Chapter 3
Ruby froze in place. Though Dr. Banner wasn't a big man, he was still a lot bigger than her, dwarfing her petit five-foot tall frame. He was so close behind her that she could feel the heat from his body warming her in the chilly air-conditioned room. He smelled good, too. She could smell the soap he used along with a piney-smelling aftershave. It was understated and refreshing after the heavy scents some of the others around the building wore that just made her nose itch and eyes water.
His frustrated exhalation blew her hair, "bring it back up."
She just shook her head.
In response he leaned in closer. "Why not?"
"It's nothing," she choked out, ducking under his arm and spinning away. As she put her desk between them, she regretted the loss of his warmth and wondered how warm his bare skin would be. The image of her touching his naked chest made her heart flutter and a warmth spread much further down her body.
The look he gave her was confused. "Nothing? If it's nothing, bring it back up, then. What are you hiding?" His eyes narrowed.
She shrugged feigning indifference, "it's just something I do when I'm bored. Some people doodle, I play with proofs."
"That didn't look like a bored doodle. That looked like a serious attempt to solve a problem that most mathematicians consider unsolvable."
Ruby gave up the pretense and dropped into a chair pushed up against a stack of boxes. "Look, I'm not supposed to even be working on it. That is what I'm supposed to be working on instead," she pointed to a stack of files on her desk. "If anyone finds out I'm wasting my time on that," she pointed to the board, "I would get in trouble."
Her head dropped and she looked at her feet, "I'd probably be asked to leave. They barely tolerate my being here in the first place."
Bruce picked up a folder and opened it.
"Hey, you're not supposed to see that. It's proprietary."
He looked up from the folder, "our tour guide, told us a lot more proprietary stuff than this."
His brows pulled together as he thumbed through the file, then he tossed it on the desk and picked up another. He looked at it briefly before discarding it with a snort.
"That," he pointed to the folders, "is what they have you working on?"
Ruby nodded, feeling mortified and dreading his next words.
"That's a gross waste of your talent if what I saw on the board was any indication of what you are capable of."
She looked up in shock. That was not what she had expected him to say. He was right, though. The work they fed to her was degrading. Just because she hadn't gotten her Ph.D. from one of the more prestigious universities that the others had, it didn't mean she was any less intelligent than they were. Her mother had been dying from cancer, and she refused to leave the city. Only at her mother's insistence did she even continue to pursue her doctorate during those last months, but it had been worth it to see her mother's proud face light up when she successfully complete it.
"You think so?" she asked in a careful voice. Dr. Banner was the first person since her mother passed away four years ago to offer her anything that resembled praise when it came to mathematics.
"You don't?" he tilted his head and furrowed his brows. It was downright adorable, she thought.
Taking a deep breath, Ruby blurted out the truth, "of course I do. But what am I supposed to do about it? Nobody wants me here. I'm just tolerated like a spider up in the corner of the ceiling that can't be reached, even with a broom, because of who I am. I mean," she waved her hands around, "look at this office they gave me."
Dr. Banner didn't answer right away, and she flushed again with embarrassment. She should have just kept her mouth shut and sent him on his way. Now, he was going to think she was a poor spoiled little rich girl having a tantrum because she wasn't getting any attention.
But again, he surprised her. Smiling, he held out a hand to her, "then show them how smart you are and quit hiding."
Hesitantly, she placed her hand in his and let him pull her to his side of the desk.
"Log in."
What the hell, she thought. What did she have to lose?
"Nothing at all," he said from beside her.
She flinched. Crud, she must have said that out loud.
Swiping her ID card and typing in her password, she displayed her work on the board and stepped back to let him look it over.
After a few minutes contemplating her work, scrolling back and forth, following her scrawling formulas and calculations, he leaned back on the desk and looked are her quizzically.
"What made you combine Schoenfeld and Riesz's approaches with the Odlyzko function?"
She leaned against the desk beside him. "Well, they came close and Odlyzko proved a part of it. It just seemed like a good idea at the time."
She tried to ignore the heat she could feel coming from him so close beside her.
Leaning forward he indicated a section of her work with a circle of his finger, "what is going on here?"
Chewing on her lower lip, she scrolled to the last half of the calculations. "That is the part that is stumping me. So, I'm working on it here. There's something wrong with this function, though, but I can't quite figure it out," She peered at him sideways, waiting on his scorn.
