Elevated

Nora showed up on the ninetieth floor the next day. The elevator ride wasn’t any easier, but it only took her two tries to get on so that seemed pretty good. Both the glass-walled labs were empty this time as she made her way to the huge vault door at the end of the hall. It whooshed open automatically to let her in and closed behind her.

Nora surveyed the space. It was just as beautiful as it had been the previous day, full of delicate equipment that she couldn’t wait to get her hands on. It was also completely devoid of human life. There was no Tony Stark and no Bruce Banner. Nora hadn’t been exactly sure when to show up but she figured her job on eighteen had started at 8AM and she might as well stick with it until somebody told her otherwise. Or Dr. Banner fired her. That was just as likely.

She wound her way through the lab, peering closely at equipment and calculations. She created a mental map, filing away where everything was located so that if she was asked to take electromagnetic readings, she wouldn’t spend twenty minutes trying to find the magnetoscope. She was itching to get started on something but had no idea what that something should be.

Instead, she found an empty table with a computer and holo-projection screen and sat. Most of the actual workspace was empty, but she’d found a pair of glasses and a mug sitting on a table nearish the middle of the room and figured that was Dr. Banner’s spot. Her own table was close enough that she’d be able to hear him if he spoke to her, but far enough away that hopefully he wouldn’t find her irritating and fire her immediately.

She turned on the computer, input her credentials, and waited while her files loaded. She might have been inclined to continue her own research, except she’d just finished her paper and submitted it for publication, and there really wasn’t any loose ends to tie. It seemed silly to dream up another experiment if Dr. Banner was only going to come in and give her some work to do on another topic. Or fire her. That was still likely. She’d be pretty crushed if she needed his Bario-metric scanner for her new project and then got kicked back to eighteen.

She stood back up and did another lap of the lab, pulling drawers and cupboards open this time to take stock of their contents. She found a package of whiteboard markers and took it back to her table. She sat and waited.

Then she stood up again, wandering over to a whiteboard that was covered in complex math. It looked like Banner had made it most of the way through the problem, and then forgotten about it. Well, that was fine, she could finish it. Nora tapped her foot. She didn’t actually feel great about writing all over his work when he wasn’t around. After a moment’s indecision, she rolled over a second whiteboard. She copied the equation Banner had started across the top, and the work he’d already done. Then she just kind of carried on. She let the numbers spin out from her brain through her hand, forming in neat rows across the board.

It took an hour, but she got there eventually. She looked at her equation. Tapped the pen on her leg. Adjusted her glasses.

“Impressive.”

Nora jumped, spinning and nearly losing her footing. She caught herself on the edge of a table covered in formula binders, “Holy-“ She choked back the curse. Dr. Banner was standing a few feet away looking mildly alarmed. He was wearing a similar kind of soft sweater and pants as the day before and he’d evidently been watching her work, “Sorry. I didn’t hear the door.”

“Sorry,” He muttered back. He surveyed her warily.

“I just-“ she waved sort of vaguely at the board, “I got here early and I wanted to do something, but I wasn’t really sure what to do.”

Banner frowned and cleared his throat, “Right. Look Dr. Silver, I’m really sorry but-“

Oh god this was it. He was going to fire her and she’d only been there for three hours. And he’d only been there for what, like five minutes? “Please don’t send me back to eighteen!” the words erupted out of her before she could think better of it, “I know you said you didn’t want an assistant but I swear I will be the hardest worker you have ever met.” Banner looked moderately alarmed now, “I know your research backwards and forwards and I honestly think I get it in a way that not a lot of people do. Please give me a chance to prove it.”

“I don’t-” He scrunched up his eyebrows, “I don’t think I’ve got a lot for you to do. It would be a waste of your time. Your research is impressive, being downgraded to assistant-“

“I would so much rather be an assistant on your work than have my own get stolen by my fellows. If you don’t have much for me to do, I’ll just sit quietly and spin data and not bother you. Please.”

