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[starkingenuity]

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

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[hulkbusted]

He returns to bed and despite the mess and stains, lies down with Kiara and puts his arms around her as best he can without jarring the wound he's made. Her biology's clearly meant to support what he's done, the tissue thin enough to part easily and lacking the vascularity to bleed excessively, but he's human and it's disconcerting at best.

A girl and a boy. His eyes drift in the direction of where he's put the jars away. And four children like Kiara. He should feel something other than hollow.

"Will they be safe here?" The window may not be as high as Hulk's but the sky above Sakaar provides a glimpse of debris falling from holes in the sky no matter where one looks. "Will you after all this?"

[starkingenuity]

“You need not worry about our offspring. Your role has been completed.” It probably hasn’t occurred to Kiara that Bruce might want to stay in the lives of his children. She won’t allow it anyway. He provided genetic material, yes. He is her mate and she will mate again with no other, this is true. But there will always be a psychic connection to be had and for that reason, she can not allow him to help her raise the children. They must imprint only on her and she alone must teach them what they are. Their biology doesn’t matter, after all. It’s just their minds, or more specifically, the minds that will await their own hosts and mates in urns, that will be vital to carry on the species.

Kiara does place an arm around him, however. She is feeling maternal, a biological response she had not anticipated, and she strokes his hair carefully from the base of his sweaty nape. Her fingers do what Tony’s had done before.

“We will leave this place in several months. Once four become two and I can transfer them safely, we will find a new place to explore. This really is a remarkable body, Bruce. I can not thank you enough.”

Upstairs, Tony’s grown bored. It’s been hours now. FRIDAY assured him that Banner is fine and won’t let him listen in, and that annoys him too.

“Fine. Tell him I’m going out. Don’t give me that look.”

“I have no look to give you, Boss,” FRIDAY complains but Tony has already strolled out with what he hopes to sell to make some money. Let Banner have his fun but Tony is aiming for a little fun too. Mostly to sate his nagging jealousy. And to bait Banner to find him.

[hulkbusted]

So that's it - hours of energetic sex and he gets to go on with his life scot-free with some of his own biological imperative fulfilled, Hulk gone, and a new life ahead of him. It all feels too easy, and there's something missing.

He's close to letting it slide until after he's had some sleep. A nap sounds good before he leaves Kiara to the plans for their brood that don't include him. His eyes are slipping closed, his breathing slowing, and sleep is beckoning when a voice in his ear startles him fully awake.

"Doctor Banner, Boss wanted me to tell you he's going out."

He'd completely forgotten about the comm in his ear and frankly he's pretty surprised it's still there after the past hours. Sleep is going to have to wait.

"I think it's time for me to go. I just have two more things - first, do you have a shower? And second--" He doesn't have to ask the second part. His lips thin, caught between his teeth before he pushes through with his decision. "--if you can put the anger back without letting Hulk out, put it back. Please."

[starkingenuity]

Kiara hadn’t been ready for her mate to just yet but he’s done as she requested and she’s gifted him freedom from the anger in his mind— well, until it seems that he wishes it to return. One deep red, almost brown eye opens and she smiles up at him oddly. Use of her body has given him better motor skills with her facial muscles, at least.

“The anger is your switch,” she says simply. Their telepathy is basic, and one way. She can not read his mind and he can not project his emotions to her but she can feel some sort of tugging from him. “Too much will rupture that hold, Bruce. The creature sleeps within you, yes. But what is sleeping can still awake. Is it not better to feel as you do now?”

So that was the hidden price. She’s changed him. She’s stunted him in many ways. She’s meddled with his emotions, but only as asked. And she did tell him exactly what she had been doing. He just, as Tony mentioned earlier, neglected to ask all the questions.

“Enjoy the shower. Do not wake the young. And after, tell me again how you feel.”

Not that he would get the chance. Kiara means to leave him while he’s cleaning himself off. She’s a mother now. And even her mate means nothing compared to her young.

