Thanks to my beta, irite, for continued dedication to the cause.
...I just wanted to use the phrase 'dedication to the cause.'
I do not own The Avengers.
Tony was on a mission.
It was impossible.
Since the beginning of the new year, he'd had a pair of government agents more or less living with him.
His mission? Ignore them.
SHIELD had started out watching Bruce in December, making sure he didn't have any 'incidents' and making sure that no one gave him any trouble. Tony hadn't liked having them around—they'd been spying on him, too, in the process—but if that was the price he had to pay to keep Bruce around, that was okay. He could deal with that like a mature, responsible adult.
Well, kinda. He maybe hadn't been completely mature about the whole thing, but he was pissed off, damn it! The government had robbed him, and now he was supposed to just let them waltz in and invade his privacy?
Of course he knew it was for his own good. For Bruce's good. It was patronizing as hell, but he got it. He even knew that SHIELD hadn't been involved in that whole 'let's confiscate the Iron Man armor and hand it over to Justin Hammer and his friends' thing that the Senate had done. So being angry with SHIELD wasn't exactly helpful. But they were still assuming that they knew what was best for him, that they knew what was best for everyone, and Tony didn't like that.
Tony didn't like it when anyone assumed that. The way he figured, he was the best judge of what was best for him.
Still, he was working with them as much as he could really be expected to. Sure, he'd been pissed off when he found out how he'd been played. But when it came down to it, he didn't want trouble any more than they did. As long as they kept a low profile, he thought everything would be fine.
At the beginning of January, though, a whole new layer of complexity had been added to the whole arrangement. Ivan Vanko had managed to bust out of prison, which was very bad news for the people he'd once attempted (and failed) to kill.
Namely, Tony.
At least in handling that, SHIELD had taken a step in the right direction. They'd also made some missteps—for example, they'd thought that Bruce should leave until the threat was gone. Tony disagreed, and he'd managed to make them see things his way. It helped that, for whatever reason, SHIELD wanted the two of them working together. Tony still didn't know what was up with that, but it got him what he wanted, so he wasn't going to complain.
But they'd offered to let him start construction on a new suit, which was a big plus in Tony's book (if he ignored the whole 'they were telling him what to do' thing). They couldn't do much about what the Senate had done, but Coulson had promised that they'd handle the cease and desist order, at least, if it came down to it.
Of course, Coulson had immediately afterwards called Tony out for hacking SHIELD—which of course he'd been doing—so that lost them a few points. Honestly, how else was Tony supposed to find out what kind of stuff they were involved in? He wasn't going to just ask Romanoff, like Coulson had suggested. He was ignoring her.
But he'd decided, for the moment, that he could let the whole 'hacking SHIELD' thing slide for a bit, and he'd started construction instead. Well. Resumed. He might have started a couple of days after Bruce moved in. Maybe. Not that it was anyone's business.
SHIELD hadn't just told him to make a new suit and sent him on his merry way, though. Since Bruce was staying, they'd insisted on extra security. Which was why Barton and Romanoff had moved in. That was, into Tony's house.
They alternated 12-hour shifts like clockwork. Romanoff took the days, from 7 AM to 7 PM. Barton took the nights. They set up shop in a spare room, and try as he did, Tony couldn't ignore them hauling computer screens and wiring through his house. From what he gathered, they were setting up some kind of surveillance network. He hadn't offered to let them use JARVIS, and they didn't ask. In fact, they didn't ask for much. For the most part, they didn't interact with either Tony or Bruce, or anyone else who stopped by. Sure, he'd seen Bruce and Romanoff chatting a few times, but he mostly put it out of his mind. Bruce was too polite to ignore the agents like he should, that was all. It was okay, though; Tony could ignore them enough for both of them.
At least, he could try. He made it his mission, after all. And he was reasonably successful at it. But he just couldn't ignore them completely. Hazard of being a genius, maybe, or paranoid. Or both. He didn't want to see Barton stalking through the house, clearing every room for intruders. He didn't want to see Romanoff calling in updates to SHIELD every hour. But like a sore on the roof of his mouth, he couldn't just ignore them. He was aware of them, to some degree.
