Chapter Eleven

Breaking The Ice

Writing the chapter in the wake of watching AoU, this brings a whole new perspective on Bruce's 'I'm a monster I can't give you children' theory, doesn't it? HAH. Joss, you've been Jossed! Bruce already did!

The elevator doors slid open on a spacious, minimally furnished apartment. Glancing around a little nervously, Paige stepped out, Ralph pressing close behind her.

"Bruce?" she called.

"In here!" a voice called from an open door across the room.

Paige headed in that direction, but before she got there, she heard an exclamation of;

"No, dummy, it's not burning! No!"

There was a hissing noise and a yell. Paige hastened forward and froze in the door of the kitchen before doubling over with laughter.

Bruce was standing in front of the stove, saucepan in hand - covered in foam, which had obviously just been sprayed over him by the small robot still pointing a fire extinguisher at him.

"Scrambled eggs are supposed to steam, DUM-E," Bruce addressed the robot sternly after a moment. "It's not burning. Just steaming." With careful dignity, he turned the stove off, set the pan of ruined eggs in the sink, and turned to Paige and Ralph. "Good morning."

Ralph was giggling behind Paige too. "Silly robot!"

DUM-E beeped forlornly, the arm holding the fire extinguisher drooping.

And then Bruce started laughing as well. "Oh God. What spectacularly bad timing."

"I don't know, I think it's broken the ice pretty well," Paige managed to get out through her laughter.

"Perhaps you're right. I'd better go get cleaned up." Bruce tried, ineffectively, to flick off some of the foam sticking to him into the sink. "Please…" he gestured at the beautifully laid, and fortunately untouched, kitchen table, where a jug of juice and a steaming teapot waited, along with various delicious-looking pastries. "I'll make more eggs when I get back…"

"There's quite enough here without eggs," Paige shook her head at him as he gave up trying to get the foam off and trudged towards the door.

"But I wanted to make you scrambled eggs," he mumbled sheepishly, and she melted. He'd remembered that they used to be her favourite. After all these years.

"Another time," she murmured, looking up into his eyes as he passed her. "When it's just us. Go get washed up, Bruce."

Ralph had already put his book down on the table and headed over to the robot, eyes bright with curiosity.

"Oh, Ralph, I don't think you should…" Paige said, but DUM-E had already lowered the fire extinguisher and was making eager beeping sounds at the boy. "Did you make it do that, JARVIS?" she said, suddenly curious.

"No, Miss Dineen," JARVIS sounded affronted. "DUM-E, and a number of Sir's other creations, are independent of my control." The AI sounded decidedly sniffy about the fact.

"I see." Paige resisted the urge to giggle again and sat down at the table where she could see Ralph, sniffing at the delicious steam rising from the teapot - which fortunately DUM-E seemed to have disregarded. Ah, peppermint, another favourite. She poured herself a cup, poured Ralph some juice, and settled back to watch him play with the robot, which seemed intrigued by the small human which had invaded its space and was poking curiously at it.

"Maybe we should apprentice him to Stark," Bruce's voice said a couple of minutes later, and she looked up to see him standing in the doorway smiling, his hair slightly damp, dressed in clean clothes.

"I do not want to think about what kind of mischief Ralph could get up to if you turned him loose on Iron Man's workshop, thank you," she said with a smile, and Bruce laughed and came over to sit beside her.

"Not worse than Tony alone, really. That man needs a minder."

Paige poured him tea, her delicate hands graceful as she moved, and Bruce watched with fascination as she made the simple act seem a work of art, placing the cup before him before calling to her son. Their son.

"Ralph, your father's here. Please come sit down and have some breakfast with us. You can look at the robot some more afterwards." She glanced at Bruce, eyebrows raised, and he nodded.

"Stark has other robots…"

"Thank you, Bruce," she cut him off rapidly with a warning flick of her eyes at Ralph who was having trouble pulling himself away from DUM-E, and Bruce shut up fast. He was definitely going to have to take his cues from Paige on how to act with Ralph.

The boy came to the table when Paige asked a second time, let her help him to an almond croissant, slurped his juice thirstily and eyed Bruce through his thick fringe of brown hair.

"Should I call you Dad?" he asked suddenly.

Bruce felt a lump well up in his throat. "I'd like that very much," he managed to get out, "but it's up to you, Ralph. If you're not comfortable with that yet, you can call me Bruce if you prefer."

