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[starkingenuity]

[Tony volunteers for the worst sort of body take over ever: here.]

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[starkingenuity]

Tony’s having a bad day already. It’d started off pretty good. He’d woken up, had some scotch for breakfast, pulled his hair out trying to be a leader since Mr. Selfish Rogers went rogue on him, put loads of people on hold, had another scotch for lunch-- Oh! And he finally got Bruce Banner to answer a text! So many today hasn’t been all bad but it’s gotten relatively worse as the day has gone on.

While having a potentially hot alien lady in your body can theoretically go either way, the whole exploding thing doesn’t really suit Tony’s overall lifestyle choices and should be have been awake at the moment, he might be very annoyed that Banner is only just now getting the thing fixed up.

Thankfully, Dr. Cho’s machine does it’s job and there’s no Tony pudding to squeegee off of the walls later. There’s just a glowing container where Kiara supposedly has gone (FRIDAY’s brain scans do tell Bruce that Tony’s all Tony right now) and a slowly rousing, mostly intact Tony Stark.

“Anyone get the plate number of that jet that hit me…?

And also, he’s ordering in tonight for dinner. Likely scotch.

[hulkbusted]

Tony's had a bad day, Bruce's had a bad day, New York's had a bad day, and once he's assured that Tony's all Tony and not some alien repeatedly trying to make the moves on him, he even kind of cares that Kiara's had a bad day. They've all had bad days, but that's okay, because Tony didn't blow up and he's apparently still fairly functional.

"Yeah." Bruce helps Tony sit up and peers at his eyes. Tony's lucky that Bruce isn't in full lab geek mode or he'd have been able to pull a penlight out of his lab coat pocket to check his pupils. No lab coat and those tight jeans really do ruin Bruce's fun when it comes to stashing phones, pens, penlights, or anything bigger than a piece of paper. "You did something stupid and you're not dead. Points for our team, I guess."

Doctor's orders include laying off the scotch for the rest of the night. Also drinking and flying is very irresponsible, Tony.

[starkingenuity]

Drinking and flying is not irresponsible if you can handle it and it’s practically the only thing that’s keeping you alive most days. As a doctor, Bruce ought to be encouraging Tony’s drinking ‘problem’ and not condemning it. Besides, he has no idea at all where Tony keeps his stash. That’s privileged knowledge and the last privileged person in his life that new about it has decided to take her awesome dragon powers and leave.

He can’t blame her. He’s awful. He’s practically a card carrying member of the Awful Society.

Tony frowns lightly up at Banner through the glass of the contraption that helped birth Vision and then glances around the room. He has literally no idea how he got from a cool and secret AIM base to this shell of the Tower he’d moved out of in favor of the Avengers Compound up north.

“Uh. Okay. So…a little light bondage and chloroform? Is that why you’re wearing my pants, Banner? What happened?”

[hulkbusted]

Tony's awful, Bruce won't disagree, but he's the kind of awful that Bruce can mostly live with even if he's still a little raw about the whole murderbot army that Tony basically cajoled him into helping make. Friends like Tony are hard to find when you're Bruce. He'll put up with a lot of awful to have a friend who speaks his language and doesn't flinch if he has a moment of temper.

"You got a taste of what it's like to be me." Just a taste, and not the horrible destructive part. "Do you remember your famous last words: 'pick me'?"

He points a finger toward the glowing vessel. "She did." And he really should check to see if she's in there and whatever passes for okay, but it can wait. "You were possessed by an alien looking for love in all the wrong places."

[starkingenuity]

“What?” Hang on, jeez, Banner. This guy here needs a damned minute and that includes you being cleverly vague in a way that he himself pioneered back when he was five. Tony rubs a hand over his face and pushes the internal release so that he can sit the hell up once the lid’s been retracted. There’s a wave of nausea that fills him, but he swallows it all back down and swings his legs over the edge of the table in abject defiance. He’ll hold off on getting up, though.

He’s got this bad feeling that he’s going to Bambi all over the place and he’d do it so much less cutely than a baby deer on ice might.

“Do I need mouthwash? I feel like I need mouthwash,” he lamented, breathing into his palm as if to detect…something. “Were you a decent wing man at least?” All of these things are more important to talk about than the alien obviously.

[hulkbusted]

Don't speak Banner anymore, Tony?

Bruce honestly has no real idea what to do for Tony just then. They don't teach post-possession protocols in med school. The closest he can come is what he'd want right after getting his own body back - a change of clothes (not needed,) a truckload of aspirin, and a glass of water.

