Calming The Beast

3

Logan finds her way to the lab after changing, which she should have done before leaving the cabin, she feels gross and sticky and that's probably not the best way to see an ex again. No she should have looked smokin', instead she looked like crap and he actually looked.....better. Damn him. Damn him and his stupidly soft, curly locks and his big, puppy eyes. Why is that fair? She's not even paying attention, not really, when she enters the lab, but her eyes take in the state of the art equipment and she sighs a little.

"Hey" she jumps and turns finding Bruce already in the lab, of course he would be, it's like his natural habitat.

"Hey" she offers back crossing her arms over her chest to stop her fidgeting. It also bunches up her shirt a little revealing the necklace hanging against her chest. Bruce's eyes find it, and his heart aches. Hanging there is the pendant he gave her for their first anniversary, a pressed rose inside a glass casing, but it's the ring hanging next to it that catches his eyes, he didn't think she'd still wear it after all this time, after everything that happened. She notices his look and turns away to the counter behind her. "It's been a long time since I was in a lab" she admits touching the microscope on the desk. Bruce watches her, noting the longing in her voice. She drops her hand and shakes her head.

"Can I ask how you've been?" Bruce asks her quietly. "Or..." she glances to him and nods.

"Been fine" she answers, lies, she's not been fine. She's been very far from fine.

"Really?" he asks watching her, he knows her better then this. She shrugs and turns away, he steps closer to her. "Logan...about how things...with us"

"I don't want to talk about it" she stops him. "We don't have to talk about it" she corrects quietly. He nods a little and fidgets with his hands.

"Did you at least get back into science?" he asks. "Find a lab somewhere and...." she shakes her head.

"Nope" she answer. "Went home...got into the family business" she answers and shrugs. They both know she didn't really want to be part of it. That she wanted to do the science thing, that she could have. He'd hates that she's thrown that away, she showed real promise. She glances to him. "Turns out...I'm pretty good at it"

"But you always wanted to..." he starts.

"We don't always get what we want, Bruce" she whispers interrupting him, she turns away again. "Things change, people....change. Shit happens" she touches something on the desk and fiddles with it trying to withdraw a little. Bruce steps closer to her and she snaps her head up to look at him.

"I am sorry, Logan...." he starts. "What happened....It's not what I wanted and for you to get caught up in it" she shrugs and gives a sad smile.

"Doesn't matter now" she assures him. "What about you?" she asks. "What happened to you after.....?"

"I urm....ran" he admits. "Place to place till...." he looks down.

"Harlem" she offers, he nods. "That wasn't your fault" she whispers. "That other guy, they called him Abomination on the news....he would have..." he lifts his eyes to hers. "Done more damage" she cringes a little. "I just mean that...that the better man won"

"Logan" he whispers softly.

"I see you two have.....reintroduced yourselves" Fury states from the doorway, Logan and Bruce look to him. "Hopefully this means you are willing to work together to help find the Tesseract"

"Tesseract?" Logan asks.

"The cube" Fury explains, she nods a little.

"Where are you with that?" Bruce asks.

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cellphones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us" Fury explains.

"You have to narrow the field" Bruce argues, Logan taps her fingers on her arm.

"Spectrometers" she offers looking to him, he smiles a little and nods.

"Yes. Spectrometers will work" he agrees and looks to Fury. "How many do you have access to?"

"How many are there?" Fury counter asks.

"Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays" Bruce answers and looks to Logan. "We can rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition" Fury nods and then leaves, Bruce watches as Logan moves to a computer. "I would like to....talk when this is over" he admits, she glances to him.

"I wouldn't" she tells him back sadly. "I know you feel like you have to explain, to apologise properly, but it's fine....everything is different now. We're different. What happened happened. I'm over it" she turns to the computer, ignoring him, Bruce looks to her sadly, the fact she wears that necklace and the ring kind of says other wise. It tells him she still feels something for him. And he never stopped 'feeling' things for her either. But this girl, this woman is a long way from the one he fell in love with, this one is hurt and scarred and broken. And it hurts him back.

..............

2001/2:

Bruce can't explain when it started, perhaps the first day she was introduced to him, perhaps the day she beat him to the coffee machine and got his order perfect, maybe the day she corrected his equations, but at some point he'd fallen in love with his intern. That's all it can be. There is no science to the way he feels, no logical explanation except love. The way he feels when she smiles at him. The way he feels when he just watches her.

He didn't even second guess the way he felt about her. Or the age difference. It didn't matter to him. Who cares? Love is love. And she made him happier then he'd ever been before. He thinks about her often, when he's not working on his equations or his work there she is, right in the forefront of his mind. Even now. She sits at his side, nose scrunched up in concentration and he can't help but smile.

"Dr. Banner?" Logan asks him, staring up at him with those big brown doe eyes. "Are you alright?" she asks, he raises an eyebrow, she shifts closer. "You're looking at me like 'that' again" she scolds slightly. They'd agreed from the beginning of their relationship not to let it get in the way at work, they kept it outside the lab or when they are alone. He pushes his chair closer to hers and smirks a little.

"I can't help it" he complains a little. "You get this little look when you're working" she elbows him slightly to stop him. He touches her arm and moves away again, but when he looks back to her, she's smiling to herself, and he knows that she's got it just as bad as he does. He'd promise her forever if he believed in it.

................

Present: There is no sign of that girl, the fresh, young 18 year old that had graced his lab, she's a shell almost, all hard and shielded. Guarded. And he thinks he is to blame. His accident ruined not just his life, not just his soul but hers too, everything changed that day. She sits working on the Chitauri sceptre they'd brought in moments ago. Something for them to work on. Loki in custody. Now all they have to do is find the tesseract. Then he may never see Logan again, she'll leave, he'll leave, and that'll be it. Another 7 years? More? He doesn't want that. Of course he doesn't. This woman.

"Bruce" she whispers rubbing her head. "I can feel you thinking" she complains. "And not about science" she looks to him, he frowns a little, swearing he saw a ring of purple in her eyes. She'd felt him self-loathing, regretting, remembering and she hates that it invokes all of them in her too. This may have been a mistake. Coming here may have been a mistake.

"'M sorry" he mumbles looking down at the sceptre segment he was working on before getting distracted by Logan. They both look up again as dozens of SHIELD police escort Loki, who is in handcuffs, smiling. Loki eyes him as he walks, nodding and smiling. His eyes find Logan and he smirks wider, Logan resists the urge to throw a middle finger at him, it's undignified. Her eyes turn purple as she tries to read him.

"Why does he feel smug?" Logan whispers watching Loki, feeling him from where she sits.

"What?" Bruce asks looking to her.

"Something's not right here" she tells herself and looks to the sceptre. She runs her finger along the top of it and then looks to Bruce who raises an eyebrow at her.