#tm2023

No response.

“Okay, maybe this is more your speed?” A finger snap swapped the music instantly to Metallica, Suicide and Redemption, which Tony thought was a really clever touch. 

Across the room, Bruce looked at the ceiling but didn’t comment.

Tony tipped his head to the side. It was possible that someone with the side effect of turning into a green monster when he was angry might not go for heavy metal while working, but that was why he’d had JARVIS set up to ask Bruce to pick his own. Ahh, well. He’d planned for that, too.

This particular lab had one of the best speaker systems money could buy, and Tony had commissioned a buddy of his to record a version of Pachelbel’s Canon to take advantage of that.

He waited to pull the trigger on that till Bruce was doing something less important like scribbling into his notebook.

“Okay I get it. You’re not into that kind of music. I’ve got you covered, my friend,” Tony said, snapping his fingers one last time.

The loudness of the beginning notes made some of the glass beakers shiver against each other, and Bruce actually jumped in surprise, his pencil scratching a long line across the notebook page.

“Tony, what the hell are you trying to--” Bruce took off his watch, tucked away his glasses. “I thought you invited me here because you wanted to collaborate, and I am happy to see that you’re able to work in tandem silence. But I gotta say, it really seems like you want me to--” He stopped, hands at his fists turning distinctly non-flesh colored.

“Shit, Bruce, I’m sorry. I got excited,” Tony said, hating that his instinct was to make sure he had a readily-available suit of armor to don for future lab visits. If there were going to be any. Today’s was clearly over, because Bruce was already heading for the door.

“I didn’t make clear how important this was to me,” Banner said through gritted teeth as he walked past. His ears were actually green.

“So, no music then?” Tony said, in a desperate bid for levity.

“No music.”

The bleak, double-toned resonance behind those two words had Tony feeling like shit for the rest of the day, even though Bruce hadn’t even slammed the door.

(2)

It took some delicate e-mailing and three days for Bruce to come back to the lab, and two more days after that for Tony to join him.

He was prepared, this time. Tony wore a suit. He put those CSI booties over his shoes, wore sunglasses to obscure his expression, and he stuck a hand-sized whiteboard into a holster on his belt, for communication. Everything that Tony Stark could do to mitigate how being himself might set off his new science buddy, he’d do, because this was really important to him, too.

When he walked in on that fifth day and Bruce looked up, the way his confused expression turned into giggles told Tony he’d done something right.

“Okay, see, now that’s funny. Go take all that off and join me? I need three hands, and you’re one of them.”

(3)

Even when Tony was the most happy, there was always something at the very back of his mind that worried about what could go wrong. Here, the thing that could go the most wrong was Bruce feeling like he wasn’t safe to stay and be Tony’s very best science buddy ever. Bruce had made him promise to come up with some contingency plans for containing the Hulk, and they were in progress, but not all fully implemented yet.

That was why at two in the morning after a stretch of eight hours in the lab, Tony went for containment overkill when he heard a slicing noise followed by a sound of pain from Bruce.

“JARVIS, isolate the lab. Be ready to cut power if necessary. Bruce?”

“Tony, please tell me that doesn’t include the internet?” Banner sounded upset, but not upset upset, so that was a good sign.

“Whatever you need, you let me know, okay?”

“I need you to stop it with this hair trigger!” Bruce came around from behind some machines to hold up two pieces of a mechanical belt that had been sheared in half. “I promise you, I have a handle on myself.” He scratched his head, looking like a cross between a kindergarten teacher wearing a scientist’s costume and a student that just got in trouble. “It’s starting to feel like you don’t trust me with your stuff.”

“Shit. I didn’t think of it that way,” Tony winced. “I definitely trust you. You’re the Phthalo Green Giant, I swear.”

Bruce’s eyebrows furrowed, and Tony grinned, pulling out the whiteboard he still wore in its holster for shits and giggles. On it, he wrote: p h t HALO.

“You said you quit drinking alcohol?” Bruce asked.

Confused, Tony nodded.

“Maybe start that back up?” There was a hint of a smile in his voice.

(4)

Working with Bruce was like having a lab partner who didn’t actually hate you, who could keep up, and even better: had better ideas than you did sometimes. It was a dream come true.

All the more reason to learn how not to screw it up.

“So, do you have any guidelines on how I can avoid the Large of the Light Brigade?”

Bruce had been sipping his tea, apparently, and the sucked-in laugh at Tony’s awful pun caused him to cough violently.

“Shit,” Tony said, unsure of whether he should also laugh, or start running. He quickly grabbed a paper towel, small garbage can, and a broom, and approached cautiously with all three of them outstretched. “Pick one?”

“Am I supposed to hit you with the broom?” Banner’s voice was scratchy, but he didn’t sound upset.

“I figured, you know, either barf or get out the aggression before it becomes a problem.”

“Tony, I mean this in the nicest way, but you seem to be the only one out of the two of us with a problem. I’m not going to Hulk out if my tea goes down the wrong way.”

“In my defense, that’s why I was asking the smart-ass question in the first place!”

Bruce sighed and turned back toward his workspace, but the edge of his lab coat knocked down his tea cup, which shattered. Bruce was faced away, and he just dropped his head in silent defeat for a few seconds.

Tony set down the garbage can sideways, anchored it with one foot, and swept the broken pieces into it. The paper towel wasn’t quite enough to get all the tea, but it was close.

“There, all set. As penance, can I get you the mug I saw online the other day? It had the Hulk wrapped in the American flag and the words ‘Star Spangled Banner.’”

“Never change, Tony,” Bruce said in a strangled sort of voice.

“I mean, I will if I need to, that’s why I asked.”

