tushanshu | Video;

[Ironically enough, this does count as a vacation for Bruce. It feels like a vacation. He gets to stay in one place, be honest, do work he actually cares about, has a consistent job and home-- and most importantly, there people around who can take on the Hulk and keep him contained. Not to mention the sheer number of days he's had where transforming was an impossibility. That was a vacation.

Bruce, though, is far more interested in getting Betty up to speed than talking about how much he has or hasn't managed to relax. They leave out the front door of her apartment building, going left down the street, Bruce keeping pace unhurriedly at her side. He's watching her directly, eyes never leaving her, glancing away only long enough to get his bearings and where he's going.]

The 'whatever it is' -- let's call it M -- can hear it and gain power, gets invited in, when its name is said. I can write it down for you later if you want to know it. We were... brought here [let's hold on the cloning for a little bit, he thinks, given Tony's reaction] to fight it, but they're not too forthcoming with the details. I've been figuring things out a little at a time.

[More soberly,] The ghosts are what happened when M came to Sinbrilee. That's that turtle. Usually we live on Tu Vishan, or uh, he's introduced himself as Asti in dreams to some.

[This is a bit of an info dump, and Bruce isn't exactly fond of exposition, but it's Betty. That's really all the justification he needs. He thinks it's important that she learns what's happening as soon as possible, so she's not vulnerable, more than they need to learn each other's life stories.

He does take a moment to spare some irritation for whoever would be put off by speaking to her as a Hulk. It's a terrible double standard he's applying for himself and for her, but he doesn't care. Betty doesn't deserve that.]

[ Although she doesn’t remark on it, the level of attention he’s giving her is surprising, given how hard she had to vie for it with her ex-husband. She can’t tell if he’s watching her because he’s afraid she’ll change in the middle of the street or disappear and it doesn’t seem appropriate to ask.

Her eyebrows rise at his avoidance of naming the thing. Coupled with what others have said – telling her strength won’t defeat it, that it scares people – she has to reevaluate the threat. Bruce isn’t credulous or given to putting faith into superstitions. Yet here he is, talking about it like it’s some kind of movie vampire. ]

I think you should write down. Even if it’s dangerous to say it, it’s probably more dangerous not to know what it is.

[ Besides which, if it has allies, surely they wouldn’t be averse to inviting it in. It’s always possible that it has none, but she’s met a lot of malevolent beings over the course of her life. They always have allies of one form or another. ]

Especially if it has allies.

[ Conspiracy theories aside - and after Home Base, the less she thought about conspiracy theories the better – there’s still the somewhat bizarre fact that the turtle talks to people. ]

Is it normal for the turtle to talk to people?

[Bruce has his difficulties adjusting to the idea of magic, and rules like this, but it seems flat out stupid of him to reject what's right in front of his face. Practically speaking, he needs to get on with things in the least risky way possible, and the most efficient. Bruce cares about the results, not about clinging to his ideas about the universe. They're hard to let go of, but by far the secondary concern.

He merely nods at her request that he write it down for her, accepting her decision.] There's been evidence that some of the kedan work for its ends, but we don't know if that's willingly or not. [That had been a good point Natasha raised, one Bruce hadn't forgotten.

Then he has a visible flicker of exasperated amusement, understanding her difficulty with the turtle.] No, it's not normal. Not even to telepaths. That was a... one time event. I didn't get a dream visit. [He doesn't seem torn up about that at all.]

I don’t think I’ll be too disappointed not to have a close encounter of the turtle kind.

[ It certainly wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to her, but that doesn’t mean she’s all that eager to get up close and personal with a turtle that would probably be right at home on whatever planet Galactus comes from.

She’s not really thinking too much about giant talking turtles though. She’s thinking about different factions of kedan and not knowing which are on the side of this M thing and which aren’t. ]

Has anyone tried infiltrating these kedan? Going undercover and claiming to support it?

[He shakes his head.] We're not even sure who they are. And until recently, kedan haven't been... all that fond of us. Foreigners. That's changing since we helped heal the turtle when it was sick. That was the food shortage.

