176 Bleecker Street, the location of the door Tony had used when he first entered the restaurant.
Evan had rented the apartment building there.
There were two reasons for that.
First, it gave him some cover.
Otherwise, some agency that stuck its nose into absolutely everything might cordon off the area around the door, or worse, simply haul the whole thing away.
Yes, the Dimensional Door could be moved.
You could pick it up and carry it around just like an ordinary wooden door.
Without some sort of cover story, Evan genuinely worried that the one eyed cue ball running S.H.I.E.L.D. might have the door hauled straight into one of their warehouses.
Then Evan would have to go all the way over there and retrieve it.
The second reason was an experiment.
He wanted to see whether opening another restaurant somewhere else and selling food there would count toward the Dimensional Restaurant’s revenue.
Once he’d saved enough money to buy the property and renovate it, Evan had decided it was time to talk to his landlord.
“Hm? …Oh! It’s you!”
The landlord on the other end of the phone clearly went silent for a moment after hearing Evan’s name before finally remembering who he was.
“As for whether I’m free tonight…”
The sound of pages being flipped came through the phone.
“…I’m available after eight. If that works for you, you can come by then.”
“That works. See you at eight.”
“Eight it is.” Evan hung up and returned to the restaurant, reopening for business.
It was only a little after three in the afternoon.
There were still more than four hours before eight.
What if a new customer showed up during that time?
If the restaurant was closed, wouldn’t that customer slip right through his fingers?!
Besides, the dinner rush ran from five to seven thirty.
Nearly half of his daily profit came from that period alone.
His meeting with the landlord was conveniently set for eight, which meant he could rake in that entire wave of cash before leaving.
Making money was important.
Very important.
While Evan busied himself in the kitchen, someone countless miles away, in some small city so distant that the exact number of miles hardly mattered, was just as busy.
Except the two men were busy with very different things.
Evan was cooking.
Banner was running for his life.
Yes.
Running.
On his way home from work that day, Bruce Banner had spotted a soldier disguised as an ordinary civilian, blending into the crowd while tailing him.
Banner knew what that meant.
It was time to move again.
Not that there was anything unusual about that anymore.
Ever since the incident, he’d been living as a drifter, never staying anywhere for long.
Because no matter where he went, someone was always behind him, driving him onward.
As he ran, Banner kept glancing back at the crowd behind him to see whether he’d managed to lose the soldier.
He hadn’t.
The man remained stubbornly on his trail, never far behind.
“Damn it.” Banner couldn’t help swearing under his breath.
If he couldn’t shake the guy now, then by tonight he’d have machine guns and heavy weapons waiting for him. Find the original chapter at g.com.
And Banner really didn’t want to turn into the Hulk, lose control, and smash half the neighborhood to pieces.
With that thought in mind, Banner suddenly veered left and plunged into a narrow alley.
He began changing directions again and again, trying to use the twisting maze of alleyways to shake his pursuer.
If he couldn’t outrun a trained soldier through sheer stamina, then he’d use his familiarity with the city instead.
Soon, Banner stopped paying attention to where he was going entirely.
Whenever he reached a fork, he picked a direction at random.
Whenever he saw a door, he shoved it open, rushed through, and kept running.
He continued barreling through the city like this until he was nearly lost himself.
But it worked.
He finally shook his pursuer.
Banner didn’t stop immediately.
He kept running forward—
—and charged through another door.
The next second, he slammed straight into a table.
“Ugh!” Banner folded over onto a stool, his face contorted in agony.
“Welcome to the Dimensional Restaurant. What would you like to eat?”
Hearing both the chime of the door and the crash that followed, Evan automatically delivered his standard greeting before stepping out of the kitchen.
He first walked over and shut the door.
Then he turned to examine the middle-aged man curled up in pain, sucking in sharp breaths through a grimace.
Evan looked him over several times.
Nothing clicked.
During those few moments, the pain gradually faded from Banner’s face.
His grimace slowly turned into astonishment.
Then astonishment gave way to deep thought.
Evan didn’t rush him into ordering.
There was no point.
A new customer needed time to process the information that had suddenly appeared in his mind.
Besides, Evan himself was thinking too.
There was something strangely familiar about this man’s face.
He was certain he’d seen him somewhere before.
He just couldn’t remember where.
Several minutes later, Banner finally raised his head and looked at Evan.
“I’d like something made from ingredients from another world. Anything will do.”
“All right. Please wait a moment.”
Evan gave him another glance and immediately understood why he’d ordered that way.
He wanted a dish that could prove the information in his head wasn’t some kind of hallucination.
Evan poured him a glass of water, then headed back toward the kitchen while considering what he could make.
Technically, plenty of dishes would satisfy the requirement.
The problem was that Banner wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell that the ingredients came from another world.
He needed something unmistakable.
Something obvious at a glance.
Obvious at a glance?
Evan stopped and turned around.
“Want to sit at the counter and watch me cook?” This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Banner considered it, then nodded.
“Sure.”
So Banner moved to a seat at the counter, where he could watch Evan work inside the kitchen.
Since Banner could see everything directly, Evan no longer needed to waste time thinking up some visually impossible dish.
He could simply show him the ingredients.
First, Evan pulled out an entire Galala Gator.
The enormous red reptile stood taller than a man, measured over a meter across, and stretched several meters from snout to tail.
Banner visibly flinched.
But even that wasn’t quite enough to make him completely accept the information that had appeared in his mind.
Evan’s eyebrow twitched.
Then he casually tossed out a single corn kernel nearly a square meter in size.
Banner’s mouth fell slightly open.
Evan kept going.
This time, he produced an apple with what looked unmistakably like a human face on its surface.
Worse, the face was moving.
Its expression kept changing.
Banner opened his mouth, closed it again, and suddenly felt very thirsty.
He picked up the glass of water and took a long drink to steady himself.
An apple with a human face was horrifying.
It was impossible not to imagine some witch placing a curse on someone and turning them into a piece of fruit.
“How about I make your meal from these three ingredients?”
Judging from the changes in Banner’s expression, Evan could more or less guess what was going through his mind.
“Leave out the apple,” Banner said after he’d fully accepted that the information in his head was real.
“The first two are enough.”
He could not handle that Human Face Apple.
His sanity meter was already waving a white flag.
“Coming right up.” Evan raised his right hand.
A kitchen knife flew off the rack and landed neatly in his grip.
He spun it once between his fingers and began cutting.
The blade flashed.
One stroke followed another so quickly that the gleaming arcs seemed to merge into a continuous curtain of light.
All Banner could hear was an uninterrupted series of dull—
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud—
—and the vegetables were already chopped.
Even at that absurd cutting speed, Evan still had enough attention to spare for conversation.
“By the way, I’m Evan Whitaker. You can just call me Evan, or Boss if you prefer.”
Evan had deliberately offered his own name first, hoping the familiar looking, thick-browed man would return the introduction.
“What about you? What’s your name?”
“Me? I…” Banner hesitated for a moment.
“My name is Robert Bruce Banner.”
“Oh! Robert Bruce Banner!” Evan nodded.
Then froze.
Wait.
What did he just say?!
Bruce Banner?
The Hulk?!