A/N: No Pepper hate, or it'll make me cry a million tears.

Chapter Three

Dammit, Tony.

Damn you and your stupid, drunken, stupid head.

Tony was stirring in his bed, Bruce checked his watch, it was a little after eight, Tony had slept for the entire day and well into the evening. He was groaning, rubbing his forehead, Bruce slipped his hand underneath his head and lifted it so that his lips could reach the cold glass of water Bruce was holding for him.

Tony guzzled it greedily, then gripping onto Bruce's arm, Bruce helped him out of his bed, and helped him to stumble into the bathroom, sitting him on the floor of his shower and turning on the nozzles, leaving him to it.

This was becoming a far too regular routine. The previous night after Bruce had dragged Tony out of yet another bar, he'd had to bring him back to Bruce's own room in the tower, since Tony wouldn't go anywhere near the penthouse any more. Bruce had stripped him off, because cleaning up vomit from a bed and a person was a lot easier than trying to strip vomit covered clothing from someone and then still having to clean all three.

Bruce had rubbed Tony's back as he was sick into the toilet bowl, then helped him into bed, placing a bucket nearby, and several glasses of water, then gone to sleep on his couch, though he didn't so much sleep as drift. He was always too worried Tony would choke on his own vomit to actually sleep when he was in these states.

But as much as Bruce loved his best friend, and as much patience he'd had for him in the months since Pepper had left, even Bruce was becoming a little sick of playing nurse maid whilst Tony destroyed himself more and more.

Nothing seemed to be pulling him out of this funk. One day Bruce had even resorted to calling Pepper, begging and pleading with her down the phone to come and just talk to Tony. All that had happened was Bruce had to end up comforting Pepper down the phone as she cried and sobbed and said that she just couldn't watch Tony do this to himself anymore and if she saw him again all she would want to do would be to come back and it would all begin again in a never ending cycle.

And the truth was that Bruce didn't know if the way Tony was behaving now was because he was heartbroken or if he'd have been behaving like this anyway if Pepper was still there.

Bruce fried some eggs and bacon in a pan and put it on a plate, making sure it was extra greasy as the grease and fat would help Tony's body recover nutrients he'd destroyed with a bottle of Jack. He put it out on a plate next to a large glass of water and some painkillers, then went and got Tony from the shower.

At least he was standing on his own two feet again when Bruce got into his bathroom, placing some clean clothes on the closed toilet seat for Tony. Seeing his friend naked had stopped being embarrassing months ago, now it was just something Bruce had to do to help Tony.

Bruce went back and sat at the table, a few minutes later, Tony came stumbling out, wearing the vest and pants Bruce had left for him, sitting at the table and groaning gratefully at Bruce as first he took the painkillers and then devoured the food like a man who hadn't eaten in weeks.

"'Dis es sof gud," said Tony, his mouth full of half masticated bacon. He swallowed, "I love you, Bruce."

"Love you too, buddy," said Bruce, drinking a mouthful of coffee, "but you know this has to stop, right? I'm just one man, I can't keep picking you up off the floor like this."

Tony groaned, "So I'm grounded? Sorry, MOM."

"Yup," said Bruce, ignoring the 'mom' comment, "you're grounded, buddy, I can't let you out of the tower any more if this is how you're going to keep behaving."

"Come on, Bruce," said Tony, "I'm sorry. What time is it like five? I'll eat this and we'll go for chalupas."

"It's gone eight thirty," said Bruce.

"Really? Shit, I've missed happy hour at the Tilted Kilt," said Tony, "though if we hurry we can make happy hour at the Grizzly Beaver…. There'll be boobs."

"There will be no happy hour," said Bruce, "I'm serious, Tony, I don't care if I have to lock you up in the detention cells. No more. It ends now."

Tony pouted, "I can tell Jarvis to just have booze delivered."

"You could try," said Bruce, "but I'll make sure Hulk is there to intercept the delivery."

"You're no fun," said Tony, draining his glass of water. "Seriously, Bruce, I need a drink."

"Seriously, Tony, you're not having one," said Bruce, "I'm cutting you off. One week, no drinking at all. Then if you don't disappoint me, I'll let you have one glass of whiskey. One. You need to learn to drink in moderation, Tony. I don't want you to disappoint me."

Tony groaned, "Don't do this to me, Bruce, don't talk about not being angry, just disappointed, you aren't really my Mom, you know."

"Don't talk about mothers," said Bruce.

"Yeah, sorry, forgot," said Tony, "Ugh, does this really have to start now? I've got the moth- monster of all hangovers and I could use some hair of the dog that bit me."

