(no subject)

[starkingenuity]

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

Comments

[hulkbusted]

It's fortunate for them both that Bruce hadn't been the shirtless one. It's hard enough to get all of the pollen off of Tony's upper body without adding in Bruce's more extensive body hair as a pollen catcher. Offering to scrub Tony's back wasn't even some kind of come-on; he honestly needs the help.

For him the relaxation comes from the opportunity to finally decompress from the sensory overload of an alien city. He can stand under the hot water, scrub at Tony's back with his hands and blunt fingernails, and let the white noise of water bring him closer to sobriety and calm than he's been in hours.

"We need to work on getting all of humanity's eggs out of one basket. The universe is starting to come to us faster and faster, I think they need a good dose of homo sapiens in return."

[starkingenuity]

“I will be long dead before anyone gets humanity to even identify what eggs are,” Tony says, the high leaving him and his aching muscles catching up after that much too long day. He’s really got to take it easy for awhile after this, he decides, eyes closed and chin nodding briefly with each circular press of Bruce’s hand into his back. It feels great, soothing in a way that it has no business being. Tony’s gotten massages by people that have made it their whole livelihood and yet this one more be the best.

Talking shop while they shower together is just one of the benefits to this relationship, and Tony is sticking to it. If he doesn’t talk Banner into the codification of what they’ve become, no one will. He certainly can’t be trusted to get that way on his own after all.

There’s the faintest snort before the other man glances over his shoulder. There’s just some pink swirl there to keep it interesting.

“You and I are pretty good at being accountable for our actions—“ Ha! “But the rest of humanity? I don’t think so, Banner.”

[hulkbusted]

"You think the rest of the universe is better than we are? You do remember Loki, right?" Only the fact that he still needs to give himself a good scrub to get off both blood and pollen keeps him from wrapping his arms around Tony and holding him there. "Or the arena here?"

He gets the last of the pink that he can see and reach off of Tony and turns away to start cleaning himself up without splashing Tony. "Asgard thought one island in space was enough and now they're stuck asking humans for refuge. Whether it's a crazy giant or the sun's death, Earth isn't going to be enough forever."

[starkingenuity]

“I’ve just seen the best and the worst we have to offer and the worst— That’s the whole problem.” Now was the time for munchies and maybe clumbsy sex but instead they’re here, talking about is humanity is ready to meet the Vulcans and join the Federation. With the oversight they all seem to need at all times, Tony is really going to guess that no. No one is ready to try to stay out of red and set phasers to stun.

He soaps himself up again to make sure that he’s good and clean and then scrubs at his hair to clean that too. It looks less gray when it’s wet and Tony looks more youthful all together. So does Bruce too, really. The water seems restorative, or at least awakening? Maybe it’s full of caffeine.

The asparagus jizz is absolutely not making them younger.

Tony picks the last bit of pink from under his nails, biting on the corner of his lip as if deciding on the right kind of pasta to have with dinner. “How can you still have so much faith in the little guy?”

[hulkbusted]

Why on Earth would asparagus jizz make them younger? No one remind Bruce that they're not on Earth.

He's face first in one of the water jets just then and only shakes his head, taking his time to give himself a thorough scrub before turning around to continue. "Maybe because I have more experience with the little guy than you do, and I don't think we have the right to tell them that they aren't grown up enough to leave the nursery."

If Earth goes the way of Asgard, Bruce wants humanity to have family out in the stars who'll take them in.

[starkingenuity]

How the heck does an asparagus jizz? That’s the real question here, Bruce. That, alone, is the real question.

Tony shakes his head to clear the hair from his forehead, and splash a man already standing under one of the many jets of water. “Know what people would do on Sakaar? Get high all the time. There’s no law here and you know what human beings doing when they aren’t organized. They kill each other. And I’m not talking for sport. I’m talking Zombie Apocalypse.” He’s got to sit Bruce down and make him watch Walking Dead. It will make him understand that people are the worst things ever.

Hence why Tony lives alone. He might hate it and crave human contact but all they do is try to eat his brains.

“We can bring this up to SHIELD. Or better yet, the Accords team. And then let the counsel decide.”

[hulkbusted]

"Yeah, without laws, who knows what humans will do on Sakaar. God forbid they get high, have sex, go see a sex show. Who does that except people in need of supervision?" He just wipes the water from Tony's hair spatter off his face.

The Walking Dead is fiction, Tony.

He snorts at the mention of SHIELD and the Accords team. "Who are you? A question comes up and you just want to hand it over to the authorities?"

