"Can I have a minute to think?"

Bruce considers the question. He really isn't cut out for this cloak-and-dagger bullshit, for one thing. For another thing, if the PRT Director is secretly evil, they all have much bigger problems. He's probably more at risk from someone wondering why he quit his postdoc job than from anybody in this building.

"Yeah, alright." He peels his mask off. "I'm Bruce Banner."

So director Armstrong and Bruce discuss the logistics of secret identities and pay and job offers for his civilian identity to work at the PRT. It takes hours and hours.

Jason is floating paperclips with forcefields during bits of the disccusion he can have no input into.

Eventually they tell Bruce that it will take a fortnight to finalize everything and that he should go home and not make any suspicious gear purchases if he can help it until his discretionary hero gear budget is made available and he can buy things through the PRT. In two weeks he can be officialy hired under his civilian identity into the research team and will have to meet with their PR department for hero persona and costuming decisions.

Everything seems to be going well. Though Bruce has barely scratched the surface of the Gamer system.

Paperwork! Not the most exciting thing ever, but it's reassuring having everything clear and nailed down. Much better than if he'd had to go the masked vigilante route, that's for sure.

He spends his two weeks of limbo accumulating miscellaneous skills--lock-picking, cooking, chess, law, escapology, sleight of hand, even holding his breath as long as possible. At one point attempting cooking and sleight of hand simultaneously gives him a nasty skillet burn.

Practicing those does get him some skills.

|For performing a special action you have unlocked a skill!|
Lockpick: You know how to disable most basic locks. No key? No problem.

Turns out the best way to open a lot of modern cheap locks is smashing them or uninstalling them from the door partly, lockpicking skill using actual lockpicks at its start without specialized gear really only helps for very old locks with easily messed with tumblers. So most of the old houses around would be easy picking but not say an office building with a modern lock.

|For performing a special action you have unlocked a skill!|
Cooking: You can cook! Stick with me and you will never go hungry again!

Now this one gives Bruce a flood of basic info, lots of preperation techniques, lots of food theory and knowledge of how flavours will mesh together, literal cookbooks worth of of basic recipes and even how to prepare raw ingredients into cooking ingredients like raw wheat into flour. The muscle memory though doesn’t come with the skill this time, if Bruce wants to flip pancakes well he needs to practice.

|For performing a special action you have unlocked a skill!|
Escapology: You know how to break out of restraints. You think these chains will hold me?

Bruce now knows how to (with tools that are easily hidden) break out of handcuffs, both police and BDSM kinds. Knows so so so many ways to undo knots. Has the muscle memory and knowledge on how to do the painful trick of dislocating joints to escape a heck of a lot of arm bindings. And maybe the most fun information, the best ways to make people think you are bound when in fact you are not for preformance escapology.

|For performing a special action you have unlocked a skill!| 
Slieght of hand: Misdirect and confuse. It’s an Illusion Michael, a trick is something a whore does for money.

Card tricks! These are sure to impress and wow any possible suitors, nobody will think these are lame at all. More than card tricks though Bruce gets muscle memory for hiding things up his sleeve or in his palm and that is very useful. He gets ways to distract people from what he is doing with his hands with body language and dramatic gestures with the free hand. The skill also synergises very well with escapology and its ways to trick people into thinking you are bound. Bruce could also make a passable pickpocket with these skills actually.

And that burn gains him a new kind of Pop-up.

|For withstanding the dangers of the world you have unlocked a Resistance!|
Fire resistance: Heat will damage your flesh less. 1%

 
 The actual mechanics of how this skill works is unclear, and has physics breaking implications for some possible mechanisms.

|For withstanding the dangers of the world you have unlocked a Resistance!|
Pain resistance: Pain will inhibit you less. 1%

The skill did not say it will remove pain, so pain will still function as a warning system, but probably will help Bruce deal with or ignore pain.

Practicing holding his breath and reading law review articles did not gain him any skills but holding his breath seems a lot easier than it was before and he can hold it much longer than should be normal for a regular person (maybe some escapology skill there for escaping water traps), and learning legal concepts seems a lot easier than it would have been pre trigger and Bruce was incredibly intelligent beforehand.

Eventually it is time for Bruce to come in officially as a new parahuman powers researcher for the PRT. This would be an exciting new dream job even if it wasn’t a cover for superheroing.

Huzzah, skills! Wow, that cooking one is thorough. The sleight of hand might be lame on its own, but given that he can also actually pull things out of thin air, being able to pretend to do so could come in quite handy.

He's kind of surprised that he can get resistances to pain and fire but not to carbon dioxide buildup, but maybe he'd need to actually pass out or something. Not worth trying, considering.

This new job is so very exciting. Maybe he'll even get to do some actual research in between all the heroing; the other Dr. B. didn't seem like the territorial sort. And combat is supposed to be where cape powers show their full potential.

So Bruce comes into the PRT as his civilian identity, no decoys needed. They hand him the paperwork for his fake job. It is the government, after all, it needs its bureaucracy. He will be an analysis guy to help figure out if a capes altered body is a biological thing and thus a changer state or if it breaks physics so much it becomes a breaker state.

Jason meets him after the paperwork to show him around, he really does seem like a nice guy.

