The Promise of Rain

being a continuation of the avengers

with made up science

and much fuckery


"Jesus, Banner, come on –"

The container has been reduced to an expanse of black, smeared across the entire lab (which, thinks Tony, may be down to slight exuberance on his part concerning the safety measures (see: explosives), but fuck it), so there is no immediate danger to Bruce, but he just wants to get him out of that goddamn room, away – which would be much easier if the guy wasn't still slumped against the wall and about as responsive as a doormat.

Then: "Oh, fuck."

He's just noticed a long cut underneath all that damn hair, high up on Banner's forehead. Tony bends down to grimace at it. It's more of a gash than a cut and, judging by the amount of glass on the floor from smashed beakers, the guy is lucky that it's only that bad. Tony pushes sticky red hair out of closed eyes, making a note to his inner JARVIS that starting from tomorrow, Banner is getting a haircut. Like, a short one. Preferably bald. No more wild "I am a scientist and knoweth not the existence of personal hygiene" curls. Nobody takes them seriously, anyway, Tony thinks (almost fondly, but not quite. He's too cool for fondness).

He doesn't know what to do. Tony is a scientist, a philanthropist, a genius; but he is not a doctor. So he leans forward to poke at the wound. It seems unperturbed by this, and carries on bleeding. Tony is all too aware of his debilitating inexperience regarding first aid, so is shamelessly relieved that Banner is barely conscious and can't see the fucking mess he's making of this.

And now Banner's face is glistening scarlet from brow to jaw, and Tony is kind of becoming concerned. He tries again to pull him up. By no means is he a weak man (to the contrary, he flies around in a metal suit half the time, and that's literally awesome), but trying to lift somebody who occasionally turns into a green mass of rage-muscle is not easy, even for him.

He tries not to think about how his pulling is becoming increasingly more desperate, about how Bruce Banner is still not responding. Most of all, he tries really hard not to think about all that blood, although it's all over his shirt now (which he almost laughs at, because Pepper bought it for him last month and he fucking hates it).

"Fuck, Banner, help me out here. I'm not Captain goddamn Spangles," Tony says through clenched teeth.

Some part of Banner must take pity on Tony, because the bleeding man pulls away from him and holds a shaking hand to his eyes. He can't see, but he doesn't care; Bruce can only think of how ridiculously hopeless he is, of how weak he must look to Stark, and he hates himself for it.

"I'm sorry," says Tony Stark. He doesn't bother wasting breath on platitudes; he knows that Banner's not fine, it's not going to be alright, he is hurt and hopeless and angryand it's not alright. For this, Stark is sorry.

So Bruce lets Stark take his hand and help him up, and then he lets Stark lead him far away from that lab, charred black at the corners with their failure. He is mindless, slipping away to that quiet, emotionless place that he sometimes dreams of. After a while he can't feel Tony Stark's hand, is no longer aware of the warm, wet cloth that dabs inexpertly at his face.

And then, he sleeps.


When he next opens his eyes, it takes a long time for the room to come into focus. The white tiled ceiling seems endless, each square blurring into another. Bruce spends a long time looking at the clean expanse of nothing. He is trying not to think.

"Banner, you there?"

A voice. Memories. He squeezes his eyes tight-shut, feels a lazy, painful ache from his forehead as he does so. Bruce remembers those words from somewhere else; from the place he is trying not to think of.

"Is this the part where I say lame stuff like 'stay with me, buddy'?" says the voice loudly.

He tries again to ignore it, but then there's something by his ear, air rushing in and out against the sensitive skin, and –

The voice whispers, "Do you want a blueberry?"

"Stark," gasps Bruce, and jerks away.

When he finally gathers himself and has finished trying to crush the bag of blueberries in Tony Stark's hands, Banner looks down at the bright white hospital sheets clenched in his fists. The other man, to his credit, remains silent.

It has taken a year (and there were years before even that), of hoping and researching and experimenting for some kind of cure, for Bruce to realise that he no longer wants to waste his time trying. He wonders – not for the first time – what if there isn't a cure? A larger, greener part of him thinks, fuck the cure.

He says nothing for a long time.

Finally, he asks Stark to pass him the clipboard at the end of the bed. Tony does so, watching him appraisingly as Bruce scans through his own medical information. A small notation in doctor's chicken-scratch (in which Bruce is experienced, and practically fluent) makes him pause.

"They had to restitch me twice?" he asks. "What happened?"

"I experimented with a little first aid," Stark looks unabashed.

Bruce stares, too incredulous to look away even when the man winks. "Did you try to stitch me?"

Stark raises one admonishing finger. "Correction, I did not try. I succeeded."

"They had to restitch me," Bruce repeats. "Twice!"

He shrugs. "In my defence, JARVIS guided me through it."

"I can't believe you – Stark, it's a delicate medical procedure. How could you possibly expect –"

"The doctors said you looked like Frankenstein's monster," says Stark. "I told them if they wanted to see that, they should just wait until you get pissed off."

