Dr. Bruce Banner (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dayswithoutincident) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
all_inclusive2014-08-26 04:01 pm
dayswithoutincident) wrote in all_inclusive2014-08-26 04:01 pm
It just seems that upstream I keep rowing
Manage your expectations. It's a simple enough concept, but one a lot of people struggle with, and Bruce Banner is no exception. There's a trick to it, of stepping apart from yourself and finding true objectivity, of having the strength to recognize your own weaknesses and strengths.
What Bruce hadn't realized until recently, however, was that when it came to his own life, expectations involving any degree of reasonable normalcy were so far removed that they might as well have been on another planet. Another planet in another universe, actually, but only if it was one about fifty trillion lightyears away and at least ten thousand years from producing anything resembling intelligent life.
At this point, Bruce isn't sure what reasonable expectations for the average person would even consist of, but he's pretty sure he can rule out accidentally tripping through wormholes to alternate dimensions. What he's also sure of is that it says a lot about him (and how much time he's been spending with Stark) that it hadn't shocked him much to step out of his bathroom and find himself at Pocket Universe Inn. He has colleagues who use robotic suits and giant hammers to fly; it's probably past time to redefine what 'normal' means.
Not that it didn't occur to him that he should probably be a little worried about the whole benevolent way station vibe of the place. There's apparently some kind of celestial philanthropist of unknown motive providing his room and board, but overall it's calm and quiet, and there are dozens of ways out. He hopes it doesn't come to it, but if all else fails, he can take a running leap into the abyss. It's more than he can say for where he came from.
This is his third day, and he's still deep in the thrall of new discovery, a quiet figure skirting awkwardly around other guests on his way outside. On the lawn he pauses, face upturned like a child. The view of the sky is still breathtaking, the infinite cosmos bending around their little island like a stream parting over a stone.
What Bruce hadn't realized until recently, however, was that when it came to his own life, expectations involving any degree of reasonable normalcy were so far removed that they might as well have been on another planet. Another planet in another universe, actually, but only if it was one about fifty trillion lightyears away and at least ten thousand years from producing anything resembling intelligent life.
At this point, Bruce isn't sure what reasonable expectations for the average person would even consist of, but he's pretty sure he can rule out accidentally tripping through wormholes to alternate dimensions. What he's also sure of is that it says a lot about him (and how much time he's been spending with Stark) that it hadn't shocked him much to step out of his bathroom and find himself at Pocket Universe Inn. He has colleagues who use robotic suits and giant hammers to fly; it's probably past time to redefine what 'normal' means.
Not that it didn't occur to him that he should probably be a little worried about the whole benevolent way station vibe of the place. There's apparently some kind of celestial philanthropist of unknown motive providing his room and board, but overall it's calm and quiet, and there are dozens of ways out. He hopes it doesn't come to it, but if all else fails, he can take a running leap into the abyss. It's more than he can say for where he came from.
This is his third day, and he's still deep in the thrall of new discovery, a quiet figure skirting awkwardly around other guests on his way outside. On the lawn he pauses, face upturned like a child. The view of the sky is still breathtaking, the infinite cosmos bending around their little island like a stream parting over a stone.
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"Not to suggest that this plan isn't incredibly interesting," he begins, his signature half-wince suggesting otherwise, "but I would have thought this place would pose more challenging problems for you to solve."
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"You're just saying that because you don't want to fly," Tony added. "Okay, that's fine, I can have fun without you, you know. If I didn't know better, I'd think you didn't trust me."
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"Have you tried to breach the atmosphere yet?" he casually asks with a glance toward the sky.
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He didn't say anything else about whether he should be trusted, didn't even shrug to acknowledge it.
"I've been busy," he said a bit defensively to the question of breaching the atmosphere -- and then quickly went back on the offensive. "But you might as well admit it, you're not bad with flying, you're bad with the idea of flying," Tony said. "You should do something about that, like come flying with me." But he was starting to doubt that he could win this argument, which made it no fun. He changed tacks.
"But I'll settle for--" he nudged one of the parts on the ground with his foot. They were starting to fit themselves together into a framework. "Okay, give me one really good idea for a killer app using five repulsors, and I'll let you off from the flying carpet."
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"How many BTUs do they generate?" he relents, head tilted and eyes squinted in mild curiosity. "What would be the limitations on converting them to mobile power generators? Nothing like an arc reactor, obviously, but you get some good punch with them, and the applications could be virtually limitless."
He tilts his head back again, gaze on the middle distance as his mind kicks more fully into gear. "Where are you at with forcefields?"
Not necessarily something powerful enough to stop weapons, but a mobile means of providing protection from the weather? That could help a lot of people.
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He bent down to pick up one of the repulsors that hadn't integrated itself into the growing tangle of flying carpet to be, his fingers exploring the edges like he'd forgotten the shape of something so familiar.
"Forcefields...?" He brought the repulsor to rest next to his chest, where his arc reactor was difficult to see under his heavy shirt, and stared somewhere just beyond Bruce.
And suddenly he was having fun after all.
"It's not really a question of power, power is easy--" At least, when you have arc reactors to spare, it is. "It's what the repulsors do with the energy, and how small can you make them, and how many of them can you array together... I mean, what is a force field, anyway?" Rhetorical question: he hurried on. "And some specialized circuits to control it all, because when I say speed and absolute precision would be vital, I'm totally underestimating what it would take..."
He shook his head abruptly, remembering his challenge. "But oops, I couldn't do all that with just five repulsors. Can't be done. Please try again."
But though his words dismissed it, his gaze stayed slightly abstracted; he was still thinking about the technical details of Bruce's first suggestion while he was waiting to see if Bruce could -- or would -- come up with something else.