It was annoying.
Still, life with the creepy assassin duo eventually settled down somewhat.
Romanoff had, until the beginning of January, been working as Tony's assistant, but that arrangement ended when Vanko broke out of his supposedly high-security prison. So Tony went through almost two weeks without anyone to pick up the laundry or deliver his food, and had gotten to the point where he was subsisting entirely on microwave popcorn (Bruce might have cooked for him, if Tony had asked, but he wasn't going to, damn it) before Pepper found someone she thought was suitable. SHIELD assured both Tony and Pepper that this new hire was not an undercover government agent, and so she'd started working the third week of January. Her name was Olivia, and she managed to do everything Tony required with a bare minimum of exasperated sighing. And she managed to do it while staying entirely in the background.
Definitely a plus.
She even took the whole 'government agents in the house' thing pretty well. Of course, no one told her about Bruce; she thought the agents were there entirely for Tony's protection. What could Tony's adorable live-in physicist have to do with anything?
In fact, she was actually more suspicious of the live-in physicist thing. At least it only took Tony and Bruce until the end of February to convince her that they weren't sleeping together.
Tony didn't even know where she'd get that idea.
Bruce, for his part, spent a fair amount of time working in the lab he'd cordoned off. He was looking for a cure for his 'condition,' Tony knew, or at least a way to control his other half. Tony wasn't sure a cure was really the right direction to take, and he wasn't sure if 'control' could be found in a lab. Given that he truly believed that everyone in the world wanted his opinion, he did not hesitate to express as much.
Surprisingly, Bruce had agreed with him, at least about the second part. "I'm not going to stop looking for a cure, Tony. That's...it's not up for debate." He paused, thoughtful, and Tony was about to interject (because, to him, everything was up for debate), when Bruce admitted, "But...when I was in Canada, I was, uh, trying to learn to control it. I think I was making decent progress, too, but, um, then I was 'relocated.' Haven't had much chance to get back to it..."
That was interesting, and Tony had immediately suggested, "Well, no time like the present, right?"
But Bruce had shook his head. "Are you insane? We're surrounded by millions of people. If something goes wrong, I could hurt someone."
Tony had considered this for all of five seconds before he pointed out, "I work on stuff that could explode or something all the time."
Bruce had narrowed his eyes. "It's not the same. If you—"
"If I blow something up, it's because I was careless. Totally my fault. So I'm careful. Same with you, right? Look. Take things slow. Be careful. It'll be fine."
Trying a different angle, Bruce said, "I could hurt you, or—"
"I have the suit," Tony pointed out. He'd finished it within a week of his chat with SHIELD—implementing the changes he'd designed hadn't taken very long, and JARVIS had taken care of most of the construction. "And besides, there's a SHIELD agent here 24/7. If something goes wrong, they can have a team here in like, three minutes."
This, improbably, actually seemed to work towards assuaging Bruce's worry. "I...guess you're right." Then Bruce had smiled ruefully. "Don't know how useful their team might be, but...you're right."
Tony had pressed his advantage. "I usually am. Come on. It's worth a shot, right?"
Reluctantly, Bruce had agreed. And consequently, he spent a few hours in the gym every day, doing god knows what, since he wouldn't let Tony in to watch.
Tony conceded that, if that was the condition Bruce was going to set, and ordered JARVIS to turn off the video feed from the gym and keep the surveillance on Bruce to a necessary minimum. After all, it seemed universally advantageous for Bruce to get a handle on his big, green alter ego. Sure, Barton and Romanoff hadn't been too pleased when they found out, but even they had to admit that any progress towards control was a good thing. Especially with the new threat from Vanko.
"If something goes wrong, though," Romanoff had told Tony seriously, "You're footing the bill."
Tony shrugged. He'd already agreed to that, hadn't he?
So the weeks passed quietly, and Monday, March 14th, started out like every other day for the last couple of weeks had. Tony woke up at a fairly early 8:00 AM and made his way downstairs, where he found his coffee and breakfast waiting for him. He ate and then went down to his workshop, where Bruce was already working, having gotten up absurdly early to do his anti-rage meditation or whatever.