We're dependent on Tu Vishan for our energy, [he goes on, warming to this topic, voice losing most of its hesitation and stumbling.] Powers, food, electricity, you name it. Life itself, probably. That's what I've been doing research on.

But it's-- slow going. It's half science and half... magic. Not really my area. [There's a dry note of distaste that Bruce doesn't try to hide, but he doesn't seem all that aggravated about it anymore.]

So we keep the turtle alive and healthy or we start suffering too? [ She huffs a quiet note of laughter under her breath, not amused but wearily accepting of the whole mess. ] It’s just one thing after another, isn’t it? I don’t know how much help I’d be, but if you need me, I’ll lend a hand. And…

[ She kind of hates herself for even making this suggestion, but she knows about as much about magic as she does about playing football. It seems like a lot of flashing lights, arm waving, and shouting. But she’s seen it work, and if that’s what they need, well, she doesn’t have any better ideas. ]

I don’t suppose some version of Strange is here? He’s a creep and a jerk, but he knows a lot about magic.

Yeah, but the turtle is as much a victim as we are, [he answers, quieting with sympathy. Having his own turtle egg has done nothing but deepen Bruce's empathy for Tu Vishan.] More, even.

I've never heard of Strange, so I'm assuming he's not here, but there's some magic users I've consulted with that try to work with me. [His expression then softens and warms, faintly but noticeably, as he finishes,] And you're always help, Betty. Just-- just having you here... any version of you... is unbelievable.

[Bruce doesn't see any reason to try to save face in front of her. She has to already know how hopeless he is about her.

In the distance, they start to come up on the little cafe he'd been thinking of, a small, quiet place with the kedan language scrawled all over the signs.]

[ She’s not disappointed to hear that Strange isn’t there. She doesn’t like him, she’s never going to like him, and if she sees him again, she’s probably going to punch him in the face.

Bruce, though, he makes her laugh. It’s not loud, but it’s not sarcastic or bitter. It’s amused and a bit fond, and once again she’s reminded of the man she used to know, before the obsession and the years of tragedy turned him into a stranger. ]

Like a lab mascot? Some kind of big red good luck charm? [ She turns a smile on him, lets it edge into a teasing grin. ] I think I can do a little more than just sit on your desk. Maybe not with the magic but, I don’t know. [ The corner of her mouth quirks. ] I have a sword? That could be useful.

[Hearing Betty affectionately laugh at him sends a pang of pained, wistful nostalgia through him, it's such a familiar sound. One he hasn't heard in far too long, and it's unnervingly similar on her, enough to make Bruce struggle to keep them as separate as he should be in his mind. The reminder that she's a Hulk, and all the violence that comes with that-- that mention of a sword-- helped him separate them more cleanly.

A wry smile edges its way onto his face, accepting her teasing. The truth is that just her presence affects him deeply, makes Bruce feel more even keeled, but he doesn't want to interrupt the jovial mood with that soppiness.]

You could be the mascot, but I don't think I want to see you bored, [he quips.] But if you wanted to, I have a... a pretty extensive lab by this point. I wouldn't mind the help with actual work, either. [The strangest part is that he has to say this, that she doesn't just know automatically that Bruce would be content to work with her on whatever came up.]

Whisked away to a different dimension and already you have a lab.

[ She says it knowingly, with a patient kind of fondness. It’s good, she decides, that there are things about him that haven’t changed. His workaholic nature. His love of science. His ability to create a lab in the middle of anywhere. It helps put her on steadier ground with him, dulls the edges of the differences. ]

I can try to help. Me. Not… [ Betty shakes her head. ] I don’t know how much patience I’d have for fine details if I was the other me.

[ Shrugging, she points to the kedan writing on the café’s signs. ]

Can you read that yet or are you still learning?

Had one the first day, [he admits, willing as ever to make fun of himself, still that air of a smile hovering around him. It's incredibly good just to see her, but that she's relaxed and not at odds with him is even more than he'd expected after the way they'd met.]

I can't read it at all. [Bruce admits it freely, without a trace of shame.] It's pretty complex, and I've had too much other stuff to work on.

