| Just A Little Meeting | |||||
| |||||
| What: Janet goes to the Helicarrier to pay a visit to an old friend. | |||||
{{{logtext}}}
Bruce is hard at work in his lab, apparently- or he's just really good at faking it. He's wearing panama shorts in an eye-searing shade of blue and a grey T-shirt with the word NERD on it in white. His labcoat, stained and burned, flops around him, a bit overlarge and rolled up at the sleeves.
He's also got Journey blasting through the speakers, loud enough to drown out anything short of an emergency klaxon, and he's gliding back and forth on his office chair around the room, working on about three experiments at once, drumming out the solos with a pair of chopsticks in his left hand.
It isn't every day that Janet comes here - does she even have clearance to be on the Helicarrier? - but after a little bit of time spent getting through security and her visitor's badge and all that she begins the hunt for the one she's here to see. How hard can finding Dr. Bruce Banner be, after all?
Short Answer: More difficult than she imagined.
Long Answer: After about twenty minutes of wandering corridors and getting lost a time or two she finally finds the laboratory Bruce is working out of but she notices he has the music up and she doesn't want to startle him. So what does she do? She finds a nearby sheet of blank paper and wads it up before throwing it at him to get his attention.
Bruce blinks as he's assaulted with a wad of paper, and spins full around in his chair, blinking owlishly behind his glasses. "Hey! Hi, can-" he turns the music down. "Hi, can I help you?" Bruce says cheerily, offering the woman a short wave. "The lab's normally off-limits to visitors, unless... you're not looking for me, are you?" he hedges, looking a bit wary. "No one comes down here looking for me unless they've got a lawsuit or bad news."
Poor Bruce. He really looks... shocked. That gets Janet to shake her head quickly and quite emphatically, trying very hard to set the man at ease. "No... uh, actually I wanted to come and see you." There's a pause before she angles her head at Bruce. "We really haven't had a chance to talk much..." She looks around then, mouth held in a minute frown. "I guess you don't remember me. I'm Janet. You know. The Wasp?" Is she not remembering correctly? Have they not met, yet? Wow. Times like this has Janet feeling like such a space case!
"Oh! Janet!" Bruce gets to his feet, fairly springing upwards. He seizes Janet's hand and pumps it enthusiastically. "I'm so sorry! It's been... god, three or four years?" he asks the woman. "And I think last time I saw you, you were in your super-heroine pants." Bruce steps back, wiping his palms absently on the labcoat. "How can I help you? How's Hank?" he inquires, tucking his hands into the oversized pockets.
Oh phew! They have met. But has it been that long? "I am sorry I didn't stay in better touch," she says softly while shaking his hand, the socialite-turned-heroine-turned-fashion-designer. Janet notices the hand wiping but doesn't call attention to her doing so, instead opting to just smile while not taking offense. "Oh. Well, you know. I don't really see him much, either." She explains a bit about the friendship she shares with Pym, Janet shrugging here and there while doing so. "But you know, I didn't come here to talk about myself, Bruce. How have you been?"
"Good. Great!" Bruce says, his tone a bit discordant. "I'm fine, I mean. Just, uh, working on my lab." He stammers a bit, gesturing at everything around him. "SHIELD hired me on about a year ago as an expert consultant. So until, they, uh, need some consulting, I work on experiments down here," he says, chatting a little too quickly. "In ze dungeon! I'm working on some blood samples, and I'm running a spectrographic emissions scan of the ARGUS to see if I can reduce her emissions profile... and.. uh, these guys are for.." he gestures at a bunch of green Army men scattered around the detritus of (what had been) a large lunch. "...something. It seemed pretty important at the time," he frowns, rubbing his chin in thought.
They might not know each other well, yet, but this is something Janet does remember about Bruce, the awkward manner in which he handles social situations something she's familiar with. It is enough to make her smile, her gaze moving from place to place as they're talked about. "Sounds like you're keeping yourself busy. Which is good, yes?"
A casual lean is assumed against the entrance way, Janet not yet moving into the lab since, as he pointed out, visitors really are not welcomed here and she doesn't want to get him into trouble. "If now's not a good time I can come back later. Ohhhhh, or you could come by my place, huh? We can have coffee and hang out." Wait. Do men like Bruce even do that? Hanging out just might be something he doesn't do.
"Now's not a bad time," Bruce assures Janet, his tone awkward but friendly still. "Oh! I'm sorry, come on in," he says, jerking a bit. He finds a spare chair and hauls it out for Janet to sit on, banging it across the floor as a wheel catches. He pats it enthusiastically. "Here, sit! Sit! I've got, uh, some water, and some coke..." He dives into a mini-fridge. "Oh, that's some plutonium I'm experimenting with, you don't want that," he says, over his shoulder. "Ooh! I've got some juice back here, too. You want juice?" he asks Janet, waggling a juicebox at the woman.
