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It wasn’t an infrequent occurrence for Bruce and Tony to meddle with chemicals and produce dynamic results, but it was the first time they’d managed to cause what could be categorized as an explosion in the high school chemistry lab. Fire extinguishers had been employed, clothing had to be batted free of flame, and the two teenagers had been irrevocably, unequivocally separated for the rest of their high school years.Tony had moaned and complained as his schedule was rearranged to accommodate a Chemistry class that Bruce wasn’t in, threatening to sue the school and his teachers for their thoughtlessness. ( Frankly, Bruce was just glad they weren’t suspended, arrested, enlisted, or something equally horrific, though the phone call to his Dad had him hiding out at Tony’s for a few days. )A chemistry class without Tony proved to be dull to an extreme that Bruce hadn’t thought possible with a subject he loved so much - the marginal efforts he’d been making to maintain a not-awful average slid to the wayside, and he left for winter break skating by with a deplorable D-.A Monday in mid-March found Bruce in the school library perusing the nonfiction shelves for a book he wouldn’t mind re-reading, the end of the day bell having dismissed the school’s students well over an hour ago. The library was quiet, just Mavis (the librarian), and one other student who was studying at one of the tables.As a general rule Bruce tried to avoid interacting with people, Tony being the obvious exception. And so he’d been maintaining a wide berth from the black-haired girl bent over her book ever since they’d both gotten there, and she was doing a fine job ignoring him right back. Maria Hill, if he remembered correctly, from his Chemistry class, athletically disposed with a chip on her shoulder that he had no desire to investigate.Maria Hill, who was so absorbed in her textbook that she didn’t realize she’d knocked her pencil off the table and onto the ground by her feet. The look of naked concentration on her face was almost sweet, and as Bruce watched from behind a stack of paperbacks, her fingers started crawling across the surface of the table in absent search of something to write with.Bruce’s mom had passed away four years ago, and before she’d gone she managed to instil in him an awareness of the human capacity for good, and an obligation to act on it. It wasn’t the only thing that lingered in his psyche from her too-short time in his life, but it was the one that compelled him to violate his self-imposed isolation, cross the room, pick up the pencil, and roll it back across the desk to Maria.A sharp inhale has Maria’s head turning towards him, the flash of panic disappearing as her eyes narrowed and her hand slapped the rolling pencil to a stop against the table without looking. For a moment their eyes met and Bruce stills, unsure if he’d done the right thing or not.Whatever Maria is looking for in his face, and whether or not she finds it, he isn’t sure - a slight huff of air preempts her abrupt, “Thanks.”Bruce breaks the eye contact with half a shrug and an unbothered, “Sure.”There’s a beat, Maria’s eyes darting behind him; when they come up empty, they meet his again. Just for a moment, the sharp angle of her eyes ease. Then she’s looking at her textbook again, pencil posed on the paper of her spiral notebook. A chemistry textbook, Bruce can’t help but notice, and he frowned as he caught sight of the scribbles already on the paper.Whatever the hell she was trying to do, it was wrong.But should he tell her?Maria was looking at him again, like he was somehow making the space around them undesirable, and he hesitates one more moment before nodding at the books: “You’re doing it wrong.”“Yeah?” It was a hard challenge, part-peevish and part-annoyed; a combination that Bruce resents, and which cajoled him into an equally flippant response,“Yeah.”Maria scoffs, clearly doubtful: “Wasn’t it you and Stark that nearly burnt the school down, last semester?”Maria, he seemed to recall, was the one who’d gotten the first fire extinguisher, shouted at people to get more, and used it without pausing to remember how to. “That was an accident.”“Mmhm.” The doubt hadn’t gone from her face, but another glance at the textbook betrayed her incomprehension of the subject matter. With a hard-done sigh, she flicks the pencil at Bruce, who fumbled with it before trapping it between his hand and sweater. With a slight smile, she pushes the notebook to the end of the table, where he was standing. “Then show me, if you’re so smart.”Bruce doesn’t bother hiding his eye-roll as he pulls out the seat, tugging the textbook towards him by the corner and scanning the question. Easy-peasy, he thinks, taking half a minute to scrawling out the answer as a diagram of the atomic structure of the fused elements, effectively answering half the page of walk-through questions.“There,” he tells her, shoving it all back and standing - Maria’s sitting straighter in her seat now, intrigued, and he watches her stare at his answer skeptically. Her mouth opens to question it, but Tony’s voice rings out from the doorway with a striking,“Brucie!”Bruce winces, but this conversation doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and he can nearly feel Maria glaring at his retreating back.“The hell Hill want with you?” Tony asks, and Bruce is certain the question carries back into the silence of the library.Bruce pushes at Tony’s shoulder, making some space and answering much more softly, “I dunno. Whatever - we going to yours?”That Wednesday, at the beginning of chemistry, he watches Maria get her homework back covered in red ink, with what looks like a copy of his sketch at the bottom. Bruce gets back a stern comment about turning in work, and a reminder about the five assignments he’s already missed.Also that Wednesday, at the end of chemistry, Mr. Steels rearranges lab partners. Tony’s in another class, so a few groups get shuffled around, and Maria gets pulled from the Pepper/Bobbi/Sharon tri-fecta. That’s when Bruce’s life gets a lot more interesting.-Maria stalks across the classroom to him with all the ferocity he usually attributes to posturing kittens - but when her book-bag lands hard on his desk and causes the whole thing to rattle, and he looks up to see her narrowed eyes and the tight corners of her lips, she starts seeming a lot more formidable.“Look,” she starts harshly, clearly unpleased with the turn of events, “I know this isn’t either of our ideals, but I have a game Friday which means I’ll be missing class - so I’d like to get this wrapped up as quickly as possible.”The words sound like imposters from her mouth, the sequence of them correct but like they’ve been learned second-hand, and not quite practised enough to be genuine. “Okay,” he answers, closing the novel he’d been reading throughout the class, and placing it on the desk - a peace offering, and he sits up straighter as Maria takes up the vacated seat in front of him, straddling the back of it to be able to face him.“Good. I just need a decent grade. So we should do something easy.”“Easy.”“Yeah.” The impatience is rife in her tone, and Bruce sighs; his eyes drift to Mr. Steele’s, wondering if the idiot would be willing to let them both go solo -- but given the pile of incomplete assignments that have ejected Bruce from the teacher’s good graces…Maria’s eyes are leveled, and boring into him with a level of scrutiny and determination that lets him know, in no uncertain terms, that he won’t be getting away with anything. “Fine,” he huffs, uncomfortable with her steadfast gaze; beyond Tony, there’s no one that holds him accountable, no one that expects anything from him other than indifferential politeness. And he’s not sure how to take the idea that Maria might demand more of his attention and effort than he’s used to. “We can do whatever you want.”“Pick the easiest one - I just need this to pad my grade.”

( - more like buff it, from what he’s seen of her abilities, and the red-marked paper that’s poking out from the pocket of her bag... )Bruce glances at the list of assignments in chalk on the board, each just as dull and hopeless as the previous. “Aspirin,” he picks at random, “Number three.”This forces her to turn around and read the full question, and he uses the moment of inattention to pull her assignment from her bag, smoothing it out on the desk. When she turns around and realizes what he’s done, her eyes flash, first with fear and then with stout indignation: “What’re you--!”It’s obvious where the dismay comes from, his diagramed solution poorly reversed in an attempt to ‘show the work’ -
Bruce looks up at her incredulously. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”“Oh, fuck you.” The paper’s snatched away with a display of dexterity that Bruce will never be able to match, and then shoved back into the bag, albeit much, much deeper. “Library. Tomorrow. After school,” Maria demands, just in time with the ring of the break bell. “We’ll talk about it then.”She storms out in a slightly less dignified huff than she had when she arrived in, and Bruce rolls his eyes, gets his book, and hides behind a gaggle of students while Mr. Steeles calls his name and tries to get him to stay behind.He doesn’t feel guilty for ducking out, already aware of what the topic of conversation would have been: another conversation about potential and responsibility, another conversation about how he was performing well below his capabilities - another conversation to tell him how great he could be and how currently shitty he was; a conversation Bruce didn’t have the tolerance to hear one more time.-Bruce is already sitting at the library with a novel when Maria comes by (a different novel, the one from Chemistry already finished and returned to the needlessly grand Stark ‘study’). Bruce has the novel, some change in his pocket, and half a pack of gum Tony threw at him just before the end of lunch - Maria has a backpack, a sports bag, a cloth bag with books in it, and a plastic grocery bag that looks like it might have an apple in it.
Bruce keeps his novel open while she unloads, watching with unmasked confusion as a dull thump accompanies each bag that’s unslung and placed. At the end of the process she notices his face, and adopts her own confusion: “What?”A blink and another, and Bruce realizes elaborating isn’t worth the fuss. “Nothing.”An irritated huff coincides with her falling into her seat, and Bruce can still see some droplets of water behind her ear, which she hadn’t managed to dry. “Fine. So, I made rubric of everything we need to do.” Maria pulls out a piece of paper from the cloth bag, “I figure we can each do half.” She slides it across the table at him, and folds her arms, “Pick.”Except he doesn’t have a pencil, and the list is overkill - not to mention tedious. “I’m not doing any experiments,” he tells her, noting the header at the top of the page, “You realize that, right?”“What do you mean?”“I’m not, doing them.” A pause of silence, and he elaborates further, sighing, “They’re stupid and useless.” Maria’s eyes narrow, and it feels like a challenge. “You already know what’s going to happen. You don’t have to waste the time doing it when a hundred million kids have already done it before you. The answer isn’t going to change unless you screw something up.That’s enough for Maria to respond to, and she sounds even more irritated when she speaks: “But the point is the process of it - we haven’t done it before, that’s the point of it.”The point of the project is to suck his soul dry, but he’s never been good at arguing, and they’ve suddenly reached his limit. His lips come together in a grim line, and he asks, “Can I borrow a pencil?”Maria eyes him critically before flicking her pencil at him - it bounces off the table and falls into his lap, and she shoves a couple blank pages at him as well. “Keep it.”“You know what is fascinating?” he asks, sketching the structural formula for synthesizing Asprin, “Gamma radiation. There’s a scientist at Berkeley who’s studying the rates of radioactive decay in atomic nuclei after the use of gamma radiation. It’s a type of electromagnetic radiation, and they’re so powerful they usually just occur in outer space,” he nods up, pausing in his writing for a moment.When he looks up at her, her face is an open book, soft-edge disbelief melding with bewilderment. Maria has no idea what he’s talking about, and she’s not good at chemistry, so he feels the urge to ask: “Why do you care so much about your chem grade anyway?”The question takes her by surprise, the miniscule gap between her lips closing up tight, her guard visible in the tightening of her shoulders and the straightening of her neck. It’s defensive, and it intrigues Bruce all the more.“Wha- what do you mean?”It’s the first crack in composure he’s really seen, and he shrugs with one shoulder. “No offense, but you’re not good at this stuff. You’re not going to college for this stuff either so, why does it matter?”“Uh…” The other look is back, the look that says he’s being dumb and she’s having a hard time gauging just how dumb. “So we can get a good grade? So I don’t get kicked off track or the field hockey team? Bad grades don’t play.”Bruce shakes his head, knowing full-well the requirements for student athletes. “ Failing grades don’t play,” he challenges softly, but it’s not confrontational, and his eyes shift to the paper, his head angled down.“Call me a perfectionist,” she snaps back, and he’s pushed a nerve there, but he’s not sure how or why. “What’re you doing?” It’s not a segue at all, but Bruce is almost finished anyway, and he jots down the final pieces,“We were doing neutralization and back titration last week. This,” he says, pushing the sheet with his formula on it, “Is the culmination of that. So. My half is done.” And he has marked down through the steps that would lead him to this, so technically....Maria frowns at him as she shifts back in her seat, affronted.“Just tell Steeles we did the experiment, use this, and we’re fine.”Her eyes study the paper, and she shakes her head, trying to push it back, “But you’re not showing your work. How do you know the answers are right?” The accusation in her voice dials back for the question, and he sighs,“Because I know they are?” That answer won’t satisfy, and they spend the next 45 minutes in a lengthy discussion about the properties of neutralization and back titration (which they already learned), and the process that had brought Bruce instinctively to the answer.And Bruce leaves the meeting pretty confident that they’ll get a mark well past passing.Maria, on the other hand, spends the bulk of that night in her room with her door shut, trying to remember what Bruce had said, and assemble the half-remembered knowledge into something decently useful. The answers are correct, and she works backwards from those, filling in the gaps and arranging everything into a solid, sleek looking package.-When they get the folder back the next following Friday, it’s marked to the teeth in red. The big fat letter of failure stares her in the face, and Maria can feel her face getting just as red - she doesn’t understand, Bruce’s answers were right, and she just reversed them, walked back to the beginning. But the numbers add up and she can feel her hands shaking as the failed grade stares up at her.There’s no coming back from this. She’s screwed. Given her already existing grade, this plummets it back down well below a D, and for all of Banner’s smugness in his knowledge of athlete eligibility, a D is enough to sink her.And there’s nothing between now and midterms but a test not worth enough to make it up, which means that she’s going to be benched for the next four games at least - the bell rings and she’s out of her seat in an instant, snatching up her things and gunning for the door like a bullet out of a Colt. There’s a game after school - her last one - and she needs to get ready, figure out a way to quiet the dull thrum of failure that’s overwhelming her mind.Maria can hear Bruce calling after her, but the sound of her name gets swept up by the din of the hallway quickly.She thinks she’s made an escape by the time she reaches the fork in the hallway, but then Bruce is there, catching her elbow, and she throws her arm up in response to the unexpected contact; her arm catches the rim of his glasses as he jerks his head away, and he backs up a step, the frames sitting awkwardly on his nose.A palm against the lower corner readjusts them back up his nose, the slightest smudge visible from his skin. “Wait,” he repeats again, and she’s stopped in the hall and she’s waiting, so she doesn’t say anything. His lower lip folds between his teeth, his hands pressing together as his thumb presses against the web between his opposite thumb and finger.And then he has the gull to ask, looking hopeless and confused and innocent, “What the heck did you do?”“What did I do?!” The scorn is in her voice, the edges of her calm fraying alongside her patience, “I picked up your slack! But that’s fine, isn’t it - because you don’t give a shit. None of this matters to you, because you’re smart, and a genius, and you’ve probably got a boatload of scholarships waiting for you when you graduate so you can go wherever you want.”
Maria can feel her anger manifesting into something ugly, the type of thing she desperately tries to avoid showing - the snap of a temper that sometimes surfaces and reminds her of him; the look of disappointment she’s going to get when he hears about this , about her failure . The tarnish on her herculean effort to get straight A’s, knowing a C or even a B won’t be close to enough for him - hot, angry tears are brimming along her lash line, and they only serve to make her all the more furious, make her feel all the more like him .Maria pushes the folder at Bruce’s chest, unable to vocalize the abject failure this whole thing has been. “Not that it matters,” she spits out, venom and misplaced hatred oozing out, and she leaves with a forceful spin, leaving him as she retreats to the privacy and sanctity of the girls locker room.Everyone realizes that conversation with her today is going to be terse, and soon even the most friendly girls are giving her a wide berth. Maria’s desperate need to control her anger doesn’t help, the frustration of failing in that too making her all the more furious. It’s badly contained, though she deludes herself into thinking she’s covering it well -- until some girl on the other team gets her on the outside, abandoning the ball just in time for Maria to tap it out of bounds. The resulting hit of frustration is dirty, after the whistle, and plainly unsportsmanlike; the retaliatory elbow she gets in the nose helps assuage the guilt, though she felt the regret the second her stick makes contact with flesh. She’s already stalking off the field by the time her coach is hollering at her to get over to the bench. The blood dripping down her from her nose is the first thing that makes her feel in control since chemistry class. The blood tastes like copper, and the medic wipes her down with gauze and tapes a piece against her nose, with a stabilizing stripe across its bridge.Then it’s off to the locker room, suspended for the game and at least two more - and she manages to keep from breaking her stick against the shower stalls, because she’s not like him . Her backpack is sitting nestled in her locker, but she can’t bear to look at it. She’ll be back tomorrow for it, and all the homework she has for her other classes, but the added burden of weight might split her back right now, so she just gathers up her duffel and throws it over a shoulder.The last person she’s expecting to see as she heavy-foots her way out is Bruce Banner, slinking by the bleachers of the secondary field. “I’m not in the mood Banner,” she tells him shortly, even though there’s something about his posture that draws her eye. Her grip tightens on the stick, but the instinct towards violence is instantly stifled (that’s him, not her).Maria doesn’t have any qualms about the snarl her expression shifts into, her aim to walk right past Bruce and head home for a much needed cry under the sheet.But Banner doesn’t seem to understand, pushing away from the darkness and crossing over to her. “I know,” he tells her, falling into step, and for someone who knows, he’s pretty good at acting like he doesn’t. “I’m sorry. Just - hear me out. I talked to Steeles and we can…” his sentence trails off, and when she glances at him to see why, she can see the sweet slant of his lips as he eyes her with concern, “Are you okay?”“I’m fine,” she juts out - it’s not like this is the worst she’s had. And she wonders if he even cares at all or if he’s just wired for this weird mix of nicety and asshole-ness. First he’s helping her with chem, then he’s making fun of her, then he’s finishing the whole project and then he’s screwing them over - it’s exhausting, and frankly, annoying. But the part about Steeles does have her attention, and despite her better judgement she huffs and asks, “What about Steeles?”They walk through the gate of the fields entrance; Maria’s curious, but she needs to get away from the school now, and nothing’s going to stop that.“I talked him into extra credit. And there’s a test next week I can help you with.”And there he goes being nice again, and Maria pitches forward down the concrete steps as her mind races to figure it out. “Why?” He hadn’t bothered to put in the effort before, so why now? “Why do you care?”“You’re not gonna pass alone,” Bruce tells her, and her pride’s been through the blender and back already, but apparently there is more there to tear off. “You need a pass - yeah, to play, but…”And it’s at that point that she wonders if he knows. But then he says,“It’s not your fault I’m an idiot,” and she decides that there’s no way he can, and her opinion dips back towards the nicety. There’s a popping noise, and she glances down sharply at it - an ice pack, when had he gotten that? Finally, she stops walking, in the middle of the green grassy front of the school that’s been painted off-orange by the streetlights.“You’re not,” she tells him, and he holds out the ice pack and she stares at it for a second before taking it. His hand is warm, but the pack is cold, and she puts it against her nose, where the relief is instant. “I mean, you are, but-”Bruce’s cheeks lift up and his lips press into a smile - Maria realizes she’s never seen Bruce Banner smile before, and the contrition that wrinkles the space above his eyebrow is weirdly endearing.“You’re being serious,” she notes after another pause, and the smile melts off his face into something sheepish and uncertain,“Yeah. I am.”He doesn’t shy away from her gaze, and she sighs. “Fine.” God it’s been a long day. “I’m going home now, Banner. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”An aboutface proves her commitment, but he catches up in a hurry. “Okay. So, Tony’s making an artificial intelligence, he’s calling it JARVIS, just to piss off Mr. Jarvis... yesterday it told him to ‘kindly fuck himself’.”The jump is so random, Maria side-eyes him. “He didn’t.” Was Bruce’s conscience really so heavy that he felt like he needed to keep this up? But she’s too tired to argue him into leaving her alone, and she starts for home, which is well beyond the nice Upper East Side the school’s buried in.“No, he really did,” Bruce insists, and he continues to talk about it without a prompt, so Maria lets him.-Bruce talks her into a hole-in-the-wall diner that’s suspiciously close to her own digs, where an aging railway-voiced hostess/waitress/cook knows him by name. Bruce blushes as he introduces Maria to Esther, a faint pink that curls up from his neck, behind his ears. Maria’s still trying to hide a smile from the sight when Esther eyes her with an edge of suspicion after she asks about Tony, who’s apparently at some fancy Stark Industries dinner with his family. “And what happened to your nose, there?” Esther questions, narrowing her eyes at the area.“She plays hockey,” Bruce jumps in, “There was a thing with the ball.”The lack of knowledge and specificity is weirdly charming coming from someone who’s spent the last hour talking her ear off about a few very detailed projects with Tony; Esther doesn’t buy it though, and her critical gaze shifts to Bruce.
“That so?” There’s a severity in her voice and her gaze that has Bruce visibly wilting, and he looks helplessly over to Maria.“I got upset and hit someone,” she tells Esther, whose face swivels from Bruce to hers, “They elbowed me, but I deserved it.”“That’s quite a temper,” Esther comments, and Maria feels herself flush with shame - it is, but she’d done it, and there was no taking it back now.“I know,” she acknowledges quietly, contrite, and Esther stares for another few seconds before nodding curtly,“Well then. I’ll get you kids some grub and shakes. Chocolate?”Maria nods, and Esther puts a hand on Bruce’s shoulder as she heads back to the kitchen. They sit in awkward silence for near a minute, Bruce playing with the folds of the napkin holding the cutlery together. His fingers fidget with the material, rolling it between the pads of his fingers and smoothing it back out again, eyes stuck firmly on an invisible spot on the table.“You didn’t have to do that,” Maria says quietly, her own awkwardness manifesting as stillness.Bruce’s eyes glance up from the spot, his fidgeting paused, “What?”“Tell her. About the ball, or whatever. Try to make sound like I didn’t - It’s fine.”Bruce’s face softens, the set of the crease below his eye magnified by the lense of his glasses. He has no obligation to lie for her - they basically met last week, and after this chemistry project, they won’t need to talk to each other again.It takes him a long time to respond to that, his eyes searching hers for some sort of sign of something. Maria doesn’t know what it is until he ducks his head and slouches back in his seat, the worn diner-leather stark against the unruly black curls of his hair. “Sometimes it’s just easier.”And then it strikes her that he might know a little something about what it’s like to avoid going home, what it’s like to ripped open and scrutinized every time something of note happens - to be cut down and demoralized; the desperate need to be enough and the emptiness of never quite managing it.Something slips into place between them, a commonality she can’t describe, and her entire body eases off the edge of caution. “Thank you,” she tells him, and he looks up at her with a crooked, press-lipped smile, chagrin and regretful. A friend-in-arms; he’s just trying to get through life the same way she is. His way just looks a little different than hers.Esther interrupts the moment with two heaping plates of food and metal canisters that are frosting on the outside. Burgers and fries, and she tells them to put the napkins on their laps before leaving and coming back with a plastic bag wrapped in a dish towel. There’s ice inside of it, and she puts it by Maria’s plate, for obvious reasons.“Thank you,” Maria tells her, genuinely grateful for the thought, and that seems to slip her into Esther’s good graces. Half of Bruce’s burger is already gone, and she eats most of her own, the chocolate shake going down twice as fast. It’s good food, and close enough to her home that she wonders why she’s never seen it.“You come here with Tony a lot?” she asks, and Bruce pushes his slipping glasses back up his nose with the palm of a hand that has ketchup on its fingers.The answer is a shrug, as he finishes chewing - there’s another palm print on his glasses now, visible from the way the light hits them, and she wonders how he can see anything with them so dirty. “I guess,” he clarifies. The rest of the burger gets shoving into his mouth and he finishes up by folding the napkin from his lap in half and putting it delicately on the plate.Esther comes by again to clear up the plates, telling Maria in the process that she better watch out for Bruce, because he was too smart for his own good. It causes another blush to bloom from the back of Bruce’s neck, bolder this time. Maria can’t keep the smile at bay this time, though it’s more of a smirk - she’s curious if she can manage to make him blush like that, and she accepts her own challenge to find out.They leave without settling the bill, Bruce calling out a goodbye to Esther, who tells them to stay out of trouble.“Esther never lets us pay,” he tells Maria, and adds once they’re outside the door, “I’m pretty sure Tony dropped off enough money to cover the bills until we graduate college.”They kill some time at a park that’s squished between a horseshoe of apartment complexes, the dark chasing off any kids that might’ve otherwise been playing there. A comfortable silence settles between them as they swing aimlessly, toes dragging in the gravel.Maria’s wristwatch rolls over to eight, signifying the start of her dad’s night shift, and ensuring an empty apartment for her to come home to. “I should get home,” she tells Bruce, who doesn’t seem to be in any rush to get home to his own; Bruce nods wordlessly, using the momentum from his shallow swing to stand.It’s clear he intends to walk her home when he falls in step with her, and they walk all the way to her place without saying a word. Bruce glances up at the shambled apartment building at the base of the front steps, and Maria feels a hot indignation at his look. “What?” she demands, knowing this place isn’t as fancy as the shittiest building in Stark’s neighbourhood; and she doesn’t know where Bruce lives, but she’s pretty sure it’s got to be at least the shittiest building in Stark’s neighbourhood.“Nothing,” he answers, a tch bewildered, and Maria feels her cheeks heating up, and she’s glad that no one’s replaced the broken front light yet.A huff and she starts up the steps - and she turns halfway up, realizing she does actually want to say, “Well, bye then.”“Bye,” Bruce answers, and she can feel his eyes on her back as she goes through the door, the latch sticking as she wiggles her key around.The apartment is quiet and dark when she gets in, and she keeps the lights off so she won’t have to see the mess in the living room, nor whatever bottles her dad’s finished littering the kitchen. Her room is scattered with sentimentality, the few trophies she has in a pile beside her wardrobe, her desk the only thing that’s clear. There’s a picture of her mom hidden among the socks, an old present from her dad back when she was little and there were still good days. Maria dumps her duffel bag on the floor, collapses onto the bed.What a weird day.On a whim she rolls over and crawls across her bed to the window, the blinds already half-open; there’s a figure in the dark, but it’s too big to be Bruce - and her room is at the back of the building, and Bruce would be heading down the sidewalk at the front.What a weird guy.Maria pushes off her shoes and crawls under the covers. That blush though, and the softness his face fell into when he was talking about something that excited him - she goes to sleep thinking about it, and thinking about the different ways she could make that happen.-Bruce is inexplicably waiting for her the next day, sitting on top the newspaper box across from the front doors. He looks exhausted and about ready to fall asleep where he is, and she wonders what he’s been doing all night. Her own nose has swollen and is starting to darken into a mottled colour, tender to the touch.“Did you sleep here?”Bruce shakes his head, “That would’ve been hard.”“Are you stalking me?” she asks as she comes down the front, and he hops off the newspaper box and falls in step with her,“No - do you want me to?”“No,” she answers shortly; the cereal she had for breakfast hasn’t quite woken her up, but she needs to get a head start on her homework if she’s going to try and claw her way back to a place on the team before midterms. There’s a blinking red light on the answering machine, and she just knows it’s going to be her coach calling to let her dad know what happened.Bruce doesn’t say anything for a while, and they walk the streets in a silence that doesn’t feel uncomfortable. It’s weird, this friendship he seems determined to sustain, and she has no idea where it comes from. “Where’re we going?” he asks.“School. I need my bag.”“Why?”Maria rolls her eyes, “Some of us actually do homework.”“Oh.”“We have a book report in English on Monday.”“Yeah.” It’s a non committal answer to a fairly general comment and she can’t help but wonder why again. “It was a good book.”“Did you finish the report?”She catches the sheepish grin on his face with the side of her eyes, and the frustration bubbles up at the implied ‘no’. It doesn’t make sense, it would be so easy for him, the idea that he’s got all this intellect and he’s just -- not doing anything with it is mind-boggling. There’s silence until they make it to the school; Bruce picks up his coat from his locker, and she sees a smattering of books and a deranged looking coil notebook, but he doesn’t take anything else with him.Meanwhile she picks up her backpack, all the textbooks she’ll need, and the remains of her lunch from the other day.The AP textbook catches Bruce’s eye and he asks thoughtfully, “College credit - do you already know what you’re going to do after this?”“Go into the force,” she answers - the obvious choice for her, even though she doubts it’ll be enough.“That gonna take a long time?”“I hope not.” The sooner she can get a job, move out, and get her feet under her, the better. “What’re your plans?”Bruce shrugs, going quiet in a way that doesn’t feel normal.As they step out of the school he stops on the sidewalk on the way to the public library and says, “Come to Tony’s.”“Stark’s?” But of course it can’t be anyone else - the invite to Tony’s on Bruce’s behalf is weird though.“Yeah - we can work on Chemistry there.”“He won’t- mind?”“No, it’s fine.”They do need to finish the project… Bruce yawns, and Maria gestures for him to lead the way. “What exactly do we need to do?”Bruce fills her in on the project as they walk the opposite way from her apartment, into the nicest of the nice Upper East Side.There’s a fittingly grand wrought-iron fence around a huge property that has a mansion sitting on half of it. It’s four stories high, and Maria’s pretty sure it might be bigger than the apartment complex she lives in, depending on how far down the basement goes. Bruce forgoes the front door and walks around to the back. There’s some sort of panel just on the underside the lip of the window nearest to the door, and when he presses a sequence of numbers into it, the door unlocks.Bruce opens it and walks in, Maria feeling suddenly like this might not be a great idea.The hallway is gleaming and clean, and there’s a series of thumps until Tony appears around the corner, his hair slicked back, a button-down silk shirt tucked into soft, dark denim jeans. He’s wearing his ratty converse shoes, and the sleeves of his shirt are rolled up to reveal a giant watch that looks like it’s made from gold. It fits his thin wrist perfectly, the face of it managing to be understated and bold at once.
