Who: Science Bros! What: Catching up, and Tony has science project plans. When: this week(ish). Rating/Warnings: It's not easy being Green. Just ask Bruce Banner.
Now that he could move around, Tony felt like he was semi-quasi-normal again. He knew he wasn't normal by any stretch of the word, so that wouldn't apply to him. It probably wouldn't apply to the person he was meeting either.
The cafe wasn't chosen because it was upscale. It was chosen for the convenience of being between Steve and Bucky's apartment, and the hotel that Bruce might be staying in. It wasn't even the sort of place that Tony would ever hang out in, since it looked like a Parisian knockoff. At least it smelled good in there. Like any good Parisian knockoff should.
Holding off on ordering anything, Tony was half tempted to snap his teeth in the air at those smells. He refrained due to being on a pathetically limited budget, and trying to look inconspicuous. Looking inconspicuous meant both arms were crossed defensively over his chest and he was sitting up a little too straight to seem relaxed or casual. He pushed dark sunglasses up his nose a little bit with a fingertip, and continued sitting in the back corner. It was near an emergency exit, a good spot to keep an eye on everyone coming in, and to escape if they needed to.
To everyone else that didn't know him as a teammate and/or former foe, Tony Stark looked like a sixteen year old Hot Topic wanna-be with a glandular problem and thick glasses, and was sporting an unnaturally shrill high-pitched voice. This is all part of Loki's 'good deeds to better himself.' Hilariously, the disguise is working. It meant everyone was avoiding him like he had the plague. He's not sure why that is happening.
It will probably become apparent, sooner or later.
Bruce unlike most of the other Avengers wasn’t considered a fugitive but he was still very much a wanted man in his own way but he was old news and people’s memories were short, thankfully. Also? He looked a little different himself, shorter hair, different taste in clothes but he still carried himself with that same tension as if he was just waiting for something to happen.
And here he was, entering the cafe that Tony had selected, and he couldn’t see him.
Then again it was Tony so it wouldn’t be uncommon for him to be late.
Or maybe he was so far in the back that Bruce couldn’t see him around the crowd of apparent youngsters and hipsters.
A hand shot up into the air from the very back of the cafe, like a kid who was eager to answer a question from the back of the classroom. Then it waved around like 'Pick me! Pick me!' Not fast enough for any response at all, a very eager Tony stood up and waved both hands in the air as though trying to guide air traffic.
Bruce arched his eyebrow at the rather exuberant hand wave before he cleared his throat as he began to make his way towards the back of the cafe. He was getting some really funny looks but Bruce ignored them, it was remarkably easier than you might think.
“Hi,” he said with a small thin smile. “You can stop waving now.”
"Hi, big guy," Tony said, giving Bruce a friendly thwap on the shoulder. "You need to strut your stuff more. You look nervous." Says the man who has dubbed himself a celebrity fugitive. "Let's sit. Or these people are going to expect a show. And I don't do strip teases anymore."
He sat down, leaning back so his arm was hooked over the back of the chair, and one leg was crossed over the other. It was slouchy, like a house cat that didn't give a damn. It didn't stop his eyes from darting around the room, to see if they might get caught. As soon as there was an all clear, he was pinpoint focused on Bruce again.
"How've you been, space cowboy?" Tony added, with a nervous chuckle. Space. Tony remained convinced that space is a scary place, powered by nightmare fuel.
Bruce regarded the pat to his shoulder with an arched brow though Tony’s displays of odd affections were something of a norm so not entirely unwelcome. “When did you ever do strip teases?” Bruce asked but then held up a hand and shook his head as he took a seat. “Do not answer that.”
He definitely didn’t miss the way Tony’s eyes darted around, not that he could blame him, especially with recent events.
“Keeping a low profile on another planet, in space,” Bruce clarified with a shrug of his shoulders. “Apparently.” He gestured towards his head. “Everything is still a little fuzzy.”
"Nope, no take-backsies. When I was eighteen. On a dare. There's pictures," he said anyway, because the look on Howard's face when someone sent those pictures with a blackmail note had been priceless. And even more so after Tony wrote back to say that no one was paying, so go ahead and release them.
