When the only thing your brain is capable of thinking is one half of a coherent thought at a time and leaving the rest of your possible thoughts trailing hopelessly after, having an extremely bad situation come flooding into your mind becomes a far easier thing to cope with than it would be in other states of mind. This is likely the reason why teenagers rarely ever learn from coming home drunk and getting told off. They simply can't possess their parents anger properly and later, when they come back to the world of sobriety, the bad part of the punishment is over. The parents have already shouted at them and all they have to do it wash up a few times and then head back out to get drunk again. The part they fear has passed and all they're left with is some mundane manual labor.

Bruce didn't have that luxury.

Much like the drunken muggle teens his brain was impaired. So where normally he would have been panicking about Tony's life, the school's safety, teachers safety, him getting caught and sent to the ministry, him getting killed, Tony finding out about his secret and Tony casting a wandless obliviate, he was only capable of trying to worry about Tony's safety. Everything else was blurry and hard to remember in his wolfish brain. Seconds after Tony wiped McGonagell's memory, the memory was also gone from Bruce's head, never to be remembered. There were even moments where he forgot it was Tony he was chasing.

However, unlike the muggle teenagers, the end consequences would be a lot worse than a few jobs around the house.

One of those consequences was pain.

Pain that suddenly radiated through his body like a bolt of lighting. His ribs smacked hard against the floor as his legs collapsed out from under him and he landed on his chest, hitting already painful busies and busted stitches. His ankle popped loudly as it began to stretch out and reform. His jaw cracked and his shoulders snapped back. He felt like thousands of needles were piercing into his skin as each out a thousand tiny hairs retracted back into his body. He howled in agony.

His eyes screwed shut against it all as his brain felt like it would dribble out of his ears. He didn't even notice Tony casting a silencing charm around the whole hall way, nor did he feel the hand that grabbed his now human ankle and dragged him into a passage. He did vaguely hear a mantra of "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry," but it didn't really grab his attention as much as the blood boiling pain the surged though him in waves.

He wanted to pass out. Every part of his body was telling him to pass out like he'd done last night in the forest. If he passed out then he wouldn't feel it. If he passed out he could wake up later and deal with his cut and patch himself up and just skip all the pain. This sweet oblivion was floating just at the edge of his subconscious and as the pain subsided even more he felt he could focus on wanting it more and more. Yet something was stopping him.

His body felt to weak to control on his own yet he was moving. Something was pulling him up so his back wound up propped against a cold stone wall with jagged edges that dug into the few cuts he'd managed to get across his upper back. Hands. Hands had pulled him up; they where now trying to hurt him. Bruce tried to squirm away as they pressed hard against the gash on his arm that seemed to hurt the most. He took in a sharp breath when they tightened more.

"Shit," someone hissed from just below where his head lulled against the stone behind him.

Wait, not hurting, helping? The hands where causing him pain but they seemed to be holding him with some level of care. It took a few moments before Bruce realized they were trying to slow the blood flow. They gripped almost desperately around the middle section of his forearm as they tried to hold the edges of the cut together, but he could feel the blood was flowing out regardless.

Then they were gone. The pain eased but loneliness flooded in. He remembered what he was.

Of course no one would want to help a werewolf he thought crushingly in the absence of touch. They probably hadn't known what they were dealing with when they started and ran for help when they figured it out. That made sense. Still, he'd have to get moving if that was the case; they'd probably be back pretty soon with back up and Bruce was in no shape to fight one lone wizard, let alone several.

He didn't want to fight anyway. He wanted to pass out.

He pushed his hand against the ground whilst his legs clumsily dragged on the floor as he tried to push himself up. His eyes still closed to protect his pounding head as he halfheartedly tried to scramble away.

"Whoa there Banner, you wanna speed up the blood flow and paint the hall red or sit down and let me sort this out?"

The voice was vaguely familiar and with it came a comforting hand pressing down gently on his shoulder. Hands went back to his wound but this time they rapped a large piece of what felt like woven fabric around the cut, tying it tightly as could be done with material so large.

"Sometimes I just don't think through my spells. I mean you'd think anti-tearing would be nothing but useful. Then again we must remember in the universes attempt to constantly screw me over nothing can be left out. Not even fashion choices."

Part of him wanted to laugh but that part was quite functioning just yet.

He took shallow breaths and tried to remember something, anything. His head clearly wanted to be shut down right now, however that was not an option. Or at least not a safe option. He still didn't know who this guy was or what he wanted from Bruce. Bruce! His name was Bruce Banner. And...

