Bruce x Reader Chapter 17

Columba Hotel, Inverness, Scottish Highlands, about a week after your talk with Bruce

"Hello Sir, can I help you?" A tall man in his twenties with short brown hair and green eyes asked as a man with long black hair and dark brown eyes walked up to the reception desk.

"Yes I'm sure you can, Brian." The man said while reading the name tag pinned onto the front of Brian's uniform, "I'm currently staying here in the hotel at the moment but I have a few friends who are coming up and they'd like to travel with me."

"Alright Sir, I'll just check how many rooms we have available." Brian said while logging into the computer at the desk, "How many want to stay here?"

"Five." The man replied, "They'll be arriving in about two days’ time."

"And will they all need single rooms?" Brian asked.

"Yes, they will." The man said, "They'll need the rest after their long and tiring journey and I doubt that they will want to share rooms."

"That's fine Sir." Brian said, "We have rooms available for two days’ time but how long are you all going to stay here?" Here the man paused and thought before speaking again.

"They'll be here for three days afterwards." He said, "On the morning of the fourth day we'll check out and be on our way." Brian looked at the computer and frowned. "What is it?"

"One of the rooms we have will be double-booked for those last two days." Brian said causing the man to sigh and rub his chin.

"Alright then what about any other rooms?" He asked, "Any single rooms free for those nights or night? A smaller one perhaps?"

"Umm... Yes Sir there is a smaller single room free. Would you like to book that room and not a twin room which two of your friend would be able to stay in?"

"They'll be fine. Book those rooms for me please" The man smiled while reaching into his pocket as Brian began to book the rooms, "How much will that be?"

"£2878 Sir but you don't have to pay now." Brian said as the man pulled out a load of notes from his pocket and began counting though them until he reached the right amount before adding another hundred. "Th-Thank you sir!"

"No, thank you Brian." The man said, "You've been rather helpful with these last minute bookings so keep the hundred -it'll be our wee secret."

"Alright!" Brian said happily while pocketing the hundred pounds -in the form of two fifties- before turning back to the computer, "Which name should I put down? Your name or your friends?"

"Umm... My name will do thank you Brian." The man said, "Macleod, Weylin Macleod."

"Yes Sir." Brian said while finishing up the bookings, "Anything else I can help you with sir?"

"No thank you." Weylin said, "I'll be fine after having a wee bit of whiskey before heading up stairs to my room for the night." Brian nodded while collecting up the money Weylin had placed down on the counter as he walked away over to the hotel bar where a small woman with large brown eyes, beautiful clear brown skin and long black hair pulled back into a low ponytail smiled at him and took his order before pouring the drink.

"There you go Sir." She said as she handed the drink to him. He smiled at the effect he had on her -raised pulse, heated cheeks where she blushed, looking up at him though her eyelashes and a small but sweet smile graced her face. He handed her the money for the drink with a grin and winked at her as she looked up at him again causing her to blush even more.

"So Jenna, where does such an enchanting creature such as yourself come from?" He asked causing her eyes to widen at his question, "Hold on, let me guess." He looked her up and down before speaking again, "Home grown lass. Small but built for the Highlands of Inverness."

"Yes Sir, that's me." Jenna said, "Been living in Inverness since I was born."

"Ever left the Highlands?"

"I once went to Glasgow for a shopping weekend." Jenna smiled sweetly while looking down slightly so she wasn't making eye contact.

"Wonderful city Glasgow. Beautiful place with its grid like design, old buildings and ghostly stories but not quite like the Highlands though with the Highland cities' rustic charms, beautiful views, less traffic and above all the wild and untamed hills left to be explored." Jenna giggled slightly before another guest of the hotel came up to the bar and ordered a drink causing her to turn her back to Weylin.

"Yes, I guess the Highlands do have more to-" She said but her sentence drifted off as she turned to find him no longer there. All that was left was an empty glass and a ten pound note.
*
Weylin travelled up the stairs to his room while pulling out his key card. It had taken him awhile to get adjusted to the technology of the current time but once he had the hang of it he knew how to blend in and enjoyed every second he got around the new world and time he had come back into. Everything seemed cleaner to him, calmer and above all more civilised -except for the couple of youths who had the unfortunate of running into him at the wrong time.