He made the cover of every supermarket magazine with one of those black bar block out things on his photos. His dad didn't speak to him for a year. Best year ever. One life goal? Check-marked off.
"Anyway, that's what you said," Tony replied, about ready to flag down a waitress and put in an order. At least this place had a couple of waitresses, since most places were so cheap, they made you go up to the counter to order, yourself. He picked up the little menu card and fanned his face with it, instead of reading it. "And...fuzzy. You look fuzzy. Big guy's not roaring around in the background too much, is he?"
Of course he had, why wouldn’t he? It seemed like there was pretty much nothing Tony wouldn’t do. In a lot of ways Bruce envied that about the other man, especially as he thought everything through and couldn’t throw himself into things wholeheartedly. Not when there was a lot of baggage and not to mention big green and angry that came right along with it.
He unlike Tony picked up the menu card and took a look over it, they must have some sort of tea, right?
“He never shuts up,” he pointed out wryly. “And he spent the last few years in the driver’s seat so isn’t all that happy that I’m back.”
"That sucks. I know it's bad that I still want to meet him, but...I still want to meet him. And have you around. I like to have my cake and eat it too."
Which perfectly summarized Tony Stark to a T.
"You know what," he continued saying, "I could use some cake. I've been scarfing on dessert nonstop. Depression does that. This is depressing. You've gotta be going through a ton of stuff too right now. You want some cake with your tea? I have fifty bucks."
It was so hard to just throw an unlimited credit card down and not worry about cost. He wanted to lavish his science buddy with everything he could, if only he could.
Before Tony could open his mouth again, a young waitress walked over and tapped her fingers on her notepad. But before she asked if they were ready to order, she took one look at Bruce, and one look in Tony's direction, and squinted like she wasn't sure that they were father and daughter, or what.
"You two together or seperate?" she asked, with condemnation.
"Together," Tony said, that condemnation rolling right off him like water off a duck's back. "Can't you tell? This is my guy, right here. Get him anything he wants."
And now the waitress was staring right at Bruce like 'Oh my freaking GAWD. How DARE you, SIR.'
Wait, what? Bruce shot Tony a distinctly unimpressed look as he could quite easily not play into it but no of course that would be too much to ask for. It was Tony after all fake disguise or no fake disguise.
“It’s not like that,” Bruce began, feeling distinctly flustered, and embarrassed. So much so that his ears had even started turning red. “But I’ll take a tea and whatever cake you have.” Because honestly he just wanted her gone and this entire conversation to be over with.
The waitress just continued to glare before turning her attention back to Tony as if to ask 'You gonna order or what?' because she totally needed to get back and share the gossip with her co-workers. Mutually shared disgust was always better.
"I love it when you blush at me," Tony said, still was so set on just making sure the FBI wasn't going to kick down the door, that he fanned his face with the slip of paper one more time, before he looked down at it. "Cake, chocolate. I need so much chocolate right now. I think I'm hormonal. It's sad. And coffee. The biggest bowl of coffee you have. Black, with a dump-truck load of stevia in it. I have to keep my figure pert and supple."
The waitress coughed, pounded her finger on the notebook thing and ran off to tell the staff about the high schooler doing her history teacher or whatever. So gross.
"I've got so much stuff to tell you about," Tony said, slapping the paper against the tabletop and leaning onto it, arms crossed so he could put his weight down on them. It was a classic workplace gossip stance. If there was a lab table there, he'd be leaning in against it. "And I want all the dirt about what happened. Asgard. All of it. Tell me stuff. Start somewhere. Ok? Go."
Tony was staring at Bruce like he expected a fifty-fifty mix of great and horrible things.
Oh God, Bruce proceeded to sink that much deeper into his chair and rubbed at his face as if that would somehow make the ground open up and swallow him whole. Maybe the Hulk had the right idea of being a gladiator in a space arena, nobody there made him feel like some gross college professor screwing his students.
He then peered at Tony from between the gaps in his fingers before he exhaled a breath and cleared his throat.
