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[starkingenuity]

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

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[starkingenuity]

They would have destroyed schools together, honestly. Maybe the city that the school was in too. Actually, a teenage Bruce and Tony might really be too terrifying for words so it’s best to stop even thinking about it.

“I was thinking the drone first. Just to see what we’ve got. This is probably just one way right? I don’t want to chuck her into the middle of no where if that’s the case.”

He’s killed enough people lately. He’s pretty sure Banner feels the same.

With the quinjet hovering over the ocean, back ramp open, two middle aged men launch a drone. One is holding a tablet with a video feed, the other is holding a remote control.

Both might be grinning.

It’s hard not to have fun with Tony.

[hulkbusted]

At least a teenage Bruce couldn't Hulk out. They'd have had to destroy their town the old fashioned way: mad science.

"There's only one way to find out." The video feed might get cut off, but Bruce had a couple of ideas that he was already tapping into the tablet, setting the feed to a wavelength that might be able to keep hold of for longer. "Sakaar is a wormhole nexus. The sky's full of them and most of them keep dumping trash from all over the universe onto the planet's surface."

He switches from the tweaking he's been doing to quickly drawing up a model of what he remembers from his brief period of not being Hulk on Sakaar, illustrating the almost inconceivable number of wormholes feeding into the atmosphere.

"Some of the wormholes have to be two-way. We didn't test the one back to Earth to see if it was one of them."

[starkingenuity]

“There was just one back to Asgard? Thor’s always been selfish,” Tony grumbles, making the drone weave between the two of them even if he wasn’t paying attention to it. His perception had always been good but Iron Man forced it to be better than food and he could adaptively predict where to tap the joystick to keep it from hitting either of them, even the generally shifting Banner as he programmed and sketched. Tony nods with appreciation at what was shown to him, however.

As a scientist and a designer, he knows that there’s a particular artistic side that has to come with it. Some of his combustion engines and arc reactor specs have won awards for technical skill in the preliminary sketches he’d made on cocktail napkins at boring functions.

As the drone hovered over, Tony lightly patted it. This, like DUM-E and JARVIS and U is one of his children or pets and though sometimes things have to blow up, it’s always sad to see it happen.

Even to the things he hadn’t given AI or a high-tech feel. I mean honestly. The guy is using a remote control box out of the eighties. It might have a lot more bells and whistles but it’s still analog to his usual digital preference!

“Okay. Time to go.” Tony touches his ear and a clear plastic plate unfolds from behind it, wrapping around his eyes, so that he can mirror what’s on the table directly in front of him, like the Iron Man HUD.

[hulkbusted]

"Give him a break, his sister was tearing the place up," Bruce mutters, not even looking up from the tablet as he races through some last second recalculating to give them the best chance of getting the drone back, or at least some visuals. He's throwing out that detail to add another data point to Tony's already clear assessment of what had happened to Asgard.

The drone's like a puppy between them, restless and wanting attention, which, considering that Tony's controlling it, says a lot about its creator, too.

It's got to be possible to get the something from the drone, right? Heimdall can see anywhere in the universe, and if it's possible one way, between Bruce and Tony, it's got to be possible another. Okay, maybe a little optimistic, but science is where he uses up all of his optimism.

And then the drone is out and up. Zipping out of the hold like a dragonfly over a pond before rising closer and closer to the wormhole while Bruce watches the tablet screen. He doesn't remember taking this trip, but then again, he hadn't, Hulk had.

And then the drone's video feed flickers and stabilizes.

[starkingenuity]

Tony’s eyebrow raises ever so slightly over the terrain broadcast on the glass in front of him, but his eyes refocus from Banner to the image. He’ll have lots of time with Bruce (he’s not losing him again), but this is one of those very few moments of pure, unadulterated joy he was ever able to feel these days. Pure discovery tickles all of his bits, especially his mind, and that’s where he enjoys them the most.

As the image on the feed stabilizes, Tony is left looking at what looks exactly like a garbage dump. He hadn’t expected that to be so literal and so he tilted his head to the side in amusement and guides the little drone over heaps of stuff. And heaps of people picking through the stuff. And more heaps. And more heaps—

It’s not until the drone zips right by a wall that’s obviously intelligently made (and not a heap) that Tony finds his excitement building again. And when he sees that tower—

“Oh my god. You were Russell Crowe.”

[hulkbusted]

Yes, it's a garbage dump. Why use hyperbole when reality has already turned the crazy up to 11?

He's going to give himself a little pat on the back for getting the transmission through, and there's a moment when he's distracted from the garbage dump of a world thinking about he potential implications for wormhole-facilitated interstellar communication.

That moment passes all too quickly when the first sign of construction hits the screen because he knows what's coming. "Why don't you bring the drone back now to see if the wormhole's two-way."