[They enter the café, Bruce ducking in through the door, and inside it's a clean, unremarkable atmosphere. Just Bruce's kind of place. It's also one where you go up to the counter and place and receive your order, no one to wait on you, which he also prefers. He goes to get a table first, winding his way through them toward one in the back with more privacy.]

There's still a lot left to do, and Betty was always a big help when we were working together. New set of eyes, totally different fields...

[ And if he hadn’t been busy, she thinks that he would probably already be fluent in the language. Whereas she, on the other hand, will probably need quite a while before she’s ever comfortable trying to read it, much less use it. She’s hardly an idiot, but she’s not a genius either.

Which is why she finds herself momentary speechless at the notion that the other version of her actually worked with Bruce. Not just puttered around the lab and brought him coffee. No, things like big help and new set of eyes points toward the fact that she actually knew what he was working on and could contribute to it.

It makes her happy for him, that he’d had someone he could trust and rely on to help him with his work so that he wasn’t alone. But it also makes her feel a little guilty and useless now, because he thinks he’s getting a colleague, a brain, a second set of thoughtful eyes. What he’s really getting is a spy and a field operative, a Hulk, a lot of brawn and not much else. And he’s already got that covered.

She’s thankful for the number of things that can legitimately be said to catch her eye and give her an excuse to look elsewhere just as much as she’s grateful that she’s following along behind him so she doesn’t have to deliberately look away. ]

So she’s like you? A scientist?

[This Bruce isn't quite so much a justifiably egotistical, limitless genius. He has a healthy dose of humility to him, and he has to stay within the reasonable expectations of reality with his results. That means learning complex foreign languages at the drop of a hat just isn't one of his skills. He'd even struggled with Portuguese.

The other consequence of his humility is that he doesn't place so much value on intelligence in others. Bruce is perfectly aware that sometimes it's more of a curse than a blessing, and no one needs to be a scientist to contribute something meaningful.

He's vaguely surprised at her question, somehow having foolishly assumed that this Betty would be the same in that respect, and as he settles into his chair he looks at her directly with open, curious eyes.] Cellular biologist. We worked together on a project for... the general. [Using Betty's preferred term for him out of respect for her.]

I'm guessing you aren't? [There isn't any weight to the question, just curiosity as Bruce pulls the menu toward him, flipping to the tiny, badly translated English page at the back. A concession to their foreigner population, who seem to mostly speak English.]

[ Taking the seat opposite him, she glances at Bruce once before shaking her head. Her fingers pluck at the edge of the table as she wishes that she had something more interesting to tell him. A curl of irritation threads through her almost immediately afterward. All the progress she’s made forging her own path and this easily she starts to backslide into feeling less about herself just because she isn’t what he needs.

It’s enough to goad her into lifting her head to look at him directly. She can’t say she’s particularly proud of her past, but she did the best she could. Her voice is steady and calm, her expression neutral, as she talks about it. ]

No. I’ve worked with my father before. And my ex-husband. We’ve both worked with him more than once, but I’m not a scientist.

[ Of course, that leaves her trying to explain what she was and she pauses to try to sort all of that out into something that makes sense. Some of it’s still a jumbled, hazy mess, thanks to the addition of the Hulk’s perspective. ]

Before I was changed, I was a secret agent. I did a lot of spying on the organizations that were after the Hulk. Afterward, I was more of a freelance saver of the world.

[He's somewhat taken aback to have Betty be at all confrontational with him. She's still reserved, not picking a fight at all, but there's an undeniable element of confrontation to her stance here that he can't ignore. It's hard to see for several reasons. One is what it implies about her relationship with her Bruce, one is just that it's difficult for Bruce to see any Betty direct that at him at all, but mostly, more than anything, it makes him miss his Betty more than ever, with a sore ache in his chest. They have such a smooth understanding between them, that even after years of not seeing each other, they hadn't missed a beat at all. They'd settled into each other's presence without more than checking in with each other, considerately making sure they were both still on the same page.

He notices the ex-husband and has to wonder at it, but isn't about to touch that topic with a ten foot pole. So far they haven't tried to approach what they mean to each other, how that would transfer or not transfer, and Bruce doesn't want to. He has no clue how to navigate that minefield without betraying Betty, either one of them. It's just as well to continue on with the precedent they've set, of treating each other as important strangers.]

