#ofbanncr

      “Oh c’mon! You can’t start taco night without me!”

… wut?

            ❝  ------  y’know  ... you  never  cease  to  amaze  me,   kid,   sometimes  i  think  you’re  a  heck  of  a  lot  smarter  than  your  old  man.   just  ...  don’t  tell  him  i  said  that,   i  don’t  want  him  crying.  ❞             playful  wink  was  sent  in  her  direction  followed  by  a  short  laugh,   unable  to  stop  himself  from  poking  fun  at  bruce  even  when  he  wasn’t  here  ;   but  of  course,   juliette  still  deserved  all  the  recognition  and  praise  no  matter  what,   she  was  incredibly  intelligent,   and  he  was  damn  lucky  to  have  her  here  to  be  able  to  work  with.

The QUESTION had been sitting in his mind for some time. He simply hadn’t had the full inclination nor found the time to outright pose it to the woman. Still, it NIGGLED in the back of his thoughts during every one of their sessions together, every time they spoke, every time she tried to delve into the way his mind ticked now, hoping to restore some semblance of peace.

“Can I ask you SOMETHING?” The question was finally probed in a lulled moment of silence when he had been sitting with Juliette in her lab, the sound of the woman’s fingers tapping against a tablet as she transcribed her notes the only real disturbance in the room beyond the thoughts in his own head. Questions were something freely accepted, he KNEW. Juliette was very welcoming of anything James had to say or ask, and he was well aware that she tried hard to make it as COMFORTABLE of an environment for him in that regard as possible, given their reason for being there.

" --------- I know you might feel strongly about ------ EVERYTHING.” Brow furrowing as he searched for the right words to convey his thoughts, he gestured widely with his one hand, shrugging his shoulder a bit with a shake of his head. “The Accords. Ross. Stark. All of it.” Looking up to meet the young woman’s gaze, the DIRECTNESS of his tone conveyed the significance of the question he was trying to get across. “But even if you FEEL strongly about something --- ALL of those things. . .” Trailing off, he shook his head, the frustration with HIMSELF evident on his features, unable to help but feel as though maybe he were OVERSTEPPING HIS BOUNDS.

At the end of the day, it wasn’t his business ------ Juliette’s REASONS, the WHY behind her actions. She had piqued his curiosity and he couldn’t help but ask, but that didn’t automatically warrant him the RIGHT. Still, the one thing Juliette insisted on --- REPEATEDLY --- was that they had to be open with each other. He sure as fuck wasn’t any too good at opening up ------ the evidence of that had been given time and time again by now. But they had to trust each other if they were going to get ANYWHERE --- that had been established from the beginning.

He knew that if she wanted him to be open with her, she would be just as open with him --------- at least, he THOUGHT so. Which was why he finally pressed on with his question. “Not EVERYONE would throw themselves into the THICK of it. Align themselves with a group of FUGITIVES running from the U.S. government. Hell, from the U.N. itself. Make themselves a CRIMINAL just for helping one of US.” Dropping his gaze away from her, his fingers played idly with a scrap of paper on her desk, anything to DISTRACT his attention away from her gaze while he finished. “Especially me.”

Send 📱 for five texts my muse didn’t send yours, and one that they did || accepting

[ sms ;; juliette ]: i apologize if i came off a little rash this afternoon, juliette, it was never my intention to upset you. i hope you’ll forgive me [ MESSAGE NOT SENT ][ sms ;; juliette ]: i’m not a doctor, i don’t know how to help her...i don’t even know what to do to help her. she won’t let hank see her and i think the pregnancy is getting to her but i don’t know what to do [ MESSAGE NOT SENT ][ sms ;; juliette ]: so i had a brilliant idea...i wanted to run it by you... [ MESSAGE NOT SENT ][ sms ;; juliette ]: ah, no need to worry, i understand. i didn’t have the best home life myself, despite popular belief. [ MESSAGE NOT SENT ][ sms ;; juliette ]: do you like italian? [ MESSAGE NOT SENT ]