That suggestion, unfortunately, comes too late, and even if it hadn't, why would Tony turn around when things are getting interesting?

So all he's got left is a slow blink. "What does Russell Crowe have to do with this?"

What? His lifestyle since Hulk hasn't left him a lot of room for movie watching.

[starkingenuity]

There’s no way in hell that the drone is coming back now. Tony’s got it zipping through the window of the tall building, eyes focused forward and not below (or he might have caught some of the craziness going on in the streets). He finds the entire thing incredulous. He’s built tall before, the Tower is easily ninety stories in the air, but this structure just doesn’t look feasible. And that’s exciting to say the least. “Never mind,” he chirps, counting floors as he goes with the quick wit of a man who can compartmentalize calculations and speak all at the same time.

How a building like this can survive is just incredible. The drone scans material composition and feeds it back into FRIDAY. He’s too busy scanning everything to really pay attention to Banner—

At least until he finds the giant core of the building.

The arena.

And not only that, but there are datachips with video recordings—

“Oh this is Christmas!” he says, having the drone play the last match. Thor and the Hulk? It’s incredible. “I need popcorn.”

[hulkbusted]

Tony's busy playing tourist and snooping through alien data, Bruce is revisiting the familiar territories of why do I do this to myself?

He's still watching, scanning some of the rapid streams of incoming data, fighting through the cognitive dissonance of knowing that he was there for two years and that he doesn't remember it, and then Tony finds the arena...

Two years of fighting and killing come crashing down on him in a static overload of teeth, claws, fists, swords, blood, screaming spectators, and fury. The flashback lasts seconds, and in those seconds, the tablet slips from his fingers before he's stumbling back, arm raised in front of his face to fend off the memory of attackers that are long dead.

[starkingenuity]

“How high does this go— Woah! I knew he could jump but— Banner?” Tony rips the glass off of his head, hissing a little as the earpiece tugs at his hair and the lobe of his ear. He’s a little more gentle with the remote. He doesn’t want to break his little buddy exploring through the wormhole after all! “FRIDAY, close the quinjet up!”

His hands are immediately on Bruce’s shoulders to try and kept him from falling over. He’s been stupid. He’s been so stupid!

The AI sealed them in and Tony’s thoughts are less on what panic could do to him and more on what poor Bruce is going through. He grabs him tightly at the sides of his face and jaw and neck, forcing the other man to look at him.

“Breathe. Look at me and breathe. You’re okay. I’m so sorry.”

And isn’t that strange? Tony never apologizes.

[hulkbusted]

There's a mercy to not remembering what happens when Hulk's in the driver's seat, and that mercy has been rescinded. It's a little slice of hell, even for seconds. There's nothing else in the world other than the overwhelming reality of what Hulk has done, every memory immediate and virtually incomprehensible without context.

He's coming undone, and desperate for something solid and real and familiar. He grabs Tony's forearms and clings to them while he fights through the wreckage of two years and back to the present.

He's unaware of how hard he's gripping Tony or the tears rolling down his face or how close he's coming to hyperventilating, but he's pulling himself back an inch at a time, using Tony as a solid center to a disaster of a universe.

Say what you will about Tony, but if you accept that he's never not going to be Tony Stark, he's actually pretty reliable.

[starkingenuity]

It hurts him to see Bruce this way. He doesn’t know if he’s close to a Code Green, if he’s struggling to keep himself himself</> or if this is s panic attack. He’s very well versed in the latter. Though the other man is bruising him, Tony doesn’t complain. He doesn’t so much as wince. He just is whatever Bruce needs him to be. It’s payment for all of the times that Bruce has been there for him too. Even when he hadn’t physically been there for him.

Tony watches as Bruce breathes again, just as he had been recommending. He watches as he stitches himself back up together and that embrace of two men clinging together at arm’s length lessens into two friends holding one another close.

It doesn’t bother Tony. Bruce is family. His soulmate. The only guy that has the capacity to understand him and his quirks. So if a hug will help, though he’s an on again, off again germaphobe, a hug Bruce Banner gets.

[hulkbusted]

On the bright side, as toxic as Bruce's blood is, he's a terrible host for any bacteria. Don't think too hard about what his gut bacteria must be like. That way lies madness.

Is there an Avenger who isn't screwed up? One without ghosts and monsters lurking in their shadows? Bruce can't even say his loom larger than anyone else's. His just has a name.

He leaves Tony with bruises to remember him by and then he sinks to the floor, still clinging to Tony, and slowly his breathing starts to even out, the shaking subsides, and the memories can be shoved into a deep dark well of self-recrimination along with all the other boogeymen.

Then he slowly releases his death grip on his friend and scrubs the tears off his face. "I'm... just going to get Kiara kitted up with another drone."

