2755/Hunt for Green December: Parting Gift

Hunt for Green December: Parting Gift
Date of Scene:	03 August 2020
Location:	Pym Residence, Cresskill, NJ.
Synopsis:	Bruce brings Nadia a strange and alien gift.
Cast of Characters:	Nadia Pym-van Dyne, Bruce Banner

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Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
It is a beautiful day in the beautiful suburb of Cresskill, New Jersey. Peaceful, quiet, and removed from the chaos that is New York City and its myriad problems. The houses in this quaint residential are not the biggest, but by no means small either, and all quite well maintained.

It is here that one finds the Pym residence, home of one Dr. Henry "Hank" Pym at least when he isn't sleeping in his lap, and more recently his long estranged daughter Nadia. The house is a two story affair on a grassy street with many others like it, seperated by spacious lawns.

It is the latter Pym scion who is sitting out on the front porch enjoying some sunshine. The ever smiling girl is sitting in one of those swinging benches suspended by chains from the ceiling, swaying gently forward and back.

The young teenager is dressed simply but fashionably in a reddish-pink bomber jacket, over a black V-necked T-shirt, with a short red and black plaid pleated skirt, and stompy looking boots that lace up to her knees.

It might be a slightly surreal sight for those who know her well, particularly given the events of the past month, but she isn't glued to a lab, or running around trying to help everyone and fix everything simultaneously. She's just sitting in the swing eating a cupcake with chocolate frosting.

Bruce Banner has posed:
The truck that pulls up to the curb outside the house looks like it doesn't belong in a nice neighborhood like this. The body is rusting in places, the tires are balding, and the right-side mirror has been completely torn off. It was probably brown at some point, but the pain has mostly faded away that it is now more of a beige. It coughs up no small amount of exhaust as it pulls up, prompting a disgruntled glare from one of the neighbors out watering his lawn.

A man climbs from the driver's seat. He's not particularly tall and skinny enough to look undernourished. He wears a heavy coat despite the weather and a pair of cheap but brand-new jeans. In fact, all his clothes look brand new. Even the trucker cap advertising 'Vermont' that he wears on his head and the pair of aviator shades that still have the little price sticker stuck to one lens.

The man moves to the passenger seat, emerging with a cardboard box that looks like it once carried maple syrup bottles. He lugs it up onto one shoulder and makes his way towards the porch, turning his head slightly to look at Nadia. As he gets close he tilts the glasses down his nose, revealing the face of someone she would remember - Bruce Banner.

"Hey, don't say my name out loud."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
A normal teenage girl native to a neighborhood like this might be calling the cops right about now. Nadia is not a normal teenage girl however and her environment growing up was a Russian gulag instead of a quiet suburb, so she does not. Instead she hops off the swing wandering towards the truck curiously, perhaps wondering what kind of obscure parts supplier her father sourced from this time.

"Cupcake?" she offers to the strange disheveled man with the box, breaking hers in half and holding one how for him with a smile.

Then the sunglasses come down, "D.." she was definitely going to say Dr. Banner, but he manages to stop her in time. The offer of the cupcake remains though in her outstretched arm and now she is smiling even more.

"I was so worried. They said you were gone. Everyone is looking for you! My Dad is out with them searching for you right now."

Bruce Banner has posed:
"I am gone," Banner replies quietly, his mouth becoming a thin line as he does, "It needs to stay that way. If only for a little while. Just ... there's something I put off for a long time, and I can't let it go any longer."

He lets out a grunt as he delicately places the cardboard box on the porch stairs. He pauses for a moment, placing his hands at the small of his back and stretching with a wince. When he's not the Hulk, he's a man in his forties and he's not really accustomed to heavy lifting.

"I need you to keep quiet about my visiting here, alright? I won't be long."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia continues to hold out one half of her cupcake to him insistently. Though her smile falters and she makes a face when he insists that he is gone. The half cupcake remains waiting to be taken. "I made these myself. I've been experimenting with cooking, it's like delicious chemistry!"

For a moment it seems like she might ignore that declaration of being gone other than making that face until, "I've missed you a lot. Things got really hard with the Bushwick project." There's something about the look in her eyes, not her usual super chipper self, she's been through the ringer recently.

Her eyes fall to the box for a moment and then back to Bruce, "What do you need to do? Is there anything I can do to help you?" There are two things Nadia practically seems to yearn for in almost any situation, even after being put through the emotional ringer, to understand and to help.

