It seems like the first time he's noticed it when he glances down, leaning over a bit to get the full effect of that long streak of mud. "They're quicker'n I remember," he murmurs, looking back up at her, or down, as the case may be here. She's even a little shorter than Alice, and he'd always towered over her. "No need for that, I'm well supplied, but thank you for the thought."
When she disappears, so does he, into the bedroom he hasn't used for more than the storage of a few shopping bags, collected one day a few weeks into his stay, when he'd just needed to feel himself moving. He'd made it into an errand, running hours toward a city just to pick up supplies he didn't strictly need, but it does mean there's a new stiff pair of jeans to change into. The muddy sweatpants he wouldn't dream of leaving for her to sort out, he's no stranger to coming home soaked and streaked up after a hunt, and with things far worse than mud. He can hear her in the kitchen when he slips into the bathroom to scrub them down, and with Natasha here now, he's truly intruding on her space. He won't leave them hanging there to dry, a low tree branch will do.
He's long since discovered the tilt of the roof is ideal for the gap in the trees, the best view of the stars as they turn around the sky's axis, and that's where he is when he picks up the soft, smoky-edged singing from inside. It's too quiet for a human to hear, it's not meant to be heard, so it's with hesitation after a long bout of indecision when he swings off the edge of the roof and drops to the ground and slips back inside to listen.
The fire is the only light in the room when she comes back, and the only source of warmth, and one would expect him to be sitting closer to it instead of perched in the windowsill looking out at the few stars he can see from this angle, but he turns his attention to her as soon as she appears in the door, head turning to follow as she walks across the room to the fire, attuned—maybe a little too attuned for comfort—to the only person he's seen in over a month.
"We can eat, a little," he admits. "Not too much. I'm sure they would've gotten around to testing that." Because they should really talk about that, shouldn't they? That whole raid situation, and what they'd done to him. Or tried to do. He'd been more resilient than they'd planned on, that much had been obvious, even after they'd managed to starve him enough to control him.
no subject
When she disappears, so does he, into the bedroom he hasn't used for more than the storage of a few shopping bags, collected one day a few weeks into his stay, when he'd just needed to feel himself moving. He'd made it into an errand, running hours toward a city just to pick up supplies he didn't strictly need, but it does mean there's a new stiff pair of jeans to change into. The muddy sweatpants he wouldn't dream of leaving for her to sort out, he's no stranger to coming home soaked and streaked up after a hunt, and with things far worse than mud. He can hear her in the kitchen when he slips into the bathroom to scrub them down, and with Natasha here now, he's truly intruding on her space. He won't leave them hanging there to dry, a low tree branch will do.
He's long since discovered the tilt of the roof is ideal for the gap in the trees, the best view of the stars as they turn around the sky's axis, and that's where he is when he picks up the soft, smoky-edged singing from inside. It's too quiet for a human to hear, it's not meant to be heard, so it's with hesitation after a long bout of indecision when he swings off the edge of the roof and drops to the ground and slips back inside to listen.
The fire is the only light in the room when she comes back, and the only source of warmth, and one would expect him to be sitting closer to it instead of perched in the windowsill looking out at the few stars he can see from this angle, but he turns his attention to her as soon as she appears in the door, head turning to follow as she walks across the room to the fire, attuned—maybe a little too attuned for comfort—to the only person he's seen in over a month.
"We can eat, a little," he admits. "Not too much. I'm sure they would've gotten around to testing that." Because they should really talk about that, shouldn't they? That whole raid situation, and what they'd done to him. Or tried to do. He'd been more resilient than they'd planned on, that much had been obvious, even after they'd managed to starve him enough to control him.