Tony’s probably wearing more than the monthly rent her dad pays for their apartment.“Brucie!” he calls, and then he sees Maria and slows, face scrunching in confusion as he looks at Bruce. She must look surprised at the sight of him though, because instead of asking what she’s doing here, he snaps out, “What?”“You look… fancy.”“I had breakfast with my parents - they left for Milan this morning,” he answers shortly, and his eyes fix on Bruce, the expected question coming quickly, “What is she doing here?”“We need to do some chem.”Tony sighs and steps back to let them in, and Bruce motions for Maria to go first. “I thought you finished that stupid project already.”“Yeah - we’ve got another one, so.”Tony rolls his eyes, and Maria eyes Bruce - is it that he doesn’t want to admit she screwed up, or that he doesn’t want Tony to think he’s stupid? - they start down the wide hallway, and they’re about to turn the corner when some calls,“Anthony!”Tony groans when he hears the posh British voice, and it’s so misplaced in Maria’s mind that she whips around to see who it is. Standing there is a tall, slender man, with a sharp nose and a high forehead, a narrow mouth and his hair trimmed neat - he exudes English.“I hope you’re not planning on going down to the laboratory with your nice clothes on.” The vowels make the man sound like a mad scientist, and Tony grumbles as he detaches from Bruce and Maria to head up the stairs - despite the lack of an actual request. It’s the first time Maria’s seen Tony do… anything without comment or argument. “And I do hope to see your homework for this weekend completed by tonight!” the man calls after Tony, and Bruce is standing in the hallway like he’s waiting for his turn.It comes as the man draws nearer, the expectant look he puts between Bruce and Maria enough to prompt Bruce into an introduction,“Oh, sorry. Mr. Jarvis, this is Maria. Hill.”“Lovely to meet you,” Mr. Jarvis says, and he extends a hand which Maria shakes from habit. “Now, have you two eaten breakfast?”Maria nods but Bruce’s eyes go to the floor, and then Mr. Jarvis has one hand on each of their shoulders, pushing to redirect them down the hallway the way they came. His hand stays on Bruce’s shoulder as he propels them, through a door and through another - until they reach a full-out commercial kitchen, and Mr. Jarvis puts them at a small table that’s tucked into the corner,“A breakfast sandwich, Marla, my dear -,” he tells the woman at the stove, who nods, “And what would you like, Ms. Hill?”“I’m- okay,” Maria manages and Mr. Jarvis adds,“And a platter of fruit, please,” despite her answer. His hand finally leaves Bruce’s shoulder, and he disappears.“That’s Mr. Jarvis,” Bruce says, stating the obvious - the middle-age woman working in the kitchen hasn’t stopped moving since they’ve gotten there, and it makes it feel more private than it actually is.“Who is he?”“The butler - sort-of. Mr. Stark isn’t around much, and Mrs. Stark does a lot of charity stuff.”So Mr. Jarvis is a butler-nanny, is the given, and she nods her understanding. “You come here a lot?”The nod Bruce gives is also a shrug, and she doesn’t press for more. Marla brings them a pot of hot water, a small plate of various teas, and a french press of brewing coffee with a timer, then comes back with a plate of cut fruit. They both mutter their thanks, and Maria starts picking at the grapes while Bruce pours himself some tea.The breakfast sandwich is eggs, bacon, and sauce between a toasted bagel, and Bruce inhales half of it before he seems to remember to ask Maria if she wants some. Clearly he’s hungry so she shakes her head, and he finishes the rest of it off quickly.Maria pours herself coffee, and milk from a little miniature jug, and Bruce’s eyelids start to droop as he finishes off the small pile of carrots. Then he’s yawning what has to be every two minutes, and he ferries the dirty dishes to the sink while Maria sips at a blend of coffee she’s never tasted before but seems magical.“You can take that with you,” Bruce tells her, and he calls out a thank you to Marla, Maria echoing the sentiments; Marla waves them off with a spatula, mixing something in a bowl.Bruce knows his way through the house, and Maria follows him through the halls, until finally they go down a steep set of stairs.It’s a giant space, the far end of it illuminated by some fluorescent lights set into the ceiling - and the wide arc of at least five computers screens that send their glow straight into Tony’s face. He’s wearing a grungy t-shirt and Maria can already see there’s a hole in this pair of jeans. It looks like he’s deliberately messed up his hair, disrupting the slick back-look to make it (un)stylishly messy.“Where’d you guys go?” he calls, his focus on the screen - Maria stops at the edge of the giant rug that spreads out from under the massive L-shaped desk, while Bruce heads straight to the couch.“Jarvis made us eat,” Bruce answers and Tony hums - Maria’s not sure what she should be doing, and Bruce lays out on the couch, his head hitting the pillow by the armrest as he yawns yet again.There’s a dozen different things happening on the computer screens but Tony seems to be focusing on one with a large black window, filling it with white letters as he clacks away at the keyboard. “I thought we were doing chem,” Maria tells Bruce, who sits up a little and finally covers a yawn with his hand.“I’ll do the work and you do the writing?” he offers, blinking heavy, and she sits down on the couch next to him, her bag thumping on the floor.But that system didn’t work well at all the last time, and she shakes her head, “No, I need to actually learn this.”“We can do that later,” Bruce insists, holding his hand out for the notebook she has - Maria doesn’t give it to him though, opening up the textbook to last week’s chapter across her lap and pulling her legs under her, twisting to face him,“No. I’m not failing another assignment.”The chapter is titled ‘Back Titration’ and it stares up at her like it’s mocking her ability. She holds the pen in her hand over top the paper, and looks at Bruce expectantly, “Teach me about back titration.”
“Maria-”“Bruce,” she cuts over him, and Tony’s tapping stops abruptly, making the silence that follows more obvious. “Teach me, about back titration.”For a moment their eyes hold, but her demand wins out and he sighs, pushing his feet against hers in a sign of familiarity that she doesn’t think they should be sharing yet. “Where do you want to start.”Tony picks up his typing again, and they spend the next hour going over back titration until Bruce falls asleep in the middle of one of her questions. He’s slumped against the arm of the couch, his head propped up and one arm over his stomach. One of his legs has fallen over the edge of the couch, and his shirt pulls up from his jeans just enough to show a fading bruise along his hip.
The lull of silence when she realizes he’s fallen asleep isn’t as awkward as the first had been. His head shifts gently to the left and she watches the thin arm of his glasses press into his temple. Maria’s just about to lean forward and take them off his face when she hears Tony say,“Don’t.”Somehow Tony’s turned around in his seat without Maria noticing, and his face is intent on hers, like he’s peering at her through a microscope, trying to figure something out. Maria leans back to where she had been sitting, her feet poking against Bruce’s calf, which has managed to stay on the couch.“He’ll wake up if you try,” Tony explains, and Maria extracts herself from the couch as carefully as she can, setting the textbook and her notebook of notes aside.“Does he do that a lot?” she asks, wondering if she should be nervous that he’s nodded off in the middle of a conversation - Tony swivels his chair so he’s back facing the computer and answers, vaguely,“Sometimes.”A moment later he’s back looking at Maria, who’s slipped onto the floor with her back against the couch. “Bruce is my best friend,” Tony tells her quietly, an edge of possessiveness in his voice. Maria blinks at him, confused about why he’s staking his claim with the obvious statement.“Okay.”Tony’s eyes narrow, his lip curling up in a distrustful line. “You better not hurt him.”“Why would I hurt him?” The surprise in her question is genuine, “He’s the one who hasn’t stopped pestering me since yesterday.”“I’m just saying,” Tony shrugs, twisting back to the computer.Maria frowns at him - was it Tony being possessive or was he just being... protective? “Do you want me to leave?”“Bruce uses the desk in the corner.”It’s not really an answer, but she needs to do her homework anyway, and she’s already here - and there’s a part of her that wants to know what this is, what Tony and Bruce are, what her and Bruce are, if Tony’s really the big asshole he strives to be or if it’s just a charade that’s a front for… something.The desk in the corner has a computer screen on it, but she ignores it - it has a direct sightline to Tony too, and she tries to ignore him as well, pulling out her English book and the handout that explains what this report should look like.They spend an hour working, quietly, and Maria finishes the bulk of her report before her head for literature fizzes out and she goes back to chemistry. Bruce is still snoozing peacefully on the couch when she picks up her textbook from by the couch, both arms across his stomach now. Tony’s still typing away and curiosity prompts her to ask,“What’re you doing?”When she comes up behind him, he’s still typing away at the black screen with white letters, and he repeats her question: “What am I doing JARVIS?”Maria’s head inclines towards the stairs, but instead of the butler a disembodied voice says, “Croissants for breakfast, and a splash of milk in the tea-a-a.”“Your AI,” Maria realizes, and his head moves like he’s going to look at her, but his eyes stay on the screen,“Bruce told you?”“Yeah - I thought he was kidding.”“It’s hard to tell sometimes,” Tony agrees. “I suppose it’d be more accurate to say that this version of JARVIS is going to be used as an interface for my robot but - eventually, I’ll figure out an AI that tops the rocks."Maria’s already wandering over to the haphazard jumble of metal blocks and tubes, “Is this your robot?”“DUM-e,” is all he says, and Maria touches the cool tubular joint of what looks like a crane-arm.It… doesn’t look like much but that makes the idea that it might be a robot one day all the more impressive. “Neat. Hey -” a glance at Bruce shows that he shows no signs of consciousness, “Do you know what his problem is? With, homework?”
“I wouldn’t be doing mine if Jarvis wasn’t breathing down my neck every night about it.”It’s not an answer, but it sort of is; “God. You guys are so obnoxious about school.”That gets Tony to stop typing, and he twirls around in his seat to face her. His impatience isn’t laced with anger, but Maria can’t tell what it is. “Imagine going to school everyday, except you’re stuck with a bunch of six-year olds learning how to read. You can read Shakespeare and Tolstoy, but you’re stuck with people who are sounding out grade one readers -- obnoxious doesn’t even factor into it.”“So then why not go to college, or whatever. Why waste your time at Washington High?"Tony’s press his lips together ruefully, leaning back in his chair and losing the combative set she usually sees in his shoulders. “Brucie can’t leave; I might as well stick it out with him. Besides, I’m taking correspondence courses at MIT - doesn’t matter where I am for those.”“Why can’t he leave?”Maria’s starting to realize that when Tony thinks, his face gets still and his hands start playing with whatever’s near them - it’s a pen, right now, and he taps out a rhythm on his leg before he shakes his head once, “You should ask him that.”Maria makes the decision to ask Bruce, once he wakes up. Back at the desk she cracks open the chemistry textbook to try and work through some problems with her new notes - and Tony asks: “Hey - why are you guys doing another project together?”Because Bruce didn’t bother putting the effort into the first and she’d accidentally made them fail when she tried to. Instead, she says: “Extra credit.”“Hmm.”Bruce wakes up two hours later when Tony starts welding something, the noise startling Maria out of her studying trance. He blinks awake and pulls his shirt back down over the old bruise on his hip - and adjusts his glasses, the imprint of them clear on his right temple, and the imprint of his palm clear on the lenses.He explains neutralization to her, and then three of them have veal penne alfredo for dinner with pink salted caramel ice cream for dessert. When they’re finished, Bruce walks her back home, the sun setting into their eyes.
Maria doesn’t ask him why he can’t go to college, and her dad’s home when she walks through the door. The cold lecture of disappointment is worse than the occasional fringe violence that at times accompanies the discussions of her failures - Maria locks herself in her room that night, determined to finish all the problems in her chemistry textbook perfectly.To her growing frustration, she just can’t seem to make it work.
-Sunday is spent in self-imposed isolation; her dad had been too disappointed to even ground her. Chemistry proves to be too frustrating to engage with and instead she gets ahead in her other classes, and spends an hour on the living room computer looking up online college courses. Nothing to the scale of MIT, but Tony had her thinking about early credits, and if she could supplement the college credits she was already getting from the AP courses…Monday morning, and Bruce is sitting on top of the newspaper box again, looking much better rested than the last time Maria had seen him there. It elicits a smile from her, the door knocking shut loudly behind her.“Is this a new habit now?”“Probably,” he responds dryly, and she rolls her eyes. “Can I take something?” he offers, and she glares at him and hefts her bag higher up on her shoulder - in the vain hope that she won’t get completely kicked off the team, she’s got her gear with her, as well as her backpack and the small lunch she’d packed herself. Bruce, like usual, doesn’t have anything.“I’m fine,” she answers shortly, and he frowns at her - they get down the block before his hand pulls her sports bag away from her, and she surprises herself by letting it go.“I didn’t see you yesterday,” Bruce comments while they wait for a crosswalk light to turn over.“Oh.” The thought that he might have been waiting for her hadn’t crossed her mind at all.Bruce seems to hear the unspoken surprise, pivoting on one foot so he’s facing her profile, “I didn’t spend all day waiting around, don’t worry.”“I was doing homework,” she tells him, biting back an admittance of her self-imposed grounding. “You know, that stuff we get in class, that we’re supposed to do when we get home?” The irritation in her voice has nothing to do with him, which is a good thing, since it seems to bounce off him without any acknowledgement.“What did you think about the premise of everlasting life?” he asks, and they spend the rest of the walk to school having a intent discussion about Tuck Everlasting.When Bruce leaves her locker to join Tony, Maria finds herself partly annoyed that she’s going to have to rewrite her entire essay, and partly bewildered that her eyes linger on his back as he walks away.-They get a A- on the Chem project, and Maria manages a C+ on the next exam with Bruce’s help. It doesn’t matter how much she understands and is able to accomplish with Bruce next to her - the second she’s left to her own devices, the sense becomes nonsensical and all the facts and careful explanations for formulas disappear.Bruce seems to genuinely empathize with her disappointment, something she’s not used to, and his determination to help her pass Chemistry ramps up a few more notches. One off-handed comment, about how she finds repetition helpful for learning, has him creating worksheets for her on a daily basis.Maria finds herself spending more and more time with Bruce, looking up during practise to see him reading a book on the bleachers; and always, sitting on the broken metal newspaper box in the mornings. It’s a good thing too, since Maria’s determination to conquer the elusive mysteries of back titration and I.C.E. tables leads her to spontaneously quiz Bruce near constantly.Her string of questions for Bruce don’t usually last long when Tony’s around - and Tony always seems to be around. When Tony’s around, a simple question will ignite a hot discussion wherein the pair of them start using words Maria feels belong in a science fiction movie.It’s during one of these innocent questions turned tangent-debates, that Maria realizes she’s made her way to the kitchen without thinking twice about roaming around Tony’s mansion of a home as if it were her own. The only thing that makes her pause and realize it’s second nature is the sight of a woman she’s only seen in pictures, standing by the water kettle.Mrs. Stark is elegant and beautiful - striking, even, but Maria’s only terrified of her for a moment, because then the woman sees Maria out of the corner of her eye, and smiles at her. It’s the smile she’s seen on Tony’s face before, usually when he was looking at Bruce, or playing with his robot.“Oh hello,” Mrs. Stark says, and she pulls a second cup down from a hook under the cupboard. Maria can’t help but smile back.. “Are you the maid's daughter?”“Uh - no ma’am.” There’s a pause where Mrs. Stark’s eyes wrinkle slightly in amusement, and Maria realizes a second later, “I’m Tony’s friend. Maria Hill.”“Ah, Maria - lovely. Did you know that’s my name as well?”“I did.” The water starts to roll in the kettle, and Maria doesn’t know why she’s so suddenly feeling out of sorts.Mrs. Stark laughs lightly at that, “Of course you did. Are you and Tony having a pleasant time, then?”“Yeah- I mean, yes, thank you.” Maria realizes that Mrs. Stark hadn’t even known she’d been here - did she know Bruce was here? “We’re just downstairs - Bruce is here too.” The woman had to know Bruce, right?“Lovely,” Mrs. Stark says. “I’m always happy to hear that Tony has his friends over.”Manners take over, and Maria can’t help but say: “Thank you for having us.”“Anytime dear, anytime. Any friend of Tony’s is welcome here - I’ve heard so much about you.”Mrs. Stark’s statement is as surprising as her presence in the kitchen had been, and Maria tries to wipe the confused look off her face. “Oh.”“Good things,” Mrs. Stark clarifies, and the lightness of her tone cuts some of Maria’s embarrassment, “I promise. Tony tells us you’re going to be a police officer. That’s a respectable career.”Did Tony… actually listen when she talked? “Yeah - my Dad’s a detective with NYPD.”“That’s lovely.” The water kettle clicks off as it finishes boiling the water, and Mrs. Stark asks, “Would you like some tea?” just as Tony and Bruce step into the kitchen.“Maria - Oh, hi Ma,” Tony says, and his head picks up a bit, his focus consumed by his Mom. “What are you doing here? Are you okay?” Maria feels an abrupt stab of jealousy at his tone - Tony wasn’t even this attentive with his robots; and she quickly smothers the impulsive thought that ‘it isn’t fair that he has a Mom’. Bruce didn’t have a Mom either, and Maria wouldn’t wish that on anyone else.“I’m fine darling - just getting a cup before bed.”Mrs. Stark takes her mug of steeping tea and moves towards the door, stopping to wraps a arm around Tony’s shoulder, and pull him in for a hug. Tony makes a token face of resistance as she kisses his head, but he doesn’t move away. “Now, you all be good,” she tells them, and the three of them nod.“I always am,” Tony grins cheekily, and Maria rolls her eyes. Mrs. Stark smiles indulgently at him, giving him another squeeze. Bruce blushes faintly as Mrs. Stark gives him a kiss on the top of his head before she sweeps out.“C’mon, Bruce,” Tony demands, shoving Bruce towards the freezer, “Make us some food.”
Tony’s not at all that bad, Maria decides, as she takes a seat across from him, Bruce unwrapping a homemade frozen pizza.-A week later, Bruce isn’t on the broken newspaper box, waiting for her. He isn’t in the hallways in the morning, and his locker is closed, though that’s not a surprise.Maria makes it through the morning trying to keep her eye out for that familiar curly hair, but the windows in the classroom doors unsurprisingly don’t deliver. When the bell rings for lunch, she sees Tony in the hallway, and pounces on the chance.“Tony! Tony, wait!” Tony stops in the hall and glances around, confused - until he sees Maria, his face falling into understanding. He waits until she can catch up, and then keeps going towards the cafeteria. “Do you know where Bruce is?”“Yeah,” he answers shortly, but he’s avoiding the question, and her direct look.Maria gives it a second before asking, “Well? Where is he?”Tony doesn’t want to answer the question, it’s obvious from the way he lets them break apart to make room for a gaggle of football guys.“Tony,” Maria insists when they’re back together, and he glances at her with annoyance,“He’s fine, okay?”“Where is he?"“My house.”“Why?” Tony doesn’t answer again, and this time she bars the door to the stairwell and asks again, “Why.”“Look, it happens sometimes -” he huffs, and then frowns at himself. “It’s not a big deal. Leave it alone.”“Can I come over after school?”“No.”“Why?”“Leave it alone, Hill.” And he forces his way past her, and she’s left alone in the hallway, wondering why the guy who’s spent more days than not waiting for her on top of a newspaper box suddenly doesn’t want to see her anymore.The hurt feeling she nurses through English (staring at his empty seat) turns into grim determination by the time Geometry rolls around. Tony can’t keep her from seeing Bruce, and she needs to know what’s going on at this point, her mind concocting the most imaginable scenarios.Tony tries to skirt away from her when she ambushes him by the bike racks, but he doesn’t have the stamina to outpace her. “Leave me the fuck alone, Maria,” he snaps at her, but she follows him all the way to his house, through the gates, and around the back.“I want to see him,” she tells Tony as they stare each other down in front of the giant oak door.Tony’s arms shake in a frustrated gesture, “Well he doesn’t want to see anyone so-!”The doors open and Mr. Jarvis blinks out at them with a peevish expression. “Anthony,” he says, his voice already chiding. “I can hear you through the door. Don’t be rude, it’s unbecoming.” Tony’s mouth opens in indignation, but Mr. Jarvis is already gesturing Maria to come in, stepping aside for her, “Would you like some orange juice, Ms. Hill?”“I’m fine - thanks Mr. Jarvis.”“Jarvis- !”Tony’s whining is cut short by a stern interjection from Jarvis, and by the time Maria reaches the stairs, Tony’s caught up to her, and he pushes past her to call hotly, “Your girlfriend’s a pain in the ass,” into the dark; Maria resents that, the comment as well as his label. The sudden light as Tony hits the switch is bright, and it forces her to squint until her eyes adjust. Bruce is sprawled across the couch, and he looks like he’s been dozing - his left eye is swollen and there’s a smooth, inch-wide bruise snaking vertically up the right of his neck.“Tony,” Bruce complains, and Maria follows Tony into the room, stopping at the edge of the couch by Bruce’s feet.‘You weren’t waiting for me’ sounds petty, but ‘Are you okay’ seems equally inappropriate, as does ‘what happened’. “Hey,” she settles for, and Bruce tries to pull the collar of his shirt over the bruise on his neck but it’s too high up to be masked.“I ran into a door,” he tells her without needing a question, glaring at Tony with his good eye, “I’m fine.”“I told her you were fine,” Tony says, his back at them, but he still sounds frustrated.Bruce sighs, and Maria can’t help but think they’re both idiots: “You’re not fine.”
The look Bruce sends her way is as close to anger as she’s ever seen him direct towards her. “Maria, please,” he says, soft and tired. Maria gets an ice pack from the fridge and sits herself next to his legs, pushing them up a little to make room.“I know that’s not from a door,” she tells him, pressing the pack into his face and his hand comes up to hold it; Maria doesn’t let go though, and then they’re as good as holding hands, the heat of his palm seeping into the cold in hers.“Please,” he repeats, and she frowns, her own anger stewing - either someone jumped him or… - she doesn’t want to think of the alternative, and she slips her hand out from under his, her fingers brushing the edge of the bruise at his neck.Bruce goes still under her touch but he doesn’t look scared; “This is the only one?” she asks, and Bruce inclines his head half an inch,“No.”“Are they bad?”“I’ve had worse.”
Maria’s lips press together, and she decides that if he’s going to be stubborn, she’ll just force her comfort onto him anyway. Her shoes slip off easily and drop onto the floor as she stretches out along the couch, toeing her feet into his elbow, tucking his feet under her arm. It’s not fine, it’s not okay - but Bruce isn’t telling her what happened and she has a feeling that it’s because there’s nothing either of them would be able to do about it.The ice pack effectively obscures one of his eyes, but the other is turned down, his face pensive.“Tell me about back titration,” Maria tells him; his eye comes up to meet hers, and she pokes his arm with her toe. The smile he gives her isn’t happy, but it is grateful.-Winter ebbs, making way for the awkward time just before spring; precipitation isn’t in the form of snow anymore, but the weather still hadn’t figured out how to make it stop all together. Maria’s dozing in bed, a book pillowed on her chest, feeling herself start falling asleep to the sound of rain rattling against her window. The light is still on, and she’s nearly gotten up the will to go turn it off when the sound of knocking jolts her fully awake abruptly.The panic lasts only a second, because when she looks over she sees Bruce at her window. His face is gleaming with rain, and his clothes looked soaked through - with a twist she’s over her bed, cracking the window open, the book falling through the crack of wall and bed. “Bruce?”There’s a grimace on his face, and Maria wonders how long he’s been out there. It started raining an hour ago. “Can I crash on the floor?” he asks, and Maria’s almost certain she can hear his teeth chattering.“You okay?”“Yeah,” Bruce answers, and Maria knows if her Dad catches Bruce in her room that’d be the end of them, but she opens the window anyway,“Okay.”Bruce steps through easily, and his shoes squeak against the floor. She turns on the bedside light, and heads to her closet. “Here,” she tells him, pressing a pair of track pants and her field hockey hoodie into his hands, “They might be small.”“Thanks,” he mutters, and she turns around while he changes. When she turns back around he’s laying out his pants on the window sill, above the heater, his shirt already draped over the back of her chair. Maria doesn’t ask what happened, and Bruce only offers, “Tony and his family are in Massachusetts.”
