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]

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.