InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Coffee tastes like poopy-shit."

PEPPER P. (saltedand) wrote in rooms,
@ 2014-05-23 19:07:00

Entry tags:

*journal, bruce banner, pepper potts, selina kyle

Marvel: Selina K
[Locked to Selina K]

No one is saying anything at all. Ra's isn't posting. Does that mean you're all right?

[Edit: Bruce B]

Have you completely lost your mind?

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P saltedand 2014-05-23 07:02 pm UTC (link)
	Excuse me? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P isalwaysangry 2014-05-23 07:04 pm UTC (link)
	I just got back to my lab, and I'm starting to suspect that I'm about to get ten different messages from people yelling at me. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P saltedand 2014-05-23 07:06 pm UTC (link)
	You are far less intelligent than I gave you credit for. Did you just not think, or do you not actually understand that threatening to buy real estate as a strong-arm tactic makes you an ass? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P isalwaysangry 2014-05-23 07:07 pm UTC (link)
	I didn't mean it, Pepper. I said that so she would stop for five seconds instead of run into the back caves while she was sedated and injured. It made her hesitate long enough for us to talk. I don't want to live in DC, and I don't have any money to buy property anyway. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P saltedand 2014-05-23 07:09 pm UTC (link)
	Did you perhaps think that if she is trying to run away you should let her? Moreover, that threatening her was a terrible idea to make anyone stop anything! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P isalwaysangry 2014-05-23 07:11 pm UTC (link)
	Caves. Injured. Sedated. She could've hurt herself worse. It wasn't a real threat! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P saltedand 2014-05-23 07:12 pm UTC (link)
	I'm stuck on why you think any kind of threats are a negotiating tactic. Your intelligence in my estimation is plummeting by the second. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P isalwaysangry 2014-05-23 07:15 pm UTC (link)
	Pretty much the obvious answer. I wasn't thinking. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P saltedand 2014-05-23 07:16 pm UTC (link)
	No. And your instinctive response was to threaten her. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P isalwaysangry 2014-05-23 07:17 pm UTC (link)
	It wasn't a threat! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P saltedand 2014-05-23 07:19 pm UTC (link)
	Repeating 'it wasn't a threat' over and over does not make it less of a threat. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P isalwaysangry 2014-05-23 07:21 pm UTC (link)
	Fine. Any other parts of the conversation you want to yell at me over? I think there's at least four or five other points that are more valid. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P saltedand 2014-05-23 07:22 pm UTC (link)
	Aside from you treating her like you're another man in her life who gets to tell her what to do? Why don't we start with calling attention to yourself from Ra's? I didn't imagine you had an ego problem, Bruce. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: Bruce B/Pepper P

isalwaysangry
2014-05-23 07:26 pm UTC (link)

It had nothing to do with my ego. I thought there was a small chance Ra's might give me information so I could give it over to the Batfamily. I didn't even expect him to talk to me, but once he did, I thought he might make a mistake he wouldn't make with them since I was a stranger. I copied the conversation to Tony, Steve, and one of their people. I was trying to help catch him.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: Bruce B/Pepper P

saltedand
2014-05-23 07:27 pm UTC (link)

If it had nothing to do with your ego, you wouldn't have brought yourself into it. You don't know Ra's. You weren't there the last time it happened and you didn't ask Tony first or he would have told you not to, let alone Steve. You have opened the door up to the trouble Selina was trying to keep us out of.

