Mean'n'Green

Then his lab assistant burst into the room all precious trays and exasperation, and Bruce’s sense of child-like joy quickly turned into a battle hardened readiness. Holding up a finger as she came in, he literally put his foot down and said in his most serious tone, “Now Darcy, I’m working with some very time-sensitive equipment here, I can’t simply just put my work down for some food. I’ll be more than happy to do so when I’m done, but you’ll just have to wait until then.” He tried, he really did. He kept that finger up, sternly pointing at her for a good whole thirty seconds of silence before he started to tremble.

With an actual huff his stance changed almost instantly as he made frantic gestures towards the microscope. “Daaaarcy, I’m working with an actual shrink ray here! Well…not really a ray but still shrinking is involved! And tiny robots! Let me play with my tiny robots!” Again, his pleas were met with the cold silence of a jail warden, and with an exasperated sigh he got down off his platform and headed over to a table where he sat down, possibly with more force than he should and said quietly, “What’re we having today?”

“I made you a roast beef sandwich on whole wheat, with a bag of kettle chips, and an ice tea. If you’re good, I’ll give you a cookie later.” Darcy watched with a careful eye, waiting for Bruce to take a bite of his sandwich. She perched herself on the corner of the desk, forgoing a chair, instead kicking her scuffed Vans back and forth. 

The lab was a bit of a mess, clearly in the middle of something that hadn’t been started until after breakfast. “This all looks impressive, Green Machine. Have you made anything that works yet?”

Though they had only been working together for a few weeks, Darcy found she really liked it, down in Bruce’s labs. It was a chance to get away from the annoying sidekick post that Darcy had gotten stuck in with Jane. The woman scientist may be her best friend, but sometimes Darcy worried that it was a friendship forged out of necessity rather than actual want. 

"One: 'Green Machine' will not be a name that sticks. Two: ...I will get that cookie."

Taking a chug of his iced tea he caught a breath and chuckled, "Thank you for the food Darcy, and to answer your previous question yes, I have built things that work little miss smarty pants." Making a gesture towards the equipment he'd been using he added, "It's just that most of what I've finished building has been...well...tools. So the results aren't really flashy, but they're leading to the scientific equivalent of a Pink Floyd show I assure you." A truly Hulk-sized belch erupted from his lips, and Bruce turned red for a moment before attempting to cover up the incident by hitting his chest and claiming it was "heartburn".

Then his lab assistant burst into the room all precious trays and exasperation, and Bruce's sense of child-like joy quickly turned into a battle hardened readiness. Holding up a finger as she came in, he literally put his foot down and said in his most serious tone, "Now Darcy, I'm working with some very time-sensitive equipment here, I can't simply just put my work down for some food. I'll be more than happy to do so when I'm done, but you'll just have to wait until then." He tried, he really did. He kept that finger up, sternly pointing at her for a good whole thirty seconds of silence before he started to tremble.

With an actual huff his stance changed almost instantly as he made frantic gestures towards the microscope. "Daaaarcy, I'm working with an actual shrink ray here! Well...not really a ray but still shrinking is involved! And tiny robots! Let me play with my tiny robots!" Again, his pleas were met with the cold silence of a jail warden, and with an exasperated sigh he got down off his platform and headed over to a table where he sat down, possibly with more force than he should and said quietly, "What're we having today?"

The ride up from the basement was excruciating, why on earth did they have a medical center so far away from the labs? Perhaps it just simply felt like it was taking forever. What if something had happened to Tony? Or Thor? What if Agent Barton had been taken out in the line of duty? He was really starting to like him! Trying to calm himself down only made things spiral into more horrific scenarios he'd built up in his head. What if Loki had finally gone off the deep end and managed to kill the only people on earth Bruce could tolerate?!

As the doors opened, the staff on that floor caught sight of a disheveled scientist breathing heavily into a bag and struggling to lift himself off the floor as if his muscles had turned to jelly. Between gasps into his brown paper inhaler he managed to get out he words, "Where...Fury?" And before they could finish their sentence he was off running in that direction.

A thought did occur to him though, while he initially wrote it off as someone finally listening to him about lab safety, a second glance at those gloves she wore revealed that they were in no way prepared to resist a spray of even the mildest acid. Aside from the fact that she didn't show any hint of flesh in her clothing, it didn't look like she'd dressed for the lab at all, almost as if she always just bundled up like it was the middle of winter. Still, for the scientific mind of Dr. Banner, finding out the answer to such curious costuming was child's play...

