Whoo! Chapter three! Enjoy!
Touch Me
"Tony?" Bruce called, "Where are you?"
Silence. It was too creepy for the Tower to sound this quiet, especially when Thor was back.
"JARVIS?"
"Yes, Master Bruce?"
"Where is everyone?"
"Captain America and Thor have gone out drinking, Master Hawkeye and Miss Natasha are with S.H.E.I.L.D. and Sir is down in his lab."
"What's he doing down there? I thought he said no experiments today." Bruce slowly made his way down to the lab, sliding open the door to find…
"Damn! Crap! DUM-E, I am going to shred you! Butterfingers, stop that! Why can't any of my robots do what I want them to?! Damn it all to hell, JARVIS, help me out!"
"I cannot, Sir."
"I really need to make you a body. Damn it!" Tony suddenly caught sight of his visitor and turned to Bruce, "Hi, there." He turned and Bruce noticed the Arc Reactor wasn't in his chest. In its place was a large assembly of wires that looked heavy and painful.
Bruce looked at the crazy disarray of the lab, "What are you doing?" He chuckled.
"Okay, so you know how I got the hell beaten out of me in the last attack?"
Bruce did remember. The memory made Hulk purr. It was just a week after Tony had turned the big guy purple and Tony was still in a lot of pain from it. Of course, that was when A.I.M. decided it was a good time to launch a crazy attack that Bruce still couldn't figure out the goal of. Whatever. The fact of the matter was that Tony pulled himself out of a hospital bed and into his suit and fought with them.
"Yeah." Bruce nodded.
"Apparently…" Tony winced, "Something bumped my reactor. Hard. These wires running through me are hooked up to one of my old reactors and are keeping me alive while I try to get these idiots to help me fix the new one. This hurts… God dammit DUM-E will you just stay still?!"
The whole room froze.
Bruce would have laughed at the display if for a few small details.
Tony was in a lot of pain already
He should be back at the hospital resting, not in the lab
If that Arc Reactor wasn't fixed, Tony would die.
"You! You're an actually smart person who doesn't want me completely dead as far as I know and has more intelligence than all of my AI's excluding JARVIS." Tony pointed at Bruce, "Can you help me?"
"I'll do what I can."
Tony grinned, "Wonderful. Alright! All I need you to do is reach into my chest and fix what's broken. I'll walk you through it, don't worry."
Bruce walked over and rolled up his sleeves.
"Never before have I thought a scrawny guy looked like such a blessing." Tony jumped up onto a table and lay back, "You ready?"
"As ready as I'm going to be."
Tony grabbed Bruce's hand, "Promise me one thing."
"What?"
"When your hand is in there, do not, for the love of all things made of science, Hulk out."
Bruce smiled, "I'll do my best."
Tony sighed and closed his eyes, "Okay, I'm going to disconnect. When I do, I'll most likely go into cardiac arrest. You'll have about three minutes to just smooth out everything with this…" He reached over and grabbed… what the hell was that? Probably something Tony's made just for this job, "and get that Reactor in my chest. That way I'll be able to actually fix the better one without having to lug around a freakin' car battery."
Bruce reached over and lifted the reactor, setting it down next to Tony's head.
"Ready?"
Tony nodded and lifted his hands, carefully removing the wires from his chest. It was one of the most painful things he'd ever felt. He clenched his eyes shut as soon as it was done and set his head down. Before he'd even touched the table again, Bruce was getting to work on repairing the sleeve for the reactor.
'Don't think about it, Tony. Think of something else. Booze. Lots of lovely, delicious booze. God, can Thor get drunk? Hehe, Bruce is inside me. I wonder what Captain Spandex is like drunk. Is he a virgin? God, I hate him. I hate him so much, it's his fault my dad didn't pay attention to me as a kid. I wish I actually meant that. I can't blame Steve, it's the old man's fault and his alo-' "Holy crap!"
Bruce looked at him, "Done."
"God, really? Jesus, Bruce, you are amazing, I could kiss you. But I really want to make the pain stop so I'm just going to go and fix my heart now. Wanna help? Of course you do. Let's go!"
Bruce chuckled to himself and followed Tony over to where he'd set up the vibranium-powered Arc Reactor.
Tony watched as Bruce's face lit up in awe. The realization hit him that he was actually going to work with this, to be able to touch it and see how it works.
"God, that look." Tony chuckled, "Please don't ever leave, Bruce. No one else appreciates science like you do."
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