Ralph considered it. Paige gave him an encouraging smile, and after a moment Ralph said;

"I think I'd like to call you Dad."

He couldn't even speak. Had to put his hands under the table to hide their shaking, and after a moment felt Paige's soft, cool hand on his wrist, stroking, soothing. He glanced sideways, met her eyes, saw her gentle smile, and wanted to fall on her neck and weep.

Paige, seeing his emotion - feeling emotional herself, but suppressing it for Ralph's sake - kept up a light conversation as they ate, and once Ralph was finished, sent him to wash his hands and gave him permission to check out DUM-E, who was waiting for him with every appearance of a dog waiting for its master.

"He's beautiful, Paige," Bruce said hoarsely once he was sure Ralph's attention was elsewhere. "Just - so beautiful. I thought - well, I didn't think I'd ever be able to have kids, because of - the Other Guy." He bit his lips anxiously. "Ralph hasn't - there's no sign that he's…"

"Anything other than normal? Or as normal as a genius kid can be?" Paige shook her head. "Though now that I know a little more about the Other Guy, I suppose - are there blood tests you can run?" she looked at him anxiously.

Bruce nodded. "There are some significant markers in my blood which would show up with a simple test. When Ralph's comfortable here, we'll do a blood draw. I don't want to be sticking him with needles on his first day."

Paige smiled at him. "That would probably not go over well, no." She hesitated, said softly; "Is General Ross ever going to stop hunting you, Bruce?"

"Honestly, he'd gone so quiet since I joined the Avengers, I thought he had," Bruce admitted. "Pepper mentioned once that he tried for an arrest warrant and was slapped down hard by Stark's lawyers. He has no jurisdiction over me. Which apparently wouldn't stop him from trying to get at me through you. And Ralph. We have to assume he knows about Ralph by now too."

Paige's eyes went huge and unhappy at that, and Bruce wanted nothing more than to promise her he'd protect her and Ralph until the end of time. "He won't get to you, to either of you. I won't let it happen. He's exposed himself badly with trying to grab you in LA. We have friends in the military too, believe me, at very high levels, and Cap and Stark both have the ear of the President. Ross is going to find himself slapped down very hard very soon, if he hasn't already."

"Okay," Paige played with the edge of her napkin, pleating it nervously. "So - assuming that it becomes safe for us to resume our lives - what then?"

"Do you want to go back to LA?" he asked, trying to keep his voice level. Her eyes flew up to his, and he saw the answer there. "Because I don't want you to. I'd like nothing more than to have the two of you here with me. Try and be a family, in whatever degree we can manage."

Paige smiled shyly. "I was wondering if there are schools for gifted children nearby - Ralph's not been doing well in regular school but I couldn't afford…"

"Stark pays me a completely ridiculous salary just to stay here and invent stuff," Bruce said immediately, "and I've no doubt there's a suitable school close by. That's if you don't want Ralph privately tutored?"

Paige shook her head. "Ideally, I'd like him to be with people like himself - kids like himself, not just adults. Walter and the others have been amazing with him, he's grown so much since knowing them, but he's still just a kid, I want him to have that childhood while he can."

Bruce nodded, understanding. Paige's parents had died in a car crash when she was just about Ralph's age, and Bruce - well, the less said about Bruce's parents the better. He'd honestly never thought it would become an issue, but looking at Ralph now, face alight with joy as he investigated DUM-E, Bruce made a silent vow to himself that no matter what, he would never be anything like his own father had been.

"Stay," he said quietly, putting his hand over Paige's on the table. "Whatever Ralph needs, whatever you need - I'll make it happen. I want to know him, want to be his father. And - you already know that I've never stopped wanting to be with you. Sometimes in the dark times, thoughts of you were all that kept me going."

She turned her fingers up, laced them with his. "I knew why you left, and I understood, Bruce. All you ever wanted to do was keep me safe."

"Both of you, now," he nodded at Ralph, who just at that moment burst out into infectious giggles as DUM-E beeped, protesting his attempts at removing part of the robot's outer shell. Bruce grinned. "Hey, Ralph. Did you know that DUM-E's been trained to respond to certain commands? Let me show you."

Paige watched with amused affection as father and son settled on the still-foamy kitchen floor and started playing together with the robot.

SO CUTE. Bruce deserves a bit of tooth-rotting sweetness though, IMHO. He's just so cuddly and fluffy and adorkable.