- - -Chapter 10: Curveball- - - - - - - - -
Bruce blows him off on Sunday. Tony stares at the message on his phone over and over as though the words on it are going to change.
Sorry its last minute but I can't hang out today—date w/ a girl I met at mom's work
-Bruce
Pressing his lips together, Tony shuts off his phone. Is kidding him right now? They had been planning to start Iron Man model since before Tony's surgery, and now that they finally have a date set, Bruce shuts it off for some girl. Sure, Tony has spent his share of nights originally planned for Bruce in some lovely nobody's bed, but he's always given Banner at least a few days' notice. Now it's too late into the weekend for Tony to make other plans. He'll end up spending the weekend ignoring Howard's half-assed attempts to "bond" with him.
"Mister Stark, I really don't think you should be switching me off right now," Jarvis chimes. Tony looks at his phone lying discarded on the bed. During his time in recovery at the hospital, Tony had started working on translating Jarvis into an iPhone app. He'd managed to get Jarvis's speech synthesis online yesterday in a rush of coding and algorithms he was only able to figure out by texting 1-800-Bruce all day. Speaking of which, how could Bruce have spent the entirety of Saturday talking to Tony and not mention the date? Tony picks up his phone and flicks it back on.
Tony? Are you mad? I'm sorry, there's just no other day her parents could drive her to my house; she lives two hours away
-Bruce
I promise we can work on the model after school Monday
-Bruce
Perfect punctuation, Tony notices. Bruce only does that when he's angry or worried.
I'm sorry.
-Bruce
Tony is tempted to hurt him, to say something simple like 'Don't mess it up' that would make Bruce pick at his fingernails for the next month, but for all the people Tony's willing to hurt, Bruce isn't one of them, so Tony instead speaks to Jarvis, telling him to message Bruce:
It's fine. If you need pointers, call me.
|| Tony 3-
He's not going to answer if Bruce calls, obviously. Bruce responds with another apology and a 'wont be necessary ;)' with a goddamn winky face at the end like Bruce would be getting to second base or something. No one knows the game and its players better than Tony Stark, and Tony Stark knows that Bruce Banner isn't a home-ru. He's a strike-out.
Still, a feeling boils under Tony's fingertips just where he can't reach it. If there's one thing Tony's learned about affection, it's that it's graded on a curve. The more Bruce gives to someone else, the less he has for Tony, and Tony knows he's being selfish, but he can't stand to lose another best friend. First there was Rhodney who moved across the country, then Pepper who scarcely looks at him anymore, and finally, Bruce whose detachment will all start because some girl finally noticed that even if Bruce can't hit, he's still a catch.
And it's annoying. Tony decides to start the Marks model by himself. On a whim, he sends a message to Rhodney's old phone number. Though they'd agreed long distance friendships weren't a good idea, it's not as though they can't talk now that the pain of losing each other has mellowed out.
building iron man. functional. skype me?
|| Tony 3-
Twenty minutes later, Jarvis alerts Tony that he has a message from Mr. Rhodes.
Nice to hear from you too tony.
-Rhodney
Rhodney's mad, which is ridiculous. They'd agreed on this. Better to end as best friends then watch Rhodney get Californicated out of Tony's life. Still—
i had forgotten how many people I actually liked. even a you in california is better than these idiots. two years and a lot of catching up to do. with any luck, we'll be besties by sun down
|| Tony 3-
Tony hits send with a smirk because Rhodney had always hated it when Tony acted arrogant.
Rhodney's reply is curt, vitriolic and utterly hilarious. They don't work on the Iron Man model, but three hours later Tony knows all about Rhodney's sweetheart from the City of Angels, the annoying asswipes on Rhodney's cross country team, and how utterly idiotic the rest of Rhodney's robotics squad are. The conversation feels like home. Tony tells Rhodney about the surgery, Steve Apple-Pie Rogers, the subsequent fucking of Steve Apple-Pie Rogers' not-girlfriend, and everything else in the world bar Bruce whom Tony is intent to not think about for the rest of the night.
Tony's intentions, of course, fall flat when Rhodney crashes at 2am pacific time, and Bruce finally gets around to telling Tony what happened.
made out in the back of the truck at the drivethrough. another date this thursday! sorry again. sorry. Sorry.
-Babblekins
Tony has a caustic reply on the tips of his thumbs, but before any vitriol he has to ask about it.
Babblekins?
|| Tony 3-
she might have stolen my phone. for a few minutes… you're never letting me live that down are you?
-Bruce
Of course I will, babblekins. babblebrook… Babblebruce!
|| Tony 3-
It's easy to fall back into banter. Their back-and-forth reminds Tony that, yes, they're still friends and that even if affection is on a curve, there's still room left for Tony. Still, he doesn't like not being in control. Trusting Bruce is an issue. Tony would prefer to have Bruce just need him blindly but people aren't as single-threaded as Tony wishes, and a voice in the more introspective section of his brain reminds him that this is exactly how he had felt with Pepper and exactly why Pepper doesn't talk to him anymore.
"Key difference," Tony says aloud for Jarvis to record, "Between Bruce and Pepper: I do not want to have sex with Bruce. That's what cost me Pepper. Friends are different than girlfriends. Remind me of this next time Banner has a date."
Jarvis affirms that he will, though, after a second's computations, Jarvis adds something. "Perhaps, Mr. Stark should also consider his own need to feel acce—"
Tony shuts his phone and Jarvis off. It's time to sleep anyways. In his dreams, there are scalpels and arteries. In the morning, he'll wake up sweaty from it all.
