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"Doing all right, buddy?" Tony said first thing when Bruce had got the chat set up on the super-secure computer in the Barton's den.
"Yeah," said Bruce. "You?"
Tony looked okay, maybe even okayer than usual. No dark circles, no wayward stubble. His eyes were a bit worried, but they were bright, and they changed as he looked Bruce over through the datastream.
Tony shrugged. "Could be better," he answered. "I've got this... thing I need your help with, if you're not too busy babysitting."
Bruce looked down at the baby in the sling across his chest. He could never quite forget how much responsibility was implicit in that, how much trust Laura and Clint had to have in his ability to control the Hulk. But he was getting used to it, to the point where he didn't spare much attention for Nate when he was in the sling.
"Nate's asleep for the night, he probably won't need anything," Bruce replied. "It's just... nice, having someone so close. He's so calm when he's sleeping."
"Right," Tony replied to that, his eyes widening a little before rolling. "Not my thing, but hey, good for you. I'll take FRIDAY. Little less cuddly, little more understanding-abstract-concepts."
"So she's doing better at that?" Bruce asked, flipping open the folder of project files that Tony had just sent and talking absently as he skimmed them.
"Growing up fast," Tony agreed, and Bruce could hear the fondness in his voice characteristic of good parents. He knew it well, now. Tony wasn't fooling anyone with his disdain for young beings. "Still a little rocky in the personality expression protocols, but catching onto the Stark Industries work J was doing really quick. She's a great little AI."
"I'll get there, Boss," the gently Irish-accented voice said from the background. "It'd probably help to have more interaction with people other than you."
"Smartass," Tony responded with a smile, and balled up and threw one of his holograms to some point offscreen.
"Evening, FRIDAY," Bruce greeted. "Tony taking care of himself?"
"More or less, Dr. Banner," the AI replied. "Certainly better than my records from most of JARVIS's run."
Bruce caught Tony's little flinch at the reminder of how much JARVIS had done for him, how close they had been by the end.
"I miss him too," Bruce said softly.
"Yeah, yeah. Are we gonna work, or what?" Tony shot back.
"I'm working," Bruce said, sending over the notations he'd made on Tony's equations. "I'm just multitasking." Then he took pity on Tony and started throwing ideas his way, as the engineer went over the data he'd sent.
A couple of hours later they'd put that project aside and started throwing out some hypothetical ideas for how Wanda's powers might work.
"Love to get her in a lab," Tony was saying. "The Serum is one thing, but that? Don't get it, don't like it. Need to know more."
"You do not get to talk about her like you're studying some lab rat," Bruce half-growled, but mindful of his volume as the small body shifted against his chest.
"Hey, hey, okay," Tony said, holding his hands up on surrender. "I know that's not okay. Just a joke. Kinda thought you didn't like her that much."
"I don't," Bruce insisted. "But it's not okay for anyone. And... Clint does like her. He's got a... way of knowing when someone's going to come down on his side in the end. He's been trying to convince me that she deserves some forgiveness."
Tony frowned at him. "You know, just because you're staying over doesn't mean you have to jump when he says jump."
Laughter erupted from Bruce, and he put a hand up to stifle it as best he could. When he recovered a bit, he gave Tony a look. "Really?" he said. "Do you even get the irony of you telling me that?"
Tony cringed a bit, then looked off to the side. "Yeah, okay, so I'm an asshole," he said eventually. "But you know that. And you know you can push back, right? All I'm saying is, don't let anybody do that. Don't let anybody steamroll you without pushing back."
"I won't," Bruce said, quiet but strong, looking at Tony's face on the screen gratefully.
"Well, good," Tony said, looking just slightly flustered. "So, hey, I've also got this other thing that I could maybe use your eyes on. Could just email, I know, but while I've got you here...."
They were engrossed in discussion of the Mind Gem's structure and what could be taken from it relatively safely and what couldn't, when Bruce heard a soft noise behind him. He turned to see Lila lurking in the doorway, eyes huge and fingers gripping the molding hard.
