angermanaging | IC contact (TuShanshu)

[He means about the food and in general, but Bruce doesn't see it as insulting her. He just means to express his equanimity with the idea of being rejected, to make her feel freer to do it if she wants to. It doesn't need to be a fight with him-- despite prior evidence to the contrary, in the push and pull, the tug, of their relationship to date-- and he'd rather it not be. How to go about conveying that to her effectively, he isn't sure, but Bruce is trying.

He's had to degrade himself too many times merely for base survival to think twice of her doing it here. It's saner if he doesn't see it as degradation, if he thinks of it as pure practicality. The same way he'd gotten through all the begging he'd had to do from time to time, all the reliance on the kindness of people whose language he didn't even speak, barefooted and mostly naked and still given to him.

Hayley asking him to stay the night was an asylum he granted with very few questions asked. Maybe some part of him felt compelled to pay it forward.]

I know that you don't need anything from me, [he answers with slightly raised eyebrows, as if questioning why she'd feel the need to state it, it's so obvious. Bruce takes his seat and snaps open his own eating chopsticks, as unflappable as ever.

He decides to answer the question honestly, since it's pertinent to her staying here tonight, which he's already agreed to.] Yeah. I can manage it if I meditate for a while first. I'm a light sleeper, though. Very light. I especially wake up to doors opening.

[All that old paranoia at work. Bruce offers a half-shrug as he starts to dig into his food.] It won't freak me out or anything if you wake me up.

[Hayley's expression perks at his first reply, a splash of surprise before the more even calm returns again, watching him and trying to predict and understand him anew. She appreciates his seemingly complete understanding of both her inability to trust and of her needs in general, as a teenage girl with the history she has.

She also resents him for that, for getting her more than most people do - certainly more than her own family. It's not his apathy about the whole relationship; she respects that for what it is and delights in the freedom it brings. But he's not the one she would want to understand her, if she could choose. He's too unknown, too risky.

The girl drops her gaze to her food, slowly reaching out to take the chopsticks and break them. Finally, eyes glued to her utensils, she mutters.] Thanks.

[Then she's poking at her food. Her face screws up with concern and confusion until recalling her question, his answer. It's not what she was asking exactly, not the answer she was looking for. In some small, immature way, she appreciates that he answered wrong because maybe he doesn't know her quite as well as she thinks sometimes.

Instead of correcting him, asking him how he deals with the nightmares or learns to sleep through the night, she offers him a smile.] Okay, cool.

[He's honestly not sure if he's being played, at this point. He doesn't know how to take her smiling at him at all, however innocuously meant. It might not be innocuously meant.

Bruce isn't going to puzzle over it. That thanks was somewhat sullen, very teenager. He decides to push a little in between bites, because the truth is that he is still curious, and his help isn't contingent on obtaining answers but that doesn't mean he isn't interested.]

Do I get to know what inspired this? [He gestures between them with his chopsticks.] Asking to stay here. Or should I just, pretend it never happened?

[He will accept the latter. Really.]

[Hayley finds the short-lived silence both comforting and disconcerting at once. She appreciates not having to ask or answer questions for once, but she also isn't comfortable enough with Bruce just to exist in the same place with him without speaking, to trust that each of them is content. When he speaks, she immediately becomes some level of reserved and defensive, but she also feels the smallest sense of relief.]

Maybe both. [She offers with an exaggerated grin, before taking another mouthful of food as a distraction. After the chewing and a sip of water, she shrugs noncommittally, feigning a nonchalance that she clearly doesn't feel.

Hayley shuffles her food idly around her plate, staring down at it, thinking of what words to use. After a beat, she looks up with the same facade of apathy.] With the whole dream thing and then the Big Bad Wolf stalking the network.. I guess I just didn't want to be alone, you know?

[Bruce can't really relate to that feeling. He always wants to be alone-- or so he tells himself. The reality is that he's been alone for so long and so many years, decades, really, stretching back before the Hulk and interrupted only by Betty, that it seems normal to him. What he expects. He's never going to find solace or trust and the fact that he is, here, in some small measure finding it on the turtle, is still bizarre to him. Not something he's gone looking for, when solitude is what feels safe.

He understands desiring company as a common attribute to the rest of humanity, though, and nods.] The dreams were... unnerving. [That's a vast understatement. Death had given Bruce a much, much deeper respect for Malicant than any coyly worded network post could.]

Well, I'm not really great company, but at least I gave you food. [It's his own awkward attempt at lightening things a little, trying to steer them away from the seriousness he'd inadvertently started to lead them into.]

[Hayley's choice to seek company is more a logical decision of necessity than it is an emotional one. Some part of her is scared and doesn't want to face their potential demise alone. As distant as she tends to be, keeping most relationships shallow, she's still used to being around people and engaging with them. Living alone has made her time in the dark before sleep more intimidating somehow.

Yet, the practicality cinched any potential desire not to be alone. Hayley, for all her fight, is still a very small teenage girl who knows very little about magic and even less about combating literal super powers.]

I didn't choose you for your company. [She replies, mirroring his lightness while intentionally hinting that her being here is a very conscious choice, that it was meticulous as anything else she does. Hayley trusts Bruce more than most, truly, but she also trusts the Hulk to protect her -- not by actually protecting her, but by fighting off anything larger while she slinks away.]

[After another bite, she adds with an unusual level of normalcy:] Thanks for dinner.

[The Hulk would protect her, more than Bruce gives him credit for. He has a special weakness for children-- and for women-- and Hayley is young enough that she counts for both. That Bruce himself sees her as someone to protect, despite all evidence to the contrary at her needing it, solidifies that fact. She's undeniably safe with him around.

Bruce would still argue it if he knew that's what she was referring to. He has a blast radius with a high likelihood of collateral damage, and he has not nearly enough faith in the Hulk's moral choices to count on him. As it is, he assumes she means he was convenient, for a variety of reasons. It makes sense to him. Everyone has to do things they aren't thrilled about for practical purposes, him more than most.

He simply acknowledges her with a brief,] Don't mention it.

IC contact (TuShanshu)

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