Word Count (this chapter): approx. 3500
A/N: Wow fanfiction-dot-net is not kind to internet speak. The '.3's' you see at the end of the emails are supposed to be hearts or spades in Tony's case. I'd advise reading this chapter at archiveofourown (same title) for better formatting. I had to edit the brief email part a lot to make them readable. Either way, chapter two is here, and the tone has switched, as warned, from angst with some humor to humor with some angst.
Also, Bruce is an internet troll, and Tony is in denial of himself.
Enjoy, and I am going on vacation for the next two weeks, so I'm not sure if I'll have internet connection or time to work on this, so hold on 'till then!
-Chapter 2: Attention to Pacing- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A week after school ends, Bruce checks his email on a laptop he rehabilitated from Best Buy's trashcan. He actually has a new message, for once.
… Who the hell is Tony Stark?
Dumb question. Tony Stark is Howard Stark's son, a classmate, millionaire, brilliant, flirt. Bruce is really asking who Tony Stark is to him—he can't remember sharing two words with the guy. He reads the email.
To: drbb
From: tonystark
Subject: Shocking New surgery discovered to remove metal pipes from asses
Message:
Dear Mr. Bruce Banner,
It has come to my attention that I have no idea who the fuck you are. Also, drbb? Really? I could have found your email by keysmashing. Got it from your lab partner, Pepper Potts, by the way. She stole your phone to check it. Also, you have a flip phone, which is a sin against humanity and not okay.
Tony Stark, Bruce realizes, is also a bit of an asshole. At least he uses proper grammar.
But that is for another day. I'm sending you this e-mail because, I noticed, you haven't been to ANY of my parties, and most nerds have at least ATTEMPTED going to one of them. So, either I track down whatever house on Maple Go-Fuck-Yourself Drive you live at and tell everyone my school's-finally-done shindig is going to be hosted there, or I see you at Stark manner at 6:00 PM, sharp, this Friday. Do not make me grab that pipe out your ass myself—ask any girl from our class. I am pretty aggressive with asses.
This man is threatening him by saying he will invite people over to party at his house which doesn't exist (three room apartments next to hundreds of other three-room apartments isn't a house) and grabbing his ass. Bruce rubs his temples slightly. He would probably find the email funny if it wasn't coercing him into unwanted human interaction, which was most interaction by Bruce's standards. Bruce doesn't work well with people.
Oh also BTW this is NOT a threat. It's just a... friendly suggestion with negative consequences if you don't concede. But seriously, come or ELSE I will moderately inconvenience your ass so hard you won't be able to walk for a week. So, that. Till, Friday, Banner.
|| Tony Stark 3-
At first, Bruce thinks Tony signed it with a heart, but then sees it is supposed to be a spade. Idiotic and creative. Bruce smirks, going into the signature settings of his own email.
So Tony isn't planning on dumping pig's blood on the guy, but he has to do something to Bruce. You do not outsmart Tony Stark and get away with it, especially when you're not actually smarter than Tony is.
To: tonystark
From: drbb
Subject: New Message
Message:
No.
3333 Bruce ||
Nope. That most certainly was not the sound of Tony being outsmarted since that sound does not exist.
To: drbb
From: tonystark
Subject: Dear Bruce
Message:
Why did you sign your message with hearts? Ass-grabbing thing was a joke, BTW. I know such a thing must be foreign to your abstract species, but do try to get with the culture.
|| Tony Stark 3-
To: tonystark
From: drbb
Subject: New Message
Message:
*No thank you. Better?
3333 Bruce ||
To: drbb
From: tonystark
Subject: Dear Bruce
Message:
You sent two 'No's in a row. Double negative equals a positive. Friday it is, then! J
|| Tony Stark 3-
To: tonystark
From: drbb
Subject: New Message
Message:
My species does not understand the repetitive utilization of the character '!'Perhaps the 'banner' subspecies diverges from that of the illustrious 'stark' by way of linguistics, then?
