For my darling Lizzy, the best mom a girl could ask for. She demanded more Pokemon GO Tony, and who was I to deny her?
Set in some hazy happy world where Peter is involved but there was no Civil War and all my loves are happy.
(A sequel to JARVIS, call Niantic, but it's not necessary to read that first)
…
Peter is sitting on the couch on the communal floor of the Tower, staring at his phone with a fixed expression, holding it in his left hand and swiping quite ferociously with his right.
Bruce pads up behind him on quiet, socked feet, and peers over his shoulder. As soon as Bruce gets a good look at the screen he groans.
"Oh God, not you too!"
Peter flicks a pokeball at the Ghastly, and then looks up as the pokeball shakes on his screen.
"What?" he asks.
"That game," Bruce says, his distress clear in his voice. "I can't escape that game."
Peter arches an eyebrow at him, and Bruce can't believe a 15 year old has that much sass in a single eyebrow.
Peter has been hanging around on the communal floors lately, after finally admitting to the rest of the Avengers that he was Spider-Man. Not that Bruce didn't already know that. Tony didn't really going around picking up strays and letting them into his lab. It took him weeks to even let Bruce into the lab, and they're soulmates.
But Bruce is glad Peter is loosening up a little bit.
But then, when Peter was in the labs, his phone stayed off and he stayed alert, because he wasn't an idiot.
"You know Pokemon GO?" Peter asks, his voice so innocent Bruce knows without doubt that it's a lie.
Bruce flops on the couch beside him and puts his hands over his face. "All too well," he groans.
Because Tony has been obsessed. He's finished the whole first and second generations of his Pokedex and most of the third, which is the most recently released.
Bruce doesn't claim to understand it at all, but their soulmate bond means he can feel Tony's emotions, and he doesn't begrudge the man something that brings him uncomplicated joy.
That doesn't mean he wants everyone else in his life to play it too.
He drops his hands, and finds Peter grinning at him.
"No," he says, before Peter can even say anything.
"I didn't even—"
"No."
Peter sticks out his bottom lip because he is the literal worst.
"Don't do this to me," he says flatly.
"Bruce, c'mon. You know Tony would love it."
Bruce rolls his head back, hitting the back of the couch. But he can't protest, because Peter's not wrong. Especially not with the newly released trading feature.
Eventually, he sighs, pulling his Starkphone out of his pocket, unlocking it, and handing it over.
"Do your worst, then."
Peter literally cackles with glee. It's somewhat terrifying.
Ten minutes later, Bruce gets his phone back to find a tiny avatar pacing in circles, surrounded by a tiny fiery mouse looking thing, a turtle with a plant on its back, and a very blue turtle.
"Uh," he says.
"You have to pick one," says Peter. "That's your starter. See, this is Charmeleon, the fire one. And Bulbasaur, he's the grass. And then Squirtle, who's water. You click on one to pick it."
Bruce blinks at him.
"How do I know what to pick?"
"I… no, you just… it doesn't matter. Just pick one you like."
"How do I know when I don't know what they do?"
Peter drops his head into his hands. "It's not complicated, Bruce. Just pick one."
Bruce grins slightly at the provoked reaction, and then taps on the tiny blue turtle. It expands on his screen and then disappears.
"Wait, where'd it go?" The only thing on his screen now is a nice view of the carpet.
"Oh, you've got it in AR mode."
"…they're using augmented reality technology in a gaming app now?"
Peter shrugs. "Why not?"
Bruce considers this, and then tips his head in acquiescence. "Fair enough." He lifts the phone and points it around until he finds the turtle. A text box with "Squirtle" is floating above his head. At the front of his screen is a red ball.
"Peter?" Peter looks up from his phone. "I'm… gonna need more instruction than that."
Peter grins, and leans in.
…
The thing is, Bruce mostly starts doing it because Tony looks so excited when Bruce tells him he has an account. His excitement ripples through Bruce in waves, until Bruce can't help but smile — the soft smile he only seems to use for Tony.
Bruce didn't expect to find a soulmate when he came in to help SHIELD find a cube. He expected to keep his head down and do his work and then head back — maybe Africa this time, since clearly SHIELD knew he was in Kolkata.
But nobody can plan for Tony Stark. Tony, who burst into his life and threw out a line which he couldn't help a snarky response to. Tony, who held out his hand and complemented Bruce first, then the Hulk.
Tony, who shook his hand and sent sparks up his arm and made his heart skip a beat.
Bruce had long since given up on soulmates. He figured if it wasn't burned out of him by his father, then he'd withered it himself with gamma exposure.
And that was fine.
No one deserved the fate of Bruce for a soulmate, anyway.
But then there was Tony.
Tony, who was a perpetual motion machine, a constant source of chatter, but so much sharper than Bruce was used to in a conversational partner.
Tony, who looked brash and reckless and arrogant at first glance, but who used his arrogance as a mask for kindnesses the world never expected of him.
Tony, who never once doubted Bruce.
So no, Bruce never expected any of this. He never expected Tony or the Avengers or what it felt like to have home settle into his bones in a way it hasn't since he was twelve years old and living with his Aunt Susan and cousin Jen.
He never expected to fall in love.
He never expected to have a teeenager worm his way into their lab and their hearts until he felt like family.
He doesn't regret any of it.
But even after all of this, life still keep surprising him.
Because even after all of this, he never expected to be obsessed with a phone game centered around collecting tiny monsters.
…
The weird thing is, when they go on missions internationally, Bruce tends to be the one who has time to play. Peter often doesn't come unless they're really desperate, and Tony is always in the thick of things, but Bruce is on standby at least half the time, waiting to see if they need him.
This is how he winds up being the first to catch a Zangoose.
