starkingenuity | The Not So Silent Hill

Pushing himself up on one elbow, Tony smirked at the door. "You don't have to knock," he said for what felt like the fiftieth time and tried to sit without wincing. The bruise was bad and deep but JARVIS had scanned him and confirmed that it didn't go as far as his bone. He'd be fine with a few days of rest and alternating ice and heat.

He had an ice pack on it now and since hanging up with Steve, he'd gone back to sketching out engines and prototype suits in his head. Bruce was a welcome distraction.

"Big, loud and crushy's gone?" He didn't need to ask, JARVIS told him when the Thunderer left. "And you put Alessa to bed." Or otherwise, the girl would have followed Bruce here to ask her impossible questions while she stared at them from the bottom of the bed. "Rogers will be here tomorrow morning. He's assembling the Avengers."

"Good. We'll need all the help we can get."

Bruce walked into the room, closing the door behind him before sitting on the bed beside Tony. He casually started to unbutton his shirt, glancing over at Tony's leg with no small amount of concern. He didn't often sleep with a shirt on.

"Alessa asked if your leg was okay. I think she feels guilty for hurting you." He shrugged off his shirt, letting it drop to the floor. "How is it?"

"It's just a deep tissue bruise according to the scans," Tony said, fingers spidering over one of Bruce's hands before climbing up to the middle of his inner elbow. He touched when he could, what he could. A little tinkering of his fingers down some ribs was called for next.

Maybe Bruce was what Tony would traditionally term beautiful but that didn't mean he didn't find him sexy. And it wasn't entirely for his mind either.

"I don't want to discourage a little guilt," Tony smirked. "It's all we have to go on. That said, I'd rather not be caught in the crossfire again just to prove the point either." He traced little patterns in what he could reach of Bruce's back. "We should order in some pizza."

A smile teased the edges of Bruce's lips. He didn't touch Tony in return--he was always wary of being too sensual, of crossing a line and giving into temptation, so he made it a personal rule that they wouldn't start caressing each other at the same time unless there was some circumstance that guaranteed it wouldn't have a chance to turn into something else.

"We'll talk to her. We'll explain we're both a little too old to handle her getting too violent."

And they were getting older. Both of them were brushed with gray, both of them had wrinkles and crinkles in the corners of their eyes... but Bruce didn't mind. He rather liked his age, and all the things it taught him. He liked Tony's, too. Tony could be a hundred and Bruce would still want him, though.

"We should. I don't think we had dinner today, did we? I guess between all the gods and doomsday stuff, we forgot."

Tony's fingers left goosebumps in their wake. Bruce could feel the patterns forming, curling along his skin like invisible tattoos.

He looked up and smiled, giving Tony's cheek a small, chaste kiss. "I'd tell you how sexy you are right now, but I don't want to blow up your ego even more."

"JARVIS--"

"Already been done, sir. The usual order. It will arrive in approximately nineteen minutes."

Good, Tony thought to himself. One less thing to worry over. He laid back against the pillows as Bruce's skin puckered under his fingers and smirked into the kiss. He could deal with them from time to time, but Bruce was very guarded with his affection and sometimes...all the time...Tony wanted more. He did his best not to push but pushing just had to be done from time to time.

Otherwise, they would get no where.

"I think you just like to tease me," Tony said, not entirely without a hint of frustration to his words. He knew Banner found him sexy...being reminded was...

Well, it was like a carrot he couldn't get.

"Think of it as me giving you something to think about later."

Bruce regretted not being intimate with Tony, but he'd be lying if he ever said he didn't like the idea of the man touching himself to thoughts of him. Bruce was forced to stay celibate in every sense of the word, but that didn't stop him from imagining and wishing.

He wondered if he could do things to Tony. It was possible, if he could keep himself from getting too worked up and Tony from trying to touch him. Sometimes, he really wanted to try, but Tony had a bad habit of trying to take a mile for every inch he gave, and he wasn't sure if it was smart to open that door.

But he could fantasize.

Trying unsuccessfully to banish those thoughts, Bruce instead gave Tony another chaste kiss, this one on the mouth.

Tony might take the hand outs if his own hands were otherwise occupied but neither of them might really take to tie-up games too well for a little while. The trust was there but the implications were a little too much to deal with. Besides, Tony wasn't just a taker and it would frustrate him to no end to be left satisfied and Bruce wandering off to wash his hands or brush his teeth.