[starkingenuity]

“In case you’ve failed to notice in the last four days, I make really bad decisions,” Tony says without thinking for the repercussions. Being with Bruce isn’t a mistake. He’s sure of that. But he can’t actually figure out how Bruce is going to take it. He just hopes, pressing his lips together, that Banner isn’t as sensitive as a teenage girl.

He turns his eyes away, shoulder pressing to cold, iridescent purple and gold tiles.

“I lost my cricket. He’s hanging out with some other technological genius who also happens to be a prince. Can’t compete with that.”

[hulkbusted]

Bruce takes the statement with little more than a twist of his lips that's as close as he's going to get to expressing that ouch. Not only does Tony make bad decisions, but he's tactless as hell, neither of which are revelations to Bruce.

It's talk of his cricket that he finds necessary to remark on as he gets out of the shower. "Keep talking like that and I'm going to feel like a third wheel in your breakup with Steve." And he won't even be able to get mad about it.

[starkingenuity]

“Hey, you can’t be jealous of my friends—. Former friends. It’s never been— Sodomy was literally illegal when he grew up!” Tony calls after Bruce, which is followed for a lower, softer, “Damn it.” He’s quick to finish rinsing off and he shuffles around in the shower to hit all of the jets with his elbows before he grabs a towel and follows Bruce.

He doesn’t want to fight. He doesn’t want to push him away. He doesn’t want him to get his panties in a twist either though, and he doesn’t like being wrong.

So he’s focusing on Steve here, his lack of relationship with Steve, and that he is almost amused by the jealousy thing even if it bothers him.

“You know I—“ Not Love, not love, not love, “you know you mean more to me that some loser art class drop out, right?”

[hulkbusted]

Bruce hasn't gone far. He's drying off and pulling a face at a few spots of pink that are coming off on the towel where he didn't get all of the pollen. That he can tolerate, but it does concern him enough to find a mirror and check his face to ensure that no trace of blood remains.

Alien plant jizz? Fine. Banner blood? No go.

"I don't need reassurance. I'd rather just see my friends get their shit together." Whether it loses gravity when he says it while he's tilting his head back to look up his own nose is not his problem.

If the word "love" gets dropped, he's heading back out into the city to find whoever has mind-controlled and/or kidnapped Tony.

Satisfied that he's properly cleaned up, he frowns a little at his reflection. He's been having some trouble reconciling who he sees in the mirror lately, so that's no change. It would be great if he could just stop wondering where the years went when he looks at himself.

[starkingenuity]

Tony’s learned his lesson about loving people. They always try to kill you and leave you anyway. He’s not making that mistake again. Getting himself nearly killed is just par for the course of his life but that doesn’t mean that he wants to carry that any further into his relationships than they already are.

He’s not looking into the mirror. He’s just watching Bruce test the safety of his nasal passages, arms crossed over his chest after he tucks the towel around his waist.

“You weren’t here. It got complicated really fast. And I don’t have time to lay out exactly how much of an idiot I will gladly admit to being. This case only.” He isn’t losing something good over something toxic either.

Rogers can suck it.

He picked his side anyway and that side doesn’t contain Tony Stark.

“Listen. If you want to write a paper, I’ll back you up. If you want to give presentations on how good it might be to start some sort of exchange program with Sakaar, that’s fine! But after that shit with the Chitauri... I just don’t have the faith in humanity that you do.”

He’ll leave Bruce to finish his night time routine and shimmy into his last pair of clean boxer briefs before he drops into bed.

None of his joints creek for once. It’s nice.

[hulkbusted]

Yet another place where Bruce and Tony can see eye to eye. Loving people is dangerous, although in Bruce's experience the danger isn't just to himself, but to them.

"I can tell it got complicated. All I have to do is try to wrap my head around Steve Rogers, internationally wanted criminal. That's about as easy to grasp as your admitting to being wrong about anything."

He's all out of wearable clothes at this point; when he follows Tony out of the bathroom, he hasn't even brought the towel with him. If Tony gets squeamish, he can stay on top of the blanket that Bruce is getting under. He'll raid the Grandmaster's wardrobe for something to wear for the trip home.

"We're outliers. That puts us on a collision course with other outliers, both good and bad. If you start judging the whole species by those anomalies, you might as well write us off altogether, and I didn't come back to Earth to do that."

