Jesus, Banner had looked like a shrimp in the photo Fury showed him yesterday, but even in person he was smaller than he seemed. It wasn't that he was all that short, almost the same height as Tony actually, but there was something almost wild about him, something hunted, something that suggested he could curl up and disappear at a moment's notice if the occasion arose, and it made him seem so goddamn tiny. He had a weird way of ducking his head, light reflecting off his wire-rimmed glasses, dark curls obscuring much of his face, that it made him almost completely unremarkable. If they hadn't been two feet away from one another in the office, Tony might not have noticed him at all.
Banner's broad, calloused hands opened and closed convulsively at his front as he blinked rapidly at the floor. Fury was watching them with the same general disapproving look he always had on his face, though it was a little softer when he spoke to Bruce. Why was he so much nicer to orphans? Tony could be an orphan for all he saw his parents, but did he get special treatment? "You boys can sit in here a while and get acquainted, exchange phone numbers or whatever it is kids do these days, but try to make it to first period," he glared with emphasis toward Tony and stomped out.
"He's always like that, don't take it seriously; he's actually being really nice today," he told Banner, who looked up with a nervous swallow. Tony slapped him on the back. "Okay, kid, first things first, right?"
Nodding, Banner reached into the pocket of his worn jeans and pulled out a cheap brick of a cell phone. "I guess we could...?" he offered, biting his lip.
Tony twitched an eyebrow. "Yeah, I'm thinking not." The scruffy boy's face fell. When he moved to replace the phone in his pocket his sleeve rolled up; across the thin skin of his wrist were old scars. Tony's mouth went unexpectedly dry. "R...ight now! Not right now. Right now, we're getting breakfast. Hungry?"
Banner's eyes widened imperceptibly. "Oh! No, no, that's okay, I-I had some cereal at Mrs. Linwood's. Besides, first period starts soon, and I don't have..." He trailed off and smiled crookedly, a withering, self-deprecating thing that made Tony simultaneously respect and be annoyed with him. No one should think they had to hide who they were, sometimes people just had to strut.
Which was exactly why he clamped a hand around the little guy's elbow and started pulling him from the building. "Oh, come on! It's nothing five-star, but I'm hungry and I'm your mentor. From this moment on, you have to do what I say, and I say McDonald's." He winked at Pepper Potts, another hall monitor who only just let him slide through with a disapproving look because they sometimes made out behind the bleachers during football practice - gotta love a redheaded cheerleader - then hustled out to his car.
"This is yours?" Banner asked, staring bug-eyed at the car. "It looks really new."
"Actually it's next year's model," shrugged Tony, manhandling Banner's backpack (seriously, who the hell carried backpacks on their first day? He didn't even have books yet!) into the Corvette's back seat. "Now get in, Hot Legs, I'm hungry!"
Banner climbed bemusedly into the passenger seat, giving Tony an unfamiliar look when he deigned to strap in. "Isn't it law that you have to put on your belt?" he asked, shrinking slightly against the car door when Tony rounded on him.
"What, seriously?" The kid looked pointedly out the window, and Tony's dash started binging. The seatbelt warning light flashed on like some little luminescent accusation, and Tony sighed. "Fine, whatever, if it helps you sleep at night." He yanked on the belt and drove the two miles to McDonald's at breakneck speed just to be contrary, smirking when Banner squirmed. The 'vette was controlled like warm putty in his hands, especially since he'd put together and installed the new steering column.
For a few seconds he conflicted over drive-thru or walking in, then considered delicious queso sauce getting all over his leather interior and parked. Banner half-reached for his backpack, unbuckled his seatbelt, then arched back to grab the pack and scurried in after Tony, apparently done arguing against him, thank god. He flung open the doors and sashayed to the counter with his usual finesse, hindered only slightly by some old chubby man taking his sweet time ordering an apple pie.