[starkingenuity]

Bruce is so strong that when he finds himself on the ground, Tony just snorts a little against his neck and lightly ruffles up the back of his hair. He misses the curls a little, bit the crew cut suits Banner too.

“Yeah so how about we wait about ten minutes before we deal with your girlfriend.”

FRIDAY would tell him if his drone was in trouble. Right now, he just needed to focus on his friend.

[hulkbusted]

The crew cut hadn't been Bruce's choice. Probably hadn't been Hulk's either, but who knows?

He grunts at the suggestion, but doesn't push to stand up just yet. "I need something to do. Let's get her someplace a little less Earth and then I need to go somewhere that doesn't have Asgardians or anyone in uniform."

He doesn't want to be focused on. He wants to pretend the day's gone better than it has so far. "Buy me a drink."

[starkingenuity]

A drink? Tony’s a little surprised that this has shaken Banner up so badly. Given his history with an abusive and homicidal drunk of a father, for the guy to want to touch booze, he’s got to be in a bad way. He can’t really say anything though. Robert Banner and all of Bruce’s childhood records are sealed under Ross’ directive but Tony had needed to have access to everything when he was building the equipment that kept Banner on the radar for SHIELD... even if they never bothered to tell Banner about that.

And now Tony’s keeping way too many secrets from Bruce. First about the tracking system. And the fact that he knows his dad killed his mom and forced Bruce to lie. And that Ross was involved in the whole Accords thing. And the patent he’s got on the serum that’s in both Bruce’s and Steve’s blood, essentially causing him to own them both....

It’s a little much. All of this is a little much.

“It’s a date. Let me see if D-RAY can come back. We’ll throw out the third wheel and we’ll get that drink.” Luckily, the drone ends up being capable of travel back from Sakaar. It will be bad for Tony’s curiosity in the future however.

[hulkbusted]

He'd let Nat buy him a drink a couple of weeks or a couple of years ago depending on how he wants to count the time; he'd let Tony buy him one today. A drink. One. That's the difference between Bruce and his father.

His fear that it's the only, least significant difference is why he'll never have children, no matter how much he'd love to. He won't inflict his damaged genes or his damaged psyche on an innocent.

While they wait for the drone to make it back, Bruce manages to get himself back on his feet and turn his mind to the task of rigging up a harness that can be remotely released. He's grateful for having somewhere to focus his thoughts while he puts himself back together in the background.

"I think I know where you can drop her," he says while testing the remote control for the latch on the parachute harness he's butchering.

He taps the vessel with his screwdriver. "Just do a better job of picking a female body, and fake being sick for a while until you've learned your way around. You sucked at being Tony."

[starkingenuity]

“No one can be me,” Tony grins, though he doesn’t feel like grinning at all. He climbs to his feet (its harder than it was two years ago) and stumbles for a moment after Banner before they work together on the release harness.

This is nice. Tony doesn’t say it but he’s sure his eyes radiate it as they strap Kiara to the drone and Tony hits the hatch again.

“Breakups are hard. Wanna do the honors?”

[hulkbusted]

"You can say that again." Some days Tony can barely be Tony.

He's taking care with Kiara's vessel and he isn't even sure why. She's a parasite, but she isn't a malicious parasite. She just wants what any sentient wants. It's on his mind as he carries the drone and vessel over near the open hatch and sets them down.

"Yeah, thanks." He takes the controller and sits down on the deck next to the tablet he'd dropped, using the tablet for guidance, since he lacks Tony's gizmos that would obviate the need.

His control of the drone isn't as smooth as Tony's at first; the drone wavers and strains to lift itself and the vessel before it lifts off the deck and lumbers out the back of the quinjet and into the air where it bobs and shifts before abruptly lifting and zipping toward the wormhole.

It isn't a straight shot, but Bruce watches the screen, guiding the drone through the wormhole and back out over Sakaar's trashed landscape.

Kiara's a parasite, so he's going to drop her in the middle of Parasite Central: the Grandmaster's court.

[starkingenuity]

Tony takes a hovering approach, not to give Bruce any pointers or anything, but because he likes to watch him tackle something they had both been working on. It’s important to him in a way he can’t make himself articulate. It sounds ridiculous even in his own mind.

By the time that the vessel containing Kiara is lowered to the floor, what’s left of the grand court is curious and confused by it. They’re used to drones, used to incredible technology, but something like this, brought in as if a gift, is odd.

They squabble at it for awhile, making Tony cast his bet on a feisty looking green woman who does, eventually, that the prize. She twitches for a moment and drops the vessel, making Tony wince.

“No going back now,” he says, not feeling at all bad that’s he ended someone’s life to be host for an alien. He ought to be a better man by now, but he just isn’t.

