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Started By
Message
re: Bard's Poor Attempt at a Combined Marvel/DC Universe (an ongoing project)
Posted on 5/9/23 at 1:47 pm to Bard
Posted on 5/9/23 at 1:47 pm to Bard
“Back again, I see.”
Betty looked up and smiled at Bruce. “I got lost is all,” she joked. She had enjoyed their talk the previous day. He had told her he came here daily so she hoped her presence hadn’t changed that, she as glad to see it hadn’t.
“I hope you weren’t planning on getting another pickle. Today they finally remembered that I have asked them for weeks to not give me one.”
She held up two pickles. Betty had explained the problem to the corporal who worked the counter at the cafeteria. The corporal knew who her father was so when she suggested giving her the extra pickle “that scientist guy” didn’t want, he did.
Bruce smiled as he sat across from her and began unpacking his lunch.
“Bruce, I think I need to apologize for yesterday.”
Bruce stopped what he was doing and looked up and cocked his head, curiosity written across his face.
“You may not have realized it yesterday, but when you offered me your pickle I… took it wrong.”
“You did seem a little miffed, but I’m used to it.”
She smiled again. He was so easy-going, not like the brash, alpha males she normally came into contact with, that he was like a breath of fresh air. In order to keep that air fresh, she knew, she had to be honest with him even if he didn’t realize she had done something wrong to him. No, she corrected herself, especially because I did something wrong to him. “No, it wasn’t you, it was me. Most of the guys I meet tend to want to jump the gun a bit and after a while of that, girls can get overly sensitive to anything any guy says.”
“You mean like offering you their pickle?” The innocence of how he said that touched her. She almost let it drop, but she knew it would bother her to no end if she did.
“Yes, when I first meet them and right off the bat they offer me their... ‘pickle’.” With the last word she used her fingers to do air quotes.
Still with a confused look Bruce responded, “oh,” and then as realization dawned across his face, “ohhhhhhhh! Yeah… no. I really just meant the disgusting green thing.” In that moment she realized two things: that he was a little flustered by that revelation and that she liked that it flustered him. He was definitely not the arrogant, blowhard type she normally ran into.
“I know. I realized you weren’t that sort of guy the more we talked. I put my history of bad experiences on you and it was wrong and I’m sorry.” There, she said it and she felt good about it.
“Thanks. I’m sorry you keep meeting guys like that.”
Before she realized what she was doing she said, “Thank you, but I don’t think it’s them so much as it is me.” Why had she said that? Honesty about being unfair to someone was one thing, but what had caused her to admit this about herself to someone she had only known for a day?
“What makes you say that?”
She sighed inwardly. She opened this can of worms, it would be rude to just shut it down now. “My mother died when I was very young and my dad has always been an alpha male’s alpha male. Sometimes he’s like a force of nature, like a storm.” Like a ‘thunder’storm, she thought to herself. “I guess with his being such a dominating figure and my only parents, something about how he raised me attracts others like him.”
“You don’t seem like you like that type though.”
She sighed outwardly. “I’ve always kind of liked that ‘real manly-man’ kind of guy but I think a lot of it’s been because that’s what I grew up around. It's all I've known, even in college.”
“I sense a ‘but’ in here somewhere.”
“’But,’ I’m just tired. I’m tired of the possessive jealousy, I’m tired of the pictures I don’t want, I’m tired of being asked for pictures I’m not going to take, I’m tired of being treated like a cross between a maid and a murse-“
“A ‘murse’?”
“A man’s purse.” She tilted her head to the side, smiled and batted her eyes at him, “Something pretty dangling from their arm?”
Bruce snort-laughed.
“Seriously, I would just like to meet a guy who’s interested in guy who’s interested in getting to know me.”
Bruce looked at her, amused. “Okay, so tell me about yourself.”
“What do you want to know?”
“You aren’t military. That I can tell, you aren’t a scientist either.”
“Okay.” She didn’t like where this was going…
“So how is it that you have a job doing accounting at one of the most secretive military bases in the entire country?”