3333 Bruce ||
To: drbb
From: tonystark
Subject: Tony's 'banner' Observation Log, Day 1
Message:
The subspecies appears to be functioning off of a cellular structure akin to that of the primitive homosapien. Since the Brutus Bannerius' discovery, it has yet to show any traits differentiating itself from a lesser-leveled chimpanzee, though further observation may be necessary for more conclusive results.
|| Tony Stark 3-
Bruce smirks. So Mr. Popular speaks some Science after all. Sadly for Tony, Bruce speaks Internet, a much deadlier tongue. He doesn't have anything against Tony Stark (excluding the threatening him into going to a party fiasco), but anyone who tries to out-troll Bruce Banner is on his hit list. Bruce gets up and takes ten minutes to make coffee before replying.
To: tonystark
From: drbb
Subject: Bruce's 'stark' Observation Log, Day 1
Message:
dis creture appears to be the homoo
3333 Bruce ||
To: drbb
From: tonystark
Subject: New Message
Message:
...did you just call me a gay cow?
|| Tony Stark 3-
Bruce spits a sip of coffee onto his chest with an absolutely uncontrollable laugh, because Tony's humor is spot on with his own. Gagging a bit and wiping his face with his sleeve. He reads it again and can't stop giggling for a minute. All right, maybe Friday won't be the worst day of his life, he admits, not bothering to respond to Tony.
Two days pass, and it's Friday. Tony Stark has good timing, Bruce thinks, because his fridge just ran out again.
It's Tony's first party with an exclusive guest list. Tony sends out personal invitations to people that aren't too terrible, and a few that are just for drama, ending up with forty-or-so people on his list. They're set to arrive at 6:30 because Tony wants some alone time with Mr. Valedicktorian.
Bruce doesn't have particularly nice clothes to wear, so he goes with whatever button-down is the least dirty and black jeans. He attempts to coif his hair in the mirror to no avail. One stand keeps falling into his eye.
Banner knocks on his door at 5:58pm exact. Tony is surprised he showed up on time. Opening it, there's messy-hair, too-small glasses, poor-people-clothes Bruce Banner standing slack-knee'd in the doorway.
"You made it!" Tony says with the biggest fake smile he can muster. "I'm so glad." The smile capsizes after a minute of Bruce just standing there, looking at him sideways and analytical. "What?"
After another minute, Bruce speaks.
"Oh, do you wear a pacemaker or something?" he asks half-minded.
Tony freezes. Bruce loiters, expression on his face bored and informal, like pointing out that is commonplace. Like wrecking four years of a carefully disguised secret is commonplace. If Tony Stark didn't have reason to hate Bruce before, he sure as hell does now.
Tony forces a laugh instead.
"If that's that dry, trolling sense of humor, you are going to have to try a little harder."
Bruce glances at the security camera perched top-left of the door, then points to it.
"That camera. It's tuned like hospital cameras and the ones at the senior center are so it won't screw with pacemakers. I've read Howard Stark biography about three times; he doesn't wear one. So I was just wondering if you do because my mom's doing research on heart palpitations right now, and she'd probably orgasm twice if I told her I was hanging out with a guy with metal in his chest."
Tony scoffs. "Right. Cute. Sorry to let Mumsie down, but the cameras here are custom made on a system my dad and I designed ourselves. Their configuration is something you've probably never even seen before, so I see how you could confuse it for something," Tony says the next word bitterly, "commonplace like a hospital's."
Bruce's eyebrows go up, face still flat. "A 'no' would have worked, too."
"This how you act at all your parties, Banner? Glad you didn't show up before."
"You want me to leave?"
Tony leers to himself. If this Banner kid just made up that pacemaker comment to get himself kicked out, Tony is actually going to scream. "Of course not, learn take a joke. And it's too hot to be outside; come in already."
