It takes him a long moment to settle in a way very few people would be able to detect - he wasn't properly on guard or even on edge around her, but the strange anxiety that grips him is always present. It eases finally, as though he needed time to process this and decide to accept it as reality, and he squeezes her hand.

Bruce tips his head back over the edge of the sofa and closes his eyes, letting his breathing move towards something more meditative - something closer to how he is when he isn't trapped in whatever vortex of suffering he's currently in.

The quiet is a relief. The townhouse doesn't have the tomblike silence of the manor, or even the removed distance of the penthouse - too in the middle of a contained city, built for budget and not citadel privacy - but there's a kind of peace about it that the two of them make. The dog doesn't invade; at some point Ace slunk out the small door to patrol the yard, hopefully shooing off any lurking red birds.