[hulkbusted]

Bruce had known deep in his gut that there would be a hidden cost, but as with so many of Earth's cautionary tales of being careful what you wish for, he'd been blinded by his desire, even when he'd tried to see what he was missing.

Is it better to feel as he does now? He gives a little shake of his head, but he also can't argue with her when it's not an unreasonable request to shower before they revisit the matter of his anger.

He leaves her in the soiled bed, doesn't disturb his children in their jars, and goes to scrub away the hours of sex. It takes time to get thoroughly cleaned up, and he barely remembers to remove the comm from his ear before stepping under the stinging hard spray, but it does give him time to take a mental inventory and restore some measure of vigor to his exhausted body.

In the end, by the time he steps out of the shower and dries off, he hasn't changed his mind. Without his anger, he feels as though a color has been removed from the world. Nothing has changed, but there's a vibrance to his responses to the world, to Kiara, to Tony going out into the city, that has gone flat. He knows there should be more, but looking for that missing emotion is like walking into an empty room and hearing his footsteps echoed back at him by walls that are too close.

"I've thought about it," he's saying as he emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of steam, wiping the last beads of water out of his chest hair with a towel. "I haven't changed--" His words trail off in volume as he takes in the utter lack of Kiara. "--my mind."

All he has to do is check on the children and find the jars gone to know that she's gone for good. Where he should be pissed at her for ditching him without that last resolution or even the courtesy of a good-bye, there's nothing there to give. All he can do is get dressed and get moving.

"FRIDAY." The comm back in his ear, he calls out the AI while he shoves an arm into the suit to pull out a bag of chips that Tony hadn't gotten to. "Can you help me find Tony or has he gone completely off the reservation?"

He's ready to go, and discovering one bright side to the loss of the simmering stratum of anger upon which he's built his life - anger comes from fear, and without fear, going out into Sakaar just looks like an interesting challenge.

[starkingenuity]

FRIDAY doesn't need to answer. Where Tony Stark is, there's likely to be smoke. Literally. An explosion rocks a building covered in neon lime streamers visible across the square from the window Bruce glances out of almost in time to his question and FRIDAY confirms that her Boss is having a hard time selling his wares.

He is a student of culture, but also a man who completely ignores cultural norms and it's gotten him into trouble here the way it likely would not have done at home.

He has no reputation here. He's just some rude outsider whose gadgets have accidentally blown up. Technically, all of Tony's early prototypes tend to do that at some point or another due to his severe lack of safety precautions, but whoops? It probably shouldn't when he's trying to sell them.

FRIDAY has already scooped Tony up into his suit and the one following Bruce questions in FRIDAY's voice if he might not like to step inside as well.

[hulkbusted]

He blinks at the explosion and shakes his head in a certain bemused humor before turning back to look at the suit, as though eye contact makes any bit of difference in the circumstances, particularly when there are no eyes to contact.

"Do I need to?" In truth, his sense of self-preservation atrophied years ago. The only reason he agrees after a moment is because it'll be the best way to keep up with Tony.

Once he's cocooned in the suit's embrace he asks FRIDAY to connect him to Tony, and he makes no effort to hide his amusement. "Pretty sure local customs didn't include blowing up shopkeepers. How's that working out for you?"

[starkingenuity]

"Pretty badly, actually," Tony's voice comes through before FRIDAY throws his face up in a corner of the panoramic screen to show Bruce what might lie outside of the helmet in all directions he could turn his eyes. His nose and eyebrows look a little sooty, almost cartoonishly so. "How'd the baby making go? Did anything blow up?"

He actually doesn't want to know, despite the easy euphemisms and innuendo that comes with it. What he's really wondering is if Bruce is free of obligation and if the Hulk has gone away. He can be spared the details.

Funny thing, jealousy. He really does not like it at all.

[hulkbusted]

Seeing Tony in that condition but otherwise whole is worth a faint, amused huff and a wash of relief that at least the affection he feels for his friend hasn't been affected by the loss of part of his emotional range.

