The year's grandest gala for those who have slipped in the spaces that stand between stories...
Some time in the evening, a musical chiming starts in the atrium. A soft grumble, and then a roar, and one entire wall descends slowly on gears into the floor. Beyond it lies a resplendent marble plaza, walled on its remaining three sides in glass
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Large enough that they easily swarm around him and carry him down to the atrium, depositing him among the guests before sweeping off back wherever they came from in the first place. He reddens and shifts from one foot to the other, feeling entirely out of place amidst all the finery in just his ruined, over-stretched, filthy cargoes. Never mind that parties have never been Bruce's thing.
The discomfiture lasts until he's distracted by the wall and his brain starts trying to figure out how that would work. But then he's in a suit and being ushered to a table full of more strangers. Joy. He keeps his head down to avoid eye contact with anyone, only raising his eyes to see who's announcing whatever. ( ... )
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"...Uh. Um, not. Sorry, but not really. It's nothing against this whole thing, I'm not much for the, er." He weakly waves a hand at the room and its various occupants. "Entire party. Thing. It's not my thing, you know, I know it's some peoples' but. Not mine. Is all."
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She's a little distracted from that when she recognizes Bruce not far away, and... okay, she's honestly a little surprised to see him here. Or a lot.
"Okay, so you don't spontaneously combust when you're inside a building or around large groups of people..." Because that was absolutely a legitimate concern. Though around here, you never know...
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When he sees who it is, he hunches his shoulders and ducks his head down, like he's trying to somehow sink into his chair and away from view. Funny how that never seems to work. This means he's going to have to talk back doesn't it. "...Uh. H-hi there. And no, that's n- I don't. That's not the issue okay, with the. People. Some people just like their privacy and everything, you know. It's a legitimate, reasonable thing. Okay? Never mind spontaneous combustion isn't a-" ...Right. That idiot with the Fantastic Four. "It shouldn't be possible," he finishes under his his breath, and no, he's not sulking at how science has been turned upside down and inside out back home. What.
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Meredith wonders if he flinches like an abused puppy when everyone talks to him, or if it's just her. She can't really be that terrifying, can she? Whatever it is, it kind of makes her feel like a horrible person, and it doesn't help that she doesn't know why.
"I just didn't expect to see you here with all these people. Since you, you know, like your privacy. Though I guess if the alternative is freezing to death out there in the woods..."
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It would involve way too many explanations that would lead to more questions that he most definitely doesn't want asked, much less answer. You know, assuming she didn't think he was crazy right off the bat.
He squirms a little in his seat, still not meeting her eyes, not really, anyway. Eye contact usually requires more than a second or two to count, right? Probably. "I wasn't exactly planning on showing up. Not that I'm surprised about that, since my plans aren't really great with their track record of, you know. ...Working." A small, resigned frown at that because hey. That's just how the universe worked - at least for the entirety of the time he'd been in it.
"And I w-" Getting slightly defensive now, the frown on Bruce's face goes from sad to stubborn. "I had a blanket, okay. And I've done more with less, so. I was fine and not a meat popsicle or anything like that."
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She already thinks you're crazy, Bruce. Nothing he could say is really going to affect her opinion on that. She's pretty sure it's a fairly harmless kind of crazy, but she's still really worried that one day that crazy is going to get him killed by an animal or hypothermia or something.
"...how are you not dead yet?" is all she can think of to say, finally. "Really, I... actually want to know."
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Shrugging, he tries for a deprecating smile in order to distance himself from that nigglign voice in the back of his head. "Uh, well." A beat before he shrugs again. "A funnier person would probably have something about, uh. Cockroaches here. Or something. I don't know. ...Sorry."
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Meredith shakes her head a little, reaching up to brush her hair out of her face. "You know what, never mind. I'm just glad you're not dead... yet..."
She trails off as her fingers brush her ear. Her now very pointy ear. What the hell.
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He'd try and fumble for something more to say, but then the ears become. Readily apparent. For a moment, Bruce wonders if she's always had those and he's just never noticed or. If it's something to be worried about. "Ar- um. Are you okay there, or. Um."
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As it is, she yanks her hand away from her ear, trying to look just a little less freaked out than she is right now. "I'm fine. Maybe. I don't know." She takes a deep breath, trying to stop the stammering before she starts to sound like him.
"Um. Does anything look weird around... here?" she asks slowly, waving a hand around the general area of her ears.
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Bruce clamps his mouth shut and shrugs, a quick, jerky motion of the shoulders as he ducks his head back down. Rubbing the back of his neck, he darts his eyes back up again. "I mean, aside from the pointedness, they look normal enough to me."
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They've already established that Bruce's idea of normal is pretty far from most people's. Then, the same goes for a lot of people here... which does not make Meredith feel any better.
She sighs a little, and eyes him uncertainly. "Do you feel weird? For you, I mean? Different from normal at all?" Because it's not just the ears. She'd been ignoring it at first, but now that she's paying attention... it's like she's got a new sense all of a sudden, and she doesn't know how to begin to interpret it.
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...If it makes meta-Meredith feel better, Bruce doesn't like his new idea of normal any more than she does. He misses the days when he didn't think zombies and pointy ears and wrinkly green men from Skrull Mars were just. Random b-movie material. He wants postcards from those days.
When she asks how he is, he panics for a moment before taking a deep breath. Okay. Calm. Check first, and then if panic is required... He'll cross that bridge when he comes to it. His pulse seems normal enough (minus the second's spike of oh god what), his stomach's relatively fine, and he doesn't think he's been slipped anything to mess with his mind. Rubbing the back of his neck, he shrugs one shoulder ( ... )
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