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[starkingenuity]

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

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[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.”

[hulkbusted]

He doesn't want to laugh, but Tony manages to surprise it out of him. A light day. That's... actually kind of accurate.

Tony is like a battering ram. Lock a door and he's going through it one way or another, and he probably has three other ways to bust through percolating in the back of his head in case the first try doesn't work.

He also treats Bruce like a person. He doesn't flinch when Bruce's temper gets short, he doesn't tiptoe around him as though he's going to bust out the Hulk if a balloon pops nearby. He just pragmatically helps Bruce design Veronica and sets him loose in a lab to follow whatever new idea catches his attention.

He leans away from Tony to look out the window at the Earth passing by beneath them. "I don't even want to think about how that would work. And if your next sentence starts with some variation of 'when a mommy and daddy love each other very much' I'm turning this jet around and going home."

That threat might work a little better if he weren't trying to hide a smile.

[starkingenuity]

Tony can’t help but to laugh. “No. But I think I could probably make an artificial womb and between the two of us, a little X-chromosome splicing shouldn’t be that hard.” And he means it too. They’re both geniuses. If anyone can figure out how to have a baby without a woman, it has to be the two of them. “Unless you want to be the mommy, I’ve probably got dead beat dad written all over my forehead already.”

Like father, like son, yadda yadda. Bruce would make a good dad... if he could get his heart rate to cooperate long enough to ejaculate without going all Hulk on the poor woman.

It’s a really a weird line of thought that Tony decides not to share at this time and instead leans protectively over the controls of the jet.

“You know we have to do something about your wormhole. Who knows what else has gotten sucked up into it. Help a guy out Banner.”

[hulkbusted]

That idea is going to go right up there with making a body for an alien entity at the top of the hell no list in Bruce's head. The problem being that the majority of items on that list are there because they had intrigued him in one way or another. He has other lists, like the things I shouldn't do because they come with a risk of Hulk list and the I regret trying that list, but the hell no list is a big one.

Funny how he so often seems to add new items to it when he hangs around Tony.

"Ethics aside - which they shouldn't be - by the way, I'm pretty sure you're not ready to settle down and I've always been a monogamous kind of guy." He turns the co-pilot's seat to face toward Tony and scrubs a hand over his face.

"They're real big on gladiatorial combat on Sakaar. If I show you the wormhole, you have to promise me that you aren't setting foot on that planet." He doesn't give Tony time to answer before closing an obvious loophole, "If the suit's foot touches, it counts as your foot."

[starkingenuity]

“Rethink everything you just said and add a second stipulation,” Tony grins at Bruce. He can always just say he won’t set foot or boot anywhere but Earth but there’s nothing about flying there. Luckily for everyone, he has absolutely no intention, even if the pay off is cool and unusual gadgets to mess with, of going through another wormhole. Okay, he has a small intention of doing it, but it’s so tiny! He can barely see it! And it’s so little he might ignore it if it tries to tempt him anyway. He offers a little shrug and continues to fly out of the city and over the Atlantic. SHIELD is probably onto them but they won’t respond or tail Stark. They’ve learned better than that.

Tony can joyride for awhile until Banner corrects himself. They can head there, take some readings, toss Kiara through the worm hole and maybe stop for a picnic? You know, really made a date of it.

[hulkbusted]

To his conscious mind he hasn't really had time to miss Tony, or anyone for that matter, but there's a part of himself that is still aware of the passage of time and his answering smile is fueled by that subconscious awareness. He's really missed Tony and that's messing with his head.

"If I stipulate that you stay on this side of the wormhole will you do it?" He's hoping, but he has to admit to himself that most of his thinking about Tony and wormhole involve Tony barreling on through because it's cool.

[starkingenuity]

“One wormhole a lifetime is enough,” Tony says, suddenly a little too serious. “But I am absolutely sending a probe.” At least he’s honest? Right? That’s got to make Bruce feel a little better about this entire situation?

Tony is quiet for a moment as he glances back towards the locker where Kiara is being held and once Bruce gives him the coordinates, it’s not like he really has to fly the quinjet himself. It leaves more time for conversation.

Such as: “Are you going to tell me what happened? You and Thor show up out of no where with a nightmare diplomatic situation and it’s just oh hello? I spent two years looking for you.” And doing other things too but all of his downtime was Banner focused.

[Big wigs are still in the office. Today might be another super slow day.]

[hulkbusted]

After a moment's thought, Bruce shrugs and decides this isn't a battle he wants to pick. Besides, he wants to see the data, too. "Knock yourself out."