Banner puts his head in his hands. "I just can't – I died, didn't I? I'm dead. This is Hell."

"Don't be ridiculous," Stark says deprecatingly. "If this was Hell, there wouldn't be blueberries."

It takes Tony all of five minutes to persuade the red-headed nurse on duty to let him take Banner home. There is an exchange of phone numbers – well, he does give her a number, just not necessarily his number – and then they are away, and Banner is safely tucked into the back of a black four-by-four with him.

Banner starts to awkwardly change into the clothes that Pepper insisted the chauffeur bring, so Tony looks away (he also doesn't see why the clothes were necessary. The hospital gown, while backless, seems just fine); mostly out of respect for the physicist's shyness – which is not to say that he doesn't sneak looks out of the corner of his eye, because he's always wondered what kind of effects massive amounts of gamma radiation would have on a guy down there.

When he finally turns back around, Banner is staring at the floor of the car and looking a little embarrassed. Tony figures it's not the time to ask what the effects of extreme gamma radiation on male genitalia are, so he asks Bruce how he's doing instead.

"Well, at least I don't look like Frankenstein's monster anymore," says Banner dryly. "I'm healing quite well, according to the charts."

"I heard that 'and no thanks to you'," Tony says archly. "It was only implied, but it was definitely there."

Banner smiles down at the floor, but doesn't answer.

And, Tony figures, it's now or never, small enclosed space or not. "We need to talk about the experiment," he tells him.

Immediately, Bruce looks away, up and out of the window, which so tinted that it may as well be night outside. He says, "I'd rather not," very quietly.

"We need to," Tony repeats, and he hates himself for pushing but leans closer to the other man, across the distance of empty seats and black leather.

Now Banner is turning around and looking at him, wordlessly telling him to shut up, and it's not as easy anymore to say what he needs to say, but Tony Stark is a natural at speaking (at all kinds of speaking, in fact, and most especially when he's not supposed to).

So he says, "I mean, would you cure a high IQ? Would you cure compassion?"

"What's your point, Stark?" Banner's palms are flat against his slacks, and he is staring at Tony.

"It's that maybe looking like the Green Giant every once in a while isn't so bad," says Tony, and right away, he knows he has said the wrong thing, but he goes on anyway. "You know, that guy – Peter Parker, or whatever - he got bit by some radioactive fucking spider, and now he's -"

"It's different," Bruce says calmly. "It's so different. You could never understand."

Something in his voice silences Tony Stark. "No," he says at last. "I guess not. But you don't, either."

"Stark, I think that's a little presumptuous of you," says Banner, and his fingers press into the car leather and then, self-consciously, pull back to fold neatly in his lap.

"Well, I'm a presumptuous person, Banner, I'm sure you've figured that out," Tony raises one eyebrow at the other man. "What you have is a terrible gift, but it's a gift nonetheless."

Banner looks out of the window again, and Tony is all set the leave the conversation at that, until: "I'm not doing it anymore."

"The experiments?" he asks, sharper than he had intended, but Banner seems to expect it.

"Yes."

"I didn't take you for a quitter," is all Stark says, and then silence settles on the two men.

Tony is frustrated. When Banner had apprehensively asked him for help only a year ago, he had been disappointed in the man. He'd meant what he said, he always meant what he said – it was a gift, Bruce's power, and if he'd only learn to control it then the possibilities would become endless.

And it was this thought that had made him agree to help Banner. It was what made him steer the physicist towards studying his biology, the different reactions his blood would have to various pheromones. Perhaps, Tony had figured, if he were exposed to the right emotion then Banner could unleash an intelligent Hulk; a compassionate Hulk; a goddamn daisy-picking man-loving pink Hulk; who fucking knew?

He had thought that maybe, just maybe, Banner could get to think the Hulk is awesome, just like he does.

Tony glances at Banner, who is uncomfortably rolling his sleeves up and down. He wonders at his own hypocrisy – at giving up just because Banner is quitting, and yet being disappointed in the physicist for it. If Tony Stark is anything, he is not a fucking hypocrite.

In fact, If Tony Stark is anything, he is a humanitarian. Perhaps a few people (see: several thousand, including a certain Capsicle, and Pepper because she kind of laughed when he said so) would disagree with this, but he is. This part of himself looks at Banner, at his tight jaw and crumpled clothes, at the bags under his eyes that speak of sleepless nights, and he sees a man who is too selfless to try to live a normal life.

So, screw quitting.

It's raining outside as Tony Stark decides to cure his science buddy. AC/DC is playing faintly in the background. A hospital gown is folded messily on the seat beside him. On the other side of the gown is Banner, still fiddling with his shirt sleeves, quietly oblivious. He's thinking about blueberries; he's thinking about gold and scarlet.

He's not thinking about green.


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