Chapter Nine: Curse of the Ninth

After Cicely's comment about the observation room, Stark took measures to ensure her privacy. He suited up as Iron Man and hauled in four tall filing cabinets to line up against the two way mirror, piling up numerous boxes to completely cover every inch of it. When she asked him why he covered it up instead of moving her, Stark told her that he'd been looking for a place to store the stuff ever since he'd gained custody of those records.

The doctors at his facility were much more attentive than at the ER, but she didn't know whether that was because they had fewer patients or they didn't want to risk upsetting someone of Stark's stature. He seemed to recognize that as a possibility, though, and excused himself from the room when medical staff came by. In between, he was cordial and funny, sitting in a chair beside her bed and chatting with her- but she did notice he never spoke about anything of actual consequence.

Tony Stark was well known as personable, but also overly familiar and eternally curious. Even so, he didn't bring up anything about her family, the attack, or Dr. Banner, expertly deflecting around those subjects if something adjacent came up. As it grew dark outside, his patience didn't wane, but he did offer a quick goodbye when the medical staff stopped by in the evening, after dinner.

After an exam that included looking into her eyes with a light and some cognitive questions, the doctor said, "Well, I think you're clear to get some sleep."

"I wasn't before?" she asked, bemused.

"No," was the surprising answer. "When you arrived we had some very real concerns about your concussion. It can be difficult for a patient to stay awake and engaged without doing other brain-taxing activities to keep busy, so it was kind of Mr. Stark to stick around. I think the danger has passed, now."

Cicely didn't know what to think. After the doctor left, she thought back through the day and realized that she had never been left alone since her arrival, until right now. All desire for sleep was chased away by shock. Tony Stark was one of the most famous people in the world, and he'd sat by a stranger's bedside all day, fully engaged in conversation. It was an uncommonly kind thing to do, and just thinking about the implications made her sleepy. She decided to do as she was told and get some rest, but right before she closed her eyes, a new thought surfaced to shake things up.

Stark must have done it out of friendship for Bruce Banner.

Except… everything she'd seen from Banner would seem to imply that he wanted nothing to do with her. Cicely fought back the tendrils of sleep to think through the information she'd gleaned by looking him up. He'd struck her as brilliant, conscientious, but above all else, intensely private. The kind of person who would deny himself something if he thought that was in others' best interest.

Something- but also someone?

As a contrast, Tony Stark was gregarious and sociable. The sort who would do what he thought was right, and damn anyone else's opinion.

Cicely sat up, the blankets falling from her shoulders.

Stark had asked her a lot of questions, sure, but in an organic way that didn't feel like he was interrogating her, more like learning about a new friend. They'd talked about favorite childhood treats, about exciting moments on vacation, about favored pieces of music. Humanizing things. The sorts of things you'd find out from a new lover over a series of dates. But- for all that he'd spent the whole day with her, he was still Tony Stark. The man was known worldwide as impatient, outrageous, arrogant, and so on. There was no way in hell he'd be able to remember all of the anecdotes she'd shared, and even less chance that he'd sit down with Banner and detail them out.

Had Banner been watching? Had Stark been recording?

Either way, that meant a camera was probably trained on her bed. Impulsively, Cicely spoke out loud, knowing that if she was wrong, no one would hear her.

"Anthony Edward Stark, turn off the camera. Shame on you!"

Certain of her conclusion, she settled back in to go to sleep. If she was right, she'd get at least one more visit from her new friend Tony Stark in the morning.

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"Okay, I have bad news, worse news, and news you might try to punch me for, which one do you want first?"

Tony Stark was standing in the doorway, his hands in his pockets, waiting for an answer. Cicely had been awake for a grand total of thirty minutes, ten of which had been spent taking a shower in complete darkness in the windowless bathroom just in case there was a camera in there, too. Her hair was still wet. The billionaire's abrupt greeting at least gave her a chance to relay an important piece of information without the awkwardness of someone trying to pry it out of her.

