Chapter Text
Cooper Square
There’s a wall covered in pictures on the recreation floor for Stark Residency. The scanned print of clipped articles, juicy tidbits from anonymous sources pulled off blogs. Tony’s been away long enough that some of them are a ridiculous surprise, pictures from angles Tony would consider most unflattering, maybe even embarrassing if he knew shame. As it is, the only real part that’s actually embarrassing is the name the Americans chose to run their tumultuous romance under.
“’Brucerony?’” He’d asked the first time Pepper had shown him the wall, proof they’d been keeping an eye on Tony’s exploits. “What are we, the San Francisco treat?”
“To be fair, I feel like they’d probably call us the ‘San Francisco Treat’ if the American press had gone with ‘Science Boyfriends.’ I don’t even do your science,” Bruce said, blushing. Pepper had smiled at him, kissed them both on the cheek as a welcome back, and promptly excused herself for that adventure into Brooklyn with Rhodey.
“You could do my science,” Tony turned to Bruce, eyebrows waggling. “You are smarter than I am.”
“Oh yeah? Says who?”
“Wikipedia, mostly. Scientific American couldn’t verify, so we ended up in a very, very attractive tie. Trust me, nobody I’d rather be tied up with,” Tony’s voice lowers as he creeps a little closer, slides an arm around Bruce’s hip. “Not a bad haul for your first media tour, if I do say so myself.”
“Not my first ‘media tour,’ just the first time it didn’t come with a body count,” Bruce said.
Even with the pictures of Rhodey and Pepper and Steve getting caught on camera with chintzy headlines and false rumors of romance-of-the-week’s between Natasha, Jane, Darcy and Clint, the wall of tabloids still makes Bruce blush every time he walks down toward the Hulk’s playspace. Tony shrugs, and thinks that the fact that Bruce can walk and blush at the same time while the Hulk’s begging for some time in the spotlight is likely progress.
Tony knows he’s all about the season-long whirlwind romances, especially when the long term seems so excruciating, like he’s setting himself up to fail. He’s not, though. Not this time. Not with Bruce, who is ever shifting and evolving, with adventure in his eyes no matter the color and passion in his hands no matter what they hold. So it’ll work, Tony thinks, it works even when they can’t break themselves away from projects, from clean rooms and foundries, and stockholder meetings or Helicarrier appearances. It’s the hunger, how it ebbs and flows into them, cleans all the places that rot inside them for too long.
The summer heat has broken in Manhattan, and they’ve descended into another too-hot fall. Tony can feel it in his reactor, in the expansion of the metal underneath his skin as it aches, deep. He thinks the winter will be colder than anyone expects, and he can’t wait for the chorus of ‘where’s your global warming now’ he’ll hear as he rubs elbows for the arc reactor’s clean energy in rooms full of nonbelievers over the holidays.
Bruce left for another mission three days ago. Tony makes sure his interns are well fed and his lab assistants are properly watered. He also runs himself ragged, arranging a concert of resources so like the one that produced the Mach II, bits and pieces under cover of inventor’s secrecy. This is smaller, and Tony knows the dimensions are correct, the grip perfect.
He watches from afar as robotic arms from the metal shops slowly hack away at the metal and polymers, assemble the pieces and wield them together carefully, each work tempered and seated in its own holster, wrapped delicately in black velvet, slowly lowered into the bamboo box it had taken Tony three assistants and two personal shoppers to find. The box waits on Tony’s mantle.
Tony wakes up in the middle of the night. The room is pitch black, the sheets and Tony’s shirt blocking the reactor’s light. Someone’s in the bed with him. He knows that heat from anywhere.
“Back so soon?” Tony says.
“You could be dreaming,” Bruce whispers.
“If I were dreaming, you’d probably be tied up on my desk and donning a particularly well-envisioned mad scientist costume,” Tony smiles as the back of Bruce’s hand unrolls against Tony’s. The touch induces shivers. “Trust me, I’ve thought about this one a lot: You’d look spectacular in an empire bodice and you’re just grey enough to pass for the 1800s.”
“You’re already bored enough with me to suggest steampunk?” Bruce jokes. “I must be doing several things wrong, clearly. Should be rectified.”
“Immediately,” Tony agrees, lazily. “There might have been a cravat involved.”
“I don’t think I want to know.”
“You sure? We might have the time if I tell JARVIS to—“
Bruce’s body slides up against his, “We don’t have the time. I will sedate you again if I have to, don’t think I won’t.”
“I can never tell if you’re serious about that, but I want you to know that I really am happy you mentioned it to me. So I could steel myself this time,” Tony says, matter of factly. “But if you sedate me you don’t get anything. And I’ll be angry. Won’t like me when I’m--”
“I didn’t come for sex, Tony,” Bruce says, softly. “I came because I wanted to be with you.”
“I meant I have something to give you. A present. Something I’ve been working on,” Tony says, as he shrugs free from bed, walks out to the living room to grab the box. He leans against the doorsill. “JARVIS, lift the shades for a bit? Twenty minutes?”
“Of course, sir.”
