her while she was brought in.

"Yeah, here." he said, approaching her with it, handing it off and reaching up to drag the collar of his sweater back into place where a bad day at Smokey Mountain had gotten it stretched out - people in pain got grabby sometimes, "Though I'm not sure I'd suggest -" he hesitated, "- doing anything, right now. You're gonna want to stay in place for another twelve hours or so unless you get carried home at this point, not least of all because -" he pointed, "The gauze is going to have to come out and that's an open wound, and I really don't advise trying to change that yourself."

 

[Virginia Greene]

She let out a tiny snort of amusement and then winced because the sharp exhale had caused a pang of pain that she couldn't just ignore like she wanted to. "I had noticed." That had legitimately amused her, but Theresa had only expressed it because she wanted to divert his discomfort, continuing towards the eventual bigger discomfort that would make him leave her alone. And then she'd cut her hair and maybe start a makeup routine.

"Or a hedgehog," she supplied helpfully after his comparison. "Maybe an armadillo. More flattering than a shrimp. They both seem friendly." Was he controlled enough that he could handle being mugged without transforming? They didn't know the origin of every one of Bruce's incidents, but if he was capable of getting through a high danger situation like that without transforming it was something she needed to know. He might have been lying to comfort her, there was no way to immediately tell. She knew thanks to accounts from her dossier on the events in New York that he could handle some amount of stress, but that was different from imminent danger. "I don't think berating the guy with the knife would do much good." What with the stabbing, was the sort-of-but-not-really-a-joke joke. Two of them were dead and the third was injured, that was a pretty decent version of berating. Except for the fact that two of three wouldn't learn anything and the third was probably going to learn all the wrong things. Comparison retracted. Her way was more efficient, though. She'd solved two of those three problems forever. And if they were that willing to fight her to get to a doctor they probably weren't the kinds of people who were going to turn over a new leaf and start helping society anyway.

She took the jacket when he brought it to her and fished around in the pockets for a moment until she found her key. She let out a tiny sigh of relief and then frowned at the cuts in the fabric, catching a tear between her fingers for a moment before folding it and letting it drop. It would have been a little too much effort to lean over and place it properly on the floor, that was good enough. "I can fix it." She was trying to distract herself, or at least playing someone trying to distract herself, but the sentiment was true. Jackets were expensive, and she was legitimately fond of that one. It was less suspicious than a trench coat, especially given how warm the weather usually was. She just didn't feel well protected in a t-shirt, and she didn't really like leaving her scar on full display. A description of what she was wearing was less useful than a description of something she couldn't change about her body so she preferred to hide it when on the job. T-shirts also didn't have sleeves for hiding things in, which made them immediately the inferior clothing option.

It was impossible to force herself pale, but there wasn't a whole lot of color in Theresa's face to anyway right now with so it was easier to pass off the expression of near horror at the idea of having to have something pulled out of her body. "No I don't think I want to do that by myself," she said faintly, though in reality she would heavily prefer to do it by herself if only because that would mean that she wasn't in his apartment having to see him face to face and risking her many months worth of work, "but I..." her voice dropped even further and she pulled the blanket up a tiny bit higher for modesty's effect, "I would like a shirt eventually." He'd shoved gauze in a bleeding hole she'd gotten fighting someone who wanted to either kill or kidnap him, she couldn't have cared less if he saw her cleavage. A body was just a body, intent was what made things matter.

Twelve hours was a lot. If he got called away she'd have to hope he didn't try and get someone to watch her because she'd have to convince him to let her stay alone - perhaps play up a fear of strange men to make him feel like leaving her alone with someone would be more traumatic than helpful, maybe just promise that she'd spend the whole time sleeping and seem stressed about unnecessarily burdening someone, perhaps a third option she'd decide right in the moment. Then she'd have to follow him and get back into his apartment before he did. It was totally doable, it was just going to be a huge hassle. If they were both in his apartment she could maybe get a slightly more solid sleep than she usually did because she didn't need to listen for movement above her. Instead she just had to listen for movement in the rooms around her.

It was the time of year where sleep was hardest, though. It wasn't just the firecrackers, even after all these years it was still hard not to think about where her life might be if she hadn't made the deal. Definitely not in the apartment of a man who turned into a huge green monster capable of destroying entire city blocks, that was for sure. She'd probably get more sleep, too.

 

[Sprouts]

There was nothing graceful about it when someone snorted but Bruce had personally - privately - always been fond of that kind of laugh. Laughter could be pretty but it wasn't really meant to be, so he couldn't help the slightest upwards curve in one corner of his mouth, though it didn't linger for long.

"Or a chiton." Bruce supplied; he might not have been the best at comforting, but zoology was one of his fortes, though it occurred to him an instant later - as it sometimes did - that it wasn't everyone's, so he added, his voice going a little quieter, "It's a mollusc. And anyways, shrimp are pretty friendly, they don't do - anything. But I guess it's hard to be malicious when your brain is only a few cells." and there he was, comparing himself to one.

"You can berate him from a distance, just talk about him behind his back." he suggested, monitoring her movements for a moment to make sure she wasn't doing too much, then his eyes flicked to the blanket at her quiet request and flicked immediately away, as though to supply her with further modesty, though she was already covered.

"I'll find something." he said, heading to the bedroom, opening the closet and picking through the contents; he retrieved a button-up, his standard fare, and recognized it as the bright blue one he had worn the last time he was at Stark Tower, one from the supply of clothing Tony had insisted on gifting him with. He couldn't argue at the time, what he'd gone there wearing had been clothing he'd gotten from a caretaker in an abandoned building, things he'd pulled from a lost and found. The shirt, like so many of his other clothes, had the care-worn look of something that had been washed enthusiastically, the combination of basic supplies and the need to make sure everything was sterile.

