"Sir, Dr. Bruce Banner may be in need of your assistance."
Tony drops his wrenches and yanks his gloves off. He's programmed JARVIS to notify him if Bruce is ever in trouble—the green kind, or just unhappy to the point of breaking. It happens a lot these days, the sadness. He can't understand how the man works around it when it always seems to be bubbling around him like corrosive seafoam. Some days it feels like Tony's walking into that ocean with him.
He's come a long way. He makes that journey every time he needs to.
"Where is he?"
"Block D, room 4C."
He's wearing what he woke up in, the loose bottoms covering what should be covered. He considers his armor, but tosses the idea. It'll take too long to get it on and be too impersonal to keep anyone in Banner's condition balanced. The snap of his bare feet echo in the glassy halls, an auditory echo to match the ghosts of himself flitting just behind on the walls.
The door to 4C swings open and Tony walks inside with enough noise not to surprise anyone within.
It doesn't take long to find Bruce: he crouches under a rack of vials, arms wrapped around one shin. The veins on them stand out, all the way down to his clenched fists. Over and around his knuckles. He rocks as he hums and sings under his breath.
"Belos como a Vénus querida, de tantos que a vida tem..."
It's a skipping, jagged recitation, like something struggles to block the sound. Tony crouches in front of him a handful of inches away, just watching the green flashes in Bruce's eyes that pulse with his heartbeat. They aren't as fast as he's ever seen them and it's a relief.
"Buddy, come on. Stay with us."
Bruce continues to rock for a time but finally his eyes focus. "Get away, Tony."
"You've saved my ass plenty when you've drank too much lime Koolaid, I'm not running now."
The doctor's fingers thicken with a grind of bone. Tony places his hand over them, fighting instinct.
A deep rasp: "You shake, you're afraid."
"Yeah."
There's no need to say more. The in-between creature, between rage and sadness, digests this, turns it over in a mind split between acuity and blankness. These halves join somewhere, somehow, in the impossible way that Bruce can sometimes reverse the beginning stages of his wild change. Tony feels the joints of the hand under his own narrow and he lets out the air he's been holding.
Bubbling from whatever substance was being kept warm on the nearby workstations bridged the silence in the room until the song starts again. It's an extended sigh.
"...Só um adoro e respeito."
Slowly, like a stop-motion capture of a bud opening, Bruce loosens his grip on his own leg. Tony lets go of him, rocks back on his heels to sit more comfortably. As long as it takes, he'd sit on the cold floor and talk or be silent for whatever has to happen.
"You know I'd shoot you with a tranq so tough you'd have to relearn the periodic table when you sobered up, right?"
There's a smile there deep down in that lined face. It comes slow, but it's there.
"It's a beautiful thing, the table."
Tony gives him a boost when he stands up, brings him back to what he'd been doing. The work laid out is written in tight, measured printing. "Sure is."
He stays a while, chattering about nothing, until the tension drains from the room and the specter of the other retreats, at least for another day. Another heartbeat.
"What's that song mean anyway? That you were singing."
Bruce doesn't turn from his notes, head bowed. "It means thank you."