The two of them whacked away at their various projects until lunchtime, when JARVIS informed Tony, "Sir, Ms. Potts is here to talk about the designs you sent to R&D yesterday."
"Great, J, send her down," Tony answered. He'd finished the new Iron Man armor by mid January and had, since then, delved into some new projects. Most of them were Iron Man related (he had some plans for a suit that would more or less come to him when he called it, but that was a long way down the road still) but he had found some time to work on some stuff for Stark Industries. Including a slew of plans he'd sent over yesterday.
A few minutes later, Pepper came clicking into the workshop. She was carrying a paper bag which, Tony's nose told him, contained lunch. She set it down on a workbench and called, "Lunch is here, Bruce!"
"I get some, too, right?" Tony asked, standing up and stretching before wandering over to the bag. He reached out for it.
She snatched it back up. "You can wait for Bruce."
Tony disagreed, but he knew better than to express as much. Instead, he sat back down, arms crossed over his chest, and waited for Bruce to finish his apparently six-year-long decontamination procedure.
When Bruce finally, finally slipped out of his lab and Pepper relinquished her grip on lunch, the three of them settled down to eat. For the next half hour or so, Pepper and Tony went over his new ideas, and Pepper shot most of them down in an efficient, competent way that only made Tony want to design something more ridiculous. Every now and then, Bruce would throw out a suggestion (usually a good one, too—he got way more approving nods from Pepper than Tony did, brown noser). Soon, Pepper and Bruce were teasing Tony about his propensity towards designing children's toys with combustible components.
Some friends. It wasn't his fault they couldn't see his genius.
Really, though, he didn't mind too much. For one, he could conceded that his designs could sometimes seem...ambitious. Or dangerous. Especially to people like Bruce and Pepper, who had Disapproving Looks and were Real Adults. Second, it gave them something to talk about, and Tony wasn't going to deprive them of that. So he took their ribbing in good humor and ate his sandwich.
As they finished up their food, conversation turned more serious. Wrapping up her leftovers, Pepper asked, "Have you heard anything about Vanko?"
She sounded remarkably calm, which was a major change from how she'd sounded when Tony had told her about this new problem. Then, she'd done that high-pitched voice thing that made Tony worry for her blood pressure. And vocal cords. When she'd finished yelling at him (he wasn't entirely sure why she was yelling at him, it wasn't like he'd busted Vanko out of prison), she'd advised him to be careful about a dozen times. Then she'd called Coulson (Pepper never deleted a phone number) to make sure SHIELD was doing all they could to make sure Tony wasn't going to get his ass kicked.
It had been, maybe, just a little embarrassing.
After that, she'd calmed down some, to the point that she only asked Tony about the situation once or twice a day. And, Tony suspected, contacted Coulson quite frequently as well, given the way she tended to know more about what was going on than he did.
"I haven't," he answered, balling up his sandwich wrapper and tossing it towards the garbage can. He missed. Bruce sighed and got up to throw it out along with his own trash. "But you know how those guys are, they don't tell me anything."
"That's because you don't ask," Pepper pointed out. Bruce laughed.
"I'm sorry, should I go seek them out in their creepy headquarters and say, 'oh, hey guys, what's up? How goes the search for the crazy Russian escapee?'" Tony shook his head. "No thanks."
Bruce raised an eyebrow. "Their 'creepy headquarters,' Tony? It's a bedroom with like, $50,000 worth of computer and video components. Not really creepy."
Surprised, Tony asked, "You've been in there?" He hadn't. As part of his 'pretend they aren't here' mission, he avoided that room like the plague. Of course he'd seen them setting up, and of course JARVIS kept tabs on them, but he didn't go visiting. Ew.
Awkwardly, Bruce shrugged. "A couple times. Natasha wanted—"
"Natasha?" Tony asked. "Since when are we on a first name basis with them?" Ideally, Tony figured they could stay 'Barton' and 'Romanoff' forever. That was better than 'hey, you,' anyway.
