Obviously, this is not Marvel canon (comics or movies) but I don't know the comic storyline that well, and what I do know is boring: Bruce and Betty meet on the project that turns him into the Hulk, and that doesn't take long. This is much more fun.
Still don't own the Avengers.
Bruce Banner met Elizabeth Ross in grad school. They were both about to graduate (finally), both had an unhealthy fascination with radiation, and both were up for the same research opportunity.
The first time they met, he didn't suspect any of those things to be true of her. As a whole, doctoral students are a diverse bunch, but people who choose to spend hours on end in a stuffy, artificially-lit lab conducting looping, mostly theoretical research tend to have similar personality types. Elizabeth Ross was not your conventional research student.
Bruce has long forgotten how he ended up at the mixer, but he certainly remembers every moment leading up to it: being strangled by a striped tie, sweating like a dog in that ugly suit (it was even ugly then), constantly pushing his glasses back up his nose, wondering whose hare-brained idea it was to have a social mixer for doctoral students. What person who chooses to spend their life dedicated to research wants to go to a damn social mixer?
The food is placed on a series of tall, round tables, staggered apart like tiny hors d'oeuvre islands. They are swarming with people in no semblance of a line. At least half of them are lingering alone, waiting for someone to ambush with unwanted conversation. Bruce picks the least crowded table, dives in headfirst, and emerges with a small plate full of random items. Bruce hates enclosed spaces, even throngs of people crowding mini buffet tables.
He takes a bite of something that looks like meat but doesn't taste like it, and promptly heads toward the drinks. This is what he gets for picking the table with the most food on it. In a sleep-deprived, junk-food addicted group like this, anything that's left mostly intact is left that way for a reason.
On his way out of the writhing mass around the drink table, Bruce manages to spill lemonade on his jacket. He finds a spot standing next to the chairs on the wall, which are filled with ladies' purses and men's jackets and other personal belongings, leaving no room for anyone to sit (just as well, he knows those chairs from a classroom during his third year – the only thing they're able to reliably hold is purses).
He throws his jacket over his arm and wrenches his tie off, stuffing it in the pocket of his pants (although none of this is done gracefully, since his hands are full of half-empty lemonade and not-meat-thing).
There's some kind of mini pastry that isn't so bad, and he's in the middle of stuffing a third in his mouth when he hears a woman's voice speaking very closely.
"Uh….Hi?"
He stares, mouth full of pastry (at least he's kept his mouth closed) and a young woman stares back, just as awkwardly. He wonders irritably what she wants.
She is dressed in gray pants and a plain black shirt with long sleeves, her dark brown hair twisted up like she's just gotten out of bed, a strong contrast to her professional attire. Her glasses are also falling down her nose. She shifts her weight between her feet but falters, and he notices she's wearing a pair of shiny black heels. They aren't that tall but they look new. He thinks she might tumble over at any second. They stare at each other for what is probably a solid two minutes before she speaks, pointing weakly at the chair behind him. "I'm…I'm sorry I just….you're kind of standing in front of my stuff."
He swallows the pastry and jumps out of the way, mumbling apologies as he dusts flakes off his shirt front and she takes a few unsteady steps toward the chair. She goes with her shoulders hunched forward, tilting her head downward.
He knows he's being off-putting, but he recognizes the motions of someone who has stood around for the obligatory twenty minutes avoiding social contact. He continues staring, watching her fumbling to collect her umbrella and coat. She turns to look at him, and before he can make up some explanation as to why he was staring at her, she offers him a smile. It's a small one, but her smile is like…peaches and cream. He can't seem to talk.
"I'd have ditched the tie, too. I hate going to these things. It's so uncomfortable."
He looks quickly at his tie, hanging out of the pocket of his pants, and since his brain isn't functioning, he blurts out (surprisingly confidently), "It's not uncomfortable, it's just ugly."
He looks like a complete dumbass (also, that was a complete lie, he hates wearing ties no matter how stylish they are).
She laughs, and he wonders if she's crazy. When she laughs she shakes her head in the slightest, and her true-blue eyes are laughing with her, but most importantly, those eyes are staring straight at him, and he admits to himself that she is kind of adorable. With that sugary smile and messy hair and unsteady gait, she is trapped in the bleak plainness of that black shirt and gray pants. He imagines she wears lots and lots of knit sweaters (she does, actually).
He has a bad habit of rubbing the back of his neck when he's anxious. He's doing it again. "I, ah, I like your heels. You're probably going to run headfirst into a wall, but they're pretty."
She laughs and looks down at them, a small frown flitting across her mouth for a moment (really her mouth is like fresh peaches and he needs to stop staring at it). "I know. I already have a blister." She pops her right foot upward, craning her head over her shoulder to examine the affected ankle and wobbling as she puts it back to the floor.
She looks up at him and smiles again, and he knows he's grinning stupidly back at her. This time, it's her who can't seem to put words together.
He holds his hand out to her. "I'm Bruce Banner."
"Elizabeth Ross." She shakes his hand like it's made of glass.
They are grinning at each other over their joined hands.
"Just Elizabeth?"
"Betty. But I when I started grad school, I switched to Elizabeth."
He wrinkles his nose and her eyebrows come together.
"I don't really care, either way."
He takes a giant step towards the trash can in the corner, drops his mostly uneaten plate and half-full lemonade in, and turns toward her, "The food here sucks." He pauses, and for the first time all night he feels like himself: awkward, hesitant, the one who normally stands against the wall.
He's rubbing the back of his neck again. Mid sentence he stops himself. "Do you…want to grab a bite? We could…talk about your name some more."
She's smiling like that, again, and the back of his neck is growing hotter with anxiety and hope. "I was leaving, anyway." She says this flippantly, too good and too interesting (and too cute and too funny) to be stuck in this boiling room that smells like day old grad student.
Bruce has long forgotten how he ended up at the mixer, but he'd like to thank whatever God or colleague or force of nature brought him there.
