starkingenuity | (no subject)

"Definitely not off the table." It's probably on the table more often than sex and dinner dates, because they are who they are. Come to think of it, maybe they are well matched.

"The rest can get pretty messy." For both of them. If Bruce were emotionally whole, he might even be plotting how to run again once they get home because fear of himself and of Hulk has cut him off from relationships for an achingly long time.

He's cut off from anger and most of his fear, but he isn't cut off from that lonely landscape in his soul where he hasn't let anyone walk since he left Betty to give her a chance at a normal life. Is Tony going to fit there? He doesn't know, but just then it feels worth it to try.

Decision made, he nods a little to himself and turns around in the circle of Tony's arm to meet his eyes. "Okay, let's give this a try. Privately. And if the getting naked together part doesn't work out, we get joint custody of the friendship."

“Privately,” Tony can’t but help to agree. He’s not a private person but he can give Bruce this. The whole thing is just weird, inherently, and they really just need to have the time to sort it out a more slowly than Hot Tubpolooza allowed.

He can agree to the friendship too, and nods eagerly. He’s not sure if Bruce just knows he needs to hear that or if he really means it. Either way, Tony is going for the former. He releases his hold on Bruce and reaches behind him to shut off the shower.

“I still kinda want that pizza,” he says. “Or burger. If I promise to keep my hands to myself, can we get some alien fast food before I kick your ass in a game?”

Bruce needs to know that this experiment isn't going to break things between them; he and Tony aren't so very different in that respect. Creating Ultron had put a few cracks in their easy friendship that they're both choosing to overlook for the sake of filling in the empty spaces in their lives. Why not? Their lives are both so fractured that they've had to forget the idea of whole and just put the pieces together into a functional mosaic instead.

"Have you figured out the money problem?" Stepping back, he swipes a hand down his torso to wipe away the water droplets that cling to his chest and body hair. "Since we aren't thieves."

Tony isn't a thief. Bruce? Well, he doesn't have a pressing need to steal today.

“I’m a shrewd business man with a mutilbillion dollar company,” Tony remarks as he dries off and slings a towel around his waist. “I know how to get my money up front before things blow up.” He tosses Bruce a towel and pads out of the bathroom to lay back on the bed. He really doesn’t feel like getting dressed right now, so he decides against it. He’ll just spread out his arms and take up the space Bruce had been sleeping in earlier.

If Tony Stark had a spirit animal, it would absolutely be the cat. He likes small spaces, sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong, and being aloof to nearly everyone.

“On a scale of one to five, how likely do you think this place has a health code?” he yells before he immediately follows that up with telling Bruce not to answer.

He kind of misses New York.

"So what you're telling me is that someone down there is going to want to take their money out of your hide?"

Bruce follows him into the bedroom, still toweling off. "Try to convince them that you're an Asgardian. I think most of the people around here know not to mess with Asgardians. Not all of them are built like Thor."

And he doesn't need to say a word to give Tony an answer to the question he's not supposed to answer. The towel goes over the back of a chair before he flops down on the bed on his stomach, feet dangling off the edge because Tony takes up exactly as much space as anyone who knows him would expect him to.

"I'm gonna suggest you bring a suit along to check the food for you before you give it a try." Besides, they could use the firepower if they need to beat a hasty retreat.

“I’m not going to say I’m Asgardian. Have some human pride, Banner,” Tony jokes, watching the other man beside him. This seems natural. It’s the way that friends behave but also the way that old lovers do, the kind that are so used to each other that some of the things they do might be ugly or unbecoming, but they know their lover won’t notice. Or care. Or will just accept them as a package with all of their flaws.

Tony can only hope.

He sighs up at the ceiling and then gets to his feet. His jeans are... there. And his shirt is there. He’s brought other clothes but he doesn’t seem to mind these other ones. That’s the power of the hot tub.

There’s still a bit of a dreamy look in his eyes.

“FRIDAY can come along on guard duty. And to carry home packages.” He finds the credit stick in his pocket and tosses it at Bruce on the bed. “Come on, old man. Let’s get a little nightlife going here!”

Other than the nudity and the bed, this is comfortably familiar. They could be having similar conversations with Tony taking up an entire couch while Bruce finds a place to shoehorn himself in.

"I don't think human carries the same weight of 'oh shit' that Asgardian does. Since you don't do quiet and unobtrusive, we're probably going to want a certain degree of 'oh shit.'"

He doesn't get up immediately, choosing to roll onto his back first to watch Tony trying to hunt down his clothes. Having a credit stick tossed at him is his cue to fumble-catch it and get up to put his own clothes on.

