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The pitfalls and trials of two super heroes dating could very well be the next National Lampoon film; it would have been slap-stick comedy and utterly hilarious if it weren’t her life. Alison Blaire had to admit, when it came to a love life, her day job got in the way. Unlike last time with poor Johnny Ito, at least Bruce understood. Of course, the imaginative amount of cursing that came from Dazzler’s lips made the Avenger raise his dark brows, impressed.
They had been out in the park, walking. Strolling, really, at an actual leisurely pace. That in and of itself was a rare treat for both of them, but for different reasons. Bruce hadn’t strolled since before his experimentation with the super soldier serum, and Alison hadn’t felt comfortable enough with a person to actually talk beyond superficial phrases in longer than she cared to admit.
“I haven’t been on a merry-go-round since I was in elementary school, but I still love ‘em,” she remarked, nodding to the old wooden merry-go-round that had somehow not been destroyed when the Chitauri attacked, though Doc Ock had done his damnedest a few months prior when Central Park became his own personal playground.
“You wanted a pony growing up, didn’t you?” Bruce stretched his arms over his head, fingers spread and utterly accepting of any playful smack he would get from this.
“A pony? No, I wanted tape recorder… attached to a pony. Or a unicorn, I wasn’t a picky child,” Alison said with a straight face up until she couldn’t help it and dissolved into a sort of laugh that was laid back and comfortable. As was the arm that Bruce laid across her shoulders, and the way she leaned in to him. It was when they were leaning in for a kiss that Alison’s X-Link went off.
“Dazzler? Report to the Mansion, please; it’s urgent,” the text flashed bright green and all but screamed the words. Alison swore a blue streak.
“…Goddammit—what the ever loving hell! Scott, you have the worst timing, I swear to God….” Bruce and Alison both looked at the communicator.
“To be continued?” Bruce asked; she had to leave, it was inevitable. In fact, he was sure a call from Captain America would soon follow so they could monitor the situation abroad, assist if needed (though to date, they never had).
“Oh yes, to be continued. And when I find Jason Wyngarde, I’m going to ram my boot down his throat.”
If he were lucky, that would be the only place Mastermind found Dazzler’s boot.
****
The second time, it was a lunch date that got ruined, something over at the Avenger Tower; a few spare hours grabbed from the school, a few hours in between debriefing. It was Loki, after the Casket of Endless Winters. It sounded like a rejected Harry Potter title, which is what Alison told Bruce, earning a snort and a chuckle over his already tightening expression. “Time for the Other Guy to make his appearance,” he said, folding his glasses and grabbing his own communicator. He seemed tense, almost instantly, though Bruce was adept at playing it off.
“Hey, no worries. Call me when you get back, okay? I’ll be up,” Alison said, wrapping the mostly untouched remnants of lunch, packing her portion and Bruce’s for when he got back. He’d be starving after the Avengers were finished.
Later, even Tony would remark to Cap about the beating Loki took from the Hulk and how satisfied Bruce looked under his fatigue. It was close to 2 am when the job was done, but true to her word, Alison was up, awake, and answered Bruce’s call on the first ring. By the time they hung up, the sky was starting to lighten and both were exhausted, but feeling that giddiness that neither had felt since their teenage years.
****
The third time, it was Sentinels. Looming, flying, death machines that Alison had confessed to Bruce she still had nightmares over. You’d be hard pressed to find a mutant not terrified of them, deep down. It was a PR gala of sorts at the Museum of Metropolitan Art; representatives from various groups, some more liberal than others, had volleyed together to do a number of things. Mostly to put on a good face and stir up funding, or appease to the masses that neither the Avengers nor the X-Men were here to destroy the world.
Operation Zero Tolerance, that was the newest and greatest in ways to hunt mutants and was gaining popularity among the populace. It’s twisted words and double meanings made it seem so safe and helpful for all, though most who had been through this sort of thing knew what it really meant. The trick was convincing other people. And while Alison smiled and pulled out the full charm for anyone who crossed their paths, her hand around Bruce’s arm was clenched. This was not a mere date, this was business mixed with pleasure. This was a “smile and hope and pray it went well” type of an evening.
Though it was not forefront on anyone’s mind (the looming threat of Operation Zero Tolerance was just a tad more important than teammates’ love lives), it made things easier knowing that both teams about them knew and no one seemed to object. At least, no one had spoken against it, and neither team held shrinking violets when it came to voicing objections. To Alison’s knowledge, Steve Rogers hadn’t actually said anything in regards to the budding relationship, simply squeezing Bruce’s shoulder and giving Alison a nod. “Ma’am, it’s nice to see you again.”
“Thank you, Captain, you too.” Alison beamed, tiny lights pinging off of walls and corners, dissipating into nothingness. She relaxed her grip on Bruce’s arm when a waiter handed her a glass of champagne she did not drink and one of the investors asked her for an autograph for his wife and son, right after asking Bruce for his.
It was going remarkably well, nearly 'swimmingly-- until the shower of glass and chunks of marble, wood, and plaster came raining down on Avenger, X-Man, and civilian alike.