"So, what's with the gloves?"

"I've got a few compounds over there that I'm working on for some of Agent Barton's arrows, a nice sort of exploding goo. Bursts upon contact, wraps around the target, and immobilizes them. Trying to cut down on the constriction currently." Heading over to a desk he picked up a barbie doll with its head popped off. "As you can see, right now our testing has proved a bit too...let's say cuddly, for humane capture."

Well shit.

With a thud, Bruce snapped out of his internal monologue and attempted to scramble himself up off the floor in the kind of overly casual manner one can only adopt after falling backwards out of a chair. Dusting off his shirt he hopped up to his feet and, desperately trying to cling to some form of professionalism, straightened his now crooked glasses and held out his hand.

His feet slightly skidding in protest and a garbled litany of reasons why he'd prefer not to dance seemed to fly right by his compatriots as they moved the man towards the section of the club packed tightly with people and bright flashing lights. Shooting a pleading look to Tony which clearly said 'Get me out of here' he realized that said look probably wasn't going to get him anywhere. With a sigh he took a swig from his drink, coughed for a moment, and then attempted to dance.

Help him? Yeah he could help him! Tony was one of the most brilliant minds Bruce knew of, and he's got Reed Richards as a pen pal. However, right now Tony wanted Bruce to let loose a little, so at the very least that's what he could do for his friend. "Ya know what you could do for me Tony? Get me a glass of whatever you're drinking." He was really hoping Clint hadn't lost those contingency plans right about now, but c'mon, he was just as likely to be a happy drunk as a belligerent one...right?

When Tony mentioned driving home Bruce actually cocked his head to the side. The car that he drove here in was worth more than several of the more expensive pieces of equipment in his lab. It was nothing short of an honor and Bruce was genuinely touched at the gesture. With a grin he snatched up the keys like a schoolkid and stared at them like he'd just found the golden ticket. It had been quite a while since he'd driven, most of the places he'd been hiding out in weren't too big on cars in general, so this was gonna be quite the treat. Still, Tony wanted Bruce to really enjoy himself, and there was nothing wrong with trying to keep up with the billionaire in that regard.

Despite the fact that Bruce felt like he'd just been kneed in the gut, Tony still snuck him out past top secret government watchdogs just so he could have a night on the town. I mean, it was his Tower when all is said and done, but he was risking a speech from Fury and Bruce did want to let his friend know he appreciated it. Looking down at his glass he laughed, "I'm drinking water Tony, maybe you've heard of it? It's that stuff JARVIS has to sneak into your glass after nights like this one."

Heading over to his desk he opened up a drawer and pulled out a small notebook, leafing through it until he hit a page labeled 'Manhattan'. Showing Clint the page he said, "Here are the coordinates for a few nearby garbage dumps that you can lead me to if I get out of control, the top two are on islands so they're preferred. At this time of night they should be mostly empty so we should be safe from any collateral damage. Don't try to hammer into me until I collapse, that's just going to make me madder and keep me going, have Thor fill me with as much juice as he can muster. That should put me down long enough for you all to drag me back into the Hulk containment sub-basement SHIELD's set up."

With an inward sigh of relief he turned back to Lori, "I'm more of the scientific kind of doctor...I mean, I do medical experiments but mostly on just organic compounds, gamma radiation, that sort of thing." You're rambling, stop rambling. "I don't really go out there and save anybody's life or anything," just typically endanger thousands with my presence, ya know, the usual. Taking a sip of his water he tried not to let his eyes dance over the really, really distracting dress she was wearing. Or the way her lips curved just so. Or how she wasn't screaming in terror running away from him, that one was always a plus. "So what do you do, Lori?"

Holding up his hands his tone changed back into the friendly intonations he had before, "You seem like a nice guy, Clint, and I'm sure you have my best interests at heart in trying to get me out into the big wide world, but it's really safer for everyone if I just stay here. You saw me fighting those aliens, how much damage I could do. Now imagine if something causes me to change out there and I don't have an evil space army to be pointed at, but a group of civilians clustered together in some tiny, dank room. It's practically a death trap."