She had been afraid this question was going to come up eventually. Many of the people she worked with knew who she was simply because of her last name. That she wasn’t military but had enough security clearance to even know about the base, much less be there, cemented who she was and how she got there. And she hated it.
Around the other side of the building behind Bruce, a door slammed open and was followed by a shout.
“BANNER!”
She knew that voice in an instant.
Betty looked up and smiled at Bruce. “I got lost is all,” she joked. She had enjoyed their talk the previous day. He had told her he came here daily so she hoped her presence hadn’t changed that, she as glad to see it hadn’t.
“I hope you weren’t planning on getting another pickle. Today they finally remembered that I have asked them for weeks to not give me one.”
She held up two pickles. Betty had explained the problem to the corporal who worked the counter at the cafeteria. The corporal knew who her father was so when she suggested giving her the extra pickle “that scientist guy” didn’t want, he did.
Bruce smiled as he sat across from her and began unpacking his lunch.
“Bruce, I think I need to apologize for yesterday.”
Bruce stopped what he was doing and looked up and cocked his head, curiosity written across his face.
“You may not have realized it yesterday, but when you offered me your pickle I… took it wrong.”
“You did seem a little miffed, but I’m used to it.”
She smiled again. He was so easy-going, not like the brash, alpha males she normally came into contact with, that he was like a breath of fresh air. In order to keep that air fresh, she knew, she had to be honest with him even if he didn’t realize she had done something wrong to him. No, she corrected herself, especially because I did something wrong to him. “No, it wasn’t you, it was me. Most of the guys I meet tend to want to jump the gun a bit and after a while of that, girls can get overly sensitive to anything any guy says.”
“You mean like offering you their pickle?” The innocence of how he said that touched her. She almost let it drop, but she knew it would bother her to no end if she did.
“Yes, when I first meet them and right off the bat they offer me their... ‘pickle’.” With the last word she used her fingers to do air quotes.
Still with a confused look Bruce responded, “oh,” and then as realization dawned across his face, “ohhhhhhhh! Yeah… no. I really just meant the disgusting green thing.” In that moment she realized two things: that he was a little flustered by that revelation and that she liked that it flustered him. He was definitely not the arrogant, blowhard type she normally ran into.
“I know. I realized you weren’t that sort of guy the more we talked. I put my history of bad experiences on you and it was wrong and I’m sorry.” There, she said it and she felt good about it.
“Thanks. I’m sorry you keep meeting guys like that.”
Before she realized what she was doing she said, “Thank you, but I don’t think it’s them so much as it is me.” Why had she said that? Honesty about being unfair to someone was one thing, but what had caused her to admit this about herself to someone she had only known for a day?
“What makes you say that?”
She sighed inwardly. She opened this can of worms, it would be rude to just shut it down now. “My mother died when I was very young and my dad has always been an alpha male’s alpha male. Sometimes he’s like a force of nature, like a storm.” Like a ‘thunder’storm, she thought to herself. “I guess with his being such a dominating figure and my only parents, something about how he raised me attracts others like him.”
“You don’t seem like you like that type though.”
She sighed outwardly. “I’ve always kind of liked that ‘real manly-man’ kind of guy but I think a lot of it’s been because that’s what I grew up around. It's all I've known, even in college.”
“I sense a ‘but’ in here somewhere.”
“’But,’ I’m just tired. I’m tired of the possessive jealousy, I’m tired of the pictures I don’t want, I’m tired of being asked for pictures I’m not going to take, I’m tired of being treated like a cross between a maid and a murse-“
“A ‘murse’?”
“A man’s purse.” She tilted her head to the side, smiled and batted her eyes at him, “Something pretty dangling from their arm?”
Bruce snort-laughed.
“Seriously, I would just like to meet a guy who’s interested in guy who’s interested in getting to know me.”
Bruce looked at her, amused. “Okay, so tell me about yourself.”
“What do you want to know?”
“You aren’t military. That I can tell, you aren’t a scientist either.”
“Okay.” She didn’t like where this was going…
“So how is it that you have a job doing accounting at one of the most secretive military bases in the entire country?”
