( open ) wouldn't it be good to be in your shoes?

[hyperkinesia]

Who: Bruce Banner and YOU!
Where: Gardens, kitchen, hallways, lab, rooftop, or literally anywhere
When: During the next few days
Rating: PG13 for nudity, don't expect anything else but will update if need be
Summary: Bruce falls into Wonderland. Literally. He falls from the sky. Then he spends the next few days trying to be invisible and failing miserably.
The Story:

ARRIVAL, GARDENS; (open to only one person—first come first serve)

Anyone looking outside today will see blue skies. Blue skies, a shining sun, a seeming state of peace that's almost unsettling— then a strange sight breaking that calm. A figure falls from the sky, at a steadily quicker speed, literally dropping and landing in the middle of the gardens with an audible thud, hard enough to leave a mark in the ground. To those not paying much attention, it could be anything, but to anyone with a good eye, it's fairly easy to tell that it's actually a man.

He doesn't move, either. It stands to reason that after a fall like that, he wouldn't have survived. Should anyone venture outside to see for themselves, though, they might be surprised to find out that the man is not only very much alive, but also unharmed and completely naked.


ANYWHERE ELSE;

Bruce has been in some pretty far off places, but this still takes the cake.

The whole pocket universe and alternate realities deal is actually easier to wrap his head around than the fact that this place exists. This place as in Wonderland. Not just modelled after the story, but actually real. He's starting to feel like he really is mad at this point, which is all funny in that sort of ironic way if it weren't for the fact that he's stuck. He's stuck and he feels trapped, and he doesn't particularly like that feeling.

The place looks open and big but it's really little more than a glorified cage. And Bruce wouldn't mind much being here if only he were by himself— but no, let's pull in the guy who could tear this whole place apart in minutes and shove him in here with a bunch of other people. Brilliant idea.

But anyway. He tries not to focus too much on that, and instead worries about the ways he can try to keep distance from everyone else. Sadly, he soon realizes he can't do much about that either.

The choice of room (or more accurately, floor) is very much intentional, because as much as he wants to avoid being too close to certain people, he also feels the conflicting need to make sure they're alright. One of the first rooms in the seventh floor leave him somewhere close enough to the stairs, but not too far down the hallway, too close to everyone else's rooms. Could be worse.

As for the rest, it's... well, things could always be worse. Most times he manages to go to the kitchen or even the library without getting too much attention, but he still makes it back to the room pretty quickly. He holes himself up there for hours on end, blankets thrown over mirrors once he knows what's on the other side, looking out the window and musing how he would be better off just getting lost in the forest indefinitely. Probably.

He knows where these thoughts lead him, though. Eventually he forces himself to do something, and that starts with exploring the rest of the mansion. He goes to each open area and takes a look inside, taking his time when it's something that interests him more, makes it all the way down to the basement where he ends up looking around the lab for a little while, and goes up to the rooftop and stands somewhat near the edge for a while, looking over the expanse of land within sight. (And no, he's not thinking about jumping, if anyone might be wondering.)

It's too much. Too much and too little, too small, too confining. Every invisible limit makes his skin crawl with the urge to run, but he knows he can't. It's a particular kind of helplessness not even he is used to, and right now he has no idea what to do, where to start. If he can even do anything at all to change things.

He used to think he could. Change, do better. But he doesn't even know, doesn't even believe that anymore.

Comments

[hyperkinesia]

"I'm not so sure about the perfect time." He offers after a moment's pause, a moment during which he's watching her thoughtfully. Finally, he adds, a sort of confession almost, with a trace of apology mixed in there somewhere. "Could've at least waited until the fight was over."

He was involved in the creation of Ultron, after all. He had a responsibility there, and yet he let his fear get the best of him. Hadn't Natasha done anything, he'd have run away and left the team to deal with the mess on their own. Maybe they'd have made it anyway— on the other hand, they might have not. Even if they did, the casualties could have been much greater, among the team and the civilians both.

He exhales shakily, swallowing a dry lump in his throat and hoping that's enough for his voice to not come out shaky.

"There's never a perfect time to leave your life behind."

[widows_kiss]

"You did," Natasha answers, glancing over at him again, her expression carefully intent as she searches his face. "We couldn't have done it without you. The fighting was done when you left. There was just the mess to clean up."

Granted, it was a rally big mess. And even then... Well, hadn't that been part of what spurred some of them on to the Accords?

His tone breaks and even though he's trying to sound unaffected, she knows better. She reaches out, brushing fingertips lightly against his arm.

