thisavrou_log | [locked] Heart of glass

[locked] Heart of glass

Who: Trish Walker and Bruce Banner
When: After Trish wakes up from cryo
Where: Science department
What: Trish is really upset to wake up and finding that everything is on fire. Figuratively speaking.
Warnings: Will add if necessary

The rational part of Trish is very well aware of the fact that everything being a giant clusterfuck has absolutely nothing to do with her going into cryo, but there are a few other parts that somehow managed to make her feel guilty about the whole thing all the same, as if somehow she could have stopped it all if she had only been around.

And then there is of course just the giant gut punch that is knowing that Bruce was going to leave her. Sure, he might consider it a noble sacrifice but she really isn't in the mood for seeing it that way at the moment. Not after spending hours watching a cryo tank hoping for him to wake up. Not after being torn from sleep by a sudden need to check that he is still breathing because actually he might not be, she could be snuggled up to a corpse because he died and what if coming back is just some sort of cruel cosmic joke and the punch line is that one day the man she loves is going to be cold and dead with absolutely no explanation given.

Her chest is tight with panic and fear and misplaced guilt, and she hates all of it which means it all transforms into anger, and since that anger has to go somewhere she is currently absolutely furious with Bruce.

Talking to Tony was sort of keeping her grounded, but now she is alone with her thoughts and none of them are pretty.

Their room has been turned to glass, of all fucking things, which in all honesty feels like a too damn suitable metaphor for the state of her relationship. This is what you get for loving heroes. You would've thought that she'd learned that by now. Some lessons just can't seem to stick, apparently.

She spots a piece of paper on one of the bedside tables, and she picks it up, even though she is already quite certain that whatever is written there is not going to help her calm down before she goes to see Bruce.

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To be honest, maybe she would've been able to stop a few things from happening, but not everything. It'd all have gone down more or less the same in the end, so she really shouldn't be feeling guilty about any of it.

Being stuck in cryo, though, that was never ideal. To a degree, Bruce was relieved that she was out of danger throughout all that, but on the other hand he worried about her staying there for so long, with no signs of waking up. And selfish or not, he'd be lying if he said that being without her wasn't almost like a special kind of hell.

By now, he's not even sure if he expects her to wake up anymore. Considering he eventually loses everything that ever matters to him, he's already prepared himself to not ever see her again, or... he's trying to, anyway. For now that means acting as if it's not tearing him apart, while the feeling eats him from the inside out.

With their room turned to glass, at least he doesn't have to live every day with little reminders of her, be it her scent or a piece of clothing, and while the science department isn't ideal, the couch in his office is more than enough for him. He's curled up there, trying to get some rest, when JARVIS's voice suddenly rings through the somewhat dark space.

"Doctor Banner, you have a visitor."

That alone is enough to wake Bruce up, and he sits up almost immediately, fixing up his hair and clothes before getting up, opening the door from his office to the department.

"Who is it?"

His voice is tired; the question is asked to JARVIS more than anything, but he'll take having it answered by whomever just got there. Seconds after he's stepping outside, his eyes and the skin around them both unmistakably turned to glass— and if that isn't enough to make it obvious, then the way he can't even look her way is probably all it takes for her to tell that he can't see her at all.

She gasps audibly at the sight of him, her anger receeding back into the dark corners of her heart to be replaced by pain and worry. It'll come back, and she'll yell at him and they will probably have a fight, but the shock of seeing what has happened to him is enough to postpone that for a little while.

"It's me."

He can't tell by the gasp alone, but when she speaks up he doesn't need any other answer. Glassed eyelids lift as his eyes widen, and he freezes in his spot, his voice tiny and broken, trembling and riddled with disbelief. Like he's not sure she's really there or if she's just some sort of wild dream or hallucination.

"Trish?"

It takes him a couple of seconds to move, but when he does it's like he doesn't even stop to think or be careful of where he's going. Which doesn't work out all that great when you're blind, as it turns out, and he trips up on some small dent in the ground, bumps against a railing— but nothing stops him. He ignores the pain and the fact he's probably making himself look either like an idiot or completely pathetic (or likelier still, both), until finally he makes it to where she is, hands already reaching out to touch her as soon as they're close enough.

"Oh my God, you're... I thought— you're here."

He could cry, weren't his tear ducts turned to glass right now. As it is he just wraps his arms around her tight and clings to her like she's his lifeline, not even thinking for a moment that she might be mad at him right now.

She hurries toward him as well, partly to prevent him from hurting himself and partly because the broken way he says her name is enough to make her desperate to hold him.

She walks into his arms without hesitation, holding him close and stroking his hair soothingly, tears burning in her eyes. When he died, she died, so it's only too easy to imagine what he's going through right now. It's clear enough that he'd started to think she wasn't coming back, and she knows damn well how she would be feeling in a similar situation, since well... she's already been through it.

"That's right, I'm here now."

He doesn't know how he manages not to fall apart before even getting to her, or how he doesn't fall apart now that she's holding him. It feels surreal, too good to be true, he thinks he might just be going crazy and any moment now she'll vanish into thin air and will be no more than a figment of his desperate imagination.

Each breath comes out with an audible exhale, practically a shiver, his fingers flexing into her clothes and his arms tightening around her, like he can will her to be real by simply keeping her there.

"You're back... you're back, God... I've missed you so much. Please be real, please be real..."

The last bit is more murmured like some sort of prayer, a little too desperate but he doesn't seem to particularly care.

"I'm real, I promise. It's me. I'm really back."

She doesn't know what to do to reassure him right now, so she just keeps holding him, hoping that her words will reach him and that he will be able to believe her.

"I love you. I love you so much."

