tushanshu_logs

Funny thing about having a badly broken leg, one hell of an infection, a fever, a couple of surgeries and lingering nightmares about systematic asphyxiation. You end up with a lot of time on your hands that you try desperately to fill with whatever won't make your nights bleed together with old traumas and fresh wounds.

He throws himself at whatever he can. Wherever he can. As often as he can, and Bruce? Bruce is so on his list. Jim packs a lunch (grimly) and crawls into a functional shirt (also grimly) and heads for the lab (slightly less grimly, there are things he tries to check at the door).

Walking without the aid of a cane is still kind of a novelty to him, after Korra's impromptu healing, and Bones... arrival. He's still not sure what to make of that. Bones. Here. Telling him-- telling him he's not actually dead, telling him that they find a way to bring him back. And not just any way. Khan's blood.

Jim grabs a tribble on the way to the lab - any tribble, it really doesn't matter - and doesn't knock when he arrives. Instead, he puts lunch down on one counter and holds the tribble aloft. "I've got a science... doctor brain trust question. Thing. Any takers?"

When he looks up and sees the tribble, Bruce can't help an expression of aggravated distaste, before it smooths over into resigned exasperation.

"Somehow I think you mean me," he says dryly, pushing back from where he'd been working and turning to give Jim his attention. His eyes scan over his injuries, taking note of them but saying nothing. "What is it?"

"I very definitely mean you. Hey, Doc. How's it hanging?" And Jim drops the tribble in Banner's lap and hops up on the counter beside what he's brought for lunch. "These tribbles potentially carry regenerative platelets. Subject zero was injected with some pretty crazy stuff before it ended up here, and I want to know if its offspring are carriers."

He says all this completely casually, as if having any kind of scientific knowledge at all is just second nature to him. "Pizza?"

He makes a dour face at having the tribble dropped on him, but tolerantly and conscientiously picks it up and turns to put it on an unused lab bench, where it can be an innocent puffball without knocking anything over.

"That should be easy enough to determine. I can probably find regenerative platelets in my sleep." His voice gets even dryer as he says that, an allusion to how many years he's spent staring at his own, watching them foil his attempts at a cure.

Bruce shoots him a glance at the offer of food and shakes his head, already turning to get out a syringe, gloves, and whatever else he needs to take a blood sample of a tiny thing. "Do I get to know the story behind subject zero?" It's an open question, accepting a refusal if it's given.

Jim's jaw works briefly, and then he dismisses the tension with an easy shrug. "My doctor stuffed one of these things full of, no kidding, the blood of my enemy. It brought it back to life. I need to know if the ability is-- passed on, I guess. And I'd prefer it get done quietly." He trusts Bones, he does. But the man's already got enough on his mind, and Bruce is one of those rare people that Jim both likes and trusts. So he doesn't mind asking so much.

The request that it be done quietly gets a mild look, Bruce turning it over in his mind but allowing it to stand. It reminds him of his standing, inarticulate agreement with Costigan to do each other favors without question or explanation; with his own desire for privacy so strong, it's not difficult for him to agree.

"If you're willing to wait a few minutes, I can tell you right now," he answers. "You think it's part of what's making them so hard to manage? I haven't really been keeping up on that." The novelty of a portable calming mechanism had worn off by now.

"I think they're enough of a nuisance on their own, nevermind what they'd do if they had a healing factor. No, this is -- personal." He says that with a tiny bit of uncertainty, shifting on his feet. It's not like he's averse to telling Banner why it's personal, it's more that he doesn't really want to talk about what it means to know that it's Khan that saves his life, however inadvertently.

"And sure, I'll wait."

"I know something about genetic modification being personal," he returns calmly, his own kind of statement that he doesn't need further explanation. Bruce goes about getting a blood sample from the tribble with gentle, patient hands, despite his earlier exasperation with it. He pets it calm afterwards with one hand, while he uses the other to start preparing a slide.

"So, while you're waiting..." He trails off, looks over at him momentarily, before abandoning the tribble to slip his glasses on and apply himself to his work in earnest. "Any less personal news to pass on?"

"My doctor's here. Bones, you should probably meet him at some point. Hell of a guy." Jim's tone and expression are a myriad of things. Fond, exasperated, a little bit tired. "He's the CMO of the Enterprise."

