insurgents | OPEN POST.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure I know who it was."

Maybe not specifically, but he has a close enough guess.

"You think it's a coincidence that you found me? I don't."

"No, it probably wasn't."

Maybe someone thought the Hulk too might be the result of IGH experimenting, but who would really have the resources and skills to track Bruce down apart from the people they are both thinking of now?

"Are you sure you want to do this, then? Play into their hands?"

She has to ask, even if the thought of leaving this place without him is torture.

"What else can I do? They know where I am now, they'll know where I'll be, no matter where I choose to go."

At least if it's SHIELD who knows, he has just a little more trust that they won't do him harm, or try to use him for some obscure purpose. Doesn't mean he won't be cautious - knowing Fury, he'll probably want him to join the Avengers again, and he can't do that. Not right now, at least.

"At least I won't be alone."

"They're probably hoping I'll get you back to heroing."

Which, admittedly, would be very much in keeping with her character.

That doesn't mean she likes to be used.

"Well, that's their problem, not mine."

He doesn't say it in an aggressive or unpleasant tone, just matter-of-factly. Maybe one day he'll rejoin the team, he might even help if there's ever another worldwide crisis (let's be honest, those are pretty common these days), but for now he just can't do that again.

"There's a new team now, isn't there? I'm sure they'll do fine without me."

"I hope you'll tell me what happened sometime."

Not that Bruce had ever been the most keen on being the Hulk in service of the greater good, but something pretty bad must have happened if it made him decide that he couldn't do it at all anymore.

"I'll tell you know, if you want me to. I don't mind."

It's still something he's working through, but then, so is every incident with the Hulk for the last ten years. But it's not something he's truly uncomfortable telling Trish about - it might be good for him to share all that with her, actually.

"It might help me... Understand."

Why he left her. Why all these months of heartache had to happen.

"Alright."

With that single word, he knows exactly what she means, and understands why that's one of the reasons she wants to know. It's the least he can do for her, right now. In a way, he might even owe her this. Still, he's not sharing it out of a sense of obligation, but because he trusts her, and it's something he wants her to know.

"Well... When Ultron went rogue, he went down to South Africa to get vibranium from an arms dealer there. He had these twins with him, they had powers-- the girl could get into people's heads. Make them see what she wanted them to see, manipulate things and use that against them. She did it to most of the team, but when she tried to do it to me... She couldn't control the Hulk."

He will never not resent what Wanda did, back then. She might have had the best of intentions in mind, but her playing with his mind touched a nerve of his, all the more so when in the end it caused all the death and destruction that it did.

"He went on a rampage through Johannesburg. Tony had a suit built especially to fight the Hulk, but during that fight, the city was... God, it was torn apart. There was just... There were so many people there, scared, little kids, and I..."

He cuts himself short then, cupping his mouth and slowing his steps for a moment, then rubbing over his eyes, he shakes his head.

"I wanted to leave after that. I was going to, I was never planning to even be in Sokovia. After it was all over, I just... it was too much. I couldn't go on. And the whole world remembered Johannesburg then, they probably still do now. I don't think me being back on the team would be welcome by anyone."

Bruce isn't the only one resenting Wanda right now. Trish feels anger rise up in her throat like bile, but she tries to keep her cool for Bruce's sake. He asked her not to be angry for his sake, she will do her level best to honor his wishes.

"I saw the news reports..."

But she hadn't been scared of the Hulk, she had been scared for Bruce.

"I'm so sorry, Bruce. And I know you told me not to get angry but... I kind of really wish I could punch that girl in the face right now."

He'd been plenty scared himself, locked away inside the monster, unable to do anything. Sometimes he still wakes up with memories and visions of that day, gasping and sweating, immediately having to struggle to get his heart rate back under control.

At least he doesn't have those nightmares much anymore, thankfully.

"Don't. She didn't... it wasn't on purpose. It was never her intention to hurt any innocent people, and she thought she was on the right side, back then."

He might have his issues with Wanda, but he can recognize that much. He saw for himself how she just wanted to help and save people - just the same as he. Doesn't mean he'd ever be able to trust her, though.

"Right, because how could innocents possibly be harmed by taking you out of the equation and then unleashing the other guy."

She takes a deep breath and pulls a hand through her hair, aware that she needs to calm down.

"Sorry. Mind control is..."

To call it a sore spot doesn't even begin to cover it.

He gets where she's going, he does, but at the same time, he's been stuck on that same thought for a while, and he's worked his way through it. He resented Wanda for a while, he went so far as to outright threaten her in a display of calm and quiet anger that he didn't remember showing in a very long time.

It took him nowhere, though. And he knows it was wrong of her, dangerous, stupid, but it wasn't evil. She didn't do it with the express purpose of hurting anyone. Well, aside from the Avengers, whom she saw as an enemy at the time.

