For some reason everyone in the tower knows about his conference when he joins them for breakfast. Tony is the first one to mention it, saying that he told Pepper to invite a few people, Clint wishes him luck and Vision says he knows he will be great. Steve smiles at him and deflects the attention from him when he notices he’s starting to feel a little uncomfortable, mentioning some movie he and Wanda saw the night before.
When everyone starts to leave he remembers he doesn’t have anyone to drive him there, and as if she read his mind, Natasha passes behind him on the way to the elevator and puts her hand on his shoulder.
“I can take you there” She says and then kisses the top of his head when he nods.
The suit he’s wearing is nothing like the ones he was used to wear when he did conferences back in his college days. The navy jacket fits him perfectly, comfortably around his shoulders and the matching pants are so well fitted that he almost didn’t wear a belt, but Wanda insisted he should wear one. Is Pietro who compliments him on his shinny shoes and then Clint says something about Pietro liking men in suits, that gets him a smack in the head and a glare from the silver-haired boy.
He puts his notepads and his computer in the fine leather messenger bag Tony got him for christmas, he doesn’t remember if the man got everyone one for Christmas, except for Jane that’s it, and his notes on the front pocket of the jacket, he doesn’t think he will need them, but he takes them out of habit.
When he leaves the room Steve and Tony are watching morning cartoons on the living room. He doesn’t know what surprises him the most, the fact that Tony is not locked in his lab, or that he seems to actually be enjoying watching kid shows. Steve is sitting in the couch with Tony’s head on his lap, softly running his fingers through his hair.
“The press should definitely cover the softer, domestic side of Tony Stark”
He turns to see Natasha smiling softly at them. He shrugs and the redhead woman chuckles, she kisses him and then runs her hands through his arms softly up and down.
“You look great” She says.
“Thanks”
“Brucie Bear, more like Brucie Bae” Tony says and then whistles.
Steve laughs, “Stop quoting Darcy”
“I can’t, she’s like my spirit animal” Tony says, “And Jake”
Natasha chuckles, “Are you making Steve watch Adventures in Time again?”
“Adventure Time, Widow, Adventure Time”
She rolls her eyes and then Steve laughs, “It’s the only thing that keeps him from running to his lab” he shrugs.
Tony elbows him softly, “And you”
Steve chuckles and nods.
“Adorable” Bruce says.
Natasha hums in agreement and then kisses him again, “Let’s go”
“Good luck, Bruce!” Tony yells before they both enter the elevator.
Bruce asks Natasha if she’s going to the conference and maybe she can really read his mind, because she looks at him for a few seconds and then smiles apologetically. Apparently, Clint is taking Pietro, Vision and Sam to the shooting range and she promised Wanda they would spend some time together.
“There is this new bookstore that is like three floors of geekness and she wants to go” Natasha explains, she puts one hand on his knee, the one that’s jumping up and down, “If you want me to be there I will be”
Bruce shakes his head, “It’s fine” he smiles, “I would have a hard time focusing if I know you are there” he takes her hand and squeezes, he looks at her left hand on the steering wheel and realises she’s wearing her engagement ring.
Natasha laughs softly, “You are going to make your girl blush, Dr. Banner” she smirks at him, “Natasha Romanoff doesn’t blush”
Bruce chuckles softly and then looks back at the road. She drops him and tells him she’ll pick him up as soon as she leaves Wanda at the tower.
They kiss and he enters the building. A man tells him that the auditorium is five floors up and that is in full capacity, that doesn’t help with the anxiety he’s feeling but he thanks him anyways.
When he is introduced and called to the stage he realises the man wasn’t kidding, there is about nine hundred people, including a few possible investors, he recognises a few from the folder of profiles that Pepper had sent him and Helen Cho a few weeks before.
“Dr. Banner” A woman gives him a thumbs up, “Whenever you are ready”
He nods and then looks at the crowd, walking towards the podium. He's in the middle of explaining how he got first involved in the project - avoiding the whole Sokovia falling from the sky detail- when he sees her. Just like the first time he saw her, her face stands out from the rest of the crowd.
The auditorium was way too crowded for his taste, it made him feel like leaving but that would only pissed of his professor. It takes a few minutes for everyone to get to their seats, there is a few people standing left when the lights go out and he is called on stage.
He is nervous as always, clutching the notes he had made the night before tightly and he knows he's sweating under the suit he bought the day before at a store nearby, it's a few sizes bigger but that's not really important. What's important is the notes he has in his sweaty hands and making people listen to him.