He opened up his room and dashed inside quickly before closing it over, locking it and placing the safety catch on. He breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn't realised he had been holding as his hair and eyes turned blood red while his skin turned snow white. The Devil's Servant could now -in private- be himself. He turned on his heel and walking over to a chest of draws in the room and opened up the bottom draw where inside was four urns. He took out one urn and placed it on the top of the draws. The urn was made of clay and was about six inches in height when the lid had been removed. He reached inside the urn and pulled out a smooth and rounded piece of crystal -a Soul Gem.

"Not long now." He said as he lifted up the Soul Gem to eye level causing it to flash with a dark red, "Just two more days and I'll set you free from your eternal prison. Then after we find and set free one more of us we'll hunt down an old friend of ours. Once that problem is sorted we can move forward with our plans from before. You all remember those plans don't you?"

*

Rachel had all of the Avengers, Lady Sif and the Warriors Three, Rona, Logan, Lucy and Jeff gathered in the conference room, sat on the large comfortable black chairs looking up at her as she stood at the top of the table with a deep frown on her face.

"Three weeks." She said, "Three weeks and still no sign of Doctor Banner or these two beings -be them witches, warlocks or whatever. These two have gotten away with an explosion in the capital's Castle courtyard, they destroyed part of Saint Andrews and one of them even got away with the kidnapping of Doctor Banner and yet we still have nothing on either of these two!"

"That's not true-" Steve said.

"Not now Captain!" Rachel cut him off, "These two beings -whoever, whatever they are- seem to have outsmarted SHEILD and the Avengers so you can understand why only an hour ago I started to get Fury's... fury down the phone, all the way from America. He's thinking of coming here -to Edinburgh- himself to take over this mission and find out what in the name of God is going on here and why none of us are able to do our jobs!

"Now, with Doctor Banner having been kidnapped I can understand that we are struggling to get through the task that he was set and had a lot of figuring out to do himself. I accept and understand that but even with the help form Lady Sif and the Warriors Three we are still far behind Banner's kidnapper! So let's get our arses in gear and start getting through this faster! Lucy, Logan, I'm assigning you both to help Mr Stark get through all of Banner's findings. Rona, you're to search for the man who blew up the community centre in Saint Andrews while Mr Stark, Widow, Lady Sif and whoever else has time to spare, look for Banner's kidnapper. Are we clear?"

"Yes Miss Stuart." Rona, Lucy and Logan said together.

"Are we all clear?" Rachel said causing the Avengers, Lady Sif and the Warriors Three to nod, "Good. Dismissed!" Tony, Rona and Sif were the first ones on their feet and then out the door. Rona followed behind Tony as Sif walked quickly down the corridor towards the lab. She was in such a daze that she didn't realise Tony slowly dropping back to walk at the same pace as her.

"Rona?" Tony's voice asked suddenly causing Rona to look up at him as her trance broke, "Are you alright?" Rona nodded. "Are you sure? I mean you don't look exactly right. What's on your mind?"

"Nothing Mr Stark, really it's nothing." She replied. Tony looked at her with an expression that said 'don't-lie-to-me-I-know-something's-up'. This in turn caused Rona to sigh. "How is it that you can wrap people around your little finger so well? It's my... Umm... My friend."

"Would this friend be a girlfriend by any chance?" Tony asked in a double meaning which Rona caught onto causing her to smile slightly, "Is she worried about you?"

"Yes," Rona said shortly, "She knows about what happened at Saint Andrews and she's into all that supernatural stuff so she's concerned for me and my brother."

"Oh! Speak of the Devil; I need to ask you a favour including your brother." Tony said while stopping causing Rona to stop and look at him.

"What?" She asked.

"Well, I need more information than we already have from him. It seems that we need more information to dig a little deeper in order to find Bruce." Rona nodded but gave Tony a sad smile.

"Unfortunately all the information you have already is everything that Markus had. Saint Andrews doesn't have any more information on the Brotherhood or any of its activities after the 1700s -that is if there was any."

"Damn! Could you just ask him to use whatever contacts he has to get us some more information and could you do the same?"

"Of course."

"Thanks, Miss MacDonald! This means a lot." Tony turned and started to walk towards the lab just as someone called Rona's name meaning she had to go the other direction. Tony had quickly made it to the lab before checking that Rona wasn't behind him and closed the door. "Is it in place?"

"The tracker?" Natasha asked, "It sure is. Thanks for the diversion Tony."