He came out with it neatly folded, though the fabric had long ago softened enough that there was hardly a point.

"It'll be a little big on you." he said, "But it'll -" he gestured: cover. "Just, you're going to have to let me help you get it on - you can't put too much tension on your abdominal muscles for a little while, so sitting up isn't really an option."

 

[Virginia Greene]

Laughter was easy to fake but it hadn't seemed appropriate. Plus then she'd have to fake another wince and that was getting annoying. How did people handle being so delicate? Did people realize they were so delicate? Theresa didn't really remember if she'd used to think that because she'd been pretending things didn't hurt for so long. His smile got a tiny one in response because it was the right thing to do, which didn't even feel like something she had to force for the moment.

She was going to ask what a chiton was but he explained before she could, so she responded with a tiny nod and pretended to be appreciative for the distraction from pain that was the little discussion. "I don't think shrimp are friendly. They're just not... not-friendly." Not smart enough to be friendly. There was a distinct different that she would have made even if she wasn't playing nice because Theresa figured that she could slide into the category of not 'not-nice', though it wasn't for brain-cell reasons, it was more for general personality reasons.

"Right now I might go with not thinking about it." Because then she thought about getting stabbed. Which was traumatic for the normal person and still pissing her off as someone who was absolutely not normal. Might be compared to Bruce, but she didn't really know how he viewed himself beyond second hand reports and those had to be taken with a grain of salt. "I think it will be better for my health in the long run." Shove that right in the box with the rest of her feelings as soon as she was done contemplating how to make sure that it never happened again. One of those things was probably going to be sleep, but ugh.

Sitting up was absolutely an option. If she wanted to run she could probably make herself do that too. "I- okay." There wasn't a lot of room for her to protest. "Let me just..." She propped herself up with her elbows a little bit, not about to let the doctor manipulate her body entirely. From the point of view of the person she was being right now it would be problematic to not try and be as helpful as possible, from her own personal point of view it would be exasperating and stressful. She didn't need someone touching her more than was absolutely necessary right now. Really she just wanted to be left alone but that was impossible. It was still too soon to fake sleep and if she pretended to pass out again it'd probably constitute a medical emergency of some sort and he would do the opposite of leave her alone. Had she not already been scarred she might have played the card of worry about that, but she decided she'd be beyond that. There was only so much sympathy that she actually wanted to go for. Not because she didn't think she could get it but because she didn't like it. Nobody needed to be sympathetic about the mistakes she'd made.

She wanted to be up. She shouldn't be up and as a normal person probably couldn't be up, but Theresa wanted to be pacing or sitting or at least doing something. She could sit for hours for work, but this was very different. Of course she was antsy here. It occurred to her that there still hadn't been proper introductions and they would have to happen soon, but it could happen after she got the shirt on. Bruce didn't seem to consider it a necessity, which was smart. But she was an injured woman with no connections in the area and she should probably seek some amount of familiarity for comfort if she was going to be stuck in his apartment for the next twelve hours.

 

[Sprouts]

He couldn't force anyone to do something they didn't -

- okay, he could force someone to do something they didn't want to, including not getting up after he expressed they shouldn't, but he wouldn't force it. He knew that people were willful and they would do what they wanted in the end - it wasn't so much jaded as just the way people were. After he had treated someone, their future was out of his hands - he could only stop the bleeding or get rid of the infection or advise against certain behaviours, but there was nothing he could do when people decided to be stubborn.

She was propping herself up and he wished she wouldn't. He grimaced slightly, sympathetic pain as she brought herself up on her elbows. He dropped down onto his knees beside the couch and maneuvered one sleeve over the hand closest to him, dragging the back of the shirt up to create a barrier between his palm and her back to avoid direct skin-to-skin contact and using it to support her enough that he could tug it up her arm.

He knew to keep his mouth shut, but he'd seen her earlier when he'd been fixing her up - there were a lot of scars, which had been consistent with his theory about domestic violence, but her explanation had offset the assumption. Of course, he knew from observation that people who had been through that kind of thing often came up with other explanations, anything to avoid talking about it. Sometimes it was shame. Other times, fear. He wasn't going to ask. He told himself it was none of his business.

Keep your mouth shut, just help her get dressed. Do your job, monitor her until she's stable, and get her out the door.

It was already the longest he'd had anyone in his place before, not that he considered it sacred grounds. The fact was, no where really felt like home to him.

"And it was just a stranger with a knife?" he said, clarifying her story, "Not - someone you knew?"

Good job. Great. 100% on the willpower there, Banner.

"Sorry." he said, keeping support on her back as he reached over to pull the other sleeve to where she could get her arm in, "That's - not my business."

 

[Virginia Greene]

Her shoulders tensed a little bit when his hand touched her back, but Theresa forced herself to relax an instant later with the hope that he hadn't noticed. If he did she could use it with this persona and set the groundwork that would lead to him not considering leaving her with someone else. Not that he had any friends he could call up, though she knew who in the apartment thought well of him and was pretty sure that at least one of them would agree to do him that favor. It was easily excused as an act of someone who was stressed out and in pain if that didn't end up needing to happen, but she still wished she hadn't done it. It was a personal thing, and personal things shouldn't be happening during work time until the day that just being herself was ever the best option for interaction with someone who wasn't also a member of SHIELD or that she was supposed to hurt. And that... haha.

"This? Yeah. That?" She gestured with a hand in the general direction of the scar across her collarbone and then hesitated, expression conflicted. "It's fine." He'd brought it up, she might as well utilize this. "It was a long time ago." She didn't have to outright say it to admit to what had happened. The old ones on her back were the ones actually from that, but it was a lot easier than trying to come up with an excuse or saying she'd gotten in a knife fight in Beijing while chasing a potential terrorist who had intelligence secrets. The best lies to try and maintain were at least a little bit based in truth. She would hopefully never have to talk to Bruce again so she could have gotten as outlandish as she wanted, but there was no promise something wouldn't come up and she'd need to keep her story straight.