[hulkbusted]

There aren't that many people who can hover without Bruce finding it stifling or invasive. He's never found Tony stifling. If anything, it's the opposite. They do damn fine work together when they aren't nearly destroying the Earth.

And now it's another round of Bruce Banner and Tony Stark walk a moral tightrope and end up dangling over the Grand Canyon. He knows he's just pulled the trigger that ended that alien woman's life, and he makes himself watch until the woman raises her eyes and smiles directly at the drone.

"Do better with that body," he murmurs and guides the drone out of the vaulting chamber before someone decides to try to catch the strange drone and determine its origin. He's pretty sure what he just did could cause an interplanetary incident if it ever gets tracked back to Earth and the Avengers.

Getting the drone back is easy enough. Rather than steering manually, once it's out of the building, he taps in commands on the tablet to tell it to retrace its path and return to the quinjet on its own.

Then he pushes himself up with a soft grunt and hands Tony the tablet. "Those people fed off the lives of everyone who died in that arena. I don't know if I should feel sorry, but I don't."

[starkingenuity]

There’s so many questions to ask and so many moments there to unpack, but Tony doesn’t do any of those things. He just shrugs, as if he hadn’t had a hand in any of that and was just watching a movie. He catches the little drone that speeds towards him at the end of the ramp on the hovering quinjet and lightly pats it to make sure it’s all right.

He is careful with it, tucking it under one arm, and carefully hits the button to close the ramp again.

“FRIDAY, set up the Wonder Woman area. Let’s keep this place invisible for awhile.” The AI complies to Tony’s command and a series of floating balls projecting the area around their linking circle create a curtain to keep anyone else away. He stashes the drone and then drapes an arm around Bruce, still holding the pad. “So where in the world doesn’t have some sort of trauma associated with it where we can go to grab that drink?”

[hulkbusted]

Bruce smiles watching Tony with the drone. Tony will never need a dog or a kid as long as he can keep building.

He's curious what the Wonder Woman area is, but guessing, he moves up into the nose of the jet to look out the window in time to see the last of the balls deploy and make the wormhole effectively disappear. "Good thinking."

He take the pad from Tony and holds it where they can both look at it while he pulls up first a map of the world, and then starts zooming in. "I don't think Hulk's caused any mass destruction in Australia, so that's probably our best bet."

He stops the zoom with Cairns, on the northeastern coast. "I think it's the only continent other than Antarctica where I can say that."

And if he focuses on the practicalities, he can ignore what Tony's question says about how much he understands just that moment.

[starkingenuity]

It only takes a few hours for two very different men, who probably understood the other better than either had any right to, to land in a small town in Australia, be seated at a bar and be delivered their first drinks.

Tony fits in anywhere but Banner looks out of place, as always, a guy trying to blend into the background a little too hard. Neither are recognized, which each likes for different reasons and Tony manages not to flirt with the waitress as she brings him back a pint of lager with too much head. He sucks up the foam and orders a burger, all without cracking a stereotypically American joke about it being made from kangaroo.

He lightly tinks his glass on Banner’s when he gets to the actual beer portion of the drink and smiles. “To first dates.”

[hulkbusted]

At this point, Bruce couldn't even say when he last slept. Which time zone counts? Norway's probably. He dozes a little during their flight time and spends more time pretending to be dozing while he collects his thoughts and slaps some duct tape on his psyche. He's grateful to Tony for letting him when he could have just bulldozed on through to get Bruce to talk to him, to answer questions, to pay attention to him.

He put in his own order for a veggie burger and picked his own beer to tap his glass against Tony's. He was going to just enjoy himself for a little while before the real world had to intrude, even laughing ruefully at the toast. "To rethinking our breakup."

He'd asked Natasha where in the world he wasn't a danger, but he'd recently had to rethink that and recognize that there seemed to be nowhere in the universe that he wasn't a danger. He might as well be a danger at home where he might do some good to balance it.

[starkingenuity]

“Woah, hey, we never broke up,” Tony says a little loudly. “Just because you denied alien infused Tony doesn’t mean that you’ve ever denied the real one.” It’s a little suggestive. Tony has no particular issue with that and if Bruce did, he probably shouldn’t speak up. It will make the flirting worse. Much, much worse. “Unless I really was the reason you left. I get it. We made something that was supposed to be perfect and beautiful together and then it died. Most couples can’t survive that.”

Yes. Yes, Tony is sad about Ultron. Ultron killed JARVIS, but he was his baby. He was Banner’s too. It was the first time he had collaborated so fully and completely on a project with anyone in his life. He’d taken a chance on that.

Tony sets his chin in his palm. “I really would do anything to get you back.” Like patenting the serum that made him who he was?

Okay. See that’s just complicated and weird. Even Tony knows that.