Chapter Text
When Bruce walked into the kitchen, he wasn't surprised to find only Tony there. The rest of the team tended to get up much earlier than them on days when there was nothing scheduled.
What did surprise him, however, was what Tony was wearing.
Bruce knew, of course, that there were Hulk shirts out there, had even signed a few of them at PR events. But he'd thought he'd made it clear to Tony that he didn't want any Hulk merchandise in their home, no matter how amusing it might be to the rest of the team.
And yet there Tony was, shoveling cold cereal and wearing a black shirt with an angry green face and the slogan, "Let's get smashing!" Bruce frowned.
Tony grinned at him and swallowed the cereal. "Like my new threads?"
Bruce took a deep breath. "Remember that time you told me to feel free to let you know when you're being a jackass?"
Tony laughed, but it sounded fake. He picked up the package of cereal to refill his bowl, revealing a copy of the New York Telegraph lying on the counter. Bruce briefly wondered how it got there—Steve was the only team member who read print newspapers, and he didn't buy that rag—but then he got a closer look and his heart stopped. "What the hell?"
He picked up the paper and unfolded it. The first page was split into two full-body shots of him in the shower—front and back. Certain parts of the image were pixelated, but it left little to the imagination.
"Tony! You swore there were no cameras in the bathrooms!"
"There weren't... when I said that," Tony said around a mouthful of cereal.
"You snuck a camera into my bathroom and then sold the pics to the New York Telegraph?"
Tony grinned. "Wanted the world to see your good—and pink—side."
Bruce felt his face burn with humiliation and betrayal. Why would Tony do this? Yes, he had a weird sense of humor, but surely he had to realize how invasive this was.
He remembered some of the videos of Tony he'd seen on YouTube. He'd felt terribly ashamed of himself when Tony'd walked in on him watching one, but Tony had just laughed and offered him some banana chips.
Maybe he didn't get why this prank wasn't funny.
Bruce decided his appetite was ruined. "I'm going to my lab," he announced and turned to the elevator. Tony tagged along.
Bruce raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"Just going to check on something." Tony was clearly trying to sound dismissive, but there was something else underneath it. Something almost like... shame? Huh. Maybe he did feel bad about the prank with the pictures and just didn't know how to admit it.
The door opened on Bruce's lab. He stepped out and stared. "What... happened?" The lab looked as if the Hulk had gone to town on it, but surely Bruce would know if he'd transformed since yesterday. He turned to Tony, expecting to see confusion and shock—and instead, was greeted by a cocky grin. "I redecorated."
Bruce looked at the shattered beakers, the torn-open and emptied-out specimens fridge, the smashed computers. It was almost too much to take in. "I worked on this for months."
Tony shrugged.
"Tony!" Bruce grabbed Tony's arm. "Why the hell would you do that?"
"Bored, I guess." Tony's face was perfectly blank.
Bored? Bored with him? Bored with pretending to care?
Bruce took a deep breath. "JARVIS, collate my data, see if anything—"
"I'm sorry, Dr. Banner, but all your research data has been erased. The back-ups, too." He sounded truly apologetic.
Bruce picked up the nearest object—a set of safety goggles—and threw them at Tony. They bounced off the arc reactor with a mild click. "You asshole. If you wanted me to leave, why didn't you just fucking say so?"
Tony bit his lip and didn't reply.
"I'd have gotten out of your hair any time you wanted me to. Did you have to destroy everything I worked for just because you don't have the guts to withdraw an invitation?"
"Bruce, I—"
"Do not call me that, Mr. Stark. We are not friends."
Tony flinched, but seemed to catch himself. He stood up straight and pushed his hands into his pockets. "So, Dr. Banner," he half-sneered, "I take it you're pretty angry at me."
"Oh, you are a genius." He kicked an overturned storage crate into the shards of his carefully calibrated experiment.
"Well, maybe you'll let me ask one question then," Tony said, his tone sheer provocation.
"By all means, go ahead!" Bruce bit back.
"What color are you?"
Bruce stopped. "What?"
Tony took a step closer, standing just outside Bruce's reach. "Look at your skin and tell me what color it is."
Bruce breathed in sharply. He was almost too angry for words. So angry he wanted to punch Tony, wanted to call him every name in the book, wanted to destroy his workshop as Tony had destroyed Bruce's lab.
But his hands, as he held them up to the ridiculous backdrop of Tony's Hulk shirt, were pink. Pink and human and their usual size. "I didn't hulk out." In fact, the other guy wasn't even pushing, which was why Bruce hadn't thought about the possibility. The other guy was normally far from subtle.
"You didn't hulk out." Tony nodded. His tone was quiet and serious now. "It's not anger, Bruce."
"What?" His voice sounded faint in his own ears.
"It's not anger. It's threat. You can get as angry as you want, but the Big Guy only comes out when he thinks you're in danger."
Bruce blinked. Once. Twice. "That's what all of this was about. That's why you're wearing the shirt and why you sold nude pictures of me to the newspaper and why you destroyed my lab. To show me..."
"Well, yes, only I didn't really do most of that."
Bruce shook his head, not understanding.
"Come with me, Bruce. Please. I know you're pissed off beyond all reason at me right now, and you have every right to be, but please, just come with me. Three minutes."
