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[starkingenuity]

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

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[hulkbusted]

"Making you a normal 14-year-old, or so I hear. I can't really judge normal." He shakes his head and taps the bag with his sparkling water to show that he's good without the scotch, thanks. "It's okay. You were the smartass rich kid who no one liked, I was the freak whose dad murdered his mom who no one liked."

He doesn't know for certain that Tony knows that about him, but he's always assumed that he does. Tony's too damn curious not to look, and Bruce's childhood has more than enough public documentation to it.

What do you want to tell me? You've got to have some good memories, too."

[starkingenuity]

“I do have some good memories,” Tony says, though good memories aren’t usually the interesting ones. He suspects that Bruce is good with ignoring the bad. His own childhood probably doesn’t have any good memories at all, not until he escaped from his father at least.

Tony’s a little surprised that Bruce mentioned Robert though. They share a name. They share blood. They share the same eyes and the same smile. They share the same brilliance. But that’s it.

Tony hates the guy that gave Bruce his anger issues, and it flames up so suddenly he almost forgets himself. He takes the drink Bruce refused in its place and shakes his head.

“I got into MIT early. Probably could have started at twelve. But I guess you should be out of your preteens to go to college. I made DUM-E. Dad almost smiled when I brought home the plaque for Christmas that year. Maybe. Hard to tell. He was drunk and mad about not finding Cap.”

[hulkbusted]

Dwelling on the bad had its time and place, usually around 3:00 am, somewhere alone.

"My aunt wouldn't let me go to Harvard early. She said I needed to have some idea of what a normal life looked like first." He lacks the temperament to be a psychiatrist, but he can see that Tony's taken some hard hits in the past two years. Hell, Bruce has taken some hard hits of his own. Right now, he needs to give something back for as much as he's going to lean on Tony for a while.

The only thing he has to give is himself.

"What about your mom? What did she think about DUM-E?"

[starkingenuity]

“She thought that I was trying too hard.” Tony sinks into the past and into the story. It’s easy when there’s a good man to listen. He likes to look at Bruce, which is odd because Tony tends only to look at people when he’s trying to be intimidating. That isn’t the case here. He’s not looking for approval either. He’s not breaking eye contact, not exactly, but he watches Bruce’s mouth more than his eyes. It’s an interesting mouth. Anyone would agree. “Trying to impress Dad. She said that I didn’t need his approval.”

But that’s not why he built DUM-E.

Tony, aged seventeen and utterly alone due to his genius alienating everyone but reporters, built himself a friend. And yeah. It’s as sad as it sounds.

“He lived above the garage for awhile. Always a trouble maker.” But Tony couldn’t reprogram his friend. He still can’t.

[hulkbusted]

"Huh." Hard for him to relate. They aren't in a competition for worst father, and what does it matter? Howard Stark was the worst father Tony ever had, just as Robert Banner is the worst father Bruce had ever had.

"You got DUM-E out of it." He isn't really aware of Tony's scrutiny as he stares at the bulkhead across from him, seeing nothing really. "Your first kid."

Not the brightest of Tony's creations, but impressive for a kid not even old enough to vote. Hell, there were plenty of engineers who would consider making a DUM-E to be the pinnacle of their careers. It's a thought that makes his lips twitch into a there and gone smile.

"Where is he now?"

[starkingenuity]

He. Tony has Bruce using it too. DUM-E is as alive as JARVIS was...and FRIDAY is now. He's not as human as a human, but he's more human that another animal. He thinks. He feels. DUM-E wasn't programmed that way. He's learned to be that way, and all thanks to Tony Stark wanting a friend. It's the first real example of an AI in this world, something beyond fridges that can text you to let you know that you need milk or your cell phone being able to recognize your voice.

"Above the garage."

Tony laughs and draws a hand back through his hair. Some of the roots are white. He colors it, but not enough to make it impossible to tell he's getting older. He's not vain. He's just got an image to uphold.

"That's probably cruel. So what am I? Cruel or just a creature of habit?"

[hulkbusted]

He. He knows how Tony thinks about his favorites, and it would be rude to call DUM-E an it, and, if he's honest with himself, it's hard not to think of DUM-E as a him. Tony does good work.

He pats Tony's shoe almost absently, then reaches back to flick the scotch bottle with a fingernail, "Creature of habit."

[starkingenuity]

It’s one of the only times that Tony glances away from Bruce, and it’s only to look at the spot his fingers had been. Tony really hasn’t had enough to drink for these feelings and so when Bruce half mentions the bottle, indirectly, he takes another swig.