The only reason he even knows this is a regional is because Peter was bitching about it the other day, how Tony can just fly off in his suits but Peter isn't quite sixteen yet and doesn't have a flying iron suit ("It's a titanium alloy and you know it!"). Tony had followed this up by saying he still didn't have a Zangoose, because the damn things were rare on top of being regionals.
Bruce grins as the Pokemon registers in his Pokedex. It's not often he gets one first. In fact, this might be the first time, and he intends to savor it.
As the team filters back in, Bruce brings up the Dex entry for the Zangoose on his screen and just leaves it on the screen, greeting them as they come in. Peter flops down on the bench beside him and slumps into his side because this is a thing he does. Bruce isn't sure when it started. He just shifts easily to slide an arm around the kid's shoulders and lets him lean in.
Peter looks like he might fall asleep, until he takes a glance at Bruce's screen.
"Oh. My. God," he says, somehow making the phrase three sentences. He looks like Bruce has unearthed buried treasure.
Bruce grins, brief and admittedly somewhat devious.
"Did you catch that here? I need one, Bruce. Shuri would be so jealous."
His eyes are wide in that way that makes him look even younger than he actually is, and Bruce is busy wondering when exactly he wound up with an adopted son and what even is his life anymore so it takes a second for the sentence to register.
"Shuri?" he says, when it does. "Like, Wakandan Princess and unrivaled technological genius Shuri?"
Peter sits up properly, if only so that he can shrug. "I don't know if I'd say unrivaled." His voice is just a bit petulant.
Bruce blinks at him. Several times. "How… Peter. How do you know Princess Shuri?"
Peter shrugs again, and then shifts. "Forums," he mumbles.
Bruce looks him up and down, and immediately clocks that Peter feels guilty about something. "Peter," he says in what Tony calls his dad voice, a concept Bruce tries not to think about because he is not cut out to be anyone's dad. "Did you tell her you're Spider-Man?"
Peter's answer is clear in the way he won't meet Bruce's eyes.
"Peter," Bruce says again, and he can see the moment when Peter cracks.
"To be fair," he says, looking up at Bruce with full puppy dog eyes, "She technically knew I was Spider-Man before she knew I was Peter, so I didn't so much tell her I was Spider-Man as I did tell her I was Peter Parker, which is an entirely different thing and thus not subject to the established secret identity rules?" His voice trails up into a question at the end, like he knows Bruce is in no way buying his bullshit excuse. There's a brief pause, and then he adds, "I… Sorry."
Bruce sighs. "You're allowed to trust people," he says. "Point of fact, I'm glad you do. Just… be careful. And maybe think about running things like this by someone, first?"
Peter shifts guiltily. "Yeah. Sorry."
Bruce smiles at him, soft and far fonder than he means to. "It's okay. I'm glad you have friends on your level. Want to tell me about her?"
And Peter does so with stars in his eyes that Bruce can't quite place between hero worship and a crush.
…
Somehow, the Zangoose Incident (with capitals, because Tony is Tony) means that Tony decides they need a vacation. In Europe. So they can Pokemon hunt.
Bruce is mostly bemused by the idea, but Tony takes it upon himself to run it by May, who agrees that Peter needs a break from all the school and Spider-Manning he's been doing.
They step off the plane in Vienna to find a young woman with a waterfall of long braids watching them.
"Shuri!" Peter yells, and sprints forward. Bruce turns to Tony, who grins at him, shrugs, and turns back to the teens. Peter is now talking so fast Bruce can only catch every fourth word, and to be perfectly honest he's pretty sure Peter switches seamlessly into another language at some point — one Bruce doesn't know.
"What is happening?" Bruce whispers to Tony.
Tony grins brilliantly at him. "Shh, the kids are bonding."
Apparently this is his life now.
…
Shuri, it turns out, is even more brilliant than the rumours implied. Between the three of them, they're keeping up, but… well. There are times she loses even Bruce.
Her Pokedex is incredibly thorough.
"It's not fair!" Peter says. "Your family has a private plane!"
Shuri just smirks at him. Bruce is frankly quite pleased that Peter has so many friends that aren't afraid to sass him back.
Tony, meanwhile, has plucked Shuri's custom phone out of her hand and is scrolling through her Dex.
"Wait, you have a Tropius? And a Entei with perfect stats?"
Shuri arches a perfect eyebrow at him. "Yes. And what do you have, Mr. I-have-a-flying suit?" She plucks Tony's Starkphone from his off hand and starts scrolling, and then she starts chuckling.
"Wow, you haven't even finished the generation 3 Dex yet, have you?"
Tony sputters. It's the most beautiful thing Bruce has ever seen.
"What– I– you–"
Bruce puts a hand on his shoulder. "Calm down," he says easily.
"But– I– Bruce!" he says, turning to face Bruce, who is only just refraining from outright cackling at him.
"Tony," he responds, his voice even. Tony sputters for another second, and then stalks to the bedroom. He comes out with the briefcase that Bruce knows contains an older Mark of his suit.
"I'm fixing this," Tony says darkly, and then he walks out.
It's only after he hears the sound of repulsors taking off that Bruce lets himself break down in laughter.
"Okay," he says, when he finally catches his breath. "Okay, Princess, we're keeping you around. Anyone who can get that reaction within ten minutes of meeting Tony is someone I need in my life."
Shuri smiles at him, picture perfect innocence on her face. "I don't know what you're talking about. I just asked a simple question."
Bruce laughs so hard he cries.
...
365 prompts: 1. treasure
Writing Club: Assorted: 6. Write about enjoying a hobby; Showtime: 16. Meant to Be Yours: (emotion) obsession; Attic: 5. Nightwing: Write about someone acting as a mentor to someone younger.; Arcade Stage: 6. Hall of Justice: New York