Dr Bruce Banner (dr_banner) wrote in pastprologueic, @ 2015-08-14 09:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | !type: log, character: bruce banner, character: natasha romanoff |
Who: Natasha & Bruce
Where: Stark Tower
When: Friday, August 7 - very early in the morning
What: Conversation
Warnings: n/a
Status: Complete in gdocs
It was early in the morning, hours before the dawn, and Bruce couldn’t sleep. His mind racing at a million miles a minute. After a while, he decided leave his bed to distract himself. Wasn’t there some icecream in the freezer? Wearing a light, cotton pair of pyjama bottoms and a loose t-shirt, Bruce ventured barefoot out of his room. On the way to the kitchen, he passes a hall, where, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a light shining from a partially open door. If he had been in the Tower, Bruce would’ve automatically known it was Tony, burning his candle at both ends again. But here? Maybe it was Vision.
Investigating who it might be, Bruce went up to the door and pushed it open so he could snoop inside.
The unmistakeable red hair was the first thing in his line of sight as Natasha stood up. Like Bruce, she presumed that it was Vision, coming to remind her that there were Zzs to be had, and that she was missing them. Sleep had never been easy for her, not even in the old days of the Red Room, where they trained you how to fall asleep fast so you didn't waste time. Now there was just a phantom ache around her wrist from years of sleeping with handcuffs.
Her eyes sought out the intruder, finding a mess of black hair peppered with grey. Bruce. Of course. She'd spent the last week or so dodging him every chance she could. There was work to do, so it wasn't going out of her way. Natasha also knew that were only so many times you could avoid someone.
"Warm milk oughta help with that insomnia, Doc." She remained on her feet, though her eyes went back to multiple screens in front of her.
On it were shipping manifests and ocean maps, marked up with notes that linked to satellite pictures and possible sightings of HYDRA agents. Among the descriptions was a tiny photograph of Bucky Barnes in a cryochamber, along with his military photo. Smiling. Short hair. His whole life ahead of him. Description: broad, long unkempt hair (though it might be cut in order to stunt people looking for him, peak physical condition, metal arm.
A few clicks to the computer, she returned her attention to Bruce. "I think you made a wrong turn for the kitchen. It's the other way."
The sight of Natasha brought simultaneously both attraction and aversion. Bruce’s body and emotions wanted to move forward, but his mind caused him to hesitate and remain at the door, standing awkwardly in its frame. They hadn’t had a conversation since the one where they’d confessed they missed one another, and their subsequent interactions were limited to over the internet or short, polite exchanges whenever they happened to meet. He momentarily swayed in his spot, about to take Natasha’s advice and leave, but he decided, against his better judgment, to remain. She privately told him that he gave up too easily dealing with mending his friendship with Tony, but really, he could apply that to all his personal relationships. Bruce has taken her advice and texted Tony, but maybe he ought to do the same with her.
“I was thinking more the lines of ice cream with chocolate syrup,” he said, then added, “Thought maybe you’d like to take a break a join me?”
Ever since his return and recovery, Bruce was kept out of the loop. He’d been welcomed, but he didn’t consider himself part of the team, since he’d asked Steve that he didn’t want to fight anymore. Any emails or communications directed to the Avengers, if they had been sent, were avoided. Bruce wasn’t sure he wanted to know what they were doing. But catching a glimpse of the computer screens behind Natasha made him curious. Even from his distance, he recognized the ocean maps, and guessed, “Are you tracing where HYDRA was taking me?” When she turned around the second time, he noticed the photograph of the man lying in a chamber, but because he couldn’t recognize the details, he asked, “Is that how I was being kept?”
"Nope. That's a stasis chamber. Cryogenics. You were sedated and strapped down on a gurney." Natasha clicked the mouse and set a screensaver to her screens. She could use Bruce's mind on this, but this was something she wanted to do alone. One agent in the field, at the right time… "An old friend we think might have been onboard the HYDRA ship for a brief time." She paused and tilted her head. "It's a Steve thing. Leftover from SHIELD's implosion."
Bruce wasn't a fan of SHIELD, and Natasha used that to her advantage. He wouldn't really want to know much about the clean-up of all of it, and she didn't want to give away the Winter Soldier's identity to anyone who didn't need it. Bruce, officially, had way too much shit on his shoulders to deal with that.