Stark mansion is bigger than the pictures on Wikipedia led Bruce to believe. Everything is spaced out, furnished and decorated in a contemporary way that screams 'We have a lot of money!' and makes Bruce uncomfortable.
"This a private party?" he says when they are the only people in the room.
"For the next thirty minutes, I'm afraid. Misprint on the invitations."
"Invitations? Word on the nerd-circuit is that your parties are open house."
"Dad doesn't like open house anymore. Not since some seniors crashed the last one and, essentially, broke one of my dad's labs. And now, of course, I have to devote four hours, minimum, each day to fixing it," he said. "Wasn't even the engineering lab, either. It was the stupid Physicist Med lab he never even uses."
Bruce looks around again, kicking off his shoes. "A Medical lab? I could probably help with that." He examines the couch before Tony nods, giving him permission permission to sit. "I'm not bad at science."
"I'm aware, Mr. Valedictorian."
"Considering how outrageously easy our classes were this year, that's hardly an accomplishment. And the dean said I was lucky and beat the number-two guy by, like, a tenth a point. "
"Hundredth a point, and yes, you are lucky." Tony was trying really hard to sound friendly.
"You sound like you're about to slap a puppy."
Maybe not trying hard enough.
"No dogs at Stark enterprises, I'm afraid, unless they're mechanical. I'm not too keen on things that drool and have hair all over."
"Oh, we're not gonna get along well, then."
Tony laughed and was annoyed by how genuine it felt. "Guess not. Will I have to get a leash?"
"Kinky." Bruce toys with the rim of his glasses. "Not 'till the third date, though."
Tony smirks. "And how would you know what happens on the third date?" he asks. Bruce misses a beat with forming a comeback, and Tony continues. "No offense, but I know every girl in our class, at least vicariously, and none of them have ever mentioned a Bruce Banner. Your species reproduce asexually or something?"
Bruce looks away with a laugh that's too shaky to be sincere. Got him, Tony thinks with an ostensibly innocuous grin.
Just then there is knocking on the door from the assholes at parties who always show up too early. Tony sighs and goes to answer it with his favorite 'fuck-you' grin.
Throughout the next hour, Tony learns that Bruce can't work anything with boobs to save his life. So of course Tony proceeds to introduce him to every girl he invited. One of them checks him out and just says 'ew.' Tony starts to think he might like this girl, when Bruce replies with 'I like you; you're honest,' and Tony has to cup a hand over his mouth to not laugh at how perfectly wry Bruce is.
Tony had told Bruce via email to wear a bathing suit under his clothes since his pool is probably bigger than Bruce's house. By the time they go outside to the outdoor pool, it's dark, and everyone is sugar-high or mildly drunk enough to think skinny-dipping is a fantastic idea (though Tony thinks skinny-dipping is always a fantastic idea, under the influence or not.)
"I don't do 'naked,'" Bruce tells him.
"Come on, everyone else is doing it. Don't you know how peer pressure works?"
"Don't you know nerds aren't affected by peer pressure?" Bruce sits down in one of the designer beach chairs by the water.
"Fine. You can sit there cross-legged in the corner with the other people who have small dicks." The face Bruce makes is hilarious. "What? What other reason would anyone have for passing up pool time with naked woman? Or men, if you're into that. "
"I wasn't actually planning on jumping anyone tonight, or even showing up to be honest."
Tony smiles a bit and tosses off his shirt. The pool is lit by mini-lanterns, exotic plants scattered around its perimeter. Tony steps half-behind one of them and yanks down his shorts. He notices Bruce is staring at him (his ass?).
"Like something you see, Banner?"
Bruce smiles. It almost qualifies as a smirk. "Yeah, actually." Well, Tony wasn't expecting that answer—"Incision scars by your left femoral artery. Latest tech uses the femoral over the corollary for less noticeable scarring when doing stuff with the heart."
Any trace of amusement falls from Tony's eyes.
