Disclaimer: Don't own either Tony or Bruce or any of the mentioned characters/shows/whatever, just a poor student
Tony was bend over his desk, adding more little details to the new suit he needed. Not that he actually really needed a suit that could fly in space and in the mean time take pictures of the earth during battle but you never know it might come in handy. This particular design had been keeping him awake for the past 4 days now (not counting the cat-naps he took in between) and by now, the caffeine he was consuming no longer had an effect on his worn out body. The only thing bothering him from time to time was the fact that Pepper kept telling him to call Bruce already to finally close down that deal between their two companies and perhaps to do so, get out of his workshop but Tony just let Pepper do that for him, claiming that she wouldn't have something to do otherwise which according to her was the complete opposite. Pepper was close to being overworked by her boss but luckily for Tony Stark, she could handle so much work while he tinkered around in his garage.
It was also a known fact that Tony Stark never really picked up his cell phone due to the fact that he rarely found it between all the papers and spare parts in his workshop (often reducing Tony to buying a new phone yet again), so when Pepper actually entered the garage with his cell phone in her hand and literally shoving it in his face, claiming he should pick up the call, Tony managed to finally look up from the drawing and squint at the phone. It took him a few seconds before his mind realized that he was supposed to pick up and talk to the person on the other side so Tony did just that, without even looking at the caller ID like he always did.
"Hey Stark!"
"Loserface is that you?"
"Damn straight it is, now listen up, I have the most awesome idea for you, I'll be there in two."
"Please tell me you're already in front of my gates," Tony sighed, rubbing his tired eyes at the annoyance that was Bruce Wayne at this point. Trying to figure out his new suit wasn't so annoying as Bruce Wayne on sugar or at least when the man had an idea in his head. At least his drawings never talked back at him.
Before either Pepper or Tony knew it, Bruce already drove into the garage with his Lamborghini and got out, still wearing his sunglasses and a cocky smile on his lips. Tony glared at the man's neat appearance while he himself looked like a downright mess. Of course, Tony ended up staring too much at Bruce Wayne being in his garage that he didn't even hear Pepper claiming she was going to go back to work. Seeing that Bruce was getting out a bunch of rolled up papers from the passengers seat of his car, Tony shook his head out of his confused thoughts and just frowned at the papers, wondering what was on them. He could only hope they weren't documents he needed to sign. Bruce dumped the papers all over Tony's sketches, scrunching up his nose at the sudden mess over his over-detailed sketches that were now lost under so many papers.
"I was working."
"And now you're working on this, get to it!"
"I'm supposed to know what 'this' is?"
"My new bat mobile!" Bruce grinned, rolling out the sketches he had made. In the eyes of Tony's professionally, these sketches were way worse than his own, immediately causing Tony to pick up a pencil and adding some stuff and details to the more unprofessional sketches.
"Your new bat mobile?" Tony frowned, looking over all the sketches that Bruce was now placing in front of his eyes.
"Yup! I added the coolest thing! Look at this!" Bruce pointed at the newest sketch he unfolded and almost shoved it in Tony's face. Squinting and holding back a yawn, Tony grabbed the sketch from Bruce and failed to hide the next yawn.
"You know, you could just tell me it sucks instead of yawning."
"For your information jerkface, I haven't slept in 4 days. I got something called work. Sounds familiar?"
Bruce looked thoughtful for a moment, directing his eyes to the ceiling before shaking his head, "can't say I've heard about it."
"Doesn't surprise me," Tony noted dry before he took a better look at the sketches, they weren't as good as his but considering that Bruce Wayne had drawn them (and probably in a hurry) it wasn't very surprising. Of course, Tony couldn't really get out everything from the sketch, considering it was so messy, but he got the general idea. Apparently Bruce wanted his new bat mobile to transform in some sort of a robot.
"I'm not building you a robot car."
Bruce blinked a few times, taking back the sketches from Tony and looking at it, wondering why his friend would even call it a robot car. It didn't even resemble a robot car at all. It was only the Tumbler he had right now but modified so it could transform into a huge robot. This wasn't the same thing as a robot car, at all, at least not in Bruce's mind. Tony rolled his eyes at Bruce's confused look and shoved his own sketches back in front of his nose, those being more important to him and all of that. But before Tony could even lift his pencil to draw another line, Bruce had once again slammed his design on top of Tony's and glared at the black haired man.
