Tony barely glanced up, but it was enough to see that Bruce looked like shit. Very early the next morning – earlier than most humans in their right mind would even consider being awake and dressed, but then it had been years since Tony bothered with such pedestrian concepts as normal hours and sleep patterns - Bruce found Tony sitting at his kitchen table sipping a coffee and swiping news articles on his tablet, looking for all the world like he always visited Bruce at dawn. He settled back into his pillows, but it was a very long time before he began to doze. ‘Just let me know if I need to worry about the structure of my building, okay?’ He pinched the screen, shrinking it to tablet-size. Bruce had better reasons than most to want to keep his weaknesses private, and Tony understood that painfully well. ‘No,’ Tony said quickly, ‘No, he’s not in any danger right now.’ Much as he wanted to, he knew Bruce well enough to realise that if he went butting in right now he’d probably just scare him away. Tony couldn’t help but notice the way he was trembling. After a few seconds he relaxed, letting his shoulders sag, and sank his forehead down to his knees. The projection showed him scramble to a sitting position, breathing heavily and eyes darting around like he expected enemies to jump out at any moment. Tony was jerked back to the present by Bruce’s shout. On the screen Banner curled into a foetal position, a single word wrenching itself from him. The sounds of Bruce’s nightmare flooded Tony’s bedroom his breathing was hard and ragged and god, was that whimpering? Tony wondered if that was what he looked like on the nights when he.
#PERSONAL NIGHTMARE TONY SKIN#
He’d half kicked off his sheets and even in night vision Tony could see the sweat that covered the bare skin of his torso. Tony could see why Jarvis was concerned Bruce was thrashing like a wild animal in a net. Jarvis pulled up a screen of Bruce’s bedroom. In this case though, he thought it was probably okay to use his viewing privileges. Admittedly, Bruce had only moved into the apartment five days ago, but he still thought the self-control was admirable. Tony had been very, very good about abiding by that caveat. Tony wasn’t in the habit of spying on his friends in the middle of the night, but Bruce had agreed that he could access a vid feed of his apartment in case of emergency. Jarvis was programmed to put the protocol into effect at the slightest tinge of green, so the situation couldn’t be too dire yet. Activating security protocol 29 would cause foot-thick titanium alloy plates to cover the windows, wall, floor and ceiling in a matter of seconds, theoretically making the room hulk-proof - but no one had ever really had the chance to thoroughly study the true extent of hulk’s strength, and Banner had vetoed Tony’s suggestions that perhaps they should do the research, y’know, for science. Naturally, when he’d designed Bruce’s floor it had seemed prudent to build in a few extra features in fact Bruce had insisted on personally looking over the security as a condition of his accepting the apartment. Immediately Tony was bolt upright, all thoughts of sleep and tingly dreams forgotten. Security protocol number 29 might be in order.’ ‘There is a disturbance in Dr Banner’s room, sir. ‘What? I swear to god J, this had better be important.’ He’d only gone to bed an hour ago and he’d been in the middle of a really good dream.
Tony checked the time, groaned and rolled over in the king-size bed, burying his head under a pillow. ‘Sir, I believe your attention is required.’ Until Tony was woken at 2:46 am by the insistent voice of his AI. So with many mumbled thanks Bruce moved into his new apartment right below Tony’s penthouse and everything was going swimmingly. It was a low blow that gnawed at Tony’s conscience, but it convinced Bruce to stay, and Tony figured he’d make it up to him with an endless supply of exciting new lab toys and funky-smelling tea.īesides, having Bruce under his roof was the only sure-fire way that Tony could make sure his new friend was ok. The card that won was Tony pointing out that if Bruce lived in Avengers tower he would be easy to contact if SHIELD needed his help, and maybe knocking down a few bad guys might help ease the guilt of all Hulk’s former smashing.
It had taken all of Tony’s persuasive skills Bruce seemed chemically unable to do anything just to be happy. But four weeks later, both his and Bruce’s floors had been completed and Bruce had, under duress, agreed to move in at least semi-permanently. At first Tony had put him up in one of the guest suites on the lower floors, blessedly undamaged despite the best efforts of the chitauri and… well, Bruce. The first time, Tony only knew because Jarvis woke him.īruce had been at the tower for a month.
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