Dr. Erik Selvig

[Earlier on]

A return e-mail comes reasonably rapidly, certainly more rapid than he had expected. So he locks his computer and heads to the entrance of the wing.

She's there, waiting for him to let her in. But before he invites her in to a room where, potentially, they could be recorded, he wants a conversation out in the air.

Wait, why the hell is he being paranoid? He's done nothing wrong. Maybe it's just the idea of being able to wander across certain pieces of evidence, and then bring them up naturally. Yes. That's it. Nothing paranoid going on here.

Whatever, he walks past her, simply giving her a significant look, before he heads out into the open air.

"Erik? What is it?" Betty's voice is clear in the air behind him. He turns to face her.

"Walk with me, would you?" he says, waiting for her to catch up, before continuing away.

She steps round in front of him, blocking his path. "What's this about, Erik?"

He thinks he knows what she's expecting him to say. She's expecting him to say Bruce. Maybe. It's the only thing they really have in common. Yet, it doesn't feel right, not yet.

"What happened here?"

"You mean you haven't heard?"

"I've been in New Mexico for a month. I've seen the damage," he gestures around to a where there used to be a nice copse of trees, that's now mostly gone. "I've seen a few videos. That's it. So, what happened? You were there, so I'm asking you." It's a pre-emptive statement to the 'why me' question.

"Okay. Why are you so bothered?"

Ah, there's the crunch question. He looks around carefully. They're alone, for the moment.

He lowers his voice, to ensure it doesn't carry. "Bruce. I've... had contact with him. Recently. He wanted to know you were okay. And then I got here, and saw, well this."

"I'm fine."

"It didn't look that way when the 'Hulk' was being battered around."

"I'm in one of those videos?" There's more than a hint of shock in her voice.

"Half a second in the background. I had to dig to find that one as well."

She raises her eyebrows, in a 'really' manner.

"I'll show you the video when we get back to my office." It's not getting information that's a problem, these days. It's wording the search to only find what you're looking for, without unnecessarily constricting it.

"I'd appreciate that."

"Have you seen Bruce recently? Because it seemed like he'd seen you, but left before he knew you were safe." Which isn't really a very Bruce like thing to do. Particularly around Betty.

"You can contact him?" She sounds hopeful at the idea.

"I think so." Certainly, at the very least, he can leave a note with Bar.

"Okay. It's time someone knows the truth. And, if you're in contact..." She tails off.

Erik just leads on to a bench in the middle of some of the open space on campus, letting her gather her thoughts.

"You know what he was doing? In his experiments?"

"I know he was working with gamma rays, and with you in cellular biology. I also know his experiments were DoD funded." Which is nothing like the SHIELD backing that's been given to Jane's experiment. "Which means he was working either on a way to make gamma rays into a targeted weapon, or on defence against damage from such radiation." Nothing.

Betty gives a small smile as she sits down. "Officially, we were working on serums to assist radiation resilience. So, say, soldiers could take some, and then go working without NBC suits in radioactive areas."

"And unofficially?"

"More to the point, without our knowing, we were actually working on some kind of super serum. Like the old Captain America comics from the war."

Oh. Shit.

"We were seriously getting somewhere. Bruce was so confident. He gave it a trial on himself."

Oh Shit. He doesn't need to ask the question.

"We strapped him into this chair we had in a secure chamber, and flooded the chamber with gamma rays, in accordance with our procedures. I. I don't remember what happened next. There was something green. The next I knew I was in hospital and Bruce was gone."

"And then we had that silence."

"Yes. I got a backup of the data out before whoever it was that came in, did so."

"Impressive. What did you do with it?"

"Do with it? I did nothing with it. It wasn't worth it. Not then. I just kept it safe, in the hopes it had some clue, and Bruce would come for it one day."

"Do you still have it?" he asks, innocuous as possible.

"No." It's not much, but it's the confirmation he needed. Bruce came back. There's a connection. Not that that wasn't already confirmed by the story she's just told.

"He came back. and this is, related."

"Yes. He came back. He got Stanley to take him in for a couple of days. This must have been, oh, just after you left for New Mexico. I understand he looked for the data, but, of course, it wasn't on the system."

Erik smiles. Stanley's a good man. And a better pizza chef. His used to be their default go-to for late night pizza. Best place in town, no contest. "What happened next?"

"My dad, who'd been behind the initial project funding, found out where he was, and sent in troops to catch him like he was some kind of fugitive."

A simple statement of facts. He'd been funding that project, but she'd not been near it at the applications stage, so why suggest it had influenced things? Erik doesn't bother to ask any questions aloud, he just lets her continue.

"I'm not sure what happened. They trapped him in the skybridge. Put some gas that filled it with smoke in there, and I presume, left it. Then He jumped out."

"This, Hulk? Bruce."

