10. Deal With It
The Tesla barely rolled to a complete stop in front of the Tower before Bruce climbed out. As he opened the back door and reached for his duffel, Tony, still in his seat, looked back, frowned at the bag, and heaved the sort of longsuffering sigh Bruce was more accustomed to giving him.
He gritted his jaw. "Whatever it is you're thinking of saying, just say it already."
Frankly it was nothing short of a miracle that Tony hadn't already. He'd driven in silence for hours, and Bruce doubted that had anything to do with his pretending to be asleep the whole time, while Tony blared AC/DC on the stereo. Maybe seeing the Lullaby fail had put the fear of Hulk in him.
"I shouldn't be harboring you," Tony said.
Bruce chuffed out a laugh. "You make it sound like I'm a fugitive."
"Aren't you? A fugitive from your own heart?
"Seriously?"
Tony raised his hands. "Hey, you're the one who watches the sappy old movies. I'm just trying to speak your language. Anyway, my point is: I don't really want to be a party to your relationship drama."
"Should've thought about that before you and Natasha conspired with those prison letters from my father."
It was almost comical how round Tony's eyes got, if only there was anything remotely funny about the situation. "That's what this is about?"
"I really don't want to discuss it." Bruce punctuated the statement with the slam of the car door.
By the time he strode around the back of the car, Tony had gotten out.
"If you decide you do," he said, falling into step with Bruce on the walk up to the building, "I can commiserate about daddy issues."
"Right. You, with the dad who didn't spend enough time with you because he was too busy becoming a billionaire. Wish mine had taken a leaf out of that book."
"Excuse me for wanting to return the favor of playing therapist."
For the few seconds it took to walk to the entrance, Bruce indulged the fantasy that Tony's petulant remark was all he had to say on the subject. This proved to just be one more instance of wishful thinking failing him when they reached the door and Tony pivoted around to block his entrance.
"I get it." This is the Shitty Childhood Olympics: Avengers Edition, and you're going for the gold. Personally, if I'm judge, I'd maybe give it to Natasha in the All-Around, but you win in the Coping With It Badly event. So congratulations," he said, clapping him on the shoulder, squeezing roughly, "I'll let you continue doing what doesn't work for you."
Tony did let him. If he actually stayed at the Tower, Bruce never saw or heard from him. Partly because he kept to the lab as much as possible. The shitty thing was that he couldn't decide whether he'd rather Tony be angry at him for being a dick, or afraid to be around him after what happened between Hulk and Natasha.
The even shittier thing was he wasn't wrong. This wasn't working for Bruce, on any level, even the most basic. All he'd brought with him to the city was the overnight bag he'd taken to the Avengers Facility before the Houston mission. He didn't have his laptop or more than one change of clothes, and while he could access his home computer remotely and scrounged up a lab coat, he was forced to go shopping for more classroom-appropriate clothes. It was bad enough he was starting the semester flaking out and conducting his lectures online, without his looking unprofessional.
Not that it mattered, because the Zodiac Cartel and the Avengers were all they were interested in. He gave up calling on anyone with a raised hand, because those were the only questions they asked. The administration had questions, too, mainly about his future plans; in a particularly snippy phone call, the Dean of Sciences asked whether his course load and research requirements were going to interfere with his day job.
Of course, Bruce was officially grounded; after the mission report, Cap deemed the Hulk was too volatile to be an asset to the team. Erik Selvig called for a consult on the Zodiac Key, which they'd learned from the captured scientist was, indeed, an interdimensional teleportation device, as well as the power source for their weapons, but Bruce suspected that was more to make him feel useful than because his expertise was truly necessary to the Avengers.
Aunt Susan called a couple of times, too. Bruce didn't answer, though he knew she must be really worried if she was using the phone instead of writing a letter. He just couldn't talk to her right now.
Not even to try and prove Tony wrong.