The light pollution of a foggy Manhattan night streams into the room and Tony aches in the silence as Bruce rolls himself up to sitting. He places the box in front of Bruce, and then slides under the sheets once more, wrapping around Bruce’s back, dragging his mouth softly against the sweat on Bruce’s shoulder.
“Tony, if it includes a pocket watch or extraneous buttons I’m really not in the mood,” Bruce warns, but he slides the cover back, peels back the velvet, and lifts the first gun from its holster. He holds it carefully in both of his hands, cradles it. “Stark Industries never made handguns before.”
“Nope,” Tony says, softly. “Never. These are an extremely limited edition.”
Bruce flicks his fingers against the grip, lines the gun up in his sight and exhales. It fits his hand so well, his finger stroking the trigger. Tony unwraps and pushes the other into Bruce’s free hand.
“They only fit to you, they’re coded to recharge off your radiation levels, and you can change the level of electricity or radiation that gets fired. There’s a compartment for Shield’s bullets in the grip, you just have to flick the safety in the other direction and they’ll fire those, too.” Tony continues. His hands curl around the bottom half of Bruce’s wrists, and he curls his fingers around the underside of the gun, his hand stretching to surround Bruce’s, his thumb stroking the back of Bruce’s. “They only fire for you. They’re silent, they discharge next to nothing. They’ll absorb your fingerprints and there’s little to no recoil. And most important of all, they won’t fire at you.”
“Did that feel good?” Bruce asks softly as Tony’s fingers trace up Bruce’s arms, studying the swell of each muscle as it pops under Bruce’s skin. “Did it feel good to tell me that?”
“A little,” Tony says. “Like getting back on the horse again, I’ll admit.”
“Making the rain,” Bruce murmurs.
“Making the guns you bring to all those knife fights, is more like it,” Tony returns. “Would it help if I told you it sort of filled the darkness, a bit?”
“A little. I know you want to help any way you can,” Bruce nods. “Thank you. You don’t know what these mean.”
“They scare you a little, don’t they?” Tony asks. He wraps his hands around the bare trunk of Bruce’s body, burrowing deeper into the smell of him.
“No more than loving you does,” Bruce says. Tony presses his mouth to the nape of Bruce’s neck and they sit like that for a long time, breathing together, letting words sit unspoken.
The shades begin to lower once more, and the New York night recedes. Bruce slides the guns back into their holsters, back into their velvet, back into their box with a sense of reverence, of ritual and turns into Tony’s arms after he slides the box to the bedstead.
“Sarò solo un arma nel vostro arsenale,” Tony whispers and Bruce reaches out, hooks a thumb under Tony’s chin, and kisses so deep Tony feels like he’s drowning, like Bruce is showing him his whole galaxy in the chaste, slow slide of his tongue.
“I don’t deserve you, Stark,” Bruce replies. “Not at all.”
“You know, I’ll just point out now that it would be totally appropriate to show your gratitude in sexual favors,” Tony grins.
“You’ll have to take a rain check, I’m afraid,” Bruce says. “There isn’t enough time.”
“Why you always gotta leave me, McAdams?” Tony asks. “Alternatively, is there any way I could get that rain check to specify a date and time, so we can have a hot date and even hotter sex and maybe grab some late night tea rolls and talk presidential politics with your girl crush? You know I can make it happen if we just coordinate…”
Bruce lays behind him, slides in close, aligns the curves of his body with Tony’s until they’re together head to toe. Bruce holds him as if he’s holding a lotus flower, a pint glass in Amsterdam, a chocolate truffle in Monte Carlo. Like he’s strong, and yet under the right circumstances Tony will melt away.
“You won’t be here when I wake up,” Tony says, the realization bitter in his throat, “will you?”
“No, Tony. I won’t.” Bruce says, softly. “Not when you wake up tomorrow. And probably not the next day either.”
“Oh,” for a moment, there’s a feeling of nothing but angst, hatred, self-pity and Tony’s hands reach down to wind fingers into Bruce’s. “Be safe?”
“I’ll be home soon,” Bruce continues. “Trust me.”
“With my life, Pistachio.” Tony says as he yawns and curls in and reluctantly falls asleep.
In the morning, the bed’s empty. The box is gone. All that remains of Bruce is the smell of his soap on the sheets and his phone pressed into Tony’s palm. Tony’s customary first coffee of the day is hot and resting on the little conveyor bot Tony built especially for the purpose.
“JARVIS,” Tony says as he rolls over, nuzzles in for one final smell of Bruce’s shampoo. “Have the linens changed today, synch Banner’s phone, copy all his playlists to my profile and then replace all his music with whatever you can find with dolphins, scan the Aston for engine bay dimensions so we can use it to replace the car that flushed out, and let Ms. Lewis know that she can find me in the Green staff commissary.”
“An impressive list, sir,” JARVIS’ soft voice filters through the bedroom speakers. “I only hope Doctor Banner enjoys a good practical joke as much as you do.”
“Well, no better way to confirm a thesis than to test it, don’t you think?” Tony throws the sheets off himself, gets up and pads into the closet.
He’ll climb a little higher up that mountain, today.