"No. There's not. But sometimes life doesn't give you a choice."

[hyperkinesia]

"Not by choice," he counters, dismissing whatever comfort there is in her words. She should be mad at him, not understanding. She should be blaming him the way he is. "If it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't have— I wouldn't have stayed."

And it's just that, isn't it? That Bruce actually thought they could leave and things would just somehow work out. Hearing her say that doesn't help, either. We couldn't have done it without you. That's more of a drill making a point across than it is some soothing remark to help him feel better.

Which is fine, really. He doesn't deserve feeling better about what he was going to do, anyway.

Her touch has varying feelings warring inside of him. He doesn't draw away, at least, he doesn't even flinch or startle, but he does look at it, and at her, like he doesn't know what to do about it. Like he doesn't know if it's alright to touch her back, or even if he wants to. He feels a little too raw and open, and right now there's no comfort in the fact that he normally would trust Natasha enough to let her see him this exposed.

A breath catches in his throat. He bites it and swallows it back down, head dropping before he closes his eyes. "I'm sorry."

[widows_kiss]

She looks a little startled at the shift in his expression, the show of raw emotion, and when he looks at her like that, she shifts her position, putting herself in front of him, between him and the edge of the roof as she looks up into his face.

This hadn't been the turn she'd expected this conversation to take. She'd expected him to still be furious with her; distrusting, at the very least.

"Don't be." Her answer is soft but blunt as her gaze searches his face. "You're the one that knows what you can handle, Bruce. What you need. Sometimes there is no easy choice. Your presence on the team has always been the highest in cost for you - we all know that. None of us could have predicted what went down. None of us did."

[hyperkinesia]

He'd expected to be furious at her too, he'd expected to be hurt— well, he still is hurt, just for completely different reasons. Everything else is... too complicated to make sense of. Her presence is soothing and painful both, her words a balm and a knife all at once, even though he knows she's trying for the former.

His mind's had too little time to process everything that's happened, while at the same time having gotten a whole lot of new information that seems to kickstart it closer to the finish line. What he knows drowns out how he feels, or twists it around in a way, and everything is a mess of tangled strings and wires and he's not sure if any of it is working right.

But he's always been a mess. This is no different.

He nods faintly, but it feels more like he's indulging her than truly believing her words. His eyes open but his gaze's dropped to the ground and it stays that way, even if she's close enough that there's no ground to look at.

(There's no ground. Hah.)

"I just couldn't stay. I didn't want to leave you, but..." He shrugs weakly. "You couldn't leave. And I couldn't stay."

[widows_kiss]

"I know." Her voice is soft, one corner of her lips quirking upwards as she remains where she is, carefully still, although there's something written in the tension in her body that hints that she's keeping from reaching out to him, for his sake. She'd been more certain of where she stood with him, of what he'd allow her, before she'd had to cross that line.

"Better than anyone, I know that," she adds a moment later. "And maybe you made the smarter choice, considering the mess that happened afterwards. Now we've both left, just for much different reasons."

[hyperkinesia]

"I'm sorry you had to." They'd talked about doing it together, sure, but in the end, if nothing else, Bruce was glad that Natasha wouldn't be so isolated, and would have people around her that she could trust and who would have her back. Not that he wouldn't, but Bruce is only one person and the world is massive and often cruel, even when one can turn into an indestructible beast.

There's this weird tension and for once it doesn't go unnoticed by him. She doesn't want to step past any boundaries and Bruce can't even be sure if those boundaries exist at all. His hands hover awkwardly between them instead, holding each other rather than reaching out, and even the silence turns a little strange when it stretches out for a couple of seconds too long.

"So now what? Where, uh... where do we go from here?"

[widows_kiss]

"I made my choice."

Simply and decisively put. As some things tended to be with her. Again, something she might not enjoy the outcome for, but at the time, she'd seen no other recourse left open to her. She'd done what had needed to be done. Things weren't always so black and white, but sometimes? Sometimes they were.

His question has her studying him thoughtfully a moment, remaining where she is.

"Do you know where you;d like it to go?" she finally asks, patient. Careful.

[hyperkinesia]

"I know."

And evidently, he's not holding it against her. If anything he understands, even if he would be lying if he said that it didn't hurt at the time, that it doesn't hurt a little even now still. But she is right, it had to be done, and at that moment, she was the only one that could do it. She was in a prime position to make it happen, even.

The question is what trips him up the most. He's even more at a loss for words at that, lips pressed tightly and his eyes dropping from her face to her hands, then to his, nervous and somewhat avoidant.