"Sorry to interrupt, Doc…"
FRIDAY's voice filled the lab as he kept "office hours" before his final lecture of the week, replying to emails. Her lilting brogue sounded almost discordant with the dramatic Tchaikovsky piece-The Tempest-playing over the lab sound system.
"It's okay, FRIDAY," he muttered as he went on typing, "what's up?"
"Jessica Jones and Luke Cage are here to see you."
Bruce's fingers went still on the keyboard as his brain worked to process this. Luke and Jessica lived in New York City, they were Defenders-turned-Avengers, so it wasn't unthinkable that they might drop in the Tower. The part that was difficult to imagine was that they'd dropped in to see him.
"Send them in."
He saved his email, got up from his chair, and was just shrugging out of his lab coat as they entered, cool and badass as usual in their leather jackets and boots-except for the fact Jessica carried a polka dot print diaper in one hand and a portable crib in the other, while perched in the crook of Luke's arm was a nine month-old dressed in a fluffy pink footed onesie with a flower headband almost the size of her head wrapped around her dark curls.
"So we'll hopefully be back before bedtime," Jessica said, without preamble, dropping the diaper bag on Bruce's workstation while the crib hit the floor with a thud, "but it's just about time for her nap. Hence the Pack n Play. Danni goes to sleep pretty easily. Sing Twinkle Twinkle-she knows if you do ABC or Ba Ba Black Sheep instead so don't even try to slip past her-and make sure the room is totally dark. Oh, and make sure she has her lovey. Everything you need's in here." She patted the diaper bag.
"Bottles, formula, baby food, pacifiers, change of clothes, extra PJs, books, toys, diapers, rash ointment, monitor," Luke rattled off.
Bruce's eyes bounced from Jessica to her husband. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Cap's just called us to Detroit," Luke said. "Squirrel Girl, too."
"Which means you get to babysit."
For another moment Bruce stared at the couple, at the baby peering back at him with round brown eyes and her fingers in her mouth, chin shiny with drool. Then he gave a snort of laughter.
"Did Tony put you up to this? Or Natasha?"
"What," said Jessica, "like in a misguided attempt to help you get your head out of your ass?"
"I swear to God, Jess, if that's Danni's first word…"
She went on as if she hadn't heard Luke, or didn't care what he'd said. "Sorry, some of us are busy adults and don't have time for that kind of sitcom…" She put her hands over the baby's ears and whispered, "…bullshit."
Danni giggled.
Luke pinched the bridge of his nose. "The Tower's the safest place we can think of for Danni on short notice."
"That, and this is where the quinjet's picking us up," said Jessica, grinning. "And since you're the only person here…"
Bruce shook his head. "I don't…I can't…"
Before he could do anything but splutter incoherently, Jessica plucked her daughter from Luke's arms and thrust her into Bruce's. Danni immediately reached up and grabbed for his glasses. He wrestled them free, only for her pincer grasp to pull his beard.
"See?" said Jessica. "You're entertaining her already."
She and Luke showered their daughter with noisy kisses and said goodbye in appallingly babyish voices. Then, without further instruction to Bruce, turned and strode toward the lab exit.
"But I have a class to teach!" he belatedly found a solid excuse why this was a bad idea. Besides the most obvious thing they apparently didn't have a problem with.
"We believe in early education," Luke replied. "You got this whole Baby Einstein vibe with the classical music."
"Or you'll bore the kid to sleep," Jessica said. "Either's good."
Resigning himself to his new, unexpected assignment, Bruce watched them go. Just as they reached the door, he called, "Hey, one more thing."
The couple turned back, Luke with his eyebrows raised in expectation, Jessica's posture-arms crossed, foot tapping-pure impatience.
"Hurry it up, Banner, we've got a quinjet to catch."
"Just…" Bruce shifted the baby to his other arm to keep her slobbery hand out of his shirt pocket. "If you see Natasha, tell her I love her."
Jessica eyed him from beneath drooping lids, lips pursed.
"You're a grown ass man," she replied, pivoting to step through the door. "Tell her yourself."
