Author's Note- So what if I can't stop writing for this ship? I just saw the Avengers AGAIN and it was absolutely amazing and incredible and I'm sure all the other people in the theater hated for reciting the lines along with the actors and for freaking out whenever there was a scene with any hint of Science Boyfriends or Thorki.
Anyway, I'm just playing here, don't actually own this or anything. Reviews please anyone? I'd very much appreciate it.
Oh, I mention Bruce's parents in here somewhere. For those of you who are more familiar with the Avengers and not the Hulk movie, his father had alcohol/anger issues and beat/killed his mother.
And the run-on sentences? I'll say they're a style thing, but it's mostly because I'm writing this at the point where it's either really really late at night or really really early in the morning. xD
When Bruce wakes up, he's lying in the middle of the wreckage of a building, so he knows exactly what happened. Natasha and Clint are standing over him, which is slightly awkward, even when Clint tosses him so fresh clothes. Neither of them bother to look away as he puts them on, which doesn't make it any better, but he's full of questions anyway.
"Did we win?" he asks, finishing the final buttons on his shirt.
"Something like that." Clint looks sort of weird and distracted, like he's really not focused on Bruce and wants to go be doing something else. He's not looking Bruce in the eye, and that should be the next clue that something's not quite right.
"Where's everybody else?" Natasha and Clint exchange a glance, and Bruce picks up on the fact that they're obviously uncomfortable.
"What's going on?" He doesn't even let them answer his first question, just keeps pressing, the panic rising in his stomach, mind running every horrible possibility. The other two seem even more uncomfortable, and there's an awkward moment of silence before one of them responds.
"There's been…some trouble."
"Trouble?" Bruce repeats, but he's smart and his mind is putting together the pieces and he suddenly realizes. "Tony."
Clint and Natasha, they both take a step back, maybe because they're fearful that he'll get angry again or possibly because they want to keep him from seeing what happened. But he doesn't care and he's running now because he needs to know.
There's broken glass and destroyed building materials everywhere, and somewhere in all the mess are Steve and Thor, standing over Tony's body, and when he sees that Tony is at the very least awake and talking, he's so damn thankful...
"What happened?" Nerves twist in his stomach.
"Collapsed building. Broken ribs probably and probably some other broken bones." Steve is looking at him strangely, and he'd ask more questions but he drops to his knees next to Tony, whose face is contorted with pain, but he somehow manages to laugh anyway.
"Next time you're planning on breaking an entire building, let me know first."
"I did this?" He looks at the rubble and down at his own hands.
"The Other Guy did," Tony corrects, but Bruce is just staring and then he gets up without a word because he's got enough sense to get the hell out of there before he gets too angry and hurts someone he cares about again and it's almost a relief to explode out of his skin and forget everything.
Later, he goes back to Stark Towers and grabs his bag and starts throwing things in, all the things he bought when he came to NYC, and then he realizes that all these things remind him of Tony, so he tosses the bag to the floor and stands, watching Tony sleep. He knows he shouldn't, that this is dangerous, that every minute he spends watching Tony, he's putting him in harm's way, but he can't tear himself away from his face, his body, the bruises and breaks that are Bruce's fault…
"You know," Tony's voice is thick, "I like it better when you come sleep with me, not just watch me." He tries to sit up, but his broken ribs make it hard, so he just props himself up on his elbows. Then he notices the suitcase at Bruce's feet and raises his eyebrows. "Going somewhere? If you wanted to take a vacation, all you had to do was ask and I would have-"
"I can't do this."
Tony doesn't even flinch at the words, like he knows exactly what this is about. "is this your whole I'm-too-dangerous-to-be-a-real-person thing? Because we're been over this before."
Bruce sighs, and shakes his head. "It's true. I am dangerous, Tony. You should know that."
And then Tony is getting out of bed and wincing as he puts weight on his injured ankle and stands and Bruce can see how much pain he's in despite the meds and this only convinces him that he's making the right decision. Watching Tony suffer to painful enough to begin with, but knowing that he caused it, even indirectly, is practically killing him.
"When have I ever given you the impression that I don't like danger?"
Bruce doesn't yield. "There's a difference between liking danger, Tony, and letting it sleep in your bed."
But Tony isn't about to give this up either. "Hey, I don't mind a little danger in bed…" He's being glib, too glib, and he knows it, but then, that's who he is. But he knows this is a messyuglydark conversation, and that for every bruise he's got on the outside, Bruce has a million more on the inside, so he continues, more seriously, "I can deal with bruises and the occasional broken bone."
