100 Marvel One Shots✔️

This Wallpaper Is Dreadful, One of Us Will Have to Go >> Bruce Banner X Reader

Title: This Wallpaper Is Dreadful, One of Us Will Have to Go

Paring: Bruce Banner X Reader

Warnings: divorce and fluff, basically a University Professor AU! Where Dr. Bruce Banner is still Dr. Bruce Banner. 

Spoilers: Nope!

Author's Note: mERRY CHRISTMAS MY READERS AND FRIENDS! AND IF YOU DON'T CELEBRATE THAT, HAPPY HANUKKAH, OR HAVE A LOVELY SUNDAY!

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Perhaps falling in love was something you did on a whim. In love with the coffee at Sandro's, it is to die for. In love with the hardcover book with the pretty end papers and the binding that smelt like heaven. In love with the idea of love, since everyone who came your way with interest in falling in love felt put off at the saturation of your emotions, at the amounts of joy you felt. In short, you believed that maybe because of your life as a naturalist, and a romanticist, that you saw too much good in everything for anyone to see good in you.

Perhaps.

But that was until you happened upon the fourth room from the stairs in the history sector of the professor's lounge. It was a normal day; you wore flats and a bow in your hair, and drank dollar coffee from a paper cup, and were moving your things into an office. It was your first day as a casual assistant, well, as a casual temping for the natural history professor at the university downtown. But it was on the fourth room, with the door ajar, you baulked.

Maybe it was because the door revealed a swathe of dirty carpet, bookshelves in disarray in the unlit room, or maybe that the number on the door itself matched that the front office gave you as your office to share with another historian.

Maybe both.

Slowly, you pushed the door open, fumbling for the light switch on the wall. The posters on the walls were mall-bought, framed with glass to give the idea that they were worth more than they truly were. The wallpaper was peeling at odd places, the glue beneath it finished its time, past its prime, and was a hideous shade of brown and blue pinstripes that reminded you of hideous old men's pyjama pants. Plants were on the windowsill, dying, their leaves turning to sludge from perhaps over-watering and lack of sunlight.

Your heart fell through your shoes. How could you last here?

"You're not Dr. Rogers," a male voice noticed, and rightly so. You were most certainly not Dr. Steven Rogers, married to Margaret Carter, the dietitian and world-renowned athlete. "Oh! Shit. You're – uh, the – the –,"

"The temp," you finish. You turn to see a head of brown curls, barely managing to not tumble from the top of the man's head, and away in the breeze. His glasses are pushed high upon the bridge of his nose, and wears a tweed suit that looks as uncomfortable as it is unstylish.

"Here for his paternity leave." You free one hand of the nearly-empty coffee cup, and hold it out to shake. "I'm __________, and you are...?"

His face flushes, and upon shaking your hand, he stammers, "Dr, Banner. Leading professor of the history of anthropology here." His palms are sweaty, and as he releases your hand, you wipe yours upon your trouser leg. "I suppose you want a place to shack up before running off to class."

"I suppose I do," you glance at the plant on the sill, and add, "Please tell me that's not Dr. Roger's plant, it looks very nearly dead."

Dr. Banner chuckles. "It's not his, that's my desk. My, uh, wife, I mean, ex-wife gave me that when we were, well, still living together. I'm not the greatest with things outside of my head," he confesses, leading the way over the messes on the floor to the adjacent room. You can tell. "This is where you'll be."