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

[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.

[brokeharlem.livejournal.com]

"Probably not," Bruce answers, offering her a wry smile. "Thor took the core of the machine home with him, and home's ... kinda far away."

He pauses as the doors open, readying himself to start fighting with the couch to get it out and into his room again. "JARVIS might have gotten some readings on it, though. You could try asking him or Tony."

Or asking to see surveillance footage, since he's almost certain Stark's AI at least got that much.

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

"That's good." Last thing she, or really both of them, needed was for that kind of thing to happen while she was visiting.

"Oof!" Betty heaves on her side as they manage to slide the couch out of the elevator and in the right direction. "Watch the wall there...that would be great. I'd love to see them."

She wouldn't mind seeing footage of him as the Hulk either, seeing how that half of him was doing, even if it was second hand observation.

[brokeharlem.livejournal.com]

He eases out of the elevator, watching the wall as per her suggestion, and thankfully, sooner rather than later, they've managed to get the thing into his room. He allows himself a moment, once they've got it settled, raking a hand through his hair, and then moves over to the work space Tony set up for him. He hasn't actually used it yet, most of his work done in the lab, with the billionaire at his side, albeit working on his own projects, but it bears more than a passing resemblence to the computers there and he's instantly grateful for that.

He taps his fingers on the touchscreen built into the desk, flicking through files, and when it seems he can't find what he's looking for, he frowns, his eyes turning skyward. "JARVIS, we've got footage of what happened with the Tesseract, right?"

"Naturally, Doctor Banner."

"Think you could bring them up on the screen?" He glances back down at the desk.

JARVIS hesitates, and Bruce wonders if the AI's consulting Tony or trying to decide how wise that would be on his own, but eventually, with almost an audible shrug, he relents and images of Selvig setting up the portal to where ever the Chitauri came from spring to life on the screen. "Of course, sir."

Looking up from the screen, he inclines his head towards it, inviting Betty to join him to watch.

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

That was more of a workout than she had planned on. Betty sinks into the couch the second they have it in place, fanning herself with a nearby magazine a bit and catching her breath. Yes, this should do fine, she could sleep on this easily.

Her attention is caught by Bruce talking to the computer and she gets up to come see the footage. She pats her pockets, finding her reading glasses to peer at the screen, watching the portal being opened.

"...an Einstein-Rosen bridge? No it's...something else." It was too short to be a whole bridge, you could see right into it to the other side. Of course, she'd never even seen an Einstein-Rosen bridge, only heard about research done on them. "That's amazing though. The amount of power it must have taken to open that up..." She couldn't even begin to calculate.

[brokeharlem.livejournal.com]

"I haven't been able to work out what it is, exactly, either," he admits, squinting down at the screen. He could probably take a moment to look for his own glasses, but he has the sneaking suspicion he left them upstairs, in one of Tony's labs.

"But yeah. The arc reactor this place runs on sort of gave their setup a jump, and the Tesseract -- that cube in the middle? -- took over from there. From what I figured out before ... " Before everything had gone to hell on the helicarrier. " ... it was self-sustaining by the time we got there."

loop the next one around?

[labcoatgirl.livejournal.com]

"Incredible..." Betty says, watching the glowing cube and the aliens streaming out of the hole in space. They looked terrifying, there wasn't any sense of size until you looked at the Stark tower and compared to the ships coming through.

"Self sustaining energy." She sighs, taking off her glasses to put them away. Pity they couldn't have kept it, but it sounded like it was more trouble than it was worth.

Out of curiosity, she touches another square below the screen and is suddenly greeted with another video, one of the Hulk smashing his way through main street in high definition.

Betty is a little startled but quiet while watching. He was helping the others, that was something new.