Bruce

[aa_natasha]

Population centers. Walking a few blocks from Stark Tower brings Bruce to a ramen shop; en route, his dark eye tracks over more people than even his calculating brain finds immediately countable. Of the places in Asia he has wandered, Japan is not actually one them, but the ramen shop looks reasonably appetizing, and -- more important to his habitually straitened budget -- reasonably inexpensive. He ducks inside the close quarters of the shop, and tucks his hands deep into his pockets as he joins the line of potential customers, squinting a little toward the pictographic menu laid out above the counter. It all pretty much looks like pictures of noodles to him.

Bruce has plenty of time to enter, order, and perhaps even find a seat before Natasha enters. She pauses in the doorway, giving it a onceover (and receiving a few of her own, courtesy of the pencil skirt and button-up blouse that take generous advantage of her curves). Her gaze catches and lingers on Bruce for a moment before she cuts her way toward the counter to place her own order.

That means Bruce is sitting at one of the tables in a corner, fiddling with the hard piece of red plastic with a number on it that will eventually result in a tray full of food arriving. He has set himself up with his back to the corner so that he has a good peripheral view of most of the cramped quarters of the restaurant. He watches Natasha -- and marks the attention she receives -- with a faint quirk together of his eyebrows.

Natasha makes polite small talk with the man in line behind her for a few moments, but that doesn't mean that she lingers once she's placed her order. In fact, she looks just the slightest bit relieved as she slips through the crowd to take up a place across from Bruce. "You aren't set on dining alone, are you?" she says by way of greeting.

Bruce turns out his hand, tipping it to the chair across from his. He watches her with a thoughtful slant to his dark eyes, his mouth twitched up just slightly at one corner. "No," he says mildly, "take a seat."

"Good," Natasha answers, sliding gracefully into the seat as she runs her fingers along her own slip of paper, straightening it. "I wasn't in the mood for it, either. I'm surprised to find you still in the city. Is Stark bribing you with shiny toys?"

Bruce taps his fingertips lightly against the edge of the table in an arrhythmic drum. His dark eyes fall away. "He ... has been, yes," he says, neutrally. He draws a breath through his nose, holds it a moment, and then lets it out in a soft puff, a voiceless expression of dry humor without the ambition to become a snort.

"I suppose there are worse things he could be bribing you with," Natasha muses with a glint of humor as she levels her gaze on Bruce.

Bruce arches his eyebrows as he meets her gaze, his expression largely bland but for the faint wry twist that lingers at the curve of his mouth. "Are there?"

Natasha meets wry with a lift of her brows, just faintly suggestive, before she reclines backward in her chair and punctuates the look with a smile. "Well. Tony Stark is a man of many means."

Bruce's next exhalation bears considerably more kinship to a snort. As they call his number at the pickup counter, he slides to his feet, hand planted in a broad, flat spread on the table's surface. /Very/ dry, he says, "Yeah, uh, he's not really my type," before loping carefully between occupied tables to turn in his number and collect his tray.

Natasha waits, all patient, leaning forward to let her elbows rest lightly on the edge of the table while she turns to watch his progress.

Bruce returns with his tray. He has noodles, vegetables, squid and chicken, apparently. Also a glass of water. He slides this tray down into place and resumes his seat, leaning back into it and, quite politely, not eating while Natasha still has no food.

Natasha waves a hand as Bruce returns, encouraging. "Go ahead, I don't mind in the least."

Bruce tips his hand over the dish but does not immediately start eating despite her permission. He does pick up his glass of water to sip from it. Dark eyes falling, he sets the drink back down on the tray. "I'm sure I'll leave eventually," he says mildly, though his tone suggests he does not find the prospect terribly appealing.

"Where will you go?" Natasha wonders, fixing on him as his eyes drop away. "Back to India?"

"Maybe," Bruce says neutrally. He hitches both elbows against the edge of the table and folds his hands in a loose clasp over the curling steam from his untouched food.

