I do not own any of the characters present. They belong to Marvel comics. This was written purely for fun. Please note that I am not a trained psychologist.
Two weeks passed, and Tony hadn't had another meeting with Bruce's other personalities, and not for lack of trying. The billionaire was being as discrete as possible, which when he put his mind to it, could be pretty damn discrete. He had read up on dissociative identity disorder in private, and had asked cautious questions centered on medicine, artistry, and books (for the benefit of the unknown Archives).
None of the personalities raised to the bait, but he did get to learn a bit more about Bruce. The questions lead to them having conversations about some of their favorite novels and artists, as well as a few stories from Bruce about his doctoring practices while on the run. Tony was always up to learning more about his friend; the man was still adapting to living with people in something other than the slums, so it was awesome that he was opening up enough to divulge information about himself. So caught up in their conversation, Tony almost forgot what his intentions with his questions were.
Almost.
So when that didn't work, he stepped it up a notch. The questions got a little bit blunter, as well as the actions.
He cursed his impatience when his motives were discovered by the Black Widow. The assassin had stepped into the lab to drag them both up to the meeting they were late to (Fury had not been happy when JARVIS had informed him that he had been muted in the lab). She paused in the open doorway when she walked into a conversation between the two men, where the physicist questioned Tony's interest in how old he was when he used to enjoy drawing. Natasha's eyes had immediately narrowed on the engineer, but her expression went neutral once Bruce glanced over and greeted her. Tony was saved from having to answer Bruce's question, but he was subjected to the Black Widow's terrifying glare during the entirety of the meeting with a disgruntled Fury and the rest of the Avengers.
The next day, as Tony stepped into the shared lab with a new set of questions on the tip of his tongue, he faltered. There sat Natasha, a cup of steaming tea in her hands, on a stool with a lab table between herself and Banner. Bruce was hunched minutely, a conscious effort to make himself seem smaller, and talking civilly with the assassin. The grip on his own mug was a little too tight, a clear sign that the physicist was unnerved that the Widow had, by her own volition, willingly sought him out and was making idle chit-chat with him. The tension between them was still thick, but it wasn't nearly as smothering as it had been when they had all moved into the tower. For as relaxed as Natasha's demeanor seemed to be, and how convincing it looked, Tony knew that Banner wasn't so easily fooled.
Bruce looked openly relieved at the opportunity to escape from Natasha's complete focus and jumped at the chance when the engineer entered the room. "Tony!" he said almost too loudly in greeting. He winced at his own volume. "I was just explaining some of the new arrowheads that we were working on yesterday."
Tony turned a faux-surprised look on the assassin, who met his gaze almost in challenge. "Is that so?" the engineer asked.
"It is," Natasha answered coolly, setting down the tea to lift a stray arrowhead from the table between herself and the physicist. "It's rare to see Clint get so genuinely excited about anything." She twisted the shell of the arrowhead in her fingers, eyeing it analytically. "He mentioned something about arrows with a spray of chemicals upon impact?"
"Nothing lethal, though," Bruce said, before he and a reluctant and suspicious Tony began to explain the mechanics of the different arrowheads they were still creating for the team's archer. The three of them discussed other plans, Natasha offering her own ideas for arrowheads that would have helped out a great deal in past SHIELD missions.
It was maybe half an hour later before JARVIS interrupted them. "Sir, Mr. Odinson is asking permission to enter the laboratory."
"Better open up before he tears the door down," Tony muttered in reply without looking away from the screen he had open as he designed new housing units in the arrowheads.
The conversation was officially over, and not a moment later, the doors slid open and Thor strode in. "Good morrow, dear friends!" He was dressed as casually as a demigod could be, but even in a jacket and jeans, he still looked like a force of nature. "I was hoping the good doctor would be willing to accompany me on a journey in search of your Midgardian literature."
Bruce at once looked both a little surprised and a little suspicious to be so elegantly invited to go to a book store or a library or wherever it was Thor was wishing to go. "Um…sure, Thor."