A secret agent? [That gets his full, and faintly disbelieving, attention. His eyebrows raise way up, trying to align that with his mental perception of Betty and struggling. This one is definitely different.] I can't... wow. I mean. I've never doubted Betty could do whatever she wanted, but she-- hasn't been that involved. In the whole mess.

[Frankly, he prefers it that way, but he's getting the strong sense that he shouldn't say that here.]

That’s probably for the best.

[ Not for herself, necessarily. She enjoys the freedom that comes from being a Hulk. But if she’d been asked before the procedure? If someone had told her that she would one day become one of them? She wouldn’t have believed it. And she wouldn’t have wanted it either. ]

Getting involved gets you killed. And sometimes it gets you turned into a Hulk.

[ She gives him a lopsided smile, then reaches for a menu. She’s got a feeling that she’s making him uncomfortable and she can’t say she blames him for it. It’s got to be hard, seeing someone who looks so familiar and isn’t anything like what’s remembered. ]

I’m glad she got to do something different. I think it says a lot about the place you come from. Good things, not bad ones.

[That solidifies his decision to keep her uninvolved. Not that Bruce needed the affirmation-- he's fully committed to letting Betty live her life without him and all the tragedy and violence that he brings-- but hearing it from another version of her, that it's for the best, cements it. Any wistful thought he'd been entertaining of hoping she'd show up here, his Betty, is decisively suppressed. She deserves better. She always has.

Better than him, wherever that leaves him left behind.

It's in this darkening mindset that she implies that where he comes from is a good place. Maybe it is, compared to hers. Maybe it is for everyone else. But Bruce has a lot of repressed bitterness, and he distracts himself from aiming it at her by ostensibly scanning his menu.]

It's better for her, [he finally manages to say after a somewhat stilted pause in which he'd wrestled down that bitterness.] That's why I haven't seen her. Why I was so... shocked to see you.

[His fingers don't tighten on the menu. His jaw doesn't clench. He doesn't rail against his fate. Bruce is resigned to it, that sad cast returning to his eyes, some of his height hunching over unconsciously in his more normal posture.]

I saw her once in the past ten years, and all I did was-- upend her life again. It's not safe.

[ She can practically feel the change come over him. It’s one she recognizes, though the source of it is somewhat novel. Usually it’s talking about the Hulk and his current status in Bruce’s life – non-existent, existent, altered in some way – that precipitates it, but she’s coming to learn that his Betty plays a larger role in his life than she had to her ex-husband’s. ]

Life isn’t safe, Bruce.

[ Setting the menu down, she lays her hands atop the table, one folded over the other, and looks at him. There’s no judgment in her eyes, no disapproval or disappointment, certainly no anger. But she’s far from timid and she isn’t afraid to speak her mind. ]

I’m not her. I don’t have the same experiences so I can’t speak on her behalf. But I can tell you that it isn’t up to you to decide what’s better for her. It’s up to her.

[ She’s never been reticent about voicing her feelings to him, and even though he isn’t the same, she finds that it’s easy to do. ]

And if she feels even a fraction of what I do, then what she probably believes best for her is having you in her life. That’s not the same thing as being unsafe.

[ There's a world of different between the level of Betty's involvement and in what it sounds like her counterpart has. ]

[Bruce is well acquainted with the fact that Betty will speak her mind, it's just not usually aimed so pointedly at him. She knows he'll listen to her with far more consideration than he gives anyone else, so she doesn't have to be as strident. Only this Betty apparently doesn't know that.]

I know, [he admits, giving up the pretense and setting his menu down. More than anything, he looks tired, and maybe a little lost.] I know she hasn't given up on me. Sometimes it's all that... gets me through it.

But the first thing I saw when I -- when I woke up that first time, was her in the ICU. I did that. I can't do that to her again. [The agonized certainty in that declaration is indisputable.] I, I tried at first, to contact her a few times, but Ross always traced it and-- There's always collateral damage when he finds me.

[Bruce finally looks up directly at her, meeting her eyes again, sober and starkly lacking self-pity.] I don't get to have what I want. Not without someone else paying the price.

