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[starkingenuity]

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

Comments

[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."

[starkingenuity]

“You said planet.. By what definition is Enceladus a planet?! None. If you want to reach out to moons, maybe. We could probably focus on Europa too. Make it like SeaQuest.” This nonsense talk about colonozing other worlds is at least calming to the engineer. He doesn’t sound so shrill anymore and if he keeps his eyes on the hot professor, he doesn’t have to worry about what he looks like.

The scar on his chest is still there, though, as are the scars on his back from where Loki had thrown him through the Tower window. Chronical time hasn’t shifted backwards, just age.

The Kardashians would be all over asparagus jizz in a heartbeat.

[hulkbusted]

"Mars, then, if you want to talk in-system planets. Throwing out Jupiter was just you being argumentative because that's got to be one of the least hospitable to human life planets in our solar system."

He knows that Tony sees what he sees and that his mind has to be going a thousand miles a second trying to get a handle on it. He also fully understands the tactic of distracting part of an overactive brain to split computing power and keep it from just shutting down.

Then again, he has an advantage over Tony in this situation, considering most of his own fear is in time out with his anger.

He reaches out to touch that scar and looks from there back up to Tony's too-young face. "If word of this gets out, the Earth's policy on alien immigration may be driven by the beauty industry."

[starkingenuity]

Tony’s not the type to blush, but he does right now, heart pounding in his chest. His body, this body, isn’t used to feeling touches like this anymore. His skin has turned more elastic, more supple, capable of holding more moisture, and it’s also revived much of the touch receptors that had died away as youth once had too. He can’t help but respond to Banner, to the naked guy with full, kissable lips and knowing, capable hands standing in front of him.

He swallows and turns too big eyes away from the other man, placing an uncalloused (so strange!) around Bruce’s wrist.

“So you’re saying we need to colonize Mars immediately so we can move there?” It’s a romantic thought, Stark and Banner against the world. It’s the reason they’re here together in the first place. Tony’s decided that he doesn’t need anyone else, ever, in his life. And that’s rash. Stupid. He knows. He’s just used to moving quickly with the things (and people) he wants.

He’s wanted Banner for the better part of a decade, before he ever met him, and it’s worse now.

“We’re so screwed.”

[hulkbusted]

"What you're hearing is that we need to colonize Mars immediately. I'm saying we need to colonize across the galaxy as a start." Tony's thinking romance; Bruce is still thinking practicality. He's never been good at this romance thing.

In the past day or two Bruce has had sex with both an alien and Tony and had tadpoles with one of them, has had a sizable component of his most used emotions locked in a cage, has been thrown off the top of a skyscraper, has been big and green and fully cognizant of himself after hitting the ground after that toss, has been high as giraffe genitals at least twice, has been covered in alien pollination, and now has lost a couple of decades of wear and tear. All on an alien planet he somehow thought it would be smart to visit for a break.

He's just beyond his saturation point. He has little left beyond a dry laugh for Tony's observation.

"Maybe. Probably. But that was true even before we came here." He flattens his hand out on Tony's chest, feeling the strong beat of his heart as a light vibration under his palm. "The first thing we should find out is whether this is temporary, which means trying to find some of those horny asparagus."

[starkingenuity]

There’s no such thing as practicality when it comes to Tony. He doesn’t believe in it. He believes in getting what he wants and making what he has to in order to get it. He’s a solver of problems usually, but he’s having his trouble decompressing these few moments so that he can see the big picture. The big picture is too big to comprehend and he can’t zoom out any further.

Bruce’s hand on his chest is calming at least and Tony tries to match his breathing with a man who has perfected the art of staying cool in any situation.

“Asparagus. Right. I remember where that show was,” he says, thanking his memory, before Bruce’s dark eyes distract him. “But. Does that have to be the first thing...?”

Up goes his eyebrows. He might look like a kid but he’s still Tony.

[hulkbusted]

If they were both as practical as Bruce, they wouldn't be on Sakaar. If they were both as impetuous as Tony, they'd probably hate each other. They have a balance that usually works.

Could he say this is balanced? Neither of them is teetering into an abyss, so call that a yes.

The question, though... He's smiling before he can think of any reasons to say no. The first part of his answer is the slide away from the center of Tony's chest, brushing a thumb over his nipple before sliding around his back to pull him closer.

"Are we on a tight schedule?"