The aspirin and water he can provide. He thinks. If things are where he remembers them being. He leaves Tony to hold himself up and hunts around. Mini-fridge? Check. First aid kit with three-year-old aspirin? Check.

"You nearly exploded. I think mouthwash is the least of your concerns." He hands over both the water bottle and the aspirin. "She was trying to get in my pants - your pants on my body - so no, I wasn't helping her out."

[starkingenuity]

Speaking Banner is one of those things where Tony’s seriously got to focus. He’s not seen the guy in so long and he’s had a lot to deal with in the meantime that he is pretty sure that he should get a pass on that. His head is still swimming, and even as Banner approaches him with the aspirin, Tony is stubborn enough to wave it away. Why ruin his appetite with pain killers when he’s got a dinner date with a bottle of something better later? And, of course, since Bruce is in Doctor Mode and is probably going to insist, he reverses course and takes what he’s given. It will cut off any future arguments, that’s for sure.

“Well, she’s got good taste. I love those pants,” Tony grumbles, trying to thumb open the child lock on the pill bottle. Seriously Banner, a little help?

He gives the bottle a shake and hands it back.

“And I think you missed out on a once in a lifetime opportunity. You’ll be kicking yourself for years.”

[hulkbusted]

Given the way this day is going, Bruce isn't feeling inclined to give passes.

"Those pants spent two years in a quinjet on Sakaar. You'd think your love would have waned." He takes the bottle back from Tony and opens it. Of course he was foiled by childproofing. Of course he was.

He's thinking unkindly, but mostly because Tony'd had him incredibly worried. "I have this thing about liking the owner of the body to be present for that kind of stuff. Call me old fashioned."

And because he actually isn't an asshole, he hands over the aspirin without poking Tony about the childproofing.

"And she thought you were female. It was the facial hair."

[starkingenuity]

“Possession is nine-tenths,” Tony says, mostly because he’s inclined not to mention that when he likes something, he buys multiples (he has a pair of those pants in his bug out bag in every quinjet just in case and two more in his closet) and that even he has trouble opening something with one hand. He pops the top off of the medication with his thumb, takes far too many by shaking it directly into his mouth and uses his other hand to wash it down with the water he’s been given.

Getting down from the table, however? That’s still not a top priority right now. He’ll be a pile of Tony, likely melted on the floor, and if Bruce was so worried about explosions, then he’d like the melted version not much better.

His eyes are still a little strange, his pupils too blown, but that’s also likely due to the whole near-liquification he just narrowly avoided. He’ll be fine in a few minutes. Promise.

“But I would have been disappointed to miss out because I was napping.” His smile? Well that’s all Tony. He can be on his deathbed and still smile like that. It’s a gift and a talent. “I’m also never visiting her planet. All the women are hairy? Did she think you were a lady too or did you leave your shirt on?”

[hulkbusted]

"Then they're my pants now." God help his bits.

Now that he's quite certain that this is Tony, because no one but Tony would talk like that, he leaves him to work on recuperating while Bruce wheels over the cart with Kiara's vessel on it.

"Tony, this is Kiara." He frowns a little down at the vessel. "I hope. I think you were her first body, but she has a lot of racial memory to draw on." At least that's the impression he'd gotten from what she was saying.

"Let me back that up a little. You were her first body that didn't explode. I don't think her race are really compatible with humans." It did beg the question of how she'd ended up in an AIM facility and what had been known about her before then, and who had written on the walls. Actually there were a lot of questions begging.

He really shouldn't be even vaguely circling the idea of making her a body. He knows better. He does, but he's curious.

[starkingenuity]

“That is not what I meant, Banner, and you know it.” No! His favorite pants! That he has so many of! Tony is completely unpleased that he was outsmarted, and wholly amused that he was outsmarted too. There was no one in this entire world like Bruce Banner, smart enough to not only give Tony a run for his money, but also to happily conceal that he was always the brains of the operation, even when Tony was the only talking him into everything. He kicked his legs, not to be childish, but to test to see if they would work for him.

They did. Thankfully. And he was cautious as he stood up, one hand on the table just in case. At least they seemed all right holding him up. He didn’t go for broke just yet to try and walk. Tony might not care if he blows himself up, but he really doesn’t want to look stupid in front of Bruce.

As Bruce wheeled over and then introduced him that jar that had once infiltrated his body, Tony arches an eyebrow at his friend. “Uh… Hi Kiara… Did you two set a date yet?” Why aren’t they destroying this thing, Banner? Because Tony would like to destroy it, thanks.

