Work Text:
It was five thirty-seven in the morning on a warm Wednesday in June. Stark Tower was silent, save for the quiet noises of Bruce working alone in his lab. If he had looked outside, he would have seen clear skies and the sun barely peaking over the horizon. As it was, he stared down into the lens of his microscope and watched his cells break apart and reform, taken over by green.
He was humming quietly to himself. Despite the early hour, he was relatively chipper. He wasn’t really looking at his blood for any reason, just for something to do while he chased the idea of sleep. He was just starting to move to snatch up a beaker when it hit him.
It rolled over him like a bucket of ice water, sending shivers down his spine and goose bumps peaking on the back of his neck. He went from calm and cool to inexplicably nervous. It was the feeling of a pebble in your shoe, the tense in your shoulders when you’re being watched, and the freeze in your heart when you lost sight of your friend in an unfamiliar place.
He glanced towards the door of his lab suddenly, his fugitive experience quickly taking over. He felt his adrenaline spike and his heart beat faster as he was hit with the sudden urge to flee. But there was no one there. No other person in the lab, no one hunting him. No one would dare hunt him in Stark Tower. He didn’t know what to make of the feeling.
“Jarvis,” Bruce said. “Is anything…amiss?”
Jarvis was silent for a long moment. It set Bruce’s teeth on edge even further. He clutched the beaker in his hand more tightly.
“I am unable to say,” Jarvis said eventually. “However, you may be interested in an impromptu meeting being held in the main lounge.”
Bruce nodded a little to himself, turning the AI’s words over in his head. “All right,” he said finally, moving towards the door. “Thank you, Jarvis.”
He rode the elevator in silence with himself. He was so caught up in the intense wrong feeling he had that he didn’t realize he’d slipped back into his old habits. In particular, his habit of stepping quietly. He snuck into the lounge noiselessly, each footfall less than a whisper on the ground.
The two assassins and a super solider normally would have heard him enter, despite his sneaking, but they were a bit preoccupied. He could see them bent with their heads together over a datapad.
“Main systems are located here and here,” Steve said, pointing at the pad with one hand as Clint and Natasha nodded along. “Widow, you and I will deactivate them. Hawkeye, you’ll be here.” He pointed again. “Watching for signs of trouble and taking out the stationed guards. If all goes well, we should have Iron Man out before anyone knows he’s gone.”
“Tony is missing?”
The three of them whipped around to look at Bruce. Steve’s eyes were comically wide, Clint’s jaw was set in a hard line, and Natasha looked as calm and collected as always. Bruce shifted from one foot to the other, suddenly acutely aware of the fact that he’d forgotten to put on his shoes. Not exactly proper lab safety, but he always felt more comfortable that way. Now, he felt underdressed. They were all suited up in various shades of purple, black, and red-white-and-blue.
“Bruce,” Steve said first, his wide eyes softening slightly. “We didn’t want to bother you.”
“So he is missing.” Bruce slipped the rest of the way into the room, quiet as a shadow. He noticed Natasha eyeing his movements with practiced precision. “You weren’t going to tell me?”
“We only just found out ourselves,” Steve explained carefully. “We were hoping to get him back without the Hulk.”
Bruce winced. He wanted to say that he was worth more to them than just the Hulk, but he wasn’t sure that was true. Instead, he said, “Was he taken?”
“By an unknown force,” Clint said, glancing askance at Steve. “We don’t have much time; intel says they’re going to move him off base within six hours.”
“Right.” Bruce slipped his hand over his wrist and rubbed at the soft skin there. “I’ll just…get out of your hair. Let me know if I can help.”
“We will,” Steve said warmly.
He left them planning in the lounge.
He went back to the lab, further from sleep than ever before. He still had that prickly feeling on the back of his neck. He tried to get back to work, spinning the knob of his microscope absently as his eyes unfocused. It suddenly felt…wrong, somehow.
He and Tony didn’t share a lab—when you had ten floors of R&D, you made room for your science bro. But Tony would often invade his lab at inopportune times to demand assistance with his latest suit upgrade, or an update on what Bruce was working on, or simply that they order pizza. Knowing that he wouldn’t bust in without a moment’s notice set Bruce’s teeth on edge.
