Chapter Text
"I'm very glad I bought you that."
The madness is over. Bruce Banner has shrunk down to regular size and the Other Guy hasn't made an appearance since. New York is in shreds, as disastrous as a metropolis can look after its first alien invasion. (And first implies it might not have been the last.) He would like to think the damage done was worth the sight of Loki the Frost Giant standing there in chains with Thor to escort him right to the Asgardian prison, a big device over his mouth that would keep him from using that wicked tongue of his. He would like to think it was worth meeting the man he has decided to jump into a car with afterwards and drive away.
"Stay for a while," Tony said with that small grin on his face that almost seemed to be a permanent thing when he was facing Bruce. It wasn't a question, nor a request. Tony Stark wasn't very good at asking for things.
"Really? Might be difficult to find an apartment that has an inbuilt glass container in the living room, don't you think?"
Tony looked down and smiled with a twinge of sadness in his eyes. He tried very hard to play it cool, but it didn't always work. Bruce saw.
"You don't need an apartment if you just... stay with me for a while. Be my guest."
Bruce huffed out a laugh, but only because the offer was generous and he wasn't familiar with generosity.
"Not to be the one to spoil the fun or anything, but your house is currently not at its best. Missing a few windows and... floors." Partially because of him, too, that.
"What? Oh, that." Tony waved his objection away with a dismissive hand gesture. "That's not my house. Well, it is, but only when I'm in New York. I'm mostly in Malibu."
"Malibu?"
"Oh yes. Right at the beach, perfect view of the ocean, not much else around. How does that sound, Doc?" Tony's voice was seductive and Bruce distantly wondered if that was also how he spoke to ladies he wanted to talk into a night of fun.
"That sounds..." Bruce was at a loss for words there. Malibu. Beach, ocean. That didn't only sound like an alternative to India, that sounded like ... vacation? He hadn't had one of those in as long as he could remember. Not only did Tony Stark want him to stay for a little while, he also wanted him to come to Malibu with him. To come home with him. Show him some of his toys, too, probably. The suits, of course.
"No one's said no to me before," Tony insisted, having a look on his face he couldn't quite read. Charming billionaire with abandoning issues perhaps?
Bruce laughed. "No one? Really? Guess that tells you a lot about what most people care about." His money. His house on the beach. The good looks, the handsome face Bruce couldn't help but like.
Tony shrugged. "My money? My house on the beach? Whatever I hide away under my expensive suits? Did I forget anything?"
Bruce smiled. He couldn't decide if he was amused or impressed by how easily Tony seemed to find the line between overt confidence and self-reflection. He must have been betrayed before for similar reasons.
"It's settled then?"
Reluctance made Bruce bite his bottom lip. Could he turn down an offer like this? It wasn't like he wouldn't have been curious about how the man lived, what else he worked on and, most importantly, what was still to discover about him.
"Yes." It came out in a breath he hadn't realised he had been holding. "Yes, alright. Malibu it is."
"Yes?" Tony's whole face lit up in a smile - a shockingly raw one - as if he had initially expected him to say no. He found that he really liked to surprise him.
So now here they are. Eating out in a restaurant before they will fly off to Malibu in Tony's private plane. It doesn't feel real, but then again, stranger things have happened to them during the last week.
Much stranger than Tony Stark suddenly telling him, I'm very glad I bought you that.
Bruce smiles with hidden uncertainty, looking down at the two thousand dollar suit he is wearing. "You shouldn't have." He means it.
"I should've and I did," Tony says, meaning it too. "Looks good on you." He tries to let it pass as some sort of side note, but Bruce notices how he's avoiding his gaze by looking down at his plate.
"Yeah, well, down there you don't really own a lot." He is talking about India. He rarely ever does that because he never expects anybody to listen. Doesn't really know why he does it now. Maybe because so far Tony has been listening to everything he's had to say.
"You never missed anything? You know, the Western lifestyle? American football? Overrated celebrities? Starbucks?"
Bruce shrugs, drinking a sip of red wine that is probably more expensive than his last pair of shoes. He knows there is honest curiosity behind that joke, so he will give an honest answer. "There wasn't anyone to miss."
Tony nods. After a minute of silence he says in a quiet voice, "When I was in Afghanistan, I missed everything. Couldn't have done that for long. I mean, I had company, but..." He pauses, staring at something seemingly behind Bruce's shoulder but he is certain that if he looked behind him now he wouldn't see what Tony sees.
"That's different," Bruce interferes. "You were captured. I went willingly."
Tony gives him a look. They read each other's file. "Did you really?"
Bruce thinks about it. He's surprised the man opposite him already knows him better than most people. But then again, who else is there to know? There seems to be no one left.
It will take them around six hours to fly from New York to Los Angeles. The weather is wonderful today, and they are flying directly into a sunset. Meanwhile, Bruce Banner has fallen asleep on Tony Stark's shoulder. He doesn't mind. Looking out of the window, he feels how his own eyelids grow heavy with the urge to fall shut, his body craving sleep. The days have been too long, too eventful and too close to death while the nights are too short to process most of it.