The scar over her eyebrow, at least, was from being an adventurous kid. Theresa was fond of that one in a weird sort of way. She had to cover it up with makeup for work sometimes, but it was a nice little quirk that had been part of her weird road to personal acceptance.

She pulled her arm through the sleeve and then did up the buttons until her scar had disappeared under fabric like she was self conscious about it now that it had been brought up. "Thanks." She let herself settle back onto the couch once that was done and let out a tiny sigh. She considered closing her eyes and letting that be a way to kind of dismiss him (if he would respond to that) but figured she should probably actually give him a name for to the face. "Oh! I've been so distracted that I--" well injured, but pain was a pretty good reason not to be on top of one's manners she supposed, "I'm Theresa. I'm in your home wearing your clothes and I probably bled on your couch, it would be rude not to introduce myself." And, she was trying to imply with the chatter, talking distracted from the pain.

Hopefully she could get some new information from this, at least. Mannerisms to record, information she could pull out of his apartment and how he acted in it, just something that would help her feel like there might be something she could gain from this besides the fact she hadn't had to put the needle in her skin herself. Things would heal more neatly this way, but that wasn't an even tradeoff for the fact that she was looking at the potential for sixth months worth of mission down the drain. If the man she'd lost to came back he was going to pay for everything, she'd make sure of it. Maybe it was time to send a different message to everyone out there.

 

[Sprouts]

He got more out of the question than he'd been expecting - he'd only meant her immediate injury, but she alluded to another, to the scar on her décolleté, his eyes following her gesture for a moment, then respectfully dropping away again. He understood the implication of her brief response - it had been succinct, and maybe that was only because his head had already been there, having rolled out a scenario of domestic violence. His head went to dark places, but it was difficult for it not to, with the world he'd surrounded himself in.

But then, his goal had never been to avoid the bad things. That wasn't how it worked.

"Okay." Bruce said softly, giving a little nod, lips pressed together: understood. He looked at his feet when her eyes were shut as though wanting to give her some amount of privacy, though it was difficult given the size of the place. He glanced up again when she spoke, head tilted down and eyes pointed in her direction.

"It's not rude, I'm used to not -" he hesitated, "A lot of people, they don't really want to give their names around here. It's not the first time I've had blood on my couch." he paused, realized it sounded both ominous and unhygenic, so he added, "I cleaned it."

Probably not better. Nevermind.

"Theresa," he said, "I'm -" who the hell was he again?

"- David." he said. He'd learned long ago not to go by his real name, a habit he'd started back in Kolkata, but sometimes it was hard to keep it all straight - he wasn't a liar by nature and even when it was a matter of self-preservation, he struggled with it. It wasn't so much an ethical issue as it was a functional one - he was bad at it. He'd never understood how people could toss out a lie casually and convincingly.

"Sorry we're meeting under these circumstances." he added.

 

[Virginia Greene]

This ensured there'd be no 'heroic' reason for him to try and talk to her later. Or send someone to check on her, whatever he might do if he decided he wanted to try and help what he thought was a poor abused woman. Plus now she was someone who made bad relationship choices and dismissed or ignored danger. Not a great person for a guy who had a unique sort of anger problem to hang around. Admittedly ignoring or dismissing danger was a real trait of hers, it was just in a very different way. It certainly wasn't about trusting people, she didn't really trust anyone anymore, not entirely anymore. Mostly she just knew things about people. She knew that Bruce wouldn't kill her for example, this was a fact. She could have said the trusted him not to, but that wasn't really the right word. Trust was a weird thing that it was possible she didn't understand anymore.

Well, as long as he cleaned it. Even if he hadn't, she'd probably been injured in a worse place than this. Still, she wrinkled her nose in response to his words like the thought somehow made her a little uncomfortable. "You need a couch cover." She could have offered to make one because it fell well into her cover job of seamstress, but that would mean potential for another point of contact. Some form of payment would probably have to be offered, even if she knew he didn't require it. As his friendly, trusting, and well intentioned downstairs neighbor it would make the most sense to try and give him something. It couldn't be the medicine that she apparently had more of than him, or money because she shouldn't have enough to spare to pay someone anything that would make any kind of difference. Food would work. She didn't particularly enjoy cooking, but that didn't mean she wasn't good at it.

Bruce introduced himself as 'David' and she smiled at him, though she wanted to be expressing the sheer amount of 'oh no' that came with that lie. She was entirely sure that even if she hadn't known his real name Theresa would have known he was lying to her. Maybe he could get away with that around a civilian, but not her or others like her. Clearly he needed her to keep an eye on him, because his defense against people finding him appeared to be living in a big city and trying to lie about what his name was. That sure was an effective long term strategy without any potential problems.

"It's better than not meeting you but being in these circumstances," no it wasn't, "you probably saved my life." And she might be a tiny bit bitter about that forever. Well until she died, which might not be that far away. Active agents should probably measure their lives differently. Maybe in dog years or something. She'd been doing this for nine years, she was tired in a way that that no amount of sleep could fix. "I don't think I can sleep," because ouch, not because of the real reason that sleep often escaped her for long periods of time, "but I think I might try to... rest? Close my eyes and focus really hard on my fingers because they don't hurt." What she could do was drift into whatever weird sort of half sleep she found herself in sometimes where if he opened a door or drawer she'd come out of it. While it wasn't exceptionally restful it was better than not getting any sort of shut-eye.

