Bruce had been right, and Tony hadn't gone very far.

In fact, he'd just gone out to where the car was parked in the terribly designed and seriously overpriced parking garage (okay, sure, he was a billionaire, but eight dollars to park a car was just ridiculous), and thankfully Bruce had chosen to take the car with tinted windows back while Tony had been working on thinking straight again.

Well, he still wasn't exactly thinking straight. But this time it wasn't the alcohol.

Tony had been just about to start counting the seams in the smooth leather seating for about the sixth time before he heard the front door on the driver's side swing open. He didn't even panic for the briefest of seconds, because what was left of his sanity knew that the car would have automatically shut out anyone who wasn't authorized to be near it, so he couldn't say he was surprised to hear Bruce's quiet voice when he poked his head inside.

"There you are," the scientist sighed, sounding more relieved than was probably necessary. He looked towards where Tony was sitting in the backseat of the car, most of his face shrouded in darkness from the tint of the windows and the already dim garage around them. "Mind if I join you?" Tony didn't bother with an answer, which prompted Bruce to just shrug and slide into the other side of the backseat beside the inventor.

"Pepper's doing just fine," Bruce started, watching Tony's eyes as they traced the back of the car seat in front of him. One of his legs was pulled up in front of him, tucked in towards his chest with his arm resting over his knee, just barely shading the soft glow of the arc reactor. "She woke up a little while ago. The injuries aren't too bad and she doesn't seem to be in that much pain, but… you know how stubborn she can be about that kind of thing." He smiled slightly, trying to prompt the same expression out of Tony despite knowing that he would fail. The reassurance that Pepper was okay was nice, though. Tony appreciated that, even if it didn't make him feel any better about the whole situation. "How… how are you, Tony?"

Tony almost snorted in reply. How was he? He was any number of things right at that moment; horrible, raw, senseless, guilty. Honestly, he actually still felt a little drunk, which really wasn't helping anything about this whole fuck-up of a life he had because Pepper was inside that building wrapped up in bandages and hooked up to god knows what, and it was his fault, because that little buzz he was feeling right now had been so much more, too much more, just last night.

"I'm an asshole, Bruce. That's how I am."

That's how the rest of the world viewed him, anyway. Narcissistic, senseless, selfish asshole who never fought for anything but himself. Sure, maybe some people thought he was a hero, but he didn't – he couldn't, not with all of that piled on top of it. Bruce didn't see him like that, though, and neither did Pepper. Normally that would have been enough, but not now, not after he'd hurt the only woman he'd ever been able to truly love out of a ridiculous act of selfishness, just because he'd been too stubborn to actually talk about what was bothering him, choosing to drown it all in something highly alcoholic instead. Yeah, he was an asshole, and maybe those few beats of silence from Bruce was the man finally realizing the truth.

"Sometimes," Bruce finally responded, a smile with the slightest trace of humor quirking at the corner of his mouth. "Sometimes you are. You can be an asshole to reporters and Fury and government officials, which is understandable." He turned his gaze and little smile onto Tony, reaching across the seat to find his hand. "But you're not to me or Pepper. Definitely not Pepper. If you were she wouldn't have asked about you and made me come and find you."

"I hurt her." Tony couldn't have put it any more bluntly than that. He picked up a stray CD case he'd left sitting on the seat next to him, turning it over between his hands just for some kind of distraction. "I got so drunk, really fucking drunk, and I hurt her. It's a pretty asshole-ish thing to do, hurt your girlfriend when you're drunk."

"Tony." Bruce exhaled a long sigh through his nose, shaking his head slightly while he scooted closer to the other man. He stayed far enough away that their sides weren't quite touching, but he reached out an arm to set it around Tony's shoulders and hoped his presence was comforting. "Tony, Tony, Tony." Bruce's lips pressed into a thin line as he thought about how to best approach this. He leaned over a little more and rested his chin on Tony's shoulder, inhaling the familiar scent of his cologne that somehow hadn't faded throughout the hectic events of the day. "You didn't hurt her," he started again, "whatever exploded in your garage hurt her. It wasn't you, because we all know that you would never do anything like that. It's not your fault."

"Don't make excuses, Banner," Tony replied bitterly, "I shouldn't have even been drinking."

"No, you probably shouldn't have."

"She shouldn't have been down there, either."

"She was just checking on you. She was worried when you didn't come up to bed."

Tony didn't have a response for that one. Well, of course she was worried. That was one of the things Pepper did best, in her own guarded, professional way. Worrying about him had more or less been in her job description for all of the years she'd been his PA, and she still was worrying about him to this day, when right now that was the last thing she should have been doing. "I should just quit," he finally muttered, squeezing the CD case between his fingers so tightly that the plastic almost cracked.

"Quit what?" Bruce asked quietly, almost worriedly, just because the tone of Tony's voice had him a little concerned.

"Drinking."

Bruce puffed a small sigh of relief, hoping Tony didn't notice. That was certainly a better answer than he'd been expecting. "Maybe you should," he offered with a little shrug, "but that's a choice you have to make yourself. We'll help you, but that's your decision, Tony."

Tony just humphed in agreement, not exactly sure what to do with himself. If he wasn't in such a bitter state of mind, maybe he would have shifted a little closer to Bruce, leaned into his arm and maybe kissed him, but for now he just stayed slumped against the car seat with his gaze cemented to the back of the seat in front of him. He could feel Bruce's gaze on the side of his face, almost see him from the corner of his eye, but he still didn't do much to act on anything.

"Do you want to come back in with me and see Pepper?" Bruce said after about another minute of quiet frankly uncomfortable silence.

Tony barely hesitated before he answered a simple, "no."

"Any reason why?"

Tony just shrugged, accidentally bumping Bruce's chin in the process. "I don't like that gross disinfectant smell. Makes me gag."

Bruce knew for a fact that wasn't the real reason, but he let it slide. He could still see the traces of guilt behind Tony's eyes, which made him realize that maybe, just for now, it was the better choice.

"Okay."