"'These are cases in which a person has a quasi-perceptual experience of someone at a distance at the time of that person's death or other crisis. If the temporal coincidence of the crisis and the distant apparitional experience cannot be explained by any conventional means, then the presumption is made that some as yet unknown form of communication, such as telepathy has taken place.'" Bruce frowned at the line on screen in front of him. "Great," he mumbled, throwing up his hands, "so I guess I can conclude I have ESP." He gave a frustrated huff and dropped his forehead into his hand.
By now he had spent pretty much the entire day reading up on various aspects of anomalous apparitional experiences, pouring over file after file, taking notes, cross-referencing, and putting his analytical mind to the test of unraveling the mysterious ball of yarn handed to him. The hours had just slipped by, and on the whole, he didn't feel like he'd learned much. It all seemed like a bunch of half-baked theories cooked up by misinformed psychoanalysts. Nothing made sense. It wasn't science, it was lunacy. But as evening approached, Bruce decided it was time to attempt to 'summon' the spirit scientist from his slumber. Or however the damn books worded it. Another sighting could be enlightening, and if he was lucky, he could dispell the man to his final resting place.
He picked one of what seemed the least ridiculous rituals from a .pdf, which called for a dimmed room and three unscented candles. Dubiously he reduced the overhead fluorescents to 15% power and struck a match to light each wick one by one, carefully positioning them on the workbench as per the directions- the place he had first encountered the spirit. "Alright," he said to himself, taking a last glance at the passage he was to read aloud. He picked up the middle candle and held it aloft in front of him, clearing his throat before reciting, "Spirit, awake. Spirit, partake. Spirit, without fear. Spirit, appear!" The physicist glanced to his left and right, then behind him. "Are… are you here?" he asked the empty lab, but the answer was pretty obvious and hardly surprising. Bruce frowned. He set the candle down on the workbench and got up to look around. "Come on, I think you're here," he spoke to the room at large, turning about several times. His eyes caught on the spectrometer, which gave him a sudden stroke of inspiration.
"Okay," he said nice and loudly, letting his voice project, "I have some spectroanalytical procedures that really need to get done! It's going to take me quite a while to get through them all!" He reached for the on-off switch. "Maybe even a couple of hours…"
"Don't you dare!"
"Aha!" Bruce wheeled around with his index finger extended, catching the ghost red-handed. The man in the faded band-tee gave him a look and Bruce coughed into his hand. "I uh… sorry. I was just hoping to talk to you." He began to wring his hands, feeling somewhat awkward.
The man looked none too impressed, crossing his arms over the t-shirt graphic on his chest. "About what? You break into my lab three times because you 'just want to talk'? Am I really supposed to believe that? You know, most normal people set an appointment. You may have heard of that concept." He motioned his hand languidy. "By the way, official consulting hours are between eight and five every other Thursday. Just in case you didn't know."
Dr. Banner lowered his head and chuckled. "Right. Well, I'm here now," he stated amicably, gesturing outward with his hands, "so can we talk?"
The dark-haired man made a pouting face and tapped his foot a couple times as he tried to come to a decision. "Yeah, sure, fine," he said, glancing away.
Good. This was a good start, Bruce thought. They had a dialogue going. Now he just had to figure out how to handle the situation in as delicate a manner as possible. He called up the lights to 100% and blew out the candles before turning back towards the spirit. "I was wondering… recently, has anything felt 'off' about the way you've been uh… spending your days?" he asked.
The brown eyes bore down on him. "Yeah, actually. Most notably the fact I've had to chase you out of my laboratory every single day."
…Or not such a good start. Dr. Banner pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath and letting it back out again. Don't get flustered, he reminded himself. They could sort through this. Somehow. "Maybe we should start over…" he suggested. He looked the man in the eyes. "Hi, I'm Bruce Banner, Ph.D of Nuclear Physics from Harvard. And you…?"
The older man's brow furrowed. "My name is…" he hesitated, glancing about the room; Bruce waited patiently. "It's… uh…" he snapped his fingers a couple of times, seemingly trying to jog his memory. "Tony!" he exclaimed suddenly, "My name is Tony."
Dr. Banner regarded him over his spectacles, having expected a bit more of an introduction than that. A title, some credentials maybe, at very least a last name. "You're sure about that?"
"I think I know my own name, thanks," the scientist delivered with derision.
Well, he supposed for now he'd go with it, if only because he didn't have anything better and he needed something to call the guy by. "Alright… and can you tell me when you last spoke to someone, other than me?" he asked, pacing around to his other side. After all, it would be informative to learn if he was the only one being 'haunted' by the ghost, if anyone else could see him as well.