She paused for a moment, trying to think. Ice cream -- with Bruce -- wasn't such a great idea, but she also thought she could get a bead on his state of mind. She shrugged. "Sure. I could use some chocolate."
Bruce knew better than to push for answers about a mission, and the moment the screen saver went up, the conversation was closed. Whatever it was on that screen, Natasha didn’t want him to see. “I get it,” he said with a nod. “A friend.” The stress on the word meant that Bruce thought Natasha was being sarcastic, and so was he. “An agent that got away in D.C.?” It made sense. The cryogenic chamber was curious and he wondered how that fit in, but since he didn’t want to turn Natasha away with too many questions on a topic she wanted to keep private, he could only speculate.
He was glad when Natasha accepted his invitation ; for a minute, he almost thought she wouldn’t. A small smile flickered on the corner of his mouth, and he tilted his head toward the door. “C’mon. A break will be good.” He held the door open for her, but his eyes gravitated back to the computers as she came forward, still wondering what was going on.
She couldn't say anything about the mental state of Bucky Barnes, but if Steve Rogers believed anything, it was that Bucky was fighting against his programming. It all reminded her too much of the Red Room, and implanted memories to make an agent less likely to be compromised. It was sometimes hard to tell what were true memories and what were false. Sometimes, though not often, she'd get a weird sense of deja vu about a place, an object, a name. Sometimes, she struggled to remember, trying anything to figure out if they were lucid memories or just some trigger set on high alert for something.
That was the kicker, all those potential landmines. You never had a real sense of security if one word or a code-phrase could set her (or Bucky for that matter) into an unyielding, blind assassin's rage. She'd seen it happen a few times. It was usually when the operative was in a no-way-out situation, and the prize on the line meant they were expendable. Those rages didn't have happy endings -- even if you managed to survive it.
"Guess you're not lactose intolerant," Natasha joked as she strode out into the hall, heading toward the T intersection just a few blocks from that door. The kitchen was at the end, and in the middle of the night, only a pair of twinkling nightlights illuminated the room until they stepped beyond the threshold. The kitchen was a sight to behold, gleaming steel and modern everything. It really captured Tony's aesthetic.
She headed toward the cabinets to fetch a pair of bowls while she pointed in the freezer's direction. With a tilt of her head, she narrowed her eyes a little. "So what I don't understand is -- the Other Guy -- he can't be hurt or killed or any of that, right? But if you were lactose intolerant before, would you still be? You wear glasses, so your eyesight didn't get any better."
“Nope, not lactose intolerant,” Bruce said, going to the freezer. “Remember when we first met, and I asked if Fury wanted me to swallow the Tesseract? I’m pretty sure I could’ve.” He smirked - in hindsight, those now seemed like simpler times. There were three cartons left, so he offered Natasha a choice, “Chocolate, butter pecan or coffee?” He brought them all to the table, just in case, and then went to the nearby cupboard where the chocolate syrup was stashed.
Bruce didn’t feel uncomfortable speaking about the Other Guy to Natasha, or any of the Avengers, for that matter. He was safe and among friends. “The Other Guy… he doesn’t change my normal physiology. He protects me. Keeps me safe and alive, despite my own intentions. “So, let’s say I came into contact with a deadly disease, the radiation in my blood cells automatically combats any illness and heals me. Or if I was starving to death.” Bruce opened the cartons, one by one. “The Other Guy appears and gives me the strength to live, even without food or water.”
Bruce recently had direct experience with the second example - after the quinjet crashed into the ocean, Bruce found himself on a small, sandy strip of grass covered land for several days without anything to eat or drink, or even protection from the elements. This was the reason why he’d lost so much body weight. The Hulk emerged as he slipped in and out of consciousness until he was rescued. This was something he hadn’t revealed to anybody. In fact, the whole topic of what he’d done while he was hiding for the past six months hadn’t been breached at all.
“It looks like I’m still aging though.” Bruce ran his fingers through his greying hair. “So, hopefully, I’m not immortal.” He said this as a joke, but the thought of living forever with this condition was mortifying.
"You and Rogers," she started, opening a drawer and procuring a pair of spoons and an ice cream scoop. She pulled the carton -- coffee, of course -- across the table and popped one of the spoons into it. "You could sit around on your porch and talk about the old days, before aliens invaded and what Sokovia was like before the Avengers destroyed it. Shaking your old man canes at kids on your lawn."