"You will make me this car damn it, I don't trust the mechanics at Gotham and Lucius won't make it for me after the cell phone fiasco."
"With a good reason. I'm not doing this."
"But why not?" Bruce whined, stomping his foot on the floor and pursing his lips together, "I mean, I totally gave you a part of my space in outer space so you could have an extra satellite there. In return, I demand this!"
"...you didn't give it to me; it was part of our negotiation deal between Wayne Enterprises and Stark Industries, besides, building robot cars, not in my job description."
"Are you professional or not?" Bruce raised an eyebrow at Tony who tossed away the sketches and continued adding more stuff to his newest suit that Bruce didn't even think the man needed. Either way, this was either a waste of time or he was going to walk out of there with success, Bruce preferred the latter.
"Says the man who watches too much cartoons to even think that a robot car will actually do him any good," Tony didn't even look up from the paper in front of him but Bruce could see the eyebrow raised and knew it was directed at him.
"They're not cartoons! They're...animated drawings," Bruce nodded, feeling smart even though he shouldn't even pretend to do so. He was smart in his own way, that being fighting and actually getting what he wanted without blowing stuff up like Tony. Both men actually had their good points and bad points. Bruce's being that he always wanted new technology that was almost always either impossible or his enemies used and Tony's, well Tony's bad side was the fact that once he came out of a battle, nothing was really left standing because of all his bombs.
"Normal people would all those cartoons," Tony squinted at the drawing and added even more detail. The drawing looked way beyond a sketch and was more professional than Bruce could ever hope his sketches would look. Let's just say Bruce Wayne wasn't really a technology making type of guy, he'd rather use it than to build it first. He could hire people to do that for him after all.
"You and I both know Tony that we're not normal people."
"I'm sorry batty, did you just call me a not-normal person? I'm as normal as you can get!" Tony protested.
"Coming from the man that flies around destroying military equipment in a bright red suit with gold made out of iron."
"its gold-titanium alloy, and they attacked me first," he pointed out, finally looking up from the whole sketch pad in front of him and turning away from it so he could actually see Bruce while he talked to the man.
"After you entered military domain without identifying yourself."
"I was only destroying what didn't belong to those terrorists," Tony said in a sad way that it brought Bruce back to reality. Their banter had brought him in some sort of daze where his mind automatically answered to Tony with snaky remarks and sometimes it was handy but sometimes it really didn't help the situation, like now for example.
"So back to my car. Are you going to make it now or not?"
"Absolutely not," Tony glared at Bruce for a second before he turned back to his sketching, hoping that if he would ignore Bruce, the man would just go away.
"Here I thought you liked challenges."
"Building you a car that can turn into a robot isn't a challenge for me Wayne."
"How do you know when you never did it before?" Bruce smirked, knowing he had Tony trapped now.
"You do actually know who you're talking to right? I mean, I build myself the first iron man suit. In a cave. With a bunch of scraps. Robot cars are nothing compared to that."
"Tony, a car that transforms into a robot while you're actually still in it is way more epic and challenging than building a robot suit in a cave with some scraps. Trust me on that one."
Tony seemed to be thinking about it for a moment before he shook his head and said a simple 'nope' before pulling his attention away from Bruce again. Bruce felt like he was trying to talk a kid into doing its homework when it had candy and its favourite TV-show was on TV for the next half hour or so. Sighing, Bruce sat down on a part of the desk that Tony hadn't palmed in yet and swung his legs back and forth.
Perhaps if he annoyed Tony so much, he would be able to convince the man to do what he wanted. Sometimes Bruce looked to his side, almost hanging in front of Tony's face to see what he was working on. It looked like a new sort of Iron Man suit but in the back of his head, Bruce knew that this one would have all sorts of cool gadgets that his Batman suit would never be able to have.
"Jealous Wayne?"
"As if."
"It's alright to be, I mean, my suit is clearly more superior than yours will ever be."