The dark-haired man looked ever so slightly uncomfortable. "I don't remember. I talk to lots of people, all the time," he said dismissively.
Bruce hummed. "Okay, and when you're not here, in 'your' lab, what do you do with the rest of your day?" Bruce inquired. From what he knew, the scientist's ghost only appeared here in the basement, but that didn't exclude the possibility of him appearing in other locations as well.
Tony merely laughed. "Well I get out a Hell of a lot more than you do, that's for damn sure," he said, dodging the answer and eliciting a frown from the physicist.
"That doesn't answer my question, Anthony."
"Don't call me Anthony," Tony snapped, "You're not my father. My name is Tony."
"Sorry," Bruce apologized, realizing he'd struck a nerve. Maybe he should stop beating around the bush and get down to brass tacks.
Tony's foot tapped against the concrete floor. "How much longer is this going to take? This has got to single-handedly be the worst interview I've ever done. Are they seriously playing you for this?"
Bruce ignored the line of questioning. "Just one more question," he promised and Tony's eyes rolled, but he didn't refuse. Dr. Banner cleared his throat. "Can you tell me if anything…" he wet his lips, "dramatic… has happened to you recently? Any kind of 'crisis'? Or tragedy that you can think of?"
The scientist shook his head with a chuckle. "What exactly are you trying to get at here? Honestly?" he asked.
"Tony," Bruce kept his voice very calm and very even as he looked the man square in the eyes, "this may be difficult news, but… it's my professional opinion that you're no longer of the living."
He hadn't expected the other man to bust out laughing; Tony doubled over, slapping his knee. "Your 'professional opinion'? Oh, I'm sure that's worth a lot. Please." He swiveled on his heel and started to walk away from him.
"I'm serious," Bruce felt his face heat with anger. He looked down to see his fingertips tinging green, and he placed them behind his back as he mentally dialed back the emotion.
"Lemme guess, you're 'deathly' serious?" Tony punned, glancing back at him.
Okay, he'd had just about enough of this childish behavior. Dr. Banner reached forward to grab the man roughly by the shoulder. However, his fingers phased right through him, which honestly, he probably should have been expecting considering prior observations. Tony jerked away. "Whoa, hands off, buddy! What the Hell?"
"I'm trying to tell you something and you're not listening," Bruce said firmly, standing toe-to-toe with the other scientist. "You might have owned this place once, but you don't anymore. It was rented to me because something happened to you. And now your spirit is hanging around haunting me instead of being at rest like it should be."
Tony stared like a deer caught in the headlights. His gaze flicked back and forth between both of Bruce's eyes. "You are serious," he said softly. Finally he seemed to be getting through to him; Bruce sighed with relief. Tony straightened up suddenly. "Tell me, have you ever considered checking yourself in to a psychiatric ward? They can help people like you-"
"I'm not the one disappearing and reappearing," Bruce interrupted with a growl. "Or the one phasing through objects! You died, Tony!"
The scientist ran his hands through his hair several times, clearly flustered. "Stop saying that! I can't be dead… there's no way."
"Why not?"
"Listen, I think I would know if I was dead, alright?" Tony yelled, whipping around to storm away, but a cabinet of chemistry glassware stood in his path. He let out a cry of surprise, trying to skid to a stop before he could crash into it, but in so doing he tripped over his feet and fell. Rather than sending the beakers and test tubes flying however, his vaporous form phased right through the solid object and he landed face-first on the floor.
Bruce hurried around to the other side. "Are you okay?" he asked, even though it seemed unlikely a ghost could be hurt. He would have offered the guy a hand up as well, except he doubted Tony could take it.
"What the Hell is happening to me?" Tony cried out, scrabbling to his feet. "What did you do to me?"
"Me?" Bruce got out exasperatedly, "I didn't do anything to you! You think I have that kind of…" he searched for a proper word where there wasn't one, "know-how? There's no scientific explanation for the way you are! I've been searching!" he motioned at the computer.
Tony was obviously done listening though. He curled his hand into a fist and threw it at Bruce to clobber him across the face, but it swung right through him. It was a weird sensation for Bruce, kind of like a sudden coolness had breezed through him fleetingly and then was gone. "Son of a-" the short-tempered man cursed and threw his other hand in an uppercut, only to get the same result.
Bruce stepped backward out of range, not that there was exactly need to. "Okay, I get that you're upset, I would be too, but honestly I just want to help you." The scientist continued to swing at him as he spoke. "Tony, stop. Tony…" he attempted to stop him peacefully until he just couldn't take it anymore. "Hey! I said, knock it off!" he growled, baring his teeth.