“This isn’t a like father-like son gesture,” Tony says. “It dampens out the thoughts. My mind doesn’t shut up. Ever. Compartmentalizing is easier when there are a hundred thoughts instead of a thousand. Now I sound crazy.”

He’s not hallucinating. He’s not hearing voices.

He just has lots of ideas. Some are good. Some are ridiculous. Some could be important but they’re small fish and he can’t devote his time to every single mental tangent he finds himself on.

[hulkbusted]

Bruce gives him a wry smile, "Of course I wouldn't understand how that feels, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that wanting to reduce the noise in your head isn't crazy."

Bruce has had to find other methods to filter the noise. No one on this planet or any other wants to know what an alcoholic Bruce Banner would be like. He can be a mean drunk.

"But you seemed to have less noise to filter two years ago."

[starkingenuity]

"Steve was around. And you answered your phone. And Rhodey wasn't barely able to walk. Vision was still JARVIS. Pepper still loved me-- A lot's happened in two years." He's still not drunk enough to be giving up all of this stuff, and yet here he is. Giving it all up. Bruce is probably some sort of genius billionaire whisperer. He should really be charging for his services. "I was a lot younger two years ago than I am now."

Tony's eyebrows smooth out and he asks FRIDAY how long until they reach New York. Her answer is somewhere over the five hour mark, even in the quinjet, and Tony pulls himself to his feet with a groan.

"If you didn't get cold feet and married me, we could have had an awesome wedding night. But you blew it. So I'm going to go pass out on the cargo bench. If I roll out or we hit turbulence, don't take photos of me looking like an idiot."

[hulkbusted]

Tony's already given Bruce so much that he couldn't pay him back if he tried for the rest of his life, however long that might be. Besides, when Tony wants to talk, he'll talk whether Bruce is conscious or not.

"I just don't want to be your rebound." He pushes himself up when Tony stands and goes to check the compartments where he'd expect to find a couple of blankets kept for emergencies or Code Greens, which are their own kind of emergency.

He offers Tony a blanket and shakes the other one out for himself. "This is a no pictures zone. I'm going to get some sleep, too." He'll just stretch out on the floor. He's slept rougher, and at least he can feel as safe as he ever feels.

[starkingenuity]

"Not sure you'd be a rebound. I've been having a mental affair with you for years now. Even if you were gone for half of it." It's hard to tell if Tony's being serious so it's better just to assume he's being a sarcastic dick. It's his usual state of being.

He doesn't tell Bruce about the reclining jump seat, he figures that if Bruce wants to nap there, he can, even if it's mostly upright. If he wants to sleep on the ground...let him. It puts them about in line with each other and that's almost like sleeping next to someone. Tony misses that more than anything else.

He's jolted awake by FRIDAY letting them know she's landing on the north lawn and he finds himself strapped in, but he doesn't know if that was Banner or if he did it himself. His feet are on the ground anyway and he scratches his belly like a frat boy before he heads to the rear of the quinjet to wander down the ramp as it owns.

Banner should follow. Tony will show him where he's been keeping most of his stuff for the last two years.

[hulkbusted]

It's very hard to tell if Tony's being serious, so Bruce defaults to reading most ambiguity from Tony as facetiousness unless it involves science or engineering.

The floor's fine. He knows quinjets well enough that sleeping on the floor is a choice. He likes a good mattress as much as the next guy, but he isn't picky, and the floor is just more companionable just then.

He wakes when Friday announces they're landing, and if anything, he's more tired now than he was five hours ago. Probably because he gave himself enough down time to really feel the hours and light years catching up.

Bright side to the short hair: he doesn't look overly disheveled when he pushes himself up and gives a jaw-cracking yawn before putting away their blankets and following Tony down onto the grounds of Tony's childhood home.

"Is it just you here or am I going to run into staff if I walk around in my boxers?" Oh god, if Tony has his clothes here, he's going to bless him and finally let his balls breathe again in clothes that fit.

What? These pants are tight.

[starkingenuity]

“Staff?” Tony can’t help but snort at that. “When have you known me to have staff? Oh. Happy? Sometimes. Usually not any more. He’s been sticking with Ms. Potts almost exclusively.”

He was running the compound. He was head of security. Sometimes he relayed information between himself and Parker and ran errands but mostly Tony is on his own and that’s actually how he likes it.