The pain rushed in again, forcing him to let out a soft groan. Maybe it was more of a growl as the boy seemed to move back a bit.

Focus.

He went to Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. He was a wizard. A really talented wizard. A wizard in Ravenclaw house who...

"Bruce, talk to me buddy. Give me something to work with. Where are you hurt?"

Who was naked. For some reason this didn't seem to matter right now. He was also soaking wet but that left his mind as well. There was something he was missing. Something important.

"Come on man, it's Tony. You know, Tony. Best mate Tony with the awesome and sexy hair."

Something.

Missing something important.

Something crucial.

...

Tony.

His eyes snapped open.

His feet scrambled to push his body as far away as they could.

It was Tony. Tony was there. Tony knew he was a monster. Tony knew he was a werewolf. Tony was a pure-blood wizard. Tony was his best friend. He was in love with Tony Stark and Tony Stark was about to hate him for what he was. He'd lost Tony.

He started to hyperventilate as sheer hysteria took him over. Panic didn't begin to descried the aching fear and hate exploding in his chest. His finger scrapped hopelessly against the walls as he tried urgently to just be any where else but there. The force of it was blinding. The implosion that was tearing Bruce up from inside out and it was getting bigger. It swelled and hurt and made his throat start to close.

"Bruce, Bruce what are you doing?" he said in a deathly calm voice, his hands raised up as he moved towards the boy scrambling desperately against the corner, his fingers clawing at the stone.

"No, no no nonono," Bruce whimpered, his heart pounding helplessly against his chest. His eyes screwed shut again in a useless attempt to unsee who he'd seen. To try to remove the image of Tony Stark. To stop crying.

"Bruce, Bruce stop. Your scraping your fingers raw."

The hands that had tied the grey jumper around Bruce's arm were now trying to hold his arms still. He'd just managed to pull them away from the wall but only by making Bruce's focus shift to escaping from Tony.

The hands tried to hold him down. Tried to stop him escaping. He was trapped and scared and he didn't want to hurt Tony but he had to get away. He had to get away and hide and he was fighting and breaking free just to have his arm caught again and pulled back to his side and he couldn't keep it up.

"Stop. Stop fighting Bruce your gonna-"

"Please."

His voice was so small and meek and saddening that if it hadn't been for the fact Bruce had stopped moving completely he wouldn't have heard it. Bruce suddenly looked really small in front of Tony like this. Naked and scared and quiet. The two were in reality almost the same height, often switching between who was tallest every few months. Right now, Bruce just seemed small. Small and vulnerable. Tony hated it.

"Don't tell."

In the silence that followed Bruce felt very much like he was about to be hit. He wasn't.

"What?" Tony demanded in a way that made Bruce flinch back.

"D-don't tell," he muttered as quietly as he could. "You can d-do what ever you like but p-please don't t-tell any one. I w-won't hurt anyone, I s-swear. You d-don't even have to s-s-see me again, just..."

He trailed off, unable to think of anything else to say. He could vaguely hear the sound of a storm rumbling outside and rain beating gently against the side of the castle. He felt Tony tense.

"Bruce, what do you think I'm going to do?" he asked, his voice dangerously hard, yet careful.

Bruce couldn't answer for a moment. He suddenly really wished he'd been found out by the ministry before Tony. They would have probably just killed him. Then he'd just be gone and that would be it. He wondered briefly if dead werewolves went somewhere different than dead people.

He remembered Tony's question.

"Kill me."

Tony didn't speak.

Silence.

"Report me."

Silence.

"H-hate me."

Silence.

Bruce couldn't think of anything else and Tony wasn't moving and his fingers hurt from scrapping the wall and he wished that whatever was going to happen would just happen already. Then he could just go back to his dorm and get a few things and leave and that would be it. He could just go and not come back and never look and see Tony hating him. Slowly Bruce looked up.

What he saw was the very last thing he'd expected.

He'd never seen Tony look so broken before.

Before he knew what was happening strong arms engulfed him. A hand came up to the back of his head and tangled in blood soaked hair to press his face hard against Tony's very solid, very there chest. His cuts and bruises ached but his head felt to fuzzy to recognize that just now.

He was in Tony's arms. Tony had his arms around him, willingly. He smelt like scotch and coffee and metal and Bruce didn't know what was going on.

"There is no way I could ever hate you Bruce. You... You're my best friend. My magic bro. I just... I'm not going to tell on you. No way am I letting anyone touch you Banner, no one. I won't let anyone hurt you. God, you scared me there ass hole. I thought you'd gone stark raving mad, pun intended."