[starkingenuity]

Squeamish? Hardly. Tony’s been initiating just about everything. It’s Bruce that has operation of the hand break here. Tony has decided not to bother learning how to use it. That’s pretty much a metaphor for his entire life though. One thing can be said about him, he’s never stagnant. Today might be the only day in the last two years that he hadn’t tried to fiddle with metal or wires. At all. Today is an anomaly.

He tucks himself under the covers but he doesn’t try to cuddle Bruce. The high has worn off and Tony isn’t a cuddler. He’s grown up being too alone to find the need for it, except maybe an occasional arm around the person next to him in sleep. And usually that’s because of alcohol or hot tubs or drug laced food triangles.

“I guess we have to have a different opinion on some things,” Tony says. “To keep it interesting. And if you can figure out a way to save us from ourselves and make everyone like each other again, you’ll have my appreciation. And make me wonder where you learned sorcery. And don’t say Loki. I really hate that guy.”

[hulkbusted]

Bruce could be a cuddler, would be a cuddler, but he's out of the habit and still not sure what the boundaries and expectations are for whatever this thing is he's doing with Tony. A little space is almost definitely a good idea.

"The last time I tried to save us from ourselves it didn't go so well." He snorts, though, at mention of Loki. "You probably don't want to hear about how he's currently in his brother's good graces. King Thor, of the planet formerly known as Asgard, currently known as space debris."

[starkingenuity]

“It’s hard to hate family,” Tony says before he rolls his eyes at himself and pulls the covers up over his shoulder. “I think I should probably just stop talking for tonight.” At least he realizes that he’s saying pretty asshole-y things. That has to be a first. Then again, his mouth is what got him into trouble with Rogers. And with Pepper. And with half of the team.

He can’t seem to stop. And he knows that it’s his own fault that he’s like that. He’s very well aware of how dangerous he is to his own relationships. He just can’t manage a disconnect.

“But I just think that when we get back we need to sit Thor down and watch the Lion King with him. You be Pumba. I’ll be Timon.”

[hulkbusted]

"Aren't we already going to be that Spider kid's adoptive parents? I'm not taking on Thor, too."

After a second to think, he pushes up on his elbow and leans across the no man's land between them. "Go to sleep. Tomorrow you're taking me back to a planet that has my clothes and take-out that won't get us high."

The part that had taken thinking about is leaning in to kiss Tony goodnight. What they're doing is almost certainly a terrible idea, but neither of them halfass anything, not even their terrible ideas.

[starkingenuity]

There’s just this way about Bruce that is simultaneously charming and maddening all at the same time. The lights are out and Tony can only see the glimmer of light from the city so far below reflected in them. His own eyes close as their lips touch, but it’s brief and he looks back up at Bruce the moment he leans back again.

He’s stopped thinking that this is a bad idea. Maybe if other people find out, it could get awkward, but when they’re alone, this is absolutely the best idea.

He lifts one bare arm up, the muscles of his bicep well defined, and cards his fingers through Bruce’s hair. His thumb lightly runs across his cheek. The skin is so much more supple than it had been before, though maybe that’s mostly because he’s still a little wired from the drugs and hyper focused. Tony exhales slowly, the corners of his lips lifting.

“So demanding.”

[hulkbusted]

"I'm just trying to keep up with you." He tips his head into the touch until it's gone, and when it is, he wants it back. It has been so long that he's had the kind of intimate contact that most humans need to thrive; he's going to need some time to catch up.

Instead he turns over and stretches out with a sigh that's more for the lingering effects of the drugs than anything else. As fraught as things will be back on Earth, he wants nothing more than to be home, whatever that nebulously defined home may be.

"Good-night."

And if nothing else can be said for sleep after an alien drug binge, it's deep. He barely moves during the hours until sunrise, dreams only of that one incredibly awkward time in gym class when he got a boner over one of the hottest girls in school, and wakes slowly and without wondering where he is. He's on Sakaar, and he's in bed with Tony.

Actually, he'd better check that.

Lump under the blankets? Check. Dark hair? Check. Grumpy morning Iron Man out of his shell?

He's ready to check that off as well, leaning over Tony to kiss his temple before heading off to the bathroom, when something registers as not quite right and it's more than a bit of rejuventated skin from a pink pollen facial.

[starkingenuity]

Grumpy morning Iron Man feels like his shell has been cracked. He’s been binging on Sakaaran drugs and booze for the last few days and it’s caught up with him. His head is splitting but he doesn’t feel like puking so that’s a pretty good shift in the norm for overly destructive behavior. He can feel the bed shift and what he wants to do is reach out to catch Bruce’s arm and tug him back down to create that lovely well of heat against his back. He misses. Bruce is gone. That’s a shame.