"So Sakaaran pizza and then back up here for the a night so nerdy we won't want NASA to find out we ruined a lot of human 'firsts,' right?"

Tony ‘shot’ an affirmative at Bruce with his fingers and plopped back down to pull on his boots. “What stays in Sakaar,” he reminded his friend. “For all anyone knows, I’m off being a pathetic drunk in a whorehouse in Thailand trying to win the affections of lady boys.” He makes quick work of the shoelace knots and shuffles back to wait for Banner with a clear look of annoyance on his face.

It’s all for snow. He’s in no real hurry but the world constantly expects him to be and who is Tony but a man that delivers on the abysmal expectations of the world?

Two scientists, fresh from bath time trusts, and a robot being controlled by an AI assistant head down in the elevator not too long after. No one immediately jumps them so that’s got to be a good sign, right?

"No one is ever going to mistake me for a lady boy."

He doesn't waste time getting dressed, dragging clean clothes out of "his" suit to pull on a pair of stretchy pants and a soft gray oxford shirt. His version of ready for the worst.

Not that he has any idea how he'd manage a transformation if that level of emergency comes up, but if it does, and if he does, at least he or Hulk- whichever of them ends up in the green body - can maintain a modicum of modesty.

Sure, not getting immediately mugged is a good sign. Bruce finds himself turning around in the same kind of wonder he remembers from his last (first) outing on the streets of Sakaar, without the mounting terror and Hulk shouting for freedom that had dogged him them.

"Try not to step on anyone," he mutters as he ducks under the arm of a large gray man with three heads. "Some people really don't like that."

The first stall that he finds that looks like it sells food... sells (maybe) food that's still moving. "Not pizza, let's move on."

Not pizza looks like a science experiment and Tony’s been in places where it’s a delicacy to eat things raw and alive (looking at you, Japan). This is beyond the Japanese serving sushi on top of the suffocating fish they’d cut if from, however. This is something more intensely horrifying and interesting. Tony needs to be coaxed away from one stand, and then another, and another.

Bruce probably shouldn’t have to feel like a babysitter (or a substitute nanny), but he probably will by the time he can get Tony something to eat that smells relatively like fast food and isn’t still alive.

By that point, Tony’s already picked up some of the language and has bartered for god knows what to mess with later. He’s a magpie. Shiny pieces of metal attract him.

The sun’s gone down. All of the moons are out. There’s singing and there’s nightlife and Tony suddenly would rather be here then anywhere else.

Especially when he spots the plush Hulk doll.

“Oh. My. God. That’s mine.”

Bruce can eat almost anything but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have preferences, and he's not nearly hungry enough to eat alien creatures that for all he knows could be sentient. At least if it's a dead sentient on a plate, it won't try to communicate with him.

And he can't help but feel somewhat responsible for Tony when he's the reason that Tony's here in the first place. Eventually he just ends up grabbing Tony's belt loop just to keep from being separated from him in the crowds. It's either that or a leash.

And then Tony spots the doll and all Bruce can do is roll his eyes and hand over the credit stick. "You realize it isn't going to fit in a suit to take it home?"

Tony doesn’t need a leash, thank you. He just needs a best friend with benefits that can keep up with him. And who is willing to part ways with money over the most ridiculous things. He does end up shooting Bruce a look, as if the very notion that he can’t take the Hulk rag doll home is abhorrent to him. “These things are mostly air and the suit you wore in is mostly snacks. We just have to eat more.”

Because this is coming home with him one way or another. And he really thinks that they need to market the Hulk a little better back home. Halloween costumes and pajamas are one thing. But dolls?

Why did he never think of that? Especially since, in theory, the Hulk-As-Banner really could be cuddly now.

“For when you’re gone.”

It isn't Bruce's money in the first place, and Tony had been able to talk him into helping create Ultron; he's not going to have much difficulty cajoling Bruce into giving him the credit stick for a Hulk doll, no matter how awful it is.

Maybe he can just "accidentally" forget it when they head back to Earth.

"I've barely even had a chance to be not gone and you're already planning for when I'm gone." He eyes the Hulk doll with all the pleasure and desire to cuddle that he'd give a cobra. "I guess I deserve that."

Tony wrinkles his nose. “Two Years is a long time,” he says. He’s not forgetting snything. Not the two years of searching (shit, he’s turning into his dad) and not the constant running. He hugs the dolls that’s now his and not being left behind to his face and turns away from Banner. He suspects that the man is going to hook a finger in his belt loop again anyway.

A leash isn’t needed outside of the bedroom and Tony is pretty sure that Banner is going to need s lot of vanilla sex before they move it to the next level.

