thisavrou_log | ( open ) it's been so long since I've been gone

Entry tags:

( open ) it's been so long since I've been gone

Who: Bruce Banner and anyone
When: April 1st to 3rd, give or take
Where: All around the Moira
What: Bruce comes back after a 3-day nap on a cryo unit, but with over a year worth of memories. From his perspective, it's been a good while since he's been on the Moira.
Warnings: Nudity, an old man accidentally flashing a minor. (Whoops.) Also NSFW for sex in one thread.
( a note: I'm good with both brackets and prose, so just pick whichever you prefer and I'll match! )

WAKE UP; CLOSED TO ZATANNA.

He wakes up with a startle, but it doesn't show. He's just so used to controlling every aspect of himself that when the unit brings him back from his stasis with a jolt, he barely moves. His eyes open, there's a soft silent gasp, but he lies there for a while, letting the cold envelop him little by little, and the memories of his surroundings slowly trickle into his mind.

It takes him a while. It's been over a year since he's been here, and he didn't even remember any of his time here for all the while that he was back in his world. Not even a dream, a ghost of a recollection, just... a complete blank. As if his life had never really stopped, as if he'd never truly been kidnapped into a spaceship on an alternate universe to begin with.

He knew that it was highly likely this is how it would happen when someone goes back home, of course, but one thing is to know or theorize what happens, another thing entirely is to experience it firsthand.

Eventually, he climbs out of the unit, but he doesn't go too far. Still clinging to the edge, cold feet touch the hard metallic floor, his knees nearly giving in under the weight of his own body, and when he glances down, he realizes he's completely naked. Shivering from the cold, little droplets hanging from the tips of his short hair, he looks around, trying to spot some clothes or even just a towel to wrap himself up in.

WANDER; CLOSED TO OBI-WAN.

After the initial shock of waking up, and now wearing a pair of pants and shoes, he's slipped on a hospital gown from the medbay and stepped outside. The objective here is to find his way to his room as soon as possible, to try and figure out what's going on right now, how long he's been gone exactly— who even is around still. He's thinking of a particular someone, actually, but the fear that he won't find Trish's name on the directory is too great for him to even think of checking.

First things first, though: he needs to figure out which way his deck is. All it takes is a couple of wrong turns down a hallway and he realizes he completely lost his way. He's not usually the kind to get lost, but he's ascribing it to the haze in his mind, the disorientation from waking up just a few minutes ago.

He starts glancing around instead, trying to find someone. Hearing footsteps nearby, he walks towards them in hopes that whomever it is, they'll help him find his way again.

REUNITE; CLOSED TO TRISH.

With some details cleared out, some questions asked and answered, and a quick read over the MID and whatever information he can get his hands on, his mind focuses on the next thing to do. He needs to find Trish. He goes back to his room, takes a warm shower and puts on some fresh clothes, feeling marginally better when he steps back outside, short hair and beard both looking impeccable and far less messy than the tangle of curls Trish would normally be familiar with.

It's a strange thing, how this works. He didn't even remember meeting her for that whole year he was gone, but now that he's back here, he realizes just how terribly he missed her, and how scared he is that any memories he has of her can be erased from his mind so easily. It should scare him enough to not want to do anything about it, but it's the opposite, actually. Something about having love and lost, probably.

He distinctly remembers quoting a line from a movie at her that directly relates to the sentiment. The point is, he feels as if he's been given a second chance, and Bruce doesn't get those. Not ever.

The problem is in finding her, though. He goes to her room but it's empty, he tries the radio station but she's not there, he sticks to the most popular areas of the ship, such as the mess hall, the gardens, the recreation room, but she's nowhere to be found. His heart clenches a little in his chest; maybe there's an error in the directory. Maybe she's not really on board, or maybe it's a different Trish Walker. He pushes the crippling worry away, though, and instead starts tapping on his MID, not even looking ahead as he keeps walking down the hallway, much too focused on sending her a text instead.

REACCLIMATE; OPEN.

Bruce used to think getting brought to a spaceship in an alternate universe was the strangest thing to happen to him, but he's quickly revising his opinion. This whole cryostasis experience has been something else entirely, and the sleep part isn't even the weirdest. The weirdest is what's happened on a mental level, and how he experienced over a year of memories in the span of three days.