Bruce Banner has posed:
"They might've gotten difficult," he tells her, reaching out to accept the cupcake half and admiring it quietly, "But you got it done. I knew you would. When I saw that work with the school bus, I knew that was just the tip of the iceberg."

Banner taps the side of his head with his free hand, looking at her pointedly: "You've got it here. Where it counts. All the shrinking and growing and fighting the bad guys? You can do that. You'll always have the drive to do that, probably. But you've got the intellect. You can change the world, don't ever think you can't."

He takes a bite out of the cupcake, chewing on it thoughtfully as he looks down at the cardboard box. After a moment he leans to open the top, and inside is one of Braniac's bottled cities. An alien world by the look of it, not a part of those he stole from Earth.

"I - or, more accurately, the Hulk - recovered this from the ship before it went down. He lost it somewhere up in Vermont, but I was able to track it back. I don't have the ... the time to fix it. Find out where it needs to go. But I saw what you did with Bushwick, the school bus? If anyone can help the people in this bottle, it's you."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia puts her face in her hands for a moment, having finished her cupcake. She looks down at the city and back at Bruce.

"Would you be saying that if you knew I hurt a lot of people in Bushwick? Things were working, but the machine was going out of control, I needed to fix it, but I couldn't these mutants invaded the lab, they were trying to steal the machine even as it was about to shake the building apart .and I couldn't get to it to fix it and I hurt a lot of people very badly trying to get to the machine." It's clearly weighing on her a lot. "My Dad says I might be Bi-Polar like him. We're going to get me tested. I just can't get it out of my mind though. What I did to those people. I just couldn't control the anger."

"You didn't answer my question, about what you need to do." she says stepping around the shrunken city in a bottle to attempt to give Dr. Banner a hug, perhaps more for her than for him. "Just little while? Promise you'll be back?"

Bruce Banner has posed:
"I know what that's like," Banner says quietly, ruffling her hair with his free hand as she gives him the hug, "Sometimes the whole world seems like it's conspiring to make you hurt people. Break things. But you need to just make sure you remember that it's you in there, no matter how far and detached you might feel. If you do that, you'll make the right choices."

The question goes unanswered and he shakes his head, taking a bite of the cupcake. The first sweet food he's had in weeks it would seem, and he's grateful for it. He polishes it off without much flourish.

"I can't say how long. I don't know. But it's something I have to do on my own."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia takes a breath as she gives him a squeeze, "Yeah, it's just hard. Dad says medicine should help and Janet wants me to talk to a therapist, apparently she knows some that I'd actually be able to talk to about all of the things I'm not supposed to talk about."

She looks back to the alien city, an actual alien city, of course it is sending her scientific curiousity reeling, before looking back up at Bruce. "Okay if you don't know how long then just promise me you will come back. Promise." She'll let the questions go, but she seems adamant on at least that point.

Bruce Banner has posed:
A weak smile crosses Banner's face, leaning back a little to get a better look at Nadia for a moment. He'd never been all that great with children, even when he was one. But there's an odd similarity there, even if the circumstances and demeanor are so different.

"I promise," he tells her, voice distant for a moment, "I'll come back."

He steps back a little, straightening out his jacket and tucking the brim of his hat down over his face while at the same time pushing those dark glasses back up.

"Look, I'm not going to ask you to lie for me. That's not fair. But if someone does ask you about me, or finds out you spoke to me? I need you to tell them that they need to let me stay gone. What I'm doing is important, but they wouldn't understand, and they can't help."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia gives Dr. Banner a stern yet affectionate look, "You better keep your promise," she taps the side of her head the same way Bruce did to highlight her smarts, "Or I will come find you. I don't have enough friends to be willing to lose any. I'll hack SHIELD and the Avengers' entire Global Sattelite Network and make some sort of You pinpointing scanner, I'll... just come back, please." She will definitely do SOMETHING!

She sighs, perhaps resigned to the fact that despite her burning desire to help this one is out of her hands. "Well, if I can't help any other way, at least take a bag of homemade cupcakes?"

Bruce Banner has posed:
Banner considers it for a moment. His hands in the pockets of his jacket, he peers up and down the street for a moment. He's been running from the authorities long enough to recognize that a nice, suburban area can quickly turn into a warzone when certain people come to call. He breathes a deep sigh, but then puts on another smile, albeit a little worn.

"Sure," he says quietly, moving to pick up the carton and carry it into the house, "Sure, cupcakes sound good."