It takes ten minutes more to find likely non-sentient food that is vaguely pizza like. It takes fifteen minutes after that to get back to the penthouse. It takes half an hour to tease one another and eat.

And then right in the middle of a successful, offline game of Call of Duty, Sakaar has to go and throw another curve ball by turning all the lights out.

"Only if you're awake for them." Would he have come home sooner if he'd been awake for those two years? Good question, but not one he has an answer to. Still, there's something about knowing that a friend has lost his entire homeworld to make a guy appreciate good old terra firma.

He's been lost in this city before, of course he hooks a finger in Tony's belt. The first time had been more than enough, and he can do it here without attracting the kind of attention that they'd get anywhere on Earth.

By the time Tony is once again kicking his ass at Call of Duty, Bruce is almost tempted to suggest that they should just emigrate to Sakaar and let other people destroy Earth without their assistance.

And then the lights go out and Bruce drops his controller to roll off the bed and check out the window to see if the power outage is widespread - it isn't.

"I think they finally noticed there are squatters in the penthouse."

Then he's dropping to his belly as a ship zips up into his line of sight and paints the entire penthouse in a sudden grid of green light.

Tony turns to glance over his shoulder when the screen in front of him shifts from lack of anything to bright green. He’s a little more graceful than Banner getting to the floor, but that’s only because it’s easier to be graceful when you’re rolling off of s bed and not busting your knees up in a dead drop.

He no sooner army crawls over when the windows are shot out and he covers his head as best he can.

It’s not the best of days, that’s for sure, though one might argue that it had been pretty great right up until a few seconds ago.

“Grandmaster! Show yourself!”

The voice, obviously, is looking for the original occupant of the penthouse, and it sounds gruff and unhappy. “Not a well liked leader, huh? Common problem no matter where you go I guess,” Tony shrugs as if he isn’t about to be shot.

"Vive la révolution," Bruce mutters from his place on the floor. "We really should have known this was going to happen." Nothing ever stays peaceful for long, and they are camping out in the penthouse of the deposed (but not dead?) ruler of this planet.

"Stay down and let's try not to kill anyone, okay? These people have a right to be pissed off." With that, he stands up, hands raised and open to show that he's unarmed.

The scanning green lights seem to cocoon him as he moves toward the balcony one slow step at a time until he's out in full view. There's a brief silence before the voice comes again. "Sending out a servant while you cower on the floor? Last chance. Show yourself!"

“He thinks you’re my serving!” Evidently no one’s told Tony that joking when there is live ammunition pointed more or less in your direction is a bad thing. Or maybe he just doesn’t care. He sort of has that kind of attitude. It’s both amusing... and not amusing at all.

He pulls himself up, but his hands remain more or less down, hidden by the blackness around the focal point of the light.

“For the record, I’m not cowering. We were just trying out the hot tub. You’re not here for the are you? Shit, Banner, if they take our hot tub, what are we going to do for fun?”

“Hands up!” the man shouts and Tony, finally, seems to understand that fun and games have to be over for a little while. “Who else is with you?”

“No one. The door was open. We took advantage,” he calls back.

Bruce gets gallows humor. He gets it exceedingly well, and there's no doubt that's one element of why he and Tony get along. He shoots a look over his shoulder at Tony, and he's tempted to tell Tony not to make them kill him before Bruce has a chance to maybe win a CoD match.

Of course, unlike Tony, Bruce is nigh impossible to kill.

"Send someone in to look around if you want. It's just the two of us." And FRIDAY in two highly weaponized suits, but let's not draw attention to that. "No one else was using the space."

Again there's a brief silence before the ship hovers closer and a hatch opens in its front to allow a small, hip-high being that bears a startling resemblance to a brick to jump down onto the balcony with an impact that manages to make the floor vibrate.

"If you move, Zero up there's going to shoot you both," the brick says in a voice that inappropriately reminds Bruce of a 1930s gangster movie tough guy. "I say go ahead and move."

With that he stomps into the penthouse to start searching for the Grandmaster.

“There’s extra pizza on the table,” Tony calls. “Or something like pizza. Cheesy. Gee, I hope that’s cheese. You know what? How about we don’t do this show and tell sort of thing, all right? I’ll go on happily believing that’s a cheese pizza and you just keep on not shooting us for squatting.”

Zero looks about ready to shoot anyway, mostly because Tony is Tony. Anyone who doesn’t know him, his family, or his genius pretty much wants to kill him on sight. He snorts at Banner. “I can get rid of ‘em for yah,” he grunts, nodding at Tony, who looks offended.

The point is to play this up. To be distracting. If they’re idiots, squatters, just a couple of guys new to this place, they’re going to get off a lot more easily.

