Work Text:
Bruce didn't realize
that Tony was an art lover
until he moved into the Tower.
Tony was still struggling to rebuild
a collection of his own after donating
the one Pepper had once curated,
back when he was slowly dying.
Bruce had been startled
to discover that most of the art
hanging on the walls was original,
not prints, although there were
also some fine linoleum prints
and lithographs and printouts
of various digital artworks.
Sometimes Bruce and Tony
stumbled across each other
gazing at a piece of art,
and they paused to share
a thought, an insight,
a witty quip about it.
Later on, Steve roused
enough to join in, and
they welcomed him too.
When Tony came home with
"Dopamine Jungle" and hung it
in the corridor outside Bruce's lab,
Bruce stared at it for an hour.
The broad brush strokes
captured the way light fell
over a tropical riverbank.
It was so bright, so beautiful,
the smooth blues and greens
dotted with startling strokes
of lemon and pink.
A girl dressed in clothes
better suited to a summer fair
rode a skeletal snake through
the deep green jungle.
It was so pretty,
and yet so creepy.
Bruce couldn't seem
to tear his eyes away
from the painting.
His brain reminded him
that dopamine was
a neurotransmitter.
It dealt in movement,
attention, learning, feeling --
the ability to perceive rewards
and take action to obtain them.
That touched on darker levels of
sensation-seeking, risk-taking, addiction.
Bruce wasn't sure what any of that
had to do with a jungle, a girl, or
the bones of a giant snake.
He didn't understand how
the bright greens and blues
could be simultaneously
inviting and unsettling.
"That's yours, you know,"
Tony said behind him.
Bruce squeaked and
almost jumped out of his skin.
"What -- why --" he stammered.
"I bought it for you," Tony said.
"It reminded me of you,
and Betty too."
Bruce looked again
at the painting of a girl
dipping her toes in a jade river
while riding a ghostly snake
through a nameless jungle.
All right, maybe he could
see Betty in there after all.
"Thanks," Bruce said,
an unfamiliar smile
tugging at his lips.
"I think I like it."
