Bruce was the last to leave, despite the constant decline of Tony's nagging for him to live at Stark tower.
"I really have to go now. I'll see you around though." He lied terribly.
"At least let me give you a ride to the airport, or better yet, I can fly you to where you are going myself! What do you say?" He gave Bruce a gentle nudge with his elbow, which in return earned him a small smirk from his companion in science.
"I really don't think that's a good idea. Anyway, I'm fine. I don't want to trouble you with anything else, you've got that big successful business to run," his sarcasm was evident even though calm and controlled patterns in his voice. Everyone knew Tony Stark barely ran anything these days. But the way Bruce emphasized successful, seemed to take away from his joke. Bruce couldn't deny that Tony had accomplished everything he had only dreamed of, he should have been jealous, and maybe he was, but around this billionaire, he couldn't feel anything other than friendship. But Bruce had to leave, he was already starting to feel attached to him, and that attachment would only grow over time, and make it harder when he would be forced to leave.
Tony was pouting. He had been making the same face at Bruce for at least a minute, until he finally said something. "You know you are always welcome at Stark Tower." His eyes reflected off the sun's light so excessively that you couldn't see any of the iris. "But I do think you should let me give you a lift." He raised an eyebrow in contrast to his otherwise static features.
"Me being in the air isn't something I'm fond of. For obvious reasons. I'd rather not." He gave a sweet, somewhat apologetic look and shook Mr. Stark's hand. The word "Goodbye" was exchanged, and Bruce left.
Several hours later, Bruce had reached the edge of the city, putting enough distance between the two scientists. "Jarvis, put a tracking device with a quarter mile radius for visuals on Banner." Tony commanded.
"Already done, sir," The calm English voice of the AI butler assured.
"I knew I programmed those stalker like functions in you for a reason," He smirked a bit and poured himself a glass of whiskey. "Bottom's up!"
"Of course, sir," Jarvis replied to his previous statement. "I am, for all purposes, an excellent stalker," sarcasm in the slightly robotic voice was not rare.
"Well, what are you waiting for then? Bring up the visuals." A large screen appeared in front of him, swiftly. Bruce was on a ferry ride to god knows where, so Tony swiped the video away and left for his bedroom.
It was five AM by the time Tony Stark got his eyes to stay shut long enough for him to pass out. Unfortunately his sleep was cut short by Jarvis, who had been repeating some dumb message about unavailable cameras and disconnected data. Tony's eyes shot open and his body sat upright with a jolt. "Sir, the tracker on Dr. Banner is no longer available. We have lost connection with all data." was repeated in the full.
"What happened? Did he find it on himself and remove it?"
"The little evidence we have does not imply as such. We have recorded up until the point of its disqualification" A screen moved in front of the tired brown eyes. The video showed calm water, a rocking boat, and Bruce's butt for nearly a whole minute. But then a large crashing sound followed by gunfire and screams filled the audio. Then a green flash, and the video cut. Tony sat in silent horror for all of ten seconds before running to the iron man launch pad.
He flew as fast as he could manage. "Jarvis, give me the last known coordinates of Dr. Banner," a map appeared in front of him showing the location of where the ship had been supposedly destroyed. He arrived on site about fifteen minutes later to no trace of the ship or his friend whatsoever. There was however a smashed weapon off shore, a custom build with no name or company logo written on it. It was, however, made using technology that was very familiar to Tony. It was old Stark technology. But it wasn't made by the company, this had been a replica. "Jarvis, I need you to do a scan and find where you can still get these parts. The generic kind." the scan began immediately, but the process to find where the internal components had been manufactured took quite a bit longer.
Tony's initial freak out had subsided, this was Bruce Banner after all, if anything happened to him, the Hulk would take over and he would be alright. The Hulk coming out to play wasn't really a good, thing, but at least it kept his friend safe. Tony had time to kill while he waited for the search to complete. So he refueled. Using donuts.