“Sure,” she nods.It’s near midnight, and they have school in the morning. “Do you have an extra pillow?” he asks, and she passes one from her bed over to him - Bruce sits down on the floor next to her bed, setting the pillow down so their heads are even, and stretches out.Maria turns off the lights, steps over the vague lump his body’s become in the darkness, and crawls back into bed. As her eyes adjust to the dim light from the window, she can see her hoodie riding up on his arms, the track pants that fit his waist but expose his ankles.He looks so pathetic; her bed isn’t the biggest, but she decides that it’ll be big enough for both of them. “Just come up here.”“My hair’s wet.”“So’s the pillow, already.”A pause, and he checks again, “You sure?”“Yeah.”Bruce moves quietly, near-silent, lifting himself first so he sits at the edge of the bed and sets his pillow down, and then pulls his legs up to join. He lays down on top of the covers and Maria shuffles against the wall to make room - laying on her side, with Bruce laying on his back, her knee touches the side of his thigh. “Thanks,” he mutters, and she pushes her head down onto her pillow.“Yeah,” she answers, and after a second she pulls her hand out from under the covers and takes his hand in hers. It’s cold, and she knows he’s usually warmer than that - “You’re freezing.”“I’m fine,” he tells her, but his fingers squeeze around hers, and he turns to his side so he can face her.They spend a few minutes just looking at each other, the residual rain drying from Bruce’s face as she stares at him. Had he gone home? Or had he been wandering around all night, until it started to rain?“My dad comes home at six,” she tells him, and he nods, understanding the implications,“I’ll be gone by then.”-The spring semester of classes brings a slight shift of schedules - Maria and Bruce are still in Chemistry and English together, but Maria starts a World History class (with Tony), while Bruce’s social studies focus shifts from Government to Economics.The shake up of classes brings a gaggle of wanna-be jocks into Maria’s realm. Maria knows them from the field, the half dozen clowns who get benched every second game of whatever’s in season, for missing practice or pulling pranks.Oddly enough, they choose Tony, in World History, to be their newest victim.Maria’s not sure what frustrates her more - their constant passive aggressive transgressions at Tony, or the way he lets it roll off his back as if they really are failing to string a proper sentence together.Except one day, near the end of semester, Tony’s in a bad mood.During World History, Evan Walters makes one of his lame jokes at Tony’s expense, and Tony goes off on such an impressive diatribe of 1800s insults that he gets sent to the principal's office.At lunch he’s already sulking at the table when Bruce and Maria arrive, jabbing at food with his jaw clenched.“Are you okay?” Maria asks carefully, taking up the seat across from him.Tony doesn’t even look up as he snaps, “Oh, fuck off, Hill.”The tone of voice instantly provokes her into indignant anger, and if Bruce wasn’t already sitting down, she’d have stormed over to another table. “You don’t have to be an asshole.”“Guys,” Bruce says placatingly.“Shut up, Bruce.”The anger evaporates as the nasty twist of Tony’s words lingers in the air. Tony and Bruce argued near constantly in a way that they insisted was simply heated debate; they teased each other too, but Maria had never heard so much heat from Tony’s mouth directed at Bruce in all the time she’d been hanging out with them.Bruce, to his credit, simply blinks before returning to his lonely heap of tater tots.The easy acceptance somehow makes it worse, for Maria. “What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t talk to him like that!”“Maria,” Bruce interjects weakly, but Tony sinks his teeth into the fight with gusto:“You,” he snarls, and the look on his face is ugly; “You’re my problem. This whole school - everyone. None of you can just let me be. Why don’t you go worry about your own fucking problems for a change and leave me alone.”Bruce sighs into the silence, and then says, “Tony -”Evan Walters chooses this moment to walk past them. Having witnessed Tony’s outburst, he can’t help himself from needling: “Oooh, is wittle ittle Starkie having a ittle bittle temper tantrum?”Maria and Tony are up like shots, but Evan is closer to Maria - it’s instinctive, throwing her hands out to shove Evan’s chest, and he stumbles back, startled. “No one asked you, Evan. Go away.”Tony isn’t about to be deterred, and he takes a lunge - Bruce somehow intercepted him, wrestling Tony back. “Let go! Stop it! Fuck off, Bruce!”Evan laughs, uneasy, and he takes a few more steps back when Maria advances on him. “Stop being so sensitive. Both of you,” he deflects, feeling himself losing the higher ground. “You’re such girls.”“A girl who can beat the shit out of you. Leave him alone.”Evan scoffs, “What, you’re his protector now?”“She’s not!” Tony insists from over Bruce’s shoulder.Maria ignores him, and keeps glaring at Evan: “Go away.”“What’s happening here? Everything alright?” It’s Mrs. Cranks, who, having spotted the trouble a few moments ago, finally made her way over. The adult looks between Evan and Maria, and then to Tony, who has all but sagged into Bruce’s arms, so much that it looked like they were hugging each other now.“Yeah, we’re fine,” Maria answers - and upon realizing how curt she’d sounded, adds an apologetic, “Mrs. Cranks.” Evan mutters his agreement.If it was any other day, Maria’s sure they’d get into trouble - but Mrs. Cranks just looks tired, and points to the table. “Maria, eat your lunch. Evan, go sit on the other side of the cafeteria. Bruce. Tony.”Bruce steers Tony back down into his seat at the silent request, and Maria forces herself to sit down in front of her food. Tony’s face is red, and his eyes look glassy, but he ducks his head when he sees her looking, staring at his food, and refusing to say another word through the whole of lunch.Bruce isn’t any better, and he keeps looking at Maria with a frown on his face, contemplating… something. Just when the silence is starting to get on her nerves, Bruce’s hand slides away from Tony’s back, and he says, “I was thinking we could make a vacuum with liquid nitrogen for our Chemistry project.”They talk over Tony, though Bruce includes him and asks him questions that don’t get answers; when the bell rings to bring them back to classes, Tony disappears and Maria doesn’t see him again that day.Last period Chemistry is a study period for their upcoming test, and Mr. Steels is available to answer the questions any student might have. Maria and Bruce get a pass to study in the hallway, and Maria is for once grateful that Mr. Steels knows Bruce tutoring her is the reason for her shift from abysmal marks, to tolerable marks.“What’s wrong with Tony?” Maria asks as they settled down into a corner of lockers. She pulls out her Chemistry textbook, notebook, and pen.For once, Bruce has something as well: a pen.“He’s having a rough time,” he says dodgedly. Maria gives him a Look, one she hopes conveys that she might be Tony’s only other Real Friend in the school. Bruce goes on: “His Dad got back from California last night. They had a huge fight.”“That’s why he’s being such an asshole?”Bruce sighs. “He doesn’t mean to be. He’s just…”Feeling like Maria felt, she suddenly understands, when she elbowed that girl last semester during the game. “Can we… help him somehow?”With a thud, Bruce’s back hits the lockers. “We can go over, after school.”“It doesn’t feel like he wants to see us.”“His Dad’s at a function tonight…” Bruce’s head turns a fraction of an inch, to watch Maria flip through her book. “Come with me?”“Fine.”-“Shit. Fuck,” Tony huffs, frantically throwing the game pieces under his king-size bed, “He’s not supposed to be home until later.”“Is he coming up? Up here?” Bruce asks, and Maria finds the alarm in Bruce’s eye foreboding.Tony pauses in his mad scrambling for a second - the steady steps up the stairs are audible, and kick even Bruce into action. The game is cleared in seconds, and Tony starts shoving them towards his closet, “You gotta hide.”“We can-”“No time,” Tony hisses, and he pushes Maria against Bruce, snaps the shutter doors closed.Tony has three closets in his room - a giant walk in one, joined to the bathroom; a longer narrow one, for storage; and this tiny alcove with shelves holding stacks of linens and barely two feet of free space to move in.Maria has never been so close to Bruce before, not even when they shared her bed.“Shh,” he says needlessly, and it’s barely a whisper; more of an exhale shaped into a sound.Tony stumbles around the room for two seconds before the door bangs open. “What - you’re supposed to knock!” he complains.“I only knock when the people inside deserve my respect.”Maria feels her stomach sink, the icy cool words dripping with disappointment and ire. The deep voice and the way he spoke to Tony meant it could only be one person.The comment has thoroughly shut Tony up, and through the slates of the door Maria can just make out the slump of Tony’s shoulders, and the still defiant angle of his head.“Sit down, Anthony. Now,” Mr. Stark adds, when Tony doesn’t move. It takes a few seconds, but Tony finally uproots himself. He pulls his chair around his desk so that he’s facing the closet - and so that, Maria realizes, with luck, his Dad will keep his back to said closet.Silence fills the room, and Bruce’s body heat fills the small closest.“I know it’s difficult for a child to understand and process.” The slow, deliberate way Mr. Stark speaks sends a shiver down Maria’s spine; Bruce shifts closer, until her shoulder is pressing into his chest. “You’ve had a day to recover from your tantrum. So. Do you think now, you’ll be able to have a mature conversation about this?”“Nothing’s changed,” Tony answers, his voice unbearably small.“Anthony. If you refuse to make the right decision, then I’ll be forced to make it for you. Is that what you want?”“No.” Tony’s fear is tangible. “I already told you, I’m not going.”“You were supposed to use the day to think this through. That riff raff -”“Don’t call him that!"“Sit. Back. Down.” The order is made even more threatening by the figure who had advanced on Tony, three heads taller and twice as broad. Tony flops back into the chair like he’s a leaf that’d been blown over.“Do not raise your voice at me. Understood?”It takes a beat, but Tony eventually intones: “Yes, sir.”“Now. Haven’t I told you a million times not to let your emotion influence reason and logic. A bleeding heart won’t get you anywhere in the world, Tony. You’re too soft. I know your mother encourages it, but she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t have the kind of intellect that we do.”There’s a mutter from Tony, and Mr. Stark goes very still. “What was that?”“She’s smarter than you.”The tension in the room is so thick that Maria has ceased to breathe - she only realizes it when Bruce’s hand touches her waist. His hand sits there for a moment before it slides around to the small of her back.“You would like to think so, wouldn’t you. Unfortunately , Tony, you have a responsibility to this world to use your brains for something good. Something meaningful. And right now you’re just an listless vessel, coasting along. Lazy. Ungrateful. Useless.”Bruce’s other hand, near her opposite shoulder, touches it briefly before sliding across and dipping down between her shoulder blades. The skeleton of a hug, the only thing he can do in this small space.“Oh, you could be smart. There’s no doubt about that, you have potential. If only you’d stop playing; you’re not a baby, Anthony, and you really need to stop this infuriating game of pretend. These people, these kids you call friends - they’re just using you. They don’t actually care about you, otherwise they wouldn’t be holding you back. They want you for your money. For your intelligence. For what you can give to them - they don’t want you .”The lecture makes Maria’s face burn; it’s not true, she wants to tell Tony, nothing Mr. Stark
was saying was true - she hadn’t even wanted to be Tony’s friend in the first place because she thought he was just smart and rich and an asshole. But now that she knew him...“Right now, you’re taking up more space than you’re worth. You’re getting into trouble at a school you don’t belong in, and you are jeopardizing your future. If you continue down this path, you’re going to end up a drunken disgrace, just like that boy’s father. I know you like him, but you can’t carry dead weight like that. And I refuse to let you.”The talking down has undone Tony, devastated any bravado he’d been carrying. Tony is loose limbed and small voiced, a whisper of himself: “But he’s really smart, Dad.”“No. No,” Mr. Stark says with more firmness. “You, are smart. You, are meant to be something. You, are going to inherit this company one day, and before you do, you have to get these whimsical ideas out of your head. We’re pulling you out of that crapshot school,”“No-”“And you’re going to Massachusetts, where you’re supposed to be.”“No!”“Anthony -”“You can’t make me - I’ll fail.” Tony had stood up again, and this time he wasn’t letting his Dad bully him back down. “I’ll fail everything, I’ll make it so that no Stark will ever be welcome back there again. And then I’ll ruin your reputation, and the company’s reputation, and no one will ever believe or respect you again. And they’ll all believe me, because everyone knows what a gigantic assfuck you really are.”“Do not use that language, Anthony!”“You can’t stop me!”Mr. Stark makes a move towards Tony, but there isn’t a sound of physical impact; there’s a struggle, and Mr. Stark steps back into half profile - he has Tony by the sweater, is holding him up on his toes, and Tony has his hands around his Dad’s wrists.“You can’t make me,” Tony was saying, and his confidence was building.“Watch me.”“I’ll leave,” Tony threatens.“Where will you go?”“Anywhere but here.”“Child Services will bring you back in a heartbeat. You’re not some nameless cad on the street; people will know who you are.”“I’ll tell them you hit me.”“Everyone loses their temper.”“I’ll tell them you hit me all the time.”“Anthony, don’t be ridiculous.”“I will,” Tony insists, vehemently. “I’ll hurt myself too, so it looks like you did it.” Tony’s gaining steam, and Mr. Stark abruptly drops his hands. “Take one of your belts and wrap it around my throat. I’ll run into the door and pretend you threw bottles at me. I’ll fall down the stairs and tell them you broke my arm.”Mr. Stark is a few steps back now, shaking his head, and Bruce’s body has got shock still. “What is wrong with you?!”“I built a robot. He can hold things. I’m sure if I told him to, he’d be happy to whack at me a few times.”There’s deadly silence after this, Bruce’s arms wrapped so tight around Maria that she’s pretty sure Tony’s just violated some sort of silence pact between the two of them, this bizarre reversal of their go-to lies.When Mr. Stark speaks next, he sounds almost bored: “Your fatal flaw, Tony, is that you care too much.”Mr. Stark retrieves a baseball bat from the basket of athletic paraphernalia in the corner; Maria straightens up instantly. If the man is going to start beating on Tony, Maria’s going to rip out of that closet so fast to clobber him, he wouldn’t know what’s coming. Instead, though, Mr. Stark walks towards the door.“Where are you going?!” Tony asks, panicked.“Robots don’t have genders, Anthony. And they don’t have feelings. Robots are nothing.”Tony throws himself at his Dad, grabbing onto his arm and pleading, “No, Dad, don’t-”“Wasting time on triviality isn’t going to get you anywhere in life.”“Stop it, he didn’t do anything-”“Grow up, Tony. I don’t care what you want to do, and no one else will either. This is a lesson you need to learn.”“No, don’t,”“I don’t take pleasure in doing this. It’s for your own good.”Tony’s wails follow Mr. Stark down the stairs, and when they disappear, Bruce gingerly opens the closet.“We should go,” he tells Maria quietly, his hand still in hers.Maria’s face is wet with tears, and she nods silently. As they sneak through the back hallway, they can hear the sound of metal crunching, and the grinding sound of a metal saw starting up. Mr. Jarvis is at the foot of the stairs, holding a sobbing, inconsolable Tony.“Com’on,” Bruce tells her again, softly, and he takes her hand and leads her away from the house, all the way back to her apartment block.“Don’t leave,” Maria says, and Bruce finally lets go of her hand; but he says, “Okay”, and this time, he’s still lying in the bed with her when her Dad came home from work.
-The storm of the century is starting to swell, the wind knocking debris against Maria’s 3rd story window. New York has been anticipating the edge of the hurricane for days, and all that time Maria managed to talk herself into confidence.Now that the storm is rattling her windows and threatening to shatter the glass, she’s not so sure.Maria’s never liked storms, especially these kind, which so easily mask the warning signs of any potential storms happening inside the apartment.She’d thought she could handle it, but her dad’s been on a bender this week, a grumpy kind of one, and now she’s here, dithering.It had taken some detective work, to find out Bruce’s address - he didn’t want her there, didn’t want Tony there. Hell, he wasn’t there himself, most of the time.But Tony’s in Massachusetts, looking into summer intensive programs, and Bruce claimed his dad was was being tolerable, and all Maria can think of is how she wants to see Bruce. But does she ring the buzzer? Or try their go-to of climbing up the fire escape and looking through the window? Maria’s never met Bruce’s dad.It’s the thought of someone meeting her Dad unannounced that convinces her the best plan of action is to head around the building and find the fire escape. The fire escape ladder is a foot off the ground, and when she steps onto it, it jolts violently. Maria grips on harder in case it all comes apart, but it somehow stays steady.The dark sky starts to spit pellets rain, the angry promise of a impending downpour. Beads start to form on her rain jacket, and she starts climbing the ladder with grim determination. It’s too late to turn back now.Bruce lives in 202, and Maria starts looking into the windows along the ledges of the second floor fire escape. There’s a chance he might be on the other side of the building, but she’s already up here so it’s worth looking.The third window is a sparse bedroom with an unmade bed. There’s a desk in the corner that has a segment of hockey stick taped to brace a broken leg. There are no curtains. The dresser is missing two drawers, and there’s an empty frame above it, which Maria presumes is for a mirror that was once there.The door to the hallway is ajar, and as Maria peers around into the corners of the rooms, she can see Bruce slumped over in a chair next to the door, his glasses askew on his face.Lightly, Maria taps on the window with her fingernail.The sound gets lost in the wind, and she frowns. If she’s too loud she might attract the attention of his Dad. Experimentally, she digs her fingers into the cracks along the window frame, pushing up. The window slides up easily.Bruce is awake instantly, throwing himself out of the chair, panic in his eyes. His glasses slide down his nose, and he uses his palm to push them back into place. It takes him a second to recognize Maria.“Hey,” Maria whispers, still outside; the window won’t stay up by itself, so she has to hold it.Bruce’s expression instantly turns to concern. Quietly, he closes the door he’d been sleeping behind, then wedges the chair he’d been sleeping on under the door knob. “Hey,” he whispers back, coming over to the window and holding it up so Maria can come through. “You okay?”In the middle of Bruce’s barren room, Maria sheds her coat, suddenly feeling silly. “Fine.” Bruce watches her eyes for a few seconds before nodded. He pulls the corner of the sheets on his bed, trying to straighten them.“It’s messy,” he tells her apologetically, and Maria shrugs - there’s not really enough things in here for it to be messy. Where did Bruce keep all his clothes? If anything it looks downtrodden, but she’s not going to voice that.Bruce’s eyes flit to the door and back to her. “Is he home?” Maria asks, and Bruce shakes his head,“No. Hasn’t been for a while. I don’t know where he went.”“Can he get through the door?”Bruce nods, and then explains: “It takes long enough with the chair there, that you can get through the window.”For a moment there’s silence, just the sound of the rain, now coming down in sheets, battering the single-pane window. “There’s going to be a storm,” Maria says, trying to explain - Bruce looks at the window, which rattles in its track.“You can stay here.”“Thanks.”With the chair blocking the door, the only other sitting option is on the bed with Bruce. Maria sits down next to him, and they lie back on the bed together and talk, their shoulders touching, pausing intermittently to make sure the howling stays outside.In the morning, Maria wakes up with Bruce’s arm draped over her hip, his face nuzzled into the back of her shoulders. She has to go to the bathroom, but Bruce doesn’t want them to go into the rest of the apartment so they put on their coats and go to Esther’s.The storm has wiped away the dirt and pollution from the air, leaving everything feeling revitalized. Maria reaches over and takes Bruce’s hand, and they walk into the fading dawn without saying a word.-Tony’s throwing a school-end bash, and the mansion is swarming with all the faces Maria is used to seeing on a daily basis. Mr. Jarvis is looking as frantic as Maria’s ever seen him, pale and holding a vase while chiding a student who’s holding onto a pineapple. Maria doesn’t want to think what next year’s party will be like, when Tony, Bruce, and her all graduate.It’s loud and crowded, and smells like beer - there’s a keg in the corner, and Maria escapes to the back hallway that leads to Tony’s cave in the basement. The door that normally leads to the hallway is locked, but Marla lets her in via the kitchen, and Maria’s grateful for the quiet once she gets there. It’s cooler back here, and she leans against the wall for a moment, wondering where Bruce might be.“Is she coming?”Tony’s voice comes from the basement, and Maria’s about to call out to them when she hears Bruce say,“She said she would.”Tony barely lets him finish: “You should just ask her out already. You guys are practically married anyway.”“No we’re not - besides, I’d rather stay her friend then -”“- whatever, Mr. Turtle. Shit, I forgot my repulsor-”“Tony, don’t, that thing’s going to kill someone…”“Big baby…”Their voices disappear back down the staircase, and Maria lets go of the breath she didn’t realize she was holding.Bruce - maybe liked her? Or, was Tony just being Tony?Somehow her heart’s made its way to her ears, and the back hallway doesn’t feel so cool anymore. She thinks about Bruce, and his unkempt hair, and his earnest determination to help her pass chemistry, and the blush that curls around his ears, and the way his eyes change when they look at her depending on if he’s laughing or sad or thinking; she thinks about Bruce waiting on the top of the newspaper box every morning, and taking her to Esther’s the first night they hung out together, and knocking on her window in the middle of a storm, and opening his for her when she’d been too scared to go to sleep-“Oh, hey Maria,” Bruce says, rounding the corner, and he’s so happy to see her she can’t help but kiss him, and after a second of surprise he’s kissing her back, and they ignore Tony whooping and then grumbling, in the background. “Hi,” Bruce says again, breathlessly, when she pulls back, and he has her hand, and his eyes are wider than she’s ever seen them.“Let’s go downstairs,” she tells him, and he turns around without a word, fingers between hers -“My robot has an eye!” Tony shouts after them.The glow of Tony’s screens illuminate their way to the couch, and Bruce sits down, tugging Maria’s hand after him. Bruce hasn’t let go of her hand, but he looks down at his feet as they sit next to each other. “Did you hear us-”“It’s okay,” Maria tells him, twisting to face him; “When I thought about it I realized…”“It’s fine if you don’t want to,” he says in a rush, and Maria pulls her fingers away from his. Bruce’s face turns away, but she reaches for it with her hand, and leans in to kiss him again.“I want to,” she tells him, and kissing is weird, but she thinks it’s probably only weird because she’s never done it before; it feels nice to lean her forehead against Bruce’s, and it feels nice to be touching his leg with her knees, and it feels really nice to have her hand on his face.Bruce brushes his nose against hers, and Maria thinks that she likes that too. “I really like you,” he tells her in a whisper, and she smiles,“I really like you too."The only person Maria’s ever laid next to is Bruce, but this is different somehow, and he leans back and she leans forward, and he puts an arm around her and she lays across his chest; he puts a hand in her hair and she tucks a finger into the collar of his shirt, and they talk about all the things they used to talk about, but somehow it’s different - and somehow it’s better.-“You know, I liked you guys better back when you didn’t kiss.”Bruce chucks a crumpled ball of paper at Tony, who dodges out of the way, and flings a pencil back at Bruce. The pencil lands on the pages of Maria’s chemistry book, because Tony knows better than to actually hit Bruce with anything, and Maria picks it up, brushing off the crumbs of graphite that mar the pages.“Stop it, I’m trying to study,” she tells him; her own pencil is dipping below the two inch height, and she swaps it out for the one he’d thrown, and tosses the shorter one back at him.“For the love of God, you better pass this one. I don’t think I could handle another semester of this.”“She’s going to pass,” Bruce interjects, and Maria glares at Tony. Advanced Chemistry was probably a stretch for her abilities, but it was the last science she had on her slate; the next two years of high school would be blissfully chemistry-free.Tony picks the short pencil off his desk, and starts tossing it in the air to himself. “You’re the only chick I know electing to take chemistry in summer school.”“This way I can focus all my attention on it,” she justifies - it’s one variation of the discussion they’ve had countless times before.Bruce’s thumb presses into the instep of her foot, and a bit of her irritation disappears. “It’s smart,” he says, and Tony rolls his eyes,“Yeah, whatever.”Bruce is the only one who isn’t doing summer classes - Tony had already finished a month-long intensive with MIT, and the falling out between him and his father that followed had been epic. Maria hadn’t been there in person, but Bruce had shown up at her window at midnight that day; Bruce slept at the mansion, most days, and Maria knew it had to have been a bad fight if he didn’t feel welcome there.Through bits and pieces, she heard that Tony refused to accelerate through the last of his high school years, and that his father wasn’t pleased about it. Livid, actually, and Maria had never seen Tony so volatile and cranky as she had the two weeks following his return.Then Tony’s father went to California for work, and the tension Tony carried dissipated with the creation of DUM-e’s ground movement rig, and the addition of an autonomous arm.Maria didn’t ask why Tony was putting off going to MIT - she didn’t have to. Without Tony, Bruce wouldn’t have anywhere to reliably go, and as the summer lingered, it was becoming increasingly obvious that whatever Bruce’s unique situation at home was, it wasn’t a positive one.-“Maria,” Bruce sighs, and he presses a kiss into her neck, trying to derail the inevitable conversation.Maria isn’t going to fall for it, and she pulls away with a huff, “Stop it.” Bruce does, pillowing his head on his arms, looking at her woefully.Over the last eight months, kissing had evolved into much more. Their clothes are in a mess across the floor, but with just over a semester left before Maria graduated, Bruce had to compete against classes and GPA’s for her attention. Right now the obstacle was Bruce’s history project, and much to his constant exasperation, Maria’s intensity had expanded from focusing on her own marks, to ensuring that Bruce at the very least graduated.Right now, his neglected coursework was winning the battle for her attention. “It’s due tomorrow,” she pointed out.“I’ll have time to do it later,” he tells her, shifting forward, slipping his arms under hers so he’s pressed against her chest. Like this he can hear her heartbeat, calm and steady. A lifeline, running parallel to the one Tony had thrown him, all those years ago.“Bruce-”“I’ll get it in the morning-”“ Bruce ,” Maria insists - they both know that getting it in the morning won’t happen, and Maria’s insistent that this is too important to neglect. Bruce sighs deeply. So much for taking advantage of Deputy Hill’s early night out.“Okay, okay,” Bruce grumbles, and he disengages from her arms, putting one last kiss on her lips before sliding over to the edge of the bed. “I’ll be back in an hour, two tops.” He pushes his legs through his jeans, pulls his sweater over his head - Maria’s hand slides across his waist and she’s a devil for tempting him, right after effectively kicking him out. “I love you,” he says on a whim, catching her hand and bringing it to his lips so he can press his lips against it.“Love you too,” Maria answers back lazily, and she sits up for one last kiss, bringing the sheet up over her chest to keep the cool air at bay.“I’ll be back,” Bruce promises, and he leaves through the open window, the fire escape creaking as he makes his way down it.Maria rolls over and pushes her face against the pillow, smiling at the lingering smell of Bruce on its cover. There’s something on the floor and she lifts her head to investigate.Bruce left his hoodie, and Maria grins with stupid pleasure, reaching over and pulling it on. It smells like him.Four hours later she wakes up, the light still on.Bruce doesn’t come back, and no one knows where he is.A month after that night he disappears, Maria figures out that she’s pregnant.