Bruce shrugged again. "Natasha wanted to talk about my, uh, progress." He cast a quick look at Pepper before going on, "On, uh, you know."
"Right," Tony said. Control. The SHIELD agents had been iffy about that. But Pepper didn't know about Bruce's alter ego, and it'd probably be better to keep it that way, so they should skirt the issue. "What did she want?"
"Just a progress report," Bruce answered. "I told her everything's going fine."
Pepper rolled her eyes at the two of them. "You two are ridiculous. Secrecy is not your strong suit."
Tony huffed. "Whatever, Potts. We're totally subtle. It's just science stuff, anyway." He turned his attention back to Bruce. "But Natasha? Really?"
Bruce frowned. "She's not...that bad, Tony. Actually, she's really smart. I think you'd like her..."
Tony found this hard to believe. He found it harder to believe that Bruce had willingly gone into the lion's den. On more than one occasion, from the sound of it. And Bruce had apparently been hanging out with Romanoff? Sure, he'd seen them talking, but he hadn't thought they'd actually been talking. More like...exchanging the bare minimum of pleasantries to maintain civility. Well, whatever. Bruce could talk to whomever he wanted. Even if that was shady-ass government operatives. Still, it was with more acid than Tony intended when he replied, "If you say so. When's the wedding?"
Pepper smacked Tony's arm and stood up. "Honestly, Tony." She turned a fond look on Bruce. "It's good that you're trying to get along with her. One of you should." She looked at her watch. "I need to get back to work. Olivia will be by with dinner around 7:00, she said."
They all said their goodbyes, and Pepper headed out of the workshop and back upstairs. When the door had closed behind her, Tony swiveled his chair around to face Bruce and dealt with this new information the only way he knew how. "Bruce and 'Tasha, sitting in a tree—"
His immaturity was abruptly cut off by JARVIS. "Sir, Agent Romanoff requires you and Dr. Banner, and at once."
Shit. That wasn't good.
He hoped this wasn't about his new song.
At first, Bruce had been more or less terrified of the SHIELD agents who'd been assigned to the house.
He did everything in his power to avoid them. He didn't like the government any more than Tony, and these people had been sent here to watch him. Yeah, they were supposed to make sure no one gave him any trouble, but their first job was to watch him.
He'd seen Barton's gun. And there was always such a fine line between 'watching' and 'shooting.' At least in his experience.
At the beginning of the year, when Vanko had broken out, though, they hadn't tried to push him out of the house and into custody or something. They'd had reservations about him staying there, but they had let him stay, which meant they trusted him to some degree. Even Coulson, who seemed to have some authority, had some faith in him. A couple of days after their talk in Tony's living room, Coulson had contacted them to say that his continued residence at Tony's house had been green-lighted, with plans in place to get him out if they had to.
Until then, he'd be left alone.
Bruce, slowly, began to think that maybe, just maybe, SHIELD was...okay. Not great, but okay.
Sure, they were awfully secretive about why they had dropped him off on Tony's doorstep, why they wanted the two of them working together. Bruce had pressed, the last time he'd talked to Coulson, but all he'd managed to get from the other man was a half-smile and a vague, "It's good to make friends, Dr. Banner."
That made no sense. But it didn't seem overtly dangerous, living here with Tony, and it didn't seem like SHIELD was doing anything awful, at least at the moment. He certainly wasn't going to trust them, but for right now, he thought he could stop mistrusting them.
So he'd gone back to treating Agent Romanoff with the politeness he'd been employing before, when she'd been 'Natalie.' When he saw Barton, he made an attempt to at least manage a nod, although Barton hardly ever reciprocated. When Agent Romanoff was attempting to do a particularly arduous or boring task, Bruce offered his assistance. It wasn't ever accepted, but Agent Romanoff said she was grateful for the offers.
By the beginning of February, Agent Romanoff had explicitly instructed him to call her Natasha. "Since we're going to be stuck together for god knows how long. The Agent thing gets old fast."
He'd started doing as she'd asked, but still called Barton 'Agent Barton.' Since Barton never said anything one way or another about it. In fact, he didn't say much.