"I don't need to be able to download a song in less than 3 seconds from my bat suit, unlike you apparently."
"Well it's always fun to beat up the bad guys while listening to some good music; I highly suggest it to you. Might cheer you up once in a while, god knows you need it."
"I'm perfectly happy the way I am thank you," Bruce trusted his chin up and looked away from Tony who clearly wasn't impressed with what Bruce just told him.
"Says the man with the bat suit while he's afraid to death of bats themselves."
"I'm not afraid of them! I totally overcame that fear."
"Until you get some gas in your face and boy are you afraid of them then."
"That was totally ages ago and I got an antidote against it."
"Doesn't mean you still can't get affected by it."
"How do you know?"
"National Geographic..." Tony nodded before adding silently 'and YouTube' to the sentence. If Bruce heard the last bit at all, he pretended like he never heard it, which was just what Tony wanted. Sighing, Tony pushed away everything away from him that had to do with the iron man suit and finally gave in to the puppy dog eyes that Bruce had been giving him ever since he had said 'no' the first time, but Tony Stark was just after all only human and no one could resist Bruce Wayne's pleading look.
"...This looks like it was drawn by a kid from kindergarten."
"Not all of us went to MIT and graduated there at our 17th," Bruce retorted.
"And not all of us got kicked out of Princeton and ended up like a douche bag, your point is?"
"I didn't get kicked out," Bruce pointed, "I left on my own."
"They were going to kick you out anyway, so you just took the easy way out and got out yourself, saving you the humiliation."
"I'm Bruce Wayne, the goddamn Batman; they wouldn't have dared to kick me out."
"I'm sure that they didn't know you were going to turn out being a huge creep back in the day Brucie," Tony looked at Bruce with a look that the man couldn't really describe but it certainly looked like contempt or even smugness.
"Whatever," Bruce muttered darkly, "I'm still the goddamn batman."
Shaking his head at Bruce's sudden mood switch, Tony decided it would be better if he actually tried to make these sketches look somewhat like a decent sketch of a car that could later transform into a car. It was sort of funny to him how Bruce had actually drawn the robot like creature on the paper almost exactly like the car but apparently it had lost it's wheels along the way and the hidden motorcycle was also nowhere to be seen.
Once again, the little voice in the back of his head told him that not everyone was as detailed as he was and decided not to even mention it to Bruce but instead just drew a huge cross through the drawing and took a new piece of paper to start completely from scratch. If Bruce wanted a good car that could transform in some sort of battle robot, he would get the best Tony could make. After all, Tony had a name to uphold.
"Hey hey hey, what do you think you're doing?"
"I'm drawing you that robot car you want so badly, or did you forget about it already?"
"No no no, not that! You're drawing it on...wait is that bright blue paper?"
"This is sketch paper for stuff like this Wayne, you know..." Tony cocked his head to the side and looked at the man that was suddenly in front of him. How Bruce had managed to jump off the desk and suddenly make sure Tony was looking at him was a mystery to the mechanic but then he remembered that Bruce actually had training as ninja and just let the questions in his head drop.
"My robot isn't going to be bright blue Stark. Get it?"
"Relax gorgeous," Tony rolled his eyes, "this is just the paper, your new toy is going to be as black as those thoughts you get whenever your eyes go weird on me."
"...How can I relax when you're drawing my super awesome transformer car on bright blue paper Stark!"
"You're making this a way too big of an issue Wayne, now sit back and let me do my job."
Bruce pouted and sat back down on his previous spot on the desk with Tony's eyes watching him every move until the black haired man was sure that Bruce was sitting down and wouldn't move again. If there was one thing he hated more than childish drawings like Bruce's, it was Bruce using those ninja skills of him to sneak up on him and surprise him. Of course, Bruce being Bruce and totally having nothing to do except sitting there and watching his friend work on his newest toy, starting humming under his breath, slowly aggravating the genius prodigy.
"...could you please stop humming?"
"But it's my show tune!" Bruce protested before continuing to hum the song.
"Do I look like I care about your show tune Wayne? Just keep quiet while I work alright?"
