Worlds Apart (A Bruce Banner Love Story)

Chapter 8

Solerah leaned her head against the back of her hand, resting her arm on the edge of the open window of the car. After finally detaching the wig from her head she spent the rest of the trip home in silence. She couldn't stop thinking about Bruce. She supposed she DID have a bit of a crush on him. Maybe a big crush on him. Okay so MAYBE she really really really liked him a lot. Without giving their relationship a label she didn't need to think about this sort of thing and cursed Alfred for addressing it. All she could do was sulk and Alfred left her to her sullen mood.

"You look like a depressed slug." Alfred said as he watched her slowly slide out of the car.

"It's your fault!"

"Don't blame me for pointing out the obvious."

"I blame you Redgrave!"

"Yeah well suck it up Redgrave!" He threw right back at her as she whined. "You suck and I regret ever taking your last name!"

"Yeah yeah, I love you too." He waved her off dismissively as he approached the base, Solerah ignored him as she quickly made her way to the elevator, hitting the button repeatedly to close it.

"You're a child!" Alfred called out as the doors slid closed before he could reach the elevator, Solerah cackled evilly as she descended down without him. That made her feel SLIGHTLY better. Solerah walked slowly as she made her way to Bruce's lab. She had promised she'd go see him when she returned but right now seeing him was the last thing she wanted to do.  She wanted to try to sort out her feelings before seeing him but she also didn't want to break her promise. With a deep breath and a wave of her hands she tried to hype herself up into appearing normal before she finally clicked the small button to open the lab door, all she had to do was act casual.

"Guess whose baaack~!" She sang out as she raised her arm and posed dramatically leaning against the wall. Yep, casual. Bruce perked up at her voice about to smile and welcome her back when he froze taking in her appearance. Bruce tried to control his breathing, dedicating every ounce of concentration he had to remember his breathing exercises as his eyes soaked up the sight of Solerah in a tight black cocktail dress in front of him.

He struggled to keep himself under control as he tried to avert his eyes, willing them away from her cleavage. That didn't really help because when he did manage to break his gaze away it just landed on her legs. Her smooth creamy legs. He had never seen so much exposed skin on her aside from the day they met which Bruce kept at the back of his mind. Bruce felt a primal urge inside him doing everything in its power to break out, he felt a deep rooted urge to claim her as his own and the scary part was he wasn't even sure if it was him or the other guy thinking this.

"How-um, how did the mission go?"

She let out a huff and walked towards him. "Boring! Do you have any idea how boring it is to pretend to be interested in rich men who only talk about themself?! 'Hehehe oh Mr Sander! You're so funny!' Bluuuh." She slumped in a chair. "Don't get me wrong espionage is fun and all but the fake flirting is tiring."

Bruce's mind wondered to a vision of her flirting with rich self absorbed men and bit the inside of his cheek. Solerah seemed to naive in Bruce's mind to do something like that. Did she know what she'd be doing to men who'd see her in that type of outfit? Did she even know what she was doing to him? Bruce felt a slight frustration start to trickle in from the back of his mind. How could Alfred just let her parade herself around like that and basically throw her to those dogs of men like she was a succulent piece of meat. He felt overcome with a need to protect her. She was so sweet and soft, she could get taken advantage of!

"Are you okay Bruce?" Solerah tilted her head in concern as she leaned her chair forward to hover over his desk... Just like she had done hundreds of times before... Except all those times she was in a T-shirt or a turtle neck. All those times before Bruce didn't have to worry about seeing... He shook his head of those thoughts as he quickly nodded. "I'm fine. Just trying to concentrate." He quickly gathered some papers to shuffle in front of him to appear busy.