"You..." Bruce's breath hitched painfully in his throat. "You... don't h-hate me?"

Tony didn't answer but his arms tightened around Bruce's stick thin body even more and his head dropped down to press his cheek into Bruce hair. His hand moved ever so slightly to run up and down his back protectively and Bruce knew. He knew that he'd been wrong from the very start about how Tony would react to all this. He knew that Tony of all people wouldn't desert him.

He felt like he was home.

Looping his arms around Tony's back, he stopped trying to hold it all in. A flood of tears soaked into Tony's cloak and all the pain and loneliness of the last month just washed over him as he sobbed into his best friends chest. His eyes stung and his breath hitched with sobs and his injuries felt worse than imaginable but he was home. He was safe.

"You're gonna be okay. I'm gonna make sure no one takes you away from me Bruce, do you hear that. No teachers will find out, no one at the ministry, not even our mates. Not until your ready to tell them."

"No." Panic. "No they can't ever-"

"Okay, okay that's fine. Shhh, just breath," Tony said soothingly. "We have to get you back to my dorm. I had spare clothes, but they got sort of, blown away. Alone with my wand. And a small part of my dignity."

A flash of memory struck Bruce's mind.

"You... You were there! I chased you and... and oh God are you hurt?" Bruce demanded pushing himself back. "I didn't... I didn't, you know... b-b-b-"

"You didn't take a huge chunk out of Tony, I'm fine. You've yet to experience the joy of biting me."

"Shut up," he half smiled. "I need clothes, it cold as one of Snape's love potions out hear."

With just the slightest bit of reluctance, Tony pushed himself back to take off his cloak. Until now it had been covering his chest rather well considering it was made to hang open, not closed. It seemed rather strategic in fact. The moment he had the thing off his arms he wrapped it round Bruce as quickly as he could and hosted him to his feet. It happened so quickly that it jarred a few of Bruce's bruises and the sorer joints, causing him to tense and groan against the sensation.

"You good?"

"I'd be better if you took a bit more care in moving me."

"Hey, I never said I was at all good at medically stuff or being careful. In fact, I do remember you often lecturing me on the very health and safety I ignored, so who really made the mistake here?"

"I'm going to poison you're coffee," Bruce muttered fondly, his head rolling against Tony's as he fought to keep moving forward.

Tony didn't have the heart to tell him that he was pretty much just dragging his feet whilst Tony practically carried him back to his room through the tunnels. Mostly he was just thankful that Bruce's eyes had closed again. Now was the time to worry about Bruce's secrets, not his.

xxx

Bruce fell back almost as soon as he felt Tony's bed below him. The soft cushions and blankets pooling around him in a way only extreme amounts of money could buy. It was far warmer in here than it had been in the cold damp passages and he finally felt himself starting to dry off in the comforting heat.

"'m gettin' 'uor bed wet," he mumbled into the side of the pillow that was absorbing water from his hair rapidly.

"Also muddy and blood stained but let's face it, if the house elves aren't expecting as much from my laundry already then they've clearly been slacking on their duties."

Bruce could hear Tony rummaging around at the other side of the room but couldn't find the power to look up at what he was doing. Instead he decided he'd just marvel at the situation he was in. He'd been beyond sure that Tony would have rejected him on sight. Factoring in his up-bringing, his knowledge of literally everything and, not to be mean to Tony but, his tendency to make quick judgments of people and situations, Tony logically was the one in the group least likely to be okay with the situation.

But instead he was safe. Lying on a comfy millionaires bed and haven't Tony running round doing who knows what to help him, Bruce wanted to help but he really couldn't sit up, and he was wrapped in nothing but a cloak.

Only a cloak.

In the scramble to try and sit up, which to any onlooker (i.e. Tony) there to witness looked like a rather comical flailing of limbs, Bruce only managed to ruffle the blankets around him very slightly.

The hand was back, pushing him down into the bed. It stayed there until Bruce stopped trying to wriggle to a sitting position and resigned to staying still in among the pillows.

"As much as I like seeing you squirming on my bed, what are you trying to achieve?"

Bruce had never blushed so deeply in his whole life.

"Und-nts," he mumbled, pushing his face into the soggy pillow with shame.

"What?"

Bruce bit his lip.

"Underpants."

"Oh! Right," Tony said jumping back a bit. "Because, you know, they are a crucial part of, uh, preventing nudity and, um, private parts."

"Tony?"

"Yes."

"Underpants."

