sirenspull | 002: Video

[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.

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[A snort.]

He probably would have counted it as a success anyway.

The Other Guy does have a direct approach to things like walls, a maze wouldn't really slow him down.

[She grins.]

Definitely faster than a ball of yarn.

[On the other hand, he sobers.]

You really want to see him? After dark?

[She copies.]

Only if you're comfortable with it. [A year ago she would have immediately said yes.]

[He takes the teacup and rolls it between his palms while he weighs the answer.]

Comfortable isn't really a word I apply to him, but I've been thinking about what you told me about yourself.

How often do you need to... [How do he put it when she's said she doesn't like being a parasite?] ...do what you do?

[She was just being overdramatic. Though sometimes she does have a problem with it.]

About once a month, if I want to stay healthy.

[Don't you dare make a time of the month joke, Bruce. She will slap you and the Hulk.]

[The closest thing to that might be a few flitting twitches across his lips and eyebrows before he nods.]

How does anger taste to you?

[She saw them. She totally did. Well, maybe not.]

Bitter. But not completely awful. Envy is worse.

[He doesn't have the world's best poker face.]

He's not really complicated enough for envy. Can you taste a difference between anger and rage? Fury?

[He is a disgrace to Gaga.

And she is clearly interested by this.]

Rage is less complicated, less focused. Why?

[He can live with that. He hesitates, weighing whether this is a worse idea than some of his other ideas for dealing with the Hulk when things are out of control before biting the bullet and going on.]

I'm trying to work out what kind of meal I'm going to offer you. It doesn't sound like he'd be much of a gourmet dish.

[Meal he's going to offer her. That doesn't sound... like an innuendo or anything. She'll let it slide for now.]

Trust me. What I eat is never gourmet.

[He goes back to rolling the teacup in his hands, looking down at it more than at Scathach.]

It's self-serving, trust me, and if you prefer uncomplicated rage to anger, it might work out. He... [An unwilling grimace] I have rage to spare, especially when I let the Other Guy out.

[He's still rolling the cup until he stops and raps it against the table hard enough to make himself wince] You could have a dinner date with the Hulk.

[She wants to know why he's so full of rage. Was it his experiment that caused it, or had he always been that way? The question is on the tip of her tongue when he mentions a dinner date. A smile plays at her lips.]

And if I'd prefer to go with you? After all, I've never even met him.

[Wait, what?]

Ah... [Now he's feeling a slight irrational sense of having tried to be the Hulk's pimp, which isn't right, thus the word irrational.] Me?

[That's just pimping out your alternate persona. Who knows how to feel about that.]

Yes, you. [She rests her elbows on the table and places her chin on her twined fingers.] Is that so strange?

[Is that so strange? Let him count the ways.]

It kind of is, yeah, and a dinner date with me would have to be vegetarian.

[A small smile.]

I don't mind when others eat meat.

I don't mind when others don't, but that's not the point. If you prefer uncomplicated meals, the Other Guy's your banquet. I'm... not so much.

Maybe I like it both ways.

[She went there.]

[She's being pretty obvious here, Bruce, and are you really going to try to tell a woman older than recorded history that she doesn't know what she wants?]

What if you don't? [He runs a hand through his hair and laughs almost harshly.] What if you do?

[What would Tony Stark do? That question straightens his shoulders.] Okay, let's say the only way to answer that is to give it a try. Would you like to go out sometime? You, me, and the Other Guy? You can have me until sirens and then you can have him.

[Scathach is good at getting what she wants. Her smile is sweet, but also has a hint of triumph.]

Sounds lovely.

[You are so outmatched, Bruce. His expression teeters from slightly nauseated to a hopeful schoolboy smile. It's been a looong time.]

Can you give a guy a hint here? What kind of things you'd like? I hear the city offers just about everything.

But giving you a hint might make it too easy.

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