He has to catch up on some things now, or rather, he has to refresh his memory. He walks the hallways and drops by the most active areas of the ship with curiosity, watching places and people alike, spends hours in the science department rereading files and looking over the work he himself did, slowly filling in any gaps and holes he has in his memory.

Some might have known he was in stasis for the past few days and want to check up on him, some might find the short hair and beard a strange change, either way he looks very approachable no matter where one might find him. Probably even more approachable than he did before.

Or, if he's familiar enough with someone and recognizes their face easily, he might just be the one to go over to them, greeting them with a smile and a hello.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's only been three days, but it feels like an eternity. Those three days just seemed to stretch and stretch, and part of her clung to them because at least Bruce was still around, while other parts frantically wished that there was some sort of switch to fast-forward to when Bruce would wake up.

Only she wasn't sure that he would. Couldn't be sure by virtue of the unpredictable nature of the Ingress. That worry was a constant, naturally, but it became that much more intense when there was nothing to do but wait, and so much was hanging in the balance for them.

Three days, not a long time to be separated from anyone, she has endured far worse. She was apart from Jessica for six months of radio silence and she got through that. Then again the first few weeks were undeniably the worst. The time until she managed to make her peace with the fact that her sister and best friend had apparently decided to shut her out, to cut her off.

Three days is nothing, but when you feel every second that ticks by like a punch in the gut, "nothing" still finds a way to hurt like hell.

She has already been to see him once this day, but since she didn't have any other urgent duties to attend to she decided to go back. The sight of the empty cryo unit ties her insides up in a tight knot of hope and fear intertwined. Is he back? Is he gone?

She is so frazzled that she doesn't think to check her MID, instead she just heads to his room, which feels like a natural first stop. But he isn't there either.

She is unaware that she and Bruce keep missing each other as she wanders around the ship in search for him, growing more and more distraught. She is so focused on her goal that she doesn't even entirely realise that tears have started running down her cheeks.

She almost doesn't realise that it's Bruce when at last they do manage to be in the same place at the same time. His head is bent to look at his MID, his hair is different and he has a beard, for a moment she thinks he's someone else. A new arrival maybe.

But then awareness blooms within her, though she is almost scared to believe it.

"Bruce?"

The voice snaps him out of it just enough to look up, though by the blank stare on his face, it takes his brain a few seconds to actually catch on to what's happening. Almost as if it thinks that the eyes are deceiving it, the ears aren't working right. As if she's just some image he conjured up out of thin air.

But he's not crazy, he's not. He's been looking for Trish after all, hasn't he? So, here she is.

He's just not sure at all of what to do now, what to say. Staring at her in stunned silence is about all he can do for a moment that seems to stretch on forever. She's a mess, her expression twisted just so, her cheeks wet, but otherwise, she's just like he remembers her. Her voice has a ring of familiarity to it, and with a single word —his name—, it has already dug up all of his memories of her and brought them to the surface, like he has only seen her yesterday.

It's been a year. She doesn't know that, but the look on his face likely gives it away that he hasn't seen her in so long, and when he exhales there's a sound that's almost a gasp, almost a sob, but dies somewhere halfway up his throat.

"Trish," that's all he says, if the way he was looking at her wasn't enough to make it clear that yes, this really is him. Finally, he manages to tell his body to move, and he starts walking towards her, slow steps becoming surer until he's all but running towards her, wrapping her arms around her in a tight embrace the moment they're within reach of each other.

"I was looking for you, I was just— just now, I..." The MID's all but forgotten by now, and anyway, it doesn't matter. He found her, or she found him, he really doesn't care. What he cares is that she's here.

"God, I've missed you so much."

She too is frozen in place at first, but the second he moves so does she, practically throwing herself into his embrace, arms wrapping tightly around him as tearful laughter bursts from her lips as a reaction to the sudden release of all the tension inside her.

He's back, he's really back.

"In stasis?"

Wasn't he asleep? Or something like it? How could he miss her then? She leans back just a little her hands cradling his head as she looks at his face, taking in the subtle differences. He looks older, somehow. There's more gray in his hair, or maybe it just shows more now that it's shorter.

"What happened to your hair?"

Did he decide to just get a spontaneous haircut the second he got out of cryo?

He almost doesn't want to pull away, but he loosens his hold just enough to draw back, his arms still around her as she looks over his face. He knows he looks different to her, in more than just the length of his hair, and he lets her make note of those differences before he even tries to explain any of it.