[ She understands what he’s saying. Their experiences aren’t the same, but they’re very similar. She remembers how it was for Bruce right after the accident. But his conclusion, that he doesn’t get to have what he wants, makes her sad too. In a way, he’s right. Her ex-husband’s life was filled with nothing but pain and tragedy. Whatever he gained, he quickly lost, though that was often as much his own fault as anyone else’s.

This one, though. This one is different. He shouldn’t have to bear the same burdens of the other. ]

I was there after the accident with the gamma bomb. I spent years at his side, or as close to it as he’d let me get. I’ve seen what he and Hulk are capable of. I’ve had more than one run-in with the Abomination. I saw what happened to Leonard Samson and Samuel Sterns. I saw how hard it was for Jennifer when she became She-Hulk.

[ She leans forward slightly, resting her elbows on the table. ]

But Bruce, when it happened to me, I had no control over it. They turned me into a weapon and used me to kill people. All those years watching him struggle with the Hulk and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I didn’t even know who I was. My father went through the same thing. I don’t know how many people died before he got it under control.

[ And they haven’t really had time to sit down and talk about it. Not that she thinks they ever will. ]

You can’t blame yourself or what happened the first time you changed. It was unprecedented. You didn’t know that was even possible. You couldn’t control that. Hulk couldn’t control it either. No one could.

She's alive, Bruce. So are you. That's what matters.

[The way she lists off names isn't helping. It plunges him further into a vague sense of numbed horror at the reality she's from, at how many people this has happened to. At what she's had to endure. He doesn't know what to address first, can barely wrap his brain around it-- and part of him, a strong part, wants to make a snapped remark and walk off to order, ending this conversation.

One thing she said is ringing in his ears, preventing that. Rising above all the incredulity and frustration over how many had been exposed to the radiation, over the discrepancy between the Hulk's origin. They turned me into a weapon and used me to kill people. Betty. They'd done that to Betty, and Bruce hadn't been there to stop it. It's impossible to hold himself accountable for the fate of every Betty across every universe, but that doesn't alter his shame and mounting, boiling anger at that other him who let it happen.

The fact that he's sure the other Bruce feels the same way about himself isn't any consolation.

So he snaps back, he can't help it, but he doesn't walk off.] I can blame myself, [he says tightly.] She should be able to expect more from me than not getting her killed. That's not good enough. [It's just not. Not for someone like Betty, who deserves so much better. He knows how isolated she can feel with her mother gone and her father there but even more removed. Bruce had tried to fill in that hole, as she'd done for him.

This was where it got him. Where it got her, this Betty that would be as much a monster as he is if it weren't for that Betty didn't have that capacity in her.]

I'm sorry that happened to you, [he says, audibly agonized, unable to hold it in any longer. His hand reaches across the table to instinctively rest on top of hers, but he catches himself halfway there, fluttering in the air, the movement aborted as he waits visibly for permission.]

It's my worst fear, [he goes on quietly.] That there would be more made. That it would be you-- You deserve so much better than that, Betty. I'm sorry I'm never able to give it to you.

[ She should be able to expect more from me than not getting her killed. The snap she takes with the calm unflappability that comes with having been on the receiving end of such sentiment often enough that she become desensitized to it, but it’s what follows that elicits a reaction. It isn’t much. Just a slight tightening around the corners of her eyes and the slightest, almost imperceptible flinch. But it’s a reaction none the less. Not at him. She’s hardly afraid of him.

But she knows what it’s like to die. She’s felt the sickness spreading, eating away at her body with inexorable patience. The Abomination’s gamma-irradiated blood. Inoperable cancer. The rush of blood from the sword Skaar drove through her body. She’s died. She’s been close to death many more times since. But it doesn’t get easier to accept, and just for a moment, she contemplates letting the Hulk out.

She doesn’t. The stir that would cause in a place like this, to say nothing of what it might do to Bruce, prevents her from taking the final, necessary step. But it’s a consideration. One that she doesn’t realize is quickly becoming a crutch. ]

It’s not your fault.