The instinct is to giggle as Bruce is being entirely //too// cute but Janet refrains, a bit too polite to do so. What she does allow herself to do is smile her thanks as she sits down, mulling over the choices he presents as drink choices while she takes note of where the plutonium is. Definitely does not want to mess with that. "Water's fine, thanks." She settles in and makes herself comfortable, thrilled to see Bruce in an environment he's comfortable in. "It really is good to see you," she reiterates sincerely. "I've been so busy lately," that business being part of why she wasn't around during... the recent events she won't comment on, "but seriously. I'd like to make up for that."
Bruce smiles at Janet, the expression sincere. "Aww, thanks," he says, flushing a bit. "Yeah, it'd be nice to see more of you. Around!" he hastens to add. "More around here, I mean. Are you working?" he asks, babbling a bit. "I know this isn't as fun as working with Hank but I'm curious what you're up to these days, your clothes look /fantastic/ by the way," he adds. "I bet you're doing fashion- are you into fashion?"
The verbal stumble and recovery has Janet chuckling, knowing what he meant. "Yes, I do some work in the fashion industry," she answers with a nod. "Got a new collection shown in Milan a couple weeks ago. It has been fun but..." The smile fades and her hands are placed upon her lap, fingers lacing together. "I know I am more than that." She is one of the founding members of The Avengers, after all, "But I can't help to wonder if there isn't more for me to do. Something else in the bigger picture sense of things that I'm supposed to do." A quick glance is given to Bruce. Will he understand her?
"Well, you know SHIELD's always on the lookout for a few good folks," Bruce says with a quick grin. "With your skills you'd be a good fit here. Not that I can speak for SHIELD," he hastens to add. "I'm just, y'know, a subcontractor. But if you're interested, I can put you in touch with Maria- er, Assistant Director Hill," he offers. "There might be a position for you around here. On the ARGUS, I mean," he clarifies.
Janet van Dyne blinks a little, that a bit surprising. Sure, she has a unique set of talents that could benefit an organization like this but she's not a Captain America or a Thor or even a Black Widow and might even be considered a b-lister by some because of that. And now, here's Doctor Banner, telling her she might fit in? Pressing her lips together, she takes a rather keen interest in her hands for a moment, the woman thinking on that. "That'd be great, Bruce," she eventually says while looking back at him, her eyes bright. Someone just won massive brownie points with her. "My number's public... oh, wait. Do you have a cell phone? I can just put it in your contacts list."
"Sure, no problem," Bruce says, going through all his pockets. He frowns, spinning in a circle on his chair, then finger snaps and wheels across the lab to a tray labeled 'BANNER', with a pile of food on it, and produces his cell phone from under a bag of Doritos and boots it up. "Hah! Ok, gimme your digits," he says, putting his finger on the keypad and looking inquisitively at the woman.
The number is given easily by Janet. "They made me check my phone in with security so can you write down yours for me, please?" At least it can never be said that the SHIELD security's not careful. They wouldn't even let her keep her purse with her. "We really should do something fun sometime," she adds with a slightly impish grin. "How about dinner sometime? There's this lovely little bistro in Metropolis I've been dying to try but didn't want to go to alone. How about you come with me?"
"Sure!" Bruce says brightly. "I don't get off this ship enough. I'd love to catch up properly." He casts around, finding a notepad and a pen in a spare desk, and then scratches his number down on the pad. "Here you go, and I'll text you so you've got my number too," he adds. "Just in case." He smiles at Janet, with some genuine affection. "It'll be nice to catch up with an old friend. Seems like everyone I know is a SHIELD agent these days."
"Must make it hard to not talk shop when the work day's done, huh?" Janet takes the paper and tucks it into a pocket that's easily accessible, betting that they'll want to check to make sure they're not passing off big time secrets or planning some terrorist act via the old fashion trick of note passing. Bruce is looked at for a moment before she stands and moves towards him, arms held out. The hug just might be rejected but there's a chance there won't be and she seldom passes up the chance to give a friend one. "Give me a few days worth of heads up so I can secure us reservations."
Bruce does hesitate for a moment, then goes in and accepts the hug, relaxing a bit after a tense half-second. "It was good to see you again, Janet," he tells the woman, holding her at arm's length after they break. "Give me a call soon and we'll get together. Ok?" He smiles and pats her arm, then backs a pace away and tucks his hands back into his pockets. "And come around here again. Let's see if there isn't a place for you with SHIELD."
Even if Bruce might not be the biggest man while not Hulked out he'll still tower over Janet who is petite in height as well as build, his arms easily able to wrap around her and then some. "Thanks, Bruce. I owe you." When held out and way from him, she smiles sweetly, totally thrilled by the way this visit turned out. "I'll swing by soon, see if we can't get a meeting with the appropriate people."