003: Video

[hulkbusted]

[It's after the night siren and Bruce is looking frazzled, irritated, and... like he forgot that he'd been getting ready to sleep, since he's wearing boxers and glasses and apparently nothing else. As he settles his NV, a pair of mice skitter across the desk he's set it on. There are little movements in the background and Bruce has to stop and hop around, cursing under his breath as something apparently runs over his foot.]

Okay, look, the Darkness thing I'm up on, but is it common for random objects like, say, my pillow to turn into mice?

[ooc: Loki'd]

Comments

[hulkbusted]

Each one seems a little different. Not that I met the Odin from my universe, just Thor and Loki.

[symmachy]

[She nods a little, releasing his hand so she can trace the lines on his palm.]

Do you know them well?

[hulkbusted]

[He opens his hand, fingers in a relaxed curl and watches Scatty's finger along his palm with an expression of mixed wonder and bewilderment. Occasionally his fingers twitch when she tickles him.]

No. I had a chance to... work with Thor to oppose Loki. We got off to a little bit of a rough start, but we got that worked out.

I told you about what happened with Loki.

[symmachy]

[Tickling. Something so simple that makes her smile. She can sense that he isn't used to this sort of thing either. It's comforting, somehow.]

I remember. I'm sure he didn't take it very well.

[hulkbusted]

[He'd convinced himself to never expect this kind of thing again.]

Surprisingly calmly, actually... [A thought occurs to him, but he dismisses it because he has no way to test its validity, either here or at home.] But who really knows what's going on in that head of his?

[symmachy]

[There are just so many lines on his hand to trace. And the veins up his wrist.]

No one I've ever talked to who knew him.

[hulkbusted]

[When her fingers stray off his palm, his heartbeat picks up and his lips part on a silent sigh before he carefully, reluctantly takes his hand away and puts it on his lap.]

Yeah. [He has to clear his throat.] He's six kinds of crazy no matter which way you look at him.

[symmachy]

[She's surprised by the movement, but not offended when she remembers that he tries to keep his heart rate down.

Besides, it meant she made that go up, which is amusing.]

Maybe seven. [She stands and starts to walk around the room, inspecting little things here and there. Out of curiosity, of course.]

[hulkbusted]

Easily seven. Probably more like a dozen. [Bruce watches her walking around, relieved that she didn't seem offended.]

I don't pick up knickknacks. [There are a few books he's picked up at the university library. Volumes on quantum mechanics and a couple of notebooks stacked alongside them. There's a backpack by the door, but other than it and the books, everything else is neatly stashed away.]

[symmachy]

[The same could be said about her, but she wasn't about to voice that out loud. It would be rude.]

Neither do I. [She gently runs her fingers down the spines of the books.] Have you read all of these?

[hulkbusted]

That's almost too bad. I'd love to see what 10,000 years worth of knickknacks would look like. [He shrugs.] Yes. Quantum mechanics suddenly became very personal since coming here.

[symmachy]

Probably not pretty. [She steps away from the books, and begins wandering the room again. Maybe she's just a little restless.] I can only imagine. Did you not study it before?

[hulkbusted]

Maybe not, but if I were a historian, I would be... [he does not finish the sentence, "so turned on."] ...fascinated.

My specialty was, is nuclear physics, particularly gamma radiation. That led me to biochemistry. I read a few things about quantum physics along the way, but I never made serious study of it before now.

Restless? I know you said you don't sleep. Do you usually just wander out there at night?

[symmachy]

[Too bad you aren't a historian, Bruce] Maybe you could tutor me in it, then. [Not that she'd really understand, anyway.

Scathach glances at him, and smiles a bit.]

Sometimes. Other nights I meditate. It depends on my mood. [Mentally laughing at her own joke.]

[hulkbusted]

[He's feeling uncomfortably historically-minded as it is.]

Do you really want to study quantum mechanics? [Dubious]

I meditate most nights. It helps. It's especially helped since coming here.

[symmachy]

[She shrugs.] It would be something new for me.

Is it very stressful for you here? [Look she doesn't think about things like that.]

[hulkbusted]

We can start at the survey level to get an idea of how deep you want to go with the math.

Is it stressful? I'm in an entirely different world, there are monsters outside every night, and there's a lunatic little trickster god who wants to see me lose my temper. Yes, it's stressful.

[symmachy]

[Ugh, math. But she'll do it. Nobody could say that Scatty wouldn't try something at least once.] Sounds good.

[Scathach pauses for a moment, and then laughs, a musical sound. She smiles at him, still almost prowling around his room. She plops down on the bed beside him again, fingering the fabric of the shirt she's borrowed.] Then you should find a way to de-stress. Seems simple enough.

[hulkbusted]

[Bruce rubs a finger by his eye and smiles because he can't help it when she laughs like that.]

That's why I meditate and read books about quantum mechanics.

[symmachy]

[She pulls a face.]

You should probably get out more.

[Says the vampire recluse.]

[hulkbusted]

I'll get out more once the fall term at the university starts.

[He knows that's not what she means.]

[symmachy]

And until then, you'll hide indoors and meditate?

[She curls her legs into her chest, resting the side of her head on her knees so she can look at him.]

[hulkbusted]

Mostly. I asked you out, so there's that, and I told Eli that I'd be medical backup at the HoA.

[The room's mostly quiet except for the sound of mice skittering across the floor. She looks downright winsome like that.]

It works. People don't get hurt this way.

[symmachy]

[A short laugh. She won't mention that she kind of maneuvered him into doing that first one.] So you're going to stop enjoying your own life?

[hulkbusted]

[And she thinks she has no mercy....]

Compared to the past five years, I'm living it up, Scathach. I was ready to start thinking about a future where I wasn't constantly alone and constantly running before I was dropped here and this place feels like a holding pattern until I can get there.