Are there reasons this could be a bad idea? Of course. Is that going to stop either of them? Past history indicates that both Bruce and Tony have a bad track record for letting common sense stop them when intellectual curiosity is engaged.

That's the easy part. The less easy part is Tony's question and all that's going to follow it. He's known this was coming, but it doesn't stop his gaze from sliding away from Tony toward the view out the front windscreen.

"My last clear memory of Earth is Sokovia," he says at last, slowly, shaking his head a little while he strains for a better answer than that.

"Nat...." Had been in danger from him then and could be again. Had needed Hulk more than she'd needed him. Hadn't really understood what she'd been asking of him. Had better have moved on. All of that, and none of it feels good.

"I don't know what happened. Hulk got us to Sakaar, don't ask me how. I got the wormhole coordinates from the quinjet's records a few days ago." Before the quinjet was no longer a viable option for getting home.

He finally drags his eyes back over to Tony and he looks... He's terrified in a way that a man who is a twisted kind of indestructible shouldn't be. "He was running the show for two years and he didn't want to let go."

That kind of leaves off the whole destruction of Asgard, Ragnarok, the goddess of death, and Bruce jumping onto the Bifrost (ouch, by the way) despite his certainty at the time that he was killing himself to let Hulk out for good.

[ooc: No worries. Had a project dropped back in my lap that of course is needed before the company shuts down for a week at the end of the month. RL > RP even if RP is more fun.]

[starkingenuity]

Tony can’t imagine what it would be like to be stuck for year years like that. Banner never remembers what happens after a Code Green. He’s got some vague sense of movement, he’s got a headache, and his entire soul is half shattered, but his memory isn’t in tact at all. Going to sleep for two years I had got to be the worst. For a guy like Tony with his fear of missing out on everything, it would have been unbearable.

He chooses to focus on that instead of the Natasha issue, instead of asking about Thor and his oh so delightful brother (and all of Asgard) are in the process of negotiating for land with Norway.

These are strange times they live in.

“Did Scarlet Witch show you something bad?” Because he’s gonna refuse that you chose to run away over a girl.

[hulkbusted]

What’s worse is when he does remember, because what he remembers is never good; it’s flashbacks of fear and pain and fury without context. Everyone thinks he’s afraid of Code Greens because he loses himself, and that’s certainly the largest portion of his fear, but not the whole picture. Now he has two years of Hulk that could come crashing in on him triggered by who knows what? Being hit by shower water has been enough to trigger flashbacks of rains of bullets, and that was a relatively isolated event.

There’s nothing innocuous in Bruce’s life, and Hulk spent two years killing people for sport.

Unbearable’s one word for it. What the witch showed him pales in comparison.

His hands are restless in his lap, rubbing together as though he can wash away some psychic stain, but he's just tired. “She didn't show me anything that wasn't already in my head. If you're asking why I left..."

He shakes his head and looks away again, out and down. "I think it was because Hulk and I could both agree that we're a danger to everyone around us."

[starkingenuity]

“And what? You’ve changed your mind?” Tony knows the moment he’s said it that it’s come out wrong. His charming sarcasm doesn’t work here, nor should it. What he’s saying is awful. What he’s implying is that maybe Bruce shouldn’t have come back.

The engineer is the least touchiest person on the planet, bar for maybe Banner, but he reaches out to out a hand on what used to be his own t-shirt and squeezes Bruce’s shoulder lightly. The touch lasts a moment but the warmth, as always, lingers.

“I’m not telling you to go. You’re not allowed to go. You can be trusted when you’re alone so you have to stay with me.”

And that sounds bad too but Tony’s possessiveness is legendary.

[hulkbusted]

Bruce knows Tony well enough to know what he's trying to say. He doesn't know what's happened to Tony in the past two years, but he hasn't changed that much. He's still a mess.

He answers the question of why he's back with two words meant to derail Tony from pursuing the answer. "Asgard's gone."

[starkingenuity]

Bruce is better at changing the subject than Tony is but don’t think that Tony isn’t well aware of what just happened. He glances at Bruce with both eyebrows up and then nods. “Why else would a ship full of Asgardians fly over to Norway? I bet the why is pretty bizarre but I’m going to strike a guess that some big bad showed up and Loki had a hand in both saving people and blowing the planet up?”

Just knowing that guy’s around makes him feel pretty sick to his stomach honestly.

