002: Video

[hulkbusted]

[It's Saturday morning and Bruce's NV is propped against something to show him seated with a cup of something (tea, considering the string and tag hanging over the cup's lip) in the foreground. People move behind him, some holding cups of coffee before they take seats out of the camera's view. Looks like he's at an outdoor cafe. It also looks like he's found a charity that offers clothes to the poor and/or new arrivals because he's wearing a slightly dingy pale green button-down shirt with the cuffs rolled up over his forearms and a couple of buttons left open at the collar.]

Hiring in Siren's Port doesn't go the way it does most other places, does it? I couldn't give the panel at Siren's Port University my CV and published papers for examples of my work, but a few days of filling white boards with equations seems to have done the trick. It's much faster than hiring back home, too, but I guess there's a lot of turnover around here.

In addition, I'm offering my services as an after hours tutor while the days are long and until I go home, whenever that may be. If you need help with math or science up to the post-graduate level in most disciplines, contact me [he leans forward and swipes his fingers over the display, and a link appears at the bottom of the video screen] and we can make arrangements.

In the meantime, I'm at Cafe Bijan, and there are a few people who have been helpful to me since I arrived that I would happily buy a coffee. [He smiles, and the humor is meant mostly for himself and maybe one other person.] Unless you don't drink... coffee.

Comments

Action

[doeswhathewants]

Ouch. I must remember to run cold water over that burn on returning home. [Blase, not looking up from his phone.]

Re: Action

[hulkbusted]

[Bruce takes a sip of his tea and shrugs.] Did you want something?

[doeswhathewants]

I did. [He idles the phone and sets it down, then turns to look at Bruce.

It's like a cat with a person who loathes cats. They can just sense it. And yours is the space they want to be all up in.]

[hulkbusted]

[Bruce takes another sip of his tea and sets it down before picking up his phone to swipe through some city maps looking for library information. He doesn't look interested in Loki even if he's quite aware that he's there.]

[doeswhathewants]

Dr. Banner, you said. Whatever are you a doctor of? Not a healer, I should think. Unless your temperament is greatly more refined than the one of my world. Granted, he and the Hulk are now split. [And he's just going to bust out his phone again, aim it at Bruce and say-] Smile! [Before the light flashes and he's dicking around with the phone again.]

For the collection. [He says by way of explanation that makes absolutely no sense.]

[hulkbusted]

[Bruce glances up at the flash and frowns, but what's he going to do, snatch the NV out of Loki's hand? He lets it go, filing it away, pushing it down. Neither forgiven nor forgotten, just not important. He'd ask about the split, but then Loki would just use it as a chance to be a twit about answering a question with a question. That doesn't mean he has to actually answer the question.]

I've been a healer as you put it.

[doeswhathewants]

Word of advice, next time a magic user attempts to take your image- or something from your person. Do not let him. Too late now, of course, but I would not do anything untoward. [A flash of white teeth in a smile.] Why a healer?

[hulkbusted]

Did you want me to smash your NV? [Bruce makes a mental note to see if he can make the acquaintance of any sophisticated hackers. He's no slouch with a computer, but getting into Loki's NV is probably beyond him.]

You can work that question out yourself.

[doeswhathewants]

[A small gesture, like sleight of hand, and the NV is no longer there] You were saying? [Pfft, Loki is friends with the best hacker ever. Bring it.]

In an effort to equal out the damage your Mr. Hyde has done?

[hulkbusted]

Balance in all things. [Bruce ignores the sleight of hand. And all of this? It's not as though he doesn't know when someone's trying to push his buttons. At least the kid doesn't resemble the Loki from his reality.]

[doeswhathewants]

And all of the things your other self did, they are simply forgiven by others- though obviously not yourself- tabula rasa as the mortal phrasing goes? [He's walking a razor's edge between pushing buttons and entirely serious at the moment.]

[hulkbusted]

[Bruce finally looks Loki dead on at that.] Forgiven? I don't know about that. I haven't been back to Harlem to ask people if they've forgiven that the Other Guy destroyed their neighborhood. [And he's quite certain that the families of the people the Hulk killed in his earliest days haven't forgiven.]

[doeswhathewants]

Yet you avoid them? You do not return to the Harlem to expose yourself to their censure? [Trying, for once, to keep the sly and smug out of his tone. It is curiosity.] Your New York City- and Harlem by proxy- is not under assault nearly every month in your world?

[hulkbusted]

Just last week Thor's brother Loki brought a full-scale alien invasion down on the city.

[doeswhathewants]

[No one ever mentioned his dead self having done something like that. And people were always glad to recount the many and varied sins of that version of himself.] Oh.

Is this the... first time you have met him on the field of battle?

[hulkbusted]

Yes. [If by met you mean "the Hulk whipped him around like a wet dishrag"]

[doeswhathewants]

Oh. Well. Good luck with that. [He just pulls a face and attempts sympathy because it will get so much worse before it gets better.]

[hulkbusted]

So far, so good. His next stop was Asgard before I ended up here.

[doeswhathewants]

Mm. That happened a lot, so I am told. If your universe is anything like mine, it will only get better after it gets so much worse. [Just kind of a grimace.] Perhaps things will turn out differently in your world.

[hulkbusted]

Your world already sounds different from mine. How did the Dr. Banner from your universe separate from the Hulk? [Casual question. No import to it or anything.]

[doeswhathewants]

Blah blah blah fight with Odin's brother who forced all to face their worst fear, Hulk refused to be put back and simply tore away from the Bruce Banner of my world. Leaving both separate entities. [Look at that, he's not going to be a twit about it. Because the story is ridiculous in and of itself.]

[hulkbusted]

[Bruce just blinks at him while he tries to imagine the Hulk out on his own. It's not a pleasant image.]

[doeswhathewants]

No rampaging takes place if you worry for that. Likely tired from his fight before that. Dracula, if rumors are true.

[hulkbusted]

[At which point, Bruce relegates everything Loki says to the "bullshit" pile and takes a sip of his tea before looking down at his NV again. The bag of cats factor clearly transcends universes.]

[doeswhathewants]

[He waits until Bruce puts down the cup before turning the tea into a brown mouse and the cup into a snake. The predator chases his prey around the table before gobbling the mouse up and voila, it is merely a cup of tea again.]

Sherlock Holmes is in the Port. As well as talking ponies. I'd not discount the contents of a world like your own based on differences. it irks him when he is telling the truth and people think he is lying.] You could always ask Wither.