[It's been so long since he's touched Betty that it's nearly disorienting to have it happen now, a hope grown dusty with disuse, made worse by the fact that it's not exactly right. It's her, and it's not her. The sentiment behind what she says is piercingly familiar, exactly the same, but the way she says it and her overall manner are different. Her life, her history, are different, and that most critical thing that makes him let down his guard around Betty isn't here-- her soft spoken lack of pressure, her silent and total understanding and acceptance. Gone and impossible between two people that haven't spent years sleeping beside on another.

Yet it's just enough the same, and Bruce is already growing to appreciate her for her own merits, that it gets to him. His fingers closely tightly around hers in an unconscious spasm. He controls his expression as best he can, but is unable to prevent some of the fierce ache of missing her from slipping through.

She should blame him. She should. But Bruce knows Betty. He knows that's a losing battle for him to fight, and it's one he's never wanted to win, anyway.]

I'm still going to worry about you, [he admits ruefully.] I'm sure you don't need it. [A moment's pause, as he looks into her smile, before he adds,] And you've always done your share of the protecting.

You're really-- not that different, that way. [Bruce has no illusions that Betty had always protected him as much as he'd protected her, and she truly had the harder job: protecting him from the demons in his mind.]