"Hey, baby girl," he said, holding out an arm, and she came rushing to his side, burying her face in his shoulder. Bruce wrapped her tight in his arm, making sure she didn't disturb Nate in his sling. "Couldn't sleep?" he asked her, stroking her hair.
"Had a bad dream," she mumbled into his shoulder. "Was gonna go wake Mommy but I saw a light on."
"Well," said Bruce, "if you go put on the kettle, I can put Nate in his crib and then I'll have a lap for you and we can drink tea."
"Can you? You're not too busy?"
"Tony and I already finished what we got online to talk about. I'm up a little later than I meant to be, actually. But I would love to have tea with you." He kissed the top of her head.
She smiled sleepily and went to the kitchen to put on the kettle.
"You really have gone domestic, haven't you," Tony commented, raising his eyebrows.
"Yeah, I have," said Bruce, smiling. He began to stand. "Listen, I'll go set this one down and then I'll be back to say goodnight."
"Hey, do what you gotta do," agreed Tony, turning to look at some of the AI projections they'd (very cautiously) put together.
Bruce tucked Nathaniel in and came to the kitchen just in time to pour the tea, then he left it to steep and scooped Lila up onto his hip before heading back to the den. "I've got to say good night to Tony," he told her, and shifted her onto his lap as he sat down in front of the computer again.
"Is that math?" Lila asked, staring at the code and algorithms scrolling by in a window that mirrored one Tony was looking at.
"Some of it is," Bruce answered. "Some of it's programming. Did you know that computers talk to themselves and each other in a special kind of language meant just for them? A lot of those symbols are used for computer languages."
"Teaching the next generation of super spies, huh?" Tony asked.
Lila crinkled up her nose. "I don't think I wanna be a spy. I think it makes Aunt Nat sad sometimes." Her eyes were glued to the code, though, drinking it in.
Bruce pulled her close. "Aunt Nat," he told her, "is sad for a lot of reasons that wouldn't apply to you. When she was your age, she was already a spy. She didn't have a choice about it. You... you can be whatever you want to be."
Lila leaned into his chest. "Why are you sad?" she asked.
Bruce sighed into her hair. "It's complicated," he told her. "But I also wish I'd grown up in a place like this with a family like yours, and not where I did."
"But you're here now."
"Yes, and it makes me very happy. But remembering the past is hard sometimes." He squeezed her a bit. "I'll go get our tea, okay, and when we finish it, we should both try and get some sleep."
"Okay," she agreed. "What are these?" she asked, pointing to a symbol with the mouse, which mirrored on Tony's screen.
"Curly brackets?" Tony responded. "They tell the computer when things start and stop...."
Bruce could hear them chattering away as he got the tea ready and sweetened, and when he came back, he said, "Okay, it's time to say good night to Tony."
Lila pouted. "But I wanna learn how to talk to computers."
"Some other day, okay?" He ruffled her hair. "Good night, Tony," he said. "Talk to you later, okay?"
Tony had a little bit of a pout going on too, but he waved and said, "Night, Bruce. Night, short stuff."
"Good night, Uncle Tony."
Tony's eyes widened a bit, but then he smirked, and waved a hand to cut the connection.
"Uncle Tony, huh?" Bruce asked as he shut down the computer.
"Aunt Nat is Aunt Nat because she's Daddy's best friend," Lila explained readily, taking hold of Bruce's hand as they started into the living room with their teacups. "Uncle Tony is your best friend, right?"
"Yeah, but..." Bruce contemplated that as he settled into a spot on the couch. "I'm not exactly your father."
Lila gave him a look as she snuggled against him and then turned attention to her tea, sipping it placidly.
She had a point, Bruce thought. He was here a little more often than Clint, and the kids came to him with everything now, just as if he was their parent.
He sighed a little. "Close enough, I guess," he agreed, and kissed the top of her head.
She smiled, and her eyes were already beginning to droop with the warmth and the comfort of Bruce's lap and her tea.