[hulkbusted]

Bruce's half smile is answer enough to whether he knew what Tony meant or not. This part of their friendship is the fun part - the games they can play and points they can score where no one got hurt. There'd been some good times before he'd decided to leave.

They'd also nearly caused the destruction of the whole human race together, so there is that.

And Tony's question is a valid one. He'd threatened to kill Kiara to get her out of Tony, and he'd meant it, but she's out and she had said there weren't many of her kind, and there is that whole nearly destroying the whole human race thing weighing on his mind. Maybe he has a little karma to balance.

He looks a little uncomfortable - a little more uncomfortable than usual - and studies the "jar." "There has to be a better way than just killing her. She let you go." When threatened with death. Again, not something he needs to mention just yet, even if he knows Tony will be able to see it if he ever gets around to watching recordings from the lab.

"If nothing else, I know a wormhole that'll drop her on another planet where she can find a more compatible host." Where she'll be someone else's problem is more like it.

[starkingenuity]

“So-- And hang on, let me get this straight, you want to launch her into a wormhole and let her take over someone else?” Because-- “Wow, I love how your mind works.” Tony takes the jar, which absolutely is not the very best thing to do considering how it had possessed him, and gives it a shake. “Hear that, I dream of Jeannie? If you’re going to try and kiss Banner with my lips and let me sleep through it, you’re getting a worm ho—”

Tony pauses, not because of what he just said, but because he’s just had a thought.

“So is that where you’re been? A wormhole? Are you holding out on me? Jesus, Banner, I demand as your soulmate and best friend ever that you hurry up and show me where this awesome thing is!” He wants to do more than throw Kiara in it.

He sort of wants to throw a whole lot of stuff in it.

[hulkbusted]

Why not? Everyone else is dumping on Sakaar.

"Can you not antagonize the alien possession creature?" He reaches for the jar to take it away from Tony before he has to have this argument with Kiara again, and this time he doubts she'd let him restrain Tony's body as easily.

He loses some of his will to wrestle over the jar, because, oh, yeah.... They'd both been doing a really crap job of catching each other up on the past two years, not just Tony. "Don't get any ideas about going through that wormhole. I'm guessing they don't like humans or Asgardians over there right about now."

[starkingenuity]

“You’re the worst. You’re not my best friend anymore. A rock is more attentive and willing to talk to me about his life than you are,” Tony proclaims though it’s pretty obvious that he probably has all of his immense resources honed less on protecting the world than in keeping track of Bruce Banner. It’s in his eyes. He’s got crazy stalker written all of his face so don’t try him. “I’m not going to fly to a trash world. Or are you insinuating that I’m trashy?”

FRIDAY can’t help but interrupt to inform them that SHIELD is still waiting in the lobby. And that Agent Romanoff is waiting in the living room.

Tony makes an uh-oh sort of face at Bruce. He’s not dumb, okay? He had seen how the two were with their awkward flirting.

She’s his biggest competition when it comes to Banner though and Tony isn’t going to let her corner them.

“Back way?”

[hulkbusted]

"I'm insinuating that--" What's that, FRIDAY? It's time to shut this down and run?

Bruce looks a little panicked at the mention of Agent Romanoff. Again, to his perception of time, he'd run not even a week ago and it is seriously messing with his head that everyone who actually gives or gave a shit about him has gone on to live two extra years while he'd been taking an extended nap.

He's just really not ready to have this particular conversation with Nat just yet.

"Yeah." He's good at this. Just slide on out when no one's looking and try very hard not to look back. "Where are we going?"

[starkingenuity]

“Trash planet.” What? Bruce shouldn’t have mentioned that there was an intergalactic trash planet. Imagine all of the cool junk! Sure. He’d also mentioned that Tony couldn’t go flying into the vortex, but what’s a little vortex between friends?

Maybe Bruce shouldn’t really worry though. That last vortex he was in almost killed him. He drinks to forget. And still manages to have nightmares.

But that’s not important now. He’s already through the window some ninety stories up and rushing along to the launching and landing platform. There’s a quintet there so Banner won’t have to be airlifted or anything. Tony sucks at carrying people as Iron Man. G-force is a bitch.

[hulkbusted]

"No..." No. Bruce is not giving Tony directions to that wormhole if he thinks he's actually going through it. No way, no how.

And he's going to tell Tony that just as soon as he knows what the hell just happened.

Tony doesn't seriously expect him to go out the window and into the quinjet 90 stories above the ground. Does he?

