tushanshu | 05 ☣ TEXT & VOICE;

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05 ☣ TEXT & VOICE;

Looking to gather some info. Please respond with succinct list of what you would consider unalterable laws of reality in your home dimension, e.g. gravity, conservation of mass, particular laws of magic.

Will attempt to compile results into meaningful commonalities across dimensions. Maybe there's a universal law somewhere.

Would prefer text response if possible. Thanks.

B. Banner

[The message is then repeated in audio, if preceded by Bruce clearing his throat, for those that can't read English.]

[Voice | 60% encrypted to castmates & established CR.]

Finally got fed up with everyone talking over my head and made a trade to see my future.

[A beat.

In utter, dry exasperation,] You're all nuts. What kind of teamwork was that?

[ooc: Bruce is now post-Avengers! If you're not sure if you're established CR, ping me and I'll let you know if they're included, but feel free to play fast and loose.]

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[The stubbornness is hardly new, but his flat out rejection of her input is and it takes Hayley a moment to reevaluate. She wraps her hands around her neck to make herself feel better, less careful with her movements when knowing they can't be seen.]

I hope you're right.

[Because his return sounds a little too comfortable with the other guy and that's the last thing that Hayley wants, for Bruce to believe it's not the monster he's otherwise insisted it is. Not everyone can be strong all the time, after all.]

[Stubbornness has always been Bruce's foremost obstacle in anything. It took extraordinary bull-headed determination to hold onto specific ideas for as many years as he had, and part of what enabled that was his ability to block out input from others absolutely.

He has a slew of justifications in any circumstance for why he should. They don't know him well enough (something he ensured was the case), they weren't as smart as him and couldn't understand (true of almost the entire population), they'd never experienced the Hulk firsthand (another thing he actively avoided), they weren't the ones living with it... Hayley was too young, too untrustworthy, and too close to the topic at hand.

It's no effort for him whatsoever to reject her influence as much as he's ever rejected anyone else's, positive or negative. Just as he isn't willing to listen to her, Bruce isn't willing to listen to anyone telling him he isn't a monster, either. He's starting to conclude that he's somewhere in between, not human and not inhuman. Unfortunately, that's no help to him whatsoever.

But he also doesn't want to be mean to her. Just because he shut her down doesn't mean he has to be cruel.] I can manage fine on my own, [he assures her, softer in tone.] But thanks for... not telling anyone. [It isn't lost on him that, as far as he knows, neither one of them has broken their agreement.]

[It again surprises her, another turn. Receiving rejection and kindness is tow is so stiflingly unfamiliar that his soft words make her all the more uncomfortable. She's quiet at first, but then continues with the same tone and determination as before.]

I know you can, but you're not on your own anymore.

[Hayley isn't referring to herself. She's referring to Annabeth, who helped set up the garden. To Tony, who she knows Bruce spends time in the lab with. To.. well, whoever else Bruce's friends are. She's never found a reason to keep track and so doesn't care to remember them, but Bruce's inability to run here means that he's not as alone as he'd like to believe. Not anymore.]

You know what you're doing and the last thing you want is for me to keep talking, I know, but I'd feel bad if you did something you could never forgive yourself for and I didn't take the time to warn you beforehand. That's it, okay? So.. thank you, for actually listening.

[And she means it. Even if he ignores her, his taking the time to hear her out is refreshingly considerate. After a beat, her tone shifts to one slightly more solemn.]

I wouldn't tell anyone, even if I hated you. You know that.

[He knows he's not alone anymore. That's been made abundantly clear to him. He just isn't sure how he feels about that-- or how he should feel about it, and how much he should accept it. And he's not convinced that Hayley's giving him unsolicited advice out of the goodness of her heart, or for anything more than selfish motives, indulging her own desire for control.

Bruce might not be alone anymore, but that doesn't mean he's going to grant anyone else the ability to help him. That decision is still under debate. He's taken small, piecemeal steps, calculated risks with specific individuals in specifically determined circumstances. Wholly opening up, though, that's something he's not yet done except under duress, which he's shortly regretted later.]

That could change any second-- me not being alone. [It's dangerous to depend on anyone.] You can help me when you let me help you. I'm not a charity case. [It's his normal, level pointedness, not the edged defensiveness of earlier.]

And no, I didn't know that. [She'd been the first person alive right now that knew, with Tony at this point the second. Bruce hadn't had any idea what to expect; had tried to avoid admitting it'd happened at all. In an effort to keep things as civil as they have been, he expresses some of that as best he can, his voice turning toneless.] The last time someone knew was something like twenty-five years ago.

[The only reason he hasn't shut her down on it already, ten times over, is that Bruce has difficulty being that overtly dismissive to another victim, especially a young girl.]

[His dismissive reply is half-expected at this point and she actually smiles about him not being a charity case, knowing he can't see it. Bruce is about the farthest thing from a charity case that she can think of, so it's actually amusing to hear him state it so outright. His remark about helping her is unexpected though. If she didn't know better, she would guess Bruce was intentionally trying to keep her off balance.

Hiding that humor from her tone, she replies with increased nonchalance.] I don't need help. Besides, the one time I thought I might? You did let me stay, so.

[That's as much as he's getting on that subject. To the latter, her own tone becomes dismissive, her own form of defensiveness.] Come on, Bruce. I won't tell anyone for the same reason you won't. There are just some lines you don't cross.

[Unless they have to be crossed, of course. Hayley full well knows, deep down somewhere, that she would tell people if it was necessary to help Bruce do what was right. But she's still entirely sincere when she says she won't, believing such a justifiable circumstance to be so rare as to deem it nigh impossible.]