"Will do," Bruce lifted his feet up the desk and leaned back in his seat, clearly relaxing just like Tony told him to do. Either way, the man was still an annoyance to Tony Stark considering that Bruce, instead of humming, kept bouncing his foot to the tune in his head, only causing Tony to be distracted.
"So…how will this work out? Will I get this super awesome red button saying 'do not press here' under it or will you camouflage it so I can scare the people when it transforms all of the sudden?"
"Who said anything about me actually making sure it transformed while you're in it?"
"Well, how else is it going to transform Stark?" Bruce rolled his eyes, "to be honest, you should disguise it, perhaps as a rubber duck! Or one of those you know, dice hangers, that'd be totally epic!"
"Why would those items be in your car in the first place?"
"You try driving around in Gotham in a car that doesn't have a radio, seriously Tony, I need something to keep me somewhat cheerful."
"Exactly, can't have your ray of sunshine be clouded by dark clouds now can we?"
Bruce blinked a few times, debating with himself whether this was a stab at his usually dark and depressive mood or the fact that it was barely sunny in Gotham in the first place. He didn't know and asking at this point would be giving away his doubt and confusion and that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. So instead, Bruce just rolled his eyes and leaned back on his elbows, still moving his foot up and down on the little show tune in his head.
"Okay listen, instead of annoying me here with your little act, why don't you go back to Gotham, bang a few girls here and there, crash a party, hell you can even crash your car for all I care but just leave me alone alright?"
"But...what about my car?" Bruce shot up, frowning for a second before he pouted at Tony, clearly not happy with the fact he would get his new car only in a few days time and not right away.
"You can come back in...let's say 3 days alright? Just get out now and in three days, you'll have your little car, robot, whatever."
"Transformer car Stark, and fine," Bruce sighed, "you get 3 days."
"That's all I need."
The three days went by faster than Tony would have liked, not only had he been knee-deep in work, he had also been busy dividing his time between starting to build his newest Iron Man suit, and actually finishing up this little project Bruce had given him. On top of this all, Bruce decided to still bother Tony all the way from Gotham and call him every day to ask how the project was going, these phone calls often ended with Tony just hanging up on the playboy saying 'I'm not a bat, go away you nocturnal asshole' (although Tony was sincerely doubting this playboy thing, nobody could be a bigger playboy than he was) and continuing with his work.
So now, finally after three days of enduring through all these little things that had ended up annoying Tony to no end, he was finally going to get rid of Bruce Wayne's pesky phone calls in the middle of the night (who called at 4 in the morning about a robot car anyway?) and be able to work full time on his newest suit, that needed more attention than Bruce's project ever did.
Of course, the pesky phone calls at 4 am had disturbed his sleep more than once (since Bruce liked to call multiple times to see how he was doing, like he was the one with the constant depression) and now, Tony was close to falling asleep right on his working table, all thanks to Bruce Wayne. Boy was Tony going to be relieved when that man would finally stop calling him, perhaps then he could get a good night sleep which he really needed right now, caffeine was really not helping anymore and even Pepper was annoying him about looking like crap in meetings.
"Good morning Tony and...company" Bruce said to the sleep deprived man and his always aiding and failing robots. Wayne was far too jolly for the time being 9 in the morning, thankfully the billionaire had been smart enough to bring Tony an extra large cup of Starbucks coffee and a box of donuts to share with him so Tony just forgave him while stuffing his face with the donuts.
"How much would it cost me to buy up the entire Starbucks company and rename it?"
"Billions, why?" Bruce frowned.
"Well good thing I'm a billionaire then," Tony muttered, clearly his sleep deprived brain could still function up to a point where he still thought about always making more money. Something Bruce always admired about Tony since the man could at least keep his eyes open during a meeting, not that Bruce could say the same.
"...You're not going to buy up Starbucks Tony."
"Yes I am, and I'll call it..." Tony went 'hm' for a few seconds before lighting up "Starkbucks! That's it!"
"Okay, that's it, no more coffee for you, you need sleep," Bruce pointed out, for once feeling more mature than Tony Stark, which was always a hard thing to do and Bruce just felt his self-confidence rise in points.
"Well if it wasn't for you to keep calling me up to claim you just banged the commissioner, I would get some."