He does believe her, but it's... well, one also believes a dream to be real until they wake up, and it's taking Bruce a little while to get past that point. Right now he's not all that willing to let go yet, though he pulls away just enough to turn his head and kiss her cheek, then her lips, stopping just long enough to answer, while their foreheads press together.

"Me too. I love you too."

He doesn't have to let go. She will happily let him hold her for as long as he wants to.

"I'm so sorry you had to go through this alone."

Bruce shakes his head, his face twisting between sheer happiness and incredulity, a hand moving up to stroke her hair and the side of her face. He can't see her, but at least he can still touch her— that'll have to be good enough.

"That's fine. You're here now, that's what matters."

"I'm pretty hard to get rid of. Just ask Jess."

She covers his hand with her own, turning her head to press a soft kiss to the centre of his palm.

He smiles a little at that, thumb brushing over her lips before he leans in close and kisses her again.

"Good. Then I'm really very lucky."

He really needs to stop being so hard to get mad at. It's so tempting to just melt into his loving kisses and the warmth of his embrace and just let it all go, but she doesn't want to do that. Not really, and him pointing out how lucky he is that she is still around well... that does kind of bring back a little of her anger because she might have woken up to nothing but a letter and pain.

"I was furious with you when I came in here. Just so you know."

"But you're not anymore?"

Probably shouldn't be getting too cheeky there, Bruce. Because her saying that is more than enough for him to figure out why she was furious, and he's quick to piece things together. As much as he'd like to skip on that particular conversation, he knows he won't be able to, and it may just be for the best that he admits to knowing what she is (or was) mad about.

"It's about what happened with the Caducans, isn't it?"

"Oh, I'm still mad. Just not yelling at you mad."

She has simmered down to a 'rational discussion' mad at the moment, and the fact that she is still holding him is probably enough to show him that she isn't really looking for a fight here. She just needs him to know that what he did, what he wanted to do, hurts like hell.

"And yes, it is. Tony told me. And I found your letter."

Edited 2016-07-11 04:20 (UTC)

Well, that's not so bad, then. At the very least she won't be pulling away from him, which is good because he's not sure he'd manage not to be near her right now. He needs it like he needs air to breathe.

He sighs softly at her answer. crystalline eyelids sliding closed.

"I forgot about that."

And if he'd remembered, he'd have though it had been turned to glass along with the rest of their room. He certainly wouldn't have ventured there just to get it.

He presses his lips thinly, offering in as genuine and remorseful a tone as he can muster.

"I'm sorry."

Sorry he's made her suffer, sorry he ever thought that was a good idea— now he knows there's no way it could've ended well, but grief and worry do tend to cloud one's judgement pretty heavily.

She knows he does, and she wouldn't take it away from him. Not because of this.

"You should be. What were you thinking?"

She could probably make a pretty good guess, but she wants to hear it from him anyway. She can tell that he is genuinely remorseful, and that's a good start. She's not going to hold this over his head forever, she just needs to go over this a bit to get rid of the emotional chaos Tony's news and his letter caused.

"I wasn't, I guess."

Or he was, but with his heart, not his head. Letting feelings get the best of him and making a decision based on his guilt, his fear, his worry. Not the first nor the last time Bruce does something like that— for such a logical person, he can often let his feelings cloud his judgement and affect decisions that should follow reason.

"I wanted to keep people safe. To keep you safe. I just wanted to avoid a whole confrontation to break out and I... it was my fault, alright? If it weren't for me, those people wouldn't have hunted us down to begin with."

Trish takes a deep breath, and gives him a kiss on the forehead. At the end of the day, the truth is that she would probably have tried to do the same thing if she were him.

"I get it."

Bruce sighs quietly, shoulders relaxing, visibly relieved.

"Thank you."

He's been having people berating him for his actions left and right, even if it's stopped as of late, so it's really good to not get that from her too. Refreshing, even, and a relief. He gets it, the point has been made, there's no reason to drill it further into his head, and in all honesty he can't even put to words how glad he is that Trish of all people won't do that.

Pulling her close again, he buries his face in the curve of her neck, sighing audibly.

"Jesus. I'm so happy you're safe, Trish."

She's still sort of angry, but she can see it for what it is. It's not really anger, it's fear. Fear of losing him. He was trying to do the right thing to the best of his ability, and she can't really yell at him about that. Not when she herself walked into a swarm of mind-controlled people armed with nothing but a pair of headphones, just to give Jessica an opening.

Besides, he's clearly had a rough enough time without her adding to it. She doesn't want to fight right now, she just wants to be with him.

"I'm in better shape than you are. Does it hurt?"

For what it's worth, he's glad he didn't go through with it, now that things have been worked out in a way that's much better and far more peaceful, even if some fights had to break out for that to happen. At least like this most of the Caducans survived and were taken elsewhere, while the crew of the Moira remains safe.

Well, safe-ish. The merging of the ships, that Bruce has a feeling they wouldn't have been able to avoid no matter what they did.

"Oh," he lifts a hand to touch the skin around his eyes, pressing his lips and shaking his head. "No. I can't even feel it."

"I have this weird urge to touch it."

True romance is wanting to poke your boyfriend's glass eyeball.

He chuckles a little, hand dropping down to settle on her side. Sure, that's a perfectly normal urge, nothing at all weird or creepy about it.

"Well... you can, if you want to?"

If being weird and creepy makes him laugh, she'll take it. She suspect he hasn't had much reason to smile lately.

"I don't know, I'd probably break an eyelash or something and then I'd feel terrible."

Well, she is his main reason to smile, so there's that. Though Tony has managed to drag a few chuckles out of him.

He reaches for one of her hands, lifting it up to his face and resting her fingertips on his cheek, just where the glass starts.

"Then don't touch the eyelashes. Simple as that."

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