She took in what he said, tucking the information into a drawer labeled with his name, subfolder, OTHER GUY. Natasha processed information differently than most people. Things were cross-referenced and stashed away, only to be pulled out at a moment's notice. They trained you to do that; you had to be prepared for anything, after all. "The salt and pepper look. It's very on fleek right now."
“Am I going to be target of old man jokes now?’ Bruce asked, humorously. He knew how Natasha liked to tease Steve that way, and while it helped ease the tension and make him feel more included, he wasn’t going to let it happen without some playful protest. “I’m not that old.” Then, as if to contradict himself, he spoke in his best old man voice, “Why, you whippersnapper! Back in my day, computers had to be rebooted by floppy disks, and you were grateful!”
After Natasha served herself a portion of coffee ice cream, Bruce slid the carton back in front of him because he was taking a healthy serving of each flavor. “On fleek? Now that’s a term I haven’t heard before. If it means distinguished, then I accept your compliment. Though, I’m no George Clooney.” He doused his ice cream with plenty of chocolate syrup before handing it to Natasha.
"Gotta keep with the times. On fleek means on point. Internet thing. Like most things these days." Natasha held up her hand, she didn't need to douse this in chocolate. It had more than enough sugar, and to be honest, the coffee flavor was doing its job well enough.
The Avengers compound was busier than the Tower most days, and a lot of people had rooms here in the building because it was a good ride to anywhere with a motel. That was the whole point of this place, after all. Natasha laughed at his impression, under her breath, and shook her head. "It's a race to figure out which of you two needs dentures first."
While Natasha spoke, Bruce stared and smiled fondly at her, in a way that betrayed his feelings. The moment he realized what he was doing, he averted his glance down at his bowl. “Don’t tell me, there’s some sort of betting pool?” Bruce poked at his ice cream before scooping up a portion, but before tasting, he said, “All kidding aside, have you been able to root out who it was that got me? Has the Avengers been able to do anything, what with this bad publicity and the government cracking down?”
Natasha was doing her best impersonation that she wasn't affected. Her best was pretty damn good, though, which made this game of cat and mouse all the more difficult to navigate. Out of the corner of her eye, someone wandered down a hallway. She wasn't sure who, but there were any number of workaholics, of night owls in the place.
"As far as we know, there weren't any big names on that ship." She paused to take another bite. "That's not to say there weren't any there, but as of right now, we got nothing on who besides HYDRA. I'm working on figuring out where the ship came from and where it was headed. A helicopter took off when we launched our offensive, so that might be our golden ticket."
Bruce also noted the person in the hall, but was relieved that he or she kept moving and didn’t stop to interrupt their conversation. He ate his ice cream and listened to Natasha. “I didn’t recognize the HYDRA agents that got me, and I don’t know if it’ll helps, but I’m pretty sure I could identify them. I remember their faces.”
"We've got a database of known HYDRA agents, if you want to look through it. Maybe we'll get a hit. Otherwise, there's arms dealers and dealers of a less than savoury kind." Somewhere between golden ticket and faces, she'd eaten about a third of her bowl. Now that they were talking work, Natasha was eager to get back to it. She couldn't shake the nagging feeling that she was overlooking something.
She pointed at him with her spoon, letting it dangle in the air after. "Where'd they pick you up anyway?"
“Australia,” came the reply. “Some small town in the North East.” He met her eyes and decided she deserved more details. “I’d been… uhhh… traveling town to town, earning just enough money from odd jobs to get by. Australia wasn’t where the quinjet crashed, though. It went down somewhere in the South Pacific, I couldn’t tell you exactly. The Other Guy made sure I survived."
"We talking more like Cairns or smaller than that?" Last time he'd been on the run, he'd been in Calcutta. Not exactly small town, but he could blend in a lot easier in a place like that. So he'd basically been doing what he'd always done. Floated around, helped people out as he went. SHIELD had an extensive file on Dr. Banner. Some of it was even written by Natasha herself, during the week that wouldn't end. "That sounds about right. We found something splashed down in the Banda Sea, but Stark's stealth tech made it impossible to track."