"I was sent back home. Or my mind was, at least— I don't really know how to explain it."

And frankly he had more pressing matters at hand than to make his way to the department to try and figure that out. This is a priority— she's a priority. He can make sense of his situation later.

Pausing for a moment, he lifts a hand up to cup her face, the base of his thumb brushing some of those tears away. Though it's hardly the time, he can't help but worry that she'd been crying because of him.

"It's been over a year for me. Since I've been here, since... I've last seen you."

"It's only been three days for me."

And she can't recall him looking any different when she checked on him earlier which only serves to confuse her more. But she believes him, of course, because he wouldn't lie about something like that.

She smiles through her tears, and tries for a joke though her voice is choked up with emotion.

"And here I thought I had it bad."

She doesn't really want to contemplate what it would have been like had he stayed in stasis for over a year.

Edited 2016-04-02 23:50 (UTC)

"I know. I caught up a little."

As much as one can catch up between the medbay and his bedroom, where he only stayed for long enough to shower and change. He's glad she doesn't ask him to explain, though, because he hasn't even started to figure that out yet, and he definitely doesn't even so much as want to think about it.

"Yes, well. I have it pretty bad right now."

Granted, he didn't remember her all that while, but somehow that has only made the pain more acute, like getting a whole ocean of days and hours and minutes apart in one single breath, instead of it slowly washing over him along with that passing of time.

His thumb brushes some more tears away, cradling her face, a nervous chuckle slipping past his smile. He can't believe she's here, or that he's here, God... he could have gone home for good and he would have never known her, he'd have never remembered this. She could have been here for months, years, decades waiting for him to wake up or come back.

The thought settles too uncomfortably at the pit of his stomach, and before it becomes a crippling thing, he leans in and presses his lips to hers, in a kiss lacking all the calm and slowness of their previous ones.

She kisses him back with the same urgency, pouring all her longing and affection into that kiss to give him everything that she couldn't when he was back home. A year of love. She has much more than that in her, so it's an easy thing to give.

He sighs into the kiss, head tilting so their mouths fit closer together, his fingers sifting through her hair as his hand moves to cradle the back of her head. He's missed this so much— her, mostly, the scent of her hair, the feel of her skin at his fingertips, the little things that might've otherwise not seemed like much but mean the world to him.

His lips part just slightly, enough that he can taste the very air she breathes.

Her hands drop from his head to slide over his chest and then around to his back, her arms winding tightly around him.

Her tongue teases a little at the opening between her lips, offering him a taste of more than air if he wants it.

They have so much to talk about, but it can wait for just a few moments while she gives Bruce a proper welcome back.

It's pretty obvious that he does want it, and the moment he feels the tip of her tongue touching his lips, he parts them a little wider, still slow and hesitant as his own tongue reaches out and draws lightly along her upper lip. He's tentative at best, almost like he's not entirely sure of what he's doing, and he's following her lead more than anything else— it's just been a while for him.

Somewhere at the back of his mind he knows they probably shouldn't be getting too into it out here in the open, but he doesn't care enough to break the contact just yet. After so long being apart, he feels like pulling away from her now would be like torture.

Trish honestly couldn't care less if someone were to happen to walk in on this little reunion, she is too busy kissing the living daylights out of Bruce at the moment, and quite happy to take the lead in that particular activity since he seems to be in need of a tiny bit of guidance.

She deepends the kiss a little more, tongue sliding against his while she leans into him, fingers curling around the fabric of his shirt. It's definitely noticeable that it's been a while since she kissed anyone, but it doesn't make the experience any less enjoyable.

It hasn't been as long for her as it has been for Bruce, so for what it's worth, he doesn't really notice any awkwardness to it. They both seem to ease into it with little thought or difficulty anyway, by virtue of missing each other, wanting each other, it really doesn't matter the reason. The point is that it just feels right, even if they might seem a little hesitant at first, and may just hit a couple of small bumps along the way.

He hums softly into the kiss, eyebrows knitting together as his lips part wider, willingly deepening the contact. His fingers flex near her nape, lightly fisting her hair, his other hand clinging tightly to the clothes at her back while he pulls her closer to him.

It's always a bit of a learning curve when you are kissing someone new anyway, and they are both ever so eager to figure it out, find how they fit together because they do fit together. She feels that sense of rightness down to her bones as the kiss melts away most of the tension she has been carrying around in her body for the past few days.