"I know. And I've been in that place for a while, festering in my own feelings, but nothing came of it. It was just better to let go."

And recognize, in the end, that she was fighting for the same thing as they were.

It's going to take Trish a while longer before she lets it go. The months of pain and sadness, not to mention the endless questions both from the media and her listeners.

If you are a celebrity and your boyfriend ups and leaves you after a traumatic event, you don't get to mourn it in private.

"I will. I just need some time to process that someone messed with the mind of someone I love again."

And there are no guarantees that she will ever be able to look at Wanda (should that ever happen) and not see Kilgrave.

Bruce hasn't even thought of that yet, how she's probably had to deal with one too many people asking her about him. Sure, there were a couple of calls during her program, but they hadn't been that many, and he didn't think that she'd have been bothered about it even more than that.

"It's not the same. I mean, with Kilgrave... Wanda's not like him. At all. I get it'll take you a while, I'm still working through it myself, but that's an important distinction to make."

And little does he know yet, or he would tell her, that Wanda is part of the team now, an Avenger herself.

"If she's nothing like him then she better not mess with anyone's head ever again, friend or enemy."

Some things no one should have the eight to do to anyone, regardless of the situation.

He tips his head in a small nod, deciding to let the subject drop for now. If she wants to know more about what happened, she can always ask, but for the moment he's covered most of the bases, he thinks.

Besides, they're passing the café just now, and he nods toward the corner just a few feet ahead.

"We're here."

It's a tiny door and a narrow flight of stairs that take them to a dingy flat that's a little more than a room with a mattress on the floor, a couch in one corner, and a minimally equipped kitchenette. It's clean and tidy for the most part, but it's still far from impressive, though as they step inside his main concern is with gathering all the sheets of paper scattered around the room. All of them scribbled and written on, some with long paragraphs, others with nearly everything scratched out, and a couple even crumpled up.

Should've definitely remembered all his unfinished letters to her, good job Bruce.

Trish rolls her suitcase in and drops her purse, bending to pick up one of the notes, genuinely just meaning to help.

The place is more or less what she expects it to be, what with the town being what it is and Bruce being who he is.

She's not even all that surprised until she sees her name on the note in her hand, bending to pick up a few more only to find the same thing.

Letters. To her.

"Bruce..."

With the tone in her voice then it should be no surprise to see her holding some of the letters herself, but when he turns, he feels a small lump forming in his throat, his hands gripping the sheets in his hands a little tighter before he makes his way over to her.

"Sorry."

Not that he's ashamed that he tried to write to her, or started hundreds of explanations and apologies in his head and on paper that never went anywhere. He's sorry that he never actually finished a single one of these, that his words never really reached her for all the months she was left waiting, alone and angry and suffering.

"I told you, I tried to write you."

She looks down at the papers in her hand, swallowing hard around a lump that has formed in her throat as well before she looks up at Bruce again.

"You tried a lot."

"Yes."

He looks down, a small sad smile in his face, as he reaches for the sheets of paper in her hand, piling them together with the ones he's gathered already. He'll just throw them all out, probably. Not like he has a reason to keep trying now, anyway.

"Not that it made much of a difference."

She lets him take the letters from her, a hand cupping his face to turn it back up so that she can see her smile.

"It makes a bit of a difference."

It is tangible, solid proof of just how much he did try to explain himself to her. How much he thought of her, longed for her. It is a manifestation of how strong their love was even when they both thought it was something lost.

The gesture has him looking up at her, his free hand moving up and cupping her own.

"But it didn't make a difference then."

She still didn't know, she was still left feeling alone and left behind - which she was, all things considered. His letters never served the purpose he'd intended for them - to explain his decision to her, to apologize to her, to maybe help her move on, maybe even help her forgive him one day - because they never were more than words and thoughts scattered on the floor of his room.

"Well. There's this guy I know, who talks a lot about letting things go..."

Does she wish that he would have managed to actually send one of all his letters? Hell yes.

On the other hand, it wouldn't really have changed all that much. She would still have been heartbroken. She would still be without the man she loved, she would still be thinking that she would never see him again and it would still hurt just as much.

She certainly wouldn't have appreciated any effort to help her move on, because she was damn near allergic to Bruce ever hinting that someone else might be better for her.

Well, he thought it would have helped, at least. But then, what does he know. He has a tendency to screw up anything that's good in his life, though he tells himself it's for a good reason. It's hard to imagine ever having a normal life again, with what he has inside of him, and always will for the rest of his life.

He chuckles at her words, his smile turning into a lopsided grin as he tips his head just so, his shoulders relaxing a little.

"Using my own words against me? How crafty of you."

Jokes aside, she's right. No point in mulling over what he could or couldn't have done differently. It's in the past now, and he tries not to linger too much on that these days.

"But I could never let go of you."

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