BRUCE HAD INTERESTING HANDS. They were calloused, but not necessarily rough, but also not soft. She had never held another hand before, she always wore gloves, but now here she was, trying to understand whether or not she liked this, a feeling so strange, yet still so unsure. She figured his hands must be like that of a doctor, since he was one, though perhaps he could have some aspects of himself taken from the monster inside him.

She debated asking him about it, but she didn't want to unleash the monster without proper protection, so she remained silent, instead simply following him around, walking down the hall towards an elevator.

"Okay, so we're not going anywhere except the hall where my room is," he said, pulling her into the elevator, pausing just before he closed the doors, "Have you ever been in an elevator?"

She shook her head, filing the word away for future reference. Bruce paused for a few moments, just staring at her in clear shock, before gauging her reaction when he pressed a button for the doors to close. She didn't react too badly, simply taking a step back and staring at it suspiciously, her hold on his hand tightening, so he pressed the floor for his room—she couldn't believe that she was able to focus on it when he pressed the button, filing away the number for future reference as well.

She reacted when it began to move, however. 

She jumped when she felt her stomach lurch as they moved downwards, and she grabbed his wrist with her other hand, enough to hurt, and he let out a hiss of pain, and she retracted immediately, panicking at the thought of the monster becoming unleashed.

But he simply took a few deep breaths, shaking his head as he squeezed her hand, and she tried to understand why he did that, but she did relax somewhat knowing that she had an anchor, so she assumed that was the intended effect.

The doors slid open and the two walked out, Bruce's hand still encompassing her own, and it was much larger than hers, and she wondered what her hands felt like, if they were soft or rough, given all that she had done. Her fingers were more slender than his, but no less powerful.

At least, they used to be. She wasn't sure if she still was, that she would have to check, but she wasn't sure she truly wanted to, now that the serum's effects were gone. She had never been so clear, it was hard to handle.

"Are you alright?" he asked, seeing her trying to close her eyes, only to realize that her other senses were becoming heightened, feeling the gown against her skin and his hand against her own.

She opened and closed her mouth, trying to explain herself, but it seemed that he had caught on. "You're probably having sensory overload. You said that the serum manipulated your focus and abilities, right?"

She nodded, unsure as to why she was so uncomfortable, what with the serum having heightened her senses previously, but it seemed that it was all conditional. Now, it was everything, there was no control except her own, and she had never been given control before.

"So you've never been in an elevator before?" he asked, the two continuing to walk down the hall, and she nodded.

"I did not know what it was," she explained, and he paused, staring at her with wide eyes, and she looked away, hating the feeling of his eyes on her.

"Did you talk much while you were..." he trailed off, figuring that she could fill in her own blanks.

She shook her head, noticing just how unused her voice was as she replied, "I did not talk unless asked to. They taught me to read and write. I remembered some words, though, when speaking."

"Okay," he said softly, opening the door to what she assumed was his room, and he paused, taking in the way she was holding herself, "Do you want clothes now, or do you want to wait?"

She looked down at the gown she wore, confused at what he was asking. She was already wearing clothes. She took in what he was wearing, wondering if he was planning on giving her his own clothes. 

He must have understood what her silence implied, because he sighed, rubbing a hand over his mouth as he made his way towards a door that she assumed was a closet, opening it to reveal a chaotic mess, hidden away from the rest of the organized room.

She looked around as he rummaged through his clothes, taking in his large desk and large TV, his bed bigger than most of her own room. It was rather bare, but there were items strewn about, books stacked upon each other and notes scattered all around, the bed a complete mess.

She turned back around to find him standing there with some shorts and a large sweater. "These are the smallest shorts I own, but I thought maybe you'd like this. They put one of these on me after I Hulk out, just 'cause it's easier."

She frowned, unsure of what he was saying, instead simply moving to strip off her gown. He made a sound of distress, turning around quickly, holding the things out behind him, and she tilted her head, confused as to why he did that.

Figuring he would tell her, she dropped the gown next to her, taking the shorts and the sweater, tugging them on, shivering as she tried to adjust to the pull of the fabric, though she was grateful for the largeness of the sweater, as it didn't touch her skin much, giving her room to breathe and separate from it.

Turning around, Bruce looked at her, giving her a small, encouraging smile. "You look cute."

She furrowed her brow at the word, unsure of what it meant, watching as his smile melted into a look of surprise when he realized she was serious, unable to stop the, "You're joking," that slipped past his lips.

She shook her head, and she sighed, once again rubbing his mouth, and he motioned for her to sit on the bed, which she did tentatively, watching as he rushed to clear off everything, dumping them haphazardly onto the table or simply onto the floor.

"Cute means, ah," he began, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt when he finally finished clearing everything off the bed, frowning when she simply sat on the very edge, "Means you're small and...give me a minute."

He pulled out a phone from his pocket, and she watched him curiously as he began to Google the definition, moving to stand to hover over his hands, which he lowered to give her space to watch.

"Attractive in a pretty or endearing way," he read off, handing the phone over to her, and she cradled it in her hand, unsure of what to do.

