Reunion with brokeharlem

[labcoatgirl]

[follows this]

It was a long trip, almost six hours before she was in New York. Betty hadn't driven much in big city like this so she was grateful for the turn by turn directions of her GPS. Stark tower loomed in the center of town, the glowing sign lighting up the dark. It was still a wreck here, she had to avoid multiple construction sites, passing huge holes in the road and businesses smashed to pieces.

She parked in a lot a short distance away from the tower, who's sign was reduced to just a single A glowing overhead. Betty got out of the car and started walking, thumbing her phone as she posted on twitter, to make sure Bruce knew she was there.

@drbanner I'm here, walking towards the tower.

Comments

y/w

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

She smiles, listening to him talk. Remembering when they had run together for a bit and he was saying she couldn't bring anything they could track...and she asked if her lipstick was safe.

"You're turning into quite the renaissance man." That would be the optimistic way of looking at it.

"...I should probably bring my stuff in." She really didn't want to break the moment but it was still dark outside. And Betty wasn't sure if looting was still going on in New York after all of the problems beforehand.

[brokeharlem.livejournal.com]

"If by Renaissance Man, you mean most likely to end up on Cops or whatever, then sure," he shoots back, flashing her a thin smile. A glance over her shoulder, back at the door follows, and then he returns his attentions to her properly. "I can come down with you, if you want."

Most people wouldn't come near the Stark Tower, even in the aftermath of the mess Loki made, but he thinks he'll feel better if he goes with her anyway, just in case. Plus, well, keeping an eye on her will make sure she doesn't evaporate into thin air and give her peace of mind that he won't do the same the second she's out of the room.

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

She almost says, no she can handle it. But they both seem to worry that the other one is going to disappear once their back was turned. It might take awhile to get over that.

"Sure. I have a few boxes...and I'm not entirely sure I can find my way back up here by myself anyway." She smiles and pulls back so they can walk back to the elevators.

[brokeharlem.livejournal.com]

Nerves churning in his stomach, he thinks briefly about reaching for her hand as they make their way back to the elevator. Something makes him think better of it, though -- his fear of physical contact, his fear of moving too fast and frightening her away, even if they've been beyond the hand-holding stage before, something -- and he settles for wringing his hands hopelessly, instead. It's become something of a nervous habit over the course of the last few years.

"JARVIS, ground floor, please?" he says to the open air, once they're back in the elevator.

"As you wish, Doctor Banner," the AI answers as the doors slide shut.

A moment of silence follows, and then Bruce clears his throat. "So, uh ... "

He has no idea where he's going with that.

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

She looks up at the ceiling at the vaguely british voice. "So that's Jarvis?" He must be one big computer to run the entire tower.

"Yes, Dr. Ross."

Betty's a little surprised at the address. "...that's a little scary." Probably found her out from facial recognition and her teaching ID at the college.

[brokeharlem.livejournal.com]

"He's got an internet connection, just the same as the rest of the world," Bruce answers, shrugging. He's not afraid of JAVRIS, despite the fact that he's more or less the very thing science fiction has been teaching people to fear for decades now. He figures he's scarier, when he wants to be, and as weird as it sounds, he doubts JARVIS would try to pull a SkyNet on the Tower and its inhabitants. He trusts him, just as much as he trusts Tony, and it's likely one of the reasons why he and Tony get along so well. He's coming to understand the billionaire's reasons on some level, just as Tony's working to understand his. "He probably ran your picture on Google."

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

"Big brother at work..." she comments with a smile. Betty always did have a touch of hippie blood in her. But she didn't mind so much, Jarvis seemed like an okay computer so far.

Once they get to the car, she starts pulling out a couple of suitcases. There are two boxes in the back, one of research papers she had tossed in there quickly...and the other was a few personal items of Bruce's she'd kept. A few clothes, extra set of glasses he forgot once at her place, a stress ball with Culver Tech on it, and a novel he'd been in the middle of when the incident happened. "I think this is it."

[brokeharlem.livejournal.com]

"You get used to him," he promises, following her out of the elevator to her car.

He watches her momentarily, trying to figure out where to jump in to help, and decides on the boxes, figuring it's better than being underfoot as she unloads her suitcases from the front of the car. The thought of bringing them inside evaporates as soon as he sees the contents of the one box, though -- his box -- and he reaches into it, his expression almost rapt, pulling out the dog-eared copy of Stranger in a Strange Land he'd been reading years ago.

Dragging a thumb over the spine of the book, he turns back to Betty. " ... you know, I never got the chance to go back to this after everything."

He could have gotten another copy of the book, the story not exactly a new one, but he just hadn't. It had been a combination of, well, running from Ross and his squadron and the fact that the book was poisoned, tainted with the memories of what had happened to him. He hadn't wanted to touch any printing of the thing after that. He's not sure how he feels about it now.

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

Betty watches him re-finding his things, giving him a sad smile back. "If you don't want them, I'll just take them back when I leave. But I figured you deserved something from home." Even if Bruce didn't have a physical home anymore.

She had almost brought the framed picture of herself and him from their college days but decided against it...in case things went south during this trip. Less drama, the better.

Betty locks up the car and picks up the suitcases, following back to the tower.

[brokeharlem.livejournal.com]

"I'll think I'll keep them," he decides after a moment's pause. He may not be sure how he feels about the book, but the other things have meaning, value, however muddied by time and experience. "I mean, if you don't mind ... "

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

"I don't mind at all," she reassures him with a smile. His past was a touchy thing, Bruce needed better memories for the future.

And she hopes he doesn't mind when she does his ironing when he's preoccupied at some point.

Though she's not sure where to stay but in a tower this big, there's probably lots of guest bedrooms. Somewhere.