"What can I pay you with?" She purposely made it sound like something that she'd just considered and felt needed to be talked about before she let herself move on. "I don't really have money, but I can... do something, I'm sure. I can repair clothing or make food if those would work." Theresa had no intention of pushing it if he rejected those offers.

 

[Sprouts]

"I'm already getting on in age, I don't also need to be the guy with a couch cover." Bruce replied, though she was probably right. Logically he should have rubber sheets on the thing. He tried to imagine what Stark would say, what kind of horror would show on his face at the concept, the wow he would mouth out but not actually vocalize, the wide eyes. He hadn't even needed to be around him for long to get to know him, to have his responses play out in his head - spend enough hours in a flying laboratory with someone and things stuck. He wondered if it was the same for Stark or if maybe people weaved in and out of his life too often for that - he wasn't sure he wanted to have stuck out for any of them. Mostly he'd be happy if he could just erase himself from everyone's mind, if he could just cease to exist for anyone who had met him or the Other Guy.

It was just that sometimes he encountered someone who tried to exacerbate things. He didn't do well with that, people trying to draw him out, actively attempting to enrage him.

And then there were the ones who actually - the ones who - well, cared about him. The ones he'd had some kind of connection with. Just the one, really, when he thought about it. Just Betty. He'd refused to let himself check in on her, he knew it was a one-way street to suffering, at least for him - but he hoped she was where she wanted to be, that she had gotten the recognition she deserved for her brilliance, that she'd had a kid like she'd always talked about wanting, that she'd moved somewhere warm like she'd mentioned back in Harvard.

"It was Rodrigo who saved you." Bruce corrected, "He got you here in time, I wouldn't have found you." he fidgeted on the spot then, his hands twisting together, "I'd uh, I'd prefer you didn't, it's - I'm not looking for any payment here." he got to his feet, "Might be a good idea, yeah, meditation can - go a long way. I'm just - I'll be in the kitchen reading. If you need something, tell me."

 

[Virginia Greene]

"I think it's different if you're the doctor with a couch cover and not just some guy." Super reasonable for a doctor. Theresa wouldn't have been able to understand the importance of being able to imagine what someone else said, so much of her life was built around being able to predict what people would think or do or say so that she could manipulate them into trusting her or doing what she wanted them to. An argument could be made over that being something entirely different from when one got to know someone organically and had gave them a place in their heart, but that wasn't something that she understood very well either. She remembered affection, she knew she'd loved people before, but they were out of her mind and heart entirely by this point. The things they'd said were still in her memories but what they would say to anything she did now was impossible for her to tell.

Ah. Rodrigo. She knew him, though he didn't know her nearly as well. She knew about everyone in the building, she had to in order to make sure nobody was going to cause trouble. I wasn't like she was so far down the suspicion and paranoia hole that she thought everyone was a potential danger until verified otherwise, she just knew there was a possibility and a tiny chance was still too much of one. Even if they themselves weren't a threat they could have brought threat with them. Someone could have been a drug user or connected to less than savory work and those were the sorts of things that sometimes made their way home with a person. Stuff like that could eventually involve Bruce, probably on accident, and then the would have to involve her too. And getting into a fight with small criminal organizations was not on the top of her list of ways to spend what little free time she had. "Team effort, then." Getting carried hadn't itself kept her from bleeding out on the floor, after all.

Theresa had never found any use in meditation. It was impossible to make her brain go quiet, there was too much happening. She could zero in on a single thought or point of focus and tune everything else out, but complete silence was something that escaped her. It pretty much always ended in unwanted thoughts popping up and making themselves at home until she managed to banish them with something else. Her 'something else's at this point weren't the healthiest, but she lied to and sometimes shot people for a living not a lot of things in her life were all that healthy.

"That seems like a good way to end up broke and not able to help anyone anymore." It was theoretically possible that Bruce was getting money from somewhere and she didn't know about it, but that was unlikely. If he was trying to restock basic medical supplies he was probably not exactly rolling in spare cash. "And you could be making patients uncomfortable, some people don't like to feel like they're owe favors." It was presented like she was using the argument to try and get him to agree with her not because she believed it herself, but Theresa didn't like to be in debt to anyone, though she really didn't care much about being repaid by others unless they did something that made her feel the need to pull that out. Perhaps that was how he felt, though she'd guess with less potential for spiteful decision.

"Don't limit yourself to one place just because of me. 'Tired' and 'ow' are going to have a fight and see who wins, but I think that'll be happening even if you have to walk around the apartment." She was tired. The apartment smelled nice, and as reluctant as she would be to admit at from a place of honesty, it was a little relaxing. It wasn't enough to put Theresa to sleep properly but she did appreciate it on some level. She stretched out her legs and then found a comfortable bent position for them, finding it easy to position her small body on the couch. The blanket was a little bit annoying and the undercover agent spent a few seconds fidgeting with it in order to make sure that she'd be able to get it off quickly in case of an emergency without getting tangled in the fabric. If she fell and was slowed down when someone broke into the house or tried to attack Bruce, she'd have to retire in shame.

The funny part of that was where she thought that she could ever retire. There was nowhere else to go, no one else to be. What was she gonna do, become a librarian? It was SHIELD, private military, maybe the CIA. But after so long if this, she worried that maybe that would be... boring. This might be who she was forever. That was a thing to think about by herself at midnight while she stared at the ceiling and listened to Bruce's footsteps above her. If she'd been able to tell him that he'd probably feel guilty, but it wasn't like she'd be sleeping better if she wasn't doing this. She had focus now, and that gave her more peace than when she wasn't deployed and was trying to make it all work in her work-provided rooming. There was a lot of vodka when she wasn't on active duty. None now, but she could use it.

