I took a sip of something poison but I'll hold on tight.

[not_lost]

Her hair smelled like old grease.

The step into the Nexus had been unexpected, the dim clatter of Charlie's diner giving abruptly away to the chill cavern of the hotel lobby. The air was scented with fresh cut flowers and floor polish, Fiona a lone miasma of fried food and cheap coffee, and she regarded the scene before her with the weary acknowledgment of the working class. To think, she had once felt like she might actually belong in a place like this, as if trying hard enough made some sort of difference.

Shoulders still slumped, post-shift and tired, she looked to her feet with an outward twist of her right ankle. The hem of her skinny jeans was rucked up, caught against the sturdy black tracker strapped around her ankle. No blinking red light, no heart-stopping beeping. She guessed the purview of the Illinois Department of Corrections didn't reach across dimensions.

Gathering herself with a pop of her spine, she made her way on silent sneakers past the front desk and to the hotel business offices to see if she still had a job.

Fifteen minutes later she was perched on a stool in the Smoking Room, one elbow braced against the polished bar top, chin cradled against her palm as she stared into a tumbler of whiskey. She needed a long, hot bath and a soft bed, but this felt more familiar. More appropriate.

It just seems that upstream I keep rowing

[dayswithoutincident]

Manage your expectations. It's a simple enough concept, but one a lot of people struggle with, and Bruce Banner is no exception. There's a trick to it, of stepping apart from yourself and finding true objectivity, of having the strength to recognize your own weaknesses and strengths.

What Bruce hadn't realized until recently, however, was that when it came to his own life, expectations involving any degree of reasonable normalcy were so far removed that they might as well have been on another planet. Another planet in another universe, actually, but only if it was one about fifty trillion lightyears away and at least ten thousand years from producing anything resembling intelligent life.

At this point, Bruce isn't sure what reasonable expectations for the average person would even consist of, but he's pretty sure he can rule out accidentally tripping through wormholes to alternate dimensions. What he's also sure of is that it says a lot about him (and how much time he's been spending with Stark) that it hadn't shocked him much to step out of his bathroom and find himself at Pocket Universe Inn. He has colleagues who use robotic suits and giant hammers to fly; it's probably past time to redefine what 'normal' means.

Not that it didn't occur to him that he should probably be a little worried about the whole benevolent way station vibe of the place. There's apparently some kind of celestial philanthropist of unknown motive providing his room and board, but overall it's calm and quiet, and there are dozens of ways out. He hopes it doesn't come to it, but if all else fails, he can take a running leap into the abyss. It's more than he can say for where he came from.

This is his third day, and he's still deep in the thrall of new discovery, a quiet figure skirting awkwardly around other guests on his way outside. On the lawn he pauses, face upturned like a child. The view of the sky is still breathtaking, the infinite cosmos bending around their little island like a stream parting over a stone.