If you go out in the woods today, you'd better not go alone. [closed]

[playonforever]

The Wood is bright and friendly and full of birdsong in the half-mile or so around the barracks. Sunlight glances through the trees, turning everything to green and gold. Here and there, between the shadows, individuals appear and disappear. Some of them peek around trees toward the buildings, some of them run laughing through the woods and vanish

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[gammapulsed]

Bruce, for the most part, has kept well away from the majority of people he's seem to have found himself with. He doesn't want to have to deal with the obvious questions people will ask. Like where he's from, why he doesn't have any clothes on, what's wrong with him...

He's just too tired to even begin to try answering any of that. Not to mention he's probably not supposed to, what with security clearances and top secret stamps and whatever other classified crap is piled on top of the Initiative. So it's in everyone's best interest that he just stay away until S.H.I.E.L.D. comes and picks him up. It's just safer this way.

So Bruce is simply walking along under the trees, trying to be careful of where he puts his bare feet, when his head jerks up at the sound of whomever the heck's out there. He knows better, really he does, but he can't stop himself.

"...H-hello? Is somebody out there?"

[playonforever]

"Out where?"

The voice comes from the trees overhead. A young woman drops down to hang upside-down from a branch, her legs hooked over it to keep herself from falling. She has dark hair, full lips. Pale white eyes.. She might look familiar--like a relative of someone close to him.

"Out in the Woods, out in the world, out beyond itself? The details make the difference."

[gammapulsed]

Because he isn't twitchy enough already... Bruce nearly jumps out of his skin, head whipping around to see where the voice is coming from, and he starts forward to try and keep the woman from falling and cracking her head on the ground. Which just makes him feel all the more awkward when she so adroitly handles herself. Of course. What was he going to do anyway.

"Out here, a-apparently," he mutters to himself as he tries to get his pulse back under control. "...Hi th-" The words die in his throat when he gets a good look at her. God, she could be B-

He shakes his head because he's not going to think about that, and the hand holding up his pants clenches just a bit tighter. Instead, he focuses on the eyes - the stark difference is enough to keep him from thinking things he'd rather not.

"I just meant, you know. The general there as in here. This particular area of trees, since you're wanting the, uh. Details."

[playonforever]

"She is in this general area." A giggle, and the girl swings down out of the and lands on both feet. She moves closer, her eyes extremely keen. "And so is it."

She tilts her head first one way, then the other. "Beauty.... beast."

And she taps his nose.

[gammapulsed]

"I can see that," he replies, backing up a bit as she seems so very intent on invading his personal bubble. Bruce likes his bubble, and dislikes people feeling the need to pop it like this woman is so set on doing.

He almost crosses his eyes trying to watch that finger bop him like that, wrinkling his nose at her afterward. God, she even smells li- Focus, Banner.

There's a pang of fear, but Bruce brushes it away as irrational. Whoever this person is, she can't know what he is. She just can't. It's impossible. All this talk of beasts and "it" is just a coincidence. A weird, unsettling coincidence that he shouldn't think twice about, so he shoves his trepidation down and focuses.

"So... Er. Do y- I mean. Usually I know someone's name before they actually start. ...Poking at me."

[playonforever]

She laughs like he's just said the funniest thing she's heard all day. It's too bad he's so fond of that bubble of his, as she's now back in it with her arms draped over his shoulders. She sniffs at him delicately, the tip of her nose grazing over his neck and cheeks.

Should he try to pull away, he'll find her much, much stronger than she looks.

"It doesn't like being poked?"

[gammapulsed]

Bruce freezes at the embrace, completely still but for his eyes which are veritably bulging at the moment and that one vein at his temple that's pulsing under his skin. He tries to cover it up with a nervous chuckle while attempting to disentangle himself and put a goodly sized distance between them again.

"Not really, no, sorry," he says too quickly, and the babbling only comes out the faster when he finds himself unable to get away. "It's nothing personal, of course, pretty sure nobody likes getting poked, I mean, it's just a thing, right. So. If you don't mind I'd much rather not be right here right now and I'd really appreciate it if you'd go and let go of me here. Please."

permission given

[playonforever]

She wrenches him close and kisses him forcibly, and as she does the forest melts into a tidy white-walled cafe with no windows or doors. Just a long mirror on one wall and frames of blank canvas on the others. She releases him and sinks down into the nearest chair. There are two steaming cups of dark liquid--one in front of her, one in front of the other, empty chair.