She drifted into a light sleep, though everything from a cough to a chair being moved across the floor woke her up. If it happened more than once she let herself react, treating it like it had been the pain that roused her. She kept it quiet though, just glanced around and decided not to bother Bruce with anything before giving it another shot. Eventually she couldn't maintain that anymore - or more specifically realized she was thirsty and not doing a great job keeping hydrated, which was an important thing - and pulled herself back fully into the world. "May I have a glass of water?" It would also give her an excuse to move a little. Unless he had straws, Theresa was going to have to sit up a little.

((I got finals in two days, I promise I'm not slowing down or being less chatty due to disinterest I am just busy DYING))

 

[Sprouts]

Bruce had been every possible kind of broke before, ranging from barely paying the bills to living on the streets and all of the ugly possibilities in between, but the stressors that came with homelessness were - at least for him - comparatively better to being under the watch of the U.S. military. He didn't long for a time where he had a regular pay cheque and stable housing because those days were far too close to the worst days, too near to a time where he became something horrible.

Of course, his present position didn't mean he was out of the woods - there was still SHIELD to contend with. His experience with them had been limited insofar, but he had his suspicions that they were going to be an ongoing problem. Between Nick Fury and Natasha Romanoff, the organization didn't strike him as the kind to give up and beyond that, he couldn't trust them. It wasn't just that they'd already had a containment unit set up for him on their helicarrier, it wasn't just that they had been watching him the entire time he'd been in Kolkata, it was something beyond that. Maybe it was instinct or maybe it was purely paranoia, he wasn't sure, but something felt wrong.

"I uh, I don't mind if I make people a little uncomfortable as long as they're not dying." Bruce replied, settled into his spot in the kitchen, a pile of American newspapers in front of him, the result of one of the many non-monetary trades he had with someone in the area, a man with a chronic case of peripheral edema. Bruce helped him with his legs and in turn, he brought Bruce all of the information on the United States that he came across, a way for him to stay in touch with what was happening while avoiding the pitfalls of technology.

Predictably, there were dozens he hadn't gotten around to reading, having always found himself deciding there were other things he could be doing, other places he should be present in if he wasn't sleeping - every waking moment that wasn't spent working seemed like it was wasted, like he was losing minutes that he owed to the world.

For now, with her on the couch, he decided it was alright to pick up a newspaper, to refamiliarize himself with the events of a country he had left behind.

He was several papers deep when Theresa spoke, throwing him out of the odd haze he sometimes got into while reading and he looked up, briefly looking faraway before coming back to the present.

"Of course, yeah." he got to his feet, getting a glass from the counter- he didn't have many of them, it was just him living there after all, and the one in his hand showed a fracture along the side of it, though it was holding together. Talk about metaphors.

He brought her a glass of water from one of the enormous distilled bottles he purchased - even if he had resistance to disease, he wasn't particularly keen to catch a parasite from the metro Manila tap water. He set it on the makeshift table and pulled another blanket off the back of the couch, bundling it up to prop it in behind her, helping her sit up enough that she wouldn't drown herself in the glass, but not so much that there was a risk of straining her injury.

"I feel like I've seen you before." he said, handing the water over.

 

[Virginia Greene]

Broke didn't seem like it would mesh so well with the doctor thing. Supplies were on some level necessary, but he seemed to be pulling through fine with what he had. Still, it had to bother him that he couldn't provide more. If he wasn't suspicious that someone could be keeping an eye on him, Maybe other people didn't always assume there might be someone suspicious around. Still, as someone who could transform into a living weapon of mass destruction and had a dangerous amount of knowledge, he probably knew that there were a lot of people in the world who would like to get their hands on him for pretty problematic reasons.

She did support not dying, both for herself and most other people. Still, he'd rejected her offer so she could let the topic go, not going to bring it back up again. As far as she was concerned she could be done with it forever. No more nice offers had to be made unless something else came up. The occasional rustling of papers wasn't a huge deal in terms of interrupting her sleep, but she liked that he was doing it because it let her know every time her very light sleep shifted to waking that he was still there because pages were turning. The man read crazy fast, but that wasn't exactly a shock. It would be weirder if he couldn't, she assumed. Not that the agent really spent a lot of time around super geniuses - there were probably plenty working in research and development, but she didn't exactly hang out there. Mostly Theresa was in the habit of getting what she needed from them and then leaving.

Actually that was kinda her relationship with everyone. Huh.

His help was... well it wasn't unappreciated, but she didn't need it. Having someone there to put something behind her back did make things hurt a little less though so at the same time that she was feeling exceptionally sullen, Theresa's complaints to herself lacked some amount of punch. "Thanks," she said warmly, taking the glass from him. Her fingers traced over the crack briefly and then she lifted it to her lips, draining almost half the glass in one go like she hadn't had water in forever. "Apparently being injured makes me thirsty," she joked. Or it was her body was going to have to produce a whole bunch of blood to make up for the amount she'd left on her shirt, jacket, and the floor. And maybe a little bit on the cement on her way home.

Ah, shit. Well it wasn't a huge deal, he only had to see her once for her to stick in his mind, human memory was weird like that. But it was also malleable and she could reasonably explain away everything. "Well, using my fantastic detective skills I've come to the conclusion that we live in the same apartment building. The view out your window looks just like the view out mine, but higher up, so that would explain it. Plus I think I've seen you talking to an elderly lady on my floor." She offered up a smile and then took another sip of water.

It was no wonder people liked this guy so much. He was awkward, but he seemed kind. She had a lot of opinions about Bruce already based on observation and notes, and interacting with him face to face was confirming a lot of them. It was a little bit weird to be taken care of, at least by someone who wasn't very clinical and professional and who didn't ask any kind of questions or really try and stop her from doing anything because they all knew from experience that agents were just sorta gonna do whatever they wanted to in the end.