Honestly, he has no idea what Banner's stance on doctors is. People tend to love 'em or hate him, and given his whole... situation the odds are it's probably the latter. Still, if you could put them in a room together long enough to stop hissing at each other, they'd probably get along.

Bruce doesn't hate doctors. He has an appreciation for altruism that is the bare exception to a general dislike of people. He hates those that try to control him, that think they're entitled to his blood or his genes, but doctors on their own he doesn't mind.

"You have a doctor named Bones?" he has to ask.

"It's not his real name," Jim says dryly. "It's 'McCoy. Leonard McCoy'." And you can bet he drops into the Doctor's own southern drawl to spit out his name, exactly the same in pitch and cadence as it was the first time they met. "But he told me his wife took everything in the divorce and just left him with his bones. Plus, sawbones, right? Made sense at the time and it stuck."

Jim hops down from where he's sitting and comes to lean over the table, getting almost up close and personal with that microscope. "So how long've you been into all this stuff, anyway? Science, I mean."

Not even Bruce can resist a twitch of amusement, glancing up over his glasses at Jim, at hearing that imitation. They must be good friends if he can get him down that well.

Normally Bruce likes more personal space than this, but he's used to putting up with Jim by now, so he merely goes back to what he was doing, adjusting the focus on the microscope. "Since I was a kid. I used to steal physics textbooks." This much he can manage to admit about his childhood, impersonal as it is. "They, uh, they wouldn't let me skip grades until I was older. I was pretty mad about that."

"I skipped a grade," Jim says conversationally, remaining exactly where he is, half in Banner's personal space. "And then I failed like, the next four." Okay, the number is nowhere near that, but Jim's own personal rebellion had manifested in skipping out on school, intentionally blowing off tests and just generally being a little shit. Landing in and out of 'behavioral correction facilities' or whatever you wanted to call them. Genius level repeat offender, right?

It was always a tiny Pyrrhic victory to his young self, seeing the way his stepfather fought down the irritation at his bad grades. Jim always was the perfect student before his brother left, and the reversal had been frustrating to the man. Jim liked pushing him. Daring him to go one step further.

In hindsight, it was pretty puerile. But sometimes it's all the fights you walk away from.

"It's all useless at that level anyway," Bruce says dismissively, not totally paying attention to what he's saying as he reaches over to grab a pipette and an unmarked solution. His respect for organized institutions has never been high, given how largely unnecessary they were to his own learning.

He squeezes a droplet of the solution out onto the slide, peering intently through the lens as he does so, and waits in patient silence for several seconds to watch the reaction. "It's definitely regenerative," he concludes, not taking his eyes away. The aftermath is just as important as the reaction itself. "I can't tell you to what extent without further trials, but it looks significant."

"Well thank you for crushing my inner nine-year-old's ego." It's said in jest, and there's no heat to the statement. Banner's statement, though, makes the playfulness drop away from his presentation.

"Awesome," he says, in a tone that means anything but. "It came from a human donor. Don't even ask me why it works on a tribble." So maybe science isn't his strongest subject, but he's pretty sure that you really shouldn't be able to just crossover the species like that. He rubs a hand across his occipital bone and then down against his neck. "Do you think you can isolate it and-- I don't know, recreate it or something?"

It definitely shouldn't work across species, but that's the least of Bruce's scientific aggravations in Keeliai.

He drags his eyes away from the oculars and gives Jim a more considering, level look. "Theoretically, maybe. What do you want it for?" So sue him for being leery of replicating an insanely powerful, cross-species regenerative for someone from the military. Bruce likes Jim, maybe even trusts him a little, but some suspicions are deeply ingrained in him for a reason.

Jim grimaces. He really doesn't want to get into this, but-- sometimes, you have to give to get.

"There's this man from my world. Khan. He's a genetically engineered supersoldier. That's his." He nods to the slides. "The blood, not the tribble. I got killed back home, and my doctor... used his blood to bring me back." He doesn't look pleased about that. Maybe it's Kyle rubbing off on him a bit. Dead things should stay dead. But he waves a hand, dismissive. "If Khan ever shows up here, odds are he's going to try and use his blood as a bargaining tool. Say if someone gets sick, or injured, or doesn't trust the people here that use magic--" Like Korra, and he taps his foot against the floor. "Let's just say I'd rather he not have a monopoly on it. He's kind of a psychopath. I don't care if you want to keep it locked up in a lab, but I do not want him to be able to hold this over people's heads."