"I don't know. I don't— does it even make a difference here? If we'll just... forget, then does it matter?"

[widows_kiss]

"It matters." There's a curve to her lips as she confides that, head tipped slightly to the side.

"We were here before, you know," she confesses after a slight pause, her eyes watching his face. "The both of us. Together. For quite some time, or so I've been told."

[hyperkinesia]

He's not sure why it's comforting hearing her say that, but it is. Even if this place feels too fleeting, even if he can't quite believe that it really does matter in the end.

"You too, huh?" Of course, he's not entirely aware of what that 'together' might possibly mean. "This place really must have taken a liking for us. I mean, the... the team. People from our world." Not that he's part of the team anymore, but then again neither is she.

[widows_kiss]

"Us, or the team, or both," she counters, looking amused at how he stumbles over those words. "I'm missing about a year's worth of time. You might be missing about the same, but Steve would be able to tell you for certain. It really likes him, apparently. Also our team exists in more than one place. And in more than just one time. We've got members here that you and I haven't met yet, but things happened differently in their world."

[hyperkinesia]

"About the same, yes," he nods, confirming her guess. "Steve told me I've been here twice before already. Last time I forgot about my first stay too." He raises an eyebrow, trying to look more mildly surprised at the information she gives out, rather than uncomfortable and unsure when she keeps referring to the whole group as 'our team'. "Parallel universes. Huh. Guess I shouldn't be so shocked."

[widows_kiss]

"That's not even the weirdest thing you'll hear about here," she drawls, not rescinding the 'our team' in the least. Despite what had happened with the Accords, they'd already been through too much together for it ever to be anything differently. Even when they were far away.

And here? Well. Things worked on entirely different rules in Wonderland, she was learning.

[hyperkinesia]

Bruce just processes things differently from her. As far as he's concerned, he's no longer part of the team, he excised himself the moment he cut off communications with Natasha. Whether or not he'd hulk out now if any of his former teammates were in danger or needed help, that remains to be seen— it's likely that he would. But still, it changes nothing. Not in his eyes.

"You know, I haven't even been here that long," not that he remembers anyway. "But I have no difficulty believing that already."

[widows_kiss]

Her lips curve knowingly at that, because Wonderland seemed to make that pretty clear early on. "What's the strangest thing you've come across so far?"

[hyperkinesia]

"Food materializing on a plate, for instance. The closets spitting out just about anything. The fake stars..." That's on a lighter note, but then he goes on to add, not looking at her. "The mirror in my room."

[widows_kiss]

That has her turning more serious. "You should cover it. Things on the Mirror-side are... unpleasant," she adds, choosing the word with care. "Or so I've been informed."

[hyperkinesia]

"I know. I have already." In fact he did it even before he was warned about the mirrors. Call it a sixth sense for that sort of stuff. Bruce only wishes he could take it down permanently, but well. Can't have everything. "When I got here, they... I think something was happening. Everyone tells me that the other side can look into ours, but it was the other way around."

He's sure he doesn't need to tell her why that is such an unsettling thought to Bruce.

[widows_kiss]

She makes a face. "Yeah, that was... strange. Although I think it's more unsettling knowing that that's how they see into this side for everything and anything on every other day."

Bruce wasn't the only one who found that incredibly unsettling. Natasha somewhat rivals him with her need for personal space and privacy on the team.

[hyperkinesia]

Bruce winces a little, almost matching the expression on her face. "Yeah, I try not to... think about that too much."

It's already bad enough that he hasn't managed to get a decent night's sleep since he's gotten here, when he keeps imagining he hears sounds coming from just the other side of the mirror. Like breathing, whispering, scratching away. Covering it up only does so much but at least it soothes his paranoia just a little; sadly it's not enough to grant him some much needed peace of mind.

[widows_kiss]

"Does ignoring it make it better?" she asks, a hint of a smile playing at the corner of her lips when their distasteful expressions match over the matter.

[hyperkinesia]

"Too early to tell," he shrugs, pursing his lips a little. "I'll let you know in a week or so." Still, he's sure that even though it might actually help, it still won't feel like it to him.

[widows_kiss]

"I'll hold you to that," she answers with a warm smile, inclining her head as she flicks her glance over his expression once more, as if searching for something.

"In the meantime, have you gotten all re-acquainted with your new accommodations?"

[hyperkinesia]

"Not really. I've been... kind of avoiding it, actually." Like he'd been avoiding her, like he's been avoiding literally everything so far. But here there's not a lot of places he can run to, so he may as well bite the bullet now and get it over with. "Guess I better do it now rather than later."