I'll still these nervous feet and heart of stone

[riches]

When: Middayish.
Rating: PG
Characters: Asami and Bruce.
Summary: Bored to tears with nothing to do but fix up cars, Asami wants to revamp her education. Luckily, she finds an obliging tutor in Dr. Banner.
Log: 

[ After receiving an eagerly-awaited call from Bruce to meet up for her first prepping on some of the subjects she's been diligently trying to understand the last couple of weeks, Asami gathers up her new notebook and checks she has enough filters for a decent fountain pen before heading to the specified meeting point. It's a nice day, the weather shining on a new sundress where she sits under the shadow of an outdoor table's umbrella at the cafe, sunshine warming her bare arms as they rest against a trio of library books on physics. Requesting help from Bruce had always seemed like a long shot. He was from a different world and had a new life to deal with here, it wouldn't haven been surprising if he had turned her down and yet quite the opposite had happened, despite him going away for a break. He's affable and clever, good at making her feel like she isn't being a nuisance and that she can really learn from whatever he has to teach. Neither is he too old not to capture her interest otherwise, bright eyes and a hesitant smile holding her attention in a way only a handsome man can of an eighteen-year-old; it's a lovely bonus.

It's strange living with her friends when they aren't preparing either for civil unrest or back at Sato mansion. As much as she loves hanging out with them, she's a girl who grew up with a million things at her disposal to do if ever she found herself bored. Here, in this new city with so much enriching knowledge on offer, Asami finds herself giddy with the possibilities of furthering the studies put on hold by Amon's revolution. She hasn't mentioned her trips to the library in great detail to anyone, seen to be more bookish but never asked directly why; and is it so surprising when Mako is in such close proximity to Korra? A bitter part of the heiress refuses to include him on principle until her boyfriend shows some small degree of curiosity in her new studies.

It's a breath of fresh air to get out of the Avatar 2.0 household and do something solely for herself, leaving behind a fuss of emotions she can't be bothered stressing out over. Not today. Today will be a good one, she's sure.

The first few pages of her notes start off neatly enough, arrowed and underlined. They gradually descend into a confused bunch of cramped scribbles, so it's on a fresh page that she spends her time doodling with a smile playing on her lips. One might say she gets a little too into colouring in Bruce's fancy Science Shoes, chinning a hand. ] 
 

Comments

[hulkbusted]

That's good, because I'm about as good at handling crying women as the next guy.

[In other words, not really, but at least working as a doctor has reduced the amount of flailing over tears.]

It's not even opposing, really. We're just in different situations.

[riches]

I swear I won't cry unless I'm undergoing some awful, inconsolable horror. You can relax.

[ Briefly rolling her eyes, she folds her arms and leans forward. ]

Tell me about the place you're in right now, if it's alright to ask you about it. I'm curious.

[hulkbusted]

The gherkin? [He flashes another smile and toys with his napkin.] Someone called the City Solutions building the gherkin and it's stuck with me.

What do you want me to tell you about it? It has all the scientific equipment of my dreams and I have an apartment there.

[riches]

[ Snorting at the name, she flicks her hair to one side. ]

I don't know! It's interesting hearing people talk about themselves. What kind of experiments do you do in your dreamy lab over there?

[hulkbusted]

Dreamy? [There's an amused huff through his nose.] I guess I asked for that.

I've been working on monitoring this microverse of ours. At this point I'm just in the data collection stage, but it gives me something to do other than look for some bars to rattle between "curse" days. [He says "curse" with a certain distaste, not liking the magical implication of the label.]

[riches]

Have you found anything out? [ Giving a shrug to the less than enthralled tone he employs when the curses are mentioned. ] There's got to be some way of avoiding the events that keep periodically taking place.

[hulkbusted]

Nothing really. The temperature and background radiation changes aren't really a surprise. My first goal is an early warning system. If I can at least get the warning out before midnight, people can prepare themselves for the next day, but I'm not there yet, either.

[riches]

You'd be considered a hero even if you could manage just that much.

[hulkbusted]

Like I said, it gives me something to do.

There are people here from my world - or at least close analogs - but we aren't really the types to be a close-knit bunch.

[riches]

Why not? You're still friends, aren't you?

[hulkbusted]

Mostly we were just colleagues to start with, and the one person in the bunch I thought would be my friend is from a time before he'd even met me. It makes things a little weird.

[riches]

He's still your friend, though. Whether he knows it or not.

[hulkbusted]

It's okay, you don't have to reassure me. [He tries not to dwell on it. Dwelling on things that have the potential to piss him off like losing a friend to the City's whims is counterproductive.]

[riches]

I'm sort of trying not to impress too much of anything on you. [ With an honest shrug. ] Not that I really think I could.

[hulkbusted]

I think what we can take away from this is that the City likes to give with one hand and take away with the other. On the plus side, I've met some very interesting people.

[riches]

That isn't quite what I meant, but let's go with it.

[hulkbusted]

Why don't we redirect this to you. [He takes an ostentatious sip from his cup.] All this talking about myself is leaving me dry.

[riches]

No, but I'm interested in you. [ Fnnargh, fussing with her hair to smooth it down as she shakes her head. ] There's nothing really to say about myself.

[hulkbusted]

My world isn't in the middle of a revolution (not the entire world at least). What made you side with the benders?

[riches]

I was hardly about to side with my father and the Equalists. Even if I hadn't known Korra and the others, it's still wrong to force people to be something they're not. Which ... sounds so dumb and idealistic, but do you know what I mean?

Siding with the benders was the right thing to do.

[hulkbusted]

Yeah, I do, but it can't have been easy. Especially if your own father is on the other side.

[riches]

Well ...

[ Oh, her drink has gone cold. Mm. Now she actually has to use the awkward pause to think of something that isn't depressing to say, or to at least answer him properly. She opts for the latter, not entirely skilled at lying convincingly on such short notice. ]

It wasn't easy. My mother was killed by a firebender, so dad's bias against them started there. I think.

[hulkbusted]

[He can't help but wince sympathetically.]

Yeah, I can see how that would happen. I'm sorry that happened to your family. It takes a lot of strength to rise above the anger that can come out of that kind of loss.

[He's not going to share his own lost mother story, but he knows how it feels, and he knows the anger.]

[riches]

I can talk about it without getting upset, as sad as it is. Thanks, Bruce.

[ Glancing around the street beyond the open cafe, she sighs and watches people milling back and forth, letting her attention slide back to him. ]

Family is who you love, so my own is still a nice size these days. I'm lucky to have the friends I do, before them I was usually on my own.

[hulkbusted]

Yeah. [He says it slowly, because by her definition, his only family is a woman who he hopes has moved on from him, in a world well out of his reach for now.

Then he draws a deep breath and shakes it out like he has many times before.]

Okay, this has gone far afield from physics.