“There was a battle arena, gladiators, jailbreaks, crazy black haired chick with some serious issues, a giant wolf, a whole lot of death and then something called Surtur who destroyed Asgard and then whatever was left of Asgard got on a ship and we set off into space.” And that was pretty much the long and short of it.
Thankfully, Bruce couldn't see what Tony really looked like, but it was clear to see that everyone else was treating him like a perverted teacher having a clandestine meeting with a hormonal underage girl. Maybe they were related. Maybe it was for some tutoring thing in a public space. Maybe it WAS something gross and illicit. Whatever it was, the wait staff of that cafe had written several different backstories for the odd couple at the back table.
"What's a Surtur?" Tony took out his phone and tried looking it up. He scowled at the wiki entry that spoke of a devil giant with a flaming sword, and his thumbs scrambled over the phone to turn it off. He quickly put it away and decided to never look at that again. "Nevermind. That sounded like...fun?"
He was profoundly blinky while staring back at Bruce, as the waitress came back to set their stuff down.
"Here you go." She leaned down and whispered into Tony's ear. "Do you want me to call your mom?"
Tony leaned away the closer the girl got to him because don't touch him, giving her a stare like she was off her rocker...and maybe like he was wondering if that was some sort of kinky pick up line.
"Uh, noooo," he said, still leaning to one side. "But if you wanted my number, you could've just asked. I mean, you're not my type. Cute, but I kinda have this things for leggy blondes or red-haired dominatrixes. Sorry not sorry."
When the waitress gawked and didn't move away, he added, "Can you get away from me now? Go over there. Do over there things."
The waitress walked off in a huff, and Tony slid his super sized coffee cup over so he could start ripping open sugar packets. It wasn't even stevia. He didn't even notice.
"Sorry you went through that, buddy. It sounds traumatic," Tony said, preparing to file dump what happened on his end of things. "I don't want to rain on your parade, since you ditched us and we were worried. But the Avengers? Kinda only exists in name only. Guilt happened with the whole Sokovia thing. Wanda, you know, the kid you were gonna strangle before our baby Vision popped out? She saved Cap from being blown up by a Hydra guy named Rumlow, but kinda did it by accidentally blowing up a bunch of Wakandan aid workers instead. So our buddy Ross showed up and over a hundred nations wanted us to sign an accord. I was for it. Cap wasn't. It didn't end well."
For the moment, he was leaving Bucky out of this. Bucky was an unwilling participant in everything.
Bruce’s brow furrowed when Tony claimed to have a thing for leggy blondes or red-haired dominatrixes and it conjured up images of Pepper he really didn’t need to have in his head or know at all. Some things were just better left private.
“Mm, I heard,” he muttered with a nod of his head. “Don’t get me wrong I understand the need but I don’t trust anything that Ross is involved with.” For obvious reasons, Bruce didn’t need to explain that to Tony.
He watched with some faint interest as Tony basically poured all the sugar into his drink.
“But given where we are and what the good Doctor told me I think we may have bigger things to worry about.”
Nothing is left private for long with Tony. If there's a rock to turn, he was going to kick at it and inspect the underside for the nitty gritty. Then he'd probably point it out so everyone else knows what's down there, too. This is why he is the world's worst fugitive. And why Steve and Bucky are his babysitters that are keeping tabs on his whereabouts.
"Yeah, sorry. I should've known better than to trust him. That guy hates everything super-powered right now. And I thought...I dunno? That it could be amended and stuff. Wrong."
Tony was stirring the sugar into his coffee while staring at Bruce. He managed not to slosh it everywhere, and popped the spoon in his mouth to see if it was sweet enough before resting it on the napkin. Peak sweetness appeared to be reached.
"Safe to say I'm not besties with Ross. And safe to say, yeah, there's bigger fish to fry." Tony paused to take a sip of coffee. Once that was done, he started in on the cake. "Universe's broken. Thor was talking about Infinity Stones. Unless you have something else to worry about that I don't know yet? If you do, spill it."