They give him an actual tiny office for his fake job and some files to fill it with to make it look convincing that he is working if anyone checks that they will add to periodically to show work is being done. They take civilian identities seriously here.

Eventually, he is lead to an empty room and given a mask while Jason stands guard. Then leads him up to the PR department in the top floors where they will talk personas and costumes.

So up masked Bruce heads for his first day as a real superhero. A fat guy in unflattering loose clothes with a weirdly gelled almost mohawk for hair and a squint behind his glasses is waiting for him. “Hello I am Glenn Chambers, I will be helping you with your hero persona today.” He shakes Bruce's hand. Despite the unattractive look Glenn is sporting there is something in that voice and behind those eyes that makes him seem charismatic.

Maybe he spends so much time optimizing other people's appearances he can't be bothered with his own. "Hello Glenn, I'm still in search of a name. Just call me late for lunch, I suppose. Do you know my powers already or should I explain?"

“I have read your powers testing file but if you have a preffered certain way to describe your extremely varied powerset It might be good to hear that anyway.” Glenn smiles at Bruce’s joke alias. 

"I'm thinking of focusing on the pocket dimension aspect; it's the most obvious one and if I theme around it it might make people miss or underestimate the other stuff. The name could be something about preparedness or versatility or having a lot of equipment or something."

Jason pipes up. “I thought of Arsenal, because he always carries one with him.” He looks very proud of thinking that one up.

Glenn strokes his chin thoughtfully. “I do kind of like that direction for the name, could build a good theme around it. Put pockets everywhere to make it look like you are pulling things out of them. Toolbox? Jack of all trades? No too long. Packmaster? Makes you sound like an old timey caravan leader. Swiss army knife would have trademark issues...”

"Arsenal is good. Swiss army knife is too long anyway . . . Is multitool trademarked?"

Glenn checks the computer on the desk real quick. "No its a generic name for that kind of tool. Multitool doesn't inspire that much awe...can we modify it? Ultratool? Hypertool? None of those sound right... Arsenal is pretty good though, makes me think of a miss militia type powerset able to generate any weapon needed."

"Ooh, how about Omnitool? Literally means everything. And it's going to be obvious that I don't just have weapons."

“First impressions from names are still a powerful thing... the misdirection with Arsenal would be useful. It also sounds much more noble and heroic. Omnitool sounds like a tinker name.” Glenn paces around his desk as he thinks out loud.

"Sounding like a tinker name is arguably also misdirection. More to the point, first impressions apply to more than just villains. They affect allies and the public too. I'd rather be 'the all-around useful guy' than 'the guy with all the guns'."

“It’s up to you, I just think Arsenal is more marketable. A bold red and white uniform with some weapon pattern outlines on the limbs. Imagine the merchandise. But if you are sure for Omnitool...” Glenn gets some drafting paper and coloured pencils and outlines a blue mechanics jumpsuit with even more pockets than the standard jumpsuit. A pocketed bulletproof vest drawn off to the side as secondary gear. “Something like this? Will be much less popular than something bold like Arsenal you know.”

Jason pipes up. “Im very fond or Arsenal but you do realise hero work is more than just PR image Glenn. If all around useful guy image suits...” Gestures at Bruce because he can’t reveal his name. “More than fully loaded weapons guy image then I say go for it.”

"I am going to have to live up to whatever image I go with. And that costume looks neat." Pockets and bulletproof vests are both awesome.

So Bruce and Glenn work out the full costume and persona of Omnitool the all purpose utility cape over the next few hours, themes and custom designs for gear and such, proposed catchphrases (during which Jason snorts loudly at the concept of hero catchphrases) and even merchandising options.

You would be shocked at what products want to slap any hero at all onto them. Omnitool themed bathroom wet wipes might not be something Bruce will want to associate his brand with if he wants to be taken seriously.

Bruce is likewise skeptical of catchphrases; it would have to be a really good one for him to be willing to say it repeatedly with a straight face. And if the rest of the team isn't doing them he'd rather not be the odd one out even if they do come up with something decent. As for merchandising, he would definitely prefer to stay far away from ridiculous nonsense. He'd be surprised if anything it would be a good idea to stick his image on wants him when he hasn't done anything particularly cool yet. Unless he's wrong about that, it's probably best to hold off on merch until and unless he gets a reputation that lends itself to actually good merch.

"Well we are done here, costume should be done in a few days. Welcome to the protectorate Omnitool." Glenn holds out his hand to shake. Jason does a little round of applause now Bruce has a hero name.

Handshake, little smile. Having a name makes this whole thing feel significantly more real and less like some bizzare fantasy everyone else is indulging for mysterious reasons. "So once my costume is done, anything else before I start patrolling?"

Jason steps in. "You probably won't be patrolling for a while, you are brand new and we need to figure out a schedule of joint patrols with people you'd fit well with so they can keep an eye on you. Also, there are so many classes to take first, some of them taught by me." Jason makes a sympathetic grimace. "I know waiting sucks but it is procedure to have newbies on the comms first while they learn the ropes so they can get used to how patrols work."

"That makes complete sense. Classes are good; better to learn as much as I can in controlled conditions first."

“Well I better show you your room...office...thing? I mean I use mine for naps between patrols.” Jason leads Bruce out of PR and towards the team’s part of the building.