Thirty minutes into the lecture, the one his professor announced as "Gamma rays and radiation", the asshole left his name out just because. He knows it isn't the most interesting topic if you aren't interested in science at all, and that most of the students are there to skip some class but he continues anyways and after a few minutes he is into the conversation, which makes people more interested in it. He finishes and everyone claps, he wonders if anyone actually understood as the lights go on.
That's when he sees her.
Pale skin that makes her look like she’s made from porcelain, pink lips that purse slightly when her friend says something and dark raven hair like a cascade falling on her shoulders, she just arrived and looks disappointed that she missed the conference.
He is leaving the auditorium when a few people surround him to shake his hand and congratulate him when she talks to him. Before she leaves she shakes his hand.
"Nice to meet you" he says, "Bruce Banner"
She smiles.
"Betty Ross"
One of the professors looks at him pointedly and then nods towards the crowd, patiently waiting for him to continue Speaking. He clutches the notes he had made the night before, still in the front pocket of his fitted suit, and then clears his throat and continues.
Every now and then his eyes look for her in the crowd, she alternates between looking at him and taking notes on the moleskin she had in her lap, pursing her lips as if she can’t understand what he’s saying. The rest of the conference goes smoothly, the notes remained in his pocket since he didn't use then. He really didn't need them.
He takes Betty to a coffee shop near the campus for their first date. In part because it was not really expensive, but mostly because neither if them have time to go on an actual date. Dress up and go to the city to a nice restaurant and all that.
"Why do you make those notes?" Betty asked after taking a sip from her water.
"What notes?" He asked.
She chuckled, "you always have notes in you pockets" Bruce nodded, "yet you never use them" she adds, "I mean, not that I've seen you"
Bruce shrugged, looking at the menu distracted. He doesn't really know why he does it, it's just something he had always done it. Betty looks at the menu too, wrinkling her nose, he immediately takes note of how adorable it makes her look. She waited for him to answer, that was the way Bruce was and she looked willing to be patient for him.
"I get caught up" Bruce said, "after I start talking about what I like so I don't use the notes because I just don’t need them”
She nods and smile at herself, her eyes going back to the menu in her hands. He gets the feeling that she knew what he was going to say and simply wanted to hear it from him. The waitress, a friend of Betty’s that worked part time there, offers them a wine bottle “on the house” and takes their order.
“What are you working on now?” She asked, after taking a sip from the wine.
He starts telling her more about Gamma Rays and she listens to him patiently. He had seen her stare in awe while he lost himself talking about his work, his new discoveries and the advance he did in his theories, most of the times he is certain that she can read him like one of those poetry books she often carried around. She then tells him about her work and he stares this time. She caught him staring and smiles, blushing slightly.
The waitress arrives with their food and they start eating. Bruce, pours himself a little more of wine and when he is about to pour her more she puts a hand over her glass.
“I don’t think I’m a fan” She admits And he laughs softly, shrugging and leaving the bottle aside.
He had already given at least a hundred handshakes when Betty approaches him. Her skin paper pale, her lips curving upwards when she realises he recognises her and her dark raven hair, now way shorter than it used to. He smiles at her and she pulls him into a hug.
Bruce had never been a hugger but he returns the hug to his old friend, a familiar sensation invades him, but the embrace is too short to give a name to it.
“Dr. Banner” She says, the tittle sounds odd coming from her, since the last time they met she giggled every time someone used it around them.
“Betty” Bruce greets, “It’s… it’s been long”
“Too long” She nods, “Do you want to join me for coffee?”
They have their first fight over coffee. Sort of.
He had met her father after he invited him for coffee a few months before and things didn’t go exactly as they planned or wanted. First of all he didn’t want to meet him, nothing against military men but he had heard stories about him. So after he meets him she starts trying to… change things about him.
She wanted him to wear those uncomfortably tight suits, to brush his hair back and to wear those stupid contact lenses that make his eyes itch. He finally explodes when she brings him coffe and he realises is actually a soy latte. It was stupid, he knew that, but it was a drop of water that spilled the glass, right? He tells her the way he’s feeling and she looks more surprised than scared for his angry reaction.
He sighs heavily and runs a hand through his hair, “I’m sorry”
“No, no” She shakes her head, “You are right”
He looks at her, “Is this about your father?”
Betty doesn’t answer, but the way she looks away and bites her bottom lip nervously makes him realise that he is, in fact, right. He noticed the day they had dinner, that Betty was more of a cadette than a daughter and Mr. Ross was more of a perfect soldier than a good father.
