Coming home after her first tour had been a lot harder than the second; for the second, she'd been immediately contacted about transferring into a new, (mostly) non-military division, but coming home that first time...She hadn't really had any civilian friends, or at least, no friendships that survived her being deployed and not willing to talk about what she'd seen and done. She had her work on the base, and that had made it a little easier, but walking off-base had shown her a world she wasn't really a part of and couldn't understand, a world that didn't know what she'd gone through or even seem to care.
It was more than simple culture shock; it was expecting things to blow up and trying not to twitch when they didn't and being surrounded by people who didn't understand why she wasn't comfortable unless she was sitting with her back to the wall.
She thought it a fitting sentiment that she'd almost been glad to be called up for the second tour, because at least she knew where she belonged in a war zone, and knew that everyone around her understood: she didn't have to deal with civilians anymore.
By now, she'd come to the conclusion that there was no winning wars - not the ones in the Middle East, and not the one SHIELD would wage with the various villains. There was only surviving it all.
"Sometimes, it's only a ribbon," she couldn't help but add onto Bruce's statement.
And now she really wanted a drink, before she started craving the horrible cigarettes she'd smoked in Iraq because everyone smoked. "I should leave you two to catch up," she finally said as there didn't seem to be a more subtle way to do it. She'd try and figure out if she could have done it better later, in the privacy of her office and with the distance of paperwork. "Maybe see about losing the shoes in a potted plant," she added with a brief smile for Bruce. It was not technically a lie, but was innocuous enough to serve as an excuse for sitting down alone somewhere.