354/Studying an artifact...

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Studying an artifact...
Date of Scene: 08 March 2020
Location: S.H.I.E.L.D. lab inside Triskelion.
Synopsis: Lara brings a strange artifact to Bruce. The dagger has her baffled as she can't pin down how old it is or whether or not there is anything... supernatural about it. It is a bit outside of Bruce's realm of expertise but he agrees to at least give it a radiocarbon dating so that she might have more info to go on.....
Cast of Characters: Bruce Banner, Lara Croft




Bruce Banner has posed:
    It was late at night. Quite late in fact. It hadn't quite reached the wee hours of morning, but it was late to the point that most of the laboratory staff had gone. It was less than a skeleton crew. Naturally, other operations were taking place in the building so there were people present there... and there were SHIELD agents providing security for the building around the clock.

    The labs, however, were barren. There might be a few researchers and scientists present. But in this particular lab? The lab were most of the research and study went into gamma radiation and its many applications? It was void of life.

    All save for one person. Bruce Banner. One of the leading minds in the world, if not the most outstanding, in the study of gamma radiation. Multiple things were investigated here, and many potential applications of that research were also explored.

    Bruce was off along one of the side walls in the rather large lab, standing by a large computer terminal that had a massive screen and a large control panel. He was inputting some data into the terminal, and occasionally looking up to the display as different results were shown. A few moments would pass, and he would collect a document and start inputting that data into the terminal as well.

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara is new at SHIELD, she was recruited a little over a month ago by Nick Fury himself. There are a lot of mysterious items in this world that are not as fictional as myths might have you believe. SHIELD needed an Agent who could specialize in finding said items, and bringing them here... before they ended up in other's hands. After the events of Lara's first adventure late last year on the island of Yamatai in the heart of the 'Dragon's Triangle', Nick Fury decided she was the Agent for that job that he wanted. She'd single handedly saved the lives of many people who suffered a terrible ship wreck, even though many other lost their lives, Lara fought to keep as many safe as she could. Yamatai has since turned into one of the biggest archaeological sites in human history and is being poured over by many scientists today.

But tonight? Lara is walking through the halls of the Triskelion and being guided from one person to the next, until finally she ends up in the room where Doctor Banner is.

Wearing a navy blue coat with SHIELD patches on her shoulders, a light gray tanktop beneath it with a pair of slim-fit cargo pants and black leather shoes, Lara quietly walks through the lab on her way toward Bruce, not hiding her approach.

"Doctor Banner?" Lara calls out his name, her voice instantly laced with recognizable British flavor. "I'm Lara Croft, and... I've been looking for you for the better part of the last half an hour." She states, offering him a small smile. She's young, early 20s, her dark hair tied back in a pony tail.

Bruce Banner has posed:
    He had heard footsteps. However, despite her attempt to not be stealthy in her approach, Bruce still starts a bit, jerking upright as his name is mentioned and quickly turning about.

    He was clad in what could only be described as a combination of casual and professional. A white lab coat (void of any SHIELD markings) covers his conventional attire. Thin glasses aided and covered his eyes. He turns those glasses down a bit, letting them slide slightly down his nose as he looks over to the freshly recruited SHIELD agent that was approaching.

    "Well congratulations, Agent. You've found me." He cautiosly sets the document in his hand on a small desk-like apparatus attached to the control panel of the terminal he was working on.

    "I suppose introductions aren't necessary... but... I've never been real good at social graces like that anyway." A weak, somewhat awkward grin is offered to her.

    "Pleased to meet you Miss Croft. To... uh... what do I owe the pleasure? Did Fury finally change his mind about letting me have free rein?"

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara stops on the other side of the lab desk that Bruce is stationed and she stands before it, leaving the desk at just her waist height. She places her hands down upon it and in her left is something wrapped in leather and tied off by a simple string. She smiles at his response, and that last question asked as well. "Unlikely." She replies to him. "He seems to be the type who values his reigns to be tightly held within his own grasp." She replies, her accent punctuating every syllable in that perfect way that Londoners do

"I... came to bother you because, well... Well I'm new here, for starters. Somewhat. Only on the job for a single month thus far. I'm with the WAND division, you see, an Acquisitions Agent. I'm an archaeologist, in short. I've come across an item that I'm trying to track the origins of, but it's eluding my expertise. I was hoping you might have a few suggestions on... well... anything related to it?"

Lara glances down at what Bruce was working on. "I can come back another time, however, if you're preoccupied. I don't wish to be a bother..."

Bruce Banner has posed:
    "Oh, trust me. I know Fury. I wasn't asking if he came to give me complete freedom. I was asking if he changed his mind on the amount of freedom I currently have." Another dorky grin is given.

    Bruce raises a hand, giving her a dismissive wave at her mention of potentially bothering him and coming back another time.

    "No, no, no. I suspect there's a reason you came to me. My, uh... my specialty is in the realm of physics, biology, and engineering, but..." He casts a quick glance over her for a moment... and then his glance trails down her arm to the leatherbound item in her left hand.

    "I wouldn't mind a quick diversion. I would be happy to take a look at whatever it is that's troubling you." He approaches the table, letting his hand reach out across the table - not quite being able to reach her end of it fully, which would require her to hand the item to him.

    "What is it? Where did you find it?"

