Significant portions of Tony Stark's Manhattan penthouse were, well, completely fucked. Bruce deviated around a crater in the concrete floor (the one that gave him a vague flickering memory that meant it almost certainly had something to do with Bruce's best green friend) and walked out through partially shattered glass sliders onto the balcony. All the windows on the buildings around were saturated sunset-gold, but the sky was missing its often spectacular apocalyptic glow. The city was such a mess people had pretty much given up trying to drive anywhere these last couple of days, which had done wonders for the pollution, and in turn robbed the sinking sun of its more lurid oranges and pinks.
Tony was sitting at the edge of the balcony, legs swinging over the darkened city street that was a little too far below for comfort. Bruce's comfort, anyway – Tony seemed perfectly at ease, glass in one hand, bottle beside him, steadily working himself into a warm whisky-flavoured haze. Bruce sat on the step behind him and pulled a pouch of tobacco from the inside pocket of his jacket.
"Mind if I smoke?"
Tony inclined his head only slightly to respond, like he wasn't quite ready to break out of the stillness he'd gotten wrapped up in.
"Not if you roll me one."
"I didn't know you smoked."
"Only when I'm drunk."
Bruce refrained from pointing out that this was most of the time, and dusted a thick line of tobacco across the flimsy paper resting on his knee.
"Mind what I smoke?"
Tony turned fully at that, and cracked a wide grin.
"I knew it!"
Bruce gave him one of his slow, amiable smiles in return.
"Well, yeah. I figure my stress management needs qualify as medical reasons. Not that I didn't smoke weed before I had those stress management issues. But being in my twenties and living in a college town was just as good a reason."
"Man," said Tony with a wistful sigh "being in your twenties was a good excuse for just about anything."
Bruce grinned as he fished a small silver box out of the tobacco pouch. It was covered in small, rough carvings and had a milky blue bead set in the lid – the kind of pretty junk that was common in the streetcorner stalls of Kolkata. He twisted off the lid and emptied a few pinches of mossy tangle into a slim wooden grinder.
"For you, Tony, I bet being in your forties is a pretty good excuse for most things."
Tony raised his eyebrows in mock offence.
"I'll have you know I've calmed down a lot," he said, before a wicked grin spread back across his features "I used to be all kinds of deviant."
"Every single kind?"
"All the ones that appealed."
Bruce gave an amused 'huh' without looking up from the dusky green flecks he was scattering, with precise movements, into the streak of dark brown flakes perched on his knee. Tony took this as encouragement to elaborate.
"For a while there I made it my life's mission to try every illegal drug, every combination of sexual partners – every combination of illegal drugs and sexual partners..."
Tony trailed off, cheerfully. Bruce's tongue slid across the paper between his fingers , fingertips following its trajectory in his particular, neat way, sealing the spliff. He held it loosely in his lips as he snapped a lighter in front of his face. Unstable shadows momentarily picked out the lines around his eyes, the orange flame bright in the darkening evening.
"Any favourites?" Bruce asked.
"Back then … MDMA and one of each gender."
Bruce grinned at that, if he'd had to guess what Tony was going to say, that's exactly what he'd have picked. Utter sensory decadence – very much Tony's style. Which begged the question -
"But not these days?" His voice was scratchy when he spoke, lungs burning slightly with the first breath of smoke.
"God no. Threesomes are so much more effort than they're worth."
Bruce laughed.
"That is something only Tony Stark would say."
"But they are!" he said defensively "It's like hosting a party, you know, it takes organisation, you've gotta make sure everyone's having a good time. Once the novelty value wears off there just doesn't seem much point."
"Ah well, there you go, I just haven't enough threesomes to start finding them boring yet."
"So you have had one – more than one?"
Bruce returned Tony's increasingly wicked expression with a quirked smile.
"Let's just say undergrad was a particularly fun time in my life."
Tony chuckled, low in his throat. Bruce held out the spliff and Tony reached across, their fingertips brushing as he took it. Bruce's skin gave off a glowing heat, despite the cooling night air, and Tony wondered for a moment if that was a side effect of the radiation.
"What about these days, then?" Asked Bruce "What's your ultimate combination?"
Tony shrugged, lazily, smoke pooling over his lips.
"Quiet spliff and someone interesting enough to hold a good conversation?"
"Kinda tame for a billionaire playboy."
"Being a superhero kinda fulfils my adventure quotient these days. Not that I need to explain about that to you."
Bruce laughed.
"Don't laugh! It's true. We're fucking superheroes."
"You maybe."
"Oh, so what are you?"
"A grenade SHEILD throws in the air in the wild hope it might come down where they want it to?" Bruce deadpanned with raised eyebrows. Tony twisted around fully to face him, and poked an accusatory finger towards Bruce's chest.
"Fuck that. See that Asgardian shaped hole in my floor? That was you literally saving the world from an evil scheming overlord-y dickwad."
Bruce laughed again. Tony's drunken enthusiasm was endearing – though not overly convincing.
"That wasn't exactly me."
"Well I'm sure he won't mind if you take some of the credit."
"Hah. I'm not so sure about that."
"Well, he might – but what's he gonna do, beat you up?"
Bruce plucked the spliff back out of Tony's hand and took a deep drag.
"You're an idiot, Stark." He said, his voice crackling through a heady plume. Tony just grinned.
"You know, considering I'm actually a genius, it's ironic how often I get called that."
"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, superhero. You must be quite pleased with that."
"Drunk, stoned, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, superhero. I am very, very pleased with that."
"Can't argue with that." Bruce murmured.
They didn't say much more after that. Just sat in companionable silence as the night sank completely into the streets below, passing the little burning light back and forth as it dwindled between their lips.