“Christ!” Alison yelped, ducking, feeling Bruce hunching over her protectively. It was Bruce Banner who first curled over her to protect her from the debris, but it was the Hulk who rose up. He roared, dulling Captain America’s call for the Avengers to assemble and Scott’s shout for the X-Men to get ready. Natasha Romanov had already pulled out a firearm from God-knew-where in the slinky blue gown she was wearing, and later on, no one could figure out where she’d been keeping it between dancing with Agent Coulson and Clint.
There had been no time for warning and Alison dimly heard the sound of glass crunching under her heels as she lifted her arms, creating a force field of hard light around civilians, protecting them from yet more shrapnel and whirling beams from the monstrous machine. To her right, she saw Hawkeye cocking an arrow whose light dimly blinked violet, exploding chunks out of the dense metal, and to her left, the Hulk, banging his huge fists and ripping parts out of the Sentinel without any hesitation.
Alison had seen him-- the 'Other Guy'-- only a handful of times, and had there not been more pressing matters (such as getting innocent bystanders out of the way), she would have joined in the current fray.
As Cyclops shouted out formation, Dazzler (even without her uniform on, she was Dazzler now) fell into place, and by the time they were done, two Sentinels were out of commission, the museum front was destroyed, and several people were taken to the hospital. But no one had died. It was a success….
…For the most part.
Bruce, as soon as the Hulk receded, had beat a hasty, exhausted retreat. Even after the last of the civilians had been taken care of, Alison had no idea where to start looking for him. Things had been more pressing for the both of them between large death-robots and innocent bystanders to protect. He didn’t want to be found, as it turned out, much to Alison’s inner dismay. The night had passed, the sky resolutely dark and hard like smudged charcoal, and when the groups reconvened, Bruce was not among them. It was Tony’s voice, piping through the linked system to Cap and Black Widow, letting them know their teammate was with him and fine, save for some bruises.
“Big guy and I are headed back to the Tower. Labwork on some Sentinel pieces I snagged.”
Scott opened his mouth to protest, or ask for first dibs on reports. This was an issue that impacted mutants and civilians, after all, and he’d like Hank McCoy to at least be there in the lab as consultant….
Between the clash of voices, Alison couldn’t help but feel childish to lament the abrupt end and disappearance of her date, and kept her mouth shut. The bigger picture here were Sentinel attacks, property damage, and the dread in her chest rose. Questions proceeded to run through her mind: who was funding them now, where were they located, how long until someone died. And so on. The conversation had switched to possible missions to Ecuador, where the last known Sentinel base had been, or possibly closer to home in Maine. Back and forth, and back and forth between Avengers and X-Men until it ended in stalemate, Scott muttering about billionaire assholes who think they own the world and everything in it, including Sentinels. Alison turned to leave, nodding her thanks as she began to walk with the others, only to pause as she felt a hand on a bare shoulder. Half-pivoting, Alison stumbled to come face to face with the Black Widow.
“Give him some time,” was the only thing the redhead murmured before walking off to join her team, leaving Alison to hers.
****
The fourth time Bruce and Alison met up together, it was two weeks after the Sentinels made their reappearance, half to public outcry, half to approval. The factory, it turned out, had been in Canada, outside of Montreal. Had been, past tense. Declared illegal by both Canadian Mounties and Alpha Flight, the X-Men had relished utterly leveling the entire base to the very ground. By the time the X-Men returned and things settled down, Bruce called and Alison readily agreed to meet him outside of Westchester.
“Please don’t run,” she said, like she had been thinking this possibility over as though it were already a truth.
“I won’t.” Bruce raked his hands though his hair. “Ali, I’m sorry, it’s a control thing.”
“I understand,” Alison started, even as Bruce raised a single eyebrow at her again, like he had during their first date. “Okay, not that I understand it because I’ve dealt with it. I haven’t. But… I can understand where you’re coming from. It’s a privacy thing.”
The scientist nodded. “In a way, yeah.” It was more than that, it was shame and anger mixed in one, it was how he felt knowing that part of him would always be this entity that was, in short, a monster. And people could say how much they loved a man who picked up the pieces, but when face to face with the living, panting, sweating thing that could break tanks and uproot trees…. It was different. It wasn’t like it was in books and romantic movies where love healed the broken parts. They were still there.
It was a quick outing; they didn’t say much. No mission came up during this ‘date’, no villain ruined it. They didn’t have to; the two heroes had done a fair job of that themselves.
But when Alison squeezed Bruce’s hand, he squeezed back.
****
The streak of bad luck ended after the fifth time, when Alison came back after visiting hours and nestled next to Bruce in in his cot in the medbay. Emil Blonsky, now safely ensconced in the deeper prisons at SHIELD, was to thank for that. As it turned out, the Hulk could take a significant amount of electricity and radiation from a gamma particle emission generating device (say that five times fast), enough to weaken the Abomination. But enough to land Bruce-the-mortal-man in, as Tony Stark put it, an all-expense paid trip the finest medical facility SHIELD money could buy.