 

[Sprouts]

"Your body went through a lot of trauma today, cells need to surround themselves with water in the area of the wound to promote healing." Bruce said, recognizing after the fact that she had probably been making a joke, that it wasn't information she actually needed, but he ran with it anyways, "It's a rare occasion in which I would tell someone to drink excessively. Just, you know. Water."

He kept an eye on her while she was propped up; he'd dealt with closing up defensive wounds before, they just weren't as common as the ailments that people organically ended up having. A case of unmanaged diabetes was more likely to come along than a bullet wound, at least in terms of people who would come to him - he dealt with injuries that happened on site at Smokey Mountain as well, but most of them weren't as serious as a knife to the abdominals. The trunk of the body held the major organs so it made abdominal injuries a nasty business - Theresa had gotten lucky in the sense that the knife hadn't hit anything vital and that she had significant enough muscle mass to have guarded her body.

Her mention of the window had him casting his gaze in its direction, the sunlight glinting off the frames of his glasses and highlighting the face that he had the beginnings of a five o'clock shadow.

"That'd do it." Bruce agreed a little sheepishly; aside from the people who came to him for help, he hadn't gotten to know his neighbours - it just seemed like a bad practise, getting invested in anyone. At any rate, he'd gotten good at walking away from others, given all the times he'd had to pick up and leave in the past.

"How long have you lived here?" he asked, looking her way again. When he'd been a child, his father - usually while working his way through a pint of whatever hard liquor was cheapest - would yell at him to look him in the eye, because Bruce's inability to hold his gaze always incited some kind of fury in him. He'd learned a trick out of necessity where he focused on eyebrows or earlobes, anything that put him in the general area of a person's eyes without actually having to look. He did the same with Theresa, keeping his focus on her ear, on where her hair landed just in front of it.

"Not to be presumptuous, it just doesn't seem like this is your home town."

 

[Virginia Greene]

She let out a tiny 'huh'. "I didn't know that," she knew everything she needed to know about healing, but that wasn't something she should know. "I have been informed on many an occasion that water is important and I still don't drink enough of it." But she liked her not-water drinks, they just weren't things she could fully indulge in while she had to keep an eye on a man who by nature seemed to be basically the least troublesome person but had the most bothersome circumstances. Being drunk would make fighting and being sneaky a whole lot harder.

He wasn't bad to look at. That was something, at least. Not in the way she usually went for, but she could see the appeal. He didn't try to utilize it, but that probably went against everything he was trying do here. Wasn't like people wouldn't have spent time with him if he wanted it, she'd seen them, occasionally heard bits of conversation. It simplified her job when he was doing some of the work for her.

"Seems like you're probably be kept pretty busy, not a whole lot of time to hang out and meet the neighbors. Gotta be in your... well I guess this is your home so I can't really call it an office." But it was where he met the patients who he didn't have to go to, so it was sort of that too. "But going around to socialize might mean missing something, right?" Now he could excuse himself as dedicated and not purposely isolating, she was willing to hand him that positive spin on the situation. "I didn't think to introduce myself to the first and third floors of the building, so that's on me."

If they'd had someone available who would have looked less like an out of town-er they probably would have been sent. But different agents had different skills and of the people who had the skills and weren't already on a mission, Theresa had been the best option. At the time, she had agreed. Right now, she wasn't so sure. Oh, she was entirely positive that she was better than some of the people that could have been in the running, but in all her years of doing this she'd never been undercover in a that kept her from having some sort of out around this time of year. Even in character she could usually just give an edited version of events and people got it and gave her space. Couldn't tell the people trying to get at Bruce that she needed a few days to regret everything. Worse was that she might still need that. "About six months. I mean here, specifically. It's been a lot longer since I've been... home." That was true. Theresa wasn't even really sure where 'home' would be. Where she'd lived as a child was home, but only really in the sense that she lived there and it was where her family had been. It wasn't her apartment now, that might as well be her office. Her apartment was just where she ate and slept between jobs. Other people clearly had some additional thing going on that turned the place they lived into home and the best she could do was mimic the way other people acted about it. "it's a delightful story of poor choices and consequences and I live here now." Again, true. She shrugged with the shoulder opposite her stab wound.

A story had been put together ahead of time and she was altering it as she spoke to fit the information she'd given him previously. If he inquired further she could continue building her image, but for now she'd keep it to herself. "I'm happy now." A lie. "Are you from around here?" Because even if she hadn't know for a fact he wasn't he also from the States, there was reason enough to pick him out as an outside. It wasn't a thing the person she was pretending to be would outright accuse him of, so she was inquiring in a way that could be answered without giving much information.

Too much eye contact was overrated. Made some people want to fight, some cultures thought it was disrespectful, and she personally didn't care that much unless she had a specific reason to want someone to look her in the eyes. But the person she was right now liked it, so it was the best warm and curious gaze she figured someone who'd been recently stabbed would be able to manage paired with a friendly smile. Pretend to be someone who wanted to know about him. Well, she did want to know about him, but for different reasons. She already knew more than he would probably have been comfortable with her coming into a conversation knowing, but there was a lot left, and how he viewed himself was useful.

 

[Sprouts]

"The water thing seems to be a global issue. First world countries it's because there's too many other options, third world -" here, his voice had a touch of aggravation, "- alcohol is cheaper than clean water. Though that's a generalization - there's plenty of places in North America without access to clean water." He had some very strong opinions about the state of the world and Stark had been privy to them, not because of his actual words, but just because of his tone when particular topics came up. Stark, at least, wasn't someone who flinched every time he got a little annoyed, not like SHIELD who seemed ready to break his knee caps if he sneezed.

