Pepper Potts was a strange woman, Bruce thought, and he wasn't basing this solely on one thoroughly bizarre telephone conversation that still didn't make a whole lot of sense even if it made more than it had at the time. Of course, that wouldn't have taken much. The conversation at Captain America's birthday bash really hadn't help much, except to demonstrate that she had impeccable taste and was inhumanly tall, at least in those deadly-looking heels.
But there they were, together again. Bruce felt strangely torn; the heroes, the strong ones, the soldiers with S.H.I.E.L.D were shipping out into the thick of it, to the rubble and the rescue, digging out the people with their bare hands if they needed and Bruce was striding into the field hospital at the side of Tony Stark's executive assistant. He should have been able to help - he was stronger than all of them underneath it all. If only he had control. It didn't matter that he told himself he was just as valuable as a medic, no matter his doctorate was not technically of the medical variety. He knew what he was doing. He had expertise far outside of his field and from the looks of things, he was going to need it.