Tony frowned and shoved his hands under his armpits, looking like a wounded puppy.
"Thank you," Bruce said, taking a long deep breath. "Now, please, bear with me a second. Look around you, do you see a bright light anywhere?"
The scientist's eyes rolled dramatically in his skull. "No, there's no light."
"You're sure?" Dr. Banner asked again. He knew 'walking into the light' was a kind of contemporary notion, but it was a phenomenon commonly reported by those who had been resuscitated from the brink of death.
"Yes, I'm sure," Tony said, his snark quickly returning. He paused for a beat. "Wait…" The man glanced down at himself, hands coming up to paw over his clothed chest. Bruce watched with fascination. "There's no light…" Tony repeated. He clutched his hand over the center of his chest. "There's supposed to be…" he trailed off, looking crestfallen.
"Supposed to be… what?" Dr. Banner urged him to continue. But the man turned on the spot, staring at the west wall of the laboratory with wide eyes. He ran full tilt at it and vanished beyond it.
Bruce blinked, left wondering if that had been it. Had Tony seen a light after all and run towards it? Was it all over? Could he go back to work? No, maybe he'd try to get some decent sleep now and try to forget all this had happened. "Rest in peace," Bruce mumbled softly as he shut down the computer and moved to go up the stairs. He looked up and jolted- the man was standing on the top step, arms folded, hip cocked.
"Like I said. No light." He extended both arms out to his sides and smiled. "Looks like you and I just became roomies."
From there on out, he couldn't get rid of the guy. He was everywhere. At all times. And he refused to leave him alone. Bruce was an incredibly patient man; he'd learned to be thanks to his condition, and he tried his hardest to tolerate the ghost despite his obnoxious tendencies and rude behavior. Because really, he knew Tony was just trying to get on his nerves, poke his buttons, but he hoped that if he ignored him long enough he might get bored and go away, phase off into the proper plane of existence or something. Unfortunately, that tactic hadn't exactly been working thus far. The man was as stubborn as a mule and seemed as unwilling to leave as Bruce himself was.
"You know what I miss?" Tony said from where he was sitting on the kitchen counter, swinging his legs back and forth. "Take-out. I used to always get take-out. You know how many good take-out joints are around here? You're missing out."
Bruce gave only a mumble of acknowledgement as he poured the broccoli out of its steamer and onto his plate beside his fillet of fish.
"I mean, you've obviously got the cash," Tony continued to yammer, following him over to the kitchen table where Bruce sat to consume the dinner he had made for himself- Tony, being a ghost, seemingly didn't need to eat. "Otherwise there's no way in Hell you could afford to rent my place- no offense," he put up a hand yieldingly. "Why not go out? I mean, I get that you've got the whole… social recluse thing going- and you're absolutely rocking it, by the way- but…"
"It doesn't concern you," Bruce leveled a stare at him over his glasses.
"Eh, whatever," Tony turned his gaze away with a shrug. Only a moment or two passed before his mouth was on the run again. "Oh, and the local donut joint? Don't get me started! I don't know of anywhere else that has so many varieties of jelly centers! Do you know of anywhere else you can get boysenberry donuts…?"
It just seemed to go on like that every passing hour of every passing day. He began to question why he was putting up with it. Why instead of trying to dig up more ways to banish the guy, he'd simply given up and gone back to his research- as best he could under the circumstances. Tony meanwhile had seemed to warm up to him, in his own way, often trying to engage him in discussion or just interact. More and more it seemed like the ghost was trying less to annoy him and more to befriend him. Bruce had never exactly been a people-person, and Tony's extroversion wasn't something he quite knew how to respond to. So, for the most part, he simply didn't.
"Another one, huh?" Tony asked with an odd softness in his voice. He was sitting on a stool just a couple feet away from where Bruce had last collapsed from exhaustion in the lab.
The physicist just shoved his face into a hand, cringing as he tried to push away the visions of the nightmare that had plagued him this time. He really wasn't comfortable that Tony knew about them. And the fact that Tony watched over him while he slept until he woke from them made him even… less comfortable. "I'm fine…" he insisted, throat a little raw.
"This is just a suggestion," Tony said in a tone of voice that made it sound like it wasn't actually a suggestion, "but there's a perfectly good California-King sized bed upstairs, and I guarantee you it's a lot more comfortable than the workbench. I'm talking from personal experience here. If I can't use it, someone should be."