[He wants her off balance to the extent that it'll get her off his case, but getting Hayley to let something go is like convincing a dog away from a trail it's scented. She always loops back around to the things he doesn't want to talk about. Bruce isn't too good a person to use slightly combative tactics to put her off if he can, though he doesn't like to use them unnecessarily. His compassion is either his weakness or his saving grace, depending on how fatalistic he's feeling at that exact moment.

Right now, he's itching to be done with anything touching so close to old wounds, but he's not all that fatalistic. He's trying, seemingly futilely, to deter her without being aggressive.]

I'm not looking for help either, [he says firmly, carefully dancing around whether or not he needs it.] So we're even. I just-- wasn't sure. This is, come on, you can't tell me you've ever had a conversation with someone like this before.

[She must know what he means without him explaining it. Bruce certainly has never spoken this frankly to someone else on his childhood, however unintentionally they'd fallen into this accord.]

['So we're even.' Hayley actually understands that sentiment, appreciating its finality in a way that his more aggressive and overt statements failed to produce. She's oblivious to the kindnesses he grants her, the softening of verbal blows and attempts to maintain when he might normally have withdrawn already. Instead, all she sees are the results and, as such, it's that much easier to end the line of thought without comment.]

I don't know what you mean. I actually run around telling everybody. [Sarcasm comes easier than anything else and, somehow, they know each other well enough to understand each others' deflections, dryness, and humor in a strange way. Hayley knows that he'll take the words for what they are rather than any form of dismissing.]

[Thank God. Bruce will take sarcasm-based multi-level conversations over discussing the very real necessity of his self-hatred any day.]

Right. People like us, we're big communicators. Can't wait to have an honest conversation. [The sarcasm might as well be dripping off his words. There aren't many people Bruce feels free to expose to the real depths of his flippant dark humor, but Hayley is one of them.

It's not that he lies much in regular conversation-- he really tries not to. But in terms of emotional honesty, he's been perpetuating intricate deceptions to keep himself at a distance since the earliest age at which he could manage it.]

[There's some level of relief in his mirroring her sarcasm, even as she tries to ignore the continually increasing parallels between them. On a surface level, they're both so distrusting and antisocial that any camaraderie between them is unfathomable. And yet, here they are.

Hayley can't help a smile at his response, that amusement bleeding into her words.] Oh, come on. I've seen you talking to people. You're not the liar you like to think you are, Bruce Banner.

[In truth, she's fairly confident that he is. His ability to read into her own lies has made that clear. But she's curious, wants to see how he might dismiss the accusation or qualify it. Another test. Always.]

[He falls silent for a second.] No. I don't lie if I can help it. But I haven't been able to help it... until recently.

And there's more ways to lie than just technically.

[That much is obvious. Bruce knows how deceptive he is-- how much convincing others that he's a harmless, unassuming scientist is feeding them the biggest load of crap he could deliver. The Hulk is the very opposite of that, and whatever his own opinion on his identity, that's still what lurks inside him. What they have waiting for them if they make him angry.

Bruce lies so much and so constantly that he's become desperate to believe his lies.]

[Her smile doesn't fade, but skepticism trickles into her reply. She knows he knows her better than that.]

I think we both know that we're probably both really good at not technically lying.

[Omission, suggestion, lack of denial, nuance. There are a dozen other ways to lie without outright deceit and yet all of them lead to the same end. All are ways to gain control.

Hayley spends so much of her time lying that she's lost what's true and what isn't anymore on a shallow level, sometimes forgetting her own likes and dislikes or ways to respond to people. It's part of what makes sincere honesty so difficult for her now.]

[It is a means to gain control. There's no doubt about that. Yet for Bruce it isn't so simple; he has both selfish and selfless motives for his deceptions, and they're so tangled together that he isn't able to distinguish them any longer. It makes the concept of not lying, as he's been able to put it aside here-- with Hayley and with others in Keeliai-- strange and novel for him.]

No, I know, [he agrees with her, pensive.] But I don't... get any satisfaction out of it. I'm-- honest when I can be. I've always been honest with you.

[In pretty much all respects. There's no reason for him to be as honest as he has been with her; Bruce has committed himself to it against all reason. Because she deserves it, because he's sick of lying and wants to have it out in the open, because it's simpler. He's not sure which.]

[His reply takes Hayley back for a split second before she remembers his previous statement. He's always been honest with her, but there are plenty of ways to lie without lying. She shakes her head, amused with her own confusion, knowing he can't see. When she speaks, it's with a heightened level of her usual feigned nonchalance, caring more than she admits but all too used to defaulting to that setting.]

I'm flattered. [It's more sarcastic than sincere, but only by a little.] I get what you're saying, Bruce, but it doesn't really count to want to be honest if you're not most of the time.

[He understands using sarcasm to mask sincerity, though he can't be certain that's what it is here.

He sighs faintly at her point.] What does it matter? [There's just a twinge of annoyance, partly because Hayley somehow always manages to make him a little annoyed through sheer persistence. He dislikes that she's so able to get a rise out of him.]

Deception can be necessary. It's not a, a moral absolute.

[She shrugs out of habit, then allows that dismissive nonchalance into her tone.] It doesn't really.

[A beat, then with more substance to her tone.] No, I totally agree. Deception is necessary.

[He's appeased by that agreement, and his voice lowers, deepens somehow without losing its innate gentility.]

To keep everyone safe. Sometimes you have to.

[Hayley agrees with the sentiment, but she knows that she and Bruce mean it in different ways, so she says nothing in response. After a short pause, instead, she switches tones again.]

I'll see you around.. But take care of yourself, okay?

[He's not taken aback by the abrupt end to the conversation. Bruce does that himself sometimes.]

You too, [he says seriously, before flipping off the feed.]

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