Nothing But Grey

“Alright go crazy.” Tony said as we walked into huge store on Fifth Avenue.

I was just sort of in shock and feeling really out of place. Shopping had not been something I liked doing in my world. Mostly because without seeing color my choices were pretty limited. I shopped for fit and comfort now… the choices were overwhelming. I didn’t know where to start.

“Uh…” I said. “This is a lot.”

“Don’t worry about the money, you know I can afford it.” Tony said.

“Not that but thanks.” I said. “I uh…”

“Too much color?” He asked.

“Yeah.” I said.

“How did you normally do this before?” Tony asked.

“Everything was black and white. A friend of mine that could see Blue and similar colors told me they suited me and when I asked her to describe it to me she just said they were dark so I always picked whatever looked darker.” I said.

“Okay. So let’s start with what you’re used to and go from there.” Tony said picking up a black scoop neck tee.

A few hours later I had pretty much an entire monochromatic wardrobe in black white and everything else in between. Tony slipped in a few muted shades for when I was ready.

I also ended up picking a short black v- neck wrap dress with a buttoned skirt and sandals.

All things considered Tony was a surprisingly good shopping buddy. Then again he did offer to just buy the whole store so we could go do something that was more fun after five minutes.

We were walking through Central Park eating ice cream when his phone started ringing.

“Huh they finally noticed you were missing.” Tony said.

“Do I have to go back?” I said.

“Do you want to go back?” He asked.

“It’s not like I have anywhere else to go.” I said.

“There’s plenty of room at the tower. Give me a minute.” He said picking up the phone. “Hello you’ve reached the life model decoy of Tony Stark…”

“Stark where is she?” Fury demanded.

“Who?” Tony said playing dumb.

“You know who. Miss Marin…” Fury said.

“Who?” Tony asked.

“The girl!” He shouted.

“You mean the girl you’ve had for over a week that no one but you and probably Hill knows where you’re keeping her?” He asked.

“You hacked our security.” Fury said.

“Did I… oh wait going under a bridge… losing… na… eeee” He said before hanging up.

“Is it concerning that a super-secret spy organization took this long to realize they had been hacked and someone broke out of their building?” I said.

“Yeah but it’s not our problem.” Tony said.

“Actually…” I said considering telling him about Hydra but then I realized I should probably wait a bit, maybe when Fury found us so I could warn him too. “You know what we’ll circle back to that.”

“Well we had lunch, we went shopping, got ice cream, Where to next?” he asked.

“Uh don’t know. What’s your favorite place in New York?” I asked.

“My favorite place?” Tony said thinking about it for a minute before he started smiling and I immediately knew what he was going to say.

“You’re going to say the tower aren’t you?” I said.

“No, but it is amazing. It was designed by yours truly.” He said. “Want to see where the magic happens? It is the last place anyone would think to look for you.”

“You mean because they’re all going to be out looking us anywhere but there?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He said.

“The view from up there must be pretty awesome.” I said looking at the Tower in the distance.

“Oh it is.” Tony reassured me.

“Let’s go.” I said following back to the car. The Tower wasn’t too far from where we were. We probably could have walked but since Tony had his car we drove back. There was a lot to the tower they didn’t show in the movie. Like the pool in one of the sublevels. The arcade… the food court.

“So what did you do in your world? Genetics?” he asked. “I only ask because you know a lot about genes.”

“No that was more because of my condition. I saw a lot of doctors as a kid and I read everything I could find on genetics to try and fix myself but that never really panned out. Not to mention they only recently finished sequencing the human genome. That sort of held things up.” I said. “I was in between jobs when this happened. I graduated with a bachelors in biology, but then the world got shut down by a pandemic.”

“Sounds messy.” Tony said.

“You don’t know the half of it.” I said as the elevator opened up to reveal the lab.

“This is where the magic happens.” He said.

“Aww no Dumm-E or U?” I asked.

“No they’re back in Malibu. You know about them?” Tony asked.

“High tech comic relief.” I said.

“Ah.” Tony said. “Well they’re not here but Jarvis is everywhere.”

“Welcome Miss Marin.” Jarvis said.

“Jarvis.” I said looking at the ceiling. “Can I just say you are my all time favorite fictional robot butler.”

“He’s not actually a robot butler.” Tony said. “He’s an AI. Jarvis stands for…”

“Just a rather very intelligent system.” I finished for him. “That’s what you tell people but he’s actually named after Edwin Jarvis, he worked with your dad but you were close to him. Hence why Jarvis has the same accent.”

“I keep forgetting you know everything.” Tony said.

“Yeah, that’s not really fair is it?” I said.

“You do have an advantage here.” He said.

“So let’s bridge the gap.” I said. “Ask me anything.”

“Anything?” Tony asked.

“Seems only fair.” I said. “I mean the movies showed a lot. Like you and Pepper’s morning after one night stand routine.”

“They showed that?” he said suddenly tensing.

“Yeah I think they included that to highlight your character growth.” I said.

“Oh well I don’t really do that anymore. Haven’t for a while.” He said.

“I know.” I said. “Like I said ‘Character growth’. Also you and Pepper make a really cute couple. She’s a keeper.”

Tony chuckled a bit.

“Thanks but we actually decided we were better off as friends.” He said. “Guessing that didn’t happen in the movies?”  