A shadow fell across the dossier Natasha was reviewing before the Detroit mission brief. She glanced back to see Luke reading over her shoulder.
"Target's a green dude," Luke observed.
"In a dress," Natasha said.
"How inclusive of Zodiac," said Jess, drawing out the chair beside Natasha's, but only to kick it out of the way as she perched on the edge of the conference table facing her.
"Alien, or science experiment gone wrong?" asked Luke.
"Alien, according to the operative we brought in," Natasha replied.
She'd spent a lot of the week interviewing him. Interrogating him, technically, but he was so compliant it seemed too strong a word.
Jess flicked through her own copy of the dossier. "As if an actual human would choose the alias Willard Weir."
"Too bad we don't have Bruce today," Natasha said. "Battle of the green dudes."
"He's doing his part," Luke remarked, dropping into the chair next to the one his wife wasn't sitting in.
They'd seen him? Or heard about him? Natasha had neither since he left the Avengers Facility after the Houston mission, with the exception of a call from Aunt Susan who worried when he hadn't been answering his phone. "Oh?"
Jess smirked. "Babysitting Danni."
It would have been funny, except for the little twinge of electricity that rippled through Natasha's chest. Jess didn't mean anything by it. She didn't know…
Natasha fixed a crooked grin on her own face as she leaned back in her chair. "How'd you convince him to do that?"
"Didn't give him a choice," Jess replied.
"We just sort of brought Danni to the lab and left her."
"Is that bad parenting?"
"No, it's good Bruce handling," Natasha said.
A sideways glance confirmed the only other people in the conference room were Coulson, Steve, and Thor. Coulson already knew, and Thor spoke so loudly that no one could possibly overhear her conversation, anyway.
"And good practice for him," she added.
"Are you-?"
"Adopting," Natasha headed off Jess' inevitable question about pregnancy with a smile. "The process is pretty…intense."
Luke grunted sympathetically.
Natasha went on, as though a floodgate had been opened. "One of the questions they asked us is why do two superheroes decide to adopt a child?"
"We asked ourselves that one, too," Luke said, rubbing his fingers over his goatee. "Well, not adopt. Have one."
"What was your answer?" Natasha asked.
"Because apparently condoms are no match for Luke's mighty sperm."
He ducked his head, shaking it, but his laugh rumbled low as Jess nudged his ankle with her toe.
Eyes flicking to Natasha, her face became serious. "Because that's what people do, isn't it? Most people. They have kids."
"People want families," Luke added.
"And superheroes are people, too," Natasha murmured.
"I'd find a less Hallmark card way to say it to your social worker," said Jess, sliding off the table to take her seat. "But yeah. Basically."
It seemed almost too basic to Natasha. Then again, it wouldn't be the first time she and Bruce overcomplicated a problem. Especially Bruce.
"Although there are exceptions to every rule," Jess said, jerking her chin toward the doorway as Tony swaggered through to interrupt the conversation between Thor, Cap, and Coulson. "We're not sure what the hell that one is."
Bruce was not only not present for his seminar, but he was late for it, too. He was trying to get Danni down for her nap, but she wouldn't sleep. She wouldn't even stay laying down. Every time he put her little blanket over her, she pushed up on all fours, rocked back and forth, and giggled at him through the mesh. He couldn't help chuckling at her.
"I guess you don't let anyone tell you what to do…like your mom," he said, crouching in front of her. He raked his hands back through his hair and sighed. "You're really cute, Danni, but I have a graduate seminar on high energy particle physics to teach."
In reply, Danni pressed her pudgy little hand against the mesh, laughing when Bruce pushed his finger against it and said, "Boop!" They repeated this several times, Danny finding it more and more hilarious each time. Bruce had a fleeting thought that he should be making a video, but the videoconference was more important. Finally, desperate to begin his lecture, he decided to put the play in Pack n Play, and emptied the toys from her diaper bag into it.
"Skipping a nap means early bedtime, right?" he said, moving back to his workstation.