"He's got a stick up his ass," Natasha told Bruce one afternoon as he snacked on a bowl of peach ice cream in the kitchen and she checked the windows for integrity. "He's not usually such a dick, but he's not good with strangers."
Tony seemingly remained oblivious of the fact that Bruce was 'fraternizing with the enemy' as it were. But then, Tony was putting a lot of effort into pretending that the SHIELD agents weren't there at all. Which was rude, but Bruce kind of got where he was coming from.
Kind of.
But it wasn't his place to push Tony and besides, that seemed like it would be a stunningly futile endeavor. So Bruce went about his routine, which now (on Tony's persuading) included one to two hours a day of working on the kind of reverse-meditation he'd been doing in Canada. Mostly, he was too afraid to do much, but he'd managed some progress. It all came down to channeling his anger, not denying it.
Like it was that simple.
Natasha was interested in his progress, which made a lot of sense—if he was tempting fate, SHIELD would want to know about it. And although she'd seemed mildly disapproving at first ("Don't you think it's risky?") she hadn't said anything against it since. She asked for updates every now and then, and Bruce had no doubts that information was going straight to Coulson, but Bruce didn't mind. Anything that made everyone feel more at ease was fine with him.
By the beginning of March, even Barton was thawing some. Not a lot, but some. Bruce had caught him telling Natasha a decidedly off-color joke by the front door as they changed shifts, and Barton hadn't immediately scowled and stalked away. He'd offered a cool nod first.
It was progress, Bruce thought.
And since then, Barton had gotten all the way up to greeting Bruce, although Bruce wondered if Natasha had put pressure on him to do so. Still, the changes were definitely there.
Yeah, it took some getting used to, but after two months, Bruce could honestly say he didn't really mind the two agents. They'd proven that they weren't there to harass him. They weren't going to tranquilize him at the drop of a hat or something—once or twice, Bruce had stubbed his toe or shut his finger in a drawer, and Natasha's only reaction had been, "You okay?" No tranquilizer darts, no SWAT teams, nothing.
He knew that, if there was an 'incident,' they probably wouldn't hesitate to take him down. Of course he got that. And he didn't resent them for it at all. In fact, it was kind of reassuring.
Once or twice, Bruce tried to bring this up with Tony, tried to get him to see that these agents were there for their protection, were just doing their jobs, but Tony could be remarkably oblivious when people started saying things he didn't want to hear. To the point that Bruce began to wonder if he had selective hearing. After a couple of attempts, he gave up. Tony would either figure it out on his own or just go on being oblivious forever. Bruce suspected that the latter would be the case.
So when it clicked for Tony during lunch on March 14th, Bruce was surprised. And Tony's teasing wasn't quite the reaction he'd been expecting. Anger, maybe. Betrayal, since Tony had definitely been including Bruce in his 'The Government Agents Are Evil' club. Indifference was also a possibility (because Tony was usually pretty laid back), but the teasing?
That had been unexpected.
And maybe something might have come after the teasing—the anger and betrayal, maybe—but Tony had been interrupted by Natasha summoning them upstairs.
Bruce was thankful, although he doubted Natasha had good news for them.
SHIELD hardly ever did.
Tony exchanged a look with Bruce. "Your new girlfriend wants you."
Bruce rolled his eyes and stood up. "Don't. And she wants us both, come on."
Tony stood. "Well, who can blame her? Who doesn't want to be part of a sexy scientist sandwich?"
"Tony!" Okay, the teasing was unexpected. It was also mortifying.
Tony led the way upstairs. Where they found Natasha standing in the living room with Pepper. From the looks of things, Natasha had snagged her as she was leaving (Pepper had her jacket and purse).
"What's up?" Tony asked, glancing between the two of them, suddenly serious. Bruce didn't blame him. If Pepper was about to get involved, that wasn't good.
"Vanko," Natasha answered simply. "He's been spotted in the area."
"On the property?" Tony asked quickly, bouncing on his toes a bit.