Instead...chaste kisses. But that wouldn't do and so Tony rolled Bruce onto his side and, half leaning over him, forced his lips apart with the tip of his tongue. He probably could have been a little more gentle but they'd had another scare today and Tony still bore the scars of it.

He wanted closeness. He'd keep Bruce's clothing on but he would take a kiss. A real kiss. Not the sort he imagined Steve Rogers gave to people.

Bruce wouldn't really want to deal with bondage, at least not yet. He freaked out when he was too thoroughly restrained, and he knew that Tony wasn't too fond of it either. Those were the consequences of what had been done to the both of them.

Though their chastity was ultimately a result of what Bruce had done to himself in his moment of arrogance.

"Don't get me excited," Bruce warned softly, but he let Tony take his kisses. They were heated. Rough. He tangled his fingers in Tony's hair, resting his other hand on his lover's shoulder. It was always his instinct to bite and scratch, to mark what was his, but he was very careful about keeping his affections properly restrained. He wasn't the sort to take risks where those he loved were concerned, and those instincts were too close to that of the Hulk's for him to be entirely comfortable.

As he'd taken to do when perhaps not being as thoughtful about Bruce's condition as he might have been, Tony pressed his fingers against the pulse point in Bruce's neck while he kissed him again. "Too late," he murmured, as if that was something to be proud of. Nothing made Bruce shake in his resolve...save for Tony. He liked the idea that he could affect the man so much.

It was going to be his ruin, very likely.

Straddling the other man, cushioned by the softest of mattresses, Tony gave Bruce a reprieve for just a few moments as his hands skirted up the curl-laden chest of his boyfriend.

Boyfriend.

Everytime he thought it, it made him feel so much younger than he was.

"You get excited just looking at me."

The frustrating part was that Tony was right.

"And here I thought I hid it so well," he said dryly, resting his hands on Tony's thighs, trying to take deep breaths, to remove himself from the situation. Sinusoidal graphs, velocity of a rocket in space, the long chains of atoms that made Extremis. Yes, it dulled the enjoyment to try so hard to not concentrate on it, but he figured the alternative was much worse.

Tony was going to get himself killed like this one of these days. The man always insisted on going to the very razor's edge of safety, always pushing to go just a little further.

He reached one hand up, brushing the back of Tony's neck before pulling him in for a very restrained kiss. "You have no idea what I wish I could do to you."

Oh, gladly willing to be pulled down, Tony gripped Bruce's hair perhaps a little too tightly. His underwear filled out and his toes curled into the sheets. Bruce's kissing just made him want more and Tony wondered if perhaps he didn't like the frustration of it all.

It certainly made masturbation pretty intense when these little sessions were over.

Spreading his lips over his teeth in a somewhat snarky grin, Tony pulled back (and in doing so, yanked Bruce's hair to force his jaw up to allow him to leave toothy kisses across his throat) so that he could speak again. "Why don't you school me, Doc? Just what would you do to me?"

Bruce was getting hard too, and he felt Tony's excitement through all the cloth between them. He goes back to thinking of the simple graduate problems, doing the math in his head.

A particle can occupy two possible states with energies E1 and E2, where E2 > E1. At temperature T, the probability of finding the particle in state 2 is given by what equation?

"I'd make sure you couldn't walk after." His nails dug into the back of Tony's neck, his composure shaken and his breath coming in faster as he felt teeth on his neck, his hair being pulled. "And I'd scratch and bite so hard that everyone would know you're mine."

Bites and scratches and hickeys and slamming him against the wall so they could rip each other's clothes off--

In static electromagnetism, let E, B, J, and r be the electric field, magnetic field, current density, and charge density, respectively. What condition allows the electric field to be written in the form E = −∇φ, where φ is the electrostatic potential?

Now that surprised Tony, even if he wasn't sure why it should half a moment after. They both preferred women and as such, their mentality was to stick it in rather than have it stuck to. He covered up the look on his face with not quite harsh nips along Bruce's jawline. The man had to shave twice a day to keep the stubble at bay but Tony found that he liked the feel of it against his tongue.

...Just as he liked the feel of well trimmed half moons digging into the back of his neck. Bruce's pulse quickened but he had yet to feel the growl in the back of the scientist's throat that always signaled Tony's stopping point.

His head pounded just the same, blood backing up from his erection as his hips ground into Bruce's.

Unfair, was all he could think. In place of Bruce's equations, Tony whined at how the world seemed to hate him. He was still a spoiled brat at heart.