“It’d be quick. Ping ping. Not much mess.”

"Please don't," Bruce says quickly. "He grows on you if you let him."

Zero, who's surprisingly humanoid barring the luminescent blue skin and snakelike eyes shoots Tony an alarmed look and starts to raise his weapon.

"Not literally!" Bruce waves his hands to get Zero's attention away from Tony. "I just meant he gets more likable when you get to know him."

The brick is still thudding around the penthouse, and if Bruce could spare some attention away from Zero, he might be bemused to see him lifting the bed with one hand to look underneath. Between that and the cracks he's leaving in the tiles hint that he's from a heavy gravity planet.

"What's this?" he calls back to them, flicking one of the suits with a finger that makes its servos whine as it compensates for the impact and stays upright. "Is he hiding inside this thing?"

"Crack it open," Zero calls. "Get at the sweet meat inside."

Tony’s face goes through a remarkable transformation in the span of just a few seconds. It expresses all sorts of things like: ‘wow, man, that hurts’ to ‘oh great, now I’m a fungus’ to ‘thank you, I love you too,’ to ‘what the hell, not my suit!’ It might even have been comical if life and death aren’t literally on the line right now. He opens his mouth to likely make a comment about the armor when the living brick does as its told and the suit Bruce had worn through the anus spills its contents all over the floor.

“Aw,” Tony says, though Bruce can likely tell he’s heartbroken. “My chips.”

“Only garbage. No sweet meats. And no credits either,” the brick laments, kicking through the packaged snacks like a really weird piñata. The armor is in ruins on the floor, jagged like a can opener. “But the Grandmaster left his things behind. Throw these two out and help me gather the goods, Z!”

Tony’s head whips around. “I really hate being thrown off of penthouses!” Zero doesn’t seem to care what Tony wants, though, because one moment there are three people on the balcony, and the next, the grows on you fungus is gone.

Bruce doesn't even get to enjoy the whiplash run of Tony's expressions with the majority of his attention on Zero until the brick destroys one of the suits.

Well, shit. There goes my ride home.

Which promptly becomes the least of their worries when Tony goes for a fall.

"FRIDAY!"

Good thing there are two suits.

Bruce has barely enough time to shout for FRIDAY - and he's going to count on her to prioritize Tony's safety - before he's backing away from Zero's terrifyingly fast advance and getting some airtime of his own.

Anger might be suppressed, most of the fear tied to it might be suppressed, but when it comes to survival, that particular fear is tied to instinct too fundamental to life to be suppressed, and Bruce grabs onto it like the literal lifeline that it is.

Fear - he knows just how much it's going to hurt to hit the ground.
Fear - Tony's falling now, too, and all he has just that moment is hope that FRIDAY will get to him before the brick destroys that suit, too.
Fear - that goddammit again he gets close to someone and it leads to them being hurt or maybe even killed.
Anger - that this is his life.
Rage - that this is his life.

And there's that trigger, right in his grasp. He reaches for it, and starts to change.

Tony’s got a whole different process here. Mostly, he’s not thinking of anything of much relevance, just that he’s fibally decided how to rebuild one of the pneumonic joints in the engine of the motorcycle he’s still working on for Cap even if he hates his guts and now he won’t be able to install it and show that asshole up with his mad mechanic skills.

That thought turns quickly into how he wishes he could pick up the archaic dinosaur phone he was given and dial the only number saved in the address book and listen to the guy that picks up say hello as if his voice is made of rays of sunshine. Tony never answers back. They just stay on the phone for five or ten minutes before Tony hangs up, finally letting go of s breath he’d been holding.

It’s complicated between himself and Rogers. It’s complicared, and not in a good way, because he’s falling to his doom and he’s thinking only about him.

The ground comes up startling quickly before a red and gold bullet shoots by him and wraps him up with enough automatic pressure to keep his bones from breaking when the suit and not the ground stops his tumbling mass mid-tumble.

He’s a little sick to his stomach when he opens his eyes. The world is right side up, at least. “FRIDAY? Where’s Banner?” He doesn’t like the answer. He rarely does. Because even if he doesn’t hit the ground, something else way larger does.

Just look for the rising cloud of dust and debris, and the huge green figure lying in the crater at its heart.

He lies there, ears ringing and body screaming at him in quickly decreasing volume as it repairs itself and he can push himself up to sitting, rubbing a huge hand on his head while he tries to get his bearings.

Around him, a few citizens are venturing closer, one word penetrating the fading din in his ears - Hulk. They take a few steps back when he gets unsteadily to his feet and turns a slow circle, looking up at the shattered overhang he'd crashed through, and from there searching the sky for some sign of red and gold.