"Aren't you supposed to be in school?" the girl behind the counter glowered. Emily went to the local community college and was endlessly bitter that culinary school had fallen through, going to such lengths as to tell anyone who asked 'how's life?' all about it.
He grinned disarmingly. "It's a bank holiday. You probably forgot since this place is open all year. Sorry, are you McDonald?" Waiting until after she'd quelled the urge to kill him, he smirked over his shoulder at Bruce, who was studiously examining the RedBox with a great deal of pink flushing under his collar. "Two Number Fours, extra hashbrowns, extra hot sauce, and a coffee, big coffee, like the biggest coffee you have- do you have like a coffee bucket?"
His usual order was dropped unceremoniously onto the counter in front of him by the time he'd finished asking. "Get out," said Emily in way of goodbye. Just to annoy her, Tony took the tray and kicked Banner in the back of the legs until he followed him to the biggest table in the dining room. Tony slid two of the four burritos and two of the hashbrowns down the table at Banner, who quirked an eyebrow but peeled open the wrappers.
"This is vegan, right?"
Tony almost swallowed his coffee cup before he looked up at Banner - and saw one corner of his mouth twitching up into a semblance of a smirk. "Banner, are you joking?"
"I make jokes," smiled Banner shyly, staring down at his food, "sometimes."
A grin crept its way across Tony's face.
"So Fury says you're some kind of genius," he brought up when they were strolling back into school fifteen minutes after first period started. Well, Tony was strolling, Bruce was shuffling nervously.
Banner, who seemed to have been quietly enjoying his first day, bit his lip and clammed up again. "I-I mean, I'm nothing special, I've just been going off some of my dad's notes and...expanding on them, I guess..." he mumbled, hugging his backpack to his front like a Kindergartener alone on the playground. From beneath long, thick lashes, he added, "I could show you at lunch, if you're interested. It's nothing spectacular..."
Slapping Banner on the back hard enough to elicit a squeak, Tony reached into the smaller boy's back pocket and pulled out his schedule. Ignoring his halfhearted "Hey!" of protest, he scanned the list. "You've got English with Hill first, she's really hot but she'll give you detention if she catches you staring at her knockers. Then you've got Calculus, World History, Chemistr-oh, shit, sweet, we have Chem together. That means we both have B lunch (hell yeah, best one) and study hall. Then I have my Physics class and you have PE, ouch, sorry man."
"I don't mind PE."
"Well, okay, Crazy. Have fun, smile pretty for the class, see you in Chem."
Before he could even fully turn away Banner's hand was on his arm. "Wait! I-I don't know where Hill's class is, and I'm already late; won't she be mad?" he asked nervously.
Tony sighed. "Alright, come on, Princess Peach, let's get you to your castle. Hill's pretty easy in the first few days of school, so as long as you tell her it's your first day and you got hopelessly lost - especially with that cute little puppy face of yours - she shouldn't be too hard on you. Man, I wish she'd go hard on me..." he trailed off, staring down the hall toward Hill's room, until he heard Banner snicker beside him. "Our lockers are a good meeting spot between my second period and yours, so I'll show you where that is when the time comes, okay? Locker 218, don't get lost, Sweet-Cheeks." For good measure he slapped Banner on the ass, relishing the surprised squeak and jump, before pushing him into his classroom.
During PoliSci, doodling in his notebook as usual, Tony suddenly found himself smiling. The kid didn't talk much at all, and he obviously had some deep-seated issues, but Banner seemed alright. With enough dedication and hard work that he certainly didn't apply to his schoolwork, Tony could probably have the little guy strutting through the halls by the end of the month.
He looked at Banner's notebook during lunch as promised, cheeseburger forgotten halfway to his mouth as he openly gaped at the most goddamn beautiful - and even a little bit arousing- equations he'd ever seen. "Never thought a notebook could make me hot before," he muttered.
Across the table, Banner gave a choked laugh around his peanut butter sandwich. "Are you serious?" he asked when it appeared that Tony wasn't joining in.