"It's now or never and I'm not letting you take never as an option," said Bruce. "So we're going to go down to the workshop, and we're going to go over some of the reports you've not even looked at. Your new CEO is coping with Stark Industries, but you have a mountain of stuff from SHIELD and Fury said that if you don't start dealing with it soon, he's just going to send Tasha and Barton and they'll deal with it, and I don't really think you want them dealing with it."

"Ugh," said Tony again, "FINE."

They exited Bruce's apartment and stepped into the elevator, Tony had borrowed a pair of Bruce's sunglasses and was busy wiping the lenses on the hem of his vest, too busy to notice until they had moved three floors that they were travelling up not down. Tony threw Bruce a look and then put the sunglasses on his face.

"I'm not going up there," he said, folding his arms just underneath the blue glow from his arc reactor.

"Nothing up there is going to bite or kill you," said Bruce "and I'm sick of sleeping on my couch, so you're going."

"Nothing's stopping you from getting in bed with me," said Tony, pushing Bruce's patience on purpose.

"Nothing but the knowledge that you'd probably vomit all over me in your sleep," said Bruce, "you and vomit seem to have a special relationship these days."

"Stop saying vomit," said Tony rubbing his stomach, "I've just eaten, I'm feeling delicate."

The elevator pinged and Bruce stepped off, yanking Tony along by the arm. Pepper had removed her things already, but Bruce had done a sweep of his own to remove anything Pepper related from the penthouse.

"I hate you," said Tony, freeing himself from Bruce's grip and immediately heading over to his bar.

"I've cleaned you out already," said Bruce, sitting on one of the bar stools, "to remove temptation."

"I really hate you," said Tony, checking under the bar and the cabinets and then behind a block of wood where the emergency vodka was kept, he wouldn't find anything, Bruce was a clever boy. "Bruce, seriously, are you doing this to me?"

"You've kinda forced my hand here, Tony," said Bruce, sliding a pad along the counter top and pushing it towards Tony. "We'll work. We'll get through what's left of today, and then we'll see what tomorrow brings."

"I really, really, hate you," said Tony.

"No you don't," said Bruce, "you hate what I'm doing, but deep down you know I'm right."

"Doesn't stop me from wanting to punch you in the face," said Tony, "but I don't want to hire Hulk as my new decorator, so I'll probably give it a miss."

"It would be advisable," said Bruce, tapping on the pad to make Tony give it his attention. "This is for your own good."

"I miss Thor," said Tony, sighing and finally relenting and picking up the pad, "Thor's a great drinking buddy."

"I'm sure Thor's wonderful to drink with," said Bruce, "but I can't imagine him stripping you off and watching over your bed to make sure that you spew everywhere or wake up covered in your own feculence."

"It wouldn't be one of my proudest moments, would it?" said Tony, tapping on the pad.

"Not really," said Bruce, "now work."

x-x-x

Tony's gripes and grumbles were actually kept to a minimum for the first few hours, so as a reward for actually doing some work for a change, Bruce said that they could clock off at Midnight and watch tv until Tony was ready for a few hours sleep and continue in the morning.

Bruce kept his word because Bruce was good like that, and they watched cartoons until 2am, where Bruce drifted to sleep on the sofa. Tony wasn't really good, so as soon as he was sure that Bruce was snoring he went to his book shelf and pulled an omnibus edition of Lord of the Rings from the shelf and behind it was a tiny flask, only large enough to hold a single shot of whiskey. He unscrewed the cap, it was still there, Bruce really wasn't as thorough as he thought he was.

Tony tipped the contents down his neck, smacking his lips together, and hid the flask away again, he'd have to find a way of refilling it and soon.

He went back to the sofa and covered Bruce with a wool blanket before picking up the remote and began channel surfing. He couldn't really explain to Bruce the reason he'd been acting like he had. He could barely put it into words himself, let alone fully understand what his head was going through.

It wasn't all about Pepper.

Well it was all about Pepper, but it wasn't at the same time.

Tony loved Pepper and yeah, he was heartbroken over the fact that she'd finally given up the ghost and packed her bags. But it was more than just Pepper. It was everything that Pepper stood for.

Pepper. Dear, sweet, kind, loving, understanding Pepper.

The only person who had more patience with him was Bruce, and Tony couldn't help but wonder if that was because Bruce of all people couldn't afford to lose patience with anyone.

If Tony couldn't make it work with Pepper, he couldn't make it work at all. There could never be anyone else who could put up with his moods and his arrogance and his ego. His ego was so big sometimes Pepper would say that there were four people in their relationship, because the third was Iron Man.