"I had this really sexually messed up girlfriend a few months ago," he tries to no avail.
"With a kink for heart surgery?"
"Would you—" Tony snaps then takes a long breath in an anger control method Bruce could recognize in his sleep. The scene would have felt a lot more intense if Tony wasn't entirely naked.
"Hey, I'm sorry, chill down," he says. Bruce can't remember the last time he tried to calm someone else down. "Was it an accident thing or something? The reason you need a—"
"Blood problem," Tony interrupts.
"Right. Probably was kinda dickish for me to bring up."
"You really want to apologize?" Bruce nods. "Glasses and shirt off. You're getting stark naked with a Stark."
Bruce stares a minute then shrugs. "Opportunity of a lifetime, I guess."
"You bet your ass it is!"
He strips and stops at his bathing suit.
"What happened to opportunity of a lifetime? And size doesn't matter, Bruce," Tony drawls. Bruce is starting to find this situation slightly ridiculous.
"Piss off. I just don't… naked with total strangers. Starks or not."
"So you're just a voyeur? No shame watching, but joining? No, sir; not for me!"
"Better a voyeur than a cardiophile."
"Watch your tongue," Tony says sharply, then gives up with a sigh. "Fine. Let's just go swimming, already. It's too damn hot."
Bruce starts towards the pool ladder, and Tony grabs his shoulder. "Live a little. The deep end is twelve feet; we're diving."
They dive, Tony showboating for the girls with a front-flip, and Bruce rating it 'seven out of ten' before cannoning in himself.
The pool is fun. Tony doesn't know if he enjoys brushing up against naked girls himself, or watching Bruce turn white and red in fear whenever a girl crosses Bruce's own path. It's the perfect brand of Stark revenge, Tony thinks, and perfectly ironic that Bruce would be terrible at one of the two things Tony was good at.
An hour later, the night chill gets too cold, and everyone is toweling off inside. Bruce shimmies a towel over his hair. "So, all your parties involve borderline orgies in the swimming pool?"
"No, you must be a good luck charm," Tony says, towel over his shoulder, clothed [finally] in shorts and an oversized Hulk T-shirt.
"Nice shirt, by the way." Bruce wipes droplets of his glasses then slides them back on.
Tony glances down at it. "Oh, thanks. My dad's a Captain America stan, so it bugs the ever loving crap out of him whenever I flip my shit for another Marvel hero. And Brice Tanner is a pretty cool guy, minus the whole green-rage monster ordeal."
"More of an Anthony Mark man myself."
"Iron man, good taste." Tony throws his towel on Bruce's head. "Hulk's better though."
Bruce pulls the towel off and folds it into a neat-square on the edge of the plastic-covered couch. He starts to say something when a high-pitched buzz comes from Tony's pocket.
"Sorry, my phone. Ringtone is a frequency adults actually can't hear; not the mosquito-pitch propaganda science marketers try to sell you." Tony looks at his phone. "Oh."
"Oh?"
"Oh. Right, well it's midnight, meaning I'm going to have to start herding everyone out now." Tony types a code into his phone. A robotic, British voice sounds throughout the room.
"Attention guests, Mister Stark has informed me the party has ended, and is now requesting you escort yourselves out and home for the night."
Bruce lifts a brow.
"His name's JARVIS. Robotic AI I programmed in seventh grade. Still needs some upgrading though, and I need to find a way to code around my dad's filter for it. I told JARVIS to say 'freeloaders, get your asses out, ASAP' but, I'll take what you can get."
Bruce nods and watches as the partygoers start to leave. Tony goes to hold the door open for them and bids their adieus. They leave in sets of four or five, each one centered by a member who's able to walk straight. Designated driver, Bruce guesses and wonders if it's a rule Tony enforces at all his parties.
His wondering is interrupted when some girl Veronica throws a piece of paper at him on her way out. The last of the guests leave as Bruce un-crumples it. There's a phone number written on it.