Bruce turned around, a strangely tender expression on his face. “You don’t, but uh…” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, looking as though he were at a loss for words. “I’ll see what I can come up with.”

(4)

Bruce had clearly gotten a satirist from The Onion to write his list. It had stuff like ‘don’t fire a gun at me’ and ‘don’t wake me up with a bucket of cold water and an air horn.’ All things that would make Tony Hulk out if he had the capability.

They were working on a piece of Chitauri tech that he’d talked the government into letting him examine. When Tony walked into the lab, Bruce looked like he’d already been working for hours.

“I see you got the list,” he said with a shy smile, his face lit up by the purple glow of the device in his hand.

“Yeah, either that, or I got a kindergartener’s list of pranks! I thought you said you were always angry.”

Bruce was about to answer when Tony got an idea, holding up a finger and crossing the room to grab one of his early armored gauntlet prototypes. It still had actual wiring to connect to the power source, instead of the surface to surface transfer technology he’d come up with since then.

“You’re planning to… what? Jam those leads into this thing?” Bruce held up the glowing pod.

“Sure, why not?”

“I just gave you a list of why not!”

“So I’ll put on the suit, and you can go hide in my office instead of being a Guinea Big!”

Bruce took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes with his forefinger and thumb. “How long have you been holding onto that one?”

“You don’t want to know,” Tony grinned.

(5)

The best way to fight back against the ridiculousness of Bruce’s List, in Tony’s opinion, was to print out an extra copy of it and pin the damned thing on the wall. As with any sort of sticky note or wall sign, though, it didn’t take long for the List to fade into the scenery for Tony, where he didn’t really notice it anymore. That was until he saw it was different, one morning.

There were three new lines.

Do not set your coffee cup down on my notes

Turn off all power to equipment you are not using, so you do not electrocute anyone

RELAX. You’re my friend

Tony almost got emotional.

Bruce could have gotten upset, could have told him about the first two, but he didn’t, probably because of the third. That was on Tony.

He resolved to do better.

(oops)

“Tony.”

Immediately, Tony knew there was a problem. There was a depth to Bruce’s tone that wasn’t usually there, a recognizable depth.

“You’re right, I’m sorry. It’s too dangerous. I’ll just--”

“Damnit, it’s too late!”

Bruce was right; the current was overloading, and since Tony had just been trying something out, something that wasn’t meant to conduct that well, he’d skipped past some of the safety shit. Except instead of risking his eyesight by looking away without his safety goggles, he’d risked his whole life by without having a safe, grounded place to stand.

“JARVIS, kill the power!” As he spoke, Tony pulled the Fe-Hulk bracelets out of his pocket and clasped one to Bruce’s wrist, grabbing at the other with the desperation of someone who knew his plan would work. He’d built Bruce’s version of the protective suit in secret, because Bruce Banner was the kind of friend who would make you promise not to do something like that if he found out about it.

If he was protected by something other than his angry alter-ego, Bruce Banner shouldn’t feel unsafe enough to need to.

“Get down-- no, what are you--”

The rest of Bruce’s words were unintelligible, as large arcs of current started bowing out from the device. Tony was thrown sideways before he could get the other bracelet on. The last thing he saw before he passed out was an angry green blur.

Tony woke up in a hospital bed, which was just insulting. He was rich enough for someone to have called in all the medical people on site, wasn’t he? Was there footage of him being gurneyed somewhere while unconscious? How the hell had Pepper allowed this to--

“Tony?” It was Bruce, standing at the window.

“How bad is it?” Tony whispered.

“You have a concussion and a broken arm. Looks like about twenty thousand dollars of damage to the lab, but you’re alive, so--”

“No, the-- really?” Tony scowled and it hurt, which was new. “I mean, how much groveling do I need to do to keep you around! Do you have a suitcase hiding in the bathroom? Smart of you to run off while I’m damaged and incapable of following you, but you should remember I can fly.”

“You’re-- That’s what you’re worried about? Not the fact that I hurt you?”

“I don’t remember anything like that.” Bruce walked over, his brows furrowed, but Tony kept going. “In fact, I remember my best friend doing something he absolutely hates so he could crouch over me like a protective green lightning rod. Oh, wow, I really do have a concussion. That was terrible. I can do better, hold on.”

“Tony--”

“Hulk Norris!” He grinned up at Bruce, who was doing his level best to look cross, and completely failing. “That’s a thank you, by the way.”

“I gathered,” Bruce said. He looked down at the bed, hand fiddling with the adjustable side like he wasn’t sure he could stand to make eye contact. “Best friend?”

“You bet your big green ass,” Tony said, immediately frowning. “Shit, I’m off my game.”

“Keep that up and I’ll put nicknames on the List.”

Tony gasped, clutching his chest in actual horror. “You wouldn’t.”

“Yeah, I suppose that wouldn’t be Ferrous.”

“I thought you had healing factor! That pun is clearly the result of brain damage,” Tony declared, unable to look at Bruce for fear of giving away how pleased he was that his lab screw-up hadn’t driven him away. He raised his voice, calling toward the closed room door. “Nurse! Nurse, this man needs a check-up right now.”

It was a few days before Tony was cleared for lab work, and even then, it was more lab clean-up than anything else. In truth, the Hulk hadn’t actually created too much chaos. It was all in the center of the room, meaning that the equipment itself was damaged, but none of the structural elements. Tony used the suit to help him lift and deconstruct what was left, but once he’d gotten most of it, he walked over to the far wall, where the List usually was.

There, added right to the bottom of the ‘Things That Make Bruce Hulk Out’ was a new entry:

Not valuing your life as much as I do.