Lara Croft has posed:
Lara doesn't know he's a member of the Avengers. She knows OF the Avengers, but the only members she could name off the top of her head were Thor (obviously, she knows all about the lore behind him) and Tony Stark, because well... he gets a lot of Press. She also has /no/ idea that he's the Hulk. She definitely knows of the Hulk though, the whole world does. But... Lara is not much of a 'super hero' fanatic, her mind had always been in other places as a youth.

She smiles to him when he accepts her company and when she reaches for the item she leans forward a little to meet his reach and let him take it from her hand. When he does so, he'll be able to unravel the string and pull the leather open to find an ornate ceremonial dagger. Carved with strange runes, adorned with what look like ruby's at first, and otherwise crafted from a strange dark silver and scuffed bronze. "Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. It was recovered in the hands of a practitioner of dark magic, and we're attempting to track down where his origins might lie. I believe it's from Eastern Europe based on the etchings, but they're a unique language, unnamed and not in any of our databases. Though I believe I've translated some of it... Its still quite the mysterious little ornament."

Bruce Banner has posed:
    Bruce certainly found himself enchanted by the combination of her accent and the charm of her lovely smile. It forces the man to give a smile in return, although his looks far less dazzling by comparison and simply hints at a complete lack of social practice.

    He undoes the leather binding around that dagger and starts to inspect it more closely. At first he seems to be taken by the gems, or at least what looks like them.

    "Well, I am certainly no geologist, but..." He reaches over to grab what looks to be a weird handheld microscrope, holding it up to inspect parts of the dagger.

    "This gem... looks like a ruby. All of them do. Only..." He shifts a bit, looking around. "These...aren't rubies." He puts the microscope down then, scratching his chin.

    ".... dark magic?" He casts a curious glance up to her at that. As a scientist, any mention of the word magic around him already puts his mind in a state of skepticism. His gaze lingers on her for a moment.

    "Eastern Europe, huh?" He looks back down to the dagger. "The uh... markings on this thing. Engravings. I feel like I've seen these markings before somewhere but I can't fathom where exactly." He turns the dagger over a bit, continuing to inspect it.

Lara Croft has posed:
As Bruce starts to investigate the dagger, Lara takes the initiative to start to walk around the lab table on her left side, coming around now to Bruce's right as he looks at the item with the microscope. "I believed it to be a dagger from the Ottoman Empire, the circles on the handle are of their design, but the cross-guard is older in style, and certainly not Ottoman, nor are those... yes, the red gems."

Bruce will see light sparkling inside of the gems with the microscope, a tool Lara has not employed on it as of yet. She hasn't seen the dagger in low light yet either, so she hasn't seen that the gems glow bright in the dark. "Our magic experts claim that there are no active spells upon the dagger and the engraving upon its blade does not seem to be a magical phrase."

Standing now at Bruce's side, Lara smiles softly to him. "I'm sorry, I know most of this is outside of your field of expertise. But truly, I was hoping you could at least... date the materials. Radiocarbon process, it could help narrow down my search, if nothing else."

Bruce Banner has posed:
    Bruce continues to inspect the dagger closely. He runs a finger softly along the blade's edge - enough to put pressure but not to the point where he might cut himself. His finger traces the edge of the blade on one side, over the tip, and then down the other side, as if looking for some further anomaly.

    "No, it's fine. Like I said..." He looks quickly to her at his side.

    "Quick diversion and all that."

    He looks back to the dagger. "Radiocarbon? Alright. I could do that. Might take a while though...." He moves over to a rather large and rather technical looking machine that was at the other end of the lab. He pushes a few buttons on the machines control panel and it starts to hum.

    "I will put it in here. That should get you the information you need. Takes a minute for the machine to start up and prepare the procedure, but... it sure beats doing it the old fashioned way." Another weak grin is given as his eyes look her over curiously. He moves about, collecting a few small items: a tray, some pieces of cloth, and a few small vials. He sits it all down on a small table near the machine before bringing the dagger back up to look at it more closely. This time, with the naked eye. "There was something about these gems that is... odd. I could swear they were.... glowing. They shouldn't be. There's no natural elements on this planet that, to my knowledge, would glow in such a way..."

    He pauses, and turns to look over his shoulder at her.

    "I hope you have a few hours."

Lara Croft has posed:
When Bruce stands and walks to the other side of the lab where the machine is located, Lara turns to trail after him though at a slower pace as she's just letting him doing his thing in his own turf here. She narrows her eyes a bit though when he speaks of the ruby's emitting a 'glow'. "That sounds like a magical property then, it must still be active." She releases a light sigh and comes to just lean her left hip against one of the tables, placing her left hand atop it as well while he gets the process going.

"I think this little weapon is going to prove to be a larger thorn in my side than I'd anticipated when I took this case on. Though it is a dagger, maybe I should've expected it to do such a thing." She states, the joke a questionable one in quality, but made none the less.

"Thank you for the time spent on this, I'll certainly leave if you would like your privacy. You can text me when it's ready for me to come back." She pulls out her phone to get her number for him. "Or, if you'd like, we could order some Chinese food and wait?" She offers a larger smile then. Truth be told, Lara's been trying to open up to some of the other SHIELD agents and employees, she was known as a bit of a recluse in college and she didn't want to gain that reputation here in her first big career-aligned job!

"If... they deliver down here." She adds awkwardly. "In the bowels of this mighty temple."