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The first thing Maria does is go to check Bruce’s apartment - it’s well past midnight at this point, but Maria can’t fathom a world where Bruce just wouldn’t come back. Foreboding starts to set in on the walk over to his house, and Maria tries to talk herself out of it. The likelihood that something’s happened is slim. Bruce is a creature of the night as much as he is of the day, flitting from one to the other without really existing in either. For as long as Maria’s known him, he’s been coming and going with ease.Maybe his Dad just got back at an inopportune moment, and Bruce wasn’t able to leave again. Or maybe he’d left and they were passing each other like ships in a storm. She’d go back home and she’d find him waiting for her on the bed, curled up under the blankets. It’s the most likely scenario, now that she’s thinking about it. This was Bruce, who would sit on the broken metal newspaper box, waiting for her in the mornings. Bruce who always hung around the spectator stands after school, waiting while she finished practice. She probably jumped the gun, maybe even panicked a little bit. But she’s already out, and close enough now that she might as well check his place. The ladder at the foot of his fire escape is as precarious as ever, and she works her way up the flights of stairs, talking herself into calm. It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. It has to be fine. Bruce’s room is dark when she gets there, and she wedges the window open carefully. “Bruce?” she whispers, but her voice disappears into emptiness. Maybe he was further inside? Carefully, Maria puts one leg through the window, then the other; she lets the window slide down with minimal creaking. The air seems to be suspended in the room. When her eyes have adjusted to the darkness, Maria makes her way over to the half-open door. Now that she’s inside, she doesn't want to risk making more noise than necessary. The hallway is empty, a bit of light spilling in from a corner window. The armchair in front of the television is empty too, and two steps confirm that the kitchen alcove is empty as well. Maria’s debating whether or not to check Mr. Banner’s room when she notices that there’s light coming in through the front door from the hallway. It makes no sense: the apartment was shit, but that much spill meant there was a substantial crack, and it wasn’t that shitty. As she gets closer to the door, it becomes obvious that it’s been broken. Maria opens the door, but there’s nothing in the hallway. With a frown she closes it, leaving the same way she’d come in. -The gate to the Stark mansion is closed, and Maria debates trying to scale it while she punches through the directory of the call box. Should she risk waking up Mr. and Mrs. Stark? If she’d be able to get Mr. Jarvis, that would be okay. She’d gone home, but Bruce hadn’t been there. On a whim she’d checked Esther’s too, but there was only a drunk group of 20-somethings there. The last place she can think of Bruce going is Tony’s. It doesn’t make much sense, but it makes more sense than him being… gone. Tony’s name flashes up in block letters as she scrolls, and she quickly presses the back button. Too grateful to question why Tony has his own designated channel, Maria waits impatiently while it connects, hoping that it’ll get her in touch with Tony for real. After a handful of bleating rings, Tony answers with a groggy, “Brucie?” Bruce wasn’t there - Maria’s heart sinks a little further, her firm handle on calm loosening. “It’s me.” “Maria?” Tony sounds more awake now, and concerned. Maria’s hands come up to grip the sides of the box: “Bruce is gone.” “Whad’a mean, ‘gone’?” “I can’t find him, I don’t know where-”A smaller door within the gate proper clicks open, and Maria lunges at it. Giving voice to her panic hasn’t helped in the least, and she races around the corner to the back door. Tony meets her there after a minute, shirtless and looking disheveled in cotton sleeping pants. “What-” “I’ve checked everywhere, I can’t-” Tony shakes his head, and it looks like he’s trying to clear the fog of sleep from his head. “Maybe he’s at home-” Maria presses her teeth together; she wants to shake him, he’s not understanding. “I checked, I checked- I checked everywhere. His house, I checked my place, I checked Esther’s - he’s not anywhere. Tony, he was with me and then I told him to go get his history project from home, and he left and he hasn’t come back!” Tony takes her hand, which is suspended mid-air and shaking, and pulls her into the house. “He was with you,” Tony repeats, trying to figure it out, “And then he left. And he didn’t come back. When did he leave?” “I don’t know, it was like, hours ago. Nine, ten- he left and I fell asleep and when I woke up it was hours later and he still wasn’t back.” “And you checked his apartment - was his Dad there?” “No - no one was there, but the door was, the door seemed broken.” “Broken how?” “Like someone kicked it in. The place was dark. It didn’t seem any messier than it usually is... I didn’t turn on the light. Tony, where would he-?” “He wouldn’t go anywhere except here, or to you.” Tony dropped her hand, and Maria was surprised that she didn’t realize he’d been holding it this long. “So if he’s not in either- …” Maria grabs Tony’s elbow as he turns away, “Then what?”“Your Dad works at the police station, right? Can’t we call him, or-?” “And tell my Dad that the boy who’s been sleeping over with his daughter while he’s at work didn’t come back this time?” The implications hit Tony, and he realizes how terrible that would sound. “Fine, then we’ll tell him that I came to you. That Bruce was over here, and didn’t come back after he went home. I went to his apartment and then came to you when I couldn’t find him.”“Excuse me,” Mr. Jarvis says, his English accent rolling with sleepiness and annoyance as his hands tighten a robe around his waist: “What on earth are you two doing at this ungodly hour.” “Bruce is missing,” Tony tells him, and Maria recovers from the stab of fear when she remembers that Mr. Jarvis is the one adult who listens to them and takes them seriously. Mr. Jarvis looks between the two of them with sympathy and curiosity. “And how do you know that?” Tony starts to spin their lie, but Maria interrupts him with the truth. “Except…” she finishes, “My Dad can’t know about me and Bruce. Tony’s gonna say he was the one with Bruce. We were… we were just about to go to the station.” “Well then,” Mr. Jarvis says, picking at his cuffs for a second as he processes the information. Maria and Tony watch him, and she doesn’t dare hope. “It seems to me that you’ll need a ride, then. Anthony, you need proper clothing. Miss. Hill, wait one moment, please,” he says, and then he disappears back down the hallway. “Oh,” Tony says, looking down at his bare chest. “Yeah.” When they get to the station, Mr. Jarvis hangs back while Maria asks for her Dad, Tony at her side. The look on her Dad’s face when he first sees her is one of disbelief. It quickly twists into blistering anger when she stays rooted to her spot. “What-” It seems like he doesn’t even have the patience to ask the full question, and the shame hits Maria hard. “Our friend, Mr. Hill,” Tony starts telling him, “He’s missing.” “It’s 4 a.m. in the morning.” Tony won’t be deterred: “Bruce Banner - his legal first name is Robert, but he always goes by Bruce. Please - my Dad, he’s Howard Stark. I’m his son, Tony, and we need you to check your records and see if there’s anything about a Bruce or a Robert Bruce Banner anywhere.” Tony trying to throw his social status around goes right over Michael Hill’s head. Instead, his eyes are on Maria’s sweater, the one that Bruce had left on her floor when he’d gone. A sweater he’s never seen before, one that bears the rings of NASA. Maria pulls the hems of it between her fingers as her Dad makes his own connections and conclusions, ripping apart their cover story and understanding the facts even before Tony’s able to finish the lies.“You,” he says, pointing at Maria, and she can feel herself wilting, “Go. Home. Forget about the bastard boy. I don’t want you thinking about him again.” “Do you know where he is?” Tony asks; Tony’s unburdened by reddening cheeks of embarrassment and can therefore jump on the implications of Michael Hill’s phrasing. “Is he here?”“Shut up,” Hill tells Tony harshly, and Tony looks affronted. “Howard’s kid, huh? I’d wager he feels the same way I do about all this.” “He’s here, isn’t he,” Tony insists, and he moves so he can look through the window into the rest of the station. “Bruce!” Michael Hill steps up to him, and Maria pulls Tony back from the formidable, towering figure of her Dad. “You both need to leave,” he tells them, glowering, “And you both need to mind your own business.” “You’re going to check, though, aren’t you?” Maria asks; if she didn’t know her Dad, she’d say he was hiding Bruce from them, just like Tony thinks. But Maria does know her Dad, and she knows that he’d be reacting this way if he was hearing squabbles, instead of truth. “Get out of here.” And with that, her Dad takes his own advice, and leaves them standing alone in the reception area. “He knows,” Tony hisses - Maria’s not as sure about it as Tony is, but there’s nothing they can do as Mr. Jarvis ushers them out of the station. Tony wants Maria to stay with him, but Maria thinks if she’s not home when her Dad finishes work, there’ll be a reckoning. Instead, Maria agrees to call all the hospitals in the city while Tony tackles the other police stations. Robert Bruce Banner is nowhere to be found. After the lecture and the accusations and the disappointment, Maria’s Dad tells her that he hasn’t heard anything about Bruce, and that she should stop asking. After two days and no sign of Bruce, Tony and Maria file a missing persons report. They get a file number and the contact information of the Officer assigned to the case, but all the Officer offers is a textbook reassurance that they’ll do everything they can. Maria’s Dad tells her that she shouldn’t bother looking for Bruce; people like that, Michael Hill says, aren’t worth looking for. After two weeks, they start calling the hospitals and stations every other day to see if a Bruce Banner has shown up. The school doesn’t seem worried. They just scratch Bruce’s name off the class lists and move on. As the month passes, Tony as he gets increasingly creative in his search. One day after field hockey practice, Maria finds Tony in his basement, on his computer, looking through the NYPD database. Maria hardly believes what she’s seeing: “You hacked it?” Tony scoffs, and manages to look offended without taking his eyes off the screen: “You know I’m like, a prodigy, right?” “Then what took you so long to do it?” she snaps back, and he glares at her but it shuts him up. They’ve both been getting progressively more irritable, the looming absence of Bruce a hole that sucks in all of their energy. After a moment, Maria relents and extends a truce: “Did you find something?” “Just figuring out the search system… here’s Dickwad Banner,” Tony says, pulling up Brian Banner’s file. Maria pulled up a chair, leaning into the screen. After a brief loading period, a box pops up. “Confidential?” Tony reads, frowning. He clacks away at the keyboard, but whatever he tries doesn’t change the result. “Fuck,” he huffs, and he navigates the search results until he finds Bruce’s name. Maria feels herself sliding to the edge of her seat as the screen loads itself - she’s not surprised that they have a file on Bruce, but she knows that doesn't necessarily mean there’ll be anything recent on it. Bruce and his Dad had a history with police enforcement that dated back years. The same ‘CONFIDENTIAL box pops up when Tony tries to access Bruce’s file. Tony slams his hands against the keyboard, glaring at the screen. “Does it ask for credentials?” Maria asks; Tony navigates away from the screen, and the search system is replaced by lines of code. “No- it didn’t ask for anything. It’s like there’s no source files either. Like everything’s been scrubbed and now it’s just that dumb box, and placeholders.” “But that doesn’t make any sense. Why?” “And who,” Tony adds, leaning back and folding his arms. “Who would want to get rid of the files? FBI? CIA? NSA, DIA, Homeland, DEA…” Tony trails off and he meets Maria’s eyes. “Where did Bruce’s Dad work?” Maria asks; she thought she knew. She remembers something about a lab, maybe, or some sort of research center, but Bruce was always skittish around the topic and she’d never thought to press for details. “Bruce never said. He’d always dance around the question like a fucking ballerina. I don’t think he worked steadily, but… I don’t know.” Whatever it was, they had no way of finding out now. Tony started looking up anything he could find on Bruce’s dad, and Maria felt herself sinking back into her seat. There was something going on here that felt bigger than them. Something the police didn’t want them to know. Tony could feel it too, and as he started pulling up articles from old papers (‘Woman Found Dead in Townhouse’), Maria wondered if they’d ever figure it out. The world seemed to be against them, and she couldn’t remember ever feeling so helpless and tiny. -Maria had a swim meet as cross training, which meant that she’d been extremely conscientious of her cycle, dreading the discomfort of swimming with her period. Not that it wasn’t possible, but she didn’t relish the thought of cramps and the inconvenient logistics. Worrying about it also gave her mind a break from worrying (and wondering) about where Bruce had disappeared to.But when the meet comes and goes without her period, her thoughts jump to one thing: she’s pregnant. Bruce and her had been pretty careful, using condoms, but she knew there was still a chance. And Maria’s cycle was like clockwork, every month. The dollar store has pregnancy tests and less of a chance of running into people who she knows. Maria wears a coat and a hat, scans the aisles for anyone she knows before picking up the box of tests and paying for it with cash. Every test she does is positive. Maria locks herself in her bedroom, curls up on her bed. This wasn’t supposed to happen. None of this was supposed to happen. Bruce was supposed to be here, they were supposed to finish off the school year and graduate and have a great summer and go to college in the fall. Instead, Bruce was gone, could maybe even be dead, and Maria was pregnant, and everything was upside-down and wrong. In an attempt not to think about it, Maria goes to Tony’s house, but when she gets there, she finds herself close to tears.Mr. Jarvis lets her in with a frown, tells her that Tony’s upstairs in his bedroom. Asks if she needs anything. It’s not the first time he’s seen her in tears because of Bruce’s disappearance, and she’s grateful when he doesn’t ask questions. It takes her a minute to open the door of Tony’s room, and he picks his head up from the bed, where he’s fiddling with electronics. The smile drops off his face. “Tony…” “Fuck,” he says in a panic, twisting himself upright, “Maria, what? What happened? Did you… did you hear something about…?” Bruce was the unnamed topic, but Maria shakes her head. God, this is so much worse, somehow. “What then - you’re fucking freaking me out.” Maria’s freaking herself out too, but there’s nothing to be done except blurt it out: “I had a positive pregnancy test.” There’s a moment of silence as Tony processes her words. “But…” But there’s only one person she’s been with, and that person’s been missing for over a month now. “Right.” Tony’s shoulders slump, and the “Oh,” falls from his lips like a breath. Maria nods. Bruce was nowhere to be found - which meant that that night… “Are you gonna…” Tony starts, but he stops himself, winces. Clears his throat and stands up. “I mean…” A baby. Pregnancy. Maria was in high school, she couldn’t be pregnant. Except… except, except, except. “I don’t know,” she tells Tony; there were two options. Two impossible options. And Maria in the middle, stuck, uncertain. Broken. “Whatever you want,” he tells her, and he’s so earnest and attentive, so determined; in that moment she wonders how she came to deserve a friend like Tony, and how Tony had become this person, or if he’d always been this person. Maria shakes her head, but she’s not sure what she’s shaking it for. She looks at her hands, which are curled in tight fists, thumbs moving along the outside of them restlessly. “But Bruce…” Tony closes the distance between them, takes her hands in his. “Bruce isn’t here,” Tony says, in a voice that sounds way more grown up than the one she’s used to hearing. It’s not angry, but it’s unrelentingly true, a harsh reality that he manages to soften with calm factual delivery. “We don’t know if he ever will be. We don’t know why, or how. We’re doing as much as we can for him, but that’s all we can do. I think… I think you gotta do this one for you.” If Maria’s looking at it rationally, she agrees. If she does have the baby, it won’t have any effect on whether or not Bruce comes back. If he even wants to come back. And if she doesn’t, that won’t change anything either. Logically, she knows that. But Bruce has been gone without a trace for a month now, and the idea that she might’ve somehow managed to keep a small piece of him offers the chance at filling the ache in her heart that he’s left behind. He might be dead, or worse, and they probably won’t ever see him again. Most missing persons cases were closed within a week, and it’s been well over that now.Tony’s fingers push her hand open, rough and large and skinny. Warm. He holds on firmly, an unlikely anchor. “Maria, you know I’m here for you though, right? No matter what?” Maria nods, and she thinks that if any good comes from Bruce disappearing like that, it’s that at least her and Tony have each other. -When Maria tells her Dad she’s pregnant, he kicks her out. Maria’s not surprised, not on the surface; disappointed, upset, and heartbroken, but not surprised. Shame from her Dad’s harsh words consumes her as she gets her stuff together, her Dad gone to the bar. He hadn’t been surprised at all that this happened, and he told her that she deserved it. Shame becomes anger as she carefully tucks away the picture of her Mom into her bag, and she leaves the rest of her stuff behind. She puts her house key on the counter and walks out, knowing this is the end of them. There’s a month and a half of classes left, and Maria’s due date is August. Her Dad’s suggestion that she ‘take care of it’ reaffirms and strengthens her desire to have the baby. “You can always do adoption,” Tony had offered quietly one afternoon before Maria told her Dad, when they were in his basement working, keeping each other company. Maria hums an acknowledgement but thinks that if she’s gonna go through all the hassle and pain of growing a baby inside her, she’s gonna damn well keep it after. Now she’s at Tony’s doorstep with a ratty suitcase and a duffle bag she’s lugged 12 blocks from a place she can’t go back to. Understanding and determination cross Tony’s face the moment he sees her, and he says without hesitation: “You can live here.” Maria can hear the fight Tony has with his parents that night, and she doesn’t bother unpacking. If the Stark’s tell her to leave, where is she going to go? Back home to her Dad? She can’t do that, he doesn’t want her. She thinks that he’s never actually wanted her, and this was just the excuse he was waiting for to cut her out of his life without facing the judgment and ridicule of his peers. The next morning Maria’s sitting at the table for breakfast with Tony and his parents. Mrs. Stark smiles warmly at her, but the silence is suffocating. Maria stares at the eggs on her plate, hating herself for being the cause of it. “I’ll go to MIT,” Tony says, blowing a bubble of air into the thick air. Howard Stark puts down his fork, folds his hands, avoids looking at Maria. “You are not responsible for the problems of others, Anthony.” Tony pretends he hasn’t said anything: “And I’ll intern this summer at Stark Industries. In the fall I’ll start MIT, and I’ll keep on at SI, do whatever I can while I’m in Boston.” This is a hand that Howard hadn’t been expecting, and his stoicism falters. “What?” “If Maria can stay here-” “We never had a problem with Maria staying here, love,” Mrs. Stark says kindly, and she reaches out to cover Maria’s hand. Mrs. Stark’s hand is soft and slender; Maria feels a flutter of appreciation. “If she can stay here, and if she can come to MIT with me, I’ll be as involved in SI as you want.” “You were always going to be a part of the business,” Howard tells him, though there’s a hint of uncertainty about the statement. Tony glares at him, “But now I’ll want to.” Howard’s eyes narrow as he glares back. Finally he gives a curt nod, and keeps eating. It’s as good as a handshake. Afterwords, Maria corners Tony on his way upstairs. “You don’t have to make sacrifices for me,” she tells him - she doesn’t want to owe anyone anything. Tony looks at her like she’s suggesting he should stab her. “It’s always been a bargaining chip, Maria,” he tells her, “And I’ve always used it for stuff that matters the most to me. He’s right - I was always going to be part of SI. It was just a question of whether I’d be able to use it for something, or if he’d be forcing me into it.” -Maria doesn’t go to the graduation ceremony. The gossip and rumours had died down enough that by the end of the term, she’d become just another high school girl who happened to be pregnant, and the life of the students had moved on from speculating if the child was Bruce’s, Tony’s, or someone unknown, to what party they would be attending post-graduation.Walking the stage doesn’t hold the same appeal to her that it once did - graduating had gone from being a life-changing milestone, to being an item to check off on a to-do list. A necessary, inevitable step that didn’t require her presence. Tony’s eager to abstain in solidarity, and they stay home on the day and have lunch with Mrs. Stark as a compromise. “I’m very proud of both of you,” she tells them. She’s blinking back tears, but Maria knows that they’re for Tony. Still, she’s touched to be included, and even more when Mrs. Stark puts two boxes on the table. Tony opens up his box, which is a flattering silver ring with some kind of inset black stone. “Granddad’s ring,” he breathes. “Ma, this is awesome,” he grins, slipping it onto his middle finger. “Thank you.” Maria’s box has a beautiful watch in it. Maria knows nothing about watches, but she knows that this one must be costly. It’s elegant but not delicate, and the face is so clear it looks like there’s nothing there. “I can’t accept this,” she whispers, her fingers hanging off the edge of the box, touching the velvet lining. Mrs. Stark won’t take no for an answer. “I insist.” “Just take it,” Tony presses, “You’re gonna hurt her feelings if you don’t, and we’ve already crushed her by not going to the stupid ceremony.” “It would be an acceptable concession,” Mrs. Stark agrees, her mouth turning up into a playful smile. The kindness echoes in her chest, looking for something familiar to compare to, but all it finds is memories of Bruce, and the heartbreaking comfort of being loved. “Thank you,” she whispers, and she wipes her eyes and Tony makes fun of her for being hormonal from the pregnancy, and she rolls her eyes at him, but she feels safer and more at home than she has since Bruce disappeared. -After she gets her high school diploma, Maria enrolls in spring college courses. The plan had been to work in the spring and summer so she could afford community college in the fall, but Tony tells her that Mrs. Stark quietly bankrolled the option for spring courses two months ago. “It’s already paid for,” Tony tells Maria with a shrug, “If you don’t go, I guess it’ll just be a donation.” So Tony goes to work with his Dad in the mornings and Maria goes to classes. She feels like a leech, taking advantage of the place to live, food to eat, and now the free education. On one rare occasion when she’s in the same room as Mrs. Stark, she mentions it. “My husband makes investments in stocks and technologies and R&D. I like to make investments in people. You deserve kindness, Maria. Everyone does. It’s not weakness to accept a little bit of help; it’s a testament to strength. My husband doesn’t quite understand that, but I’m working on him.” Mrs. Stark smiles, and for the first time since Bruce disappeared, Maria feels like she’s got solid footing. Maria takes two courses: Criminal Justice and Political Science. They’re the first classes she needs to do for the diploma that’ll get her into the police academy. If the police academy will still be a feasible option after the baby, she’s unsure, and she doesn’t share the thought with anyone. The coursework keeps her busy, and no one looks at her or her growing bump twice past the first day of classes. The bump swells up by the time June rolls around and the course is finished. Maria spends the week after her finals inside, and she finds herself growing more and more restless. “This seems like a lot of work already,” Tony tells her, touching the bump gently and laughing when he feels a small kick. “You deserve some down time.” “I want to do something,” she insists, and the next time she sees Mrs. Stark, she offers her services to volunteer somewhere, anywhere, doing anything. Mrs. Stark is on the board for a non-profit that focuses on providing accessibility to educational technology and programs for underfunded school districts. The office is quiet in the off season, but there’s some general administrative and housekeeping things Maria helps out with. For a month Maria reorganizes the offices, updates the program websites, fields phone calls, and creates a new filing system for outreach. August rolls around and a week before the baby’s delivery date, Maria starts getting contractions. Mr. Jarvis drives her to the hospital and Tony meets her there in a whirlwind of commotion, barging into the hospital room with a breathless, “Are you okay?” before the nurse can chase him down. “Are you family?” the nurse asks, and Tony looks at Maria, who says, “He is.” And if the nurse infers that Tony’s the father from her words, they aren’t about to correct her. The baby comes after 7 hours of labour, and Maria cries as they place him delicately on her chest. A week premature, and the noises he makes are weak and high-pitched, but he’s crying. “We’ll need a name for the birth certificate,” someone says before they leave Tony and Maria and the little baby boy with an inch and a half of wet black hair. “They’ll need to know who the father is,” Tony says after the baby’s fallen asleep, one of his hands resting lightly on Maria’s finger. “I could- I mean, I know I’m not, but… if you wanted me to, we could do that. I could do that.” Tony’s nervous saying it, and Maria’s pretty sure he’s offering for the sake of offering, as a show of support. But it’s not his responsibility to bear, and she can’t do that to him. Maria leans over and kisses his cheek, “Thank you. We’ll leave it blank though.” Relief makes Tony’s shoulders sag, and he gently runs his thumb over the baby’s hand. “I still gotcha though, you won’t need to worry about anything.” The nurse looks scandalized when she realizes that Tony isn’t the baby’s father, but it’s too late. Mr. and Mrs. Stark are in South America, but Mr. Jarvis comes into the room and coos delightfully at the tiny baby, all swaddled up and wrinkly. “His name?” Mr. Jarvis asks, and Maria says, “Noah Bruce Hill,” with a smile. -Tony adores Noah. They have a bassinet for Noah in Maria’s room, and the first night he falls asleep on the covers of her bed. Maria doesn’t have the heart to wake him, so she curls up next to him. Noah wakes her up two hours later, and Tony’s already up and reaching into the bassinet, cradling the bundle against his chest as Noah cries. “I think he’s hungry,” Tony says, bringing him over. They soon figure out ‘he’s hungry’ is a pretty good guess for any time Noah wakes up crying. Tony takes the next day off from SI, installing four camera’s into Maria’s bedroom and routing audio for them. He works when Noah’s not sleeping, alternating between fiddling with the electrics in the walls, and holding a screwdriver between his teeth as he tries to rock Noah to sleep. Noah sleeps a lot, and Maria finds herself grateful that she’d already taken spring courses; the thought of leaving this helpless little squirmy bundle rekindles the same panicked fear and pain of Bruce disappearing. It doesn’t help that the baby has Bruce’s dark hair which starts to curl two months later, Bruce’s squishy nose and the wider set of his face, dimples on his cheeks and giant owl eyes inherited from Maria. They spend the fall in Boston with Tony, while Tony attends MIT. Noah sleeps well, he eats well, he poops well. He doesn’t seem interested in reaching for things, but he waves his arms and tiny fists energetically, and smiles at contrasting colours. For the first three months, Maria doesn’t let Noah out of her sight; occasionally she’ll let him stay with Tony while she runs on the treadmill in their utility room, but Tony’s always careful to be close by. She stays home for the most part, watching Tony coast through MIT and outpace every course he’s enrolled in. Some classes he doesn’t attend (“I’ve listened to my Dad’s pontificating for eighteen years, I don’t need to watch another old geezer prattling”), and some he skips based on a complicated merit system Maria has yet to understand. Pretty quickly the people at MIT realize they’re wasting Tony’s talents in mandatory lectures and let him start research for a Master degree. Maria goes to visit him at his MIT workshop, Noah tucked cozily against her in a baby sling, her backpack filled with diapers and extra clothes. “Squirt!” Tony grins when he sees them, getting off his chair and coming to tickle Noah’s nose. Noah’s eyes are open, but he’s well on his way to a nap, and he doesn’t respond. Tony turns his attention to Maria: “I’m glad you came, come look-” “What is all this?” Maria asks, looking around. It looks like the remnants of Tony’s old robot, the one that his Dad had smashed a couple years ago. The parts are laid out along a table. A square-ish part has a cable plugged into it, and the cable goes somewhere under the computer desk. Tony glances around in the direction of her question, and waves his arm: “Robot. Not that - here.” He sits behind a computer screen and Maria stands behind him. All she sees is lines with symbols in them, and she shakes her head, “What is that?” “Here,” Tony tells her, highlighting a section of it. “The first part’s the date: three weeks after Bruce disappeared. The second part’s the message. It looks like gibberish but - he’s saying he’s safe, and he wants to come home.” Maria doesn’t realize that she’s got a hand on the back of Noah’s head, holding him firm against her chest: “Where was this?” “On one of the backup servers for the MIT forum for applying students. Someone deleted it and tried to erase the copies, but the server I found it on isn’t connected to the mainstream internet. They would’ve had to come here to delete it.” “What does it mean?” Tony shrugs helplessly. “I don’t know.” “If he wanted to come home, why didn’t he?” “Maybe he couldn’t,” Tony suggests, and he’s fiddling with a pencil in his hand, thinking. Maria tries to look through the rest of the words, but it all looks like nonsense to her. “Is there anything else?” “That’s the only one, baby Mama.” Maria stares at the screen, but it doesn’t have any answers to her questions. And she has so many of them. “I didn’t know you were still looking,” Maria admits; there’s a bit of guilt, that she hasn’t been doing the same. But with Noah it feels like she doesn’t have time for anything, and she thought they’d both silently shelved their search. “We’ve been pretty busy,” Tony says, which sounds less like a reassurance than an answer to her unasked question. “But I wanted to let you know. I mean, it sounds like he didn’t want to leave. And an obscure message like this…” Maria looks down at Tony and her heart hurts with the loyalty Tony still has for Bruce, even now after all this time. “I know,” Maria tells him; she’s gone through phases of anger and disappointment and sadness and indifference. But none of those emotions serve her now in her life with Noah, with Tony, in Cambridge. On the walk home Maria muses that Tony had been right: it helped. Knowing that Bruce was (or had been) okay, and hadn’t wanted to leave them for whatever reason… maybe he’d come back some day. -Tony’s busy with MIT and keeping up with SI, and Maria tries her best to help him navigate his busy life by plotting out deadlines and clearly establishing necessary benchmarks for projects and research. Tony always had Mr. Jarvis breathing down his neck to get his work done, and it shows. Where Maria struggled to get Bruce to complete any semblance of required work, Tony simply needed a nudge in the right direction and constant reminders of the most pressing deadlines. “God, you’re like my secretary or something,” he tells Maria one day after Maria reminds him of an upcoming test while she’s changing Noah. “Mr. Jarvis would be so proud,” she replies, with half a smirk. Tony appreciates the effort more often than not, and Maria feels content that she can give something back. They’re having a late dinner of pizza one day at two in the morning, Tony just back from working in his MIT workshop, and Maria still up from putting Noah back to sleep. “Ever think of going back?” Tony asks, washing down his pizza with beer. “You mean to New York?” As comfortable as this all is and as certain as she is that Tony wants her here, she’s always on the lookout for any signs that she’s overstayed her welcome. Tony chokes on his beer. “What? Fuck, no. No, no, no, no. To school. You did one semester in the spring, got three left, right?” School. So she could get a degree. So she could get into the police academy. That had been her ambition once, so much that Tony seemed to remember it. But was it still her ambition? “Noah,” she says simply, and Tony narrows his eyes at her. He doesn’t believe her one bit.