Tony was a constant, subtle presence in his life. He could go upstairs and sit down for a movie with the man whenever he desired. Chat about his latest DNA projections when the mood struck him. Discuss new Iron Man paint jobs, designs, and fail safes whenever he required. Even when Tony was gone—halfway around the world for a board meeting, down the street for a guilty-pleasure iced coffee—he was never really gone. He would text Bruce and snap pictures to send him. He would save up stories, and Bruce would save his own, and they would share when Tony returned.
But now Tony was missing. And Bruce was…alone.
He’d been staring at the same blurry image of blood for the past twenty minutes. He blinked hazily at it before leaning back, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. He tried to place the feeling in his chest, comparing it to all the other emotions he’d felt in his life. Sort of empty. Like there was a space for a smile and gentle laughter. Like the feeling you got when your best friend hadn’t come around in a while.
Mostly, Bruce just felt sad.
He glanced up at the nearest camera. “Jarvis?”
“Yes, Dr. Banner?”
He worried his lower lip some more and wrung his hands together. He glanced away from the camera like he was averting his eyes. “Does their plan sound like a good one?”
Jarvis paused, almost thoughtful. “I believe that they are capable of rescuing Sir, yes,” he said. “However, the thought of being unable to assist leaves me distressed.”
Bruce felt his mouth twist into a somber grin. “Distressed,” he echoed. “I know that feeling.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair. He could almost feel Jarvis still listening, like he was waiting for Bruce to continue. “Is there something we can do?”
Jarvis seemed contemplative when he spoke. “When Sir feels unable to fix a problem, he often goes to his lab for inspiration. Perhaps you could also find inspiration there?”
“In Tony’s lab?” Bruce asked, slightly surprised. “I can’t enter without his permission.”
“On the contrary, Dr. Banner,” Jarvis said. “Sir has given you full permission to enter his lab at any time.”
“R-really?” Bruce was a little surprised. But he clearly wasn’t getting anything done here, and so he pushed himself away from the lab bench and headed towards the door.
This time when he rode the elevator in silence, he almost felt like Jarvis was there with him. Machine or not, Jarvis was a nervous presence over his shoulder. Bruce tapped his fingers against one another until the elevator doors opened and he stepped into Tony’s lab.
He hadn’t been here in a while, and his eyes widened a little at the sight. The Iron Man suits were really starting to stack up. Literally, in the case of the pile of gauntlets in one corner. They were all right-handed gauntlets. Some looked broken, others merely the wrong shape, perhaps the wrong color. Tony had discarded them all haphazardly.
Bruce felt himself drawn forward to the dismantled chest-piece in the center of the room. It hung on several wires, the space for the arc reactor a dull void. He reached out to touch it, remembering how sleek this model was. The Mark fifteen, he thought. Or perhaps the sixteen.
“The other Avengers plan to use stealth to infiltrate the base,” Jarvis said over the speakers, completely unprompted. Or perhaps he had been waiting for Bruce to touch something in the lab.
Bruce listened absently as he traced the shape of the metal shoulder with his forefinger. “That’s never really been Tony’s style,” he commented.
“Nor yours, Dr. Banner.”
Bruce froze, frowning at his reflection in the cherry-red paint. “What are you saying?”
“I unfortunately do not have accurate measurements of your physique, Dr. Banner,” Jarvis said immediately. “However, I believe that the Mark 1B on the far left side of the lab will fit you best.”
Bruce tore his hand away from the suit in front of him like he’d been burned. He twisted his head around to stare incredulously at the nearest camera. If he wasn’t mistaken, Jarvis’ silence felt almost gloating. When Jarvis didn’t continue, he forced himself to look at the suit he had indicated.
It was a little purple number, thin at the waist and hips and broader in the shoulders than Tony’s other suits. Bruce could see only a handful of missile ports, and instead of repulsors in the hands there were tiny green disks. His feet carried him unbidden across the lab to the suit’s storage locker, and Jarvis had it open for him before he arrived.
“There’s no arc reactor,” he noted as he approached.
“Indeed,” Jarvis said, definitely gloating. “Sir seemed interested in harnessing naturally—or unnaturally, as the case may be—occurring gamma energy.”
He ran his hand over the metal and shook his head. “You can’t be serious.”
“Quite, Dr. Banner.”
Bruce was hit with the sudden thought that this was wrong. This suit was clearly meant for him—measurements be damned—but Tony was not here to present it. Tony was gone, holed up against his will by people doing who-knows-what to him. They could be picking his brain right now, torturing him for information. The thought made Bruce’s blood boil, and Hulk pressed against the inside of his skin.
He shook it off and stepped into the suit.
