Heroes of New York

THIRTEEN - BANNER

Chapter Thirteen

~Bruce Banner~

Dinner was a bit of an awkward affair.

Usually, we all ate dinner separately, but tonight I was seated at the dining table with not only about half of the Avengers team, but also Miss Potts and a teenager I'd never seen before (who had apparently cooked the meal himself).

The kid was tall, with black hair and green eyes (they glowed faintly, in a way that reminded me of the Hulk, though they were a different shade of green), and though he sat straight in his chair and seemed fairly relaxed, he was subtly scanning the room - taking stock of both the people and entrances or exits. I wouldn't have been surprised if he was some kind of SHIELD trainee or another one of those super-kids Tony kept picking up (I'd never met Spiderman personally, but I had seen him around, and had certainly heard Tony muttering under his breath about safety and the 'Baby Monitor protocol', whatever that was exactly).

Pepper introduced the kid as Percy, saying only that he'd be staying at the Tower for a while. Percy sort of hunched over a bit when she introduced him, and I got the impression that he either wasn't a fan of attention, or that he was used to being overlooked.

Tony spent most of the dinner alternating between shovelling food in his face and staring suspiciously at Percy. I wasn't sure what kind of interaction they'd had previously, but clearly Tony thought the kid knew something he didn't (which was incredibly rare).

Clint and the kid obviously knew each other, though not well, as they signed at one another from across the table and made faces but still eyed each other warily when they thought the other wasn't looking. They seemed friendly enough though.

The food was good, better than I expected, given my previous experiences with the rest of us trying to properly cook (I had gotten a little better at it while on the run, and Clint could make a surprisingly good pizza from scratch, Cap and Tony couldn't boil water to save their lives, and Natasha apparently made everything from scratch when she had the time, but rarely did so for others - beyond that, though, we were all hopeless).

All in all, it was good. It was one of the first times I had ever really connected with my teammates without a life-or-death situation hanging over our heads. It was... nice, even if the conversation was a little stilted.

"So..." Tony posed, as the clattering of serving spoons and dishes being passed around. "How was everyone's day?"

Clint grumbled something about arrows and tracksuits, which was not unusual, but still confusing.

Pepper smiled brightly and said, "Percy and I went shopping and got some stuff to set up his room - and a suit for that party next week." Percy shrunk in a bit at the mention of himself, but didn't interrupt her. "It should be all done and ready for him by tomorrow, we can pick it up after school."

"Alright, I'll try to keep the party family friendly then," Tony says, shoving a forkful of food into his mouth. "Brucie-boy, how about you? Whatcha do today?"

"Uhh... I ran some tests in the lab, on the alien tech we picked up last week - more of the same really, but I think I'm close to figuring out how they fire. Oh, and JARVIS said to tell you that a scan you'd been running had finished and he'd fill you in when you came back to the lab."

Tony shared a look with Percy, barely long enough to notice.

"Good, great, I'll check that out later - after I get seconds of whatever this is."

☤ ☤ ☤ ☤

There were plenty of leftovers, even after seconds (and Clint's shameless thirds), so we packed everything into the fridge, and cleaned up the dishes in a surprising bout of collaboration that none of us had seen since the alien invasion.

We were all full and content as we broke away from each other to go back to whatever work we were doing - Pepper went to her office, presumably to do paperwork, Clint disappeared back up into the vents, and Tony and I took the elevator down to the lab level. Percy seemed to be heading there as well, but he didn't get into the elevator, instead heading down the hallway to the emergency stairwell. Maybe he was claustrophobic?

Either way, he made it to the lab before the elevator and joined Tony in the workshop talking to one another about 'checking the sample' and then 'finishing up the project'. I probably didn't want to know.

I worked in the science portion of the lab (heretofore referred to as my lab, since Tony rarely ever used it) for hours, before finally falling asleep at the table midway through writing out a formula. 

Hey guys, how's everyone doing in quarantine? Do anything fun?

I'm super sorry for the long wait, I've been super unmotivated lately and also really busy with schoolwork. I know this chapter is really boring and mostly just filler, but its a necessary buildup for the next chapter - I was going to release 13 and 14 simultaneously so you wouldn't have only this boring whatever, but you all seemed pretty excited and I s'pose lots of you are pretty bored stuck at home so I'm releasing this one now and 14 will come when its done.

Have fun, all, and stay inside.

<3

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