“No, I guess not everything is exactly the same. I mean the soulmate thing wasn’t a part of it.” I said. “I should make a list of all this but for now what do you want to know?”

“Uh, let’s start with the basics.” He said. “What’s your birthday?”

“November 8^th, 1995.” I said.

“So you’re 17?” he said.

“26. I’m from 2022.” I said.

“Right. Scorpio.” Tony said. “Where you from?”

“LA.” I said.

“Really? We could have been just a few miles away this whole time.” He said.

“A few miles and a whole universe.” I said.

“Got any Family?” He asked.

“Mom, Dad, older brother, nephew and niece but we’re not really close.” I said.

“Boyfriend? Or girlfriend?” He asked and I chuckled.

“No, there’s no one. I’m chronically single.” I said.

“Chronically single?” Tony said laughing. “Never heard that one before.”

“My best friend came up with it.” I said. “No matter how hard she tried to set me up with someone or how many ‘meet cutes’ I had according to her nothing ever went past the first date. It never felt right.”

“Favorite color?” he asked.

“Uh… I’m not really used to seeing them yet.  The sky is nice, so that’s probably in the top five. I had to drink something to settle my stomach and it was this gross color, I think it was pink.” I said. “I knew someone that absolutely hated it and I thought she was just being dramatic but no it really is the worst.”

“What’s the one thing’s color that completely surprised you?” Tony said.

“Uh…” I thought about it and started laughing. “Okay this is pretty gross so don’t judge me but poop. I didn’t know it came in different colors.”

Tony laughed so hard he fell out of his chair.

“How’d you realize that?” He said in between laughs.

“I ate Cheetos and… yeah.” I said. “Never doing that again.”

“Sir Doctor Banner is making his way down to the lab.” Jarvis said.

“Oh you’re going to meet my science bro.” Tony said.

“Is that really a good idea?” I asked.

“Are you scared of the hulk? Bruce is in control” Tony said.

“I know I just meant maybe the stress of the surprise might not be good for him. Considering all the truth bombs I dropped on you.” I said Tony thought about it for a minute.

“We should probably ease him into it.” Tony said.

“Yeah.” I said just as the elevator dinged signaling the doors were opening.

“Don’t go anywhere.” Tony said before rushing to meet Bruce.

I spun on the stool trying not to panic about meeting another of my… well it felt weird to say the s-word.

“Hey jolly green.” Tony greeted.

“Tony. Did you have a nice… walk?” Bruce said.

“I did it was really… I worked through some things.” He said.

“That’s good.” Bruce said. “I think Fury was looking for you.”

“Yeah he called. It wasn’t anything important.” Tony said.

“Really? It seemed important. He even called in Natasha and Clint.” Bruce said.

“Did Thor lose Loki on the way to Asgard?” He said.

“I sure hope not.” Bruce said trying to walk further in but Tony stepped in front of him. He tried it again but Tony stopped him. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh yeah everything’s great.” Tony said.

“That’s great so can I…” Bruce started.

“Yeah just… okay so I need you to be cool.” Tony said.

“Cool?” Bruce said.

“Yeah relax take a few deep breaths.” Tony said. “Be cool.”

“Okay? I’m cool.” Bruce said nodding as Tony started nodding.

“So I did a thing.” Tony said.

“You did a thing?” Bruce said.

“Not a bad thing but it’s a thing.” Tony said.

“What sort of thing?” Bruce asked confused.

“Uh… well…” Tony said stepping aside so Bruce could see me.

“Hi.” I said waving my hand awkwardly.

“Hello.” Bruce said. “Nice to meet you…”

“Hanna.” I said. “I’ve heard a lot about you Doctor Banner or do you prefer Science Bro?”

“Bruce is fine.” He said looking at me trying to figure me out. “You look a bit familiar have we met before?”

“I think we did, briefly. I was a bit out of it.” I said.

“You could say that.” Tony said. “Last week was a bit crazy.”

“That’s an understatement.” Bruce said.

“It’s not every day you fall out of a wormhole.” I said.

“Fall out of a… Oh!” Bruce said.

“Yeah lets not do that again.” Tony said.

“You’re… She’s…” Bruce said looking back and forth between Tony and I.

“Bruce meet Hanna Marin, our soulmate. Hanna, Bruce Banner, AKA the guy that turns into the hulk.” Tony said.

“Uh… Hi… Uh what’s happening?” Bruce asked.

“Oh nothing I just took a bit of a walk and just happened to find Hanna on the restricted sublevel of SHIELD’s New York office and thought I’d take her to see the sights.” Tony said.

“You broke her out of SHIELD?” Bruce said.

“No.” Tony and I said.

“We didn’t break anything.” Tony said.

“He really didn’t and can we really call it a jail break if there was hardly any security?” I said. “We literally walked out of there without anyone noticing.”

“Oh this is bad.” Bruce said. “This is really really bad.”

“Is it though?” Tony said.

“It does go against all my constitutional rights to be unjustly held against my will.” I said.

“She does make a good point.” Tony said.

“If the constitution is the same as it is in the other place… if not then I’m screwed.” I said.

“Other place?” Bruce said.

“We have some stuff to catch you up on.” Tony said.

“Though maybe not right now.” I said and Tony gave me a look. “I don’t feel like having this talk five more times.”

“Good point.” He said.

“There’s a talk?” Bruce said.

“You’ll hear all about it later.” Tony said