"She left with the kids, so it's just you and me against Sakaar." How's that for condensing a whole lot of information into a single sentence? "Sorry about derailing our vacation. Can I make it up to you?"

Other than by blowing up shops and getting the population after their heads. He's not particularly afraid of that, but it would cut into any possible R&R.

[starkingenuity]

“What? Already? That usually takes a few months,” Tony says as if it’s normal to have this sort of conversation as his gold and crimson armor punches through the explosion and spirals upwards, likely towards the room they’ve come to squat in. “Are you that bad at pillow talk?”

He can’t help but feel pleased at that and he hopes that Kiara just stays gone. Forever. She got what she wanted. Banner’s got what he wanted... and all it took was three city blocks to go ablaze and a little bit of stupidity on Tony’s part?

He’s going to take credit for putting Hulk to sleep. He knows it. Banner should know it. It doesn’t matter if it’s not quite true.

“I think we should find new accommodations,” Tony says. “But I’m going to insist on a hot tub from now on. I think I was promised round two?”

[hulkbusted]

Considering the kinds of conversations he's listened to Tony having while in the middle of a firefight, it seems perfectly normal. Context is everything and their context is just... weird.

He asks FRIDAY to have the suit he's in follow Tony's with a minimum of structural damage to his surroundings.

"I got out of the shower and she was gone and she'd taken the tadpoles with her." He puts that latter detail out just to prick at Tony to see whether his possessiveness over a friend or his curiosity win. "I think the message that she's done with me is pretty clear."

There's something to be said for this new way of seeing life. It's easier to navigate, at least for now.

"Round two?" He doesn't remember promising round two of anything, but it's been kind of a hectic day. "I want full specs on everything having to do with that hot tub. There's something going on with it that we need to take home with us."

[starkingenuity]

“Yes to the hot tub tech but can we please back up here? Tadpoles? Did you two spawn? Actually don’t tell me. That’s not even slightly sexy. Hang on, I’m banking up to the penthouse. Let’s see how the me-half lives in this dump.”

Tony will be waiting in the Grandmaster’s suite. It hasn’t been looted. In fact, it looks completely untouched. Tony is impressed.

“Lots of lasers—. This is giving me such an 80s vibe,” he says as the suit spits Banner out beside him.

[hulkbusted]

"You probably don't want to know." Bruce steps out of the suit and shakes out his arms and legs and straightens his sweater while he looks around. "I wonder if he got some 80s MTV through the wormhole."

No, actually, over against the wall looks more like the ice control panel out of the 80s Superman movie's Fortress of Solitude. Bruce wanders over to it and starts pushing and pulling at the cylinders. The lights go down, go up, change to flashing blue and purple, and back to white. Another cylinder pushes a massive clothing rack out of one wall.

"Huh. Heavy on the lamé. I'm seeing a Ming the Merciless aesthetic."

[starkingenuity]

Any Flash Gordon reference is bound to get him to stop thinking about tadpoles, thankfully, and Tony decides to rifle through some drawers and have FRIDAY do some scans to make sure that they were secure, that this place was clean, and that there was a hot tub to enjoy before they took it apart.

The penthouse takes up the entire floor and FRIDAY guides the Iron Man armor out of the room to take inventory, more or less leaving the two scientists alone.

Tony’s arms cross over his chest.

“How do you feel? More than having busted a decade’s old nut.”

[hulkbusted]

Bruce isn't too interested in the wardrobe, and with Tony going through drawers, he pushes the cylinder back in to have the clothing rack retreat into the wall before he wanders off to pick at a bowl of something that might be fruit, mostly curious about texture and scent rather than looking for a snack.

"I, uh..." The question was pretty much inevitable. He stops to break something that looks like a kiwi-sized grape open and sniff it, wrinkling his nose at the odor. It gives him a few seconds to do an internal inventory before answering. "I feel pretty good, but I think that I probably shouldn't feel that way about having a substantial portion of my emotional range suppressed."