"Let's see: my apartment's been ransacked, it was the family of criminals that raised me who did it, and you accidentally signed off on their petition to have me declared legally incompetent?" The latter was something her mother had threatened many, many times. Cicely didn't really know how far her family's ties to organized crime went, but corruption was a necessary component of that. The idea that Mama Marta might have pull with a judge who could make it happen had hung over her teenage years like a dark cloud.

"Those were three solid guesses," Stark said, walking over to the side of the bed. She felt at a distinct disadvantage, but the shower had been a challenge even without the ability to wash her hair, so standing up wouldn't help her dignity much. "No, the bad news is that your foster monster is in jail and racking up false criminal accusations against you. The worse news is that you've been evicted." He rocked up on his heels and dropped back down, cheerful and matter-of-fact.

Those did qualify as bad news, but they weren't all that surprising.

"The nice thing about having to run for your life with nothing but the shirt on your back is the lack of sentimental belongings to worry about losing, Mr. Stark," Cicely said quietly. Stark may have gotten her to speak about various mundane things about her life on camera, but the important stuff was… important stuff, and all much more relevant to a man like Banner. If her hunch was right, that was.

"I'm starting to see that," Stark said, eyeing her with that 'figure out the puzzle' look again. "Are you ready for the coup de gras?"

She couldn't think of anything clever to say, so she nodded.

Stark took an envelope and a ring of keys from his pocket and held them up. "This is a keycard to the front door of my tower," he said, waving the envelope. "These are keys for your new, very secure apartment and the elevator to access it with."

Cicely was so shocked that she just sat frozen as he dropped both items in her lap.

"Talk to me, Besnard."

"I-" She felt a sharp pain in her head and hissed.

"Shit," Stark said, sitting down beside her legs and reaching his hand over to touch her forehead. His hand was so warm that she drew back. "Yeah, that never works. Everyone's colder." He started searching the side of the bed with his hand, clearly looking for something, until he stood up and frowned. After a scan of the wall behind her hospital bed, Stark leaned over and started pulling on something, showing it to her after he'd gotten it untangled.

It was her call button.

"You're kidding me, right? This soulmate stuff is a real bummer for people with self-sacrificing personalities, I'm telling you!" He waved the call button in her face. "This is important! Not the least of which because if something happens to you, your Green Giant becomes a lot less Jolly!"

Cicely wasn't surprised when the door behind him opened, since he'd probably hit the call button during his rant, but then the visitor spoke.

"Tony, you promised me you wouldn't use the threat of transformation against her!" Dr. Banner said wearily. Stark put the call button right beside her pillow and stepped back. Banner didn't move further into the room, though. "Ms. Besnard, I'm sorry about him. In general, I mean, but specifically here, too. The eviction is illegal, but I think you'll agree that it's for the best that you be relocated somewhere safe, so that our association with each other remains loose and not vulnerable to exploitation."

Banner looked tired and apologetic, but Cicely was just happy to get a chance to see the man. If historic trends continued, he'd be running away from her any minute now. If that were the case, she'd have to fire her missiles now, or not at all- because if this man was worried about her being vulnerable to exploitation, he and his billionaire buddy hadn't dug deep enough into her past. Her soulmate didn't think she was safe around him? Well he wasn't safe around her.

"Were you listening at the door or from the video feed, doctor?"

Stark was shaking his head in amusement. "If Hulk had a soulmark I'd be dragging you both down to containment and selling Pay-Per-View tickets."

Banner's huff of a sigh was long-suffering.

"I've asked your attending to sign off on a medical leave of absence. It's an ethical gray area given that I've been added to your chart and vice versa- confidentially, don't worry," he rushed to add. "There's more I need to tell you about-"

"-and vice versa," Stark interjected.

"-but that can wait after you're fully recuperated from your head injury."

Cicely was impressed that the man didn't even pause to acknowledge his friend's interruption.

