Chapter Text
It had been a few days since Bruce came aboard the Hail Mary. The astrophage situation was getting closer and closer to being solved, or at least that's what Grace liked to say. Bruce was sitting at the lab table, hunched over a computer, diligently reading the screens. Ilyukhina’s uniform hung off his small frame. It was the only uniform that didn’t entirely swallow him in fabric
Grace hunched over his own notes, papers strewn everywhere around him as he sat on the floor. He hummed a soft tune as he worked. He glanced up at Bruce and watched the man work for a bit. Grace had vague memories about the guy that grew stronger the longer Bruce stayed. Grace chewed on his pen. “We should get to know each other. Since uh, we’ll be spending a lot of time together now.”
Bruce didn’t respond and kept working. The good old “if you ignore it, it’ll go away” method. Grace however was not going away any time soon.
“So… What’s your favorite color?” Grace asked, mindlessly scribbling now just to look busy to Bruce. He knew the question and the questions to come were a bit elementary but they were good ice-breaker questions for a reason darn it!
Bruce ignored Grace for a while before sighing quietly and muttering something to himself. “I don’t know. Yellow I guess.”
Grace bit down on his lip to hold the snicker he felt brewing. Here’s this big intimidating guy who held a ravenous beast that could crush cities in a matter of minutes inside him sitting in front of Ryland and his favorite color was yellow? “Any secret hobbies? Like uh… I don’t know knitting?”
“I used to read a bunch of science magazines. Don’t have time for hobbies anymore.” Bruce grumbled as he worked.
“What did you do before uh- Hulk came around?”
Bruce was quiet for a bit, typing away. “I was a military weapons scientist.” He said after a while.
Grace winced slightly at that. Bruce seemed like such a smart man, wasting his talent for violence. “Right, what kind of things did you make?”
“Radiation bombs.”
“Did you uh enjoy that?” Ryland asked hesitantly.
“Not particularly.”
Ryland let out a quiet sigh of relief at that.
“And your family? You must miss them right?”
“No. Dad was a drunken monster who beat me and murdered my mother.”
Grace quieted down and just went back to work. The reports didn’t really mention that stuff. Grace remembered seeing Bruce in the papers a lot when he was still in academia. The “Leading Radiation Expert of the Century” they would call him. His research on gamma was truly extraordinary. Heck, the man had 7 PhDs for God’s sake! Bruce Banner was a genius in Grace’s book.
But after a bit Bruce’s name stopped popping up and the Hulk replaced it. He remembered seeing the news of the first sighting of the “Jade Giant” once. The press documented every destroyed town, death, and theory during the Hulk’s first years until they just couldn’t keep up. Destruction was the Hulk’s calling card and it took years before Bruce’s name was officially tied to the beast.
Grace put those thoughts aside for now. They needed to focus on saving Earth. Rocky scampered around on his side of the xenonite, tinkering with his own little device. Grace looked over to the wall and watched Rocky curiously. “Whatcha got there, Rock?”
“Make device to read human device screens. Makes screen texture. Rocky read texture, Rocky read data.” Rocky began tinkering with his device once more.
Bruce looked up and watched the two chat for a bit. “Is it a scientist too?” He questioned.
Grace gasped. “Rocky isn’t an it!” He raised his voice, slightly offended. “Rocky is as intelligent as we are and you should treat him with some respect.” Grace huffed.
“So is he a scientist?” Bruce replied snarkily.
“No. He’s an engineer. Makes things that we can use for the mission. He’s an incredible engineer actually!” Grace was about to go on when Bruce interrupted.
“That’s very fascinating, but we should really get some progress in before we start asking him for any tools. Make sure we have a plan with data to back us up.” Bruce typed away, doing whatever calculations he did.
Grace sighed before nodding. “Yeah yeah, we’re working as fast as we can.”
“Well, it’s not fast enough.”
Grace pouted and went back to his papers, angrily scribbling. “You’re just like Stratt.” Grace mumbled.
“Who?”
Grace paused in his work when he noticed Bruce’s hands had stilled. “Uh… Stratt. Eva Stratt. She’s- She was the top dog of Project Hail Mary. Real bossy lady who wanted results fast no matter the cost. You remind me of her a bit.” Grace fiddled with his pen. “I wonder what she’s doing now…” He mumbled to himself.
Bruce said nothing and resumed his typing.
“Grace help Rocky get ball, question?” Rocky chirped after a bit. “Want to test device on Banner’s data.”
“Yeah, sure bud.” Grace uncrossed his legs, did a little stretch, then went over to the airlock in the xenonite wall. He watched the airlock cycle through before Rocky climbed into his ball and detached himself from its station. He rolled over to Bruce’s chair and rammed into it.
“Hey! Watch it!” Bruce hissed.
“Give laptop!” Rocky demanded.
“I’m working on something important you know.” Bruce furrowed his brow.
Grace watched the two bicker for a bit before he took Bruce’s laptop and set it on the floor so Rocky could aim his device at it. “Thank,” Rocky said as he read his device’s screens. “Device work good good. Can hear many ‘color’ of screen.” Rocky stared at the device for a bit before trilling up at Grace. “Grace check data, question?”
“Uh no not yet, bud. But Banner is a smart man, I’m sure-“
“Grace check!” Rocky shrieked. “Banner could be setting trick! Hurt Grace!”
Bruce clenched his fist in his lap. “Listen. I’m only here to help you find a solution. Billions of lives are at stake and I won’t stand by and watch them die!” Bruce’s chest sharply rose and fell. He took a deep breath to still himself. “It’s the least I can do for all the damage I’ve done.”