Betty is nice, Bruce thinks. Betty is very nice, and even though he feels awful about ditching Tony, he would feel worse about ditching Betty who isn't as emotionally steeled as his friend is. Plus, even though Tony doesn't know it, Bruce spending time without him is a great idea. It'll help him get over the half-hard-ons he gets when Tony's shoulder brushes his and the dreams like the one three nights ago where Bruce learned exactly what Tony's stubble felt like against his own.
School is slow the next morning. In Biology, he and Tony do a lab about dropping fish or something else Bruce only vaguely focuses on because Tony is not talking to him as much as usual, which is ridiculous because Bruce finally getting 'tail,' as Tony would call it, seems like the kind of thing Tony would never shut up about.
"Hey, are we cool?" Bruce asks with as much aplomb as he can manage with his stomach feeling like it's folding over itself. Tony glances up.
"Yeah. I'm moody. Blame my robots."
"Jarvis? You programmed Jarvis."
"Then blame me," Tony snaps. "I didn't get a lot of sleep last night. Sorry." Then after a second he adds, "Of course we're cool. Relax."
Just hearing it out loud helps Bruce's muscles to unwind and his stomach to settle. Even if Tony's lying, which he probably is, at least they're fine for now. Bruce and Tony finish the lab. At best, Bruce thinks, they're going to get a B.
(They get an A-.)
"So, who is she again?" Tony asks outside at lunch because he's calm enough now to handle Bruce's response.
"What, you jealous or something, Sweetheart? You know I only love you." Bruce accentuates his words by slinging an arm over Tony and mock-cooing into his ear. Slipping out of his grip, Tony shakes his head.
"'Course not, Darling. It's just that she seems to have appeared out of nowhere. Is she even real? Do you have a picture of something?"
Betty is real, Tony learns from the pixelated selfies adorning the 'Latest Photos' section of Bruce's flip phone. She's entirely average, but visually out of Bruce's league enough to make Tony raise an eyebrow. "So when'd you two meet?" he asks.
"The weekend after Steve rearranged your face. We were both changing an irritable octogenarian's bedpans at my mom's work."
"Which equates to you touching her presumably non-octogenarian tits some twenty days later, I'm assuming."
Bruce smiles like a dope and nods. He looks almost starstruck enough to make Tony forgive him, but the the words are already out of Tony's lips, "I started the Marks model without you. Turns out my old friend Rhodney, despite being halfway across the globe, is still pretty good at CAD development. Wireframing and all that."
"Huh," Bruce says like he knows something Tony doesn't. "Odd that you two could start it considering you'd left the blueprints along with the doll itself with me on Friday."
"It was mostly conceptual."
"Right." Watching Bruce get anxiou reminds Tony of the meditation technique he'd shown Bruce that night a few months back. He watches Bruce bite his lip, fingers twitching slightly. "Look, Tony. She really wanted too, and I, unlike you, almost never get girls who actually like me."
Tony interrupts him.
"Already forgiven, Tiger." And really, it is because Bruce is clearly beating himself up worse than Tony was planning to. Tony touches Bruce's upper arm. "Really. It's fine. Breathe."
When Bruce twines his hand over Tony's, Tony is about to say something about 'no homo' until he realizes Bruce isn't holding his hand; he's gripping it like a lifeline. Bruce's nod is stiff and measured. "Sorry," he says.
"Cutting off blood circulation to my fingers here."
Bruce immediately recoils his hand. Before he can apologize again, Tony is shoveling food from what the cooks made that morning onto Bruce's tray and getting up to throw his bag into the trash.
"Later Babblebruce," he coos as he leaves Bruce in his dust. He hears Bruce call out in protest, but Tony's already halfway across the cafeteria, and even if he had heard Bruce saying not to call him that, it's not like he would have listened.
Bruce and Tony get the Iron Man model's frame built in two months with excessive Skype assistance from Rhodney, who Bruce thinks is tied with Betty for the smartest person he knows after Tony and himself. The model doesn't do anything yet, but the exoskeleton's motherboard board is ready to be programmed, and even a chemistry-zealot like Betty can tell the algorithms won't be too hard to code in as far as just getting the bot moving goes. Convincing Tony to go along with Betty helping them had been harder than actually building the model, however.
"If you get to Skype Rhodney, I get to Skype Betty. She's definitely more pre-med than engineer, but so am I, and we need all the science we can get if we want this done before we're thirty," Bruce said the first time Tony suggested bringing Rhodney into one of their meet-ups. Tony balked, but eventually gave in, claiming that science scienced best with a 'tit-to-dick' ratio of at least one-to-three. As such, Iron Man, currently in stage 'Iron Skeleton', as Tony deemed it, came to be.
The only other major event in Bruce's life had been Clint and Natasha getting back from their semester abroad. Tony had hosted a party for all the exchange students on their first day back to which Clint was fashionably late, and Natasha was fashionably absent. Bruce, meanwhile, had stolen a few dances with Betty before sneaking outside with her and Tony to work on the Iron Skeleton. They hadn't gotten anything done, but when Tony's hand had brushed against Bruce's as he reached for a wrench, Bruce was too drunk to feel guilty about leaning into the touch.
Later, Bruce had hidden away with Betty in one of Stark Mansion's infinite number of guest rooms. She'd taken off her shirt, and Bruce had eaten her out for a good hour before they finally fucked, slowly and closely and so hot that Bruce's glasses had fogged over. Afterwards, Betty had been escorted home by her older sister, who Bruce decided was the man because her only comment when Bruce kissed a messy-haired, sex-struck Betty goodbye, was a knowing smirk.
Bruce had spent the rest of night at Tony's. They'd slept in different beds.