[brokeharlem.livejournal.com]

Bruce seems to think of the room issue only once they've gotten back to his, and he can't help but frown thoughtfully as he hesitates on the threshold.

This isn't his house, not really; he doesn't just want to comandeer a room for Betty and hope that Tony's okay with it. On the other hand, though, he's not sure Betty would want to stay here, in this room, or how that would go, even if she did. In the time he's been here, JARVIS has woken him up from a handful of nightmares, not under Tony's orders but of his own accord, when it's seemed his vitals were spiking outside acceptable levels. What if JARVIS can't or won't wake him this time, what if Betty can't, what if something terrible happens? The battle against the Chitauri has boosted his self-esteem, knowing he can put the Hulk to good use, but there's still a part of him that never wanted this and is still afraid of it. There likely always will be.

"There's a couple of guestrooms a floor or two down that are still in one piece. Tony let me use one of them before this," he ventures finally, nodding into the room. "I don't think he'd mind if you borrowed it for however long." He hesitates and then adds, "Or you could stay here."

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

When he stops, Betty nearly runs into the back of him. "What is it?"

Oh right, where was she going to stay? She'd been too caught up with the fact that they were working out being around each other again. She wouldn't expect him to want her to stay in his room. No, too soon for that.

"Oh no," she says quickly, not wanting him to be turned out of his room. Not when he only just got a room to call his own. "Downstairs will be fine. This place is already bigger than a hotel."

[brokeharlem.livejournal.com]

There's a stab of disappointment and relief both at the idea that she'd rather have a room of her own. He recognizes both, qualifies them, pushes them down, and then turns back to face her.

After a mumbled apology for stopping short, he cants his head back in the direction they came. "The rooms are down on the seventy-sixth floor."

That's more than a floor or two down, but he's not the only person in the house given a floor to call his own, even if a couple of them are unoccupied as of present.

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

Sigh, well it wasn't like this entire trip could have gone off without an element of awkward.

This would be some of the awkward part.

Betty shifts her suitcases and nods, heading back to the elevators.

[brokeharlem.livejournal.com]

It's almost as bad as when they first started dating. Almost.

He catches that sigh, though, and his frown deepens as he follows her. After a moment, he works up the nerve to address the sound. "If you're worried about putting me out ... you wouldn't be. If you wanted to stay in my room, I mean."

He could sleep on the floor. Or they could try sharing the bed. Maybe. It wouldn't be the first time they had, and he tries to remind himself of that.

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

She blushes a little on the back of her neck, a small smile as she looks at the suitcases in her hands. "...are you sure about that? We haven't seen each other in so long..." She knows you need time and space, Bruce. But Betty is quietly happy that he still wants her nearby at the least.

"...is there a couch up here? I could sleep on that." That could be a good compromise, then she wouldn't be a whole floor away.

[brokeharlem.livejournal.com]

"I could probably drag one up from downstairs." Though, suddenly, he thinks it a little odd that Tony didn't include a couch -- one near the work station he'd built in without Bruce asking, considering the other man's own work-sleep schedule. Maybe he'd have to bring that up, the next time they were in the lab together or when Tony showed up to meet his house guest. "And I'll take the couch. You can have the bed."

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

She'll probably argue with him later about the couch, she's the newer guest after all. But for now, she agrees. "Maybe we could both bring it up." She sets her stuff down in a corner. "Faster that way."

Now this was familiar. Moving furniture, they had done that many times before. Her house, his dorm room, the pizza parlor when he worked there...

[brokeharlem.livejournal.com]

He takes a moment to set his load down, too, and allows her a little smile, apparently having the same thought. "Easier on me, too."

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

She smiles back, teasing him lightly. "Unless you wanted to bring it up through the floor." Because likely his alter ego would think to do that.

Soon they're downstairs, trying to move a white couch towards the elevator. This was so much better than the awkward silence, it was the two of them working together again. Not exactly in a lab, but it counted. "Have you got your end?" Good thing it was a big elevator.

[brokeharlem.livejournal.com]

"I'm not sure Tony would appreciate that much," he answers, the look on his face torn between amused and disparaging. The Hulk very likely would try and come through the floor, thinking it faster and easier than doing things the right way. "I think he's had enough guys punching holes in his Tower lately."

When they get downstairs, he looks over the couch, taking up the opposite side after Betty chooses hers. It takes him another moment of study to decide where to put his hands so that hauling it back upstairs won't be awkward or exhausting, and once he has, he looks up at Betty, nodding. "On three?"

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

"Was it right over the tower?" She only knew bits and pieces from what the media had said of the incident.

Betty nods and counts, "1..2..3!" And lifts, backing as best as she can towards the lifts. "You don't suppose Jarvis cou-..." Before she can ask, the doors are sliding open for her. "Oh! Thank you."

It's more pushing and pulling once they get it to the elevator instead of lifting.

[brokeharlem.livejournal.com]

"The -- singularity the things that went to town on Manhattan came through? Yeah." He pauses, lifting his end of the couch as Betty counts them off, and moves towards the elevator slowly, mindful of her and her pace. "The guy who opened it used the Tower's power source to kick start the reaction."

Stopped in the elevator for the time being as it climbs back up to his floor, he wonders if she knows about the arc reactor powering this place. It occurs to him that she must, before too long. Steve knew, after all, and he'd been on ice for, what, seventy years? Hell, he himself had known, and his updates on current events had been few and far between.

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

"Wow." She tries to picture that, but probably her imagination is not doing it justice at all. Even so, the scientist in her would have loved to see it, study it. Pick it apart and see how it worked.

But that would be dangerous "No chance that it will happen again?" she asks, waiting for the doors to open on their floor.