"Help," he repeated slowly, watching Tony settle (and settle) into place, mulling over precisely what sort of help he might be able to give. There were only a few esoteric disorders he'd made it his business to know in any substantial way, and this certainly wasn't one of them; the entire field lay rather to the side of his specialty. "I'll have to get up to speed."
And speed was the most obvious wrinkle in the admittedly very basic pattern Tony had just out for him. "I don't know the prognosis," he continued, just as deliberately, "but unless it's particularly protracted, I don't know that - well. This kind of research is most commonly measured in decades." Maybe years, if one were willing to dispense with such niceties as clinical trials. He didn't hesitate to say as much, exactly - it wasn't as though Tony didn't already know, and neither of them would ever have called unfounded soothing anything like 'help,' he was sure - but he did feel strangely unhappy pointing it out. Perhaps that was just because it obviously mattered, and there was something a little repellent about speaking disappointment to a man so confident in his own ability (when it was so sincerely directed) to do something. That Tony was able to say with a straight face - that it would even occur to him to say things like I've been thinking about funding a group of geneticists would never not be a little alien to him. Wonderful, but baffling.
He himself was no cynic, when it came to innovation; it wasn't that he was inclined to dismiss things as impossible or unworthy in the face of difficulty. But there was a certain air of of course around Tony that might as well have been wizardry for all Bruce could fathom it. And seeing it even mildly deflated was a little more affecting than it probably should have been.
But that didn't help anyone. "I suppose it would depend on the person, but it may be that hope isn't the worst thing to have." He took up a pen from its disordered nest of notes and wove it idly between his fingers. "But I can take a look. And if there's anything I can do, of course - it's all yours." He smiled. "For the low price of room and board."