“I should probably get another assistant now that I think about it. But FRIDAY would get jealous—. And if you grab your crotch one more time— Don’t tempt me.”

Tony hesitates noticeably at the door before he pushes it open. He’s lived here awhile now and it still creeps him out a little.

[hulkbusted]

"I don't see you doing much housecleaning." So someone's got to do it, and it isn't DUM-E or U. That would be quite the unexpected use of the Legion, too. "Or cooking."

He looks guiltily down and drops his hand to his side. Note to self: Tony's got great peripheral vision.

The hesitation is also noted and set in a corner for further consideration later. He's mostly curious just then, and his curiosity is a hook that has pulled him into many a situation where he shouldn't have been.

And so he steps inside the Stark family home and immediately thinks he needs to encourage Tony to live somewhere a little less like a museum.

[starkingenuity]

“FRIDAY, do we have staff?” Because the place is dust free and immaculate. The only thing it’s missing is the velvet rope keeping non-existent visitors back from the giant twelve-foot portrait of Howard and Maria Stark heading up the stairs or from touching the antique piano.

“There is a cleaning staff on standby at all times and based upon your location out of the mansion, I send for them to tidy up after your messes, Boss,” FRIDAY says as Tony beelines it out of the main room and down a dark hallway towards a kitchen stuck in the late 80s. It’s spacious, most of the appliances have been updated, but it’s not Tony’s style. In fact, there’s no white or chrome or glass to be seen at all. Tony opens a big avocado green refrigerator and takes out some things he needs to make his weird green smoothies. Greek yogurt (not expired), spinach, protein powder—

Evidently he gets regular grocery deliveries too, automated by FRIDAY like the cleaners.

So while Tony does have staff, he never sees them. And they likely never see him either. And that’s almost as sad is this massive house that’s been left as it was the last time his mother had lived here.

While Bruce looks around, Tony dumps his things into the blender and chases it with some scotch. Shh. He’s not even going to offer this to his friend. Banner’s not the green smoothie sort.

[hulkbusted]

Bruce isn't going to ask for it, either. He finishes his circuit of the kitchen and comes back to Tony, leaning against the counter to watch him make yet another of his odious smoothies. He's seen the Stark Special before and doesn't need to be offered one.

"So, how long are you going to spend in Purgatory before getting a new place?" he asks in his usual quiet, direct way. This isn't Tony, and coming back here after taking some hard hits is going to ground, which is more Bruce's style than Tony's.

Tony isn't perfect by any stretch, but he's Bruce's best friend and someone he honestly admires when he isn't afraid for or of him. He wants better for him than haunting his parents' museum.

[starkingenuity]

“I mess up all of the new places.” He only answers after drowning out half of the question with another spin of the old blender, eyes focused on the liquid that slops into his glass. He’ll leave the mess on the counter, as he always does, never noticing that he has people that come in to clean up after him. He’s never really grown out of that phase as a five year old when his nanny used to pick up anything he knocked over. He’s never needed to, after all.

But none of that is important. None of what he’s saying is important either but there he goes, divulging what he would have kept to himself a year or two ago. Maybe it’s not just Banner that’s giving him over-share syndrome. Maybe he just really needs to talk. Finally.

“I don’t mind getting this place ruined.”

[hulkbusted]

"Bullshit." It's delivered in the same calm tone with which he might declare that one trial out of a hundred so far isn't the right one - not angry, not sad, just delivering a report of fact.

"I can see the the appliances are newer than '91, but they're still just as dated looking." He waves an arm at the room, but really it's the whole house he's only seen a bit of so far. "You've modernized but still maintained it like a museum. You care, and you can't even walk through the front door without looking like there's a gallows hiding in one of these halls."

Whatever's going on with Tony, this place isn't helping him.

[starkingenuity]

“Excuse me?”

People don’t talk to Tony like this. Except Cap. And now Cap’s gone, so maybe it’s fitting that mild mannered Bruce Banner comes back after his two-year sabatical to rake him across the coals. He juts out his hip, leaning on the counter with the hand not wrapped around his adult sippy cup containing his liquor-smoothie.

He’s half annoyed and half amused. He needs people like this. Cap kept him honest, until Cap decided not to be honest with him (as if Tony hasn’t and still isn’t keeping secrets himself).