“I’m sorry” She whispers and he knows she’s about to cry.
He sighs tiredly and then hugs her, burying his nose in her hair and she returns the hug tightly. That was the first time they fought over her father.
They have their last fight over her father.
And they break up over the Hulk.
Bruce notices the crowd was already been guided outside and nods, throwing his messenger bag over his shoulder and letting her guide the way. There is a small cafe contiguous to the building, she knows the manager so they get seated immediately on a table where people won’t take pictures of them.
Bruce looks around and notices the place is very elegant and he’s grateful that Wanda convinced him to wear the belt. He chuckles mentally at that.
“I recommend the Soy Latte” Betty says, looking distractedly at the menu, she wrinkles her nose and Bruce finds the gesture odd.
Bruce nods but keeps reading the menu anyways. Not really, since he’s thinking about how to start a conversation even though the silence is not so uncomfortable. The waiter comes back with a bottle of wine and two glasses, he really doesn’t feel like drinking wine so he puts a hand over his glass and shakes his head politely, the waiter nods and then pours Betty wine. She smiles at the man and asks him to leave the bottle.
She takes a sip and looks at him over the rim of the glass, her eyes crinkle a little bit and she shrugs.
“Adquire taste”
He smiles and nods.
“I’ll order the soup of the day” Bruce tells the waiter.
“Salad, please” She says.
They fall into a trivial conversation about their jobs. Bruce listens patiently as she gets caught up in her subject and then changes it for a completely different one, by the time the waiter arrives with their food he’s the one speaking, he avoids talking about the Hulk, after what happened after him and the Avengers. One thing, though, he wasn’t able to leave out and that’s because she is the one who brings it up.
“I saw you in the newspaper” She says.
Bruce takes a few seconds to understand what she means, “Oh” he chuckles softly, “Yeah, that… yeah”
Suddenly the wine didn’t look like a bad idea. Betty never liked the idea of marriage, to “patriarchal” for her. But she’s smiling, an honest smile that makes Bruce shrug. That’s when he realises she’s wearing a ring too.
“I guess when you know…” he trails off.
“Of course” She nods, “Congratulations”
He’s playing with the thin gold band in his left hand nervously and then he smiles remembering Natasha had been wearing hers before.
They are almost finishing their meals when a chiming sound makes him blink and Betty reaches for her bag. She cusses softly when she can’t find her phone, and starts taking out a few items, among then Bruce sees a novel. Unlike the poetry books she used to carry around it was a mystery novel and that should have threw him off but it didn’t.
It didn’t make him feel odd, because, he realises, Betty and him not only grew older. They grew apart. Different.
They walk outside of the cafe and a blue car is waiting for Betty. A young woman steps out of it and waves at Betty, she waves back and then turns to Bruce at the same time he sees the black car park on the other side of the street. Natasha is inside talking on the phone and laughing, it was probably Clint or Steve, apart from him, she only laughed like that with him.
Betty follows his eyes and she sees her too.
"You better get going" Betty offers a small smile and he nods.
The young woman, Betty's assistant, joins them, telling her she’s almost late for some reunion. Natasha is out of the car now, putting her phone in the front pocket of her leather jacket, she waves at him and he waves back.
Betty is looking at them and she doesn't miss the way Bruce's lips curve upward when the strong breeze plays with Natasha's red hair and she looks bothered by it. So she turns to him and they smile softly at each other, she notices his smile is so different than the ones he gave her and the one he just gave his fiancee. And she’s glad Bruce looks so happy. Finally.
"It was nice seeing you again, Betty" Bruce says.
"Likewise" she says, "Good luck in your other conferences"
Bruce chuckles, "Thank you"
He waits a few beats wondering if he should kiss her cheek but she's the one who leans in, planting a soft kiss in his'. She cups his face then and looks at him fondly, there is something else, like she was proud of him. Happy.
She throws a quick glance to Natasha and then looks back at him.
"Your girl is lovely, Banner"
And with that she leaves.
Bruce crosses the street, Natasha smiles and he kisses her.
As Bruce and Natasha ride home, the woman talking about Pietro accidentally shooting Clint with a dart, he can't help to stare at her while she animately tells him the full story, between soft laughs and short glances, and be thankful for all the choices - good or terrible - he once made, because he can see it now, he can see her and she's beautiful and the path to her was difficult but now he realises it was worth it. Everything was worth it.
“And after all the obstacles it's good to see you now with someone else… After all that we've been through I know we're cool”