A/N: Thanks you guys, SO MUCH for your continued reviews and favoritings and stuff. You really keep me going. 3

When Howard sent him away to boarding school, he had lived for his first year in a room with a boy whose name he didn't remember, but the kid had acute asthma. It would act up at the worst times, and it was always quick to the onset, violently quick-but so slow to recede. Tony remembered lying in his bed and listening to the ragged sounds of his room mate fighting to breathe.

There was nothing to do about it. He'd suck down air from a white tube that smelled like hospital's essence-just half a gasp's worth, it never seemed enough-and then wait for the medicine to take effect. He wasn't dying, but he wasn't okay either, and none of Tony's prodigal knowledge could help it or make the shuddering noises from the boy's broken lungs stop. He couldn't even comfort him emotionally because he'd never been taught to do that. He still didn't really know how.

That uncomfortable feeling was back, sitting in the old, musty dark of this place, waiting out Bruce's return-something that, like his room mate's asthma, was something that had to come about upon both physical and mental consent.

"Go away," they both warned sullenly.

"Nothing doing," Iron Man replied simply.

And so they waited.

He hadn't been around when Hulk had changed back after the battle with the Chitauri. He was too busy getting cut out of his suit. But now, he imagined the man probably preferred when he lost control, went out of his mind and turned green against his will, because then the bigger guy just kept going until he passed out or got knocked out. Then he was just unconscious for this part.

At first the Hulk simply remained within the alcove, ignoring Tony's further attempts to talk to him or responding with nothing more than a snarl. It almost seemed like he wanted to engage with the Iron Man, threaten, come to blows, but he kept strangely still in the dark, around the corner where he couldn't be seen. All he could hear was Hulk breathing, a perpetual grumble, echoing like a lion's. Sometimes he made noises that sounded like words, but they weren't being directed at Tony. Actually, he wasn't sure who they were being directed at. Or from.

And just as he'd had enough time to feel uncomfortable about that thought, about the notion that maybe he had no idea who Bruce was when he was Hulk, he heard the first of his bones begin to pop.

He stayed out in the dark. He didn't try to watch, though the scientist in him was dying to see everything. It sounded like bones breaking in slow motion, like flesh being crushed but not splitting, in reverse. It wasn't so bad until he began to hear more of Bruce than Hulk, and actually heard him-noises wrenched from his throat when they had no where else in his body to go. Wordless, painful grunts and uneven gasps that didn't seem sufficient to giving a person actual air. Just like back then; he wasn't dying, but it wasn't okay, and either way Stark was powerless.

I'm exposed, like a nerve. It's a nightmare.

It struck the metal man oddly silent.

Soon, though not nearly soon enough, the breathing became easier, if fatigued. At one point, it seemed to stop altogether as though the other man had just given in to strain, but as soon as Tony became nervous enough to speak, he didn't have to because Bruce was.

"You're really just going to keep standing out there, aren't you?" His voice was raw. But it was Bruce.

"Yeah," Tony confirmed, sounding a lot more sure than he felt.

"What do you want from me?"

"I don't want anything from you, Bruce."

"You want an apology?"

"No."

"Good, because I'm not sorry."

He didn't know how to respond to that right away. He had to swallow down the lump in his throat first.

"I just wanted to talk."

"Well, I don't want to talk to you."

"Yeah, well," Tony engaged the air lock on his visor and his helmet came open. His first breath of the stale cool air made him choke a little. "You're stuck in a crypt with hardly any clothes on and I'm in a full suit of armor. I'd be lying if I said the playing field isn't a little tilted against you right now and I'm sorta okay with that."

An edge of impatience crept to his voice, but it was only because he wasn't used to being outright rejected, and he'd waited so long. "Bruce, just hear me out."

"You've made it apparent I don't have a choice. Have at it."

The doctor sounded like he'd give anything just to be able to sleep right now. Tony's mouth went slack.

"Alright." What could he say? "I was actually sort of serious when I asked you to come back to the Tower, you know. Did that not come off clear? Because Pep tells me that sometimes I skirt the issue. Did I come across too vague for you?"

"Tony-"

"Or do you just not care about what you do to people?"

There was a tired pause. "I can't believe we're having this conversation."

"I can't believe I have to explain to you what a friend is."

"Is that what you are?" He huffed. "Nice. That's nice. I love having friends who chase me down so they can shoot at me."

"I wasn't shooting at you. I did not once shoot at you."

"You aimed."

"I wouldn't fire!"

"I wish you-"

He didn't finish, but the damage had already been done, the bickering stopped. Tony blinked hard. The air was so stale down here, so dry. It made his eyes ache and his lungs burn.

It made him feel empty, it made him angry. Ever since the man had confessed to trying to take his life, he'd been changed from the inside, hell bent to make sure that didn't happen again. Because if he admitted about one incident, who was to say there hadn't been other attempts? Tony knew exactly what it was like to feel so low, so much hate for the very skin you crawled in that you had no regard for your breath.

He still did. But it was different now.

It was all different.

"What did you come here for?" he asked, his voice almost lost in the empty space he'd trapped himself in.

Tony didn't answer right away, his mind still reeling. Then he rose up off the floor where he'd been sitting, waiting through the trip back to Bruce, and knelt near the small crevasse, peering in as best he could. His HUD lights splashed onto bare feet with bony knuckles, frayed, torn jeans.

"I came for you."

Bruce's legs tucked in, away from the light. Tony's teeth grit together, but he kept his voice level.

"I've been coming for you all this time. You don't have to do this. You can't. Do this. Live like this, I mean. Please take it from me. You..." he paused. Talking. Talking was hard. "When I saw things...weren't working out the way I wanted them to, I found another way. I found a way to live, because I should have been dead. You too. But we're here, and...this place is really depressing."

Bruce exhaled strangely. It might have been a laugh. (God, Tony wanted him to just laugh.)

"Yeah. It's full of people who're actually dead."

"Figures." Tony let out a shaky breath. "Point is...you snatched me out of the sky, Big Guy, and I never got to return the favor. I hate owing people."

He could almost see Bruce rolling his dark eyes, shaking his head, mentally pointing out Tony's flaws. He didn't care.

"What do you want me to do, then?"

Tony looked down, as though he were being stared at. Maybe he was. Maybe those dark-light eyes were on him right now, watching, gauging.

"Just stop running. Let me catch you."

Please.

The darkness shifted, and bare skin scraped against stone. He could hear cloth then, the shadows of limbs trying to pull together the remants of the denim jeans he'd been wearing. Tony peered in hopefully. His light sprayed a thin, dirty hand that waved him back.

Brown eyes squinted, tired. Really tired.

"That...that light is really bright. Just..?"

Tony didn't need to be told twice. He stood up, got back, dimmed the visor lights as Bruce crawled to his feet and became visible, attempting to squeeze his body back through the archway. It was a little easier now, because he was wearing a lot less clothing, but also a little hard because he was trying to move and hold his pants together at the same time.

God, he was just skin and bones benath those clothes. How did he have the energy to run so fast living off of that? Bruce squinted in the light of the arc reactor embedded in the heart of the suit. Tony gave a cocky, but supportive smile, lending out an alloy hand.

Bruce gathered the waist of his pants in one fist, one leg out, half of him still in. He reached out to grab the metal forearm so he could pull himself out.

So while Tony hardly heard the silenced firearm go off, he felt the force of its impact shudder from Bruce into him.