He'd barely greeted his students when Danni's cry interrupted the beginning of the lecture.
"Was that a baby?" asked a girl wearing a Black Widow t-shirt which, in a normal circumstance, Bruce would have teased her wouldn't get her extra credit in the course.
"Um, yeah…"He glanced back over his shoulder to see Danni's toys scattered across the floor outside the play pen, while the baby slapped miserably at the side, trying to reach them through the mesh. "Hang on a sec…"
He darted to Danni, who instantly stopped crying and grinned up at him, the beads of tears still gleaming on her round cheeks. For a moment he stared down at her, hands on his hips, then he bent and began to scoop up the toys and drop them back in with her.
"I suspect this may be an exercise in futility," he muttered. In his life, wasn't everything?
Danni squealed and picked up a soft book, which she shoved in her mouth. She looked happy enough, but Bruce noticed the plush ballerina doll had a key on her back, so he wound it all the way up, surprised to hear it playing Beethoven's Für Elise. Weird, but whatever; Danni was mesmerized. Maybe she'd fall asleep after all. Maybe that was the lovey Jess had told him to give her for naptime.
"Really sorry for the interruption," he said, returning to his computer. He turned it so that he faced Danni, and found himself looking into those big brown eyes across the lab. "Anyway, as I was saying, today we're going to talk about-"
"Whose baby is that?" asked the girl in the Black Widow t-shirt.
"Um…"
"Is that one of the Avengers' kids?" She turned to the student seated next to her. "Some of the Avengers have kids, right?"
"Let me Google that for you," said a guy with a snarky tone Tony would appreciate.
The second girl eyed her classmate's t-shirt. "A true fan would know the answer to that. Did you buy the shirt to boost your grade?"
Her face went bright red, and Bruce felt the back of his neck prickling, too. He rubbed it as he spoke over the students and the tinny music box tinkle. "If you remember where we left off last time-"
Danni's cry cut him off again, and his eyes snapped up from his laptop screen to see that his prediction about the toys had been accurate. This time, when he scurried to put them back, she didn't stop crying. She wailed louder and harder, mouth opening so wide that he could see a few more tooth buds and her quivering uvula.
"What's wrong, Danni?" he asked, bending to pick her up. "Do you need a new diaper?"
He lifted her up, gave her a sniff, but didn't smell anything. She was still crying, though thankfully not screaming any more.
"Maybe you're hungry…You didn't take much of your bottle…"
The cries subsided to whimpers and occasional hiccups as he shifted Danni to one arm as he knelt to rifle through the diaper bag. This proved a less straightforward task than it should have, as she kept grabbing for his glasses and the pen from the pocket of his lab coat. Eventually he did find the bottles-empty-along with a can of formula. He'd have to mix it up with water, but he couldn't do that one-handed. The lab being seriously un-baby-proofed, he had no choice but to put Danni back in her Pack n Play.
It was like flipping a switch. She screamed again, so distressed she toppled over backward.
"Okay, okay, I won't do it again!" Bruce scooped her up, cradling her against his shoulder as he padded her back and bounced. Soothed, Danni popped her fingers into her mouth and looked up at him. "Seems like you just want to be held. I can do that."
He carried her back to his workstation, where his graduates were having a heated debate about which Avenger kid he might be babysitting. They went silent as soon as their screens showed him sitting down with the baby.
"Danni will be auditing our seminar today," Bruce joked, to a chorus of awwwwwwws, "as part of SI's new Early Education Initiative."
"Gotta be Luke Cage's kid," said the girl who'd called the girl in the Black Widow shirt a poser. "He was on that Houston mission the other day. Does that mean the Avengers are on a mission right now?"
"I just googled Zodiac," the Let Me Google That For You guy said (Bruce really needed to learn his students' names). "Nothing new came up…"
"Yeah, because the Avengers totally get their intel from the mainstream media."
"They could just be at a movie or something," the Black Widow shirt-wearer shot back. "Avengers are people, too."