Tony took a big bite of cake and was chewing on it, eyebrows raised way up with the expectation that there might be more ticking time bombs to deal with.
“Really wrong,” Bruce added with the smallest of smirks. He couldn’t really talk though considering what had happened after Sokovia. He dropped his gaze for a moment as he gave his hands prolonged consideration until finally he looked up and shrugged his shoulders. “Just what I mentioned over texts.”
Things between Bruce Banner and the Hulk had definitely shifted, more to Hulk’s favour than Bruce’s it would seem and Bruce knew he’d been lucky that he’d come back to himself after crashing through that roof.
He shifted in his seat and could feel a restlessness in him so simply clasped his hands together.
"Well, gosh. Nothing else? That's actually good news. I mean, not that you've got big, green, and hopefully-not-as-mean rumbling around inside you. Sorry. I still want to help you fix it, and we will, someday. I'm not going to lose my Science Bro. I promise."
Tony squinted, noticing the restlessness. He pointed across the table at Bruce using his fork.
"S'ok, you know. It'll be fine. I'm going to make you relax with the power of my stupidly naive optimism that usually gets us in trouble. And because I have a science project."
There should be a klaxon going off with a red flashing light to warn everyone that Tony Stark has a science project in mind. There wasn't. Instead, it sounded like an ordinary cafe with a few people chatting, and a lot of people continued staring at their phones.
Even Tony appeared to realize that probably wasn't very relaxing.
"Not for anyone or anything else. It'll be in me. Or on me. This isn't relaxing you, is it?"
And there was in fact a klaxon going off in the recesses of Bruce’s mind when Tony mentioned having a science project especially given how the last one turned out.
“Not at all,” he replied simply and honestly. “Need I remind you how the last one turned out?” He arched an eyebrow. “And take it from somebody who knows experimenting on yourself is not a great idea. In fact probably a really bad idea.”
He was the after all the resounding example of why that just wasn’t a good idea.
“And just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”
Tony's brain had a warning signal. Until Tony told it 'Mute' and then went right on ahead with whatever it was, including ignoring personal safety protocols.
"Hear me out, because it's so insular, that it would only impact me. I promise. First, lemme give you the reasons why." He looked like he couldn't sit still, thanks in no small part to chocolate and coffee. "Ok, so I got shot down with what I think is experimental missiles. Not sure yet. Hammer Industries is always up to some shady shit, but now they've got government funding for their shady shit. Point is, I can't go getting shot down and then having more jackasses poking through my latest mods after they pry me out of a suit. I have to do something to remove that variable from happening again. I propose kinda back-ending Extremis, which I've already figured out when I got it out of Pepper. Then using some more implanted neural interfaces. And Helen Cho's a consult, so with the sort of bio-science she's got at her disposal...there's nanocomposites...or, wait! Maybe we could...."
Tony Stark basically went off on a planning tangent into the sort of mad science that was like a cyborg's wet dream. When he finished, he grinned at Bruce with his eyebrows raised up.
"Don't say no, Bruce. You know that some part of this is intriguing you, if we could pull it off. Modern technology says no, but my heart says hell yes."
Bruce was silent as Tony being Tony did what he did and that was to talk incessantly about all the “good” plans he had. When he was clearly finished all Bruce could do was rub at his face in equal parts dismay and astonishment that Tony just didn’t seem to learn.
“I’m not sure how many different ways I can say that this is a bad idea,” Bruce reiterated. “The last time we spoke on these sorts of terms, Ultron happened and we both know what came next.” He folded his arms across his chest and curled his hands around each of his arms, self comforting gesture more than anything.
A deep breath in and a slow one out. “I am the prime example of why you should not use yourself as a guinea pig, Tony. I mean I thought I could beat the odds and now look at me. Trust me when I say this you do not want this, any of this.”
Tony sat back too, but instead of hugging himself, he was very lightly tapping his fingertips on the table top. The rapid pace made it seem like he was typing, even if he obviously wasn't.
"I know it sounds like a bad idea, but someone getting ahold of a suit? Worse idea at this juncture. Somehow, someone guessed how much force it would take to put a dent in me," he pointed out. "If not for Loki, I'd be hobbled for a few more weeks."