“He’s a cute baby, but he wouldn’t be the first one to go to college daycare while his Ma’s in classes.” “Oh, I don’t know-” Maria’s starting to cave, and Tony can sense it. “There’s a college twenty minutes away that has the classes you need. There’s a daycare right on campus. And it’s all paid for, if you want to go.” Maria shakes her head, still trying to find a reasonable excuse. “It’s a lot of money, I don’t know if I can-” “You’re basically my secretary, remember? Can’t do that shit for free.” Maria looks around the room: as if Tony wasn’t providing everything for them already. “You’ve already done so much, Tony.” “And I’m a hellion to deal with,” he presses, “- you deserve a lot more. Com’on, go. Please? Unless,” he studies her, contemplative. “Unless you don’t want to do it anymore?” Does she? Or did she want to spend every day here with Noah and live off Tony forever; it was sort of like a job, now that he pointed it out, but whatever she wanted, she knew it wasn’t to be a personal assistant for the long term. Could she be a police officer, now that she had Noah? “I think I can give it a shot,” she tells Tony, and he grins at her, clinks the neck of their beers together, and does a little dance. So when Noah turns five-months old, Maria takes him to the daycare at the college and gets back to working on her police academy courses. -Two years later, at the end of August, Maria graduates from college with an undergraduate degree, with a double major in Criminal Justice and Social Sciences. This time she goes to the graduation ceremony. She doesn’t bother inviting her father, who hasn’t spoken to her since that night he kicked her out. Instead, Tony sits in the audience with Noah on his lap, cheering and clapping and whooping when Maria crosses the stage. Two years of juggling Noah, Tony, working out, day classes, night classes, and online classes, and her application to the academy is sealed. (Two more years of radio silence from Bruce.)Noah’s three now; a few months before, Maria took Noah in to the doctor, concerned that he’d been struggling with shapes and walking and reaching for things. Turns out, Noah had inherited Bruce’s eyesight, and now after getting the ‘cool’ wrap-around glasses, he’d started accelerating through all the milestones. Tony was still stretching out his time at MIT, openly explaining that he didn’t want to have to go back to New York and work at SI full time. The autonomy of working on his own projects was vastly more enjoyable than working under the thumb of dear Dad. The pictures came out the day after the graduation ceremony, an image of Noah grinning and clapping on Tony’s lap, who was grinning widely. ‘ILLEGITIMATE LOVE CHILD REVEALED' the headline reads, and Maria’s vaguely amused that her name isn’t mentioned once in the piece. “Why do they think you’re Noah’s Dad?” Maria asks when Tony looks over her shoulder. “The fuck?” he asks, frowning. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry - I’ll take care of it,” he promises her, and he disappears. The idea of Noah’s picture circulating is a violation of their privacy, but she knows that Tony’s notoriety has been growing after each event, party, or rager he attends. Tony’s taken a liking to partying, and while he’s careful not to bring it home, Maria’s not oblivious that it happens. It’s the unwelcome cost of associating with Tony, and Maria’s honestly surprised that it’s taken so long for something like this to happen. -In September, Tony’s phone rings just as Maria’s coming out of Noah’s bedroom. “He go down?” Tony asks, and Maria nods, quietly closing the door. That cell phone’s going to wake Noah up in a hurry though, if Tony doesn’t answer it soon. “Yeah, this is him,” Tony says impatiently, confused, and Maria comes closer to hear what the other side is saying. The person on the phone says that Mr. Stark, Mrs. Stark, and Mr. Jarvis were driving down a long, winding highway in upstate New York a few hours ago. They were involved in a crash. They died on the scene, likely at impact. A cause of the crash had yet to be found, and an investigation was ongoing. Their bodies were currently being transported to the Coroner in New York City, and did Tony have a preference for where they should be sent? Did he know of Mr. Jarvis’ next of kin, so they could be notified? Tony holds the phone and stares at the wall with the blank look of incomprehension. Maria takes the phone gently out of his hand and puts it to her ear. “Hello, this is Mr. Stark’s assistant. I’ll be taking over for him.” Maria talks to the man as briefly as she can, and when she hangs up, Tony’s on the floor, his head in his hands. Maria wraps her arms around him, and they fall asleep on the couch, Tony’s crying transitioning gradually into sleep hiccups. -There’s another picture in the papers of Tony and Noah, at the Stark funeral, and this one has Maria holding Tony’s hand. Noah was proving to be a sensitive kid, and he’d stuck close to Tony the whole time, holding his hand and hugging his legs. “Bye Gamma Star,” he’d whispered into the grave, and when Tony picked him up and held him close, his hand closed around Maria’s, and someone snapped a picture. The write-up didn’t mention Noah, or theorize about who he was. There was some online allegations later on, that Maria was Tony’s mistress (which made no sense, Tony wasn’t married), and that Noah was their child. The shocking death of the Stark’s shook the core of New York City, and Maria hadn’t been aware of just how beloved Maria Stark had been until she saw the outpouring of support and love in the form of notes, flowers, and gifts left at the gates of the mansion. “We live here?” Noah asks, when they don’t leave the mansion for a week. Maria pulls him onto her lap, hugs him close: “For now, yeah.” -Tony wakes up one day a week later, announces he has a killer hangover, and tells them that they need to go for brunch immediately. Esther’s has closed, but they choose a place close-by and walk there together. Noah insists that he has to sit next to Tony, and when they order a tandem lunch plate to share, insists that he needs to sit on Tony’s lap in order to reach properly. Maria points out that there’s booster seats available, but she’s not about to force them apart when Tony clearly wants the comfort. In retrospect, they shouldn’t have chosen a window seat. One person becomes five, and by the time they leave there’s a crowd swarming the sidewalk. “I need a driver,” Tony grumbles. The doors barely open and when they get out onto the sidewalk, the crowd descends. Microphones shoved in their faces, cameras and camcorders everywhere - someone steps on Noah’s foot and he starts crying, so Maria scoops him up. “Who the fuck did that!?” Tony demands, wheeling around. “Don’t,” Maria tells him - they need to get back into the restaurant, call someone to come pick them up, this is insanity. Someone pushes against Tony, and he pushes back, and then there’s a camcorder too close to her face and it hits her so hard she can feel her skin split and her head knock back. Thankfully she doesn’t drop Noah, but it makes him cry harder, and blood trickles down Maria’s cheek as Tony and the man who hit her start throwing punches. The police arrive quickly after that, attempting to disperse the crowd and putting the man into a cruiser. “You too,” the officer tells Tony, and Maria grabs Tony’s hand, “We’re going too then.” “Can’t do that Ma’am,” the officer says, and Maria looks around at the weak perimeter that’s been set up.“You’re going to leave a woman and child by themselves in a crowd of people that just attacked them?” The officer’s resolve falters. “If you’re injured then you need to go to the hospital, and you can file a report.” “I’m fine, just take me with you.” The officer relents, and Maria calls Tony’s lawyer as they drive down to the station. Noah checks Maria’s cut with careful, curious fingers. “Just a cut, monkey,” she tells him softly. His frown doesn’t disappear, but he seems satisfied with Maria’s state of health, and he crawls onto Tony’s lap, curling up against the man. “That shouldn’t have happened,” Tony tells Maria, but he’s talking to the window. Maria tries to resist rolling her eyes. “But it did. So we’ll deal with it, and make sure it doesn’t happen again.” The officer takes them to the same station where her Dad used to work - probably did still work, given his track record for stale and unmotivated. Michael Hill walks past them a handful of times while they wait for Tony in the line of chairs just inside the offices. Maria staunchly ignores him, and she preoccupies herself instead with Noah, who’s taking everything in with wide eyes. -Tony takes over as CEO of Stark Industries, and Maria helps him navigate the new reality of his life until one day, when she’s debating whether or not to postpone joining the academy as a new recruit for one more cycle of classes, Tony says abruptly: “Hill, you’re fired.” “What?” “You’re fired.” “Did you ever really hire me?” “You’re on the payroll.” Maria gives him a look - they both know that has more to do with taxes, etc. then it does with any official capacity. “I’m serious, you’re fired,” Tony insists, and Maria’s starting to think that he might not be kidding, but she can’t see where this is going either. “You’re done. I’m gonna hire someone new to take on - whatever you do. And you’re going to apply for the PD, like you were always planing.” Oh, so this is what this is about. Maria sighs, glancing at Noah, who’s sound asleep on the couch with Louis the turtle covering up the majority of his face. “Things were different back then,” she tells him, and Tony makes a loud noise of disbelief. Noah shifts in his sleep - Maria shoots Tony a glare, it’s taken her hours to get him down - and Tony takes her hand, pulls her into the kitchen. “I’ve got the nugget. I’ll get some help too. You’ve got all the qualifications, all you’ve got left to do, is actually do it. You’ll be in town, we’ll see you on the weekends.” “It’s a lot of work, Tony.” “Your part, or my part?”For so long she’s been treading water, trying to give Noah some semblance of a normal life. She’d been ready, once, and then Tony’s parents died and they were both thrown into this turbulent world of the unknown and that shining, guileless face that reminded them so much of Bruce. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” Tony smiles in a hard way; he’s not rid of the demons that have plagued him since that car crash, but he’s come to terms and suppressed the destruction that stemmed from them. “It’s your turn.” “I’ll look into it,” Maria promises, and it’s as good as a yes. Tony lets out a whoop that wakes Noah up. Noah’s head pops up over the back of the couch with bleary eyes as Tony swings Maria around. “Your Mama’s going to be a police officer!” he tells Noah, who doesn't understand, but shrieks in happiness all the same when Tony swoops in and starts tossing him into the air. -“Mama.” Maria wakes up at the first sound of Noah’s voice, startled to find that it’s starting to dip in pitch, from the squealing toddler talk to something that sounds more like a boy - it seems like yesterday he was skidding along on his knees and shrieking incomprehensibly, and now he’s old enough to make his way through the adjoining door and into her room. “Mama…” There’s a hint of impatience in his tone, but it’s mostly excitement, eager and innocent, refreshed with the new day. His hand pushes aside the sheet she’s sleeping under in a quest for her hand, and his breath comes out in a sudden huff,“Ma!” And she can’t keep it up any longer, Noah’s hand having found hers and now using it as leverage to help him tip onto the bed; his hands are against her shoulders and she opens her eyes - With sleep clouding her vision all she can see is Noah’s soft face, and the dark curls that bounce out from his head - except on the one side he’d slept on, where the curls bend strangely. A button nose and soft cheeks, the only apparent feature of hers that he carries (so far), the vivid green of his eyes. - he’s forgotten to put on his glasses again. “Ma,” he repeats, a hand near her head as he holds himself an inch away from her face, “Some lady in‘a kitchen.” Noah’s almost four now, and his mind seems to be developing quicker than his mouth can keep up; the past few weeks she’d noticed he’d gotten into the bad habit of being too impatient to bother saying sentences the way he knew they should be - Maria blames it on Tony, and the extended exposure to his motor mouth while she finished up the 6 months of basic training at the academy. “There’s a- what?” “Lady in’a kitchen,” Noah repeats, now sitting on her waist so she has to roll to the edge of the bed while juggling him into a position that won’t have him falling off the bed. While she doesn’t doubt his claim, questioning him for more information isn’t proving to be effective. “Go get your glasses,” she tells him, standing up and setting him on the ground, “Then we’ll see who this lady is.” Noah turns and scooters off through the open door, and Maria uses the time to pull on some sweatpants and an old MIT sweater of Tony’s. Noah comes back with his stuffed turtle Louis, and his glasses falling off one ear. “Come see,” he insists, holding the door open - but he ducks behind her leg as soon as she gets in the hallway. The rooms that Tony set up for them are just down a wide hall from a fully equipped kitchen (one of the four in the house). There’s a platinum blonde woman standing between the sink and the fridge, tapping away at her phone with impractically long fingernails. “Hi,” Maria offers shortly, since she apparently hasn’t registered their presence, and the woman looks up - her eyes widen substantially, and her head swivels down to take in Noah. “Uh.” Maria’s eyes narrow almost instantly - if Tony’s letting his bimbo’s slip into their area of the house… “Hi,” she repeats, since it obviously didn’t get through the first time. “Oh, yeah. Hi. I’m Mr. Stark’s new secretary, Lucy.” “Why you here?” The question is on the side of rude Maria typically tries to discourage Noah from, but she can’t argue against it in this particular case. “Oh, I’m just waiting for your Daddy, sweetie,” Lucy says, and Noah frowns at her, his head pushing into Maria’s leg and his hand groping at her arm. Maria lifts him up and sets him on the counter with his back to the woman, glaring over his head at the woman while Noah pushes his glasses back up his nose with the whole of his palm and sets Louis on his lap. “Tony’s not his Dad.” “He’s - oh. Oh.” Lucy blushes, the freckles at her cheeks slowly disappearing under the colour. “But they look- ....” Strikingly similar - if you had no idea of what Noah’s real dad looked like. There was a reason the gossip columns still liked speculating. The smudge from Noah’s hand covers half the plastic-glass and Maria peels the frames off his face with a sigh - it’s a wonder how he can manage to see out of them at all most days. “It’s a mistake most people make,” she answers shortly, though forgiveness isn’t at the forefront considering the woman’s general attitude and apparent idiocy. “Tony made it sound like he was a bachelor, I didn’t realize -” “And I’m not with Tony,” Maria clarifies further, running some water to wipe the glasses clean. “O-oh…” The woman clearly has no idea what to do with the information, and Maria’s once again struck with the question of what she’s doing in this part of the house. Glasses clean and dry, she replaces them gently on Noah’s nose, threading the special loops around his ears. Nothing seems forthcoming from the woman, and Maria moves past her to the pantry by the fridge, pulling out some bread. “You don’t think you should maybe go try and find him?” “Who?” Lucy asks, and Maria stares at her for a solid few seconds. Tony needs to fire this chick, pronto, and Maria won’t be holding her tongue about it either. When Maria can’t stand it any longer, she prompts: “Tony.” “Ohh, yeah.” Lucy continues to stay in her way as Maria passes her with the bread, slipping a few slices into the toaster and pressing the button to start the overly-complicated coffee brewer. Noah grabs her arm before she can move onto the fridge, and she lets him scooch off the counter, into her arms. Noah mutters, “Mama - jam,” into her ear, and she nods, setting him onto her hip. “So you should go,” Maria directs at Lucy, her glare hardening as Lucy has the audacity to look affronted, and she adds in a clipped, “Now.” A dramatic huff and Lucy turns on her heels, throws a disgruntled, “Fine,” over her shoulder, and clicks her heels along the tiles on her way out. “Tony isn’t Daddy,” Noah says, and Maria’s not sure if it’s a question, or a statement. “No, baby, he’s just your Uncle.” “Uncle Tony,” Noah repeats, nodding along like he knows this. Maria smiles and sticks him back on the counter, where his attention turns to Louis. Maria collects the pieces of bread from the toaster, slathering one with jam and the other with peanut butter, the smell of her coffee beginning to permeate the air - after six months of strict discipline and structure, she’d missed these simple moments beyond words. It’s because she’s basking in the comfort of it that Noah’s question catches her off guard: “Daddy?” It’s a question about where ‘Daddy’ is, uttered the same way he asks, “Tony?”; the same way she’s heard him calling, “Mama?” from a different room. Three years and a eleven months, and they’ve managed to avoid that particular question; there’s been traces of it, but never a fully formed inquiry. ( Bruce -- )Maria sets down the plates and situates herself in front of Noah, his knees bumping her hips. She puts a hand on each cheek, thumbs brushing over the soft cheekbones that come from Bruce - she’s thought about it a lot, knowing that the questions would come sooner than later, especially with her away so much the past six months… but she doesn’t know what she’s going to say until she looks into his now-wide eyes, his pupils drinking in her face with so much trust. “Your Daddy loves you a lot Noah - but you know how I had to be away so much these past couple months? Even though I hated I couldn’t be with you?” Only three days since her return, and the memory is still fresh for him, and his face falls as he remembers. “Well, your Daddy needs to be away too, right now.” “Work,” Noah says sadly, his finger hooking into the wrist cuff of Tony’s sweater. “But then just no more work.” He’s so decisive in his simple solution she can’t help but smile, the urge to cry making her eyes glass over. “He needs to be away for now. But he loves you.” - he doesn’t even know about you - “And he wants to be here.” - except he’s been gone without a trace for more than four years now - “He really does.” “When ‘s be back?” “We don’t know, baby.” - and at least there’s truth in that statement. “But I know he can’t wait to meet you.” -The next woman Maria meets in the house is a redhead by the name of Pepper Potts, who seems both astute, generous, and surprisingly intelligent. Maria had taken Noah to the park, which had turned into a greek tragedy because he’d forgotten to bring Louis the turtle - they had a playdate with Tony tonight, and she wasn’t too inclined to be returning to the park before then. Noah runs right past Pepper on his quest to find Louis, while Maria sheds her coat and eyes the unperturbed woman. The last assistant Tony had had, had made for an unpleasant experience, and Maria was wary about his judgement after so many duds. “Hello,” Pepper says once Maria’s got her shoes off - Pepper’s still looking at her phone, and she doesn’t seem at all surprised or disturbed by Maria’s presence. “Hi.” Pepper finishes whatever she’s been doing on her phone, stands up, straightens her skirt, turns her head to smile brightly at Maria, and crosses over with her hand extended, “Sorry about that - Pepper Potts. I’m Tony’s new assistant. He has a meeting in an hour. I’m here to make sure he gets there.” “Maria Hill.” Maria doesn’t offer any explanation as to why she’s here, and Pepper doesn’t ask for one. “Right,” Pepper nods, like she knows this. “I’ll make sure he’s back in time for your night out.” “We’re not together,” Maria preempts, and Pepper nods in understanding, and smiles, “I know. I think it’s the eyebrows and the hair that make people wonder,” she comments, looking towards the hallway Noah disappeared through, “But he doesn’t look much like you and he doesn’t look enough like Tony, so it doesn’t make sense.” The comments are matter-of-fact, devoid of judgement, and Maria’s approximation of her jumps tenfold. “Thanks,” she says, and Pepper smiles pleasantly. There’s no room for more conversation as Noah zips back into the living room, turtle in hand; he squeezes past Pepper’s legs on the couch and reaches up at Maria, who picks him up. “And this must be Noah,” Peppers starts, and Noah twists his head around to look at her,“Hi,” he says brightly, waving like Tony’s been teaching him to. “Hello - are you having a good day so far?” “I got Louis,” Noah tells her, indicating the turtle with a small shake. It probably doesn’t sound like a logical answer, but Pepper takes it in stride, smiling kindly at the turtle in her face. “And is Louis having a good day?” “He is, ‘cause we came back for him.” “But we’re not going back to the park,” Maria says, cutting off that idea before it has time to stew. Noah’s face is pulled into disappointment when he turns it back to her. “You knew that when we left.” “You know what I think?” Pepper interrupts - Noah’s busy looking at Louis, but Maria glances at her. Pepper’s eyes shift to the table behind the couch, and Maria sees the corner of a book that has ‘Turtles’ in the title. An eyebrow goes up with her question, and Maria gives her a slight nod. This one is definitely a keeper. “I think I know something that will be more fun than going back to the park.” Noah side eyes her dubiously, “Really?” “How do you feel about stickers?” Pepper asks, making her way around the couch. It’s a good hook for Noah. “I like stickers,” he tells her, shifting in Maria’s arms to see what Pepper’s doing. Maria puts him down, and Pepper picks up the book. “It’s a book that’ll teach you all about turtles,” Pepper tells him, and they walk towards each other, Noah with his hand out. “Do you like the sound of that?” “Yes please,” Noah nods, and Maria’s happy that he at least tries for manners, though he could take the book more delicately from Pepper’s hand. “Can I, Ma?” he asks. “Yeah monkey - what do you say to Miss. Pepper though?” “Thank you,” he says enthusiastically. Noah hunkers down at the coffee table, giving the book an initial, slow flip-through. Maria and Pepper gravitate towards the kitchen. “Thank you,” Maria tells her; the distraction had been timely. Pepper gives her a self-satisfied smile. “Tony mentioned he wanted a turtle.” “Did you want some coffee?” It’s the first time Maria’s made the offer one of Tony’s associates, but she has a good feeling about this one. Competence was attractive, and the book had been a sweet gesture. After checking the time on her phone, Pepper nods, “I’d love some.” Tony comes down just as they’re clearing up the cups and plates (Noah wanted some crackers, so they joined him). “You’re five minutes early,” Pepper tells him in surprise, and Tony looks between her and Maria, and the empty cups and dregs of black in the coffee pot. “And Maria actually likes someone I hired; this doesn't bode well for me, does it?” -Another similarity between Noah and Bruce crops up just after winter break of Noah’s second grade. The assignments he’d been bringing home for the first part of the year had been promptly completed and even augmented - but now Maria has to fight just to get him to sit down at the table, not to mention actually complete the minimal nightly tasks. “It’s just a worksheet, Noah, I know you know this stuff.” “I’m hungry,” he deflects (badly) - but he’s seven, and he’s already had an after-school snack. Maria pulls out a seat so she can sit next to him, and he side-eyes her with a floppy head. “Why don’t you want to do the worksheet?” Noah shrugs, and says, “I dunno.” He picks up his pencil and stares forlornly at the little plastic sleeve that carries the assignments from class back and forth. It’s not an acceptable answer, but she doesn’t doubt it might be true. “You have to do them,” she tells him, firmly, and Noah pulls the plastic folder towards him but doesn’t pull any of the papers out. Maria takes a deep breath, the old (ancient) frustration of a Banner and his homework, creeping up on her. What is it about homework? What is it about writing things down on paper and showing you’ve understood the concepts and could apply them that created such a mental block in these boys? “Can I do them later?” Noah asks; his head has dipped so low that his glasses start sliding off the bridge of his nose, and he drags a hand across them to get them back up. Maria shakes her head. Right now it’s 10 minutes of work, but soon it’ll be essays and studying and worksheets. “Homework first thing, after we get home. Always.” “But this time it’s different, because, because...” “Is it too hard?” Maria asks, when it’s clear there isn’t actually going to be any justification. She doesn’t see how the work could be too hard - he can kick a ball, and draw a stick figure just like any other kid, but the conversations he’s had with Tony made her certain he’d inherited Bruce’s brains. Noah lays his arms flat out on the table, sighing dramatically, “It’s not hard.” “Why don’t you want to do your worksheet?” she asks again, and this time Noah looks at her, and she can see the tears starting to gather at the corner of his eyes. “Hey, none of that,” she preempts, and his lips press together. A tantrum isn’t going to help, and she stands up, pulling the worksheets out of the folder. “You’re going to do these now,” she says evenly, “And I know it’s not fun, but it has to get done.” Noah’s arms fold up, deftly avoiding the paper between them, and he turns his head away from her. Maria swallows the frustration and moves into the kitchen. The plan had been to go out for dinner, but in this mood, it would be an unwise decision. Instead she fusses with some leftovers in the fridge, and starts putting together a salad. “I’m hungry,” Noah tells her, and he still hasn’t touched the worksheets. He’s not, but she arranges some carrots on a plate anyways, and sets them at his elbow,“You still have to do your homework.” For a moment she thinks he might start whining, but it had evidently been his last gander, and he pulls the worksheet towards him with a pouting face, and slowly begins to pencil in numbers and words. Maria sets her laptop up on the kitchen counter, where she can keep an eye on Noah, and finishes off the last emails of the day. The success of finishing off the pages bolster’s Noah’s mood, and they finish dinner together with time to spare for a television show. Animated fish were never Maria’s thing, and even Noah seems bored by it, though the way he’s clinging to her arm suggests it’s not about the show. -“He’s doing it,” Maria tells Tony, holding the phone between her ear and her shoulder while she preps Noah’s lunch and their breakfast for the morning. “Gonna have to be a little more specific Mama,” Tony answers, and by the muted metal tings in the background she figures he might be doing some multi-tasking of his own. Maria sighs as she puts together a sandwich, “Homework. I thought I’d have another year or two at least before this started up.” The metal tings stop, Tony’s focus finally drawn into the conversation. “Homework?” “Yes, homework. It took an hour for me to get him sitting at the table, and then it was almost bedtime by the time we got through a chapter of his reader and two worksheets.” “Jeez,” Tony huffs, and the metal tinging starts up again. It’s not the solid advice she’d been looking for, and she sets down the knife so she can hold the phone in her hand. “I can’t do this every night, Tony,” she confides in him, “I don’t know what I did wrong. It was the same thing with-” Bruce, is how that sentence ends, and Tony knows it too.“You made a smart baby, that’s what happened.” It sounds like a shrug off and she sighs audibly into the phone without a follow up. “Look,” he gives in, and she can finally hear some sympathy, “The kids’ probably bored. If you let me set him up-” “You’re not turning him into the next Doogie Howser, Tony.” “Jarvis was the only reason I ever did my stuff. And you’re the only reason Bruce ever did his. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” “Thanks, that’s so helpful,” she tells him dryly and he laughs, “It’ll be fine.” -Tony sends her a link of the newest appointment to New York University, and Maria finds herself standing at the door of an office, transported into what has to be an alternate reality.
