2014.02.27 - Nerd, Interrupted

It’s well after the dinner hour, the time of day when most normal people would be winding down towards a well-deserved eight hours of rest, glass of wine in one hand and something like a book or a movie to occupy them. Of course, the chances that anyone ‘normal’ has snuck aboard the SHIELD airship are slim to nonexistent.

Henrietta, for one, looks like she just finished some sort of workout regime, to judge by the yoga pants, slightly mussed hair and vivid flush in her cheeks. And yet, rather than crawl into her bunk her restless wandering seems to have carried her down to the scientific level, where she’s currently lurking curiously just outside Dr. Banner’s laboratory.

Dr. Banner is hard at work, in the lonely hours where he's got the lab to himself and doesn't have to share the mass spec or centrifuge with anyone. So naturally, he's blasting Journey, and singing along raucously.

"Street lights! People! Movin' just to fiiiiiin emot-shun!" he sings. Badly. He strums an imaginary guitar and beats on the countertop with a pair of beaker stirring rods, then power-glides in his workchair to a different monitor, inspecting some vital signs. He falls quiet, mouthing the lyrics and bobbing his head as he makes some adjustments to an experiment being done remotely.

It’s frankly very difficult not to smile when one happens across a tableaux such as the one Henrietta has bumbled into, particularly when the evening’s entertainment is a world-renowned-scientist-slash-sometimes-superhero. Despite all her SHIELD training in making terribly serious faces under the most dire and unlikely circumstances, Henrietta can’t quite remain master of her own mouth when Bruce strains towards the high note. A single sharp note of laughter escapes her before she bites her lip forcefully, and even then she’s unable to entirely suppress her grin. She covers by rapping lightly against the door frame and, when she has control of her voice once more, asking winsomely, “Am I interrupting, Doctor Banner? I was exploring and… couldn’t help but notice you were still hard at work.”

There’s a little twinkle in her eyes as she speaks, of course, but it’s good natured. Even a little appreciative. Maybe Bruce has a second career in the offing?

Banner almost falls off his chair, but then scrambles for the door admittance button and *beeps* Henrietta in. He finds the volume knob and turns it down to a faint background sussurance, looking sheepish. "I hate the sound of machines just... whirring," he explains, looking a bit embarassed. "So, y'know, I like to pump some classic rock and relax a bit. It stimulates your amygdala and can help trigger inspiration. I just like Journey and the Eagles over Mozart," he says with a small shrug.

"Is there something I can do for you, Agent Black?" he asks politely. "I didn't think my status reports were due for a week at least. Did Director Fury send you down...?"

Her amusement fades quickly, supplanted in her face by a faint flush of guilt at having really embarrassed him. She gives a quick shake of her coppery head and rushes to say, “No… no, I’m so sorry. It’s nothing official and, honestly, I have no good reason to be down on this level at all. I was exploring on my way back from the gym and heard... saw you were in…” She gives the smallest of shrugs. “I do apologize for intruding. I’m still new here and you were a friendly face in a new environment, so I couldn’t quite resist stopping. Please, if I’m interrupting I’ll certainly leave you to it.”

Bruce looks a bit taken aback. Someone's here to ... see him? Socially? "Oh, no, I'm just compiling some code and monitoring a few experiments. Kind of like watching paint dry," he says with a grin. "I like seeing how the code grinds when it compiles, and the collision matrices-" he stops himself. "I like seeing how my work goes," Bruce finishes a bit lamely. "Watching to see if anything goes wrong, that kind of thing. It's a bit more active than most people think, at least, I think so."

She’ll take that as a temporary reprieve from the dog house. A smile flits briefly across her lips once more and she’s emboldened enough to pad a few steps further into the lab, toward the monitors with all that delightfully crunchy code. She looks from him to his equipment, tilting her head a bit to one side as she studies it. Not that she has the background to fully or even partially appreciate what he’s up to, but after a moment’s consideration she says, “Brain scans.”

No explanation, not for a moment at least as she watches numbers flit across his screen in blazingly quick succession. She finally looks up at him and smiles warmly before continuing, “When I was a research fellow, we’d monitor brain scans of test subjects in social situations. Do you know that resisting the societal pressure to conform to the will of the group activates the pain centers of the brain, just as if they were experiencing physical anguish? It’s actually physically painful to be different. It was fascinating.”

"I did," Banner confirms with an enthusiastic nod, still slouched comfortably in his office chair. "And people who have been recently dumped or divorced experience pain that is similar to the sensation of someone dying," he points out in the same tone that Henrietta had used- diffident and scientific.