“You mean the hulk?” Grace asked quietly.
Bruce just glared.
Grace frowned slightly. His watch beeped and he winced when he saw the numbers light the screen. “Ah- It’s been…. 43 hours since we’ve last slept.” He thought for a moment. “You can sleep first, Bruce. I still wanna double check my work before I hit the hay.”
Rocky stomped his foot. “Rocky watch. Rocky watch Banner closely.” His octaves were low whenever he talked about Bruce, Grace noticed. He still didn’t think too fondly of him. For good reason he knew, but still.
Bruce tensed up. “What?”
Grace noticed how Bruce seemed to get paranoid again and he quickly spoke up. “It’s a part of Rocky’s culture to watch each other sleep! They do it for the sleeping eridians' protection from outside-“
“No one is watching me sleep!” Bruce snapped. Bruce got up from his seat, tucked the laptop underneath his arm, and stormed off.
Grace watched him until Bruce turned a corner and was out of sight. He sighed heavily and turned over to an already pacing Rocky. “We’ll check in on him in a bit alright? Let him fall asleep first.”
“Rocky don’t trust Banner. Banner hurt Grace. Could sabotage mission.” Rocky thrummed.
“I don’t think he’ll do that, Rock. He seems… I don’t know.” Grace sighed. “Let’s just get back to work, we’ll check in after I promise.”
Rocky paced a little more before he rolled over to Grace and curled in. He tinkered on something beside Grace.
—-
After around an hour, Grace tapped his pencil on his papers. He stretched and then stood up. “Alright, Rocky. Let's go find-“
“In window room,” Rocky said immediately.
“Oh right. You probably knew that this whole time, huh?”
“Yes.”
The two walked off and found Bruce by the main big window, huddled up asleep. He had his knees to his chest and his arms loosely wrapped around his legs. The laptop was open in front of him, though Grace could tell sleep took over because of the random letters typed at the end. Grace looked over him. Bruce looked so frail in Ilyukhina’s old uniform. He sat in front of Bruce and laid out his work, Rocky did the same as he huddled near him.
Grace sighed and he started writing out some calculations. As he and Rocky worked, Bruce slightly tossed and turned in his sleep, muttering things to himself. Grace looked up to watch Bruce and he vaguely wondered if he was dreaming about Earth. Grace watched for a moment and as Bruce’s hands tightened around his legs and his knuckles turned a faint green, Grace tensed.
Rocky shuffled a bit in his ball, unsure why Grace was freaking out. “What’s wrong, question???”
“I’ll explain later! Just- hold on!” Grace quickly scrambled over to Bruce, unsure how to deal with this. The ship couldn’t afford a Hulk wandering around. He quickly put his hand on top of Bruce’s and tried to gently shake him awake. Bruce woke suddenly. Grace couldn’t tell before with Bruce’s face in his knees, but Bruce was sweating a bit.
Bruce wiped his brow and looked around. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
“No no! It’s just-“ Grace went quiet, unsure if he should say anything. “It’s just that I wanted to ask you to check my work.”
Bruce sighed and grumbled a bit. “You woke me up to show me your work?”
Grace nodded and didn’t ask about the annoyance on Bruce’s face as they started working once more. Bruce’s eyes moved across the pages, his pencil making slight tweaks every once in a while. “Some of these mistakes are a bit juvenile. Are you tired? You sure you’re in the right headspace to be working?”
“What?!” Grace’s face reddened and he snatched the paper away and read over Bruce’s tweaks. He had to admit his mistakes were a bit stupid, but Bruce hadn’t shared any of his work yet! “Okay well, can I see yours?”
“I already checked my work about 3 times, I think I’m all good.”
“Ego much?” Rocky trilled, putting the words Grace taught him to good use.
Bruce soured at that. “I don’t have an ego! Besides, I’m just saying that I don’t need to be checked. I’m pretty sure I know what I’m doing more than the guy with amnesia.” He jabbed a finger at Grace.
“Grace Rocky been here many months. Much progress. Banner only here a few days. No Progress. No boss of Grace Rocky.” Rocky stamped his foot. “Banner think because Banner a strong science human, can toss Grace around!”
“I’m not-“ Bruce sighed heavily. He pushed his laptop into Grace’s chest and stared. “Go on.”
Grace blinked then he looked down at the laptop and started looking through it. He made his own tweaks to Bruce’s work, making slight faces as he did so. Bruce was a bit confused at the face. “What? What is it?”
“Oh, it’s nothing! It’s just- oh eugh… that's not-“ Grace typed away all his corrections. “Ooh.. hmm, I mean it’s something,” Grace said with a nervous smile.
“What?!” Bruce snapped, his cheeks turning a slight pink. They played tug of war with the laptop for a bit until Bruce was the eventual winner. He frantically looked over Grace’s critiques.
“It’s just that you’re using a different formula than me. Sure it’s technically the more advanced one, but it’s also the incorrect formula for what we need, see?” He pointed to a Kepler’s 3rd law equation that he had fixed up. “Did you take any astronomy classes by any chance?”
“Just in highschool…” Bruce mumbled a bit sheepish.
“Ah, I see! Well, I can teach you. I took a few classes alongside physics. You took physics though right?”
When Bruce nodded, Grace went on about astronomy formulas and the different formulas they needed to be working with for the mission. Bruce sat quietly, viciously taking notes. He nodded, asked questions, and said the occasional “right”, “mhm”, “yeah”. Bruce wouldn’t say it out loud, but he had to admit Grace was a pretty good teacher.