[starkingenuity]

Um. Yes? Yes he does Bruce. It’s safe! The catwalk is like three feet wide and there’s even a handrail! How else are they going to sneak out to the landing pad without SHIELD knowing? And Natasha is literally in his living room! Generally Tony just takes this exit when heading to his armor but even without his armor, everything is all right.

Live a little!

Tony rushes along to the quintet, telling FRIDAY to hurry up the preflight checklist while Bruce finds his balls and gets out there.

[hulkbusted]

Bruce gives serious consideration to just going out there and having a rational adult conversation with Nat and getting it over with.

Right, rational adult conversation. Why not just get swept along in Tony's wake instead, where rational and adult could wait a little while longer?

He's not having trouble finding his balls - these jeans make it impossible not to know where they are at all times - but he is having trouble with his well-honed instinct to run whenever possible to avoid an excess of attachment or emotion.

Stay, be an adult, talk to Nat. Leave, fly away with Peter Pan for a while, maybe remember why Earth was home.

He hasn't decided by the time the quinjet rises into view, but with a last glance back, he hugs Kiara's vessel to his chest and hurries across the catwalk muttering, "Don't look down, Banner. Just don't look down. It's fine."

Really, can't be any worse than what happened to him on the Bifrost, now can it?

[starkingenuity]

If Neverland Ranch hadn’t already been taken, Stark and then Avengers Tower would have had some very different naming conventions. That’s for sure.

The real choice lies in the sort of person that Banner would rather spend his time with. Broody, unable to have fun Natasha or Tony Stark, who is so very rarely broody where anyone can see him and whom the world thinks is completely driven by fun.

That might not be entirely true, and Bruce himself has seen Tony as his most serious (and lonely and depressed) but he still represents the better choice here. And if Banner can’t see that, then he will. Tony is in full courting mode, something he never had to do with Pepper but has become use to when dealing with politicians and before them, businesses and corporations.

He’s a sweet talker, that’s for sure. And resisting s rich billionaire in a quintet? Good. Luck.

“Hey stranger, going my way?” Yeah you are, Bruce, and the moment you’re inside, it’s up and away. “So where’s this wormhole?”

[hulkbusted]

Bruce knows that Tony isn't all fun all the time; he knows that Tony has his own ghosts and darkness that he attacks both similarly and entirely differently from the way Bruce handles his. He knows it, but if they spend too much time talking feelings, they're going to end up swimming in tears like Alice down the rabbit hole.

Kiara gets stashed in a locker before he makes his way up to the cockpit and straps himself in beside Tony. "I don't think you get it, Tony. They eat people in Sakaar. People like you. I'm not giving you directions to go there if you're just looking for a joyride."

[starkingenuity]

They also eat cakes down rabbit holes, Bruce. Cakes that make you get so huge you bust down houses. Focus on the positives here!

Tony gives Bruce a sidelong glance. “I’m not going to risk the both of us, but if that jar is going to find a new home, you’ve got to be a little more trusting.” Or they can just fly around for a few hours and hit up one of Tony’s many, many homes away from home. Maybe at a casino? He doesn’t think having Bruce around will bring him much luck though.

The guy comes with his own rain cloud. One that Tony missed a whole lot.

“And I just want to know what you’ve been up to for the last few years. Is that so bad?”

[hulkbusted]

Getting huge and busting down houses is Bruce's idea of a negative, thanks. A really big damn negative.

"So far today you've been responsible for three fires and got yourself possessed by an alien who was going to be very disappointed to learn you couldn't have more little aliens in jars for her." Bruce's tone is giving the Sahara a run for its money for dry.

And really, he doesn't want Tony to see a skyscraper with Hulk's face on it like some kind of giant middle finger from the universe to Bruce.

Of course, if Bruce (technically Hulk, even worse) could get there in a quinjet, then there's a real risk that some other humans could blunder through there if it isn't mapped and made off limits.

[starkingenuity]

“So it’s been a light day,” Tony agrees. “And I see through your deflection. It’s fine. One day you’ll like me enough to share the parts of you that make you so amazing.” Tont ought to write inspirational greeting cards. Most of them would be boozey and terrible of course but sometimes he comes up with a few winner. A selfless Tony Stark is a rarity but Bruce sees more if it than most people.

Tony has never been so open with anyone else. It’s a testament to the other man. Or maybe it says more about where Tony’s mindset is the majority of the time.

He still thinks of himself as a remarkable judge of character. And Bruce is the best person he knows. Better than Cap, that’s for sure.

“And hey. Listen. I was game for alien jar babies. We would make some beautiful and smart kids.”