Eventually she does pull away a little, because breathing is still a necessary bodily function as much as she would like to just switch it off for a little while.

After a few shallow breaths she smiles a little, though in the pit of her stomach a knot of nervousness forms.

"So... does this mean you've finished your thinking?"

Or was this just a momentary lapse of judgment?

It really is a shame they need to breathe, because Bruce would've gladly gone without having to pull away from her. He does anyway, especially because when he draws in that first inhale, nearly a gasp, it makes his head light, almost dizzy, and he has to take a few long, slow breaths just to calm himself down again, regain some semblance of balance.

Not that it makes much of a difference, anyway. He always feels a little unsteady whenever Trish is around— not in a bad way at all, of course.

"I'm done thinking," he answers promptly, the first of his words tripping right over her last, quick and without second thought or hesitation. He nods, smiling a little stupidly, his hand moving again to her jaw so he can brush his thumb across her cheek.

"I think too much, and I almost lost my chance." Almost— he can't believe that for so long, he wanted to leave this place so badly, and right now he's actually glad he got brought back. "I want to be with you. Here or wherever else we end up."

"I'd be okay with that."

The big grin on her face ought to make it perfectly clear that she is way more than okay with Bruce wanting to be with her.

"And I'm glad I didn't have to wait for a year to hear it."

"I'm glad for that too."

He smiles back at her, fingers sifting through her hair, starting above her forehead and temple and guiding the strands to frame her face, tucking them behind her ear. Leaning in again, he brushes his lips against hers, kissing her again, more softly this time.

His expression gains a twist of sadness when he pulls away, a feeling somewhat painful when he speaks again.

"I didn't remember this, any of this. All that while I was home, I... I didn't remember you."

That thought does hurt, that Bruce went home and she was just... erased. Her expression too turns sad, her grip on him tightening a little, as if by holding on harder she could somehow make herself a permanent part of him that nothing could ever remove.

"I guess we just have to make the most of this while it's happening."

In case they don't get to keep it. Damn, she hates that thought.

He knew all along that this would very likely be how it would play out, if and when either of them went back home, but knowing it and experiencing it are two very different things. Before, it was just a thought at the back of his mind, one he easily bottled up and put on a shelf at the farthest reaches of his mind, along with a myriad of other thoughts and concerns he kept.

But now, it's right there, he felt it in his skin, his bones, his mind. He stepped out of that cryo unit and was flooded with months' worth of memories in mere seconds. It's a scary thing, realizing how easily it could happen again— to him, to her, to anyone on board the Moira.

"I was kind of hoping for that."

And hoping that if only he wants to hard enough, if he wishes loud enough, if they stay long enough, the memories won't fade. It's a silly and childish hope, but he doesn't care.

"So... where do we go from here?"

Some parts seem rather straightforward, but others kind of aren't and she feels like maybe it's a good idea for them to really make sure that they're on the same page about things.

Her question leaves him a little at a loss. His hands drop both to the small of her back, arms curled loosely around her, still very much enjoying having her close and unwilling to step away anytime soon.

"I don't know. I didn't really plan too far ahead." Really, it's been a little over an hour since he climbed out of that cryo unit. It's not like he had a lot of time to think about what he wanted to do besides finding her. And kissing her— which he has.

"I guess we just... see how things go? Or do you have anything specific in mind?"

"No, that sounds pretty good to me. And you're fine with people knowing about it?"

Mostly she wants to know if she can do little things like take his hand when she feels like doing it now, even if people happen to be around.

He smiles a little at the question, though genuinely touched that she asked. Even if, as far as he's concerned, she didn't have to.

"I'm very fine with that, yes."

He definitely would like to be able to hold her hand or even kiss her sometimes, even with other people around. If she doesn't want to keep it a secret, he doesn't either.

"Good. I would have sucked at hiding it."

She knows how to act, yes, but she's pretty sure hiding her feelings for Nruce is entirely beyond her abilities.

"I'm pretty sure we both would have sucked at it."

Bruce Banner, master of the awkward. No way he would fool anyone, if before he was already so close to giving himself away.

"But I don't want you to hide anything, no. If anything, I want to be able to... I don't know, hold your hand whenever. Stare at you with a stupid smile on my face like a complete idiot, even if other people are around."

"You're not an idiot, you're just in--"

Whoa there Walker, don't get ahead of yourself now.

"...fatuated."

Nailed it.

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