"Sit. She insists."

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT I AGREED TO NO SUCH TH- orite.

[gammapulsed]

He's still blathering on when she crushes her lips against his, so all he can do in protest is a muffled mmffph. Not very eloquent, of course, and certainly not very effective, but it's the best he can do. (Then again, your best has never been enough, has it? Shut up.)

The kiss is all kinds of wrong and where the woman's resemblance to certain persons of interest used to make him ache, all it induces now is a sick disgust because she'd never do anything like that. And when Bruce looks around at the sudden change in scenery, the sourness shoots up another notch or ten. He hates magic. He really, really does. Calming himself down - or attempting to at least - he takes several steps backward, not taking his eyes off her.

"Uh, no, actually, I'm not exactly in the mood for." He waves his free hand at the whole shebang. "All of this, so. If you don't mind, I'd much prefer to go back to. Where we were a couple minutes ago, if you please. I don't want to waste any more of your time here and."

:| hush you

[playonforever]

"You will sit." The chair designated for him slides back from the table. He'll find his legs giving out and forcing him into the chair.

"And," her voice goes pleasant again as she raising her own mug, "it will drink."

make me :P

[gammapulsed]

Bruce is about to start repeating himself - in the politest terms, of course - about how he'd much rather not, when he's walking back towards the table. His stomach drops to say 'hey' to his kneecaps and his face loses what little color it had left after everything else that's happened in the past few minutes. He immediately throws everything he has into resisting, to just stopping, but all it accomplishes is making his movements slightly stilted before plopping his bony butt into the chair.

"Please, I just. I really, really don't want to, a-as. Nice it is of you to offer, but. No, no, thank you, just. No."

8|

[playonforever]

She watches him over the top of her own mug, mockery in her smile. "So much it doesn't want, and yet is forced to do. So much it says no to -- even its own beloved."

A sip. See? Perfectly harmless. "It will take its ease, or stay until it must."

[gammapulsed]

The armchair he's been forced in is plushly cushioned, deep, and comfortable, but Bruce refuses to relax into it. Every muscle in his body tenses because there's no way, none, that she could know any of that. Everything could have been cold read off of him, he's aware of that, but that last part... No.

He swallows to try and get past the sudden lump in his throat, and sets his jaw. The healthy dose of fear is still there, but the set of his jaw and the quiet bitterness in his voice showcase the severe dislike he's cultivating towards her.

"Fine, fine. You win. I'm taking the ease, but. I'm not thirsty, so." He scoots back into the chair, but keeps a tight grip of the cushion and braces himself if she tries to force him again. That should help, right?

Stupid man.

[playonforever]

There's a faint, predatory glint in the woman's eyes as the mirror along the wall behind her starts to change. It doesn't reflect the woods any more--nor does it reflect the cafe.

What it does reflect are scenes of a green colossus plowing through enemies, soldiers and cities. Bruce being gathered up and led away by men in suits. Betty hugging him in the rain, Betty trying to find him, Betty crying alone.

The white-eyed woman takes another sip of her own drink.

[gammapulsed]

The shifting catches Bruce's attention quickly, and he eagerly latches on to anything to keep him from looking at that too-familiar face.

...Irony. Bruce is far, far too acquainted with it for his taste.

He cringes away from the images of the Hulk, refusing to look at them longer than the instant it takes to recognize what they're showing, and the ones of him being carted around get the same treatment. And then there's... Betty. Try as he might, he can't stop staring. The ever present guilt rises up, thick enough to choke, and Bruce hates himself all the more for doing that to her. For letting her waste those years on him. If he was any kind of person, he'd have let her off the hook ages ago instead of letting it build up into... It's his fault for being selfish, for wanting someone to wait for him, and now Betty was paying for it

[playonforever]

"Drink, and they will fade." She sips at her own glass. "She offered nicely. It did not accept."

A casual shrug. The steam has stopped rising from Bruce's mug. With a wave of her hand and a tremble of liquid--a rainbow glimmer ghosts over the brown liquid--it hisses and starts steaming again.