Natasha lifts her brows in mild but plain curiousity before she's distracted by the call of her own number. Her lips curve in an apologetic smile as she rises to retrieve her own order. When she returns, she folds a napkin into her lap and starts in without hesitation. "So," she says. "Just how shiny /are/ Tony's toys?"

When she starts eating, Bruce picks up his fork and spoon to begin the careful wind of his noodles round its tines. He slurps the first bite of hot noodle and squid down before answering. "Shiny," he says, glancing across at her beneath the quirk of his eyebrows. "I find it ... interesting that he is willing to share them. Particularly considering the risks. Most people place a--" He hesitates a moment, and then smiles, slight and rueful and lingering as his eyes fall again. "--Higher value. On ... value. Than he apparently does."

"Tony Stark has always been a bit reckless," Natasha answers, head bent for a bite before she fixes her gaze on him, watching as she chews. "Or at least, he's always /looked/ a bit reckless. It's interesting how many of his insane stunts end well."

Bruce makes quick, neat work of a few more bites, chicken and vegetable speared together, noodle wrapping around mushroom, and so on. "Some people are born lucky," he says, his voice low and dredged with irony.

"You think that's it?" Natasha wonders.

Bruce twists more noodles around his fork. "You don't?"

"I don't believe in luck," Natasha answers with a thin smile before she occupies herself with a quick scoop and twist of noodles.

"Really?" Bruce's mouth skews with a little more irony. His fork spears through squid and peapods.

"Do you?" Natasha answers, lifting her brows with spoon paused halfway to her mouth. "Dr. Banner?"

"Yes, and no," Bruce answers almost easily. "In the end it all probably comes down to quantum mechanics." He takes slightly too much of a bite -- too much noodle wrapped around too much chicken. He chomps through this, and says with his mouth full, "All I know is, I think--" He swallows. "--At some point in my life, I must have seriously traumatized a butterfly."

"Tsk," Natasha chides softly before taking another bite. "What did butterflies ever do to you?"

"Damned if I know." Bruce chases more noodle down with a swallow from his glass of water.

"I suppose it helps that Mr. Stark can afford to replace just about anything you might break ten times over," Natasha muses, circling the conversation back.

Eating rapidly through another couple of bites from his dish, Bruce agrees between mouthfuls, "Any/thing/, yes."

At that, Natasha falls briefly silent, spoon busy in her fingers.

Bruce lets the silence continue for a little while, then, though noodles should really not demand so much focused attention.

Natasha is not one to allow silences to turn awkward. A thorough bite later she asks with perfect curiousity, "What have you been playing with?"

"Thor," Bruce answers promptly. His smile twitches wide across his lips as he glances up at her, humor crinkling his dark eyes at the corners.

Natasha's brows startle upward, and her spoon pauses again. After a gaping moment she says, "I'm afraid to ask."

"We've been looking into learning what we can about Asgardian tech." Bruce picks up a chunk of broccoli with his fork and turns it in his hands, watching the glisten of light sauce across its floret. "Since there are starting to be more of them running around Earth."

"Smart," Natasha approves with a slight nod. "How does Thor feel about it?"

"He seems on board." Bruce looks briefly up at the ceiling. "Stark is paying him."

Amusement flashes across Natasha's features. "Is he? Interesting. I wouldn't have thought that would be much... motivation."

"I'm sure his motivations are beyond my mortal ken," Bruce says blandly, rubbing his eyes with the glide of thumb and forefinger across his eyelids.

"Well," Natasha answers with half a smile and a tip of her hand before turning a distracted glance downward at a sudden buzz from her pocket. She takes a quick moment to check her phone before giving Bruce an apologetic glance. "Sorry," she says. "Duty calls."

"Yeah, give Fury a kiss for me," Bruce says with a sour shade of humor, and scoops another bite of chicken with his fork.

Natasha smirks just slightly as she stands, folding her napkin atop the remainder of her ramen, but she doesn't comment. Instead she gives him a nod and says, "Dr. Banner," before turning to slip out through the crowd.