"I don't really uh, stick around the office much either." Bruce said; it had occurred to him in the past that it was possible people were trying to find him there, that he'd missed people who needed urgent help, but his unfortunate talent for turning into someone else didn't mean there were two of him. He remained limited in how many places he could be present at once, something he'd cursed more than a few times. He knew he couldn't save the world - in fact, a few times he'd done distinctly the opposite - but at the very least he wanted to be good at what he was doing.

"I mean, I'm here sometimes. Just most people who - uh, who know about me, they know where to find me if I'm not here. I don't have a lot of - haunts." he said, "I mostly just sleep here. I think this is the longest I've been in this place in a while, actually." he offered some semblance of a smile, it wasn't really an expression, just the imitation of one, "I don't really introduce myself to anyone either, being sociable is over-rated."

He could feel her eyes searching his face; she seemed to be an eye contact person, which meant his attempts to actively avoid her gaze were being foiled; he couldn't stick with it, so he looked away, deciding it was better to be avoidant than to cringe his way through eye contact and end up in the throes of panic.

"I'm not from around here, no." Bruce said, "Is this one of those scenarios where I shouldn't ask where home is for you? I'm good with not asking questions if you prefer, sometimes I just have trouble getting a read on whether I should or not. It's back to the whole - asocial thing."

 

[Virginia Greene]

Hey now, SHIELD knew better than to try and break his kneecaps. It was an effective strategy that might have been on the table if it was just a case of being concerned about Bruce Banner the genius capable of making weapons of terror, but not with him as he was. Being able to break his kneecaps and then leaving would have been infinitely easier. "I just get absentminded and don't realize I haven't stopped to eat or drink for hours at a time. Sounds like this is something important to you, though." This she hadn't known, but it didn't surprise her. They'd put him at a variety of places around the world and it would make sense he'd care a little about the people who he'd been around.

She knew all his haunts and how much time he spent in his apartment. It was a little bit nice, things would probably have been infinitely more boring if she'd had to spend all her time in her apartment. As it was she could at least be out and about while keeping an eye on Bruce.

"Oh. Well sorry for trapping you in your home. Or... you're welcome? I'm glad you've been around the two times I'd had a slightly disorienting wake up." The first time had actually been a little bit disorienting. "I like being sociable." Hahaha. She flashed him a smile that, if broken down, was just an imitation of real emotion but done by someone with far more experience and who saw no real problem with lying. Who could be accused of seeing emotions as tools on at least a few levels. Whatever, it was good for both of them that she could. "But I'm not sure if anything would get done if everyone was super social." And also she would have to live in a cabin in the mountains and just give up on society forever if everyone else was expected to be social all the time. SHIELD would certainly crumble.

Aw, looked like she'd made him uncomfortable. That had been the point, but it didn't mean she couldn't still feel a tiny bit of empathy. Not the kind of of empathy that made her feel bad for what she was doing, Theresa was pretty sure that the part of her that felt guilt was dead and had been for years, but she could at least acknowledge that this wasn't what she wanted to be happening right now. He'd looked away and she focused on her glass of water instead, not going to force it.

"I don't mind talking about it. Having something to chat about helps, and I like to talk to people." The biggest lies she could tell. "I'm from Utah." He was honest, she'd give him that. Obviously he was avoiding a lot of information, but it wouldn't have felt as much like it if she didn't know what she was doing. Still, he should probably have been talking less about where he was during the day. It might be easier to do his job if he didn't assume that anyone could be a spy or out to kidnap him, but it was kinda stupid. Shouldn't he know better by this point? This was why he needed her.

Okay this was part of a myriad of reasons he needed her. Not like she'd be here if it wasn't for the job, but that didn't mean Theresa couldn't recognize that it was better that she was here.

 

[Sprouts]

Bruce had done enough running for long enough that he had seen some of the worst things the world had to offer - many of which he'd witnessed in the United States, but he'd discovered that everywhere had its own kind of horror. He wasn't sure if he could call himself jaded as a result because he had the misfortune of constantly discovering wells of optimism in himself, long after he was sure he should have given up on it. Maybe there was some kind of error in his genetic coding that made him resistant to the nihilism he had every right to engage in by then.

"Hey, worse places to be trapped." Bruce said, and his mind went instantly to the capsule on board the Helicarrier, reinforced steel and palladium-based metallic glass, he'd known on sight that it had cost SHIELD a mint to make it.

Sometimes he remembered the look that Loki had given him when he'd been passing by on the Helicarrier, but mostly he remembered that glass cage - he hadn't even been put in the thing and somehow he had nightmares about it.

"You must be, you're pretty chipper for someone who just got stabbed." Bruce said, rubbing his hand against the side of his neck then leaving it there, leaning his head slightly to the side, "Utah." he said, "That's - a long way for poor choices and consequences. Guessing it's just you - just, since there wasn't anyone you wanted -" he gestured to the general stabbing issue, realized then that maybe it was insensitive to bring up the fact she seemed to be there alone, then realized there was no graceful way out of having asked, "So do you speak Tagalog or uh, or are you working on it?"

 

[Virginia Greene]

Sometimes the people she was sent after were some of the worst sorts. Sometimes those were the kind of people who hung around and she'd take a little side mission. Mostly she knew that humanity was filled with terrible people and terrible things and it wasn't any of her business. It sucked but... helping wasn't necessarily what SHIELD was for. They did help, and in a decent number of ways, but there were always reasons. They weren't a charity. Or a... whatever Bruce was. He had so much reason to never be around people or want to help them but here he was. Trying his best to help as many people as possible and getting pretty much nothing out of it except whatever this might do for his conscience. He could have more money, or things, or even the attention of women (or men if he was into that too) and instead he had this impersonal apartment and barely anything.