"You'd have to fight me for it, Banner," Tony breathed into Bruce's ear. "And I fight dirty."

His heart was pounding. He could hear it in his ears, the rush of blood. Feeling Tony's cock rub against his past the fabric, the words breathed, it was too much.

"Tony, Tony, Tony--" His voice was guttural, more than usual, like gravel rubbing together and growling, and he pressed his hands on his lover's chest and tried to gently push him off. "I need a moment, I need a moment."

And 'I need a moment' had become code for 'we have to stop now, this is as far as I am comfortable going.' He could feel it getting out of hand, and he was pulling the plug like he always ended up doing.

Rolling over, Tony threw an arm dramatically over his face and did his best not to vocalize his frustration. He felt like his heart was going to burst right into his chest, sinew and muscle liquifying beyond his control. "I'll get you some water," Tony said softly a moment later, his voice as steady as he could manage it. It was his own code for a quick jerk off before the water came, but he slipped out of bed and into his bathrobe before Bruce could protest.

He wasn't sure if leaving was the right course of action, but Bruce needed to calm down and it didn't help to have your lover as hard as they could possibly get tenting their boxer-briefs right next to you.

Tony took care of his business in half a dozen jerks, flushed the hall toilet, and washed his hands as well as he could to avoid Bruce's incredibly sharp nose picking up on what he'd done.

The water took an astounding five minutes to arrive, though Tony lingered outside of his bedroom running one hand through his hair to force himself not to suggest they take a trip back to Silent Hill for a little fuck-cation.

"Hey. How's the heart?"

Bruce knew exactly what Tony did in the bathroom, even if he could usually only smell soap on him when he came back. He tried not to think of it. Instead, he just covered his eyes, breathed, and thought about physics.

After a couple minutes of breathing and acing his exams all over again, he got up and changed out of his pants, climbing into pajamas instead, and lay on the bed, inwardly cursing everything for the deep sense of dissatisfaction he was always left with after sessions like this.

By the time Tony came back, he had mostly calmed down.

"Better." Bruce sat up and took the offered glass, taking a long drink. He resisted the urge to apologize for putting a stop to everything. To apologize for not being able to give Tony everything a good partner should.

An apology like that would have done absolutely no good anyway. Tony felt the need to apologize too, for always starting what he knew he could not finish, for making Bruce worse off than he himself was. There was no relief for the other man. None at all.

"Good, then I got you something." He'd been teasing Banner, half a life time ago, about smoking a lot of weed to stay mellow. Maybe he hadn't been too off course, however. Tony wasn't much of a drug enthusiast, unless you counted liquor, but he did have a few ounces of rather choice marijuana...some of which was located in his headboard, already rolled.

It was sort of like a peace offering, though he knew it wouldn't do much more than calm them both down again.

It was either this or go back to work and honestly, Tony would rather keep his leg up for a few more hours.

Bruce smirked when he saw what Tony was taking out.

"Why am I not surprised?"

He took one of the offered joints, giving Tony a light kiss on the cheek in thanks. He rarely depended on drugs to keep himself in check, since they could sometimes be hard to come by and he didn't want to leave himself without any way to control himself if the supply dried up, but they definitely made things easier.

"Do you have a lighter?"

Normally, he'd be more worried about getting high when they had a small child to take care of, but Alessa was so good at taking care of herself that sometimes he suspected they could leave for a year and they'd come back to see her perfectly fine. It'd be all the things around her that'd be in ruins.

"Do you really take me for a pothead?" Tony asked with a smirk. He didn't even use it that much when he really needed to, when the thoughts hit him from all angles and when his mind had mini meltdowns that would leave him scrawling plans and ideas along the walls in sheer terror that he might lose some amazing breakthrough that would first make him worthy of his father's attention and then make him worthy of his succession.

Luckily, alcohol managed to be a very good way to dull his brain enough not to resort to more illegal substances.

He lifted the joint up and through an aperture that likely ought to have not been working into a bedroom design, JARVIS fired a laser at the tip to set it smouldering.

Tony liked showing off and being lazy at the same time. He also didn't seem to care that he could have had a laser beam shoot through his hand. He took a puff on the joint before passing it over, a stupid grin on his face.

"I take you for the kind of guy who doesn't care if something's illegal."

Bruce rolled his eyes at the laser before accepting the joint and puffing.

