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Bridget Banner has a couch by the fire, a Stark Industries tablet, and a game of Bejeweled, on which she is focusing with meditative calm.

You might think she wasn't paying any attention to the room around her. You'd be wrong, but you might.

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"...Yes I did," Bridget agrees, quirking a wry smile. "It's a little complicated. She prefers 'she' and 'Steve', but she doesn't actually mind 'he', although heaven help you if you call her Stephanie."

There's a really fascinating play of emotions over Steph's face as she absorbs this, all basically summed up in a what the hell sort of confusion.

Though granted, short of being addressed by her rank and title, she's not too fond of 'Stephanie' either.

"But she's... she is a woman?"

Among the many possible answers, she decides to go with, "Yes."

"...okay."

Steph doesn't think of herself as liberal, or open-minded, or especially accepting. But she tries to be these things, at least the latter two. She tries to be a good person. She tries to accept people as they are, not the stereotype they might belong to.

There's the same rush of shame as she realizes it's disgust she's feeling, for this other Rogers who isn't quite the same as her, who confuses the issue of gender.

Steph frowns and looks away. She's not comfortable about that distaste in the first place. The last thing she wants to do is let a teammate know she's judging someone else unfairly.

"It's, um. What do they call it? An interesting multi-verse in here."

"Yes it is," says Bridget.

Oh boy. Now she's extra glad she didn't bring anything up about Tony.

Steph probably would have reacted better to these hints if they referred to someone else, the same way she reacts to a female Dr. Banner better than she reacted to a male Captain Rogers. Or, for a proper parallel, the way it doesn't bother her to hear about a Clint Barton, when she knows Claire.

It's different, when it's different versions of yourself, who all ended up in the same place, with the same honors, and the same team.

Training aside, small talk has never come naturally to Steph and she's struggling with changing the subject now. There's a very awkward silence before she shifts, face blushing pink and both hands wrapped around the water bottle. "I'll, um. I should get out of your way, Dr. Banner."

"If you want to," she says, because while she isn't aching for Steph to get out of her face or anything, she really doesn't see any way to rescue this conversation either.

She absolutely does want to escape from the awkwardness of this conversation, but with the ball in her court like that and Bridget neither agreeing nor arguing it, Steph stutters, at a loss for how to proceed politely.

"I just," she says finally, flashing a smile with a gesture to her running outfit, cheeks still pink, "I should get cleaned up. But it was real nice to meet you."

"Yeah," she says, and smiles a genuine smile. "It was nice to meet you too."

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