Tony turns his head, careful not to wake the doctor, to look down on the dark-haired sleepyhead whose cheek is pressed against him. Some of his curls tickle his beard. Again, he doesn't mind. It feels good. To have someone here who has shared what he went through, who has suffered in similar ways, and who has helped him survive it all. He doesn't think he's ever actually thanked him for saving his life.
Slowly, he's lifting his arm and Bruce falls more comfortably against him. Poor guy, he thinks. He himself is tired to no end, but he was in a suit. He was wrapped in technology and partially powered by his arc reactor. Bruce Banner only has himself. The big guy must drain everything out of him. He lets him sleep, lets his arm be supported by the back of his seat. The gesture is inviting, is protective. He doesn't know what he's doing. He always likes to pretend he does, but he doesn't really.
"Thank you," he whispers into his hair. It's very soft.
They both sleep like this until the plane lands.
"Jarvis, say hello to our guest."
Tony's house leaves the doctor in utter astonishment. He doesn't know what he expected. It looks like it should have a big stamp on the front door - 'property of a billionaire' - because it is and it lives up to the accusation by all means. He is not quite sure how to feel. He's lived in places as big as Tony's guest bathroom, had bathrooms probably the size of Tony's wardrobe. Was meant to be kept in a glass tank if things had gone wrong on Shield's Zephyr One. This right here (and does he really call it home?) is unknown ground to him. He feels like the wrong man in the right place.
"Hello, Dr. Banner," a friendly male voice greets him from out of nowhere. He isn't surprised. Tony has told him about the A.I. But what did the A.I. know about him?
Bruce points at the first spot that comes to mind to refer to him - up.
"You told him about me?"
"Oh no," Tony says, slipping out of his suit jacket and throwing it onto the large sofa. "You're famous in this house." He seems to realise what he's just said only shortly after. Spinning around on his heel, he scratches his head. "I mean..."
Bruce finds himself wishing he could see Tony's eyes but they were hidden behind a pair of blue tinted sunglasses.
"I did a lot of research before, is what I mean. And I was already sorta familiar with your work and your... the circumstances of your..." He is clearly struggling with finding the right words where there could be none, not really, and one of his hands is trying to fish the perfect phrasing out of thin air next to his head.
Bruce can't hold back a chuckle. "Right," he simply replies and releases him from his own tight grip of awkwardness.
"How long will Dr. Banner be staying, Sir?" the voice in the ceiling asks.
Bruce is slightly caught off guard by having it confirmed by someone who isn't really an actual person that yes, indeed, he will be staying here. With Tony. In his house by the ocean.
"Uhm."
"Don't put pressure on our guest, Jarvis," Tony warns into the room. Then, to Bruce, "Stay as long as you like."
Unfortunately, that offer doesn't put him under any less of a pressure and rather face to face with a problem much more essential: He has no idea what he would like.
In the morning, Bruce wakes up from what felt like the longest sleep of his life. It wasn't, wasn't by far, and somehow he's still tired. He had many dreams, reliving in the short time of six and a half hours the events that led New York to the flames. The Tesseract, Loki, his giant green palm pushing against the snout of an alien metal creature the size of a skyscraper. The weight of it all. It is still lingering in his bones, stored away safely to be put to use once more.
Yesterday night, when they arrived here, Tony didn't show him anything but the room in which he is now staying. It surprised him, seeing as Tony had raved so much about all that he had missed - his suits, his garage full of sports cars, the view from the terrace. Maybe he is trying to give Bruce some time, some space to find comfort in first and make his own wobbly steps of exploration, other than just overwhelming him with everything at once. That would be uncharacteristically considerate. Not that he wasn't usually. Just... bad at recognising other people's needs sometimes.
At first, he thought Tony was just too tired himself. But he knows he didn't go to sleep when Bruce did. As big as this house is, the walls aren't thick enough to keep the soft tunes of distant AC/DC from reaching his ears. Tony worked two floors below him on who knows what. Having trouble sleeping?
Pushing the blanket aside, he realises that he's still wearing same dress shirt as yesterday, now with half its buttons undone. Probably from a sad attempt of undressing himself last night. At least he thought of taking his shoes off before climbing into bed. In his suitcase he finds a selected amount of items, as little as he has come with. Doesn't know what he expected.
He pulls out a plain grey shirt, with a black Starfleet symbol on the front, and a pair of jeans. The shirt he's had since forever, but now it finally fits him again. It's as wrinkled as all of his clothes are from having been unpacked and pushed into the same tiny space several times. The jeans are too big. He lost a lot of weight in India and never bothered enough to buy clothes that fit his new body type. When said body is used to dealing with the most extreme case of a yo-yo effect, one tends to ignore that sort of thing after a while. What he's also trying to ignore, taking a quick look into the mirror of his own bathroom, is that even the dark circles under his eyes have dark circles. But it'll have to do.
The problem that comes with not having been shown around only dawns on him after he steps out of his room: He has absolutely no idea where to go. He takes a first hesitant step forward and almost bashes his head into the wall behind him as a voice from out of nowhere scares him half to death.
"Good morning, Dr. Banner."
"Jesus!"