She read over the words, pressing her finger against the screen as she did, only for the screen to move and the word to highlight, then when she tried to get it to leave, she opened up a new tab, and she looked up towards Bruce, silently panicking as she shoved the phone back into her hand, holding her own hands close to her chest.

"It's okay, here," he said, showing her what she had done and how to undo it all, giving her a sympathetic smile, "You've never touched a phone before?"

She shook her head, frowning down at the device suspiciously, and Bruce sighed as he pocketed it, motioning for her to take a seat again. When she continued to sit on the very edge, he moved to the other side, climbing on, trying to show her how to lie down normally.

He patted the spot next to him and, after a few long moments, she carefully moved up onto the bed, though she was a little too close to the edge for comfort, but Bruce counted it as a win with a soft sigh.

He grabbed the TV remote, holding it out to her, and she took it carefully, looking between it and Bruce, unsure of what he wanted her to do, and that seemed to be the final straw, Bruce groaning and dropping his face into his hands, and it would've seemed annoyed, had he not looked up and faced her with an expression of pure pity.

"Here," he said softly, taking it from her hands and pressing the on button, the StarkTV immediately jumping to life, "Okay, so, let's just not watch the news."

He swiftly flicked from the channel where the screen was displaying a protest with people shouting, not unlike the protestors that she had seen outside. She watched as his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes drooped. He was sad, but she didn't realize he was, instead turning back to the TV where he was just flicking through channels.

"Here, why don't you try?" he offered, placing the remote in her hands, motioning towards the two buttons, "Top for forward, bottom for back."

She nodded, tentatively pressing the top button, watching as the screen flicked to another channel, showing a woman and a man motioning to what she had learned was a purse with words appearing all around along the edges of the screen.

She pressed the button again, continuing to watch as the channels moved by, going faster to see the different lights that flashed that were starting to hurt, but were too mesmerizing to stop. She did, however, pause at the sight of something sitting on a plate, a kind of food she had never seen before, but assumed was good, given how the woman was piercing it with a fork and taking a bite.

"How about you just keep going through these and I'll go make us something to eat?" Bruce offered, standing up from the bed and walking around towards the door, only to pause and turn to look at her, "What exactly did they feed you back wherever you're from?"

She pried her attention away from the screen to look at him, catching the desperation in his eyes, so similar to the desperation in the victims that had the displeasure of seeing her just before they died, her stomach churning in discomfort at the memories that broke through to the surface.

"I don't know," she said, because food was a necessity, nothing more, nothing less, and she could hardly remember the taste, let alone the sight.

Bruce sighed, rubbing his mouth again before he nodded to himself. "I'll make us some sandwiches, then we'll figure this out, okay? Just look for something you like."

With that, he left, closing the door behind him, and she figured that, if he had any sense, he would lock it, so she simply assumed he had and sat on the bed, because if he was going to kill her, at least she could pretend that she wasn't seeing it coming, continuing to flick through the channels.

She paused when she caught sight of someone standing in the middle of a dark room, bloody and shocked, holding a knife. She leaned forward, frowning at how messy the entire scene was, as she had never once had completed a mission with that large of a mess. 

The scene then switched to a group of people in suits standing in front of a board with pictures of various dead bodies with the blood still on them, the people talking about what the killer could have done and why.

She wondered if there had ever been investigations on the people she killed. Her masters explained that she had to be careful, lest she be caught by law enforcement, and to make the death look as accidental as possible, or at least do all she could to make sure no one ever dug too deep.

She didn't know if anyone ever had. 

She found herself glued to the screen, watching in apt curiosity and horror as she listened to the people talk, using phrases and words that she didn't understand, using devices and technology so foreign she could hardly understand what was happening.

But the scenes with the killer were what got her. These were people, the ones holding the knives and crying over the bodies. They were filled with anger and rage, yet she had felt nothing when she did the same thing; better, of course, but still.

It made her sick to think of how she prided herself in doing everything better, the best, how she hadn't felt a thing, barely registering just how many lives she was ruining by doing what she did; she could remember every conversation her masters had in front of her when they would laugh at the lack of remorse their clients had when it came to killing their loved ones.

She couldn't remember much, but it seemed she could remember all that she wished she could forget.

She was so enraptured with the show that she didn't register the sound of the elevator opening, voices drifting down the hall coupled with running feet, most in sync save for one that trailed behind, desperately calling after them to stop.

It wasn't until the door opened again that she turned, expecting to find Bruce standing there with some food for them to eat, the same pitying expression etched into his features. Instead, she found a man with a goatee and hard eyes, looking grimy and exhausted, but with fire in his eyes, standing next to a blond man with the same kind of exhaustion, his blue eyes like steel, the both of them staring at her with high degrees of suspicion and anger.

"Okay, sweetheart, it's time to go."

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The gang's all here! Most of them anyways, Thor isn't back, but he will be! I'm really proud of this, because I'm still trying to hack out exactly what she does and doesn't know and remember, and Bruce is feeling rather helpless, because while he's a doctor, there's some things he just doesn't know how to react to, because he's in America, she's in America, so expectations are different in some regard than they would be when he was a doctor somewhere else, you know?

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!