Bruce didn't know what to think. If Tony was right—and clearly he was, because Bruce could not remember the last time he'd felt this angry, and yet the other guy wasn't stirring—that information was worth...a lot.
But Tony had gone too far with the lab. Bruce wasn't sure he could ever forgive that betrayal—for all that it had been Tony's lab to begin with, he'd given it to Bruce, and let him use it however he wished, and it, more than the bedroom five floors above, had been the first place Bruce had called home since before the accident.
But the information was certainly worth three minutes of his time. He followed Tony to the elevator, too numb to do more than lean against the wall. Tony was chewing his lip nervously as he pressed a button.
"That's the floor we're already on," Bruce pointed out.
Tony shook his head. "No, it's not."
The doors closed, the elevator moved down one floor, and the doors opened again on—Bruce's lab. He blinked. There it was, everything perfectly tidy—or, well, exactly as he'd left it last night. He shook his head and looked at Tony. "I don't understand."
"I wouldn't destroy your lab, Bruce. It's not mine. Well, I suppose technically, but... It's all your work, and... Jesus Christ, I'm not that much of an asshole. We were on the wrong floor. I told JARVIS to take us there when you pressed the button for your lab."
"I apologize for the deception, Dr. Banner. Sir was adamant. I would also like to point out that all your research data is safe, securely stored on my main server as well as five back-up servers on three different continents. And one in space."
Bruce walked around, touching things, checking read-outs, and peering into the specimens fridge. "You built a complete replica of my lab and then destroyed it, just to..." Just to show him the Hulk was not what he'd thought. Not a raging instrument of anger, but a protector.
As Tony had said from the start.
Bruce shook his head and turned to Tony. "If you think I'm going to forgive you on the spot—"
"The pictures aren't real either," Tony added quickly. "I mean, yes, I really did install a secret camera in your shower and I really did take some nudie pics of you, and for that I'm sorry, but—only you, me, and JARVIS have seen them. That was a fake title page, the New York Telegraph is really leading with a story about furries on the city council today."
Bruce blinked, lost for words again. The team shared showers after training, so Bruce didn't mind Tony or JARVIS seeing him—and he was sure Tony'd known that.
Tony looked sheepish. "I really am wearing a Hulk shirt, though, so feel free to be pissed off about that."
Bruce turned towards his latest experiment and mechanically started taking readings, adjusting the dials as he went. He could feel Tony's eyes on him as he processed the last half hour.
The only time the other guy forced his way out was when Bruce was in danger. His purpose wasn't destruction. He didn't hate Bruce and he didn't want to destroy everything Bruce loved.
He just wanted to keep him safe.
"If I went too far—fuck, I did, didn't I?" Tony sounded desperate. "I just... I worked it out a while ago, from getting to know you, both of you, talking to you, and—I knew you'd never believe me if I just told you, I knew I'd have to prove it somehow, so I devised an—" He cut himself off, aware that admitting he'd made Bruce subject of an experiment was not the way to obtain forgiveness.
Bruce turned back to Tony, who was standing rooted to the spot, staring at his shoes, hands opening and closing. It clearly took every ounce of strength Tony had not to bolt from the room.
"Tony," Bruce said, and the dark eyes shot up to meet his in a mute plea. "It was still a jackass thing to do." Tony was a genius, and a scientist. He ought to have known how deeply this would hurt Bruce.
"But—yeah, it was."
"It was cruel."
Tony nodded wordlessly. And Bruce realized: Tony had known.
Tony had very few friends, and though he wasn't great at saying it, Bruce knew they were precious to him. The bond Tony and Bruce shared, working together in the lab or the workshop or geeking out over calculations only five people on Earth could even understand, mattered to Tony much more that he could ever allow himself to admit.
Tony'd known he was putting all that in jeopardy, and he'd done it anyway, because it was the only way he could think of to... to give Bruce this.
Bruce took a moment to really look at Tony. The hunched shoulders, the way he anxiously balanced on the balls of his feet, his hands nervously tugging on the hem of his T-shirt. Then Bruce said, "And... it was necessary."
Tony's eyes brightened with a small glimmer of hope.
"Because you're right. I wouldn't have believed it if you'd just told me, and I wouldn't have believed it if you'd only gotten me kind of mad. You needed to get me furious, and... Well. You found a way to do it. Without doing any actual damage."
"So...you're not pissed anymore?"
"Oh, I'm pissed."
Tony's face fell. "Oh."
Bruce smiled. "But I'm sort of enjoying it."
"Yeah?" One corner of Tony's mouth curled up in a hesitant smile.
"It's been a long time since I've allowed myself to just be angry. The anger was always there, boiling under the surface, but I was very careful to keep it in check. Except when I wanted the other guy to come out, but then it still wasn't me experiencing it. So... This is the first time in years I've been able to just feel pissed."
"Ummm... you're welcome." Tony looked uncomfortable.
Bruce knew Tony hated having the few people he cared about angry at him. For lack of an olive branch, he held out a soldering iron. "Help me set up the next stage? It'll probably help me forgive you faster."
Tony smiled. "Sure!" He took the tool and turned to the screen that displayed the setup for stage 2.
"Oh, and Tony?"
"Yeah?"
Bruce gently nudged Tony's side with his elbow. "Do you suppose you could get me one of these shirts?"
The End