"I can't."
"I'm standing here, with something like 5 broken bones and who the hell knows what else, telling you to stay, and you're the one who can't deal?" Tony would laugh, but this isn't funny, not at all, and so what if Bruce is sometimes a giant green rage monster and Tony's gonna be on Vicodin for a month or five, and that's how Tony realizes that he loves Bruce, not in the 'I want to sleep with you" kind of way but in the 'I'm lost without you and the idea of you leaving is tearing holes in my psyche' way.
"I care, Tony. Too much, in fact. I can't hurt you. It's bad enough being this monster, but hurting people you love? I can't let that happen anymore." There's an edge in his voice, like mourning, like loss, and Tony can get that, totally get that, but he's Tony Stark, and goddammit, he'll get what he's wants, and that's Bruce, Hulk or no Hulk.
"I thought that generally in relationships, people accepted each other's baggage. Unless everything everybody has been trying to tell me for years is wrong?"
Bruce smiles wryly, and Tony remembers why he fell in love with the man in the first place, the moments of quiet humor that come out from behind the professor front, the dark messy curls of hair and rumpled clothes that make him look a little out of place, a little lost, until he opens his mouth and says something incredibly brilliant. Fuck, everything about him could be classified as 'incredible' and not just the Hulk.
"Tony, it's not a question of you accepting me and my baggage, but of my willingness to force that baggage on you. I wouldn't know a normal relationship, what that is, because I can't have one. I can't, and I never will."
"You're being dumb, you know?" Now Tony's the angry one, burning, fuming. "I don't want normal, can't do normal. You think I've ever done normal?" He could stop, should probably stop, but if he's gonna put his cards out on the table, he's gonna throw them all down. "If this is about your father or your parents or whatever, their relationship, if this is about feeling like you're dangerous, like you can't hold on to anything, or that you don't deserve anything good from life…."
"Tony." Bruce says, but he can't tell if it's a warning or an admonishment, or what, so he presses on.
"I'm a genius, Bruce, a goddamned genius. I knew what I was getting into when I invited you here and when I started…this. I've given my consent."
He feels a stabbing pain in his ribs and chest that he knows is from the broken bones but he ignores it, standing, a little wobbly on his not-so-good ankle, staring at Bruce. "Stay here tonight. I might need a doctor."
Bruce stares at him, at the bruises that are blooming under his skin, at the bandaging of his ankle, to the tape around his bare chest that's protecting his ribs, to the stitches on his face, and feels lost and tired and broken and he knows that if he stays now, it'll just make it harder for him to leave tomorrow, but if he's going to hurt Tony he's at the least going to help Tony and Tony knows that and yeah, that's why he said that. So finally he walks over to Tony to help him get back into bed and it's breaking his heart into a million pieces to have to do this.
He lies, fully clothed, next to him, and Tony can't do much but lie on his back but he manages to reach out and take Bruce's hand, which is a bit uncharacteristic for him, and Bruce can't decide if it's out of pure affection, or if he's trying to tether Bruce to him so he can't leave in the middle of the night.
"I love you, you know that, right?" Tony murmurs after what feels like hours, and his voice is glazed with sleep and painkillers, and Bruce opens his mouth to say something but he can't because the only sound he'd be able to make is the telltale sob of someone coming apart at the seams.
When Tony wakes up, he's sore and aching and he just wants one or two or fifty of the Vicodin sitting in the amber bottle by the bed. He reaches for it, still prone, and tips a few into his mouth. Glancing around, he notices Bruce, still in the same clothes as the day before, sitting on the edge of the bed, and he forces himself up again to sit next to him.
"Good morning."
Bruce just looks at him, his eyes roving over the mottled purple and red and the medical tape and the stitches and the arc reactor and puts his head in his hands. He makes no noise, but Tony is pretty sure he's crying and for the first time in his life that he can remember, he can't deal with someone else's emotion, not because it's inconvenient, but because it's hurting him too. This revelation might be enough to bring him to his knees, if it wouldn't literally rip him apart, so he puts his arms around Bruce and draws him into close, despite the pain in his own ribs.
"Sometimes love has to hurt." Bruce says this as if he can read Tony's mind, and Tony isn't sure if he's talking to him or to himself, if he means mentally or physically, if he's leaving or staying.
"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction." And it's true for physics, so why can't it be the same for hurt? For love? He brings his lips to Bruce's forehead, and they remain like that, two halves of a whole, clinging to one another, as if without the other they will drown in their own truths.