It opened for him like lotus petals and closed around him like a warm hug. Jarvis had been right—it didn’t fit quite right. It was maybe an inch too tall, although the boot size was perfect. Perhaps Tony had gone off his SHIELD file measurements, which listed his height before radiation had sapped the calcium from his bones and destroyed his cartilage.
The helmet closed over his head in interlocking sections, tight together but so flexible that Bruce knew he could mold it into any shape he so desired. He realized, dimly, that the helmet was likely designed that way to accommodate him if he let the Other Guy out. It would reshape itself accordingly.
The HUD sprang to life before his eyes, and Jarvis chimed pleasantly in his ear. “Fully interfaced,” he said. “Welcome, Dr. Banner.”
It still felt strange. Completely wrong. This wasn’t who he was, not really. He was the guy who stayed in the lab and looked at skin samples. But then, he was also the guy who turned into an enormous green rage monster when he got upset. So, maybe he could be the guy who wore a suit of purple armor and rescued his best friend without stealth.
“Walk me through it, please, Jarvis.”
“These readouts indicate suit stress, battle position, and weapon status,” Jarvis said, flashing each indicator more brightly as he spoke. “The suit automatically tracks your movements and will aide you in walking. Raise your right hand, palm out, as you have seen Sir do.”
Bruce obeyed, mimicking the firing position he’d seen Tony enter many times before. His HUD interface lit up, and he saw a thin green disk of energy appear before his hand. He blinked. “Are these my shield emitters?” He laughed. “I have seen these things in years.”
“Yes,” Jarvis said. “Sir has refined your initial design and made it sustainable for long periods. You may also throw the disks.” A little image of a computer-simulation throwing the disk like a Frisbee appeared on his screen. “Like so.”
Bruce felt a little heady. “This is all untested?”
“Sir often says that the best test is a field test.”
“Okay.” Bruce felt himself smiling a little, perfectly able to picture Tony saying exactly that. “Can I, uh, fly?”
“Of course. I would be happy to assist you on your first flight.”
Bruce gulped. He steeled himself. He took a step out of the suit locker and felt the suit pinch uncomfortably around his knees from where he lacked in height. He bit his lip and looked around the HUD, trying to tell himself this was a bad idea.
But the prickly-feeling on the back of his neck was gone. And that was really all the incentive he needed.
“Show me.”
It was probably a bad idea, but as his stomach dropped out and he felt the rush of adrenaline from flight, Bruce found he didn’t care. He had Tony’s bad habit of testing new science out on himself, and it was a habit he’d never been able to break.
Flying was just exhilarating.
Although Bruce couldn’t feel the wind in his hair, he could see the ground rushing by below. He could sense the strange weightlessness of being cradled by the suit as it transported him across the country.
Steve, Natasha, and Clint had taken the quinjet already, but Jarvis informed him that Bruce would arrive first and that it had “slipped his memory” to inform the rest of the team of Bruce’s suiting up. He estimated they had about thirty minutes to infiltrate the base and do whatever needed to be done.
Jarvis threw a map of the compound up on the screen. Bruce scanned it briefly and chose an unpopulated corner to land in.
“Land” was perhaps a misnomer. “Crash” would have been more appropriate.
He slammed into the side of a building and bounced off, green shields scattering wildly around him as Jarvis tried to correct his horrible landing. Jarvis spoke calmly in his ear and managed to straighten him enough not to snap his neck as he skidded into a wall in a tangle of metal-clad limbs.
He started to mentally count his heartbeats, but a little counter appeared in the bottom corner of the HUD that showed him below Hulk-out range. He smiled blearily at the numbers.
“Okay,” he wheezed “Landing needs a little work.”
“I will inform Sir,” Jarvis said dryly.
A shot rang out, a bullet glancing off his shoulder. Bruce tensed and his heartbeat counter shot to 185 and gave a little beep. His HUD lit up with hostile forces, and he got the chance to test his shields.
They really were just like his old shields—the ones he had invented in a basement in Portugal his first year on the run. He’d thought they would protect him from enemies, but they had really just fallen into the wrong hands one-too-many-times. He’d eventually scrapped the project, and he’d thought he’d destroyed all of the prototypes. Only the most persistent of people would be able to find even a hint of his shields.
As he smacked one shield-weighted fist into a guard, he was glad Tony Stark was so persistent.
