jadedgiantess | A Weekend Away [Fic]

She changed the messages on her answering machines this time. Her voice is a little raw, a little strained, and it shows in how the tone is more stern and professional.

"You have the mailbox of Jennifer Walters. I will be out of contact until Monday morning at the earliest. If this call is in regards to a legal emergency, please dial pound nine to contact recommended alternate council. If this call is in regards to a superhuman emergency, please contact your local Avenger or SHIELD affiliate. For anything else, leave a message and I'll get back to you after Monday."

She read waiting in the airport and on the flight, putting the book up as a wall between herself and everyone else. It was only one of a series of walls she didn't let down until she saw a familiar face in the crowd of people waiting for new arrivals. Tall, with black hair and glasses, Gary always reminded her vaguely of Clark Kent. She hugged him like a missing brother and didn't say another word.

Gary didn't expect her to say anything else. The call had told him all he really needed to know after all these years. It happened at least once a year or so. Eventually, she talks. In the meantime, it's like having a whole crew of volunteers. Everyone wins, and he gets to have a constant in his life who understands why he started an organization to repair the damage done by Hulk level threats. Someone who actually cared about him and made sure he was doing okay.

She worked all day Saturday, taking breaks for meals only because the other workers needed breaks and would try to keep up with her. She was here because she needed to care about people in an honest way again. Something where things were actually black and white for a while. When big things needed to be moved and shifted, she was the She-Hulk. When they needed someone to fit in the small places, she was Jennifer Walters. There wasn't much left in construction she didn't know at least something about. She knew how to be useful here.

Gary watched her and kept an internal tally. Jen changed some times while she worked, but rarely this often. Normally she was escaping from half of herself into the other. Now she seemed uncomfortable in skin no matter which skin it was, and she was exhausting herself with the rapid rate of change. By the time it got too dark to work, she was barely on her feet. She drank an ate like she hadn't had a meal in days. Still barely a word, and the pattern repeated on Sunday until it was time to take her back to the airport. Gary waited.

An hour away from the airport and she started talking. About a friendship she had made with a man who was not a white hat or even a grey one. About the desire to help him to walk a better path because of the past that shaped him into what he was. And because she couldn't touch him with the law. That she actually likes him. That he's still putting people's lives in danger. That he almost went to kill a girl, and ended up being hurt himself. That she still didn't know what she thought about it. That she was worried that in attempting to help him change, she was changing too.

Gary listened and waited until she was done. Then he asked her a few simple questions. After listening to her answers, he smile and said that if she was changing it wasn't a change for the worst. And she believed him.