It was Natasha who called Alison, discreetly telling the X-Man where the facility was and how to get there. Visiting hours were from 10 am to 8 pm, so of course the blonde slipped in the room at quarter after 9.
“Dare I ask how you managed this?” Bruce sat up in the surprisingly comfortable medical bed, adjusting the various monitors and nodes tracking how well his body was repairing itself form the dose of, in Tony’s words, “jungle juice from hell” delivered from the shocking blow of a rather handy but deadly machine.
“A little razzle-dazzle,” she calmly replied, utterly flippant and casual, despite the catch in her voice Bruce could hear, the type of falter that told him how cavalier she was exactly not feeling. “And,” Alison amended, “Natasha likes me enough to tell me how to sneak in after hours.”
“Remind me to thank her when I get out.”
“I can do that.” Alison sat on the edge of the bed, waiting until Bruce was situated enough to unfurl her body next to his, slipping her arms where there were no prods or nodes. For a few long, languid moments, it was only the soft sound of the machines beeping and their breathing that held any banter. Her arms were as tight around him as they had been during the ruined gala at the MoMA weeks ago.
“Ali—” Bruce started, a hand in her hair.
“It’s okay,” she hurried to speak, not moving her head from its current position of staring at his chest. “S’hazard of the profession. Like broken bones or riots or new enemies dogging our steps.”
“I’ll be fine; this is mostly so Fury can see how long it takes me and the Other Guy to heal up.”
“I know.”
“It wasn’t all that bad, really. I mean, I can think of better ways to spend the afternoon, but a few days off from work and all.”
She chuckled, wetly, nodding. “Ha. Amen to that.” Alison had hoped that her years of stage-work would have helped her better to hide the thickness in her voice, the tightening in her voice. But, no.
“But…?”
“But. Radiation, Bruce?” Now she looked, her face dry but her forehead wrinkled in worry.
“Ali, you’ve faced this sort of thing—this and way more—in your term as an X-Man,” Bruce pointed out, moving a hand to her cheeks. He touched her like she was something precious, something Alison could never figure out why.
“The others, sure. Space, Brood attacks, fire, guns. But this is different.” Because Alison hadn’t been there and the scary reality of their lives had reared its many grimacing heads. “And things were left so weird between us. I didn’t want it to—and I heard radiation and Blonksy and I thought--.” She cut herself off. They were both thinking it.
Among the pitfalls and trials of two super heroes dating, death was never far behind.
They fell quiet, mostly because Bruce chose that moment to kiss her, soft and with a gentle heat behind it. The kind that made them both wish they weren’t currently in a hospital.
When the real conversation lulled, Alison dug out her iPod so they could listen to a podcast that was, as she promised, a mix of NPR and the X-Files.
“I suppose,” she murmured after a couple of episodes, keeping her voice down, “it could be worse; we could live in that place. We’d never get any down-time then.”
“Maybe not, but I absolutely would want to see a levitating cat in the men’s room,” Bruce murmured back, kissing her shoulder.
“Ugh, no way, not even for a visit. You and Tony and ‘Perfect Carlos’? The Three Musketeers of Science; I’d never see you.”
“Well if you’d just come down to the radiating canyon with us….”
****
The sixth date that was interrupted, it was some scientific data that had to be analyzed, so quickly it would have been better to do it yesterday before it was even discovered to have been in Loki’s possession (whatever it was). Bruce and Alison had tried to meet again at the Avenger Tower, Bruce freshly released from medical and dressed in comfortable clothing, content on watching a bad movie with CGI sharks.
Steve had come in to the room, already shifting in to Captain America mode and voice, catching the two in mid-kiss, shoddy acting and special effects quite forgotten.
“Sorry to barge in, but Bruce, how long until you can get some data on the tomes we found on Loki? The link between him and Blonsky’s faint, but Coulson’s fairly sure they’re in cahoots.”
Alison took two steps forward from where she had been sitting with Bruce and put her hands over Steve’s cheeks, cupping his face like she’d known him forever. She hadn’t, and it showed in the way he startled and took a half step back.
“Ma’am?”
“I know you don’t really know me, and you owe me nothing. I know you’re leader here and your word is law, but if you could please, please assign a different Avenger, just for this once, I will assist in any way I can with the next Avenger PR raffle or rally or… whatever you need. But please, please, let Tony handle this need-filled-by-a-genius?”
Steve looked at Bruce over Alison’s shoulder, catching the look of amusement written all over the scientist’s face. The three of them knew, of course, that that couldn’t happen (but it had been worth a shot). “I’m sorry, ma’am, I really am. But we need all hands on deck for this.”
“Yeah,” Alison said with a sigh, stepping back. “But I had to give it a try.”
“I understand,” Steve said, smiling a little.
Bruce stood, kissing Alison like he had at the hospital room. This was different from the very beginning; it felt more substantial, as though they had been playing house the first few times, only to discover they were actually adults now. This was more solid; they were more solid.
“Wait for me. I’ll be back.”
“I’ll be here.”