Tony closes his eyes and just exhales until he can think again. The pounding in his head is kind to him and listens, fading away to just a reminder that maybe he should be a little less hedonistic. He’s surprised that there isn’t a refrain about trying to act his age for once. He doesn’t actually feel so bad now that he’s able to focus.

Pushing back the covers, he swings his legs over the edge of the bed and pads into the bathroom to find Bruce, take a leak and brush his teeth. In that order.

His shorts are fitting looser though and he has to hitch them up before he glances at Bruce’s back and then at himself in the reflection over his shoulder.

“Holy shit.” He's usually a little better on the language, thanks to Steve and trying to be a good role model for a teenager, but when you’re face to face with the guy you haven’t been for twenty years, you get to say bad words.

[hulkbusted]

Bruce has similar, if not identical priorities. Toilet, teeth, Tony, in that order. He's on step two of three when Tony comes in, too groggy to really look up from zoning out on the sink while he brushes his teeth. He hasn't looked in the mirror yet and is blissfully unaware of anything strange until he hears Tony coming in and looks up to catch sight of him in the mirror.

Holy shit seems like an entirely reasonable response to seeing a guy who sounds like Tony and who resembles him, but who is far too young to be the man who Bruce went to sleep with.

Then Bruce catches sight of his own face and pulls the toothbrush out of his mouth to stare, open-mouthed at a face he hasn't seen since Harvard. He has to stop to spit out his toothpaste before breathing, "Holy shit is right."

So, alien asparagus jizz... He is never coming back to Sakaar.

[starkingenuity]

Somehow, reliving his twenties just isn’t the sort of thing he’s prepared to do, despite having masterminded the software and virtual reality glass to let him do just that. This isn’t a hologram though. It’s not playing back an emotional trauma made right in the hours before the deaths of his parents. He lightly touches his smooth cheek and then drops his hand to head back to the toilet.

He’s noping out right now, hard, both because he can’t bring himself to deal with it right now and because he really has to pee. His bladder is way too full and he’s starving and he’s pretty sure his brain is going to explode with ideas thanks to rejuvenated synapses.

As the sound of a healthy stream of twenty-something year old’s urine hits the water in the bowl, Tony murmurs to himself half intelligibly. His forehead rests against his forearm as he leans it on the tile over the toilet.

“This place is too weird. And you want people to vacation here? No. Absolutely not,” he says as he finally speaks up.

Okay. He’s yelling.

[hulkbusted]

"What?" Bruce has been transfixed by the sight of a version of himself who hasn't lived through Mexico or Brazil or Pakistan or Canada or South Africa or Sakovia or Sakaar.

Except his eyes are still the eyes of a man who's endured all that and isn't sure that the "learning experiences" have been worth it and who is entirely certain that he doesn't want twenty years added to his lifespan.

Up until this exact moment, he's been unaware of how much comfort he's taken in the idea that he has got to be more than halfway done with this entire farce of a life.

"No." That answer isn't especially decisive, more bemused in fact, before he puts more force into it. "No. Not Sakaar. Why can't we colonize our own planets?"

[starkingenuity]

“Our own planets? Do you want to colonize Jupiter? There’s no solid surface on Jupiter!” It’s better to argue about this than about why they are suddenly younger. Tony himself looks like a baby. He’s got to be currently in his mid twenties. And Bruce? Well he pulls off the sexy young professor really well. Either way it’s just so much easier to deal with planets than the sudden weird age gap. Or what it means for Banner. He draws his hand through his hair and flushed the toilet before he heads over to wash his hands.

He does not, however, look at himself in the mirror.

He can’t.

“And whose to say Jupiter is even ours? Humans don’t just own anything they see. Jesus Banner. Don’t be so selfish.” He's freaking out. Or trying not to and really failing miserably.

[hulkbusted]

"Jupiter? Where did you get Jupiter from?"

Jesus, Tony really does look like a baby. He's never going to be able to buy alcohol like this; his ID would be laughed out of the bar or store. Tony Stark? Yeah, right.

He leaves his toothbrush, forgotten, on the counter and moves in to scrutinize Tony's face before dropping his eyes to check his chest. The question is whether the scar's gone as well as the years.

The question clamoring in the back of his head is what Hulk would look like.

"Jupiter's a wash and you know it. Enceladus has got promise, but that's a test run at best. That might make the basket bigger, but it would still only be one for all our eggs. Humanity needs to do what we do best and expand and infest."