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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"I'm serious, what I told her." Bruce sits down, rubbing his brow slowly. Tony, you have no idea what being touch-starved really is. "I'm guessing you thought the watch idea was a good one, then?"

He looks down at his own watch, thinking about that he started needing the heart monitor again. It woke him when he was having nightmares.

Tony has gotten use to getting a touch whenever he wants, Banner. You've had awhile to deal with your loneliness. It's not the same. He knows that. He knows that very well.

But tony is also a very selfish man. And he's his own most important person. Right after Pepper.

"Great idea. Want me to tune up yours too?"

He could probably use another nap.

"My watch is in good working order," Bruce informs Tony, taking in Tony with a glance before informing him, "and you aren't. Go back upstairs and try and get some sleep. Please, for Pepper's sake."

Tony's eyes narrow and he gazes up at Bruce as if he has three heads. "I'm actually all set on my nightmare quota. And Pep needs this, I'll be done in a few hours."

"Pepper's lived without that watch for some time now, but if you start to develop psychosis and mental instability," already there, in Bruce's opinion, "from a severe lack of sleep, what good does that do for her? Your brain works better on some decent sleep, and-" he thinks quickly, "I'll stay by you. If I see any sign of a nightmare, I'll wake you."

Bruce, Bruce, Bruce. "Another few hours isn't going to cause me to develop psychosis!" He promises! Cross his heart, hope to-- But that look... "Fine. I don't need you to watch me sleep. Little creepy, Banner."

Bruce just raises a pointed brow at Tony. "Says the man who asked me to sleep with him. I plan to get some work done while you sleep, and I'll be there next to you. I assumed, considering your request, that was a pretty fair alternative."

Trying to work with you and your decided psychosis, Tony.

"Oh, well if you make it sound dirty--" As long as they can joke, there's really no danger in Tony losing face. Not that Bruce judges him. He'd really just rather help Pepper out here. A glance towards Bruce and Tony is out of his seat, metal down on the workbench. "C'mon then, slugger. Let's get cozy."

"And you wonder why those incisions weren't healing," Bruce mumbles to himself, remembering a little flicker of Tony's words. Something about an incision.

He follows Tony back up to the bedroom and holds up a hand. "Get into clean clothes. You'll sleep better."

"Thanks, Dad." He doesn't look at Bruce. The mention of the incisions-- Okay, keep it cool, Stark. Bruce has to find out sometime if you want him to help with the rest.

He gets changed in the bathroom, a pair of soft gray sleeping pants and a black tank top accompanying him into bed. One that Pepper has not been in in...too long. Tony doesn't like this room any more. Nothing particularly bad happened here, but he can still hear the glass break when he closes his eyes.

It's about this point Bruce notices something he probably should have already. In fact, he looks down right confused for a moment before getting up and actually walking to meet Tony before he sits down, and outright, but lightly, pokes him in the chest.

No glass. No arc reactor.

"Do we need to have a talk about personal space?" Tony asks, eyes still closed as Bruce presses his fingers against the scar tissue under the bandage in his chest. It doesn't hurt anymore, surgery had been kind to him. One more and he'll look good as three years ago too. Ah, plastic surgery!

"...it's gone?" Bruce says with no small surprise, surprised just as much at how clean the scar tissue feels. No hole, no dip. Implant to support the bone? Well Tony could afford the best...

"You really did sleep through it all," Tony huffs, eyes opening as he rolls over to hike up his shirt. "Go ahead, you can take the bandage off. Mostly keep it on because I'm use to covering up the reactor through dress shirts."

" I told you to let me get some sleep," Bruce says yet again, still feeling guilty. "I can't wire myself up with caffeine like you do." Still he does gently remove the bandage, warm fingers brushing skin, and studies the scar tissues.

Tony really could afford the best because the work was very, very well done. "I'll take it the surgery to remove everything was a success..."

"Shrapnel, reactor, reactor casing, all the rest. Got the organs back where they should be...so yeah." But he's gotten use to it. Having it removed doesn't make it better. Weird sentiment? He knows. It can't be helped.

"They did an excellent job," Bruce says quietly, his palm spreading over the scar before looking up at Tony. He doesn't mean for it all to be as close as it ends up being. "How does it feel?"

It's okay, Banner. Tony's too tired to make any more comments on the matter of your touchiness. His eyes close again. It reminds him of his nurse rubbing vaporub on his chest when he was sick. A comforting sort of feeling, that. "Feels like I can walk through metal detectors again."

"Really, the great Tony Stark got put through metal detectors?" Bruce shifts back, watching Tony. Then, an idea. He gestures for Tony to get comfortable and sits down beside him, then like he would a sick child in his clinic, slowly starts to rub Tony's chest.

Yes, this is a great idea, but probably one that you should mention. Verbally. Because to Tony it feels a little bit like... Well, like you're trying to feel him up. Given what he knows about Bruce, that's not at all in his game plan, but the gesture is still an odd one. Tony's eyes slit open and he watches Bruce for a moment to be sure he's not some scary...weird...thing. Nope. Just Banner trying to be helpful.

"It's for a good cause. Besides, I do usually pack weapons. Got a reputation. You should see me in the armo-- Well, should have I guess. Too late now. You missed all the shows."

"You decided to announce to the world where your home was while a madman was looking for you. I think you do have a bit of a reputation." Bruce removes his glasses awkwardly and sets them to the side, hand moving slowly. "...what do you mean, should have?"

"I enacted Clean Slate," he says, eyes having drifted shut already because it just feels nice okay? "Blew up the armor. All of the armors. Not much of a choice."

Tony probably already told him this, didn't he? Bruce's hand slows but doesn't stop as he thinks it through. Everything's changed for Tony, hasn't it? Clean Slate... Meaning that not only had Tony planned that some day it would need to happen. The other being that Tony is armorless. No more Iron Man... "Why did you chose to do it?" He murmurs, knowing Tony is falling asleep. Good.

"Faulty planning on my part," Tony says. "Locked their attack HUDs on the energy readouts of Extremis and... Well, I guess I could have taken the time to have JARVIS talk em down from firing on Pep, but it was just... She hates them." There, easiest thing to say. "And they were holding me back."

Bruce isn't a fool; he can read between the lines. Tony destroyed his armory, all of his armors, for Pepper. If that isn't love, Bruce doesn't know what is. His fingertips unconscious ring around the edge of the scar. "So that's it. The end of Iron Man..."

But a little part of him wonders if that's true. If Tony can really give it up entirely. If one suit didn't escape Clean Slate on purpose.

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