If. It's a big gamble, but it's one that he can't help but take. If Khan shows up. If he's from the right time. If, if, if, and Jim hates operating blind. Oh, he's good at it. All the dumb luck in the universe, right? But it's not the game it used to be, not any more.

The words genetically engineered supersoldier do nothing to help Bruce's paranoia. If anything, it heightens it, sharpens his attention to a fine point as he takes in every word. He has to agree that dead things should stay dead-- he's always taken a sour disposition toward his own presumed immortality, and uncomfortably tries to avoid thinking on it.

That Jim doesn't care if he doesn't have control of the extracted regeneration factor is what convinces Bruce. Letting Bruce keep unilateral control over something is a fast way to get him to agree.

"I'll keep a sample of the blood," he decides out loud, seeing the logic in Jim's concerns and not discounting it. "I'd rather not have the concentrated substance sitting around. It's too easily abused. But I can keep some blood on ice, and if it comes up later, let me know. If he shows up and starts with the extortion-- this is my area. I'm confident I can replicate it."

That's the most he'll promise. Bruce isn't keen on absolute commitments, but if those terms are acceptable, he has no problem with it.

"That's fine. If you're worried, don't tell me where it is, okay?" Because Jim understands why people - why Banner - would be concerned about something like this. Hell, he's concerned by this. The Eugenics war was not a bright shining point in human history, it was a brutal fucking massacre and it's the reason that humans in his day and age hate any sort of genetic tinkering, tweaking or improvements.

He gives Bruce a brief, grateful smile, and it's like a weight's come off his shoulders. "Thanks. Have I told you lately that you're awesome?"

Maybe someone else would take that as an opening to reassure him that he trusts him. Not Bruce. He takes it at face value, and nods, satisfied. "I won't lose it, and I won't tell anyone," he promises, signifying that he's going to take him up on that, and keep it somewhere secret. It can join the place he keeps the modified samples of his own blood that he'd used to research the cloning.

Then he's thrown slightly off balance by the compliment and the gratitude, and Bruce's business like attitude dissolves into a characteristic wry answering smile. "Not lately, no. You just like having someone to do secret science for you." It's a mild joke, not an accusation.

"Oh come on. I've got Spock for that. And Bones. They have to do what I say just because I outrank them." Jim's smile settles, becomes a little bit fond. See, this is exactly why he likes Banner. The guy's not afraid to tease him, he's not a pushover, and he's smart as hell. All these things are things that Jim looks for in the people around him, and admires.

"Maybe I just wanted your charming company, princess. Ever think of that?"

"Princess?" he asks skeptically, giving Jim a look that amounts to a more dignified, tolerant, oh please. "That's the nickname you're going for?" It's less aggravating than Tony's, but that's not saying much.

"And sometimes you need someone who doesn't have to do what you say. I get it." Bruce thinks he does get it. Sometimes you need that outside perspective. At least, that's what he'd come to value Jim for, himself.

Since they've moved on to the pointless witty snark portion of the evening, Bruce turns and starts cleaning up, carefully saving a portion of the sample as he'd promised.

"You got a better one?" He is all cheek, okay? Sorry, Bruce, this is your life now. Pray that Jim and Tony never become friends, it'd result in a black hole of smarm.

And then he smiles, shakes his head and claps Bruce on the shoulder. "Anyway, you're right on the money this time, I probably shouldn't stick around. Thanks for the science, Doc." He's got, you know. Tribbles to hunt down.

(These things really are trouble. Bones was right to name the damn things.)

So, if Bruce adds nothing further, Jim will head for the door with a final cheery wave.

There's no way he's about to suggest some of the awful things Tony has come up with to call him. El presidente is just the tip of the iceberg.

Bruce quirks him a smile and a wave back, not even bothering with a you're welcome, considering it unspoken. This is another responsibility to take on, holding onto this blood sample, but Bruce doesn't mind. Jim has good reasons for it and he's letting him stay in control of it.

He's also, he realizes after he's watched him walk out the door, left him with a tribble when he'd so assiduously been trying to keep them out of his lab.

"Damn," he sighs.

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this is the part where you tell me what he'll find, btw XD

bullshit science blood that can heal people from the dead across species!!!

gasp sounds totally legit!!

trek science man. trek science.

the original technobabble.

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