"No," Natasha answered. "But he's heading this way. And he's armed similarly to how he was when he attacked you the first time. We're waiting until he's here before we make ourselves known. Barton's en route, along with Coulson. The rest of the team is inbound as well." She looked at Bruce. "We need to get you out of here."
Yeah, that's what they'd agreed on. He'd stay until there was actually a situation, then go. Definitely for the best, really, considering how his heart rate was already kicking up. He nodded. "Sure. Of course. Let me grab some things, first."
"Hold up," Tony interjected.
"Not now, Stark," Natasha cut him off. "Bruce, there's really not time—"
But Tony would not be cut off. "I don't think—"
Pepper spoke up, surprising everyone. "Why are you evacuating Bruce?"
Natasha exchanged a startled look with Tony and Bruce, but she recovered quickly. "If he's injured...that could be an issue."
Bruce breathed a tiny sigh of relief. His big, green secret was still safe. Still, he was becoming more and more nervous the longer they lingered here. That, if nothing else, was a good reason to get moving.
Pepper nodded, brisk and efficient. "I'll go with him, then." She looked at Tony. "I... be careful, okay?"
Tony grinned. "Am I ever not?"
"Yes," Pepper and Bruce answered together. They both chuckled, tense, trying to relieve some of their apprehension. Bruce could tell that Pepper was almost as nervous as he was...although her nerves had a rather different source.
How much would she freak out, if she knew about him? If she knew what kind of danger he was posing? Vanko had nothing on him, and if she was this worried about Tony now, then...
But this wasn't the time to think about that. Now, he had to concentrate on his breathing, needed to focus on staying centered. Tony had total faith in him. Natasha had...some faith in him. He could do this.
A moment later, Coulson and Barton came into the house, slamming the front door loudly behind them. When they got into the living room, Bruce saw that Barton was wearing something very different from the jeans and jacket that he usually showed up in. Some sort of leather...outfit. With lots of...doodads. And...buckles. And a quiver. And a bow.
Geez. He really did use a bow.
"Dude, Agent Feather Boy is gonna go kick some ass," Tony observed, eyes wide. He'd found out Barton's codename ('Hawkeye') while he'd been hacking SHIELD, and although he'd been caught (and chastised by Coulson) he couldn't resist throwing out bird jokes whenever he got the opportunity.
Barton took the nickname with the same grim resignation with which he'd tolerated all of Tony's snide asides and bird jokes over the last few months. That is, he frowned and flipped Tony off.
Coulson frowned. "Now's not the time, Stark, Barton."
Tony retorted quickly, "Au contraire. It's always time."
Coulson rolled his eyes and then turned his attention to his agents. "I've rendezvoused with the rest of the team. They're in position outside waiting for further instruction." Then, to Natasha, "Romanoff, get Dr. Banner off the premises."
She nodded. "Ms. Potts wishes to accompany him."
Coulson considered this briefly. "Fine. Take them to our base and get back here ASAP. If that's okay with you, Dr. Banner? Ms. Potts?"
They both nodded. Bruce figured he wasn't in a position to be making demands. He was just surprised that Pepper wanted to go with him. Part of him worried that it was a bad idea, that it was putting her in danger, but they were being evacuated. How much danger could there be?
"Then you'd better get going," Coulson said. "I want you back here."
With that, Natasha turned on her heel and strode towards the door. She beckoned for Bruce and Pepper to follow.
Pepper gave Tony a quick kiss on the cheek, Tony clapped Bruce once on the shoulder, and then Bruce and Pepper hurried to follow Natasha.
She led them to the driveway, where a black car (unmarked except for its government plates) was waiting. Natasha hurried to the driver's seat, and Pepper got in the front. Bruce slipped into the back, glancing around nervously.
As soon as he'd shut the door, Natasha started the car and threw it into gear, peeling down the driveway.
They made it almost all the way to the gate before something flashed across the front of the car...cutting the hood in half.
Oh, Bruce thought vaguely. That's not good.
Thanks for reading!
The next chapter is being a pain in terms of writing, but I should have it finished by next Wednesday. I hate writing action scenes...
Please review! Nothing makes me happier. Cake's a close second, though. I accept cake in lieu of reviews.