She closes her eyes and bows her head in admission. "You said you've seen the footage. I've seen some of it too. It doesn't do the other guy justice."

"The other guy?" Erik asks.

"The, the green guy. That's his name for him."

In some ways, it makes sense. What he's seen of the green guy is very much someone other than the Bruce Banner they all knew. This is also explaining some of Bruce's, um, odder moments when they met.

"So, the military engaged, and the amateur video is on the net. What happened next?" Never mind how the hell Harlem happened, the two events are much too similar to dismiss, though they don't bear quite the same hallmarks, but not yet.

"He beat them. The other guy might not be one for vocalising, but he's still got Bruce's mind. And a huge will to survive," she looks at Erik, with a 'please understand this' look in her eyes. He looks back, a small gesture saying 'go on'. "I went to him. I'm not quite sure what happened. I think there was still a helicopter around. Next thing I can remember, I was laid out under a rock ledge, surrounded by a thunderstorm."

There's half a moment where he thinks 'that was pretty stupid of you' but he stops himself, and manages to keep it off his face. "And, the other guy?"

"He was screaming at the storm. I think I managed to calm him down. Regardless, next morning, Bruce was there."

"Where did you go from there?" Erik asks. He thinks he knows the answer, but it's best to get it from a primary source.

"He had someone he'd been talking to over the internet, at ESU."

Erik nods, that makes sense. At the very least, it explains why New York, rather than any other city. "What happened to cause, well, the Harlem incident?"

"Harlem? Err well, we went to ESU, met Samuel Sterns. Have you heard of him? He's known for doing quite a lot of work rather similar to what we'd initially been doing, before the serum sidetracked us. Anyway, we had a meeting with him. He thought he might be able to produce an antidote to keep the other guy at bay." Betty closes her eyes. "We tried it. I'm not sure whether it actually worked, or whether whatever happened out in the rain happened again. Dr Sterns seemed to think it had, anyway. Then we found out he'd been replicating the samples Bruce had sent him."

Ah. Right. Not the best news. Especially given how hard Bruce seems to be working to keep this quiet.

"Then the army turned up again. I have no idea how they found us. Bruce was sedated from range, so I went quietly."

Erik nods. That is perfectly reasonable.

"I'm not sure what happened next. Something happened. I presume something went wrong at the lab, with the samples. Given the security they were under, I'm not particularly surprised... Whatever happened, there was some parody of the other guy rampaging and causing damage. I think he wanted a fight with the actual other guy. He got more than he bargained for. Though, there was a lot of property damage done before they resolved the issue."

The details don't matter, not really. Not to Erik. Bruce was there. That's what he really needed confirming, from this part of the conversation. "Where did he go after that?"

"I don't know. I doubt he went back to Brazil, though."

Erik stands up. "I have a couple of things I need to pick up from my office." He can show her the videos online as well. "You want a pizza?"

"Yeah, go on."

"So, Jane, you really think you've got something?"
'Despite all the previous false starts?' is the unspoken question.

"Yes," comes the voice from the other end of the phone.

"Ok, I'll be there in a week." Erik replies. He needed to check up on her soon, anyway, so it makes sense to do it now, out of term time, when there are no undergrad students to lecture.


*************


The flight from Richmond to Albuquerque had taken most of the day, and then Jane showed up in, well, it can only really be described as a tooled up camper van. That was when Erik started to have some concerns about what she was studying out here. It took them the rest of the day to get back to Puente Antiguo, where Jane had based herself for this field study. When she said that there was another event expected tonight, well, that's exactly what they were there to study. So into the desert, away from the town lights they headed.

So, out in the desert, waiting for a seemingly ridiculous event to occur. Standing through the sunroof of a camper van packed to bursting with high-tech equipment. The anticipated time comes, and passes, seemingly without incident.

"Wait for it." Jane tells them. Except, the predicted moment has been and gone, so they're waiting for nothing, now.

Indeed, when Darcy asks to turn on the radio, the moment seems to be gone, despite Jane's insistence that it's not.

But, Erik's job is to see that funding money is being well spent, which, a failed event doesn't really help, so, maybe it's time to bring her down slightly. "Jane, you can't keep doing this."

"The last seventeen have been predictable to the second," insists Jane, dropping back to check her notebook.

"Jane, you're an astrophysicist, not some storm chaser." Even as Jane calls up the images of the previous events on her computer, that they've already been over on the phone, the reason Erik's out here in the first place.

"I'm telling you, there's a connection between these atmospheric disturbances and my research. Erik, I wouldn't have asked you to fly out here, if I wasn't absolutely sure." says Jane, sighing.

"Jane, I think you want to see this." Ok, what's Darcy seen? Time to look in the mirrors.

You know, "What's that?" is probably exactly the right question to be asking at the moment, Jane. Back up through the sunroof to get a better look.

"I thought you said it was a subtle aurora?" Erik murmured.