Bruce lifted his head from his hand, studying the man's spirit with curiosity. Was that… generosity veiled behind his normal sarcasm? He wet his thick lips and carefully stood. "Yeah… thanks, I will," he replied, moving to go.
"Sure thing," the scientist motioned dismissively. Dr. Banner stopped just outside the lab exit, looking back at Tony, fully well expecting the guy to tag along as per usual, but he seemed to be staying put, pretending to be interested in a coil of wire on the workbench. Bruce hummed thoughtfully and waited a moment longer before going up the stairs. Finally, maybe, he'd have some time alone with peace and quiet. He traversed the living room to get to the master bedroom, beginning to unbutton his shirt as he went. As soon as he rounded the corner, there was Tony, slouched into an armchair with both hands resting behind his head.
"Oh hey!" he greeted effervescently.
Bruce threw up his hands in frustration. "Forget it!" he turned to storm back down to the lab.
"Forget what?" the scientist leaned forward in his chair.
He shouted back. "I said forget it, Tony!"
A few days later he was actually reaching the end of his rope. None of his experiments were working, everything seemed to be going haywire, he was running on far too little sleep and he'd lost a significant portion of data to a random system failure earlier in the day. Murphy had it out for him, clearly. He would have been crabby and irritable regardless of the presence of a ghost clamoring for his attention in his lab.
But to say Tony was only making things worse was an understatement.
"You need to loosen up, Bruce," the scientist said, shoving his phantom elbow into the physicist's solid arm.
Dr. Banner instinctually flinched, almost dropping his cell sample. "What I need to do is focus on my work," he said firmly, casting an irritated glance back at the ghost, communicating he had no patience for his foolishness today.
Tony snorted and strut away from the desk, beginning to pace. "You know, I have to admit, I just don't get it. What's so important about what you're doing anyway? It's like you work non-stop and never give yourself a break to kick back." He tipped his head. "You're making me tired and I don't even need to sleep."
Bruce paused, wetting his lips as he set down his prongs. Of course Tony wouldn't see the importance of what he was doing. From an outside perspective few would. Continuous trial and error, recalculations and data collection… to what end? That was what Tony didn't know, and Bruce didn't have any intention of enlightening him. "It's a personal project," he disclosed softly, setting the plate under the microscope and leaning in to look at it.
Tony frowned. "'Personal' as in you're not going to tell me."
He didn't so much as lift his eye from the scope as he fiddled with the dial. "Yeah."
"Aw c'mon, please?" Tony leaned out over the workbench, big brown puppy eyes widening imploringly. "I wanna know. Just tell me a little about it? It's the least you could do, you know, me letting you use my lab and all."
Dr. Banner rolled his eyes, back to the ownership discussion again; Tony couldn't let it go. He shook his head. "Sorry."
"Alright, I didn't want to have to resort to this, but you leave me no choice," Tony said. Bruce narrowed his eyes at the spirit with a look of what-do-you-think-you're-doing-now? but Tony was already climbing up onto the workbench to stand on top of it. The man put his hands out as if he were holding onto a guitar and with a flourish of his arm began to strum it, loudly mimicking the riff with his voice. It took a moment for Bruce to recognize the tune, which was when Tony started belting out lyrics as well.
"Living easy, living free
Season ticket on a one-way ride
Asking nothing, leave me be
Taking everything in my stride
Don't need a reason, don't need rhyme
Ain't nothing I'd rather do
Going down, party time
My friends are gonna be there too, yeah…
I'm on the hiiiighway to hell!"
Bruce covered his ears as Tony wailed his way through the chorus. He danced around on the tabletop, rocking his shoulders and hips to his own poorly-reenacted beat. Kind of an ironic song choice, if you asked Bruce, though he questioned if Tony could have possibly gone with anything more annoying. "That's enough, Tony, get down!" he shouted over his singing, but the scientist kept going.
"No stop signs, speed limit
Nobody's gonna slow me down
Like a wheel, gonna spin it
Nobody's gonna mess me 'round
Hey Satan, paid my dues
Playing in a rocking band
Hey momma, look at me
I'm on my way to the promised land
"Owww!" he yowled as he devolved into a guitar solo, plucking strings frantically.
"You know what? That's it," Bruce said sternly. "I've tried to not be mean, but now you're out of here."
His air-thrashing came to a very sudden halt. He hopped down from the workbench to chase after him as Bruce grabbed his jacket and exited the lab. "What do you mean?" Tony forced a chuckle, hurrying up the stairs behind him. "You don't know how to get rid of me. I know you don't."
"Yeah? Well, I know someone who probably does," Bruce countered and he slammed the front door in the apparition's face.
