[ It's a funny thing, memory. Bruce has gone weeks or months where he couldn't stop thinking about Betty. Waking up remembering the sound of her calm breath, going to sleep reliving the brightness in her eyes or the curve of her smile. Memories that have both haunted and comforted him, and yet, right here and now, she is so very far from his mind.
Maybe it's the exhaustion. Maybe too much has happened in too short a time that it has taken up his mind completely, but that's not the point. The point is, when he's handed a note, the last thing he expects to see there is that handwriting, that name - that simple statement. So simple and plain, so matter-of-fact - he can immediately imagine her crossing her arms and just standing there until the sun goes down and the city lights up, stubbornly refusing to leave no matter what, and he smiles.
The smile hurts, as it turns out. Stupid Banner, stupid. Of course she'd come. Hiding away, running from one country to the next, keeping himself away from any kind of spotlight, that was easy. He knew Betty couldn't and wouldn't have known where he was all that while. But coming to New York like that, in the middle of an alien invasion, all eyes and cameras, each and every single smartphone turned to the city? He should have known she'd come. He should have expected it.
But he didn't, and now he's standing there, clutching that piece of paper hard in his hand, all but biting his lips to stop himself from... from something.
He doesn't want to see her. But he does, desperately so. It's a complicated thing, but then things have been complicated since the moment he first turned green and massive, and even after Harlem, when he ran and through the years kept that distance between them, it felt like it was never really over. It was always there, and it was always complicated.
But she's not going to leave, and Bruce can't run again. Not this time, not anymore.
How he makes it down to the lobby of the building, he doesn't know. Ask him, and the memory of that elevator ride is a complete blank, the only thing he remembers is the glimpse of her with her back turned when he gets to the ground floor, the memory of her saying his name filling his head all the while. Bruce... Bruce. She turns, and he's rooted to the spot, even if it's barely a couple of feet that separate them at that point. ]
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Maybe it's the exhaustion. Maybe too much has happened in too short a time that it has taken up his mind completely, but that's not the point. The point is, when he's handed a note, the last thing he expects to see there is that handwriting, that name - that simple statement. So simple and plain, so matter-of-fact - he can immediately imagine her crossing her arms and just standing there until the sun goes down and the city lights up, stubbornly refusing to leave no matter what, and he smiles.
The smile hurts, as it turns out. Stupid Banner, stupid. Of course she'd come. Hiding away, running from one country to the next, keeping himself away from any kind of spotlight, that was easy. He knew Betty couldn't and wouldn't have known where he was all that while. But coming to New York like that, in the middle of an alien invasion, all eyes and cameras, each and every single smartphone turned to the city? He should have known she'd come. He should have expected it.
But he didn't, and now he's standing there, clutching that piece of paper hard in his hand, all but biting his lips to stop himself from... from something.
He doesn't want to see her. But he does, desperately so. It's a complicated thing, but then things have been complicated since the moment he first turned green and massive, and even after Harlem, when he ran and through the years kept that distance between them, it felt like it was never really over. It was always there, and it was always complicated.
But she's not going to leave, and Bruce can't run again. Not this time, not anymore.
How he makes it down to the lobby of the building, he doesn't know. Ask him, and the memory of that elevator ride is a complete blank, the only thing he remembers is the glimpse of her with her back turned when he gets to the ground floor, the memory of her saying his name filling his head all the while. Bruce... Bruce. She turns, and he's rooted to the spot, even if it's barely a couple of feet that separate them at that point. ]
Betty.