Dr. Robert Bruce Banner
When did he become a doctor? She doesn’t quite believe it. It can’t be the same person, can it? When she knocks there’s no answer, so she tries the door, which is unlocked. Maria steps into the office - it’s bare, stark. There’s a bit of clutter on the desk, papers and folders, but nothing that seems personal. No slogan’d coffee mug, no dead or dying plant, no trinkets or knick knacks. It’s depressing, if in line with the kid she’d known eight years ago who often managed to show up anywhere with only a novel on his person that wasn’t related to anything.There are no pictures hanging on the wall except six giant degrees, awkwardly placed and off-center, all framed in beautiful but understated wooden trim:
Doctor of Philosophy in Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences

Doctor of Philosophy in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Doctor of Philosophy in Biophysics

Doctor of Philosophy in Chemical and Biological Engineering

Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics

Doctor of Philosophy in Nuclear Physics
A pang of emotion goes through Maria’s chest as her fingers raise to run along the bumps of one of the framed degrees. Bruce hated school, hated homework, more than anything else when they were together. Was this the same person that had begrudgingly left her bed to get that stupid history project? There are three smaller framed degrees as well:
Master of Science in Physics

Master of Science in Chemistry

Master of Science in Fission Systems and Radiation Transport
Bruce had been busy while he was away, and Maria finds herself startled when she hears the door open. And there he is, mused hair and glasses, wearing a shirt that looks a size too big for him. It’s been eight years since the last time she saw him, and the similarities between him and Noah are even more obvious with the amplification of three dimensions. “Maria,” he says, rooted to the spot, a soft bewilderment on his face and a longing Maria only recognizes because she feels the same one running full force through her body. Wide-eyed, a tie that probably didn’t begin the day tight, loose around his neck. A 5-o’clock shadow, when did he start to grow stubble? Of course, that would have been after she stopped kissing him, running her hand against his cheeks and pushing her fingers into the unruly curls. The softness from youth has faded away from his body, his cheeks more hollow, his neck thicker. He’s still slim, but the way his clothes hang off him betrays that he’s more fit now than when he’d left. Maria knows that she’s changed too, her body different from pregnancy, from birth, from boot camp and now from the stresses and strains of motherhood and life. Maria wants to kiss him, kiss Bruce, finally pass on that affection she’d been harbouring since the night he disappeared - but that was a different Bruce, a different Maria, and if all the education on the wall and her experiences are to be believed, those people are long gone. “These are new,” she says curtly, turning back to the degrees because it’s easier to focus on this recognition of something she’d never been a part of, then to see Bruce and be reminded of what she could’ve had. The door closes, the light shifting in the office as the natural light from the hallway disappears. “Robert Bruce Banner?” she asks - his Dad’s name was Robert, and Bruce hated it so much that only the official school records had it listed. It seems strange to see that hated name embellished up on the wall, the only source of personality she can find in this room. Bruce hasn’t moved far from the door. “They used to say something else.”“Yeah?” Maria asks. It’s a challenge, a chance to elaborate. But nothing is forthcoming and Maria can’t help but wonder if that’s because she’s no longer privy to the sort of secrets that he’d once confide in her; whispers she could feel in her ear, late at night when they were pressed together. “How long have you been here?” “End of August,” Bruce tells her, and she can’t identify the emotion in his voice. When she turns her head away from the stepping stones of his unknown life, she can’t identify the emotion on his face either. The careful stoicism she was used to has evolved into a hardened blankness. It’s been almost a month. Maria tries to keep the betrayal out of her voice when she says, “You didn’t tell us.” “I know.” There’s no self-pity in his voice, just a resignation that breaks her heart. The sound of an ant getting stepped on, acceptance and the lack of any grander aspirations than a quick death making it meek. “You didn’t get in touch - Tony’s name is on the side of a building in the middle of the city, don’t tell me you couldn’t find us.” It’s only after she speaks that she realizes she’s including Noah in her indignation. It’s only after she speaks that she realizes Tony’s created a beacon, one that Bruce had willfully ignored. It’s only after she speaks that she realizes how she’d managed to freeze her heart the moment Noah was born, and how painful the whiplash of eight years is, as it accelerates to the present just in time to be crushed again. “Fuck you,” she spits at him; Bruce doesn’t move fast enough to get out of her way, and the bump of their shoulders feels like the world laughing in her face, mocking her for all the hopes she hadn’t been able to contain. They’ve made it this far without him. They can make it onward, without him. -Noah’s obsessing with his turtle dreams instead of doing his homework, and Maria’s trying desperately not to let his whining trigger all the cutting emotions she’d managed to smother from the meeting with Bruce - with Dr. Banner, she corrects scathingly - earlier that day. “- and then I could get a tank, and I’d get a special light for her too, it would be great Ma.” Noah wiggles out of his chair at the table, comes over to where she’s standing next to the sink with no purpose. His eyes are dazzling, his face has all the softness that Bruce’s had been missing. Maria looks at Noah, his enthusiasm ramped up because of a hypothetical turtle, and she reminds herself that her son isn’t Bruce. Her son isn’t the boy who had left them years ago, and her son didn’t have to carry the weight of his father’s baggage just because they looked alike. “Noah,” she starts, and his face falls, his lips twist, his shoulders hunch, and she’s reminded of an ant getting stepped on for the second time that day. “I know,” he wheedles, “And I will, but we learned about zoos today, and I totally think that we can make an appropriate environment for Louis to thrive in.” The last sentence sounds like it’s verbatim from the lesson he’s talking about. Noah is eight, and he wants a turtle. Noah is her world - not the remnants of potential she’d been carefully ignoring in her head. “You know what?” she asks, and hope blooms on Noah’s face, “I can get an alive-Louis!?”“No,” Maria answers quickly, and before his face can fall she adds, “I was going to say: Screw homework.” Noah looks up at her, his expression shifting to awe. “Really?” “Yeah. Let’s go get some pizza from downstairs, and we’ll come back and curl up on the couch and watch a movie.” “But it’s a school night,” Noah says carefully, as if she may have forgotten that, like he better be cautious because it seems too good to be true. It’s impossible not to tease him a little: “Are you saying you’d rather sit at the table, have a salad, and go to sleep early?” “No!” he shouts, aghast, and it makes Maria laugh. “We’ll go right now - can I pick the movie?”“Sure,” she tells him, and soon he’s dragging her down the stairs, homework forgotten, and Maria thinks with annoyance that getting six Ph.D’s is overkill, and completely unnecessary. The next morning, Noah gamely finishes his homework during breakfast, Maria firmly reinstated as ‘cool’. “Remember to get a new book from the library,” she reminds him, “You’ll be with me at the station today for a bit after school.” Noah frowns, “Can’t I bring my Gameboy?” “You’ll have a whole weekend’s worth of time with it - you can read for an hour while I finish work.” Noah sighs dramatically, but the impromptu movie night is still fresh in his mind, and he promises he’ll remember. Of course, he forgets, but thankfully he’s got a few sheets of homework that would take 20 minutes to do, so will naturally occupy him for well over an hour. Noah procrastinates by insisting he needs a snack, holing up in the break room while Maria makes photocopies and distributes case updates to various departments. Noah’s still munching on an apple when she finishes, so she gets him to take it to her desk, where she clears a space for him to work. “Do it now so you won’t have to do it later,” she tells him. She secretly hopes to herself that he doesn’t obsessively overcompensate for it later, which is what she now thinks Bruce must have done. Do nothing your whole life, and then accomplish in eight years what takes most people decades to finish -- it’s an unfair thought, but she can’t help it. Unfortunately for Noah, a station full of officers is exponentially more interesting than the difference between ‘was’ ‘is’ and ‘were’, even if he has been tethered to Ma’s desk with nothing more impressive than the word of a parent. And that’s how Bruce finds the boy, wiggling in a chair that’s too big for him, sitting behind a placard that says ‘Officer Hill’. “Hey,” he says, his voice softened by the surprise of seeing a child where he thought for sure Maria would be. The kid hums at him, pushing off from the desk, spinning himself to face Bruce - There’s something in the furl of his questioning look, something strikingly familiar about the clarity of greenness in his eyes. A mop of curly hair and a giant pair of glasses that are fashionably dorky - the little guy is adorable, and Bruce smiles at him, “I’m Bruce.”“That’s my middle name!” the kid chirps, grinning wide (is he going crazy or has he seen that grin before). There’s something strange happening, and Bruce asks,“What’s your first one?” “Noah. My Ma works here. This is her desk.” Some innate understanding clicks into place, Bruce’s chest swelling and dropping simultaneously - but he can’t completely understand it yet, can’t comprehend what it is about this kid. The desk is clearly Maria’s. “I’m a friend of hers - mind if I sit with you?” “M’not supposed to talk to strangers,” Noah says idly, but he doesn’t seem to care to enforce the rule, back to spinning in circles in his seat. The kid has to be -- “I used to be friends with your Mom,” Bruce says, and it’s not exactly a lie. “Okay.” Easy acceptance, and Bruce takes a seat at the side of the table. Noah asks on his next cycle, “D’you know Uncle Tony then?” Tony’s not his dad then, and the thin belief that Bruce hadn’t really been entertaining crumbles. “Yeah,” he nods, finding it suddenly difficult to talk, “The three of us were all friends.” Noah’s eyes stop their spinning and focus in on him; they’re so piercingly green. “Like when?” “When we were teenagers,” Bruce answers, and that seems to placate the kid. “What happened?” Noah asks, and he absently returns to gently twisting the chair side to side. Bruce isn’t prepared for the question: “What do you mean?” “You said you were friends - but then what happened? ‘Were’ means you used to be - which means you aren’t anymore. Or are you?” It seems like a weird distinction to make, but Bruce sees a grammar sheet on the desk in front of him. When a look around doesn’t unearth Maria, Bruce tries to come up with a coherent answer: “The kind of friends we were - I don’t know if you ever stop having that. But, I don’t know yet.” “When are you gonna find out?” Bruce presses his lips together. “Soon, I hope.” The kid keeps spinning for a few seconds, then asks: “Did you know Uncle Tony has a swimming pool in his tower?” Bruce shakes his head, though it doesn’t surprise him, “He does?” “Yeah,” Noah nods, grinning, “We’re sleeping over this weekend. Uncle Tony made me a Noah Cave too - Ma says I should ask him if I can keep Louis in there.” “Who’s Louis?” Bruce asks, distracted by the thought that just because Noah wasn’t Tony’s son, didn’t mean that Maria and Tony weren’t… “My turtle,” Noah says brightly, and he stops spinning back and forth, jumping off the chair and leaning into the corner of the desk. “Except I don’t have her yet. I know exactly which one though. Ma says Louis won’t like our house, but there’s so much room at Uncle Tony’s, maybe he’ll let me keep Louis there. She could have her own entire room. What do you think? Do you know much about turtles? Do you have one?” “I uh, don’t have one, no-” Noah looks at someone behind Bruce, and his wide smile turns into one of caution. He’s clearly seen someone, and when Maria says, “Noah,” Bruce knows exactly who that is. “This is Bruce, your maybe-friend!” Noah offers, sensing some sort of turbulence but unsure of its source or what it means. “Go get your stuff together, please.” Noah frowns, but he doesn’t protest, saying bye to Bruce and disappearing towards the back of the station. “What are you doing here?” Maria hisses, and Bruce stands up, his hands up and apologetic, “I was looking for you.” “What do you think you’re doing?” Maria spits, and the swelling-dropping stomach feeling returns. It’s Maria’s reaction, more than anything, that has tipped her hand. Maria was more protective than Rodriguez had been, and the words finally come to him, spelling it out in his head. “Does he know?” Bruce asks softly, and Maria has a rage in her eyes that doesn’t quite sell, “Not here.” “Okay.” The where is implied, but he’s been gone so long, he doesn’t know if he has any right to a ‘where’ or ‘when’ or ‘why’. Maria looks torn for half a second, then makes her decision. “You know Lucky’s on 70th?” Bruce shakes his head. “I can find it,” he says. “Tomorrow night, I’ll meet you there. Seven?” “Yeah,” Bruce nods. Noah’s having trouble with his backpack, and Bruce takes a step closer to Maria, keeping an eye on Noah’s progress. “Does he hate me?” he asks her softly, because he needs to know what he’s getting into, what he might be able to expect. “No - why would you-- ?” the bewilderment is obvious, but now Noah’s too close and Bruce steps away. He wouldn’t be able to fully articulate the question and what it means if he had years. “I’ll be there,” he promises. He wishes he could tell her that no one woudl be able to stop him from keeping his promise this time. “Bye Noah,” he tells the kid - his kid - who waves merrily as he takes Maria’s hand. Bruce starts crying when he hits the streets, and he doesn’t stop until he falls asleep in the darkness of his bedroom, hours later. -“We were fine,” Maria tells him, mostly as a point of principle. He’d left, and whatever his excuses for that were, he needed to know that they’d been fine. She’d missed him, sure, and Noah had missed the father he’d never had, but she didn’t want Bruce leaving this conversation with any semblance that he’d pulled one over on her, made her pine and worry. Life had gone on, whether he wanted it to or not. It could be a ‘it’s okay’ or a ‘so shove’, and it would be whatever it needed to be. The assertion takes Bruce by surprise, and the tenuous footing he’d managed to establish overnight gets a little more rocky. “Okay,” he nods, swallowing thickly. The bar is loud and crowded, but he’d found a cubicle-like booth in the back that dampened the hubbub. Waiting for Maria, he’d ordered a cider, but it sits in front of him untouched. He was too nervous, too worried, too unsure if Maria would show up. But she did showed up, defenses raised, sliding into the seat and eyeing him levely. The same look of scrutiny and determination he remembers from years ago is there, the one he’d seen when they first got saddled together as Chemistry partners. But there’s no expectation this time, no sense of obligation. Bruce doesn’t know where to start. What to say. How to explain how hard he’d fought to make it back to New York, and how she’d caught him off guard at the office. How he wishes he could take it all back -- what she must think of him, disappearing into the ether without word of a warning. What Noah must think-“So?” Maria asks, her voice carefully schooled to stay hard. A voice he’s never heard before, one that makes him wonder what’s left of who they used to be. “What happened?” -There’s two police cars in front of Bruce’s building by the time he walks there, but that’s such a common occurrence that it barely registers in his mind. His Dad should be out in a bar, or passed out at this point if he hasn’t made it out - Bruce still makes a point of tiptoeing down the hallway. The first weird thing he notices is the fact the door is ajar. If there’s one thing he can usually count on, it’s his dad keeping a closed door. When he reaches it, he can hear voices on the other side. For a moment he wonders if they’re being shaken down by some gangsters, but the voices sound reasonable and calm, very nonthreatening. “There’s supposed to be a boy-” “Goes by Bruce - Bruce Banner-” That’s him, and Bruce pushes on the door gently to see who’s looking for him. The plan is to see who it is and then decide whether to run or engage - but the door chooses this moment to make an unlucky creak, and just as he sees that the speakers are police officers, their heads swivel towards him, hands reaching for their firearms. Bruce panics and bolts, racing down the hallway he came - the door slams open and he can hear shouts behind him, and as he nears the stairwell he hazards a look back. They’re not far off, and gaining fast, and he’s about to take the stairs five-at-a-time when he runs into a solid something, and yells. Hands grip his arms and he swings wildly, kicking out as his feet lift off the floor - the hands turn into arms that clamp around his torso, stopping his punches and bringing him close enough that kicks are rendered useless. Still he struggles, demanding they, whoever they are, let go of him. The police officers from his apartment catch up. “Hey, Bruce, calm down, we’re not going to hurt you.”Their hands are up in a universal gesture of nonthreatening-ness, and Bruce stops thrashing. His glasses have fallen to the ground and he can’t make out the officers very well - the man holding him still doesn’t let go. “Leave me alone,” he demands, and he tries to kick back, but before he can get wound up, the man holding him anticipates the wind-up and sets his feet down; there’s a hand on his forearm and another braced against his shoulder, and Bruce can already feel the jarring twist it’s set-up for. “I didn’t do anything,” he tells them automatically - whatever his father’s done, he’s got no part of it. “We know,” the officer that had been talking before reassures, “You’re not in trouble. Actually, we’re trying to protect you.” The words are incomprehensible to Bruce. “What?” The other officer bends down and picks up Bruce’s glasses. The one holding Bruce lets go of his arm, and while Bruce can’t see the glasses themselves, an arm is extended towards him and he can make the connection. With the glasses on, he sees that the two officers are definitely uniformed members of the NYPD. The third is in plain clothes, but he has the same haircut as the other two. “Are you aware that your Father has been arrested?” Bruce’s stomach sinks, thinking they’re going to somehow implicate him in whatever his Dad’s done. “For what?” “We’ve been building a case for a while now. We finally have him for murder Bruce - the murder of your Mom.” It feels like the wind has been knocked out of him - it’s been so long; years and years. And all that time, no one cared. He tried to tell them, and no one had listened, and now they were trying to say that they believed him? “That was eight years ago,” he says dumbly. Bruce’s other arm is released, and he leans against the wall for support. “Like I said, it’s been a while.” The cop does sound regretful, and Bruce can see his badge says ‘Dwight’. So if they’d arrested his Dad, and they had a solid case against him, that meant… “Why are you here?” “You’re a minor, Bruce.” Which meant they wanted to take him away. It confirms the fear that had started brewing at the knowledge of the arrest, and Bruce shakes his head - him and Tony had made a plan for this eventuality, and while Mr. Stark might be hard to sway, it was at least a temporary reprieve. “Right. I’ll go to the Stark’s, then.” The officers in front of him exchanged looks, and the one behind him puts a hand on his arm. “Howard Stark?” “Yeah - Tony’s my best friend,” he tells them earnestly. “I’m always there anyway, his Mom -- Mrs. Stark, she said I could stay. Whenever. I want to go there.” Dwight’s drawn lips give an answer well before the officer figures out a why to articulate it. “It’s- things are a little more complicated than that, Bruce. We’ll go to the station first, okay?” “No,” Bruce tells them - they should take him to the Stark mansion. That’s what made sense. Why wouldn’t they just take him there? “Take me to Tony’s.” “We’ll go to the station first, Bruce.” That wasn’t a promise to be taken to Tony’s after, and Bruce tries to wrestle away from the man who has his arm, but there’s no use, he’s too small and the man is too strong. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” Dwight says. Bruce refuses to go without a fight, and he shouts at them the whole way down the stairs. The neighbors ignore him, too used to these scenes to be bothered by curiosity. They bundle him into the back of the police cruiser, threatening handcuffs and assault charges after Bruce manages to get a punch in. Nothing but empty threats, and Bruce watches the building fade away as he glares through the window. When they get to the station, he’s filled with a flash of hope. Maria’s Dad is working tonight. He feels a panicked sadness when he realizes that she’ll be waiting up for him and he won’t be coming back. He needs to tell her what’s happening, let her know somehow - and if her Dad’s here, maybe he can help. They put him in a room with a mirror - one way glass, he presumes. They put a Coke on the table and a bottle of water, leave a bag of chips, and close the door. Ages later, someone comes in, and Bruce instigates his shaky plan. “I want to talk to Officer Hill,” he tells Dwight, who has a cup of coffee and practiced sympathy on his face. “Michael Hill?” Dwight asks, surprised by the strange request. Bruce nods. “Why?” is the next question, and Bruce repeats the request, refuses to answer with anything but. After ten cyclical minutes of questioning, Dwight leaves. Ten minutes after that Officer Hill walks into the room. His entire presence is belligerent, and Bruce has a feeling that he overestimated Hill’s interest in him. All he can remember now is Hill bursting through Maria’s door to find Bruce making out with his daughter on the bed, their shirts already off. He hadn’t fled through a window faster than he had then. Quelling the sudden uncertainty, Bruce stands up. “Mr. Hill, please. Take me to Tony’s.” Hill sits down, and Bruce follows suit after a second. “Why?” Hill asks, contempt filling the single syllable. Bruce can’t think of a reason that’ll sway him. Because he loves Maria? Because Tony’s his best friend? Because they’re the only ones that had felt like family since his Mom died? Because none of this was fair? “Please.” “You’re no good for my daughter,” Hill tells him, “And you’re no good for Stark’s son.” Bruce loses track of what Hill says after that, shaking as he realizes that his only would-be ally hates him. Hill doesn’t even know him, but he’s still willing to destroy Bruce’s life. The unfairness of it has tears falling down Bruce’s face. “I want an attorney,” Bruce says, interrupting whatever Hill had been saying. Hill scoffs, and stands, his chair scraping harshly against the floor. “Sure bet, kid.” The rest of the night passes in a daze. Dwight takes him to a room with a bed, a toilet and sink, and a locked door, but no bars. Dwight looks apologetic, but he still closes the door and leaves. Bruce turns off the lights and sits down on the bed, pushing himself against the wall and hugging his knees to his chest. Maria and Tony are the only ones who care about him. Who know him. But now he can’t get to them, can’t tell them where he is. He’s helpless, alone, and he can’t stop thinking about his promise to Maria, that it’s been way longer than two hours, and that she’s not going to know what happened to him. In the morning, after a fitful, restless sleep, Dwight takes him to a private shower, and dresses him in an NYPD logo’d sweats and sweater. They have a fast food breakfast in the locker room, and then Dwight takes Bruce into a new room, where a man sits with a legal pad. Despite Dwight’s attempts at conversation, Bruce stays sullen and quiet. “Take a seat,” Dwight tells him, gesturing to a chair adjacent to the man, and Bruce slips into it listlessly. There’s absolutely nothing he can do except follow directions and allow himself to be carted from one room to another. “I’m Donald Regs,” the man says. “You requested an attorney. Office Dwight, can we have the room?” Dwight leaves, and Regs asks, “Have they been treating you well?” Bruce’s resolve to be stony falls away at the opportunity to list the injustices against him: “They took me away from my house. They put me in a cell - I want to go to Howard Stark’s. The Stark’s will take care of me. I don’t need to go into the system. I have people waiting for me.”Regs nods, makes a few notes, and asks, “You were comfortable at night? They fed you, allowed you to tend to hygiene?” “I had a shower and breakfast,” Bruce confirms, but he’s not sure how this connects to his request to go to Tony’s. “I don’t want to be here.” “Bruce,” Regs says, and Bruce is starting to get really frustrated with the way everyone is saying his name. Regs puts down his pen, takes off his glasses, and Bruce thinks he’s trying to look sincere. “Your Dad is a very dangerous man. I don’t know if you know this: he has very dangerous friends. I’ve been made aware that you haven’t been told yet, and so I need to rectify that. As of right now, you’re at serious risk. The NYPD has arranged to have you placed into protective custody. Have you ever heard of witness protection? We’re arranging something much like that, for you.” Protective custody? “No,” Bruce tells him, and Regs nods, “I understand that you feel that way. It’s perfectly reasonable to feel that way. Unfortunately, the decision is not up to you. Now, you’ll be going to a town in Nevada.” Bruce shakes his head, “I can’t.” “It’s all arranged - a new identity, a new school, a protective detail to ensure your safety.” “I can’t just leave.” Regs doesn't hear him, “Your flight will be leaving shortly after midnight - you’ll be accompanied by two agents, they’ll make sure you get to your destination safely.” They were going to take Bruce out of the state - they were going to take him away. “I need to see Maria and Tony,” he says. Regs shakes his head, though Bruce is sure he has no idea who Maria and Tony are. “That won’t be possible, unfortunately. We can’t risk anyone seeing you, or knowing what’s happening, or knowing where you’re going.” “You can’t just take me away from my life - you can’t.” “For your safety, we can.” Regs gives him a tight smile, and reads through more useless facts that Bruce doesn’t comprehend. They let Bruce sit in the break room, watching the TV. An officer is assigned to him, but he eventually goes to the bathroom. Bruce is next to the telephone instantly, pressing the numbers that will connect him to Tony’s house. He wants to call Maria, but someone’s guaranteed to answer the Stark’s phone, so he has to opt for that. The phone only rings once before it’s snatched away from Bruce’s hand. An officer he doesn't know puts the phone onto the cradle gently, and then takes him to an interrogation room. Wallace, the officer who was supposed to be watching him, drops off a novel and some magazines. Later, he gets a fast food lunch, and a fast food dinner after that. Dwight arrives late at night, puts him in a car, and delivers him to two beefy agents at the airport. “He’s trying to get in touch with his friends,” Dwight tells the agents, and Bruce feels a surge of betrayal. There were bound to be hundreds of distracted people at the airport, dozens who wouldn’t notice their cell phone momentarily missing. Hawke and Bull don’t give him a chance to act on his plan, watching him closely. Security goes quickly, since it’s late and they have nothing with them. Even when Bruce has to go to the bathroom, they won’t leave him alone. Bruce finds himself squished between them during the overnight flight, the opportunity to steal a cell phone missed. He doesn't have a bag, a wallet, any extra clothes, just a sweater that says NYPD in bold letters. The only thing that is his are the ratty chucks on his feet. By the time they land and he’s shuffled into a car, Bruce feels like a prisoner. They arrive at a house on a cul-de-sac, just as dawn is breaking over the endless horizon. A woman waits at the front of a house, and Hawke introduces them: “This is Agent Rodriguez, she’ll be your first assist.” Rodriguez looks pleasant enough, though Bruce’s embittered mind immediately identifies her as the enemy. “Hi,” Rodriguez says kindly. “I’ll be monitoring you while you’re home, and I’ll monitor your progress in school as well. The idea here, Bruce, is to fit in. The story is your parents transferred you here for your last term to see improvements in your marks - which honestly doesn’t seem a far stretch. You can call me a close family friend.” “I know this isn’t ideal, Bruce,” Rodriguez goes on, and she looks genuinely sympathetic, “But if you cooperate, it’s going to be less painful.” “I need to tell Maria and Tony where I went,” Bruce tells her, and Rodriguez shakes her head in sympathy just like everyone else has, “You can’t contact anyone you used to know - that would put your life, and the whole case, in jeopardy.” Bruce folds his arms, feeling the dim resignation surge into anger: “I need to tell my friends where I’ve gone. They’re gonna think-” “I know this is hard Bruce. But it’s better for them and you if you don’t contact them.” “I need to tell them that I’m okay.” “We’ll take care of it,” Hawke reassures, but Bruce can see through the lie, “No you won’t. All you guys care about is whatever my Dad’s caught up in.” “We care about you and keeping you safe.” Bruce’s hands are clenched: “I don’t believe you.” “You don’t have to,” Rodriguez tells him, and she points him to a room upstairs. There wasn’t anything in the house - a dial-tone phone, the usual kitchen appliances. No computer he can see, no television, and as he stomps his way up the stairs, he finds three doors. One is a