He looked up at the little guy with the most serious look he could muster. A blush rocketed up the other boy's face so fast and so bright that he could have signaled an airplane with that thing. "What does this mean, this spiral thing you have going on here?" Tony asked to avoid an awkward conversation.
Banner leaned forward to see what he was pointing at, then frowned. "It was supposed to be a model for a new kind of reactor - you know, to replace the nuclear ones? My dad did some research, and...well anyway - but I can't seem to make it work. It needs three dimensions or-or something more that I just don't..." He made a soft, frustrated noise and ran his hands through his unruly hair.
"Can I give it a shot?"
"What, really?" asked Banner, then squirmed away when Tony swiped a hand at his head. Okay, a little too touchy too soon, but at least Banner wasn't seizing up in terror or anything. "I guess if you wanted to, and made your own copies, that would be okay." Pretty normal, well-balanced guy, despite what Fury said about being a flight-risk. He was brilliant, a good listener, a sounding board who actually seemed likely to reply and bounce ideas back, and really just adorable. Yep. Tony was keeping this one.
After school, Tony smoked a cigarette against the side of his car and watched the throng for Bruce. PE and Physics were about as far apart as two classes could get, so Tony figured he could just wait and offer the little guy a ride home, being his mentor and all, maybe cop a feel at a sudden stop light (excluding the fact that there were no stop lights in Shield County).
His attention was drawn to the other side of the parking lot, near the soccer fields, by a sudden swell of shouting, and cold dread settled over him when he saw Banner's purple backpack being tossed around by some of the big assholes on the wrestling team. "Oh, hell no," he growled, flicking his cig to the pavement before storming across the lot toward them. No one fucked with Tony's stuff, not if he had anything to say about it, and he'd very clearly claimed-
With a shout almost like a roar, skinny little Bruce Banner vaulted fucking Wade Wilson over his head and into the security fence dividing the soccer fields and parking lot. The metal clanged, and the wrestlers stopped laughing. "Give it back!" demanded Banner, hardly out of breath even after throwing a guy twice his size. When the wrestlers only stared, backpack hidden behind them, Banner took a step. That was it, just one step forward toward the sweaty jocks who should have been able to beat him to a pulp with a flick of their meaty wrists, and they actually took a step back. They never took a step back. "Give me my backpack. Now."
They returned his backpack. Tony grinned as Bruce hugged it possessively to his middle and stalked through the mob. "Bruce! Over here!" he called, waving an arm to get the little guy's - okay, big guy, very big guy when he wanted to be - attention. Bruce blinked, a bit dazed, and followed him to the Corvette like a puppet on strings the wrong length. "I've never seen a wrestler pee himself before."
"Shut up," growled Bruce, looking everywhere but at Tony, still hugging his pack like a dork. There was still a defensive hunch to his shoulders, but the set of his mouth and drooping eyes made him look exhausted and sad. "I'll see you tomorrow."
Before he could turn away Tony reached for his arm- and almost got his own torn off when Bruce lashed out, terror flashing somewhere further away then the present in his eyes. Tony put both hands up. "I just wanted to offer you a ride," he calmly explained, though his heart was pounding.
Bruce's face fell even further. No. That wasn't what Tony wanted. "I'm sorry," he said, voice crackling, and turned away, presumably to walk home.
"I still wanna give you a ride, Banner!"
Turning with a sickening gleam of hope in eyes, Bruce asked, "Really?" His hands flexed around the straps of his backpack, which was now slightly dusty but no worse for wear.
"Get in the goddamn car, Bruce."
Yes, his arm kind of hurt and would bruise, and yes, he'd been a little scared for a second, but he'd known ahead of time that Bruce had issues. The whole point of this stupid mentor thing was to keep Bruce from going postal and swallowing a bullet. And Tony found himself much less inclined to sit back and watch that happen than he'd been the day before.
Whoever guesses the character featuring in the next chapter will get a sneak preview in their inbox!