“Listen. I don’t really care. Before you give me disapproving mom eyes, I’ve just had too much to worry about here and with the World Council to deal with Thor and Loki right now. That’s Norway’s problem. Not mine.”

And the World Council should be Steve’s problem but. You know. Criminal.

[hulkbusted]

Norway's part of the world, Tony.

"Tell me about this World Council. That's new." He doesn't have to tell Tony how right he was about the end of Asgard scenario. Is it better or worse that Tony can't pull the whole Champion Hulk thing out of his ass, too?

Better, probably. Psychic Stark sounds like a nightmare.

[starkingenuity]

Psychic Stark is everyone’s ultimate nightmare. Thankfully, he’s not psychic. He’s just a genius and putting together the arrival of the Asgardians with Loki on board and a bunch of weird aliens with them is easier to deduce than Hulk becoming a gladiator and killing at least one person per day for two years or so in order to appease the crowd and his master. That’s a little far fetched and Tony’s imagination can only go so far without prompts.

“Ah, okay so you’re... wow. Two years out of the loop. It’s like the UN. But with an oversight component for the Avengers and anyone with super abilities. To keep people safe. I helped them write legislation after the Sokovia incident. I’ll get you a copy. I was pretty proud of it.”

Was is the operative word here Banner.

[hulkbusted]

"How does that oversight work?" Bruce is already dubious. Was there a database and licenses to live? Or was it looser?

Unfortunately, he's also seen Tony's zealot's approach to saving the world, and it's worrying. He's really not good at nuance.

"And why are you speaking past tense?"

[starkingenuity]

“Because I made a mistake.” He’s gotten very good at saying those words. “And I hurt someone I didn’t hate. A few someones. Listen. It’s complicated and my head already hurts from having an alien in my body trying to score with you. Reader’s Digest version is that the law is supposed to keep the little people safe by putting leashes on the rest of us. It doesn’t work right. There are some pretty bad loopholes. Cap, Barton, various others I don’t care too much about are all wanted criminals. I was left with a shattered breast bone and a dinosaur of a burner phone to show for it and now let’s all just focus on present day.”

There’s a lot to unpack there. A lot of fat to chew. Being the current defacto leader of the Avengers in hard work already and he really doesn’t need your disapproval, Banner. So please. Please don’t give it.

“How close are we getting?”

“About twenty miles Northeast, Boss. And twelve thousand feet,” FRIDAY cheerfully answers.

[hulkbusted]

Bruce is visibly surprised by how readily Tony admits the mistake. It takes him a few seconds to sift through the infodump and pull out the parts that he thinks are most immediately salient. Tony's shattered breastbone is clearly healed or healed enough. The burner phone is a detail to pick at later

He's pretty sure that if Steve and Barton are wanted criminals, things aren't going to be looking all that good for old Dr. Banner, either. Funny, he's the one with the most practice with that.

"That's a lot." He's holding his disapproval for now, but he does look a lot like he just got punched in the gut. Tony may still get it, but something else he's getting from the infodump is that his friends - not just Tony, but clearly Tony - are hurting. A lot.

"Is that why the tower's mostly a ghost town?"

[starkingenuity]

“Oh. That.” No. There’s even more things to say about that. Tony huffs. Why does Bruce always have to ask the really hard questions? Why can’t he just sit back with his feet on the dash and enjoy the ride?

Tony still holds the throttle though it’s FRIDAY doing the navigating. It gives his hands something to do. He’s always needed that, not because he fidgets but because his mind wanders. And when his mind wanders, people get hurt.

“Dad had this facility in Upstate New York. Rogers opened it up as sort of a compound for everyone. Living quarters, training rooms, and recently, some of SHIELD and the Accords staff. And me and Pep for awhile.”

But stuff never seems to work out with Pepper for long anymore. She’s hot and she’s cold. Literally.

“Technically, still Ms. Potts. Me less so. We should swing by after this. You’ve got a lab there. Did my best tracking all of your stuff down. You know. For when we found you.”

[hulkbusted]

Why does Tony always have to go charging headlong at things? Why have neither of them figured out that just because they have ideas doesn't mean they're always good ideas?

"A compound?" The images that come to mind aren't homey, particularly not with the world turning upside down to make Steve freakin' Rogers out as a criminal. Barton? He can buy Barton as a criminal, but not Steve.

"Where Pepper lives and you don't," he says slowly as bricks finish falling into line to make a nice big wall between Tony and Pepper. Ouch. "I'm sorry."

He's just going to get that out of the way so they can both get back to the Emotional Repression Olympics.