“You just waltz back in here psychoanalyzing me like you own the place and haven’t been gone for a lifetime?” Oh right. Bruce doesn’t remember the last two years. Tony sighs. “Where do you want me to go, Banner? I’m a menace to society. I might pump money into the economy every time some new big bad decides he wants to take me out with relief efforts and repairs, but I’m a target. Sitting on top of a tower in Midtown is a bad idea. Being at the Compound is a really bad idea. And I’m banned from Brooklyn and Queens so here I am. Good old Long Island boy.”

[hulkbusted]

The man who wrapped a hand around Wanda's throat and dared her to piss him off isn't as mild-mannered as he wants people to think. He's the man who wouldn't hurt a fly, but only because he chooses not to. If there's any doubt of that, they could go talk to that disoriented green woman on Sakaar.

That man doesn't flinch from Tony's rebuke. "I don't know. I've never had billions at my fingertips to build whatever I want, including a secure facility for myself with a better place for DUM-E than above the garage." Low blow going for the kids.

"I've also never had the ability to be anywhere in the world within hours, making living in the middle of nowhere something other than exile." He's never doing the whole stuck in the middle of nowhere thing again. It isn't good for him. That way lies the dark pit of the soul where a bullet looks like a good idea.

[starkingenuity]

“I need to be close. Cap’s gone. Do you know how tiring it is to run a group I didn’t even want to be apart of that now contains my ex, my crippled before-I-met-you best friend and a bunch of other people that hate my guts because I got their friends jailed and who are now all living in exile in Wakanda, probably, because Cap doesn’t understand that laws are there for a reason?”

Raising his voice? Hell yes he’s raising his voice. DUM-E’s just fine in the attic, Banner, jeez! That’s probably where he’s doing the least damage in the name of being helpful. And yes, Tony gets the irony of that. This right here is like living in the attic where he’s doing his best not to cause problems for the whole world.

“Most of those billions are tied up in trying to keep the people that work for my company employed and to pay the families of our victims. Sure, we save lives, we save whole cities, but our antics kill a lot of people too. Or worse, cause them to have a lifetime of hospital bills. Wanna guess who funds all of that? Me. Right here. This guy. I don’t have the luxury of going anywhere. I could barely fit in all of the time I spent looking for you or trying really hard not to mess up the life of a stubborn teenager who can’t help but get himself in danger all the time. Which, yeah I know, that’s my fault for bringing him to Germany…. So there you have it!” He makes some grand, circular gesture with a frown. “I just ruin whatever I touch. Make sure you keep your distance. I can probably manage to mess you up too.”

[hulkbusted]

Bruce's eyebrows go up at the part about laws being there for a reason and Steve not getting that. There's no small irony to hearing that part of the rant coming from Tony Stark.

The rest comes at him like a dam's finally broke. He's gotten some of the overflow since he sent Tony that angry text... when? this morning? yesterday? Recently. He's gotten overflow, but now that Tony's pouring out his feelings, Bruce can finally start putting together a fuller picture of what the hell is going on with his friend.

The kid? He'll have to wait until later for details.

Tony gets his unwavering attention, but other than his raised eyebrows, he gives nothing away until Tony's self-deprecatory conclusion, which is met with a quiet huff of dark amusement. "You're not doing well with just AIs for company. I think I'll stick around for a while."

Ultron isn't water under the bridge, and Bruce has some fresh wounds about that, some of which have Tony's signature on them, but if the universe won't let him give up and die, Tony doesn't get to either.

[starkingenuity]

Ready to do battle, to be angry and to let his pride ruin a friendship, Tony Stark is surprised by Bruce’s responses to his mounting upset.

Big brown eyes widen before he takes a small step back. Maybe he’s had too much to drink (ha!) because he’s pretty sure that Bruce just said… Tony exhales slowly. “Yeah? You want to stay in a dinosaur with memories of how messed up my childhood was? Don’t you have enough skeletons in your own closet? And I swear to-- Just go upstairs and get changed because if I see you tug at your crotch again…”

There’s a half sheepish smile on Tony’s face, mixing with relief.

“Hurry up or I’m going to hug you. Again.”

[hulkbusted]

Yeah, of course Tony wanted a fight, even if he didn't want a fight. It's what he's used to; it's what most people who aren't afraid of him do. Call Bruce's choice less avoiding fight and more interpersonal aikido.

At the mention of his crotch, he hugs himself to keep his hands in control, ducking his head apologetically and smiling a little at the apparent success of his tactics.

"Yeah, but I know all my skeletons by name, and I'm going to need you to tell me where I'm going upstairs unless you want me walking into every room and digging through drawers and boxes."