How could she possibly manage to keep her estranged family away from these people? The impossibility of the tasks ahead of her robbed Cicely of her ability to breathe for a moment, which wasn't helped by the fact that she was being stared at by two of the most powerful (mentally and physically) men on the planet. Her first instinct was to stand, to give herself the appearance of mobility, even if that weren't the case. When she swung her legs to the floor, though, both men advanced on the bed, and the envelope fluttered to the floor.

Banner half knelt to pick it up, reaching over to hand it to her before standing.

"Well isn't that just symbolic as all get-out!" Stark observed. Dr. Banner groaned, standing up swiftly, but side-stepping to move between his friend and her bed.

"He did promise me I'd want to punch him at some point today," Cicely whispered up to him, reluctantly taking the envelope. She was a pragmatist, after all, and the generous offer of a secure place to figure things out really was her best option. Having lived through the 'nuclear option' at least once before, she was at least prepared to do it again. The only question is how often she could successfully rewrite her life.

Banner's face shifted from deep annoyance to gentle amusement on hearing her joke about punching Stark. It was a handsome look on him, and something inside her stirred with interest, setting off alarm bells in her head. After all, this was the longest conversation they'd ever had. If she was already fostering fondness, that didn't bode well!

He reached up to brush the hair out of his eyes with a large hand, and Stark came up beside him, resting his hand on Banner's side in what would have looked like a collegial manner to anyone else. It wasn't, though. Under his hand was Banner's soulmark, and all three of them knew it. Banner knocked Stark's hand out of the way, but the elephant had already been released into the room.

Cicely threw herself to her feet, wobbly balance and all, which sent the keyring flying across the floor.

"You were saying something about symbolism?" Dr. Banner said, starting over.

Stark jogged over to set his foot on top of them, making the strange choice of sliding backwards to lean back against the door, the keys still captured under his foot.

"Look, I don't pretend to know what kind of martyr olympics the two of you have in play, here. All I know is that I had a cushy life and hardly a care in the world for the ten years I spent between speaking my first words and realizing who I'd said them to. You two? Have more than ten years' worth of trauma each!" Stark said brusquely. "My life was so much better after accepting my soulmate. It's completely worth the interpersonal work- and that's coming from me."

"Tony, don't. Not right now," Banner groaned. She wholeheartedly agreed with the frustration she could hear in his voice. Cicely had done research on what the man had been through (or at least, what wasn't classified), and there wasn't a chance in hell Stark could have an idea of her own past. They couldn't possibly be better for each other than they were apart!

"It's not about soulmates, Stark," she said. "It's about safety."

Dr. Banner was standing between herself and Stark, and she watched him freeze in place on hearing that. He probably thought she meant her safety in regards to Hulk, but correcting the mistake would be detrimental to her plans to keep him away from her.

"She's right," Banner said. He sounded very tired.

The slicing pain she kept feeling in her head was striking her in the chest now, but Cicely ruthlessly suppressed it. She'd known when she got free of the Klopov family that she would have to spend her life being careful on behalf of anyone she spent time with. Even if that person was a brilliant scientist and an overall fascinating person. Even if he was a superhero.

"It's about safety? All right, so be it!" Stark said angrily. "We'll be headed back to the tower in an hour. You're both grounded to the building." He pointed to both of them in turn. "Talk some of this out within forty-eight hours or you might find yourselves quarantined together the next time you cross paths. I'll have JARVIS whip up a new protocol just for you and name it something incisive and insulting. Speaking of Pay-Per-View, maybe I'll get lucky and it'll be one of the elevators!"

"How about the Exit Strategy, which sounds like something you should start looking for right now, Stark," Banner said. His voice was low and upset, not quite menacing, but getting there.

"Yeah, I get it. I'll take my punchable face elsewhere." The billionaire leaned sideways to wave at her. "Welcome to the family."

"Goddamnit, Tony!" Banner said.

"I promise it gets better!" Stark called back to her as her soulmate removed him from the room with a firm hand on his shoulder.