"Er, so, what were you doing at the gym?" he asks, as if suddenly noticing her attire. "I don't work out as often as I probably oughtta. Maybe I should try some yoga, or something," he considers, rubbing his jaw.

There’s something funny in the idea of him working out, but Etta doesn’t over-analyze. She merely smiles back at him and finds an empty edge of a counter to lean against. “My regular evening workout. I move around so often, a routine helps. Otherwise my body gets confused about whether I should be eating breakfast or counting sheep at any given moment. A little boxing, pilates and then the tightrope. Though they didn’t have a tightrope, so I had to improvise. I’m not sure if its proper or even possible to request a tightrope, but I’m sure eventually I’ll get settled here. With any luck, I’ll be here longer than my usual three months and onward.” She lifts her brows and asks, “Dare I ask what you’re working on, or is that above my security clearance?”

"Nothing classified," Bruce says cheerily. He brings the scans up. "I asked for some volunteers to let me do EEG scans of their brains during day and night time samples. I'm comparing certain kinds of brain activity with the engagement of the lower brain functions. It's all research into here," he explains, tapping his skull. "I still don't know how I do what I do when... the other guy busts loose. I just know that it's partially involuntary. So I keep track of people during the day and compare results to my own brain scans." He tilts his head to the side, revealing a tiny EEG scanner tucked behind his left ear.

This is actually well inside her proverbial wheelhouse. Etta bends forward, tucking an errant strand of hair behind her ear as she peers intently at the images on the screen. “This is interesting.” She says when she gets to one that catches her fancy. “What’s this, here?” She asks, indicating a lit up area of the scan with a circular sweep of her fingertip. “A nightmare? There’s a lot of deep brain activity but little in the areas that you would associate with conscious thought.”

Bruce swallows audibly as Henrietta enters his personal space. "I... uh, yeah," he stammers, trying to focus on the screen. He uses a pencil to jab at the monitor, rather than greasing it up with his finger. "You can see here how the rear cortex lights up during the nightmare, and would /normally/ trigger a stress reaction. But it doesn't, until the person wakes up in the middle of the nightmare and the frontal coretex activates and... uh..." A little perspiration trickles at his temple at Henrietta's proximity. "the... nightmare becomes 'real' in.. uh... the thinky part of the, uh, brain."

Henrietta is so lost in the delight of magnetic images of a functioning brain that she seems momentarily unaware of any discomfort she might be causing. It’s not until ‘think-y part of the brain’ that she looks away from the screen, turning with a few soft notes of laughter to look up at him. “I appreciate the opportunity to have these sorts of highly technical discussions with another scientist.” She says with burbling good humor before something about his expression or posture draws something more serious into her face. She just looks up at him a little seriously for a moment, seeming unsure about the wisdom of speaking further, but finally she says quietly, “This isn’t my place and I don’t know anything about you... but you seem like you’re doing well. Very well.”

She looks worried immediately, regretting being so familiar and butting in where she’s not wanted. She flicks a smile in his direction before looking rather uncomfortable in turn and glancing back to the screen.

"No, I really don't mind," Banner says hurriedly, trying to forestall any discomfort on Henrietta's part. "It helps to talk about things out loud. It gives it focus," he explains, gesturing vaguely. "Takes it from a theory to something real. Talking out loud is one of those things people do to bring concepts into reality. So no, you can swing by here anytime," Bruce says, trying to offer Henrietta a reassuring smile.

She doesn’t look back up at him. Not immediately at least, using the convenient excuse of the monitors to avoid meeting his gaze just yet. It’s not until the end, and his extended invitation, that she cautiously turns her head and looks back up at him. Out of the corner of her eyes first, but after an instant her head turns and she looks up at him fully, marking her acceptance with the tiniest of bobs of her head.

”Thank you.” She says quietly. Simply spoken, but there’s actually kind of a lot of weight behind the sparse little pair of words. “You’re kind. A lot of people are uncomfortable talking to someone who’s job entails reading what they’re feeling in their face. And I hope you won’t regret it because I’ll probably be taking you up on the offer. Visiting you has made me miss the lab a little bit.” She says with a little bit of her former playfulness.

"I'm sorry," Bruce says, hurriedly. "I know you're an empath and I'm always trying to keep my self control under wraps, but I know the other guy can... get out once in a while. I hope it doesn't bother you too much," he says, obviously misreading her hesitation in the matter. "I'll try harder to keep my thoughts under wraps."