bathroom, the other is locked, and the third is a little bigger than his old room. There’s a single bed in it, one with a minimalistic frame. There’s a wooden desk, an office chair, a dresser, a side-table, a shelf full of books, and a reading lamp. No computer, no phone. No internet, no workshop. No Tony. No Maria. Bruce slams the door to the room as hard as he can, then sits on the bed and fumes. There has to be a way to get in touch with Maria and Tony… Bruce cries himself to sleep that night from the consuming helplessness of it all, and when he drags his feet down the stairs the next morning, he finds Rodriguez already making breakfast. “I don’t usually cook, but last night it sounded like you might need a pick-me-up this morning.” Bruce hates the empathy on her face, the sad smile, the smell of pancakes and the orange juice already in a glass. “You can’t keep me from them forever.” Rodriguez doesn’t turn away from the cooking pancakes, “Our goal isn’t to keep you away from your friends, Bruce. It’s to keep you safe.” “There’re computers at school. Cafe’s, public library, other human beings. I’m going to need a laptop to write papers and do research in college. You guys can’t keep me away from the internet.” Rodriguez transfers the pancakes from the pan to a plate and Bruce stares at them balefully; Maria loves pancakes. “No, we can’t. And you’re a smart kid. I’m sure if we tried, you’d find a way around it.” Rodriguez holds the plate in her hand hostage, “You’re father wants to kill you. Just like he killed your mom-” “Don’t talk about her,” Bruce interjects hotly, but Rodriguez continues on, “And he may very well have the means to do it. If you get in touch with your friends, we’ll find out. And more importantly, he’ll find out. You cannot let them know where you are. You cannot get in contact with them. And we’d love it if you were voluntarily cooperative in your own safety, but understand that we will get that cooperation, one way or another.” “You’re threatening me,” Bruce realizes - and withholding pancakes on top. But he’ll be 18 soon, and then there wasn’t anything they could do. “No,” Rodriguez says evenly, “I’m explaining how this works.” “You can’t keep me from emailing or calling them.” “I really hope I won’t have to.” -Monday starts a week of infuriating routine - Rodriguez would knock on the door to wake him up at 7:30, on the dot, if he wasn’t awake already. Bruce would take a shower, make himself breakfast, and they would drive to school at 8:15, on the dot. School started at 8:40, but the computer labs were locked before classes started. There was no computer class listed on his timetable. Lunch was at 11:00, twenty minutes to eat, twenty-five minutes outside. Kids weren’t allowed in after lunch, unless they had a special pass. Classes resumed at 11:50, and finish at 3. Rodriguez would be waiting outside for him, and came looking if he was even five minutes late. Bruce would work at the kitchen table on homework, or read, until dinner. Dinner was some sort of take-away, and then he read until 9. There was no point in going outside (‘no going further than the block’) and they got to Thursday before the maddening, mundane routine got under his skin and sent him off towards the town centre after they’d eaten lunch. Kids were allowed off school property if they had permission from their parents, but in reality no-one knew who did or didn't have permission. There was no doubt a memo about keeping an eye on him, but it was relatively easy to sneak out on the outskirts of a large group, some of which looked familiar. He’s almost at the library when Rodriguez pulls up next to him. “What’s the plan, Bruce? You don’t have any money.” “The library has computers and free internet.” There’s no point in lying. “Bruce, get in the car, please.” That gets him to stop walking, and he looks in through the window at Rodriguez, sees her tired, weary face. “I can’t just sit at a table all day.” “Okay.” She says it so reasonably. “So what do you want? A TV with cable? Karate classes? Boy scout meetings?” “I can do those things?” Rodriguez sighs, reaches over, and pushes open the door so Bruce has to step back to avoid getting hit by it. “Yes. But I need you to talk to me. We’re not the bad guys. This isn’t some Brady Bunch version of juvie. If you tell me you need something, we’re going to do our best to accommodate it.” “I need to talk to my friends.” “Bruce-” “I really wish you would all stop staying my name like that.” But he gets in the car, still annoyed enough that he slams the door. Rodriguez doesn’t saying anything about it, but she presses her lips together, starts driving, and asks:“Saying what?” “My name. Like that. It’s always like, ‘Bruce,’ like I’m some orphan child hiding under a bed.” “So… you want a nickname?” Her tone is light, teasing, but Bruce is still smarting from his plan to get to the library being foiled: “I want everyone to stop patronizing me, and pretending they’re sympathetic when they’re not actually going to do anything about the situation.” The playfulness disappears and she nods, “Okay. I’ll try not to do that again.” Again, it sounds so reasonable when she says it like that. With a frown, he folds his arms and stares out the window at the unfamiliar passing scenery. The house isn’t far, and they’re already turning into the street. “I want a computer,” he tells her, hoping she’d been serious about her previous offer. “Fine. But it stays on the kitchen table, or in the living room. We’ll be monitoring all the traffic that comes in and out, and it won’t be carte blanche. You might find that certain websites are restricted.” “What, like you’ll ban Myspace?” “Actually, yes. Mostly we don’t need you delving into the depths of the internet with trolls that might have your name on their hit list. But if you were really making an effort to cooperate with us, you wouldn’t be going to the sort of places that would be restricted anyway.” Bruce refuses dignify that with an answer, and they spend the night in stony silence.It doesn't matter, as long as he gets a computer. With a computer and internet access, he’ll be able to find something that Tony would be interested in. And if Tony and Maria are looking for him, they would be looking on the internet too. Bruce wasn’t as good as Tony at all the electronic stuff, but he’d be able to find a way to send a message. -The plan didn’t get far. Bruce gains access to a messaging board for MIT prospects a week after he gets the laptop. After he gets home, he waits until Rodriguez needs to use the bathroom, and logs on quickly to leave a thinly veiled message for Tony. An hour later, Rodriguez opens the door to his room without knocking, but he’d been expecting it and so he doesn’t startle. “Bruce.” “You said you’d stop saying my name like that,” he tells her; he’s stopped reading, but he doesn’t let his eyes leave his book.“I said I’d try.” Bruce scoffs: “You aren’t trying.” Rodriguez is angry, and Bruce is surprise he’s managed to rattle her. He refuses to feel guilty about it. “Neither are you - you know what this is?” She has a paper in her hand, and she holds it out to pass it to him - Bruce ignores it, he already knows what it is,“Yeah.” “This is exactly what we told you we didn’t want to see.” “Yeah.” “You weren’t even masking your IP - if someone knew this was you, they’d be able to use this to find you.” “That was the point.” No doubt they’d taken down the message by now, and Bruce hopes it’d been up long enough for Tony to find. The nonchalance in Bruce causes Rodriguez to take the few steps into his room so she can sit on his bed. “Bruce. I’m sorry you had to leave you friends and your life behind. But this is not okay.” Bruce finally puts his book down. His face is blank. “Fine.” “We have to take the computer.” “Fine.” “And you need to pick an after-school activity. Track, lacrosse, football or basketball.” That isn’t expected, and it doesn’t make sense. “What?” “Track, lacrosse, football or basketball,” Rodriguez repeats, “Those are your choices. Pick one.” Bruce is still baffled. “Why?” “Because you’re not going to be sulking around here everyday after school.” The book pages in his hands bend from his anger; now they were forcing him into sports. Bruce says, “Track,” because he knows that Maria was on the track team back home. “Good. Your first practice is tomorrow after school.” “Fine.” “You can one-word me all you want Bruce, but you’re the one making this difficult on yourself.” Rodriguez leaves, and Bruce throws his book at the door after she closes it. They’re the ones who took him away from the only two good things he had left in his life - and he’ll never forgive them for that. As soon as the trail is over, he’s going to make it back to New York, find Tony and Maria, and explain everything to them. -Running sucked. He didn’t know how Maria did it - except his second week on the team he started to think it maybe didn’t suck that much, and by the end of the first month he wasn’t the straggler in the group anymore. He didn’t have a runner's physique, too short for the long stride necessary - but he was still on the scrawny side of skinny, so he didn’t have much weight to carry, and he was nimble enough to make up for a lack of talent. As his legs got stronger so did his resolve to hate everything and everyone involved with his incarceration as a witness. The active rebellion gave way to one that was calculated, which he nurtured, anger seeping away as the futility of his position became clearer. His dad’s trial was set for just before Christmas, ten months away. Ten months of this and he’d finally be able to go back home. Weekend ‘therapy’ sessions were added to his routine, and he went to them with much reluctance and resistance. He quickly found that they were mostly a way to prep him for the upcoming court case, normalize the act of recounting what had happened, and what had continued to happen after his Mom’s death. She’s not a pawn in your game, he thinks clearly, but the anger doesn’t bubble over. Instead it settles and ferments, propelling his withdrawal even more. -Dr. Brian Banner was quiet in court, stoic. He doesn’t look at Bruce as the boy recounts the murder of his wife with practiced lines and a forceful evenness, nor does he seem phased by the accounts of neglect and abuse. The jury take two days deliberating, and reach a verdict of guilty on all counts - Bruce watches his father walk away to be taken to jail, and relief passes through him. Finally - he can finally find Maria and Tony and explain to them, apologize and make it up. He’s missed the school year and graduation, missed the summer, but at least he’ll be able to go back. Rodriguez is sitting next to him on the hard pews, has been for the past two weeks. Now she stands, and Bruce isn’t sure what the formalities are in this situation, but he’d be glad to start his trip to the Stark mansion here and now. “You did good,” Rodriguez tells him, and Bruce stands up as well. He’d been working over the summer at a restaurant, filling up the time he’d otherwise spend glaring and moping around the house. He had enough money saved up to get to New York, most of it in crisp bills he’d had exchanged at the bank, so he could carry it on him now. The money in the bank was under his alias, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever get that back. “I’m going back to New York.” Rodriguez’ face breaks away from the smile she’d been trying for, and Bruce knows in an instant that he’s never going to go back to New York. “I’m going,” he tells her again, backing away to go around the pew, if he has to. “You can’t stop me.” “Bruce,” she says, again in that tone - again in that sad, patronizing voice that he’s heard everyone use. Like he’s not strong enough to hear the truth of it, like he’s some baby who doesn’t know that slamming the door on your fingers can hurt. He’s halfway to the back of the courtroom, weaving through people, repeating the mantra in his head - you can’t, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t. But they can, and another agent grabs his arm as he tries to get through with a throng of people, and he shouts and struggles. But he still looks like a kid, even though he’s 18, and people see him struggling and then they see the pressed, crisp suit of the agent, and the solid, unwavering stance, and they don’t do anything.The agent bundles him into a car and Bruce simmers quietly in the backseat with the child-locked doors with Rodriguez on his left. They spend the night in the hotel, and Bruce locks himself in the bathroom for three hours. Rodriguez lets him, just tells him if she has reason to suspect he’s hurting himself, she’ll have to break down the door. Bruce doesn’t want to die - Bruce wants to see his friends, see the only people who’ve offered him love and affection since his mom died. Bruce doesn’t want to be lonely, and he thinks death would be the most lonely. When he comes out of the bathroom he bursts out in a flurry, the door bouncing against the tub and startling Rodriguez upright in her seat. “Why can’t I go home?!”Rodriguez opens her mouth, looks at his tear-stained face, and closes it. Her head tilts and she’s about to say his name again - but she stops herself. With a hard sigh, and a clear tick of disapproval, she explains: “The military cut a deal with your dad. Brian works for them, and the terms of his incarceration are loosened. He’s still going away for a long time,” she explains, “But he’s not going to be in a conventional prison, behind bars. The military’s convinced that he won’t be able to leave, but in our eyes, there’s an even greater chance he’ll be coming now.” The other shoe drops and Bruce realizes that this isn’t about his safety - it’s about the intellect his father has, and the potential he has to offer an army. Bruce is an afterthought, a piece of data, an unimportant variable they can neatly tuck away and ignore. But they won’t be able to ignore Bruce if he becomes the one who’s more important. They pack him onto a plane the next morning, Rodriguez on one side and the tall, muscled man on the other. They escort him to the bathroom, monitor his television, check his pockets - the furthest away he gets from them is when he has to go to the bathroom, closing himself up in the stall for a full minute of silence, the edges of Willis’ shoes visible from under the door. It’s better when they get back to the house, when Bruce picks his shifts up again from the restaurant. They can’t keep him from going to college, and he studies at night and challenges all the courses he needs for a diploma in physics. It takes a year, but he finds out that Maria was right - with his test scores he can go to any university he wants, and a few inquiries give him the best way to University-hop his way to New York. “I know what you’re doing,” Rodriguez says one night, while she’s watching television after working out. There’s a small fitness nook at the back of the living room, a bench with free weights, a punching bag, and a full-length mirror. When they installed it, Bruce wondered if this meant Rodriguez would live here forever with him, but every agent uses it when they relieve her for the weekends or on what he assumed must be vacation days. Bruce turns from his Physics Quarterly magazine, where he’s attempting to disprove a recently introduced theorem with a pad of paper. “What am I doing?” he asks obtusely; there’s nothing worth sharing that won’t be used against him, and even though they have their moments of friendship, he hasn’t forgotten that she didn’t tell him he wouldn’t be going back home after the trial. Rodriguez turns over the arm of the couch to look at him, “Getting out of here. Running didn’t work, computers didn’t work - academics aren’t going to take you to New York either. We need you to be safe, Bruce.” “What you guys need is my dad not to have a reason to disappear.” “That’s not it at all.” But to Bruce’s ears the answer is too quiet, too deceptive. Maybe he’s paranoid, but he thinks that’s exactly what’s happening. Maybe his dad does want to come back and finish the job, but his dad also wasn’t a man to go out of his way to get something he wanted. If Bruce surfaced, maybe it would happen, but if he stayed below deck, no one would be rocking the boat. “You can’t keep me here forever.” Rodriguez doesn’t respond to that. After a few seconds she sighs and turns back to the television, and Bruce goes back to his problem with renewed gusto. There is a flaw, a pretty substantial one, and he signs the letter to the magazine ‘Bruce Banner’, and mails it the next morning on the way to the lunch shift. Judging by the car that pulls up to the mailbox as he’s leaving the parking lot, the publication never gets it. -They move houses when Bruce gets accepted into the state university - then he does what he never thought he’d do when he was in high school - he applies himself, and studies, and goes to lectures and classes and breezes through prerequisites; his professors like him, and after his first year, he takes up a job as a teaching assistant. Another year and he finishes three Master degrees and starts working on dissertations for a Ph.D.. The entry board questions him as to why he doesn’t go to a more prestigious university - and Bruce sticks to the party line and explains that he doesn’t want to move to a bigger city, quite yet. Rodriguez watches him accelerate through the Ph.D. program track with a steadily deepening frown, which continues as he gets a couple under his belt- and by the time he’s finished, he’s defending his finished thesis on anti-electron collisions, he’s got enough momentum that no one can stop him from accepting a post as a research professor at NYU with a fellow student, Betty Ross. And then someone murders his dad on the army base, and Rodriguez kisses him on the forehead and gives him a hug. His accounts are reinstated with his proper name, and when he gets to New York, all his qualifications have been reprinted to read Robert Bruce Banner, and he’s sure the beautiful, understated frames are courtesy of his semi-permanent government-issued tail. -The alarm on Maria’s cell phone goes off, cutting into the story and jarring Bruce out of his stoic recountment. “I have to go,” Maria tells him. It’s been two hours and her voice is low and scratchy, raw from emotion and from the overload of information. And Bruce - she doesn’t know what to think anymore, what she feels. Everything is in her head, too many things, and she needs space, needs some time to let it all settle. “Noah’s sleeping, but I have to get back.” The untouched cider on his side of the table is room-temperature now, and he presses his fingers into the slick side. “Okay.” He won’t look her in the eye, won’t look up; the meek resignation flares up an indignation in Maria, a frustration at a behavior she remembers too well. “Don’t do that,” she tells him with a bite, standing up. His quiet bewilderment doesn’t help, but at least it’s enough to make him look up: “Do what?” “Act like that. Like…” Eight years and she’s had to stand up for herself, for Noah, for Tony. Fight for Noah, fight for credits, fight through school and up through the hierarchy of the station while trying to escape the shadow of her Dad’s tenure. The idea that Bruce is going to lay down and give up now, after everything he’s told her: “Like you’re not worth anything.” Bruce looks away, his eyes slipping off her face and off to the side, sliding out of focus. Like he doesn’t think that he’s worth anything. Eyes glazed, but he doesn’t back off, doesn’t move - just stays where he is, suspended. “You made it back, didn’t you?” Maria says, unable to maintain the full weight of her icy frustration. Bruce pushes his glasses up, a large finger smudge left on the lens. Maria’s instantly reminded of Noah, of his everlasting struggle with his glasses; Bruce says: “I came back for you,” and Maria realizes that there’s a part of her that’s still in love with him. The seventeen year old part that never really grew up, pinning for the comfort and security of his presence. Maria has to protect Noah, but even after all these years, she still can’t stomach the thought of hurting Bruce. She’d never known Bruce to be a liar, either. “You can come over tomorrow,” she tells him, before she can second-guess the thought, “Meet Noah properly. See if you want to…” the thought trails off, because the alternative of being involved is rejecting them, and if Bruce rejects them? They’ve been alone for this long, Maria reminds herself, it won’t be any hardship if nothing changes. ( Or so she works on convincing herself. )“Yeah?” Bruce says breathlessly, the hope in his voice painfully clear. Maria gives him her address, they agree to meet at five, and she leaves through the crowd, disappeared out the door. Bruce pays for the drinks and leaves a generous tip for taking up the space, and somehow his feet take him away from his own apartment and towards the center of the city. There’s one more reconciliation he has to make. Bruce finds himself standing outside the towering building, staring up at the Stark name, thinking that Howard was right all along. The second Bruce had stepped out of Tony’s life, Tony had stepped up. Gone to MIT like he was always supposed to, gotten involved with the company, started showing the world what the son of Howard Stark could really do. Surpassed his father’s potential, according to the publications that Bruce had been able to keep up on. Bruce still remembers waking up one day to the news of Mr. and Mrs. Stark dying, Mr. Jarvis gone as well. Rodriguez tried to change the channel, but it had been too late. It was futile anyway, the death of America’s technological way-paver was inescapable. She’d sat on the couch next to Bruce, her arms around him while Bruce cried. “I have to go to the funeral,” Bruce told her, but she’d shaken her head, her shirt covered in his snot and tears. She’d kissed his head; he was so angry at them, at her, but the need for comfort had won and he buried himself deeper into her arms. He’d seen the picture of Tony in the paper, dressed in black with a small child in his arms, Maria next to him, holding his hand. The condolence card had been confiscated before he’d even been able to write in it, and the agents had gone into high alert for the next few months, alerted by the therapist that this was a tenuous situation and he might become reckless. Briefly he imagined that the child was Tony’s, buying into the scandalous tales of his partying behavior. That Maria was his rock, just like she’d been Bruce’s - at least they had each other, he thought to himself, and it stoppered the well of his guilt enough that after a few months he stopped dwelling and instead conceived of a new plan. And right now, Bruce realizes that he had in fact been a dead weight, a cancerous growth in Tony’s otherwise promising life. No wonder Howard hated him, he thinks, no wonder Mr. Hill refused to help him. Tony had been better off without him. Bruce hasn’t even made it to the front desk before he turns to leave; Tony’s found success, and that last thing Bruce wants to do is burden him once more with his existence. The automatic front doors start to slide open in front of him, but then they jerk, and start to close again. Bruce frowns and steps back, thinking he has to re-trigger the sensor, but the doors stay closed. Gently he tries to push the door open with his hand, and when that proves ineffective, he turns to look at the receptionist. The receptionist is watching him with confusion, the phone up against her ear. Once more Bruce tries to reactivate the sensor, and once more, the doors remain closed. A tall man comes up to the other side of the doors, looking up from a paper in his hands two feet away. Confusion fills the man’s face, and Bruce shrugs helplessly when the man looks at him. “Excuse me,” Bruce says to the receptionist, who’s just putting down the phone - the receptionist opens her mouth, but at that moment, Tony bursts through the stairwell, out of breath. “Bruce!” he shouts, and Bruce stands in the lobby in stunned silence as Tony sprints across the room and envelops Bruce in the biggest hug he’s ever experienced. Tony’s arms crush him, his hand pushing Bruce’s head into his shoulder so they’re pressed tight enough that Tony’s hair tickles Bruce’s nose. The excitement fades into a solid steadiness, and Bruce finds that his arms have come to circle Tony of their own accord. The man at the window knocks, and Tony breaks away, glancing at him. “I think we got him, JARVIS, you can let up on the iron-curtain protocol.” “Of course Sir. I did want to be certain,” comes a voice from somewhere above them - it doesn’t sound like the Mr. Jarvis that Bruce grew up with, and he looks at Tony in confusion. “I’ve got so much to show you,” Tony grins, and he takes Bruce’s hand and drags him to the elevator. The front doors open behind them, the receptionist back to looking at her computer. Tony punches it in the top floor. “Did you just lock me in?” Bruce asks, still working through what had happened. Tony nods, looking self-satisfied, “That’s just the tip of the iceberg, Brucie.” And just like that, it's like they haven’t spent any time apart. Tony has an overabundance of things to show him; Bruce lingers on a photo of a tiny Noah sitting in the crux of the arm of a vaguely familiar looking robot. “Maria almost killed me that day,” Tony tells him, fondness in his voice as well as a little bit of mischief. “We were doing races with DUM-E, and you’ve never heard the kiddo laugh so loud.” “I missed a lot,” Bruce says to himself, and Tony’s exuberance fades, “You came back.” “It’s been so long.” Tony puts an arm around Bruce’s shoulder - Tony’s taller than Bruce is now, and Bruce can feel the hard muscle on his arm despite the slenderness of his frame. “How many years were you gone, Bruce?” “Nine years and three months.” It’s a number that’s haunted him in his dreams, one that’s been looming over him ever since the count had started. Tony nods, like he already knew. And maybe he did - maybe he had a similar count in his head, just like Maria had a count that took the form of Noah. “Long time,” Tony agrees, and he pulls Bruce closer to him. “So don’t let them take any more.” Tony fixes them a pair of drinks, and this time Bruce sips tentatively at the tall, thin glass in his hand. They sit down on either end of the couch, leaning against the armrests with their backs so they can face each other. “I gotta show you - hey, JARVIS?” “Yes, Sir?”The grin on Tony’s face stretches across his face, the boyish excitement harking back to the days they spent together as kids. “Say hi to Bruce.” “Hello, Dr. Banner.” “You didn’t- ,” Bruce wonders - the AI that Tony had been working on?“I’m quite pleased to assure you, Dr. Banner, that he did. And for what it’s worth, I’d like to extend my most sincere thanks for the hand you played in it.” Bruce hadn’t talked to Tony in almost ten years - that made no sense. “What do you mean?” A hologram appears in front of Bruce, and it looks like a futuristic chalkboard. On it was scratchy chicken writing and a few formulas that seemed familiar - “These form a significant part of my cognitive functions.” “Hey now, let’s not get too generous with the credit,” Tony chimes in, but he’s laughing. “I found a notebook of yours from when you were on that neurobiology kick. I couldn’t figure out how to make the programming more synaptic and there were a couple insights in there that helped.” “And you call him Jarvis,” Bruce says, and Tony’s smile falls slightly, and he nods. The AI gently slips in: “And I couldn’t ask for a more remarkable or distinctive namesake.” “You did it,” Bruce tells Tony, the pride in his voice barely contained. Tony looks at Bruce, and suddenly the distance of the years they’ve lost seems more present. Tony shrugs with one should, downs his drink with practised ease. “Couldn’t have done it without you.” Bruce shakes his head, refusing any due: “You mean, I wasn’t around to hold you back.” Tony sits up, shaking his head, “You never held me back. I only went to MIT to help Maria. And I only got through my parents-- Noah and Maria were the only reason I got through that.” Bruce shakes his head: “That’s not me - that’s them. I just disappeared.” Tony’s hand is on his back, so close that their legs are touching. “But you’re the one who brought all together Brucie.” It’s too much for Bruce, and he sighs, rubbing his eyes and finding them wet. “I’m going to see him tomorrow - I want to bring something, but I don’t know what.” “Good thing for you, we got the world’s expert on gifts just waiting to bestow his knowledge on us.” JARVIS takes his cue: “I have in fact heard from a source of authority that Noah has been patiently waiting for an enclosure that would house a turtle.” Tony laughs at Bruce’s panicked face. “No,” he says, “Maria would do us both in if you showed up to the house with that. How about we start a little smaller…” -Bruce shows up at ten to five with a small bouquet of flowers for Maria, and an educational book on turtles for Noah. He buzzes the door and hears Maria’s voice right away. On the way to the elevator he begins to doubt his decision to bring flowers and a book - he means it as a token of appreciation, but are flowers too romantic? And does Noah like books? Does he already have this book? On the elevator ride up he decides that Maria won’t take the gesture the wrong way, but after he knocks on the door, he begins to have third doubts - he turns, unsure of whether he should try to dump the objects in a corner somewhere, and that’s how he is when Maria opens the door.“You’re early,” she tells him, and it carries a note of the past with it, a curiosity. Is this unusual, or is it something new that’s happened - or something that was always there and she hadn’t quite noticed. “I uh…” Bruce holds out the flowers, trailing off - Maria looks surprised, but she’s smiling, and she takes them. “I love lilacs.” “Tony told me you did,” Bruce spurts out, unwilling to take credit for the choice. It’s too early to screw this reacquainting up by pretending he knows more than he does. Maria half-laughs, and opens the door a little further. “Come in - there’s someone I want you to meet. Properly.” Bruce steps through the door and Maria closes it - Noah’s face pokes out from around the island, achingly curious. “He’s supposed to be doing his homework,” Maria says with an overtone of chiding, and Noah protests, “There’s someone at the door! You’re supposed to be polite when people are over.” Maria sighs indulgently. “Come over here Noah.” “Hi Bruce,” Noah says brightly as he comes to stand by his Mom. “Hey,” Bruce says softly - Noah’s radiant, confident and polite and friendly, eyes bright with liveliness through the shine of his glasses. “I brought this-” he holds the book out to Noah, whose mouth drops open as he takes it reverently from Bruce, “Oh, oh, oh, oh…” “You said you liked turtles.” “It’s amazing, thank you, I love it.” Noah hugs the book to his chest, looking up at Maria, “Can we read it Ma? Please? Please, please please?” There’s a silent debate going on in Maria’s mind, and Bruce is suddenly worried he’s done the wrong thing. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to bring something, or maybe he’s throwing a wrench into Maria’s plans for the evening. But Maria relents with a sigh and a smile. “You can read it now with Bruce, but that means you have to buckle down and get your work done after dinner.” “Okay!” Noah nearly shouts, and he’s off, around the corner. Bruce can see him flop back on the couch, and he cracks the book open. Then he frowns, and looks over to where Bruce is still standing with Maria. “Are you coming?” he asks tentatively, trying to be polite but clearly feeling impatient. “Go,” Maria whispers at him, nudging him with a gentle hand at his back, and Bruce takes the first couple steps. Noah has no qualms about sitting next to a relative stranger, and he hands Bruce the book as he sets up a cushion to use as an armrest. “We can switch pages,” he tells Bruce, and Bruce stares at the profile of his face, so soft and trusting and guileless. At this age, Bruce had already seen his mother murdered, already realized that life wasn’t fair, and that people who were bigger than you could, and would, hurt you. Bruce vows to do everything he can to keep Noah from that reality - or at least shield him from the worst of it, until he was ready. Maria makes dinner while they read, Noah launching into anecdotes and drawing from his own pool of facts to reaffirm the things that come up. When Maria calls them out of their turtle world, she’s set the table, transferred the flowers into a vase and set them at the center. “How do you know Bruce, Ma?” Noah asks between blows to cool his mac and cheese. Maria looks up at Bruce, a question playing along her brow - a question that Bruce can’t answer, and that she decides to shelf for the time being. “We went to school together, when we were a little older than you.” “With Uncle Tony,” Noah supplements, remember his conversation with Bruce from the station. “But then how come I don’t know you?” Know him like he knows Tony, is was Bruce infers, and he tackles that question, “I went away for a long time. Some people thought I was in danger, so they took me away to protect me.” The possibility of being taken away had never occurred to Noah, and he looks at Bruce with big eyes, “They took you away?” “To protect me,” Bruce repeats.“Didn’t you miss your Ma?” Noah asks, concern shining in his eyes. Maria’s watching the exchange carefully, and Bruce nods, “I did. I do - my Ma passed away when I was little, so she wasn’t around when they took me away.”Noah nods wisely, and he says delicately, “Uncle Tony’s parents died too - that was Grammy Stark.” “That’s right,” Bruce nods, “They did. And Tony had you guys when they were gone.” “Ma and me made him happy, even though he was sad.” Maria clears her throat, piles salad onto her plate. “So tell us the new stuff you learned about turtles.” Noah doesn’t hesitate before pouncing on the distraction, and the conversation sticks to turtles, schools, the viability of having an enclosure in the apartment, and Noah’s aspirations of becoming a turtle keeper when he grew up. Noah drags out the last few bites on his plate, which Bruce finds curious until Maria starts clearing up and says, “Time for homework now.” “I wanna read more of my book though,” Noah whines, and Maria looks at him with uncompromising eyes, “The deal was reading with Bruce, dinner, and then homework.” Noah opens his mouth, but Maria effectively shuts him down with a firm, “Don’t argue.” Bruce helps Maria clear the table, and he starts doing the dishes while she puts the leftovers into containers. “You don’t have to do that,” Maria tells him, and Bruce tells her that he wants to. They finish washing the dishes together in silence, Maria drying beside him. It’s companionable and comfortable; occasionally their hands touch as he puts a dish into the drying rack, or Maria reaches past him to hang up a pot. There’s still an unspoken distance, one that seems to be filled with Noah’s quiet sighs, huffs, and moans. “Noah,” Maria tells him in warning after a particularly loud groan, and Noah protests that he is doing his homework, and quiets down for a few minutes. “Tea?” Maria asks Bruce, and he takes it as an invitation to stay a little longer, so he nods. “I’m hungry Ma,” Noah interjects, and Maria turns to look at him, “You had enough at dinner.” “But I’m hungry!” “Then you can eat after you finish your homework.” Noah huffs, and Maria turns away from him - Bruce can see the traces of stress along her face, the frustration. She smiles weakly at him when she sees him looking. “Can I-?” he mouths, nodding over at Noah. She mouths ‘good luck’ back at him. Bruce comes around the island, and Noah looks up at him hopefully. “What’ve you got?” Bruce asks, taking his time sliding into his seat, studying every shift that passes across Noah’s face. Noah’s hopeful looks falls when he realizes that Bruce isn’t here to save him. “Boring stuff,” he says in an undertone, and his eyes drift over to Maria to see if she’s watching - she’s frowning at him, and he makes a helpless little noise, “It is!” Bruce has a feeling he understands exactly what Noah’s going through. “Why’s that?” Noah folds his arms on the table and presses his cheek against them, facing Bruce, “I don’t know.”“It’s not challenging enough?” Bruce guesses. Noah’s eyes wander as he thinks about it, but he follows it up with another shrug. “Tell you what,” Bruce says, and he pulls a blank sheet up towards him as well as the math book, jotting a few equations down. “See if you can figure these questions out, using those math problems.” He’s piqued Noah’s curiosity, and the boy sits up a little. “Those don’t look real,” he says dubiously, looking over at what Bruce is writing. “Oh, they are.” Bruce scoots his chair a little closer, and slides the sheets back. “See if you can figure out how.” Noah stares at them for a good minute before falling back in his seat, folding his arms with an edge of frustration, showing that the challenge is definitely a motivation. “I don’t know.” “You have to work through them,” Bruce explains patiently. “Work through them the same way you would with the simpler ones.” “Are… different letters different numbers, and same letters same numbers?” he asks, and Bruce nods, picking up the pencil and holding it out,“You gotta work it out on paper though. Every problem. You do it for the simple ones, and it’ll be sunk in for the harder ones.” Noah takes the pencil with a dubious look. “I know you can do it,” Bruce encourages, and Noah sighs dramatically but puts the pencil to paper. It’s a natural progression, and after a short series of trial-and-error, Noah’s got a solution for the first one. And he’s engaged in it too, his head down and scribbling; the questions to Bruce have died down as his confidence grows, confidence coinciding with a stubbornness to work out the solutions himself. There’s only a handful of equations, but they’re involved. Bruce steps away from the table once Noah seems to be on a roll, turning to the kitchen to see Maria watching them with glassy eyes, and she sniffs and turns around quickly. “I’ve never been able to do that,” she tells him softly, getting together the cup of tea that was promised half an hour ago. Bruce sits at the breakfast bar, not sure how to take the comment until Maria adds, “Thank you.” “You did it for me,” Bruce tells her just as quietly, and Maria’s laugh sounds a little wet, but her face is clear when she turns back, “I strong-armed you into it. It’s not the same.”-Maria tries to tread carefully. Noah’s forlorn when he has to say goodnight to Bruce, and Bruce stays another hour after Noah’s bedroom door closes, sitting on the couch and talking with Maria. They talk more about Bruce’s life after he’d been taken, Maria and Tony’s foray into living the life of college students with a baby. The night ends too quickly, now that both of them have responsibilities and commitments the next day. They talk over the weekend, Bruce initiation the conversation with a text to see if he can see them again - a text that turns into a sporadic conversation about the best coffee and tea shops in New York, and opinions about a rally that’s being organized for the end of the month that has already received a fair amount of publicity. On Tuesday Bruce picks them up from the police station, and they go to a pasta shop. On Thursday Bruce stops by with take-out from an Indian place, and Noah’s eyes water as he insists on trying some of Bruce’s phaal curry. Tony has the three of them over to the tower on Saturday, and Noah steals Bruce away for an hour and a half as he shows off the various toys and trinkets he keeps at Tony’s. Noah and Maria leave at night because Noah’s got a swim class early the next morning, but Bruce ends up falling asleep on the couch with his legs tangled up in Tony’s, a slideshow of old pictures flickering through the air. On Sunday, Maria points out that they both have a free day on Monday - and that Noah’s in school. Bruce suggests that they have brunch, and Maria finds herself pleased that he’s taken the initiative. But when brunch rolls around, she finds herself feeling overwhelmed, and reaching for the brakes. “It was a good weekend,” Bruce smiles, and Maria meets his contentment with uncertainty. “I don’t want to keep doing this if you’re not… Noah’s the most important thing in my life.” “I’m not going to disappear again,” Bruce reassures, “My Dad’s dead. They have no reason to come after me again. I promise, I didn’t even want to go in the first place.” But he’s misunderstanding her, and she reaches over to take his hand. “I want Noah to have a Dad. I need to know you want that too.” “I do,” Bruce tells her intently, and he looks hurt by the mere suggestion of the alternative. “I want to be involved, as much as you’ll let me.” “I can’t have us to get in the way of that.” Maria pulls her hand away, and understanding dawns on Bruce. Disappointment fills his face but Maria knows this is the right choice. They’re so different than what they were, and if things don’t work out - she can’t ruin this for Noah. Not after he’s waited so many years for it. “Do you think we should tell him who I am?” Bruce asks, and Maria wonders if he was having the same uncertainties of leaving Noah in a lurch if they pursued their own left behind romance. But now the possibility has been shelved, and with the confirmation that he wasn’t going to go anywhere, Maria nods. “Yeah.” -It’s another two weeks before the opportunity arises; Bruce picks Noah up from school on a Friday, Maria calling ahead and clearing him for a one-time pick-up. Noah’s eyes scan the crowd, and he grins when they land on Bruce. He’s not the only person who notices Bruce’s presence, and Bruce hears the whispers as Noah comes towards him. Noah wraps his arms around Bruce’s hips for a hug, and Bruce returns it with a hand against his back - a woman appears, her eyes curious and her expression only slightly suspicious. “Relative?” she asks, and Bruce stammers out, “Uh---” Before Noah saves him. “This Bruce, Ms. Woods - my Ma’s friend. He teaches at NYU. Can we go to the park?” Noah asks, taking Bruce’s hand and tugging him away from the school. “Where’s Ma? Are we going to Uncle Tony’s?” “Maria had to work late - I was going to take you to the museum, but we could go to the park if you wanted.” “Let’s go to the museum!” Noah agrees, and they spend an hour wandering around the place. Noah holds his hand as they make their way to Tony’s. Bruce doesn’t have a key to Maria’s apartment, so they make due with Tony’s penthouse - Tony’s in Rio, implementing new technology in an old generator. There turn out to be almost too many distractions for Noah, as he struggles to focus on his schoolwork. “I don’t wanna, and you can’t make me,” he tries, and Bruce finds himself worried that he’s going to lose all the trust and care that’s been built between them as he adopts a stern tone and tells Noah off for acting up. “I’m just trying to help you - you gotta do it one way or another, and I can either help you, or you can do it yourself. It’s your decision to make, Noah. And you can change your mind whenever you want, I’m not going to get mad or upset about it. But you need to at least try, and you need to get it done.” The words resonate with something, and Noah bits his lip, puts his head down, and finishes off the rest of it without a problem. “You can check them,” Noah says contritely, sheets in hand as he comes up to Bruce, who’d been poking around one of Tony’s prototype tablets nearby. “Now can we do something fun?” he asks softly. “Of course,” Bruce tells him, and any frustration is instantly forgotten as they make popcorn, pick out a movie, and settle down for the night. They watch The Lion King and Noah crawls onto Bruce’s lap when Mufasa dies, suddenly seeming a lot younger than his nine years. “I want you to be my Dad,” Noah tells him, still facing the screen, and without prompting, explains, “I know my Dad didn’t die, and that he was out there, and I want him to be you.” “Okay,” Bruce tells him, and Noah turns around in his lap, puts his hands on Bruce’s chest and looks him in the eye. “So you are my Dad?” he asks, and Bruce nods, “I am.” “Really, really?” “Yes.”“Not just like a step dad.” “I’m your real Dad, yeah,” Bruce confirms.Noah nods, but his troubled expression still doesn’t clear. “Why were you gone so long? I missed you.” “I didn’t want to leave Noah - people took me away to protect me from someone bad. I wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone, or see anyone. I didn’t even know I had you until they let me go and I made it back here.” “Not gonna leave again?” Noah asks, and Bruce shakes his head, “I’m not. I promise.” Noah nods, content with the outcome of his interrogation. He turns back around to face the screen, and Bruce winces as his sharp knee grinds against his thigh. But Noah sits back against him, sprawling out and becoming listless as he starts to fall asleep, his head lolling on Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce puts him to bed in his room at Tony’s, waits for Maria to join him after work. There’s left over pizza for her, and they share a bottle of wine, agreeing that it’d be best to let Noah sleep. “He asked,” Bruce says suddenly as they polish off the bottle. “About-?” Bruce nods his answer to the unspoken question. “What did you say?” Maria asks. “I told him that I was his Dad. And that I wasn’t going to leave again. That I didn’t want to leave in the first place, but now I’m here for good.” Maria looks like she wants to kiss him, and Bruce wants to kiss her - it’s late, they’re full, they’re pleasantly buzzed. Instead they lie down on the couch together, relishing the proximity to one another, and carefully toe the line of intimacy. -Bruce brings Noah home from the park with a busted lip, and a pack of ice from the nice man at the hotdog stand. He can’t stop apologizing about it, feeling guilt every time he sees Noah’s face.“Noah’s had worse than a bleeding lip,” Maria teases lightly when she’s done cleaning it up, pulling the skin together with a steri strip. “Right monkey?” “Oh, yeah, Bruce - I broke my arm once when I was with Uncle Tony,” he beams, and Maria frowns, “That’s not a good thing, don’t be so happy about it. We’ll put more ice on it in a bit. Go read a book or something so you don’t agitate it.” “Okay,” Noah says brightly, and he runs off to his room. “I’m so sorry,” Bruce says again, “I was watching him, but I was too far away and couldn’t get to him in time -” “It’s okay Bruce. He’s fine. You never did anything like that when you were a kid?” Bruce grows silent and Maria realizes the parallels she’s just made, the mistake of what she’s said. “I didn’t mean it like that - it wasn’t your fault he got hurt. And he’s right - Tony took him to the park one day and they called me at the station from the hospital. Clean break, thankfully. It’s what made Tony think of those 3D casts; Noah was hopeless, trying to keep it dry.” “I promised I wouldn’t let him get hurt.” Maria takes his hand, “You didn’t hurt him - and we can’t protect him from everything. Does he look traumatized to you?”Through the open door, they can see that Noah had decided to disregard Maria’s advice, and was practising jumping off his bed and landing in some sort of bent-leg pose. Bruce’s arms gravitate to Maria, and she pulls him in for a hug, feeling the heat of his face against her shoulder and kissing the back of his neck gently. “You’re doing good, Bruce,” she reassures, and they stay like that for a long time. -One night in spring, Bruce is bringing Noah home from stargazing in Central Park when they see someone lumbering towards them on the sidewalk. Bruce tucks Noah into his side; generally Bruce feels safe in the city, but the way the man seems to be focusing on them doesn’t bode well. Bruce remembers the ‘dangers’ that the agents claimed to be protecting him from when he was across the country, and he wonders if after all these years, ‘danger’ has finally caught up to him. He stops walking, squares up his shoulders, and keeps Noah behind him. “You,” the man says. “We don’t want any trouble,” Bruce tells him, trying to keep things peaceful. “So you finally came back.” This person must know him, but the way the light from the storefront falls on his face, it’s hard to tell who he is. An older person, a man, short hair and a thick neck; Bruce tries again, “We’re just heading home. I don’t know who you are.” “Bruce,” Noah says quietly, tugging the back of Bruce’s jacket. “That must be the boy.” The boy - “Michael?” Bruce asks, and he can feel anger starting to stir in his stomach. “Michael Hill.” “You should’ve stayed away,” Michael says, and now that Bruce knows who he is, he can’t believe he didn’t recognize him. The reminder of Michael’s hand in his forceful relocation pushes his rage over the edge, and he can feel the confusion coming off of Noah. “Who is that, Bruce?” Noah asks, his voice still quiet, and Bruce tries to walk away, “No one - it’s okay. Let’s go home-” “Home to the whore.” Noah’s wide eyes stare up at Bruce, who stops cold. “Noah, stand by the door,” he tells him; Michael’s words are meant to incite, to provoke, and as Noah tucks himself into the alcove of the closed store, Bruce finds the situation getting away from him. Michael keeps pressing: “What, you scared of me or something? You were a punk then, and you’re a punk now.” “You’re a sad old man, and you need to leave us alone,” Bruce tells him, trying once more for diplomacy. “The bastard son, I know about him.” “Don’t,” Bruce warns, but Michael speaks over him, “And here I thought you were smart enough to get out while you could.” The helplessness from his childhood makes a reappearance, and he remembers how vulnerable he’d been, how desperate and sacred. “I begged you to tell her, and you didn’t do anything.”“I’m not going to violate my protocol and integrity as an officer of the law so that my daughter can ruin her life with a spineless child and his bastard son-” “Don’t talk about my family-” Bruce throws the first punch in the middle of the sentence, there’s no question of that, and in his rage he doesn’t register Noah’s high gasp, or the fact he’s instigating a fight with the police commissioner. All he knows is that this man needs to stop insulting his family, and the years of anger, and the frustration of being a prisoner under the guise of safety, come to a head. Michael gives back better than he gets - Bruce manages to dodge a punch to his face, but the knock against his side leaves him gasping. Instead of punching back he tackles the larger man, taking him down onto the sidewalk where they begin to wrestle against each other. Michael’s stronger, more seasoned, and he lands a blow to Bruce’s face with his elbow. The pain spikes Bruce’s anger even further, and he manages to get on top of Michael and land a punch against his cheek before someone’s pulling him off. Whoever it is, is built like a bouncer, and he pushes Bruce back and then situates himself between the two of them while Bruce stumbles for his footing. Michael sits up and wipes blood away from his nose. “I need to call the police?” the bouncer says, looking between the two of them. He isn’t sure who instigated the fight or why, but he’s got the air of an ice hockey referee, someone who understands that at times physical confrontation was necessary, but not always indicative of further violence. “No,” Michael says, picking himself up off the ground, and Bruce realizes that he is the police, and there could very well be trouble beyond that. “All right,” the bouncer says reasonably after there’s no protest from Bruce. “You both go your different ways and keep the fighting off the walkway.”Noah’s watching Bruce from the alcove, his eyes wide, his face unreadable. - god, what if Bruce scared him? Shame weasels its way past the rage, and Bruce holds out his hand. “Noah,” he calls, and he’s relieved when Noah hurries away from the locked gate and takes his hand, tucking himself up close as he can. The bouncer has a look on his face that suggests Bruce is reprehensible for doing this in front of a kid - Michael tells them he doesn’t want to see them ever again and Bruce takes Noah down the opposite way. The walk back home is quiet; Noah’s overwhelmed into silence and Bruce is still trying to get his anger under control. So many years, he’s missed so much - and Michael has the audacity to throw around insults and disparage Maria and their son, when he could have helped from the beginning. It’s not surprising, but it still twists the anger into something raw and vulnerable. Bruce’s face feels like it’s ballooned by the time they get to the apartment building, and he catches his smudged reflection in the shiny metal of the elevator. There’s some blood above his eye, a cut he hadn’t noticed - the last time he looked this bad… “Daddy punched a guy!” Noah calls out the instant he sees Maria, who frowns in confusion and drops the book she’d been poking through,“What?” “Noah, can you go to your room?” Bruce asks and Noah starts to whine but Maria says his name and redirects him towards his room - now that she’s standing she can see the bruised lip that’s still simmering with fresh blood, the swelling that comes down to his chin and into his cheek, the bump above his right eye with a trail of drying blood down the side of his face. The tch comes from concern, and she pulls a chair out from the kitchen table and turns it. Bruce sits, and she gets a wet rag and a small kit from the kitchen. Maria comes up in front of him, crowding against his legs. A hand draws back the hair that covers his forehead, and he has to look up at her from this position. “What happened.” Gently she starts brushing the rag against his forehead, stepping in even closer - his hand comes out to touch her knee, and he’s soft under her touch, pliable. He holds back a wince as she drags the cloth against the cut - Maria catches it and pulls the rag away, framed by the light behind her as she looks down at him. “I ran into your father,” he tells her, and her face loses its tender pitch as the muscle in her jaw clenches. Maria’s eyes drift to the split in his lip, and her thumb circles the swollen skin. “I hope you gave as good as you got,” she tells him softly, and he leans into her touch, finds the palm of her hand and presses his cheek against it. “Landed a few good ones,” he tells her, and his head tilts into her fingers and he presses a feather light kiss into the bottom of her palm. Maria’s inhale is audible, hatred for her father breaking like a dam splitting, spurred with Bruce’s touch. “Good,” she tells him, and she means it - her thumb strokes his cheek, then catches his head and tilts it back. Her father’s never met Noah, and she’s never had the resolve to spurn him vocally. “You’re not mad?” Bruce asks, and she shakes her head; the cut on his forehead is clean and mostly sealed, and she starts to wipe away the thin trail of blood coming from his lip, “He deserved it.” Bruce can’t disagree, and his hand wraps around the back of her knee, notching into the dip there. She looks so concerned, staring down at him, and he tries to smile from under her gentle sweeps, “I’m okay.” Maria bites her lip - Bruce knows what she wants to say, and answers with, “I’ve had worse.” The reminder doesn’t sit well and she pulls the rag away with gentle frustration - “Stay still.” The steri-strips feel hard against the soft skin of his lip, pulling the two ends of the cut together in a way that feels painful. Her hand lingers on his face one more time, and he presses his head into it, suddenly exhausted. “I shouldn’t have done it in front of Noah,” he admits, and Maria takes a step away, packing up the kit, “He’s fine.” “I don’t want him to think I’m like that.” “He doesn’t,” Maria reassures, and she takes two ibuprofen from the top of the fridge, then pours him a glass of water. Bruce stays where he’s sitting; he’d always hated the violence as a child, swore that he would be different - but what if this showed that he was just the same? He swallows the pills and drinks the water, and Maria leans against the edge of the kitchen table to watch him. There’s a knock from across the apartment, and after a moment Noah’s door opens the door of his room tentatively. “Can I come back now?” he asks, and he tacks on, “I’m done playing.” Maria sighs, lovingly, and calls out, “Okay, monkey.” “Does it hurt?” is the first thing Noah asks, putting his hands on Bruce’s thigh so he can lean up and look closer. Bruce pulls him up on his lap so they’re facing each other, his small legs dangling off on either side. Noah’s hands land on his chest, like they had when he asked if Bruce would be his Dad. Noah leans in to look closer at the bloody lip. “A little,” Bruce answers, and Maria moves off to the fridge, to inevitably get an ice pack. Noah traces his fingers along the ridge of Bruce’s collarbone, his eyes flitting up at Bruce and then back down. He doesn’t look scared, at all, but there is a question in his eyes that he doesn’t know how to ask. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” Bruce says, and he reaches up to put his hands against Noah’s face, this small little person he didn’t know he could love so much. Noah shrugs, mostly unaffected; it’s something Bruce is sorry about, and that settles some of his uncertainty. “Ma says not to fight with your hands,” he says, and Bruce nods, “She’s right. “So why did you.” “‘Cause you guys are worth fighting for.” “Who was he?” “Someone I knew a long time ago.” “Is he… my grandpa?” “No,” Maria interjects, and she pulls Noah off Bruce’s lap, pointing him towards the couch. “He’s no one. We’re gonna watch a show, and then you’re going to bed, alright?” Noah frowns, well aware that he’s being shamelessly re-directed, but he doesn’t have the wherewithal to call Maria out on it and heads to the couch, rearranging the cushions into his favorite configuration. Maria passes a plastic bag of ice wrapped in a dish cloth to Bruce, who presses it against his sore mouth. “Stay?” she whispers, and he nods; when he stands Maria doesn’t move away and for a moment their faces hover an inch apart and Bruce thinks they might kiss - but Noah breaks the tension with an impatient, “Ma. Dad!” Re-direction will be accepted, but he’s not going to let their lack of attention slide. There’s that ‘Dad’, again, and Bruce wonders if it’ll stick - whether it does or not, he knows he’s going to live up to it. Maria breaks away with a sigh. “Noah,” she warns, and Noah jumps onto the couch and starts fiddling with the remote to get to the menu, and Bruce catches Maria’s hand and squeezes it before she tells him to sit down and goes to start some popcorn. “What’re the options?” Bruce asks, and Noah starts listing off the movies, but Bruce is watching Maria move around in the kitchen, and every once in awhile she catches his eye, and he doesn’t feel at all guilty for being caught staring. By the time the movie ends, Noah’s fast asleep - Bruce starts shifting him into his arms but Maria stops him, taking over and telling him softly to get cleaned up. Noah’s head lulls against Maria’s shoulder as she carried him to his bedroom, and he turns his face into her neck and grips the back of her shirt with sleepy affection. Bruce takes himself to the bathroom, the swelling along his chin and cheek well tapered. The cut on his lip isn’t deep, but the edges that aren’t covered by the two steri strips crack as soon as he moves his lips - it’s annoying, through the numbness of the ice, but not painful. It reminds him of his own dad, and nights spent hiding out at Tony’s. He washes his hands and his face, dusts the bit of dirt Maria had missed out of his hair, and dabs away the crusting blood from his lips. When he comes out of the bathroom, Maria’s closing the door to Noah’s bedroom, the latch catching softly. There’s something different between them, something that’s changed from this morning to now - Maria looks at him and he can see what he feels in himself: the desire to touch and kiss, the pull that draws them nearer whenever they find themselves here, Noah tucked away, the two of them hovering somewhere between close and too far apart. “I’m going to go to bed,” Maria says in a hush, taking the two steps across the hall that bring her to her own bedroom - Bruce follows, tugged on by an invisible string. Maria steps into her room and he lingers at the doorway, waiting for her to either offer him the guest room, or politely kick him out. Neither happens, and instead she reaches for his shirt, fingers tucking up into the vertical seam of the buttons. Bruce stays rooted to the spot as her fingers come up and drift across his face, the hand fisted in his shirt keeping him still. Her thumb brushes the opposite side of his lips, drawing them open before drifting down to his neck, curling behind and into his hair. Maria leans forward on her toes and Bruce closes the distance - the discomfort of his lip is washed away by the thrill of finally, and Maria does her best to avoid putting pressure on the cut, her kiss tender and gentle. Her tongue slips out and presses against his lips, and he responds in kind, following the tug of his shirt as she draws her into her room, the door closing behind them with a definitive click.