Tony side-steps back to Bruce and leans over. "Phone number? Which handsome man gave you it?"
Bruce rolls his eyes. "It's Veronica, I think. The one who called me 'ew.' Guess my charming personality wooed her."
Tony leans over. It's actually her number. Tony would know because he has it, too.
"Oh, that's not her actually number," he says. Like he's letting Bruce Banner get a taste of confidence.
"Really? Area code's right."
"I have Vay's number. That's not it."
Bruce shrugs and throws it over his shoulder into a trashbinbot (exactly what it sounds like.) "I probably wasn't going to text her anyway. Or at all. My phone doesn't do texting."
Tony sits down on the couch and folds his legs. "Oh yes, your rotten flip-phone, right?"
"The one and only." Bruce takes out the monstrosity.
"Oh Jesus, it's even worse in person."
Bruce dials a number, waits, then closes his phone. "Ah, shit."
"Hm?"
"Nothing. My mom's shift probably just ran late again, so I'll have to walk home." He stuffs his phone in his pocket, standing up from the couch.
"What does your mom do again? Reasearch?"
"Nurse." Bruce's mom is actually a cardiologist, but Bruce feels like mentioning it will hit a nerve.
"A nurse? And the best phone you can afford is that piece of junk?"
The lights in the room get brighter. "Hey, piss off" he tries to say lightly, but it's too harsh to be written off as a quip.
Tony leans back in his couch, plastic cover scrunching and squeaking. Bruce's eye twitches.
"Testy. Did I hit a nerve?" The last comment is pushing it, but Tony wants to push.
Bruce starts towards the door. "Not hard enough." He opens it, hoping fresh air and a walk home will make everything quiet again. "Well, this has been fun, but I really can't stand fluorescent lights, so—"
"Bruce," Tony starts, raising a brow, "we don't use fluorescent lights. All natural, energy-savers here."
Bruce stops and bites his lip. Nothing's calm. "Right. Of course; I'm dumb, fucking dumb," he says and tries a deep breath like Tony had did earlier, waving Tony half-assed good-bye and stepping out. It's dark outside except for the small red light from Starks' security cameras. Bruce glances at them one last time as he walks out the driveway. He's trying really hard to appear nonchalant.
The second he figures he's out of the camera's view, he starts sprinting. Legs flying, lungs compressing and Bruce worries too much, and he's worried about his mom who really should have answered her phone. Worrying makes his head tight. As he runs, he becomes worried about his breathing and how small his chest feels. He reaches his apartment, reaches past the abandoned door with old bullet holes, reaches past the stairs so quickly, he almost trips, reaches past his door at slams it open hard. The lights are off.
His hand goes instinctively to where he used to keep a knife of his. It's gone now. He turns on the light.
His mom is fine, asleep on the couch, snoring.
Bruce overreacted. Again.
Tony considers the party ordeal a success despite him not being done helping the maids (robots) clean it up till one, and actually being in bed by two. There's a red light from the cameras his dad keeps plastered everywhere in the top corner just in case someone tries to rob them. It probably wouldn't have bugged Tony if Banner hadn't made those stupid comments earlier. Tony ignores it and closes his eyes.
But he can't ignore it. The red light feels so bright he can see it through his eyelids. He forces the covers off of himself and trudges to it with a groan, then shuts it off.
Darkness lulls him to sleep.
The cameras are a hybrid of regulation hospital-configuration and Stark-creation. Howard originally wasn't going to tell Tony they were fixed for his condition on grounds of how sensitive his son was about the issue, but ended up doing so just to make sure Tony wouldn't shut them off and accidentally reset their tuning. Tony's condition was unique. If the cameras were running normally, it could affect him much quicker than they would a person with a normal device in their heart.
Howard was a good father by telling Tony this.
It's really a shame Tony Stark, tired, groggy and imprudent, never listens to his father.