"But no, I kind of like small company," Bruce hurries to add. "Nothing major- one or two people to bounce ideas off of or talk to. It's just the big crowds that make me nervous," he hurries to clarify.

“If you like, but I’d rather you were comfortable with me.” Etta replies, looking back at him levelly now. ‘I’m not afraid, if that’s what you’re suggesting.” She says with every appearance of simple sincerity. “And I’m not saying that based off overconfidence, but based on everything I’ve seen from you so far.” Another flicker of a confessional smile and she says frankly, “You’ve been kinder and more welcoming to me than anyone else by a long way. Largely because we’re all focused on projecting to the world that we’re confident and not to be trifled with, while you’re more concerned with... kindness, I think. Which is probably why I ended up here. Its really our aspirations that define what we are, after all.”

"I know I've got a reputation," Bruce says quietly. "People know that the... other guy is dangerous and mean. And gets results, no matter the cost. So I hope that people think of me- Bruce- as a decent, nice guy, instead of being just the 'calm' version of the green meanie."

He smiles shyly up at Henrietta, rubbing the back of his neck. "Does that make sense? I know I ramble sometimes," he adds, apologizing again. "I'm not good with people. Spent too many years running and on the road."

That gets another little laugh from Etta. She looks fondly but wryly back at him, leaning a hip against the edge of his counter and arching a brow before saying, “I would seriously doubt that there is a soul on this ship that doesn’t have a reputation for /something/, Doctor. Even the maintenance staff is probably part of an elite corps of plumbers and sanitation engineers that previously tidied up temples for elder gods or extra dimensional beings of some stripe or other.”

Her amusement lingers in her smile, but in the span of a heartbeat or two it shifts into something simply fond. And understanding. “It makes perfect sense. And, do keep in mind Doctor... you’re the only one I’ve met. I don’t say it to make light of the situation, but, at the same time... ‘his’ presence, if you want to think of him that way, doesn’t invalidate all the rest of you. The parts that I know first-hand.”

That comment elicits a laugh from Bruce- a merry, easy laugh, sincere and warm. "Yeah, I'm sure we're all members of secret cabals and sects, of which we know only a small part. And they can all turn into giant rampaging robots, and I'm the laughingstock of SHIELD because I can only turn into /one/ monster," he snickers. Somehow, Agent Black's words have reassured him, and a sense of true relaxed human emanates from him. "You're sweet, Agent Black," Banner informs the woman, offering her a warm and grateful smile. "That's a rare quality in a SHIELD agent. I thought you were all supposed to be-" he makes a flashy kung-fu motion with his hands, eyes narrowed. "Killers to the core, ready to die for flag and country, all the niceness beat out of you in SHIELD school."

Etta feigns a worried look, complete with wide blue eyes and a very good approximation of sheepish schoolgirl posture. “Don’t let on, please? They’ll make me mediate on a pole in the desert for a good month, most likely, if they knew that I was disgracing the SHIELD name with something as trite as sweetness.” There’s probably a grain of truth in that, but she grins anyway and tosses a wink in his direction. She just watches him for a few moments, her mirth ebbing steadily before she says softly, “But I do believe in what we do. And I would die for it. With the possible exception of a few affiliated extra-terrestrials, we’ll all die eventually. It might as well be in service to a worthy cause.” She pauses another beat or two before asking a little abruptly, “Did I make you uncomfortable when we first me? I’m sorry. It’s hard to turn off the... watching people. Once you learn to look, you can’t ever quite seem to stop.”

"No, it..." Banner stammers a bit, a series of conflicted emotions flittering across Henrietta's perception. "You were staring at me, and I never got over SHIELD running me down. Some of them still want to keep me sedated and under observation forever. And then you were /staring/ at me, and, uh, well it's... well, this is the longest conversation I've had with a woman who wasn't, y'know, an Avenger or some kind of superhuman who was just looking to see if they could get the, uh, other guy to come out swingin'."

He puts his face in his hands for a moment, wiping down his cheeks. "Wow, I sound like a freshman in high school, don't I?" he tells her with embarrassment in his tone. "Not to sound unprofessional. I just don't talk to pretty women much."

She laughs again, but the sound is about a million miles distant from something mocking or derisive. It’s the sound of some sort of shared acknowledgement that they, without a doubt, live in the strangest of worlds. She watches him bury his face in his hands and, entirely without thinking, she stretches out to brush the tips of her fingers across the backs of his knuckles for an instant. “I promise that it wasn’t out of any desire to drug or dissect you. I stare at most everyone, at least a little, though I will confess that you’re a slightly more exceptional target for my staring than I’m used to.”