From a distance he can see where he could be angry and even afraid. The anger just isn't there, and the fear of a hurting, abused child is pushed under, asleep with Hulk where it can't fertilize more rage. What fear he has left seems to be too tightly keyed in to his survival instinct to be put to sleep with the rest.

"Other than that, I've probably got some bruises in interesting places."

[starkingenuity]

Tony is not an idiot, though he has a terrible lack of general empathy and has trouble understanding another person’s emotional context when he himself isn’t effected by something similar. He’s a selfish sort of man, but as Bruce describes his current lack of rage, and lack of ability to even feel that rage, he puts together a probable way that Kiara had been able to lock away the Hulk.

To take away a person’s ability to feel anger is not as therapeutic as it might seem. She said that Banner would be able to bring out the Hulk’s physical transformation when needed but— Uh. Isn’t the Hulk just rage incarnate? Tony isn’t sure he should be asking those questions though.

He just looks thoughtfully at Bruce for a moment before kicking piles of clothing towards the corners of the room.

“Now you’re just trying to make me jealous. My questionable bruises are more from kinetic explosions than biological ones.”

[hulkbusted]

The questions have occurred to him. That lingering hook of fear may be where he has to pull to get at Hulk, but he's really not in the place to test it out without potentially hurting people who've done nothing to deserve it. He has time to live with the vacant halls of rage in his psyche for a while before deciding if they can ever house anything else.

It's not like he has a lot of choice at the moment anyway; his motivation to resolve this would have come from fear and anger. In other words, his urgency's on vacation.

"It's not my fault the hot alien fixated on me." He gives Tony a wry smile that fails to cover his teasing amusement. "Is that why you were blowing things up down in the city?"

[starkingenuity]

“I was trying to get some money, not over reacting to the fact that you forbade me from having sex so you could.” Tony mostly struts around, making as if he is much more interested in everything else. “And honestly, there’s no accounting for taste.”

He can hear the armor moving around, scanning and cataloging so he knows if he has to bust out his supply of hand sanitizer before he glances over his shoulder at stupid Banner being extra stupid.

Tony’s never seen the anger. He’s never doubted that it’s there but the guy is just so damned patient with him. This really isn’t any different. Tony has no reason to act weird around him. One hot tub kiss under the influence of alcohol and sonic vibration means pretty much nothing. Even if it does.

Tony sets down what he’s holding and crosses the room to the weird fruit bowl before he leans over and sets a hand on his shoulder.

“We should do something you haven’t been able to do in awhile. Ever think about CrossFit?” He teases and pokes his belly. “Or we can try blowing more things up?”

[hulkbusted]

"You were trying to get money by blowing things up?" Humor to cover the hollow is much the same as humor to cover the anger - a little dry, a little pointed, not really meant to hurt. "How'd that work out for you?"

He's holding something that looks almost exactly like a crookneck gourd that's making his stomach grumble a little just looking at it when Tony comes over. He takes the poking with a bit of a grin and waggles the not-a-gourd at Tony. "CrossFit's too cultish for me, and blowing things up has always been more your forte. I'd rather just give critiques."

One hot tub kiss means a lot to Bruce, but he's more than willing to let Tony let it slide if sobriety is introducing the regret that alcohol numbed in the first place.

[starkingenuity]

It’s not regret. It’s the polar opposite of regret. The trouble with explosion induced sobriety and sex with aliens is that he’s second guessing himself and his reasons for wanting what he does now. Still. The whole thing is more confusing to him than the ability to make alcohol as potent as Hulk Juice and hot tubs as amazing as the ones here.

Tony’s back to watching Bruce, hand slipped from his shoulder to rest in his pocket with the other.

“So what are you critiquing now? Vegetables that look like dicks? Because that one is pretty convincing for someone suffering from syphillus. I’d guess.” He gestures briefly with his eyebrows to indicate that he might have once had to look up what such a thing might look like.

[hulkbusted]

Alien tech and chemistry are just elements of science that they don't understand yet, but which they both know the steps to take to eventually understand. People? People don't follow rules nearly as well.

