Chapter Text
New York City, November, 2016
Working with Tony Stark was a lesson in patience and flexibility.
There were times in Bruce Banner’s life when no one would have used either of those words to describe him. But life had a funny way of teaching a man things. Sometimes in the hardest way possible.
Fatherhood had not miraculously turned Stark into a responsible and reasonable human being. It had turned him into a sleep deprived and coffee fueled crazy person. For everyone’s sake, Bruce had begun taking long walks at lunch time. If he lingered long enough, then by the time he got back to the lab Stark would be called away to spell Pepper with the baby or have reached the end of his ability to stay awake and passed out somewhere. One day Bruce had gone home at the end of the day to find him asleep on his couch. As if he couldn’t make it all the way up to his penthouse and only made it to the Avenger floor.
Bruce’s cunning plan might be losing its effectiveness now that winter was coming on. It hadn’t snowed yet, but the air was becoming bright and sharp in a way that meant it was coming soon. The wind was so bitter snow might have been a relief. The bright, clear sky seemed to make everything colder.
He was on his way back to the Tower, mentally going over the schematics on the latest generator he and Tony were working on. They were near a break through, he could feel it. As if the answer were at the edge of his peripheral vision. If he turned too quickly he lost it. But if he let his mind wander and ignored it then maybe it would come to him.
Dimly, he heard a woman shout and looked around to search for the source. He didn’t spot the woman immediately, but he did see a little boy sprinting through the milling pedestrians, heading straight for the street. No one seemed to be paying him any mind, as oblivious as any crowd of New Yorkers in a post-lunch coma could be.
Instinctively, Bruce reached out and caught the boy, lifting him a little so he couldn’t fall into traffic. The child shrieked and started to kick and Bruce felt a flicker of worry that someone was going to get the wrong idea, but he held on nonetheless. A misunderstanding was better than a kid in traffic.
A petite woman with a blonde ponytail and a distinct air of panic appeared in front of him. She took in the still shrieking boy, their proximity to the street and sagged in obvious relief.
“Thank you for catching him,” she said, reaching out. The little boy flung himself in her direction, wrapping around her like a koala once Bruce handed him over.
“I’m sorry I scared him. I didn’t want him in the street,” he told her as the child buried his face in her throat, forcing her to tip her chin up.
“It’s all right,” she said and he wasn’t entirely sure if she was talking to him or the boy. “Sometimes physical intervention is the only way.” She rubbed the boy’s back and murmured something to him that made him resettle on her hip, face still hidden in her shoulder. “Thank you,” she said again.
“Happy to help.” He found himself looking at her hand where it stroked the boy’s hair. There was a discoloration on her left ring finger, where a wedding band had sat but was now missing. “Does he run off a lot?”
“Less than he used to. He must have been lulling me into a false sense of security.” She smiled at the little joke and Bruce felt himself smile back automatically.
For a few heartbeats they just smiled at each other. As if the throng of pedestrians surrounding them didn’t exist. Then the light changed and the crowd surged, bumping her a little in the back, shaking them out of their daze.
“I should-” He gestured to the intersection and the people crossing.
“Yes!” She flashed a shy smile, then added, “Of course. Thank you. Have a good day.”
Bruce nodded and stepped away, off the curb and into the tide. He glanced back before he reached the other curb, but the woman and boy were gone, swallowed up by the busy New York afternoon.
*
Violet Marsh loved Thursdays. Thursdays meant no nap, but dinner on time and early to bed for Neil the wonder toddler.
She stood in the bedroom doorway, listening to the quiet snore of an exhausted three year old for a few moments before closing the door all but a crack and moving to the next room.
“Hey, homework done?”
Ada looked up from the book she was reading, sprawled across her bed. “Yeah. I need your initial.”
Vi stepped into the room and walked to the little desk tucked in the corner. A math sheet and a word list sat side by side, covered in Ada’s slanted writing. She scanned them and wrote a small VM in the bottom right corner of both and tucked them in the purple folder Ada would take into school the next day, then went over to kiss the top of her daughter’s head. “Whatcha reading?”
She tipped the book up to show her the cover. “Mouse and the Motorcycle.”
“Excellent choice. Thirty more minutes then it’s teeth brushing time, okay?”
Ada glanced at the clock and nodded. “We’re supposed to journal this weekend, do you think we can do something fun so mine isn’t boring?”
Vi smiled a little. “Art museum?” she offered.
The little girl smiled, showing off her missing front tooth. “That works.”
“Then we have an accord.” She bent and kissed the top of Ada’s head again, reminded her, “Half an hour,” and headed out of the room.
The remnants of dinner were still scattered around the kitchen counters and dining table. She ignored the flicker of exhaustion that told her to just leave it till the morning and popped open her laptop to play some music as she worked on cleaning off the table and washing the dishes.
As she worked, her mind wandered. To which museum she might mount an expedition to this weekend. To her schedule for tomorrow. To groceries that needed to be restocked and kids clothes that needed to be bought.
To Neil tugging his hand out of hers and running away on a busy street. The panic and fear she’d felt in her mad sprint. And the soft spoken man with unruly hair and gentle smile at the end of it.
She could feel herself smiling at the thought, surprising herself. He was just a guy. One of a dozen random encounters with strangers she had every day. There was no reason to be smiling like an idiot over her dishes about him. She didn’t even know his name.
Well, her therapist would tell her it was a good sign. Interest in a man, even fleeting, was a big step. She had an appointment with her on Monday, maybe if nothing else exciting had happened before then she’d mention it.
When the dishes were lined up on the drying rack, she wiped down the counters and table and set up Ada’s lunch and breakfast for the next day. Then it was bedtime for the big girl.
Then it was nine o’clock and Violet stood in the living room pondering the benefits of watching TV for a while before going to bed. There was a certain bleakness to going to bed at nine. She had to be up at six, though, and generally it was better to sleep when Neil was sleeping.
Still. Nine o’clock.
“One show,” she told herself. “On Netflix. No commercials. Then bed.”
She grabbed her laptop and made a cup of decaf on the little one-shot machine her mother had sent for Christmas. Then she curled up on her couch with both to watch an episode of a fantasy show that was on a few years ago, when she was too busy with an infant and a toddler and bills and paperwork to watch television.
She was in bed before ten thirty, which wasn’t exactly indicative of a life of thrills and adventure. But Neil was still out and snoring and she liked eight hours of sleep a lot more than adventure any day.
Don’t worry about it, Vi she told herself as she set her alarm and settled under the covers. You were never cool to begin with.