"Is that why you just posted that screencap of Dr. Banner holding a baby on your Tumblr? Because you respect his personhood?"
"Wait, what?" Bruce said, his view of the class on the screen obscured by slobbery fingerprints on his glasses as he wrestled them from Danni's hand again. "I'd take that down if I were you."
He wasn't sure he'd mustered much in the way of authority with a baby in his arms, but the girl frantically worked on her screen.
"Sorry, I'm sorry! It's deleted now!"
"It is," her classmate confirmed.
"Please don't flunk me!"
Bruce sighed. Effective though it was, it didn't create an atmosphere of academic freedom when your students were intimidated by your alter-ego.
"Good," he said. "You wouldn't want to experience how Ms. Jones deals with paparazzi who try to take pictures of her daughter."
That was one of the main reasons why they'd moved to Ithaca. Well, that and the job offer. The job he was supposed to be doing right now.
He got back to the lecture, but was much less aware of the words that were coming out of his mouth than the thoughts that swirled in his brain.
Cornell hadn't been the only offer. There had been other positions, at other universities, in other cities. Bigger cities, New York included, where Bruce and Natasha had perfected the art of blending in. They didn't want that, though, not any more. Not the continued existence of hiding in plain sight. They wanted to be seen, not as celebrities-which was what a lot of those university boards wanted him for, even more than his genius-but as normal people were seen, as part of something. A community. A family.
Danni had given up grabbing his glasses and his beard and the pen in his pocket. She had gone perfectly still in his arms, Bruce realized, except for the deep, steady rhythm of her breath. He felt the soft puffs of it, warm, against his neck, a wet spot growing on his shoulder where she drooled. He smelled her, baby lotion and milk, something vegetable, maybe strained carrots, the less pleasant ammoniac odor of a wet diaper. Whatever point he'd arrived at in high energy particles, he faltered.
"Dr. Banner?"
Bruce blinked at his computer screen, unsure which of the students who stared back at him with concerned expressions had spoken.
"Are you okay?" asked the girl in the Black Widow shirt.
Please. Talk to me, Natasha's voice whispered through his mind.
"I…" His voice cracked, and he felt the brittleness of the smile he fixed on his lips. "Sorry, guys, but I need to change a diaper. Get an early start on your weekend. See you next week."
"In person?"
"I don't know," Bruce replied, briefly unwrapping one arm from around Danni to shut off the webcam, then holding her more securely as he stood, resting his cheek against her thick curly hair.
He didn't know when he'd be back in Ithaca…or if. (We agreed to talk in whens, not ifs.) The only thing he did know was that he wanted this. God, he wanted it. For the first time in fifteen years, he'd not only allowed himself to want, but had it within his grasp, only for it to slip through his fingers.
Looping the diaper bag over one shoulder, he carried Danni out of the lab. Where in the Tower he should change her, he didn't know. Or if he should even change her now. He didn't want to wake her, as much for his own benefit of holding the peacefully sleeping baby for a while, as for Danni's.
As he descended the staircase slowly so as not to jostle the baby or worse, tumble down, the muffled sound of piano music reached his ears from the lounge below. He recognized a repeated note. Chopin? Teardrop Nocturne? No, Prelude. And it was the Raindrop. Had he left music playing last time he came down here? He didn't remember listening to Chopin recently…Didn't even remember when he'd last been out of the lab.
"FRIDAY, would you turn off the music?"
"Afraid I can't, Doc," she replied.
Bruce paused on the step, baffled by the AI's noncompliance, then he realized the piano music came from an actual piano-the seldom-used baby grand below in the lounge. And seldom-tuned, he thought, resuming his descent, a little quicker than before. Who in the world…?
At the bottom of the stairs, the glimpse of red hair over the music stand stopped him again. Not Natasha's deep auburn, but a subtler coppery shade.
"What are you doing here?" Bruce blurted out.
Mid-bar, the music stopped. The pianist raised her head, peering at him over the tops of her glasses that had slipped down her nose.