She had been afraid this question was going to come up eventually. Many of the people she worked with knew who she was simply because of her last name. That she wasn’t military but had enough security clearance to even know about the base, much less be there, cemented who she was and how she got there. And she hated it.
Around the other side of the building behind Bruce, a door slammed open and was followed by a shout.
“BANNER!”
She knew that voice in an instant.
1
Posted on 5/9/23 at 1:54 pm to Bard
Bruce jerked around at the shout of his last name. Betty was the only one who knew he came out here, right?
“Banner! Where the hell are you?”
So much for peace and quiet, he thought as “Thunderbolt” Ross stormed around the corner of the building. The storm rolled toward him, he rose to meet it.
“What the hell are you doing out here!?! Don’t you know the Pentagon is breathing fire up the stinkhole of every person out here to get your little science experiment working on time!?!”
Bruce marshalled his courage, he was in charge now so it only made sense that he stand up for himself. “First off, general, it’s not a ‘little science experiment,’ it’s the attempt to create a gamma radiation burst within a restrictive quantum field in order to control exactly when, where and how much of that energy is released.”
“I don’t give a frog’s a-“
Bruce moved into lecture mode. “Furthermore, I’m allowed a lunch break so I take one. If the Pentagon wants to fire me over it, they can and I’ll be glad to file a lawsuit over it.”
“I don’t care about your OSHA threats, boy,” the ‘thunder’ of ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross had toned down, but it was still there.
“And you can’t afford to fire me, it’s not like there’s a ‘foremost authority on gamma radiation in the world’ hanging out on every street corner. Speaking of which, where’s Arthur?”
General Ross started to respond but then stopped. He calmed a bit more after he snorted out a breath. “The Pentagon’s moved all the spare brainpower from Project Pegasus to perform in your science fair. They’re all waiting on you to give them their orders while you sit out here by yourself staring at the hills.”
Bruce turned back to look at Betty while he corrected the general, but she was gone. Her purse, her food, not even a stray piece of paper marked that she had ever been there.
“Get your act together, ‘foremost authority,’ or I’ll have you doing nothing more high-n-mighty than scrubbing test tubes for the rest of your contract.” With that, the force of nature named General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross stormed back the way he came as Bruce watched him go.
“I’m going to sound like a broken record, but I’m sorry, again.” Betty had re-appeared at the table behind him.
“I understand. He can be a bit much to deal with.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone under him stand up to him like that.”
Bruce smiled, he couldn’t help it. “People underestimate me. I’m not twenty feet tall, I don’t have the physique of a superhero and I’m a pacifist by nature. All of that makes people believe I’m a pushover. I'm not. If I think I’m in the right, I simply stand my ground and I’ve found that not working yourself into a raging frenzy with yelling and screaming ends up putting people off-balance. No one quite knows how to take a guy having a calm backbone in a confrontation, especially those blowhards like Ross who are used to using that into browbeating people into bending over for him.”
Betty seemed speechless for a moment, then she giggled.
“What?”
“You remember the last question you asked me before we were interrupted?”
“Yeah.”
“What I’m apologizing for is the answer to that question. That ‘blowhard’ is my father. My name is Betty Ross.”
“Oh.” Bruce wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that.
“I didn’t want to tell you because one of the things I enjoyed about our lunches today and yesterday was that since you didn’t know I didn’t have to wonder if you were just being nice because of who my father is. A lot of people here know. I can see them stare and whisper out of the corner of my eye. People in the office either avoid me or are overly fake-nice when they are forced to deal with me.”
“’Fake-nice’?”
“Being nice, but not sincerely. They smile but it never goes beyond their mouth,” she did it as she spoke. Bruce was thankful she demonstrated what she meant without his having to ask. He already felt out-of-touch for not knowing about “murses” or being “fake-nice”, he didn’t want to make it any worse by revealing that he had no idea how you could determine when someone was actually being fake-nice.
They stayed a little later than they were supposed to but Bruce didn’t mind. Betty’s boss wasn’t going to come down on her for being a few minutes over on lunch and he didn’t want General Ross to think he had intimidated Bruce into getting back sooner.
