RIP Stan Lee. Thank you for granting us access to this world you've created. You've shown us how a ragtag group of misfits, each with their own flaws and baggage, could still rise up and become the hero they were born to be.
"Can you please shut up for like five minutes?"
Tony stood watching Bruce in total shock, his mouth still opened from the unfinished, long forgotten nonsense he'd been prattling off. He was used to getting that reaction- God knows he'd gotten it from practically everyone he's ever met- but never from Bruce. Usually Tony could go on for days, talking incessantly or even outright antagonizing the man all the while, and earn nothing more than an amused chuckle or a knowing smile for his trouble.
"You okay?" he asked, eyes combing the shabby scientist for something that might explain his unusually harsh response. Taking a moment to process the visual input, Tony noted that the word stressed could not begin to accurately and adequately describe Bruce's appearance. His button-down, purple shirt was rumpled and his hair looked as though his, now shaky, hands had barged their paths of frustration through it a number of times, causing the curls to stand up at odd angles. The scientist looked as though he hadn't slept or eaten in days. He probably hadn't, Tony thought, caught between the urge to yell at Bruce for his stupidity and curl up in a ball and hide out of shame for his tendency to do the same.
The fingers pinching the bridge of the other scientist's nose, where his glasses were usually perched, gave Tony a hint of the stress and sleep-deprivation induced headache that were certain to be plaguing his science bro.
For a minute the billionaire struggled to breathe as a wave of guilt, of which most would claim him to be incapable of feeling, washed over him. Why hadn't he noticed Bruce's haggard appearance before now? Tony usually prided himself on his ability to protect those he cared about- or at least he tried to tell himself that in order to fight off the panic that threatened to rise whenever he let his mind wander enough to come to the realization that he could never truly protect them after all.
Bruce was his friend, one of his best friends, and Tony didn't have many of those. He would do anything to protect Bruce, who seemed to need his protection least of all due to his indestructible nature when, in reality, the smaller scientist needed all the protection he could get. Another pang of guilt hit Tony with all the force of a Jericho missile as he remembered his resolve to keep a close eye on Bruce after the man's confession of his failed suicide attempt that day aboard the Helicarrier. And you've been doing a great job of that, came the scathing voice in his head that sounded oddly reminiscent of Howard and refused to die despite the fact that Howard had been dead for more decades now than Tony had actually known him.
Bruce sighed in frustration. He let his head fall into his hands and rubbed at his bleary eyes in an adorably childlike manner. Momentarily distracted by the endearing gesture by his equally endearing science bro, Tony almost missed the defeated whisper that escaped his lips.
"I almost had it."
"Had what?"
"The big it," Bruce replied, his head falling further into his hands so that they were once again burrowed in the messy, salt-and-pepper curls adorning his head.
"Brucie, buddy, you gotta give me a little more than that to go on." Tony couldn't help the nervous ramble that spilled from his lips; it was second nature. "I mean, I know that I'm a genius and my deductive reasoning, which constantly has others drooling in envy if I do say so myself, is on point, but even I can't figure out what you're talking about. There are too many unknown variables. I'm a man of science not a mind reader- not that they would know either. I actually know what I'm doing, we all know that so-claimed psychics are just-"
"Tony!" Bruce growled. He lifted his head, annoyance and anger clear on his face while his hands curled into tight, white-knuckled fists.
"Damn it!" he cried before grabbing the microscope he'd been studying and hurling it across the room.
Tony cringed as he watched the equipment shatter in what was sure to become a regretted moment of anger rather than as collateral damage in the ceaseless battle for science, but, for once, he held his tongue. He watched as Bruce returned his head to the nest he had made for it in his hands before saying, "I was so sure I found the cure this time."
Realization dawned on Tony.
"The cure? To your hulking green problem?"
"I just want to be normal again. I can't keep on living like this, fearing the uncontrollable monster lurking way too close to the surface for comfort, knowing that at any moment he could break free. Knowing that, at the drop of a hat, I will turn into a monster."
"He saved my life."
The statement was barely a whisper. Shy, self-conscious, and audibly hurt, it was so unlike the Tony Stark persona that Bruce knew and lovingly rolled his eyes at that, momentarily startled out of his all-encompassing misery, he looked up at the man across from him.
Tony, who had been looking at Bruce with pleading eyes, immediately looked away, avoiding the other man's gaze.
"Tony, for all we know that was a fluke. The Other Guy doesn't know what he's doing- he could have just as easily killed you."
"But he didn't."
"You don't know what could happen. Maybe next time he will."
"The Hulk won't hurt me." Tony's insistence that the Hulk wasn't and imminent threat, though usually appreciated when around others who tended to treat Bruce like a ticking time bomb, only served to irritate him more. How could Tony be so careless with his own life?
"That's a theory I'd rather not have tested."
"It's not just a theory," Tony shot back.
"Well it's definitely not a fact. You have no proof to back up your claim so if it's not a theory then it's just an opinion."
"You know, Banner, for a genius you could really be an idiot sometimes." Tony began to pace the floor of the lab, a move that was reminiscent of their late night science binges. Bruce knew he couldn't lose Tony just because his friend was lax about his own security, but Tony, much like during those numerous nights of science, didn't seem to care about his own safety so long as the perceived greater good was achieved.
"The Other Guy isn't a mindless, cold-blooded killing machine," the billionaire plowed on. "He's saved countless lives including yours and mine. He only attacks when scared or provoked. Humans do it all the time! Why aren't they monsters? Cause they're not big and green? I never took you for one to be prejudiced."
"How dare you? Don't you try to pin this on me. You know very well this isn't just based on prejudice. The Other Guy ruined my life and any chance that I could finally be normal or happy. He's a murderer, Tony. He's killed hundreds of people and can easily decimate an entire city in one go."
"So have I but you still talk to me. They call me the Merchant of Death and for good reason too. I'm a monster, I'm responsible for more death and destruction than most people on the planet yet you're not plotting to kill me in my sleep."
"It's not the same, Tony."
"I fail to see how it differs."