She hesitates before adding, a note of amused pleasure in her voice, “And I don’t get called pretty very often, if its any consolation. I usually only get called ‘Agent’ or ‘Mealy-mouthed cog in an oppressive capitalist system’ or variations along those lines.” A smile and she concludes, “It makes a nice change actually.”

"Well I was gonna go with 'cute' or 'replaceable component in a military-industrial complex," Bruce counters, going with the banter. He doesn't recoil from her gesture of reassurance, even relaxing a bit.

"You're a people reader," he points out, stating the obvious. "I know I'm... a bit disjointed to be around. I'm... jumbled. A lot," he explains. "But I don't look or act like it. It's the disassociative identity disorder. It's just when the angry outweighs the calm..." He makes imaginary scales with his hands. "That's when bad things start to happen. So I try to stay positive, think happy thoughts, meditate when I can. It helps. Good company helps," he hastens to add.

“Want to know a secret?” She says, curling her fingers around the edge of the counter and making use of the leverage to slide herself up onto the impromptu perch. “I’ve yet to meet anyone who /isn’t/ jumbled to one degree or another.” She can’t entirely suppress a smile before she adds, “Admittedly, none of them manifest it quite so dramatically but... life is difficult. We all live in our own worlds. If you’ve learned how to cope with how you feel, then you might even say you have a bit of an advantage over most people.” And having apparently arrived at a confessional place she can’t help but ask after a brief hesitation, “You’d undo everything if you could? If you could trade the burden of it, but you also had to give up all that you’ve accomplished and the good that you’ve done since... would you?”

Bruce's face goes bleak. "In a heartbeat," he says, immediately. "At best I'm a monster waiting for the gate to be left open, and sometimes I go after the wolf instead of the sheep. I've destroyed tanks, murdered soldiers... I've lost myself in moments of rage..." he shudders and stutters, his hands trembling. He looks down at them, audibly modulating his breath to a slow series of meditative exhalations.

"Sorry. Can't... can't talk..." he gasps, struggling for mental balance, hands clutching at the air. "Don't wanna think about it."

There’s a brief flash of alarm at his reaction, as one might expect. She pushes herself off the counter instantly, but perhaps in defiance of all reason or common sense, the last thing she seems inclined to do is run. Her hands slip over his, feeling his fingers twitch and vibrate against her skin as she curls her fingers lightly around the sides of his palms. For a moment, she just stands there, a little taut but entirely resolved.

“I’m sorry.” She whispers at last. Nothing else for a moment. And as he doesn’t want to talk, she doesn’t either. But she doesn’t leave and barring any objections on his part, she stays just where she is with her hands atop his.

It takes Bruce a few minutes to calm himself down, in the fits and starts normally associated with someone having a major anxiety attack. His skin turns minutely green, and the slender scientist's fingers even grow a bit sausagey. But as he calms, his body returns to its normal state, and in short order, he nods at Henrietta, smiling timorously. "Thanks," he murmurs. "Sorry. Some days it's easier to talk about than others. "That was... brave of you. Most people would have cut and run," he observes, gently stroking her hands with his thumbs, the trembling easing to nothing. "You've got some real guts for a mindless cog in the machine," he adds, trying for a lopsided but sincere grin.

His reassurances draw a smile from her, but worry and a little hint of sorrow linger in her eyes as she looks at him across a much narrower gulf now. A few passes of his thumbs and she lets her fingers interlace with his, now that they’re seemingly stable and normal sized once more, seeming content to linger. “Why would I run? You’re still the kindest person I’ve met since I transferred here.” She murmurs softly. “Nothing’s changed.”

She’s quiet again for a minute before allowing her smile to deepen. She gives his hands a little tug and peeks up from beneath her lashes before adding, “I mean its not like you’re something truly frightening, like Director Fury when I’ve misfiled a report...”

"...wow. I don't know what to say to that," Bruce says, flushing again in embarrassment. "I'm just a regular-.... well, ok, I'm not /that/ regular kind of guy, but y'know, I'm just a decent guy when I'm not a green rage monster. Kindness is a simple thing to give. Though," he says thoughtfully, "I've got a running bet with myself for twenty bucks if I can get Fury to crack a smile. A hundred if he laughs. I had a good one the other day. Nothin'," he says, quirking his mouth.