"Right, got it."

Bruce had never seen Tony blush before. It was a little bit unsettling. He wanted to close his eyes again but found the task impossible when he found Tony leaning forward into his field of vision just moments later. He looked so cautious and for a moment Bruce thought about how awkward this would probably be for him.

"Can you move?"

Pause.

"Not really."

"So do you want me to...?"

"Uh, yeah. I guess so."

"Right then. Let's get to that, you know, part where I put the underpants on you."

"I know Tony."

"Of course you do, what with you not wearing any underpants and all."

"Tony!"

Imagine having to help you're friend put on underwear. Bruce couldn't believe how embarrassing this was probably going to end up being for Tony, but he felt even worse knowing that it was probably as intimate as they were ever going to get and was partly enjoying that idea. He felt dirty for thinking the thought but he did think it. He felt like he was sort of taking advantage, even though he wasn't doing anything at all.

Tony's heart had never felt so out of place in his chest as it did right then. His throat seemed strangely tight as he prayed to magical science that this didn't get any worse than it already was. Bruce had turned down every advance Tony had ever made. Well, not exactly turned down but brushed them off as jokes without fail. Surely, if he felt anything back at all, he would have at least been able to spot the sincerity in at least a few of his remarks. He hadn't though. All he ever did was laugh them off and leave Tony confused. Sometime he was so sure that something was there, but others, he really didn't know.

And now here he was. With Bruce depending on him to help and focus and his teenage hormones were going crazy. He tried to breath properly. He couldn't.

"So, I'll just..."

He ended up pushing the underwear on so fast that for a moment he feared one of them would have come away from the situation with friction burns. His eyes had been closed throughout the whole ordeal and he retracted his hands as swiftly as possible as to avoid any further contact. It just felt so wrong to do anything like this when Bruce didn't know about his feelings and probably didn't return them.

Bruce however, sighed in resignation. He figured he knew where he stood now. Tony wasn't going to leave him, but he didn't want him either. Not in any proper way. He'd pulled his hands back like they'd been in contact with something dirty. Something wrong.

Then for the first time it occurred to Bruce that just because Tony still wanted him as a friend, that didn't mean he didn't still think of him as a monster. It struck him that he was no longer the only person who would think of himself as somethings wrong and dark and viscous. Since when did Tony ever turn down having monsters for friends. Jarvis was clearly visible sleeping in amongst the books on Tony's desk and he was higher up on the list of dark creatures than Bruce by a long shot.

This probably meant Tony didn't think of his as even remotely human though. Which was good in Bruce's mind, he should think like that because Bruce wasn't human. Tony still wanted to be his friend but anything else was out of the question and Bruce suddenly felt extremely selfish for thinking such thoughts. As though it wasn't good enough that Tony was still his friend.

But even with everything that had happened, he still wanted more. If it hadn't been bad enough before when he only had to cope with the fact Tony didn't date boys, it was even worse to think Bruce had managed to push himself even further out of Stark's field of interest.

He wasn't even human.

He was wrong.

Steadying his breath, Tony grabbed the first aid kit that Bruce had insisted Tony keep in his room, then turned and set to work. Pealing off his cloak that Bruce was currently wearing and the jumper he'd used on Bruce's arm he started to clean and wrap the huge slash in his arm. He worked quietly and methodically all the while thanking the only good thing that had come from his father genes, his steady hands.

Bruce stayed quite throughout the process to the point where once Tony finished he assumed the boy had fallen asleep. For a moment he just stood and stared at Bruce lying there, curled into Tony's sheets and breathing slowly and deeply. His hair was ratty from a lack of being washed, mud and blood and he looked so immensely tired. Just so completely and utterly exhausted which caused Tony to curse silently before pulling the duvet over to cover Bruce's back. There was no force on earth that could tell Tony what had happened here was fair. Nothing could convince him that quiet, reserved, smart Bruce deserved this, because he didn't. He deserved to get everything he ever wanted, not lose it all in one fell-swoop.

Tony trailed his fingers down Bruce's face, tucking the ratty brown hair behind his ear before squeezing his shoulder ever so slightly as not to wake him.

"No ones gonna hurt you, I promise."

As soon as Tony disappeared off to find his wand Bruce slowly lifted his hand to hold onto the same spot Tony had, and wished that there had been anything more than brotherly affection in the touch. Anything that would stop his heart from aching quite so badly over the impossible want he had for Tony Stark.

AN: I'd like to thank the lovely .com for drawing this lovely and awesome fanart for the fic image/53134302311