"I didn't bang Gordon, and that phone call was ages ago. And I was drunk!" Bruce defended himself, glaring at Tony who was ready to swallow another donut before Bruce took it from him in revenge.
"Sure you were, anyway, for what do I owe you this visit? With donuts and coffee too!"
"My transformer car Tony," Bruce grumbled, suddenly appearing less jolly than roughly ten minutes ago.
A light went on in Tony's head, remembering the whole project of Bruce's car being able to transform into a huge fighting robot and spun around on his chair, trying to find whatever he was looking for. Bruce looked at him with confused eyes and followed Tony's figure all the way around the room before the man came back to him with in his hand this little robot car that fitted right over his two palms. It was a miniature version of the Tumbler he had back in Gotham.
"What's that supposed to be?"
"Your robot car! D'oh, or did you already forget all about it? Not like you jerkface."
"No. It's not my robot car Tony. My transfomer car is huge and bulky and...not that little shrimpy thing."
"Hey now you're just hurting it's feelings Wayne..." Tony looked sad at the little car in both his hands and managed to balance it on one hand while the other one petted the car as if it was alive.
"Do I look like I really care? Sheesh Tony, I ask for your help for once, to just build me this transforming car and you end up giving me a toy of all things!" Bruce glared at Tony and narrowed his eyes at the man, almost as if he was daring him to say something back or slap him or do something that would allow Bruce to hit him and claim it was self-defense.
"Well it's not like you said how big it had to be, so I just figured-"
"-I wanted a toy car? Honestly Tony? How dense can you be?!"
"Considering you have little Dick running around, I figured you wanted to be a good parent for the kid and give him an awesome toy like this, sheesh Wayne, it's not my fault you weren't thorough with your information on your little robot car."
"I had it all noted down on the sketches you threw away!"
"You really thing I can read that mess you call handwriting? Trust me Bruce, I would spend more days trying to decipher what you wrote than actually working on the whole thing. Besides, you haven't even seen what this baby can do!"
Bruce sighed and rubbed his temple, trying to figure out if Tony was actually joking about this whole thing or telling the truth. It didn't really look like he was pulling his leg so this little toy car had to be the real deal. Sighing and giving up, Bruce sighed and allowed Tony to show him what the toy could do. Grinning, Tony quickly placed the toy upon his work desk and pressed the button just on top of the car before taking a step back. Soon, this little toy started moving so the wheels were the basis for the feet and protection on the back, the flaps on top of the car extended themselves to the arms and what Bruce soon saw was a miniature version of the robot he would've liked to have.
It was impressive, how Tony had managed to make this in merely 3 days time. This would certainly put those toy fabricants to shame and briefly, Bruce wondered if he should give Tony the idea to actually make robot toys like this an official part of Stark Industries' merchandise line. It would be a hit with the children and Tony would actually have fun trying to come up with all new different cars to transform into little robots. Of course they would have to look into the whole 'patented' thing and that required paperwork, and everyone knew how much Tony Stark hated that.
"...Impressive," Bruce nodded, "this would blow away those nuts at my tech department..."
"Well I am Tony Stark you know, child prodigy, graduated from MIT at only 17 years old, sort of a genius..."
"Well aren't you modest?"
"Of the highest standards Wayne my love."
Bruce sighed and took the toy robot from the table where it stood as a statue, looking at it with an eye for detail, the man had to admit that this was again, an impressive piece of technology. Perhaps Dick would really enjoy playing with this, after all, the boy was already dreaming of driving the Tumbler himself even at the age of 12.
"Now why don't you go home and present that to little Dick with my highest regards and get your car off my lawn, eh Brucie?"
"Sure, uhm, whatever Tony, thanks...I guess."
Bruce started to leave with the robot still in his hand, of course he wouldn't admit it out loud that this was something he would also end up playing with and ont only Dick would get in his hands.
"Oh and Bruce darling? It has a voice recognition program so you can just say what it has to do and it will, it can even chase that poor butler of yours, whats-his-face, uhm, Alfie!"
"I'm not sure Alfred will appreciate that Tony."
"Psht, spoilbrat."