AN: This is based off of a head cannon I came up with. It's submission 220 at .com. Wonderful blog, go check it out!
"Hey Tony, I know this is the last thing you want to hear from me, but can I ask you a favour?" Tony came to Bruce's bedside so they could talk face to face. Bruce had just finished 'hulking out' and destroying everything in his path as Tony ushered him to the safe room built at Stark Tower.
"What do you need man? A sexy nurse maybe?" He winked, and Bruce laughed half-heartedly, refreshed by Tony's ability to laugh off the situation.
"Why would I need that when I have you?" The rebuttal took Tony off guard, his play flirting had finally rubbed off, and Bruce was beginning to learn snark. "Nah, I was actually wondering if you had anywhere to put a piano. I need a way to calm down, and I've heard music is great therapy."
Lifting his hands in defeat, "Hey man, if you think it'll stop you from hulking all over my shiny new tower I'll buy you a damn Bösendorfer. It's a really expensive piano." The delicacies of instruments were lost to Bruce.
"I just want one that works Tony, don't spend too much." Bruce was really too much sometimes. "Okay Bruce, no fancy shit, I'll get you're a regular old baby grand." Bruce furiously shook his head but had to stop as he was still lightheaded from the transformation. "You are getting the star treatment baby, I expect you to wind up as the next Elton John, and then we can split the profits since I'm funding your start."
Nodding sleepily, eyelids sliding down plunging him into darkness, Bruce made his last attempt to subdue the big spender in Tony, though he knew it would fail.
When Bruce next awoke, he was greeted by a giddy Tony, nearly beside himself with glee. "Brucie wake up I have a surprise for you!" Alertness flooding his mind, Bruce got up and followed Tony as he bounced down the hall to the elevator.
"It's not much of a surprise if I already know what's happening." Tony's eyes nearly rolled backwards, "Bruce just play along for goodness sake. You are such a spoil sport." He grinned back playfully at the other man.
When the elevator stopped, they got off on the floor Bruce's room inhabited. "So, I thought I'd put it here so you can play whenever you like. It's also in an indestructible room so that if you Hulk out and can't calm down the building won't get damaged. I've taken the liberty to buy you some of the classics, and some new stuff, also maybe some Broadway show tunes just in case you have a change of heart in where your destiny lies."
Though he rolled his eyes, Bruce was touched that Tony cared enough to go through the trouble. "How fast did this happen Tony? Was I really out for that long?" He received no response but a sly smile creeping over Tony's features.
"Okay buddy, go nuts." The door opened, and Bruce saw a room like the other 'hulk proof' rooms in the tower, but with a gorgeous chestnut baby grand inside. "Tony, if I smash this I'll never be able to repay you. Hell I'll never be able to repay you now." The billionaire shook his head, "Don't sweat it, we'll just call it an investment to the security of the building and all those in it." Another devious grin, "Well have at it my friend, you can open this one from the inside, but it'll only work when you're you and the other guy's gone to rest."
Nodding slowly, Bruce sat down and pulled the bench out, trying desperately to remember what he'd learned at those few lessons all those years ago. He placed his fingers in standard playing position, and tried a scale. It took a few tries, but soon his fingers maneuvered around C major well enough. He went up a note to D and played until it sounded right. Continuing until he got to F. He just couldn't get F major.
Frustration began, and he had to calm himself down. Pianists just made it look so easy and he couldn't play lousy scales. He decided that was quite enough for the day, and left the room.
Merely days later, he'd memorized the patterns that made scales major and minor, and also how to chord. He decided to put those theories to the test, and found they worked. His fingers may not be used to the movements, but he was sounding better.
A few more days, and his fingers were beginning to remember the movements that made scales and chords. His memorization skills were coming in handy, and he decided to try a piece. Reading music proved to be more difficult than the thought, and he had to become reversed in the universal language.
Months had passed, and he was finally learning music. At first the road was rocky, and he could hardly manage Chopin's Prelude in E minor. After having an actual teacher come in and assist him, Bruce found that the feeling of making music could be compared to no other sensation. He progressed quickly and devoted hours upon hours to drawing sweet sound from the piano, learning Chopin, Bach, and Debussy with grace and ease.
The biggest challenge came when he tried to tackle Beethoven's Fur Elise. That song was a bitch. In fact one day he became so frustrated, he nearly hulked out. As it turns out, Chopin is great for calming the nerves.
Many more months of slaving away at his new labour of love passed. Between science, the occasional mission and music, Bruce found himself more busy and finding less hours in the day, and once even played through the night. Nearly every day he thanked Tony for funding his experiment, and every time Tony responded with some sort of witticism.
What Bruce had missed was that Tony had also installed a miniscule speaker in one of the room's top corners so that as Bruce played, the whole tower could be filled with the love, angst, and passion he aroused from the ivory keys. The music had an effect over everyone as it did Bruce and soon he found that new music was appearing in the piano bench when he opened it. Maybe he suspected where it came from, but really Bruce was happy to oblige, as music is really for everyone and it keeps giving of itself long after the piano is closed.