"I can't critique it until I taste it." Whether it looks like a syphilitic dick or not. "Have you seen a knife around here?"

That grin is entirely inappropriate for talking about knives and phallic objects. He's had a long life and probably needs some slack.

No knife, no gourd. It goes back in the bowl and Bruce tables the matter of alien fruit eating for the moment.

"If you want to give getting money another shot, there's probably more than a few things in here to sell. The Grandmaster owes me back pay, and we can get back on track with the vacation idea."

[starkingenuity]

“Listen, I was trying not to plunder. We aren’t pirates. I was just being a little crafty,” Tony is trying to explain because he isn’t sure what to make of Bruce and dick-and-knife jokes right now. He rubs a hand through the back of his hair to the front as FRIDAY marches the armor back in with her report and instead reminds her Boss that she’s tried a few times to get him to follow tried and true safety procedures when pulling wiring out of the wall.

He gives her the kill sign but she switches instead to telling him that everything in the room had been sanitized for their use. “They use sonic energy to sterilize the surfaces,” she explains.

“Good thing we didn’t figure that out before Banner got his jollies going, huh? But we don’t have any reason to sell anything. We have everything we need here. Unless you want to run out and pick up some alien space pizza?”

Tony doesn’t want to go out right now. He would rather destroy some things. It makes him feel better to expand his personal knowledge.

[hulkbusted]

"You always end up with AIs with a bit of sass," Bruce observes with a soft huff that fades a little thinking of JARVIS' recent (to him) death. He can't say it's good to know that sorrow still has a home in his head, but he's lost enough already today, he'll even take a bit of sadness.

He puts that aside. Right now he's got an open pit that could all too easily fill with things he doesn't want. Better to stay on track with inappropriate humor and sarcasm. The world's funny, and this world's even funnier in its entirely fucked up way.

"You didn't, um... see any kind of festival going on down there?" Of course he hadn't. If Tony had seen people dancing around with Hulk heads, Bruce would have heard all about it and would probably still be hearing about it. "Then let's stay up here until you get bored."

[starkingenuity]

“Festival? No, I’ve been to enough street festivals to know that they’re just chess pools of diarrhea waiting to happen.” He has no intention of going down there to go to a festival. Bruce was in India far too long, Tony thinks, if he finds that stuff enjoyable.

Time here works weird anyway. It’s been a long time since the Hulk was favored in the arena and a long time since anyone’s been dancing around celebrating him.

It’s a wonder that no one from below has come up here to do more looting, though. Somehow, it’s still seen as off limits. Tony can’t fathom how this place exists anyway. It’s insane. And beautiful. And more luxury than even he had.

It’s not a good place to be when billionaires get jealous of someone else’s wealth.

“I can deal with staying in. That dick fruit is making me hungry. FRIDAY, bust out the snacks!”

[hulkbusted]

Good news for Bruce that Tony has little interest in going out and even less interest in street festivals. The fact that the fruit hasn’t rotted and this suite hasn’t been looted serves to bolster his false impression that time has passed in a similar fashion on Sakaar as it has in Bruce’s perception.

While Friday marches the suits over to deliver their offerings of junk food and canned tuna, Bruce continues his search for a knife, eventually finding one on a wheeled cart that holds what looks like an iceless chamagne bucket with a bottle of some liquid held in its chilly grip. There’s more homey tech to take back to Earth than just the hot tub and alcohol.

He returns to the bowl of fruit after giving a little, triumphant ah! upon finding the knife. “I’m sorry that I have to say this in any kind of company, but the dick fruit’s making me hungry, too.”

Unlike Tony, though, he has no motivation to stress about bacteria or viruses. The only thing he physically has in common with Hulk is a hardy constitution that owes as much to the serum changes to his immune system as to the fact that his blood is inimical to foreign invaders.

Which is why he takes the fruit back out of the bowl and slices into it, cutting a few discs from the neck without offering any to Tony. “We need to work out how to get you an ‘I went to Sakaar and all I got was this stupid shirt’ souvenir.” (And only blew up one building.)