"I could ask you the same thing," said Aunt Susan, not giving him a smile in greeting. Not that he'd given her much of a greeting.
"Babysitting," he replied.
"Yes, I can see that."
Susan didn't ask who he was babysitting, just went on looking at him, waiting for him to provide answers to the more pertinent questions she didn't need to ask.
Instead, Bruce carried Danni to the sofa, where he lay her gently in the corner of the white leather cushion.
"How did you know I was here?" he asked as he sat beside the baby, placing the diaper bag at his feet and reaching in for a blanket.
"You wouldn't answer my calls," Susan replied. "I got worried and called Natasha."
She drew the piano lid down over the keys, got up from the bench and tucked it under the instrument. Belatedly, it occurred to Bruce he ought to have helped her move it, but he couldn't very well leave Danni unattended on a sofa; she might roll off, and he didn't want to have to explain that to Jessica.
Facing him, Susan said, "You left her."
"I didn't leave leave her…That's not what she said, is it?"
"You stopped the adoption process. You came out of retirement." Susan ticked off the points, a checklist of his failures, as she came toward the sofa. She took off her glasses, let them dangle from the chain around her neck. "All because Natasha visited Brian?"
Bruce looked down, pretending to be intent on the contents of the diaper bag, though apparently the only blanket was the one he'd left in the crib in the lab.
Natasha's prison visit. The home study. The autobiography. The failed lullaby. They all had a common denominator: Brian Banner.
"He took your mother from you," Susan said. "Don't let him take Natasha, too. Your children."
"Let him?" Bruce repeated as he stood, knocking over the diaper bag. A bottle rolled out, skittering across the floor. "I would'vve thought you of all people would know better than to victim blame."
Susan didn't back down. "When you were a little boy you were helpless against Brian's abuse. You're not a little boy anymore, you're a man. You're not helpless, you're an Avenger."
"The Hulk's the Avenger. Not me, I'm just the-"
"The Hulk is the frightened little boy."
Hulk not little boy, the Other Guy snarled in his head.
"Well. Not so little," Susan amended, a wry smile briefly pulling at her lips. "But you don't have to be a genius to see my point. Which you are."
Hulk not afraid.
Danni whimpered on the sofa, then began to cry.
Of course Hulk was the child, Bruce thought, as he moved to pick up the baby. Tony had called him the protector, and he wasn't wrong, but the Hulk's protective instinct was a child's. Get hit, hit back. Hulk smash. That was why they had the lullaby.
"It's okay, shh," he murmured to Danni, patting her back.
"You're not helpless," Susan said. "So help yourself. Or if not yourself…Help Natasha. You're not the only one who's had old wounds opened."
That cut, but Bruce didn't argue. He thought of what Tony had said the other night. Of Natasha's joke about being raised by former Soviets for the glory of Mother Russia, which he'd brushed off.
"I've let her down," he said, sinking down on the sofa with Danni, who was gumming his shoulder.
"You still have a chance to pick her up."
He thought of her, on her mission in Detroit, and hoped she was okay. You're a grown-ass man, Jessica had said. Tell her yourself.
Susan joined him on the sofa, reaching out to stroke his hair, brushing a kiss to the top of his head before she sat.
"I love you like you're my own son, you know. And it'll be the happiest day of my life when you have a family of your own. You're going to be a wonderful father."
"I want to be," he said.
For a moment neither of them spoke as Danni drifted back to sleep, then Susan looked at him in confusion. "Whose baby is this, anyway?"
When Danni had settled, Bruce left her with Susan and went back to the lab to call Natasha. To his surprise, she picked up.
"You're not in Detroit yet?"
"Are we not supposed to take personal calls during battle?" she replied with a little laugh. It was the best sound he'd heard in days. "Just about to land."
"I won't keep you long," Bruce said. "Just…I wanted to tell you I love you. And afterward, come back with Luke and Jess."
Static crackled as she sucked in a breath. "You're ready to talk?"
"The Other Guy learned how. It's past time I did, too."