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Bruce still flinches when he's not fully aware that someone is going to touch him. The eight green flecks in each of his eyes -and they know that for a fact because Clint had counted through the window one day, sitting with Hank and Tasha in the thick grass across the yard from the mansion- expand until all the brown is gone and all that's left in the world is fear and that makes Tony angry.
The fury feels like fire in his chest, intensified by smooth metal plating that vibrates with his heartbeat. For three days he feels nothing else, curled into a large chair between bed and chirping machines, eyes drawn to the thin purpled skin stretched tight over cheek bones and clavicles and ribs. The shadows beneath his eyes are pale green and he seems caught in a perpetual nightmare.
Tony knows what that's like but he also doesn't because his torment lasted a handful of hours -carved into his memory with sharp scalpels and a small electric saw his father had built specially for cracking and cutting into his only child's chest and pain and screaming and the wet sound of ribs snapping and Howard Stark choking on his own blood- not months spent as a starving lab rat being pumped full of chemicals and fucking king cobra venom and acid.
He wakes with a shuddered whimper and Tony is already babbling away, telling him all about the mansion and the labs and pretending he doesn't notice when a few tears roll down his cheeks. It's the fourth time he's woken this way and Tony hurts, aches somewhere between muscle and steelironsilverpalladium and imagines killing General Ross slowly, pulling the fillings from his teeth, twisting the pins pressed close to long-since healed bones, stopping the lifeblood from moving in his veins.
When Bruce looks at him like he knows , can see the scenes playing in his mind like Charles -and they'll be talking about that later if Tony lets the man catch him- with no trace of anger on his face or in his eyes, only shimmering emerald shards and understanding and longing for so many things, Tony breathes deep and fetches the tray of food he's been keeping warm on his own bed across the room.
And if his alloy heart starts to vibrate for a whole different reason when Bruce manages a smile and curls weak fingers through his own and lets him feed him, well. That's Tony's business and Charles will just give him that aching little smile and won't mention it.