"You combined it with the work Stark and I did on the Loki's scepter?" His voice rose in volume and he turned to look down at her with a thunderous expression. "That," he pointed at the board, "is classified!"
Ruby cringed and backed away from him, "what?"
He stalked across the room towards her. Was she imagining things, or did his eyes flash?
"What are you doing with our classified files?"
His voice had gotten deeper and coarser and she could swear he got a bit bigger. He was certainly intimidating when he was angry.
"They were in the system," she squeaked and held out a hand to keep some space between them.
He stilled when her hand contacted his chest. Yep, he was definitely bigger, and more muscular now. If she thought he was warm before, he was an inferno now.
"What system?" he growled.
She pointed at her computer with a less than steady hand, "the Beaumont Center's."
He didn't even look at the computer, "How did it get there?"
She shook her head, "I don't know. It's an old file, from before I started here."
He looked down at her hand on his chest and she yanked it back and cradled it to her chest like it had been burned.
"Show me."
"Ok," another squeak. She scooted sideways and went back to the desk.
"I really don't know how I found it. I was just bored one day and started being nosey about some of the on-going projects around here." She leaned over the computer and scrolled through the files on the server. He came up behind her and leaned in to see her monitor. As nervous and jittery as she was, she was still acutely aware of his body and wanted him to get closer now that he wasn't all growly.
"I found this folder called 'abandoned' and couldn't help myself," she continued, trying not to babble. "This file was in it."
She stepped back and let him have control of the computer. He had calmed down a bit, but he was still clearly agitated.
"Shit," he breathed and pulled out his cell phone.
"Where the hell are you?" Fury demanded when he answered Bruce's call.
"We have a problem."
"Tell me where you are and we'll come to you," Fury immediately picked up on the urgency in his voice.
"What is this room number?" he asked Ruby.
"112A."
He relayed that to Fury.
"Stay put. We're on our way." The line went dead.
Bruce put his phone back in his pocket and turned back to Ruby. She had put the desk between them once more and was clutching the small pendant around her neck. Her small, white teeth worried her plump bottom lip as she gazed down at her monitor.
"Oh, no…." she muttered.
"What?"
"Someone is erasing the files."
"What? Who?" he stepped around the desk to look for himself. Sure enough, where there had been about ten files earlier, there were now only eight and one had the word "deleting" in red beside it with a progress bar showing 50%.
"Shit. Do you have a thumb drive?"
"Yeah, I have several. But I'm not allowed to take any of them out of the building without proper authorization."
"Give me one," he held out his hand.
Numbly, she pulled open her desk drawer and grabbed the first one that she found, dropping it into his outstretched hand. Moving quickly, he plugged it into the computer and started transferring files to it. He was successful with saving four of the files before the screen went blank and a message appeared.
INVALID LOGIN
ENTER CREDENTIALS TO CONTINUE
"Shit!" he stood back, "login again."
"No," Ruby shook her head, crossing her arms across her chest. "Not until you tell me what's going on."
Bruce was struggling to keep his anger in check, but this aggravating woman was pushing his buttons. He wanted to believe she was telling the truth, but how could he trust her when he knew Hydra was in play?
"We don't have time," he gritted his teeth. "Log back in."
She hesitated, still chewing on her lip.
"Please," he added.
Indecision flashed across her face, then determination. Stepping up to the computer, she swiped her card and entered her password.
INVALID LOGIN
ENTER CREDENTIALS TO CONTINUE
"That can't be right," she muttered and tried again.
INVALID LOGIN
ACCOUNT LOCKED BY SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR
"I don't know what's going on," she gave him an anxious look. "There must be a mistake."
"No," he stood up straight, "they are covering their tracks."
"Who?"
"Whoever stole those files."
"Whoa! What do you mean 'stole'?" she stood with her hand on her hips.
"Look, I don't have time to explain right now. I'll tell you later. Let's go," he grabbed her arm and steered her to the door of the office. "Fury and Rhodes should be here any moment."
She stopped and yanked her arm out of his grip, "oh, no. I'm not going anywhere with you. I haven't done anything wrong. You are the one nosing in where you don't belong."
He turned to argue with the willful woman, but the door burst open and men in tactical gear entered, pointing weapons at them. His chest lit up with three red dots, but more alarming were the two dots on Ruby's chest.
"Get down!" he stepped between her and the intruders and unleashed his hold on his anger.