Tony's eyes narrowed slightly and he shot a look over at Natasha. Somehow, even as she stared at Thor, he knew that she had set this up. Good God, they were going to start babysitting the man to keep him from asking his questions!
He scowled at her for all of a second before he glanced at Thor, who was rejoicing Bruce's affirmative answer. "You do know that JARVIS has unlimited access to just about every book ever written, right?"
"Ah," Thor began, raising one finger in a sage-like manner, "but it would not be a journey if the literature was already in hand."
"It's not the same, either," Bruce added as he looked over at Tony. "There's something comforting about reading a text from a physical book and being able to flip actual pages."
Tony placed a hand over his arc reactor and tilted his head toward the ceiling. "Et tu, Bruce? And here I thought we were kindred souls…" He smirked at the sound of Bruce's amused chuckle. "Alright, go get your outdated paperbacks. Thor, buddy, I'm introducing you to the world of ebooks sometime."
"I shall look forward to such a day," Thor replied with a grin as he turned to leave.
Bruce started to follow and glanced over his shoulder at Tony and Natasha. "See you guys later, I guess."
And with that, the God of Thunder and the physicist stepped out of the lab, taking with them the lightness and camaraderie in the air. The area suddenly felt cold and tense as Tony's eyes darted over to the assassin, who was already staring at him with an eerily blank expression on her face.
"Hey, congrats, you separated us," Tony began in an unfriendly tone. "Next time you think Banner needs a babysitter, maybe choose someone who doesn't make him uneasy." It was a low blow, but he was pissed.
The narrowing of her eyes was the only thing that changed on Natasha's countenance. "What makes you think we're babysitting just him?"
"Oh, even better! You enlist Barton and Cap, too?" Tony shot back.
Something like irritation appeared in her eyes. "You need to stop trying to coax out his personalities, Stark. We don't want to see him get hurt."
A bitter laugh escaped from Tony. "Your ideas of protection are a bit off, Agent Romanoff. Your friendliness today was an underhanded scheme, an outright lie. Yeah, that'll help him."
He knew he hit the nail on the head by how that little hint of emotion faded from her eyes, leaving her looking blank again. "The sooner you drop the topic, the sooner we'll leave you and him alone. Until then—" she slid off of the stool and stood perfectly poised "—be prepared to see us around more often."
As she made her way toward the door, Tony leaned against a lab station. "At least then you all will finally start interacting more with the guy."
Natasha didn't even pause as she exited the room.
For a woman who based her career on lying, she made good on her word. Sure enough, whenever Bruce and Tony went to go work in the labs, their babysitter wasn't far behind. Clint was, by far, the best of the four other teammates at this, as he stayed out of the way and nearly silent. Steve tried to, as he had taken to an empty lab table to sketch on, but he would usually pop into their conversations in an attempt to understand whatever it was they were working on. Thor was very much the same, reading through the anthologies that he had bought on his outing with Bruce, but he, too, wished to learn more about the 'Midgardian ways of technology.' Bruce, the ever-patient helpful man that he was, would try to explain. It simply irritated Tony, for it threw them off their groove.
And Natasha still made Bruce uneasy. She was just like Clint, but the doctor was always completely aware of her presence.
So it went on for the next week or so. Tony couldn't so much as ask a question regarding Bruce's life before the whole Chitauri invasion without their on-duty babysitter ready to jump in. Bruce was initially surprised to see their teammates willing to spend time in the labs with them, but the more time that passed, the more suspicious and uneasy he became.
And it frustrated Tony to no end. Not only were they sabotaging his experiment, but they were sabotaging their own chance to befriend the guy.
As he tried to block out Bruce's attempts to explain quantum entanglement to Thor, the physicist's words began to repeat themselves in the engineer's head, about curiosity and better judgment. About how despite them knowing each other for less than half a year, Bruce seemed to have a better read on him than people he had known for years. About how while his head wasn't always in the right place, his heart was.