"Nat, I just want to find out where Bruce is and what -if anything has- happened to him during these three weeks. I'm going insane from all these secrets and all this supernatural stuff that keeps happening. Rona and Markus know some, Father Douglas knew that something as well and I'm going to find out what it is."

"Why are you so determined to figure this out?" Sif asked.

"Rona introduced me to her 'cousin' at the charity ball three weeks ago." Tony said, "Except JARVIS can't find any record of Rona having any cousins or any record of this woman at all. So we asked her about her 'cousin' and she told us that she had disappeared off to somewhere in Africa and there was no way to get a hold of her."

"So because she lied and can't give you any information about this person you want to find out more from her?" Sif asked.

"Yes." Natasha said, "We need to know if what Rona and Markus are hiding and what Father Douglas knew to figure out if it will lead us to Bruce or nor."

"Plus Rona could lead us straight to Bruce and the Witch." Tony said, "And if it does and we get a hold of the Witch -Chaos- then she can lead us to the other guy who we want to find. What's the saying again? Two birds, one stone?"

"She might not." Sif said, "She may not know anything about this Chaos."

"Hence why we've set up this tracker." Natasha said, "To either eliminate or include Rona in this." Sif nodded as she thought over Tony and Natasha's idea. She was never really one for sitting on the side-lines and waiting for something to happen but she has always had to have that restraint and the will power to wait so she just had to wait a little longer for the answer they all wanted to know.

"Alright." She said, "But we'll also have Heimdall watching her as well."

"Great idea." Natasha said.

*

You knew that you never slept well as you never had a good and restful night sleep in a very long time. So it only made sense when you started to have a nightmare that night causing you to toss and turn and it was no surprise what your nightmare was about. They had been different for the last three weeks and you never understood why they had suddenly begun to change but there was always one thing that each and every nightmare that you had had in common -blazing fire and a black wooden cross.
*
Bruce had seen you disappear off to bed a few hours ago while he continued to go through all of your findings -and his little ones that had helped you. Most of the work you had done he had already done himself but throwing himself into this work kept him busy all day long every day for the past seven days -much to your own relief which Bruce took note of. You had relaxed a lot more around him since you had told him the story of the Devil's Servant and the witch who Bruce had the habit of calling Una since looking at the records.

For the first few days he had spent hours upon hours poring over everything and anything that was linked to Una or Bruce had thought could have been linked to her. He was grateful for the extensive library you had and the seemingly endless supply of tea that you had. You had to drag him away from his work in order to show him around your kitchen so that he would be able to make his own tea when it came to late nights which he had spent looking for break-through.

He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes as the words on the page he was reading started to blur together. He blinked a couple of times to allow his vision to return to normal before looking up at the grey and silver grandfather clock with blue painted numbers on its face that stood up on the upper floor of the grand hall to find that it was nearly twenty-past one in the morning.

"Tea then bed, Banner." He said to himself while running his hands back through his brown curls before picking up his cup and taking a sip. He spat the cold tea back into his cup before getting up and heading into the kitchen causing the candles and fire place to light up. "Correction, go straight to bed and never drink cold tea again." He poured the cold tea down the sink and put the cup on the side where he seen a small bottle filled with a turquoise coloured liquid and a note attached to it around the neck of the bottle. Picking it up, he read the note;

'Can't sleep, Doctor? Drink me.
P.S. Only once you're in bed. It'll make you very tired!'

He chuckled at the note you left him while walking out of the kitchen. He knew that you were only looking out for his wellbeing but yet at the same time Bruce wondered if there was another reason behind it. You seemed to have been having troubles concentrating on things causing you to stare out into space a lot and the odd once or twice Bruce had caught you staring to him. He never told you if he caught you staring and you never noticed him seeing you stare. You never seemed to notice his slight blush in return -which surprised him. He found himself walking up the spiral staircase as he felt his own cheeks heat up as he remembered the kiss you gave him.

He stopped next to the steps leading up to the chapel stairs as he heard your voice calling out from your room. He couldn't hear what you were saying as your voice was muffled from the large and heavy wooden door at the top of the stairs. He stood still as an internal debate raged inside his head -one side telling him to go check on you while the other said that you might just be sleep talking and that he should go to bed. Yet something made him agree to a solution of walking to the bottom of the stairs and calling up to your room to see if you were awake or not. You didn't reply to him. You just kept talking away causing him to realise that you asleep so he looked back down at the small bottle and turned on his heels to walk away.

Until you screamed at the top of your lungs.