My apologies for this chapter being three weeks late - I've been finishing up seven stories this December, so my regular long-running projects were put on the back-burner for a bit. I am sorry about this, and it will be back to normal in January, which means this story will be updated every 7:th. Thank you for your patience.

TapTap

Bruce puttered through his secondary lab, on the same level as one of Tony's smaller workshops, putting things away and thinking of new angles he might try in his experiments - he was working on how small measures of Hulk-like conditions or the serum might help people who were gravely ill, and though he knew it would take him a long time yet, he was hoping to get there eventually.

He was not expecting to see Claire there - not this early at least - and he was certainly not expecting the normally serene engineer to look so ragged and worried. "Claire?" He called for her attention, making sure to do so from a reasonable distance not to spook her.

She looked up with the speed of someone who was startled, but still attempted to give him a smile. "Oh, Bruce. Good morning." She removed the headphones Bruce had not seen her wear.

"I'm sorry - I hope I didn't scare you." She shook her head. "Is anything the matter?"

"Miss was just about to tell me," the answer came not from her, but from Jarvis, the AI's voice sounding chastising. Which was common enough, but usually not aimed at Bruce.

"You don't know that, Jarvis," Claire answered back, smiling for a brief moment. "It is nothing, anyway. I filed a complaint that my neighbours were noisy, and now I have been evicted because of it..."

Both Bruce and Jarvis might have come with some sort of encouragement or advice, but this was made impossible by the - for once - silent arrival of Tony. "Well that's easy. Your floor at the tower has been ready for months." Tony ignored both Bruce's and Claire's blinking, surprised eyes, and just shrugged. He then accepted a cup of coffee from Dumm-E and seemingly headed back to bed, leaving the other two just standing there, not knowing what to think. As usual, Jarvis intervened to make things a bit clearer.

"Sir included this in the plans for Miss Pepper and Natasha's shared living space," the AI told them. "Miss Romanow is on her usual floor, while Miss Potts has an apartment waiting for her on the floor above. Yours have been settled on the floor above that, which seems prudent. It should be livable at the moment, though the last of the functional furniture will not arrive until the end of the week."

It was all credit to Claire that she merely shook her head tiredly and went home to pack.