The next day Betty and Bruce were both slightly, but pleasantly, surprised to find the other showing up at their private spot for lunch. After that, it became part of their daily routine and before long they started meeting outside of work as well.
“Banner! Where the hell are you?”
So much for peace and quiet, he thought as “Thunderbolt” Ross stormed around the corner of the building. The storm rolled toward him, he rose to meet it.
“What the hell are you doing out here!?! Don’t you know the Pentagon is breathing fire up the stinkhole of every person out here to get your little science experiment working on time!?!”
Bruce marshalled his courage, he was in charge now so it only made sense that he stand up for himself. “First off, general, it’s not a ‘little science experiment,’ it’s the attempt to create a gamma radiation burst within a restrictive quantum field in order to control exactly when, where and how much of that energy is released.”
“I don’t give a frog’s a-“
Bruce moved into lecture mode. “Furthermore, I’m allowed a lunch break so I take one. If the Pentagon wants to fire me over it, they can and I’ll be glad to file a lawsuit over it.”
“I don’t care about your OSHA threats, boy,” the ‘thunder’ of ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross had toned down, but it was still there.
“And you can’t afford to fire me, it’s not like there’s a ‘foremost authority on gamma radiation in the world’ hanging out on every street corner. Speaking of which, where’s Arthur?”
General Ross started to respond but then stopped. He calmed a bit more after he snorted out a breath. “The Pentagon’s moved all the spare brainpower from Project Pegasus to perform in your science fair. They’re all waiting on you to give them their orders while you sit out here by yourself staring at the hills.”
Bruce turned back to look at Betty while he corrected the general, but she was gone. Her purse, her food, not even a stray piece of paper marked that she had ever been there.
“Get your act together, ‘foremost authority,’ or I’ll have you doing nothing more high-n-mighty than scrubbing test tubes for the rest of your contract.” With that, the force of nature named General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross stormed back the way he came as Bruce watched him go.
“I’m going to sound like a broken record, but I’m sorry, again.” Betty had re-appeared at the table behind him.
“I understand. He can be a bit much to deal with.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone under him stand up to him like that.”
Bruce smiled, he couldn’t help it. “People underestimate me. I’m not twenty feet tall, I don’t have the physique of a superhero and I’m a pacifist by nature. All of that makes people believe I’m a pushover. I'm not. If I think I’m in the right, I simply stand my ground and I’ve found that not working yourself into a raging frenzy with yelling and screaming ends up putting people off-balance. No one quite knows how to take a guy having a calm backbone in a confrontation, especially those blowhards like Ross who are used to using that into browbeating people into bending over for him.”
Betty seemed speechless for a moment, then she giggled.
“What?”
“You remember the last question you asked me before we were interrupted?”
“Yeah.”
“What I’m apologizing for is the answer to that question. That ‘blowhard’ is my father. My name is Betty Ross.”
“Oh.” Bruce wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that.
“I didn’t want to tell you because one of the things I enjoyed about our lunches today and yesterday was that since you didn’t know I didn’t have to wonder if you were just being nice because of who my father is. A lot of people here know. I can see them stare and whisper out of the corner of my eye. People in the office either avoid me or are overly fake-nice when they are forced to deal with me.”
“’Fake-nice’?”
“Being nice, but not sincerely. They smile but it never goes beyond their mouth,” she did it as she spoke. Bruce was thankful she demonstrated what she meant without his having to ask. He already felt out-of-touch for not knowing about “murses” or being “fake-nice”, he didn’t want to make it any worse by revealing that he had no idea how you could determine when someone was actually being fake-nice.
They stayed a little later than they were supposed to but Bruce didn’t mind. Betty’s boss wasn’t going to come down on her for being a few minutes over on lunch and he didn’t want General Ross to think he had intimidated Bruce into getting back sooner.
The next day Betty and Bruce were both slightly, but pleasantly, surprised to find the other showing up at their private spot for lunch. After that, it became part of their daily routine and before long they started meeting outside of work as well.
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