[ Having seen that aborted movement, she reaches out to take his hand, closing cool fingers around his. It’s been months since she’s touched him. After their last parting, she never thought she would do so again. ]

I don't blame you. I don't even blame him. You don’t have to apologize to me and you certainly don’t have to blame yourself for this. I know it sounds bad, but there are benefits. I’m stronger now. No one has to worry about me. And no one can use me to make anyone else vulnerable. [ She gives him a small, albeit sincere, smile. ] I can do the protecting for once.

[It's been so long since he's touched Betty that it's nearly disorienting to have it happen now, a hope grown dusty with disuse, made worse by the fact that it's not exactly right. It's her, and it's not her. The sentiment behind what she says is piercingly familiar, exactly the same, but the way she says it and her overall manner are different. Her life, her history, are different, and that most critical thing that makes him let down his guard around Betty isn't here-- her soft spoken lack of pressure, her silent and total understanding and acceptance. Gone and impossible between two people that haven't spent years sleeping beside on another.

Yet it's just enough the same, and Bruce is already growing to appreciate her for her own merits, that it gets to him. His fingers closely tightly around hers in an unconscious spasm. He controls his expression as best he can, but is unable to prevent some of the fierce ache of missing her from slipping through.

She should blame him. She should. But Bruce knows Betty. He knows that's a losing battle for him to fight, and it's one he's never wanted to win, anyway.]

I'm still going to worry about you, [he admits ruefully.] I'm sure you don't need it. [A moment's pause, as he looks into her smile, before he adds,] And you've always done your share of the protecting.

You're really-- not that different, that way. [Bruce has no illusions that Betty had always protected him as much as he'd protected her, and she truly had the harder job: protecting him from the demons in his mind.]

[ Looking at him, feeling the way his hand tightens around hers, she can’t quite prevent herself from wishing that the other Betty was here in her place. Maybe she wouldn’t be as useful to the kedan in their war effort since she wasn’t a Hulk, but that woman would help Bruce far more than this one can. She can read the way he misses her in the way he touches her, in the expression on his face, in the things he says, and for his sake, she wishes that he could have gotten what he wanted.

She can’t trade places with that other Betty; she doesn’t know how and she doubts the kedan would go for it even if she asked them to switch them out. What she can do, however, is keep him safe and see that he gets back to her. And maybe she can help him along the way, help him find peace with the Hulk and with himself enough that he can feel free to be with her when he does return.

Betty thinks both of them deserve that much. ]

I don’t need it, you’re right. [ Her tiny smile grows a little larger, becomes shaded with a playful, teasing kind of humor. ] But maybe it won’t be so bad being on the receiving end of it.

[ And he’s right about protecting him too. She always has. This time, however, it won’t be quite as subtle as cloak and dagger espionage. ]

And you — [ She squeezes his hand, still smiling. ] — had better prepare yourself. I think it’s going to be a little different this time around. You’ve never had another Hulk protect you.

[ He’s had Hulk, of course, but she knows how antagonistic that relationship is. Even her ex-husband couldn’t see it. But she could. ]

[There's a lot of things Bruce could say to that, soured, dark things about why he'd want any Hulk to protect him. But it's Betty, and he's never been able to unleash that on her. Never wanted to. It might be true, that how much he outright loathes his other half has made it impossible for him to think of any other universe's version of it, whether himself or anyone else, with a positive light-- but it's even more true that he can't think that of Betty.

She'd seemed abrasive. Focused on fighting, perpetually angry. But altogether more coherent than Bruce would have ever expected, and she'd changed, gone back to human, merely at his request. Bruce doesn't want Betty to protect him, doesn't think she should need to have to, but he won't deny her it if that's what she wants.

The urge to kiss her hand is sudden and overpowering, and also inappropriate. A learned response Bruce has learned on the wrong woman. He smiles just slightly, mostly down at the table.] I don't actually need that much protection here, [he prevaricates, slipping his hand from hers because he can't keep tempting himself with that closeness. But he takes the sting out of it by stroking his fingers across her palm as he detangles them, making the motion affectionate even as he retracts his hand.]

Maybe we could... just spend time together. Without all the, the worrying and protecting. [Bruce shoots her a quick glance, checking to see if she'd be okay with that.] Figuring out who each other is.

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