He looks down at their hands, then at Henrietta, the guards not coming up but definitely looking a bit wary. "So... uh... we're kind of holding hands, all of a sudden, and you've got /really/ adorable eyes," he says, stammering a bit. "How did this happen?"

“Yesterday I panicked when he needed an ashtray and threw out the plant on my desk so he could use the pot. Didn’t even think about it. It was pure instinct. And terror.” She confesses. This is followed by a slow glance downward at the sight of her fingers woven with his before she returns her eyes to his. “Its that sort of keen observation that makes your scientific background obvious.” She notes in a dry voice that’s well suited to her accent.

”If I had to postulate a theory, I suppose it would be that I’d been extraordinarily thoughtless and upset you and my instinct was to offer what comfort I could. That and that perhaps I quite like holding hands with you.” One corner of her mouth quirks up a little and there’s the barest hint of her former playfulness before she adds, “Of course, I’ve yet to gather any empirical data to support my theory, but we are in a lab filled with electrodes, so...”

"I am scientist! I do the research that makes the peoples fall down!" Banner babbles a bit, more or less holding his aplomb together.

He coughs and corrects himself. "And of course, by that I mean I appreciate the gesture, and the, uh, physical contact," he adds, not quite wriggling away from Henrietta's grasp. "Most people wanna stand a mile away from me at a minimum. I don't think someone's held my hand in... years, maybe," he murmurs, sounding a bit sad.

"Also, electrodes are kind of passe for this kind of research," he says, forcing some cheer into his voice. "I think traditionally, passing notes in class is still the approved methodology for determining if u + me = <3?" he states.

Under the weight of all that, she can’t possibly maintain the pretense of scientific dispassion. She tilts her head back, a brilliant smile spreading across her lips as laughter just spills out of her. A little tug on his hands brings her an inch or two closer as the musical sound finally fades to quiet once more, leaving her just looking at him with a telltale appreciative glitter lighting her gaze. “You know, Doctor Banner... you’re rather adorable yourself. If I wasn’t a trained deception expert, I’m not sure I would be able to believe that all this isn’t designed to charm me utterly, because it’s really rather effective.”

Slowly, her smile fades a little, but the look in her eyes holds quite steady as she watches him.

It's Bruce who breaks first, looking away, and gently tries to extract his hands from hers. "I... I'm sorry," he apologizes, mumbling. "This is, uh... I don't..." he wrings his hands together, body straining backwards as if trying to escape Henreitta's proximity without actually moving away from her.

"You're... /really/ smart, and funny, but I don't think I'm the kind of guy you really want. Or deserve," he stammers. "I'm ten kinds of a mess, and that's on a good day. I don't want you to get... involved with something that's just gonna end up hurting you," he says, eyes flickering everywhere but to Henrietta's face.

Etta isn’t often surprised, but she looks it in this moment. She blinks a few times before taking a half-step back to allow him his space. And once there, she seems strangely adrift, unsure of where to go or what to do next. “I think I’m the one who ought to be sorry.” She says after a pause, her voice quiet and clipped now, wrapping her British properness around herself like a cocoon. “I’ve managed to embarrass you, upset you /and/ overstay my welcome. It seems a terribly shoddy way to repay your kindness, Doctor Banner.”

Saying the words seems to make up her mind. Her legs only fight her a very little bit as she starts to turn and make her way towards the door. Once there, though, she hesitates just a moment. “At the risk of offending... I think you said the first thing to me tonight that I don’t believe. At your best, I think you’re rather a lot more than you give yourself credit for.” She purses her lips for a moment before she says with a forced-sounding lightness, “Good night, Doctor Banner.”

"Wait," Bruce says, jumping to his feet. He freezes once there, jamming his hands in his labcoat as if searching desperartely for something. It takes him a few seconds to get the words together, in order.

"....Dinner? I mean, would you like to eat? With me? Dinner, with me? Not in the mess hall," he clarifies. "But like... dinner." He winces. "I told you, I'm bad at this," he apologizes, looking chagrined.

She hesitates just a moment, loitering there in his doorway and looking back at him thoughtfully. She doesn’t even seem sure what she’s going to say until it crosses her lips. “Yes.” She considers the sound of the word a second before reaffirming her decision with a little nod. “Yes, I think... I think I’d like that. The only thing I’ve seen of the city is from a helicopter. And... the company would be lovely. You’ll let me know when you’re free.”

There’s just a hint of wariness now, but she ventures another smile and a lingering last look before she pushes the button and opens the door to the hall. “Sweet dreams.” She murmurs just before setting off down the hall, her steps once again light and purposeful.