starkingenuity | Radioactive

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Tony presses a finger to his lips and gives Bruce a 'shh'ing sort of command before he opens the door to Pepper's room. The place is lined in monitors and recording equipment but otherwise, he's done his best to make it comfortable for her even if she refuses to come back to their actual bed two floors up. If she thinks herself a danger, she's just as likely to burn the place down from here as she is from beside him but...

He's not going to give her any more fuel for the panic fire, pun intended.

Tony lets Bruce in first and follows after. "Pep? Honey? Guess who's here?"

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Stopping pointedly, Tony gives Bruce a look. "Knock off the shit and come upstairs. If you wanna go after that, it's fine."

"But it's your bed, with Pepper! I.. I don't belong there." He actually steps back once under the weight of that look. I don't belong between you two.

Tony tilts his head to the side and frowns at Bruce. "I'm not going to molest you. If JARVIS is reading from my personal journal entries again, I just want you to know that it's healthy to have those sorts of dreams about people you're close with."

Bruce's brain processes those words, but they don't make sense. He just stares at Tony for a long few seconds, then carefully puts down the tray on the counter before he drops it. Only then, deceptively calmly, does he say, "what?"

"What?" He just shrugs and smiles. Playing it off as nothing? Making the whole thing up? It's just like Choose Your Own Adventure, Banner.

"Tony," not Stark, not right now, "I don't know what game you're playing right now, but I don't like being played with." Because he had been played with more than enough in his life.

"I'm just asking you to spend time with us," Tony says, not sure what to make of the way that Bruce is look at him. "If you would rather play mad scientist, you can." He's sorry he's made you uncomfortable. He's just not going to verbally apologize.

"...and Pepper is okay with that?" Bruce's confused puppy look comes out with those words. Don't Tony and Pepper want some proper time together, now that things were... Better between them?

Better doesn't mean fixed. Fixed can't happen right away and Tony is not just going to follow her into the shower like he use to. She'll spook. And that's the last thing he could possibly want, okay? And...maybe Tony has some issues too with not being able to separate some things. He never quite gets why it's good to spend time with one person exclusively. Banner's important to him. He loves Pepper. Seems good to spend time with them both, right?

"I don't see why not."

Bruce shifts, his mind pointedly forgetting anything about 'those' kinds of dreams for the sake of his sanity. Tony was just pushing him, for sure. "...if you're sure," Bruce murmurs, regathering the tray. "Get the drinks?"

Tony does a lot of pushing but not always a lot of lying. "Pep went to brush her teeth," Tony says, following Bruce up the winding stairs to his bedroom. He forgets to mention the whole 'get scantily clad while you do so' comment from earlier. "Breakfast A La Banner has arrived!"

Tony Stark, you are damn lucky she didn’t go put on some kind of lingerie. She is, however, stripped down to sports bra and yoga pants, as requested. She appears in the door, teeth nice and brushed and – yup. Half dressed.

“Great. Hi, Bruce. Welcome back.” She half expected this, honestly.

Bruce shakes his head and puts the tray down on the table in the room, still feeling awkward but a little less so. At least he wasn't tucked up in bed with them. Talk about awkward! "I hope it's fairly edible. I tend to cook in the range of just barely not fast food."

Until Bruce turns around and sees Pepper in a sports bra and tight pants. He blinks, then looks away with spots of pink flushing his cheeks. "Excuse me, Ms. Potts."

Now it'd awkward!

This Ms. Potts stuff is for the birds! And she's completely covered! Girls at the gym wear less. Girls on the beach wear less! Bruce's mannerisms are noted and filed away for exploitation later. He puts the pitcher down on the table in the corner of the room and makes himself a plate.

"JARVIS, lights up." But shades down. New York still makes him queasy.

No kidding.

"Pepper, please. Ms. Potts is so formal." Especially these days.

She slides around the table and peers at the breakfast, reaching to make a plate as well as helping herself to one of those mimosas.

"Have a seat, Bruce. Have breakfast with us." See? She's gracious and is very politely sharing Tony.

"Sorry," Bruce says quietly as he sits down at the table, not bothering with the mimosa as it will do nothing for him and instead just having orange juice. "How are you feeling this morning?" To both of them. He has a feeling it was one of the better night sleeps in a while.

Tony shrugs, sniffing at the toast before e butters it. He has a strange way of sitting in the chair, pouring himself into it, and drapes over the side. There's a yawn.

As much as he likes being shared, and he does, really, they need to discuss Pepper. And her treatment. Preferably with Pepper in attendance. There's always a method to Stark madness.

"Just fine. So we got working on the temperature gauge watch. It's sporty, stylish, and can take a lot of fire damage."

"Pretty well. I haven't slept the whole night through in ages."

For various reasons. Fear she'd burn the place down, nightmares, etc. A variety of things, really.

"...Did you take my favorite Fossil apart, Tony?"

Staying right out of that argument. "That should help you get more nights of better sleep, which is a good start," he says calmly after swallowing a mouthful of eggs. "I'll spend today going over your new and old genes and attempt to match what has been changed. It'll take time; I'm only one man."

"Um. Not your favorite," Tony mentions and has himself some of the mimosa. "And you're two men. Well, three. Four. I probably make up five men with my brain power and JARVIS will help. So, seven men, you, JARVIS, all of me."

"My second favorite," she amends, still giving him a slightly bemused look. "So long as it works."

She's sure it will. She's just glad she didn't see what he had to do to get it to work.

Glancing between them, Pepper polishes off the mimosa and pours herself a glass of regular orange juice, then focuses on Bruce.

"What's the likelihood of me getting completely back to normal? No extremis, period?"

Bruce put down his fork, silent as he turns those odds over. He taps a finger before sighing. "I cannot promise anything, Ms-- Pepper." He corrects himself quickly.

"It depends on what this virus choses to do. It's still within you - I can't change that. It may fight back hard as we try to get rid of it."

It's...pretty...bad...to hope that the answer is no, right? There's something about Extremis. Something he can't get away from. Something he needs to perfect himself. Not at Pepper's expense, of course not.

He studies Bruce for several very, very long moments.

"We'll make it stable," he replies. "Guarantee that."

You sure about that Tony?

"If...you can stabilize it..." Pepper starts slowly, as she tries to wrap her mind around what had happened to her and that the very core of her DNA was changed. IT's a hard thing to accept.

"Then...that's a start."

"We will," Bruce agrees with Tony, giving the other man a nod. "We can stabilize it. I won't promise the world, because you're a grown woman and can accept the truth, but I will give you that much. I believe we can stabilize it." He shoveled another forkful of eggs and toast in, eating clearly for only the substance right now.

He looks to Tony over his fork, however. "I might need better equipment than we've got on premises, however." Tony is an engineer, way less in the field of the biological even with his tendrils extending into the implants beneath his skin.

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