He really looked at her then. He frowned, fidgeted, then took his glasses off and wiped them with the edge of his sweater, “Okay,” He said slowly. He really didn’t look sure, but Nora thought that was fine because he had agreed.

“Thank you. Just, thank you.”

There was a long, pretty awkward silence while they looked at each other. Then Banner gestured to the board behind her, “Can I?”

“Oh!” Nora stepped aside and nodded, “Yeah.”

The day didn’t get any less awkward, but it didn’t get more awkward either. Banner didn’t seem to know what to do with her, and didn’t ask her for anything, but that was fine. Nora sat at her table, tapped her tablet pen on her leg, and watched. At four, she stood up, grabbed her coat and said, “I’m going to head home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Banner looked at her like he was surprised and said, “Okay.”

The thing was that Nora was an excellent assistant. She knew as much because when she was in University in Norway, she’d had the world’s worst research head. The man was a nightmare. He was snappy, rude, and generally irritable. He had made a habit of giving his research assistants zero direction, and then shouting at and eventually firing them, for not reading his mind. He was also brilliant.

Nora was his fourth choice that year and it only took him three months to work through the first three students he hired. Nora was determined that he would not make it to his fifth choice. She learned to read his mind. The process was painstaking. She watched his every move, read every note he wrote in the margins of his papers, and eavesdropped on every conversation. He was still snappy, rude, and generally irritable, but eventually after many long nights running scans and taking measurements she was sure he would want the next day, she cracked him. The man stopped shouting at her and started to teach her.

Dr. Banner, Nora found, was a piece of cake compared to that. He wasn’t snappy or rude. He was quiet and awkward, but that was fine. For days she watched him work and made mental notes. Then she started to act. The little things were the easiest. He made a habit of coming in around ten and staying as late as he felt like. Mostly he left around five, but sometimes he left early. He drank three cups of chamomile tea a day and always at the same time. He started every morning with radioscope readings and ran the numbers again after noon. Every second day, he compiled his numbers into a truly insane databank.

Nora came in at nine and started the radioscope. She tidied up because he liked everything to be in its proper place, but only managed to return the equipment there about half the time. At 9:55 she started the kettle and put out a mug and the tea. She’d start the radioscope again before she had lunch. Every other evening, she input the numbers for him so that it was done when he came in.

It took two weeks before he cracked.

“Dr. Silver?” He asked from his spot standing at a bank of truly insane Sebert Micrometers.

“Yes Dr. Banner?” She’d been running multi-gravitational calculations for fun and pretending to be busy but he hadn’t actually given her any work yet.

“Could you start up the Coolidge Machine?”

Nora pretended not to be absolutely thrilled. “Sure thing.”

Bucky was aware, in a vague sort of way, that he had regressed. There had been, for a couple months, progress. He could feel it as much as Sam liked to tell him about it. He could hop in the elevator and ride it a few floors to the gym. He could train with Steve and Sam, even while Wanda and Bruce did something at the other end. He didn’t worry (much) that they were watching him.

He hadn’t felt like leaving his apartment to go to the lounge would have him spiraling out of control, he had just been able to do it. He’d even made it a few times down the road to the little coffee shop with the patio. He didn’t think he’d be able to order anything, but he could sit on the patio while Sam did.

And then there had been the elevator. And the woman. And her spiraling fear that had clawed its way under his skin and stuck like a thorn, poisoning him from the inside.

He deserved it, he knew. Her fear. It was fine for Sam and Steve to say he didn’t, they were trained. If Bucky snapped somehow, they would be okay. The woman was not. She was tiny, and delicate, and he could break her. She was right to be afraid. But he couldn’t face it. It made him feel small and sick, full of dread and guilt and shame for all the things that he had done, the things he remembered and the things he didn’t.

He couldn’t make himself get on the elevator anymore. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t drag his feet to the doors, afraid that somehow there she would be, just as scared as the first time. He stayed instead, locked in his apartment. He kept the door shut and lay on the couch and read, or stared at the page, and let himself feel terrible.