Tony supposed that in the end, there'd just been too much Tony, and not enough Pepper. And that, boys and girls, would always be the problem.

Tony glanced at Bruce as the scientist made a snort. Poor Bruce. Dear, sweet, kind, patient, understanding Bruce. He probably took more shit from Tony than anyone, and Tony sometimes manipulated that to his own ends, and he felt like shit about it, but that never really stopped him from doing it.

Bruce was his real, true, friend.

Thor was his friend, Tasha and Barton gave SHIELD priority over the Avengers, Steve was… well, Steve was a work acquaintance that had his back, but Bruce. Kind, loyal Bruce got him. He got Tony.

Outwardly, Bruce was the lonely one, and it was how Tony felt much of the time on his insides, he just felt more comfortable smiling for the cameras and pouring glass after glass of whiskey down his throat until he forgot why he was lonely and miserable at all.

Tony changed stations on the tv, a news report came up, late night so it was just a repeat of the days main stories, but Tony hadn't watched the news or read the papers or checked the news app on his phone in weeks, so it was all fresh to him.

When the news caster finished up a story about a politician who'd been caught with his hands in the proverbial till, a blurry as hell photograph displayed on the screen of two guys, both costumed, appearing, through the blurs to be being pulled off the ground by a rope.

He stopped concentrating on the picture and tuned his brain to the sound the newscaster was making, "…saving five. Spider-man and Shadow, who are rapidly becoming the heroes that the people on the street are looking up to. And now we're going to Steven for an on the scene- "

Tony muted the tv. Spider-man and Shadow? Hardly names worthy of a Saturday morning cartoon and their own line of fully articulated action figures. Who the hell were these guys? For some reason this really irked him.

He picked up the pad that he'd been working on earlier with Bruce and performed a quick search to see if SHIELD had made any mention of these two clowns.

There was. On one of the more recent reports, a request from Nick Fury to bring one or both of them in for questioning, if possible. He wanted to see if they were SHIELD material, or if they were dangerous and needed to be locked away. There wasn't a file attached, Fury must have assumed that Tony had been watching the news.

Tony pulled up one of his screens from his work desk, "Jarvis?"

"Yes, sir?" said the computer.

"Bring up everything you've got on Spider-man and Shadow, spare me the fan web pages, if there is any, just the stuff the news has been reporting on for now," he said.

The computer complied, and files began filling the screen, copies of newspaper articles brought from their websites, video clips of news reports, Tony began trawling though them.

It was hard to establish who had come along first, there was some reports of a man matching Shadow's description, saving lives during a subway crash, there were also reports of car thieves being strung up from lamp posts before this, there was no real way to tell. Tony thought it was fair to assume they'd sprung up at the same time, and either they had always worked together, or they'd formed an alliance really quickly.

They seemed to pop up all over New York, they didn't really seem to work in a pattern. Tony dropped dots on a map of all the reported sightings and strung up criminals and actual witnessed fights, there didn't seem a pattern to it. Though Tony noticed that they hadn't been seen at all anywhere near Avengers tower, he figured if there was an Iron Man about, why bother creeping in on his turf. Not that going out and stopping muggers and convenience store thieves was really his bag, which is what these guys seemed to do with the majority of their time.

"Jarvis," said Tony, "create new project, named SpiderShadow, file on private server. Add all of this information and create new search parameters. Anywhere we have eyes, any of our buildings, if one of these guys pops up, I want to know about it. Immediately."

"Feeling a little jealous, sir?" said the computer, "That the public have found some new heroes to adore?"

"Jealous?" said Tony, "Hah! I'm Tony fucking Stark, I am Iron Man, two guys in Halloween costumes don't exactly threaten my manhood, but I am curious as to what they are all about. The news doesn't seem to have much footage of them at all, some jolty cell phone videos and that's about it. These guys are a little too clever at avoiding camera coverage and I'd like to know if it's because they're good or because there's something more sinister afoot."

"Right away, sir," said Jarvis.

Tony supposed that would do for now. He rubbed his face, he was feeling tired again, he considered sleep, but the bed seemed about as appealing as going for colonic irrigation so he picked up his pad and ordered a new one through his furniture suppliers. While he was at it, he made sure that there was a new mattress and sheets, and curtains, and a couch, and in fact by the time he was done he'd ordered replacement furniture for the entire penthouse and also booked decorators to come in and redo the place.

That'd show Pepper.

Tony sat back onto the couch, and gave Bruce a little shove so he'd lean in the opposite direction, then Tony tucked his legs up and rested his head against his arms. When he slept he dreamt of red hair and a warm smile, and no matter how wide the smile was, Tony just felt sad.