She nodded her agreement, but didn't bring up any of the examples that rose to mind. Theresa knew about the cage on the Helicarrier, but that wasn't what she thought of. She'd been stuck in some pretty terrible and interesting places, it just wasn't at all appropriate to share those stories with Bruce. Even if he'd known who she was she still probably wouldn't have. It probably all put together to explain why she was how she was, but Theresa didn't want any kind of sympathy or pity. Every choice that lead up to now had been hers, no matter how bad some of them had been. She'd learned from pretty much all of them, so there was that at least.

The stab was less of a problem than he'd ever get to know. "I'm trying hard," she admitted. "Otherwise I think I'm going to start crying and never stop, which won't help anyone. Maybe hyperventilate, and that will definitely hurt. So it's better to be chatty and focus on positive things." Just tune the bad stuff out, it would fade eventually. It was something she'd been good at before SHIELD. Well, mostly. "I'm alive because two good people saved me, which means in the ratio of good to bad people I've interacted with today I've still come up positive. And I'm repeating that to myself a whole lot, I think it's helping." It also wasn't the first time she'd been attacked with a knife, even in the story she'd given Bruce. "I don't know if 'fake it till you make it' actually works, but that's what I'm banking pretty hard on." All she ever needed to do was fake it until others believed it.

"Yes," the brunette agreed. It was a long way indeed. "They were... very bad choices and some very big consequences." She let his comment about it being just her seem to hit a weak spot though it was one she created only because it seemed appropriate to the backstory and didn't respond, instead frowning slightly. No perky cheerfulness to the idea of being alone, no strong independent woman jokes, just a moment of quiet before she focused on his question like it was a way out of the discomfort. The silence could speak for itself. "I speak it decently. Didn't used to... talk to very many people but now I'm feeling a lot more confident in my language skills and trying to take advantage of the fact I can be social again." She spoke a lot of languages. It was a skill that Theresa had discovered because of SHIELD, and one that she supposed that she was a little bit proud of. "I'm not sure my skills are up to emergency standards, so it was a relief you spoke English."

 

[Sprouts]

It was one way to look at things. Bruce could see why she would want to put her focus elsewhere, her situation wasn't exactly one that was easy to find the silver lining in; not just injured in a foreign country - like a tourist twisting their ankle - she had been physically attacked, and if she had gone much longer, there was a good chance she would have bled out. And now she was on some stranger's couch with an open wound and no pain medication, she'd need to heal over the course of several weeks given muscle had been cut - even if she'd gotten lucky, she was tremendously unlucky for the situation to begin with.

Looking on the bright side with a stab wound. It had to take some effort.

"That's a healthy approach." Bruce said, offering another of those not-really-a-smile smiles, seated on the crate with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped together, the sleeves of his sweater long enough to cover his knuckles. He generally tried for grounding methods to calm himself, but the only thing that had really worked for him over the years was staying in a permanent state of pissed off, like exposure therapy.

He tried not too look awkward in the beat of silence; he was fine with silence, he just knew when he'd caused uncomfortable silences - or mostly he knew, anyways, he was better at knowing than he was years ago - and he felt like a bit of a jerk.

"Music, the expression of contempt, and injuries are universal." Bruce said, marking off the choices on his heavily-calloused fingers, curling them back into his palm a moment later, "I'd say you could use your down time to get to know your neighbours but I kind of think that's the worst time to socialize."

 

[Virginia Greene]

The healing process was going to annoy and stress Theresa out too. Those weeks would probably be worse hell than actually getting stabbed. She hated it when things got itchy and tight and she felt so much less flexible. Where the wound was would probably actively get in the way when she was working. Her arm would be fine, it didn’t even hurt too badly right now if she held it still. She wouldn’t have to switch bands to fight, which was good. She did fine with her left hand, but it wasn’t as little weaker and her aim was a tiny bit off. That was definitely a problem now, when mistakes could mean city-wide destruction. As it was, there shouldn’t have to be too many changes. Long distance would be a better way to handle things for a while, even though it wasn’t her preference. It was what the guy who trained her had said she should focus on skill-wise, but she knew what she liked and what made her feel the most in control.

It was effort. Not for the reasons he thought, but it was. She did not care for the person she was being, but Theresa didn’t like a lot of them. Naive and happy was something she could never be again.

”I try my best!“ There was nothing about her that was healthy. Arguably the physical condition she was in (minus knife wounds), but other then keeping herself in the kind of shape where she could run people down or do spy stuff that most people would think was just for action movies, she didn’t really... take care of herself. Didn’t eat right, didn’t drink enough water, definitely didn’t sleep enough. ”And I... I feel like this this isn’t the worst place I’ve been.“ And obviously she’d been injured to some level of severity before. There hadn’t been time to try and conceal the scars before passing out and doing it every morning was unreasonable in several ways.

”Sorry I’m hogging your couch.“ Clearly the man valued function over form, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing but... it was kinda sad. Not in the way that actually made her feel sad, more in the . Here was a doctor who was arguably one of the most brilliant men alive, who’d helped save New York and arguably the world from an alien invasion, and he was sitting on a crate in a shitty apartment. He could have still been with Stark and yet here he was without proper chairs and trying to save people.

"I'm getting to know you, that's going pretty well so far." He was providing little information and at least one lie, and she had fed him basically nothing but half truths and information that was meant to be misinterpreted with the occasional lie thrown in. They were getting to know crafted images of each other, like twisted versions of an internet dating profile or something. "I think there's more than just contempt with emotions. I hope." Why was that the one he picked out? Trying to interpret why Bruce said the things he said made Theresa wish she'd spent more time studying psychology. She could predict and manipulate behavior, but that wasn’t because of learned psychology theory, at least not in the sense of having read a textbook.

She shifted to move into a position where she’d be able to see Bruce better but gave up pretty quickly and let herself return to her previous position with a wince and a tiny noise of pain. So much for better face to face conversation. Good.