He came to a decision.
Tony stood up and stormed out of the lab, not looking back when Bruce's explanation cut off mid-sentence, only to be replaced with a concerned "Tony?"
He found Natasha with Clint in the communal dining room, looking over SHIELD files. They both looked up at Tony when he paused in the doorframe, glaring daggers at the redhead.
"Fine," Tony conceded ungracefully and not without anger. "No more trying to speak to the other personalities. Now stop supervising us. You're making him uncomfortable, and you are ruining any sort of chances of turning him into anything more than a reluctant teammate."
Clint's brow furrowed slightly. "Are you really giving up already?"
Tony's glare shifted to the archer and let out an angry, beaten sigh. "This needs to end. If my defeat means Bruce can be comfortable in his home and salvaging any of the bonds you all had started to form with him, so be it. So there." He turned his eyes back to Natasha. "You win. Now back off."
"Do I have your word that you'll stop?" Natasha asked.
A noise akin to a growl escaped from the engineer, but he reluctantly nodded. "Yeah. Now, do I have your word you'll stop babysitting us? He's a grown-ass man; if I make him uncomfortable, he'll let me know. Believe me, he has before."
Natasha offered a single nod. "Thank you, Stark."
The stare-down between the two of them lasted a few moments longer before Tony huffed irritably. He stormed off, muttering ideas about how to get Thor out of the lab so the two scientists could get back to work.
When he got back to the laboratory, both Thor and Bruce gave him concerned looks. "Is all well?" the God of Thunder inquired.
"All is just peachy," Tony replied easily. He looked directly at the demigod. "I think Natasha's looking for you. Something about wanting to tell you about the time she was an undercover agent to watch me and Pepper a few years back."
"She was sent to spy on you?" Thor asked.
"Yeah, and she seemed pretty dead-set on telling you all about it in painful detail. She was in the kitchen last I saw her." It was a poorly disguised dismissal that anyone could see through.
The look that the demigod gave him told him as much. He played along anyway. "Well, if she is insistent…"
"Downright eager," Tony added and made a shooing gesture toward the door. "Better hurry; you don't want to keep a lady waiting."
It seemed too below the Asgardian prince's status to roll his eyes, but nothing kept him from giving the engineer a belittling and vaguely amused eye. "Very well," he replied. He gave Bruce a light pat on the shoulder (Tony beamed internally when the physicist's response was only a mild flinch), and excused himself from the laboratory.
Bruce's eyes followed the demigod out the door before glancing over at Tony, a brow quirked in inquiry. Tony simply gave the man an overly relieved expression before he settled himself back at his work station.
A few minutes passed quietly between the two. In his periphery, Tony could see Bruce look up from his notes toward the door occasionally. Finally, the man took off his glasses and began to fiddle with them. "Are we to expect any more visitors?" the physicist asked mildly.
Tony felt more disappointed in the team's discretion than proud that Bruce had known what was going on. A genius-level intellect wouldn't have been needed to have seen what they were doing. He shrugged, but didn't turn. "Nope. I've had my fill of listening to you try to dumb down our projects for the non-English speakers."
"What did you have to promise Natasha to stop the babysitting?" Bruce asked.
"My firstborn and her own suit," Tony quipped. He shifted on the lab stool and made a show of the "picture this" gesture with his hands. "I'm calling it Iron Widow. It'll be sexy." He turned a grin on the physicist and faltered only slightly when he saw the serious look on Bruce's face. Tony rolled his eyes and sighed. "I told her I'd back off on my experiment if she and the others would back off on babysitting duty."
Bruce's eyebrow quirked again. "You're giving up?" he questioned in skepticism.
"Oh please," Tony scoffed and turned back around to face his work once more, "I'm just changing tactics."
He just needed to figure out what that new tactic was.
A/N: Sorry for the wait! This chapter was going to have a LOT more, but this seemed like a good place to stop. The next chapter will be longer, I promise.
Thank you for reading, and feedback is always welcome!