And if you ever expect her to talk to you again, you need to know not to issue ultimatums.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P isalwaysangry 2014-05-23 07:38 pm UTC (link)
	You're getting all your information from Selina who was unconscious during most of this. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P saltedand 2014-05-23 07:40 pm UTC (link)
	So you didn't goad Ra's? Or start a fight with a woman who desperately needed to feel safe? No? Right. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P isalwaysangry 2014-05-23 07:46 pm UTC (link)
	I didn't goad Ra's. I didn't start the fight, but I did screw up and get into a fight instead of trying to help her calm down. I know that, I'm aware that I messed up and I made a mistake. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P saltedand 2014-05-23 07:47 pm UTC (link)
	Do you know why you messed up? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P isalwaysangry 2014-05-23 07:48 pm UTC (link)
	Because I was being selfish and focusing only on my pain and emotion instead of hers. She went through a horrifying ordeal and I wasn't offering my support or seeing to her well being. She was feeling trapped and upset and I made it worse by pushing her. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: Bruce B/Pepper P

saltedand
2014-05-23 07:52 pm UTC (link)

Because you made a situation that wasn't about you and her, about you and her.

She's a vigilante, Bruce. There will be situations she's in that have nothing to do with you. Either you accept that she is going to go off and do completely stupid things and come back hurt and irritated that she's not able to get up and do them all over again and that that decision is hers and is about the moment and the action and the adrenalin rather than about you, or you stop. Now. Because you will get hurt. And she cannot stop being who she is, and if you try and make it about you every time, you'll get her hurt. [We are so not drawing parallels here from our own experience. Oh no.]

So you stop pushing. You let it be about her. Not what you want. Or what you want her to want. Or what you think she should want. About what she wants. When she wants to have those conversations.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: Bruce B/Pepper P

isalwaysangry
2014-05-23 08:02 pm UTC (link)

There's a difference between knowing she's a vigilante and she's out there, and seeing a video of it or listening to her cry in a recording. Do you think there's anyone who can see a loved one in that situation and not want to do everything in their power to help? Listen I was chomping on the bit because it was Selina, I'm not going to pretend otherwise, but if I saw that video and it was anyone else apparently injected with plagues, I'd still immediately offer to help. I was a doctor in third world countries for years, that reaction isn't new.

I've never tried to stop her from being a vigilante. I've spent months dealing with her injuries and I still haven't asked her to stop. I even helped her design a cast she can wear under the catsuit for her arm so she could be safer while she goes out there. But she's come to our door when she heard I was in trouble twice now, and if I told her not to, she would do it. She knows that, she said she was aware she was a hypocrite.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: Bruce B/Pepper P

saltedand
2014-05-23 08:06 pm UTC (link)

No. There's no difference to it. Because it will happen. I think if you love her, what's in your power to help is to not make it worse. That you need, each time you think you can help, to balance up how not helping helps. How you staying out of trouble helps. And don't try to make it about being a doctor, because if it was about you as a doctor, you wouldn't have gone in headstrong and you would have thought it through and made a plan.

There's a difference between not trying to stop her and accepting it, Bruce. She'll be stupid and foolhardy and hypocritical but it only works if one of you is prepared to not be. To stay safe and to stay out of it. So that you'll be there to make it okay when it isn't, and so you can pick up the pieces when it all goes to hell. That's the only way it can work with someone like Selina.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Re: Bruce B/Pepper P

isalwaysangry
2014-05-23 08:15 pm UTC (link)

You don't know that, Pepper. You don't know me well enough to make assumptions like that. As a doctor I've spent time in war zones and rebellions. I've gone in headstrong to help people. Sometimes the only plan you have is "try not to let everyone die." He said twelve hours to find the person or the plague would be let loose. That requires immediate action. And we did make a plan. I went to the Batcave and used their resources and equipment to prepare for options. They located and brought her back. You weren't in these conversations, you didn't know what we planned, how it was executed, what everyone's responsibilities were. I care about Selina so I was quicker to get there, but if they called me for some stranger off the streets, I would have gone and done the exact same process.

By someone like Selina you mean Tony, right? That might be how you two work, but not all relationships are comparable.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	Re: Bruce B/Pepper P saltedand 2014-05-23 08:19 pm UTC (link)
	Bruce, you said you weren't thinking just like a doctor because it was also about Selina. So it's not an assumption, it's an extrapolation. No, I wasn't part of the conversations or the planning. This isn't about me. Really? Because right now, you're not listening to her and no matter how different relationships are, they start with listening. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)