Work Text:
"Bruce, please ," Tony begged, plopping down on an empty office chair, "It will be fun. There will be so many people that no one will recognize us if that's what you're worried about.”
“That’s not what I’m worried about, Tony,” Bruce murmured, not looking up from the data he was receiving.
The engineer dropped his head back, groaning. “Then why won’t you go ? I swear it won’t be a big deal, it’s only one photo op down there and then all we have to do is kick back and have at least twelve blasts,” he insisted.
“Have you ever considered that there isn’t some greater reason for me not wanting to go, other than I don’t want to go ?” Bruce suggested.
Tony pouted, “You’re just being a sour puss. What do I have to do to get you come with me? It’s just for three days and then we’ll be back at the tower and do all the science that your heart desires.”
“If I don’t leave though, I can science right through those three days and then after that I can keep sciencing.”
“But what if I bought you like, seven stress balls? Two and a third for each day,” Tony offered.
Bruce shook his head, glancing over at the billionaire. “I don’t need any stress balls because I’m not going,” he asserted.
The genius moaned, as if in pain, “I just want to have a friend on my Disney World Adventure,” he pouted, starting to mess around with some of Bruce’s pads of paper. The doctor reached over and stilled Tony’s hands.
“Please don’t make me go,” he murmured, watching Tony’s calloused fingers. The latter frowned, sighing. He didn’t want to give Bruce any extra anxiety, but he also didn’t want to go alone. He honestly thought that Bruce deserved some sort of reprieve from the work he’d under taken at SI. He was now heading several teams in their biotech and environmental sectors. And if some… extra perks came up while they were there, well. Who was Tony to argue?
“Nothing’s going to break down if you’re gone for only a few days,” he promised quietly, pulling himself up to sit on the counter next to his friend. “No project is going to go completely awry with you gone, and if things take a turn for the worst, then I’ll fly you back on a Quinjet. It wouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes, you know how fast the speed of sound is. We’ll go there on my private jet, though, so that we have the smoothest ride possible.”
“And I’m sure that will be great for you ,” Bruce emphasized, “But I’m not going,” he reminded. He seemed to be past his mopey the-Other-Guy-is-a-danger-to-everything-that-breathes fears and was beginning to just be stubborn for the sake of it.
Tony swung his legs a little before dropping down from the counter. “Okay, but have you considered the fact that I’m willing to say please? Just for you, just for this one, three day trip? Because I am. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: Please don’t make me go to Disney World alone. I can’t handle it. If you’re there it will be Kim Kardashian in a bathing suit bearable.”
“Why do you even have to go to Orlando?” Bruce finally relented, after watching Tony pace the lab for several minutes.
“So I maybe lied. I don’t have to go to Disney. But Pepper said that I have to leave the tower for three days since they’re doing some construction on the lower floors and my perfectionist tendencies are not necessarily considered assets on the work floor, so she’s kicking me out. And since I’m a petulant child seven point six percent of the time, I told her I was going to Disney and I was taking my bestie with me. And then she bet our resident killer spider that I couldn’t get you to come and I won’t let her win that one, as much as I hate a smug Natasha, and-”
“Tony.”
“What?” he asked after collecting the oxygen that he’d been neglecting himself.
“I’ll go, just. Sit down, you’re making me dizzy.”
The engineer hadn’t realized that he was pacing again, but, hey, you learn something new every day.
“Wait, shit. Yeah. Do that.” He paused, watching as Bruce turned back to his work. “You know that I made all that up, right?”
“I know,” Bruce answered, sounding subdued.
Tony jumped to his feet. “You’re not actually going to go, are you?”
“I’m going, Tony,” the shorter man said blandly.
“Even though-”
“Yes.”
“But-”
“I don’t want Pepper to win her bet.”
“I was lying,” Tony protested, even though he was taking the side against himself.
“No,” Bruce stood. “The other one.” He walked toward his friend. “The one where she said it would take you over a year to get me on a date.”
“This isn’t- I wasn’t-”
Bruce gave him a pointed look.
“Okay, yeah. Maybe it was a little. But it wasn’t supposed to be.”
The doctor hummed noncommittally. “Maybe if you behave yourself, I’ll kiss you during the fireworks.”
Tony grinned.