He knocked out the handful of guards and ran through the base, not willing to risk flying again. The suit carried him further and faster than he could normally have run, but it clanked loudly with each footfall. “Bit noisy,” he commented.
“Perhaps a little stealth would be acceptable. I will make a note for the Mark 2B.”
Jarvis had his back as he moved through the base, updating the map with little red pinpricks to indicate foes, and an ever-glowing gold light to show where Tony was thought to be. Bruce listened closely to the AI, still a little unsettled in his ill-fitting suit, but gradually growing used to it.
“I must say,” Jarvis said as Bruce took out an electronic door with his shielded fist. “It is a different experience to work with someone who listens to my suggestions.”
Bruce laughed.
There were four more doors to get through, two dozen guards to knock out, and a long winding hallway. Each step lifted the levity from Bruce’s shoulders and replaced it with dread. As he drew closer to the gold light on his indicator he felt more and more nervous. He tried to wring his metal-clad hands together and succeeded only in scratching the paint on his fingers.
Then he pushed open the final door and all hell broke loose.
He had a second to throw up a shield to block the semi-automatic fire. His heart rate skyrocketed again, peaking at 193 before slowly inching back down. Each gun shot was a burning memory, and echo of roaring green, as he waded into the room.
He threw out two shields and swept through the guards in their heavy black body armor. Some went flying. Others fell. He blocked their answering shots.
Bruce felt strangely safe in his suit as he scanned the HUD for Tony. He was a sardine in a can: trapped, but protected from outside elements. Snug and sound inside metal.
Then he saw Tony and he came up short.
Tony was just…standing there, with his hands on his hips observing the chaos. There was one guard holding onto his elbow with a panicked look that stood in contrast to Tony’s amused smile. The guard and Tony both watched as Bruce threw the final enemy across the room.
“I totally surrender!” the guard said as Bruce rounded on him, green shields whirring to life. He threw his gun on the ground and raised his hands.
Bruce frowned, and something must have come through in his posture because Tony said, “He’s cool, Big Guy. He’s been telling me about his acting aspirations.” He clapped the man on the shoulder. “I think you should go for it. You’ve got ‘evil henchman’ down pat. They always say act what you know.”
“Seriously?” Bruce rocked back on his heels. “Don’t tell me I came all this way for nothing.”
“Oh, I definitely need rescuing.” Tony stepped into his space and laced arms with him, tugging Bruce out the door and leaving the quaking guard in their wake. “Or at least, a flight home. How was that, anyway? Never got a chance to test how gamma would affect flight.”
“Flying was fine. Landing, less so,” Bruce said absently. “Although that may have been me.”
Tony smirked chatted aimlessly at him, and Bruce took out the straggler guards, as they exited the base. It was quaint and nice, and took the growing weight off of Bruce’s shoulders. It was good to hear Tony’s voice.
When they arrived, it was just in time to see the quinjet landing. The team had apparently forgone stealth in favor of investigating the smoking pile of wreckage where Bruce had failed to land. Steve rolled out of the jet and had his shield out in a flash, casting dangerous-blue eyes on Bruce.
“Whoa, wait!” Bruce raised his hands just as Jarvis folded back his helmet to reveal his face. “Just me.”
Steve frowned at him, and then glared at Tony. His look said you’re a bad influence, Mr. Stark. “Are you all right, Tony?” he asked.
“Peachy, thanks to Brucie here.” He patted Bruce on his metal shoulder. “But I could use a ride home.”
“Me too,” Bruce said sheepishly. He ducked his head to hide his eyes. Jarvis helpfully closed his faceplate again, and he felt better. He understood, now, what Tony always wore his suit when he felt unsafe.
“All right,” Steve said carefully, like he was still trying to convince himself to believe what was happening. “Hop in.”
They loaded up, and it was easier then. Clint gave him an impressed look from his place at the helm. Natasha arched one perfect eyebrow at him. Steve just shook his head and sat down, clearly resigned to the absurdity of his life.
Tony, for his part, pulled out a screwdriver and began tinkering with the boot of Bruce’s suit. “I think I can fix the landing stabilizers by the time we’re airborne. We can push you out the back and see if they work.”
Bruce watched him from behind the screen, smiling absently to himself. “It’s a little long in the legs, too. Can you fix that?”
Tony glanced up at him, his smile unhidden. “No problem, Big Guy. Whatever you need.”
The skies were clear and the day was warm as Bruce watched his heart rate on the monitor and hummed quietly to himself while Tony worked.