“Oh, much smaller than Cairns. The kind of place you’d expect tumbleweeds blowing through. A ranching town.” Calcutta was much larger, and in one sense, easier to hide. But in India, he still stuck out like a sore thumb as being a Westerner in India - one who helped cure sick people of diseases, at that. In Australia, he didn’t have the accent, but physically he fit in better. “That might’ve been me,” he said, referring to the crash, then shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. I was eventually rescued by a freighter that was on its way to Australia.” Bruce didn’t mention how he’d almost starved to death, the dehydration, the heat stroke. “They wanted to take me to the hospital once they got to shore, but as soon as the ship docked, I escaped.” He hung his head. “And I kept running.”
Natasha leaned forward, propping her elbow on the table and tucking her fist under her chin. She frowned, an ever increasing line growing between her brows, and she mentally went through everything. "I wonder how long they were tracking you, or if you happened to stumble on a town that was a HYDRA cover up. We've got a list of those we could go through, but most of them are hollowed out already. Some of them have been long empty."
It was a start. She could grab the list of old HYDRA bases and use that to project where they might have come from or were headed to. That gave her several ideas. "You make it sound like they could have actually have made you do anything."
“I get this feeling they were tracking me. II mean, I was in town for no more than twenty minutes, stopped inside a store to buy supplies, and then was about to leave, when I realized that I was being followed. And what are the chances of me just stumbling into a town that just happened to have a HYDRA base that just happened to have the technology they were working on to take down the Hulk?”
Bruce replied, realizing that the ice cream in his bowl was starting to melt, and so he lifted up his spoon to start eating, but before putting the first portion in his mouth, he asked for clarification, “What do you mean?”
"I meant that if it came down to it, you'd figure out a way out of it. Even without the big guy." Natasha had the kind of faith in her fellow Avengers, even the ones who quit or ran away, that they could do anything they put their minds to. Never mind the fact that if they'd tried to hurt Bruce, the other guy wouldn't stand for that, but given Bruce's aversion to him, Natasha stayed silent.
"Sounds like they were definitely tracking you then. You hadn't been seen with the Avengers lately, so it makes sense that you'd be in the wind." Natasha finished off the rest of her own ice cream with one final lick of her spoon. She frowned in thought. "How'd you decide on that town? Hear something that drew your attention? Or was it purely coincidence?"
“It was just another town on my way to the next,” Bruce replied with a small shrug. “I suppose if they’d been following me for some time, they could’ve anticipated where I would be heading I tried to take random routes off the beaten track, but I was still heading in a Westerly direction..” He then thought about what Natasha said while eating another bite of ice cream. “I’m not sure I, or the Other Guy, could’ve gotten us out of chemical prison HYDRA created, without outside interference.”
It was still possible they had somehow subtly encouraged him in that direction. Either by throwing traffic obstacles or bogus police bulletins to send him along his way. If they had been tracking him, then they absolutely could predict him. Bruce wasn't that good at staying lost. SHIELD had tracked him for a long time, but never bothered him.
"I think between the two of you, you'd find a way. That's his thing: adaptability." Natasha shrugged and stood up. The ice cream was returned to the freezer. "If I gave you a map, could you pinpoint all the places you were?"
Once Natasha stood, Bruce knew that their conversation was ending for the night. Though he still had his doubts, he decided best to keep them to himself and not argue any more. He nodded his head and told her, “Yes, definitely. Do you think you might be able to determine if they have a base in Australia?”
Natasha smiled in return. It was one of those smile that sent sailors running for the hills in the middle of the ocean or made the hair on the back of your neck stand up in alarm. "I know I can. It's just a matter of finding the right base."
Bruce knew that smile. “I’m glad you’re on our side, Natasha,” he said, half-joking, half-serious.
Six months ago, she would have told him she was on his side. Now, she knew she was an Avenger. That's whose side she'd always be on. After finishing washing her bowl and spoon, she returned to Bruce's side briefly. She reached out and gave his shoulder what she hoped was a reassuring rub (pat?).
"I'll keep you in the loop." She glanced toward the door, indicating she was going to leave. "Trail's going cold, so I gotta get back to it. Thanks for the ice cream." A pause, a much more genuine and warm smile. "And the conversation."
Silly, but to hear those last few words from Natasha was encouraging. “Anytime,” Bruce replied, trying to sound casual.