"Jarvis," the A.I. corrects him.
Bruce's first instinct is still to check on his own heart rate, taking his pulse.
"My apologies, Dr. Banner. I did not mean to surprise you, but Mr. Stark advised me not to speak to you in your room. Would you like me to give you the report on today's weather now instead?" Jarvis asks politely.
"No, thank you. Erm, where is Mr. Stark?"
"Mr. Stark is currently occupied in the kitchen. Would you like me to lead you the way?"
Once again Bruce looks around to make sure Jarvis really doesn't have a physical form screwing with him out of some corner before he decides that looking up to the ceiling is still the best choice when he addresses him. "After you."
Apart from feeling like a child doing pot hitting with bandaged eyes and friends that are going, 'Hot! Cold!,' every time he tries to follow the directions Jarvis is giving him, he has to admit that the voice from the ceiling has done a fine job so far at guiding him through this architectural masterpiece of a mansion. Well, a masterpiece for an architect. A nightmare for someone with trust issues to be guided around by someone with neither face nor body. Nor brain, nor life supporting organs ... You get the point.
In the end, it wouldn't have been that hard to find Tony.
"Like a virgin! Touched for the very first time..."
The voice singing over the sound of oil burning in a pan belongs to no other than Madonna herself. But it's Tony who sings over Madonna.
Bruce stays in the door frame with crossed arms, grinning. "I love that song."
Tony practically jumps from where he's standing, completely caught off guard, and with a motion that almost looks practised he reaches for the remote control and turns the music off.
Slowly, he turns around but his eyes are closed. He looks like he's in pain. "Morning." Then, looking up, "Weren't you supposed to tell me when our guest wakes up?"
"Dr. Banner has woken up approximately ten minutes ago, Sir."
"Yes, I can see that."
"And you did explicitly ask me to stay out of Dr. Banner's room and to not inform you when Dr. Banner awakes for privacy reasons, no matter how often you may ask if he is still asleep."
"Yes, I might've-"
"To quote, Sir, your exact words were, quote, 'I want to be better than with some past one-night-stands I left to you and Pepper the next day. Though you both were admittedly very good at throwing people out of my house,' unquote."
"Yes, thank you, I think we've all got it now." Tony spins around again - and has he gone a bit red in the face there? - turning his attention back to something that smells suspiciously like breakfast.
"Using Jarvis to get rid of some bad habits?" Bruce asks, still smiling a little and finally entering the room.
"Who else is gonna do it? C'mon now, sit down, sit! I'm almost done."
Bruce does what he's told but can't take his eyes off Tony's backside. "What are you doing?"
Tony keeps facing away from him, frying pan in hand. "I thought some pancakes and scrambled eggs today, nothing special - you mean the cooking thing, don't you?"
"Didn't know you did... that. Could do that."
"I can cook sometimes. Sometimes when Pepper isn't here to ... What am I saying, Pepper is a terrible cook."
Bruce doesn't comment on that one at first and just waits patiently for Tony to come around with two plates full of pancakes and eggs.
"There's bacon in it. I just realised I didn't ask if you eat meat."
"I do. Sometimes."
Tony clenches his fist. "Dammit. Pepper doesn't either. Wait. Is now sometimes?" he asks, and the hope in his round brown eyes reminds Bruce of a child asking to stay up for an hour longer tonight.
"Of course! You made this for me."
"Good! Good..."
"Where is Pepper, by the way?" Bruce finally dares to ask between bites. Looking up, he's surprised to see Tony is still staring at him. He wouldn't touch his own food before trying to read some sort of feedback out of Bruce's facial expression.
"How is it?"
Bruce nods purposefully enthusiastic. "Yeah, it's good."
"Good."
"Surprisingly very good."
"Okay, that was just unnecessary."
"I just really didn't think you were the cooking type."
"You've mentioned."
"Did I?"
"That you did. Er, yeah, Pepper. She's... she's on vacation."
"Vacation?" That one bursts out of Bruce but his mouth is a little too full. He swallows. "When you've just come back from fighting an alien army?"
Tony avoids his gaze. "I told her that I needed some space, actually. Not the literal space this time."
And that was that conversation. Bruce knows when not to ask further. There is only one thing he's wanting to add.
"But you made it through." Their eyes lock over the table. "Somehow you made it through ... The wilderness - sorry, sorry!"
Tony falls back into his chair, one hand covering his face in an overdramatic gesture. "Oh god!"
"I really used to love that song when it came out."
"We're old, Banner."
"So is Madonna," Bruce argues, very badly trying to suppress a grin. God, he's missed smiling for stupid reasons. Too often it's just become a nervous tick of his. "And still making music."
"But not nearly as good."
"Still successful though. And have you seen her arms? That woman is not playing around."
Tony leans forward and out of his fainted maiden-position. "Oh, Dr. Banner, are you telling me you have a thing for Madonna?"
"I am just stating facts here, okay?"
"Of course."
They are staring at each other, daring the other one to look away first. Then, out of nowhere, Tony's face just lights up with a broad grin full of white teeth. This is ridiculous. Bruce joins him. They are being ridiculous. But at least it's fun.