Tony shrugged and winced a little, in such a way that it seemed apologetic.
"I know. No Ultron. No A.I.'s. Strictly me. Strictly a suit. And with you around, I know that I can't barrel in blindly on my own. Because you know this stuff. I've nursed an electromagnetic headache tapping into my own brain for a virtual reality experiment. I've shot myself full of transmitters so I could remotely call pieces of a suit onto me or someone else. Great ideas? Maybe not. Kinda ouch. Still worked. Wait! How about this?"
He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. If there was a good cop, bad cop scenario, then Tony would be the bad cop. He knew it. He embraced it. What he needed was the good cop that was Bruce on board to point out where things could go wrong, and to figure out where it could be done right.
"If it goes to far into the danger zone, you can be the cut off switch. Remember, don't say no! Just think it over. Okay? Just think about it."
Bruce could tell that Tony was so far gone into the idea that there was no reasoning or trying to talk any kind of sense with them. “I’ll think it over,” he began but held up a finger to indicate that he wasn’t done talking. “But just because I agreed to think it over does not and I repeat does not mean that I agree to any of this lunacy.”
He wanted to make that very clear.
As in crystal clear.
Only way to be with Tony.
Tony had his mouth open already to say 'yay' but that ended quickly. Instead he was smiling at Bruce with raised eyebrows, hopefully optimistic that his science bro could be lured into the realm of potential high tech body modifications. Or another way of keeping the suit versions out of the wrong hands.
The waitress came over to pour some more coffee in Tony's cup, hissing at them both, "I think you're both sick." She stomped off with the coffee sloshing in the carafe.
"Psycho waitress is psycho," Tony said, pushing the cup away in case it was poisoned. "Hey, I swear that I left my Duran Duran t-shirt on a quinjet. Do you know if the big guy remembers seeing that thing laying around? I miss that shirt. It wasn't vintage or anything, but that was a good album...."
Duran Duran t-shirt? Bruce had definitely seen that and worn it, but Tony, well he didn’t need to know that. Nope, not at all. “Uh, no,” he said with a shake of his head. “I don’t remember seeing that, sorry.”
He cleared his throat and gestured. “You wanna get out of here?”
Bruce was feeling antsy.
Tony didn't appear too phased. It was so long ago, that he would just buy another Rio t-shirt when he got a chance. He kinda missed those sunglasses that he wore with it, but it's not like he could imagine Bruce wearing those by choice.
"Yeah, something weird's going on," agreed Tony, looking off in the direction that the waitress stomped off toward. He took out more than enough money to cover the tab and flipped it onto the table. "I'm staying with Cap and Barnes right now, so...maybe we shouldn't push our luck. Wanna split up and I'll text you later?"
“Yeah, definitely,” Bruce agreed with a nod of his head. “Sounds like a plan.” And the less he was seen with Tony the better, he had already been thought of a creep for long enough today.
"Yep, we're outta here." Tony stood up and waved a hand around at the waitress to get her attention, before pointing down at the money on the table. "You. Yes, you sweetie. No big tips for you. Be nice next time. Not hard. Do this."
He smiled a shit eating smile as he gave Bruce a pat on the back so they could head toward the door.
The waitress was appalled, before she shot back with, "Whatever! At least I'm not hanging out with pedobear!"
Tony gave her a stare like 'What?!' since he was thinking before that it was a simple case of homophobia. Now things were really weird. Not enough to refrain from bad jokes, though.
"Hey! He's got good candy in his van. Which is better than that cake you served. Everyone? Avoid the cake. Stale. Blech." Tony kept talking as they as they went toward the door. "It's fine. I know you got Pop Rocks and Twizzlers and that's all that matters. Getthedoorgetthedoorgetthedoor...."
He wasn't trying to get Bruce out the door...except he really was. And he was doing that while wondering what the hell sort of disguise Loki had given him. The sad fact of this was that Tony would forget to check that out. All due to his head being filled with big ideas and wondering how he could translate those into real life applications.