"Some time, I should show you around some of the countries I went to. You'd be surprised what you can get away with in some of them." Of course, he was only referring to the comparatively harmless stuff. He was jaded to some of the awful things. "Then again, I'm not sure how well you'd take to the living conditions."

Sometimes, Bruce missed his life before SHIELD dropped in. He definitely didn't miss running for his life, but he had liked traveling, learning cultures he'd never seen and helping people who never could.

(Yet he hoped he wouldn't be forced into it again. He had heard rumblings of military taking legal action to arrest him.)

Bruce scooted so he was against Tony, resting his head on his lover's shoulder before passing the joint back. He couldn't have sex, but that didn't mean he couldn't be affectionate. He knew how physical Tony was, and frankly, he enjoyed any affection they shared.

"I have a factory in China and spent a few months in a cave in Afganistan. That's about all of the third world that I really want to spend time in," Tony said honestly, slipping down between Bruce and the pillows. He waved the joint off. These things were done slowly and, in all honesty, for Bruce's benefit more than his own.

He was happy to stroke hair and try to figure out how to ask Alessa for the secret Silent Hill managed to bestow upon Bruce before they exploded. It would have been one thing if there wasn't a constant, nagging sexual tension but, unfortunately, Tony's tastes had changed irrevocably from blondes with nice racks to Bruce Banner with his probably perfect mouth.

"Instead, how about you accept a little pampering? You've spent long enough without air conditioning, Bruce," he said, inhaling the smoke Banner exhaled with his eyes closed.

"I'll admit that AC is nice. There's nothing quite like picking between closed windows on a hot night and malaria." Even the smell of marijuana was calming him down. He lazily rolled the joint between his fingers, smiling as he thought of all the unpleasantness of the third world. "But there were a lot of interesting people out there. A lot of kind people, too. I don't think I would have lasted long if it weren't for the kindness of random people."

Bruce didn't even think about asking Alessa for the secret. Even if he could somehow ask without her asking awkward questions, he doubted she was even able to do anything. If she were, she would have probably offered by now just for his own sake.

Then again, maybe she wouldn't. He was never quite sure how much compassion Alessa would extend. She didn't seem to think it was right to--more than just a girl in an abusive household, but a girl raised in a violent culture. He should ask her how the Order did things. He would be able to understand where she was coming from better.

Maybe he could also figure out if they had specific recipes or harmless traditions. Maybe that would make her feel more at home, if she really did still subscribe to their philosophy of life and creation.

If Tony had any idea how scattered Bruce's mind could be when he was toked up, he would have done this more often and gotten him to think out loud. Instead, he contented himself with talking about India and South America and teased Bruce that if there wasn't a five star hotel nearby, he didn't want to see it.

Even so, he knew that if Bruce had to run, he would run with him. The thought came crystal clear and a bright frighteningly as his fingers tangled in a stubbornly thick curl.

Well damn. Silent Hill, and everything that had happened since, had changed him.

"Stop it, Banner," he muttered. "I mean it, really, stop. I can't be more in love with you than I already am, it's not physically possible."

Bruce let out a soft chuckle, smoke curling out with his breath, and he gave his lover a smile.

"I love you too, Tony."

It was a perfect moment. Cuddled against Tony, just talking, with their little girl resting in her room, talking to JARVIS about whatever little girls talked about. For a moment, he had no idea why he had been so afraid to be close to Tony, to let something like this happen.

"I have a lot of letters I should send. There are people who'd I'd like to thank for their hospitality." One day, he'd like to write down all the experiences. Not really for anyone but himself and maybe whoever cared to read it. There were so many amazing people, so many beautiful incidents of common humanity that it felt like an injustice to keep the memories to himself. "It's just hard to send some of those letters when a lot of them don't have addresses."

So there it was. The love exchange. Tony felt warm, and it wasn't because Bruce's body temperature was abnormally high. It wasn't because of the pot either. He almost wanted to giggle-- Hopefully that was the pot though! It all happened organically. The conversation returned almost immediately after.

Still, he placed a kiss on the top of Banner's head and folded his arms tightly around his boyfriend with a sigh into his hair as he prattled away about letters.

"Borrow some of the drones," he murmured. "Write your letters or record video and JARVIS will send them where they need to go if you have approximate GPS coordinates."

If they could find Cheryl, they could find Bruce's old compatriots.

"And say thank you from me, too. I would have missed out if I never got to meet you."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject