Alcohol.
That was the first thing he tried after trying to find a way to cure Bruce.
If he couldn’t get a cure, the next best thing was a temporary block on the Hulk.
When Tony introduced the idea to Bruce, though, Bruce refused. So much so, that he left the room and declined the need to talk to Tony for the rest of the day.
But Bruce didn’t protest whatsoever when, weeks later, he spiked Bruce’s tea. And just put Bruce’s favourite green tea into the cup to make it taste like tea. Sure, there was loads of sugar in it, but Tony never made Bruce tea. So it’s not like he would know how much sugar to put in it. “That’s how I drink my tea, when I rarely have it,” he pouted at Bruce when his lips quirked to the side in distaste, though he drank the tea down for Tony, seeing as the billionaire could have the puppy-dog look on for the longest time. And Bruce hated that look. Tony knew it, too.
But, only hours later, after one simple cup of mainly vodka, Bruce had run to the bathroom from the lab and hurled the contents of his stomach into the toilet. Tony guessed he hadn’t had any real liquor prior to that day.
He was a beer man, he’d said once before.
Tony decided to ignore that piece of information while scheming to spike his drink.
Bruce was sick the rest of the night, rolling around on the bed in the room Tony so graciously supplied to him. Tony watched over him all that night and took care of him, rubbing his back when he heaved into the toilet, and coaxing him away from the porcelain fixture when the heaving ran dry and he was panting from the work.
Bruce just thought that it was the Thai food they ate for dinner that upset his stomach; he had no reason to question his best friend, or the first real cup of tea he made, though he knew something could have gone wrong.
He didn’t question it, though.
He didn’t want to break Tony’s little heart by accusing him of poisoning his tea if he really didn’t do anything and it was the food. He couldn’t stand to see his friend in any negative state.
Tony felt bad about it a few hours later, when he decided to spend the night in Bruce’s room to watch over him, when he saw how Bruce’s body reacted to the alcohol. He felt so horrible. And to think spiking people’s drinks was easy in high school and college.
It was awhile until Tony got rid of the guilt of that night, and the morning after. Bruce felt horrible physically, and Tony mentally. He just wanted to help his best friend, anyway.
But Tony was reminded of how he acted when he was in school still, and remembered how he felt oh-so relaxed and happy no matter what the times he smoked pot. God, he had the best times. But he waited a long time to actually bring up the idea.
Bruce was busy reading and Tony creeped up on him by silently sneaking up from the lab and grabbing the doctor’s shoulders quickly from behind the couch. It was fun scaring Bruce, just seeing how he flinched, jumping five feet into the air.
“Jesus, Tony…” he groaned and sighed, looking up at Tony, tilting his head back. “What?” Bruce asked, vaguely annoyed. He was reading a book about atomic structures, and he was only getting to the good part.
Tony moved his hands to lean on the back of the couch, an elbow resting on the cushioned part of the piece of furniture. “So, I was thinking, I might have found a temporary cure for the Big Guy…” he mumbled, and when that caught Bruce’s attention, he inquired more, Tony’s lips quirked to one side, knowing Bruce would probably protest the idea, like the alcohol. “We could get you high.” He stated simply, smirking.
Bruce paused before sighing deeply and just going back to reading with an easy, “no.”
Tony groaned and hopped over the back of the couch to sit next to Bruce, when Bruce wiggled away slightly. “C’mon, I’ll d it with you, in a secluded room. Nobody will ever know except you, me, and JARVIS. And he isn’t going to tell anyone. I just want to see how you’d react to it, if the Big Guy would be sedated enough.”
Bruce grimaced at the growling in his head from the Hulk’s reaction at the words and shook his head silently. He’d tried it once before, in high school, but that was before the job he’d taken in New Mexico. He hadn’t tried it since, and he was essentially afraid, especially after what he expected the Hulk to do if he did try it, now with the Hulk knowing of Tony’s plan.
The Hulk didn’t like being sedated. Whatsoever.
But, it wasn’t long before Tony lied to Bruce when he made Bruce’s favourite cookies, saying that Pepper made them, knowing that the cookies were drugged. He lied to Bruce, and yeah, it was wrong and he knew it, but it was necessary; he wanted to find a way for Bruce to rid himself of the Hulk for awhile so that Bruce could get a bit of normality back to his life.
The normality he knew Bruce wanted back.
When Tony showed Bruce the cookies, he said he didn’t like Chocolate cookies. “Chocolate Chip are good, but not fudge like these.” He shrugged, trying to get Bruce the idea that they were all his or they were the trash’s.
Bruce had bitten his lip and frowned. Tony was a bad liar, clearly, it was clear that Pepper hadn’t made them unless she came to their part of the tower just to make cookies Tony didn’t like.
Especially cookies Tony didn’t like.
Tony was up to something, and Bruce knew it, much to Tony’s oblivious content. But he trusted Tony. That was the main point. He trusted the billionaire. So, he took one off of the cookie pan, and took a bite.
Not too soon later, Bruce had eaten a few of the cookies, almost as if addicted to its taste, and laughing next to Tony uncontrollably. Bruce had eaten most of the cookies, and Tony only a few, even after claiming that they weren’t his type of cookies, not that Bruce would notice in the drugged state he was in. They were watching online videos of cats, and Bruce laughed at each one. Eventually, Bruce was simply complaining about how he never had a cat, and the only pet he had his father got rid of in an angry fit. He missed the dog dearly and wanted him back. That was the gist of the indistinct blubbering that came from Bruce’s lips. The conversation – more like a drug-influenced monologue – just gushed from cats to dogs, to parrots, to books, to atoms, to things Tony couldn’t even keep track of anymore, when Bruce started to lean up against him and slur things about being cold.
Tony didn’t realize it at first, but Bruce had been staring at him for quite some time with hazy, half-lidded, liquid chocolate eyes. He hadn’t noticed until he set the rum he was drinking down and looked to see Bruce almost leaning over him with that expression. His eyebrows raised in surprise when he saw the doctor’s tongue flick out to wet his lips in a seductive, lazy manner, that honestly made Tony wonder if he was gay for his best friend, in his drunken and drugged state. It was especially difficult to even think when Bruce crawled over his lap to straddle him a bit.
“Tony, I’ve been telling you that I’m cold for awhile and you’ve been completely ignoring that…” he whined, and pouted, dragging the tip of his nose against Tony’s jaw.
“You don’t seem cold,” Tony quietly responded, and he couldn’t stop the words from flying off of his tongue and out into the conversation when he said, “You look rather hot to me, instead…” and Tony felt heat rising to his cheeks as he took a drink from the bottle of rum nervously.
He was much more sober than Bruce at this point, but he couldn’t control what he was saying. “…If you really are cold, though, why don’t you make it warmer?” he mumbled, and he felt Bruce smirk against his neck before the doctor’s hips decided to move, pushing into Tony’s slowly and rocking like that for a moment, eliciting a low moan from Tony.
Tony didn’t mean it, even when he felt his cock stir at the dirty words that began to pour from Bruce’s lips, and the slight rocking movement that Bruce hadn’t stopped against his own hips did nothing to help. His cock was already getting harder and harder by this point, and he’d almost felt guilty about this. Coming to the drunken conclusion that he might be at least bisexual, Tony went with it, obviously because he had a boner and Bruce was just making it worse.
But he finally worked up the courage, when one of Bruce’s hands let go of his dark brown, chaotic tresses and slowly began travelling southbound, to stop him, and push him away with the lame excuse of, “I need more liquor.”
Bruce was taken to his room in Tony’s arms that night, and no sexual harm was done – excluding how painful it had gotten for Tony to keep his trousers on – and Bruce had forgotten and passed out on Tony’s shoulder to a movie he eagerly turned on to distract him.
Well, he figured, drugs, as they may hold back the Hulk, might not be the best idea.
Tony had laid Bruce down in his bed, covering him up after slipping the passed out man’s shoes off, setting them at the foot of his bed. He paused when Bruce was fast asleep and out of his arms, looking at the doctor with his face pushed into the pillow tiredly, little bitty snored coming from between his parted lips.
Bruce was so cute, Tony had to admit, and immediately regretted it, though it was clear that Bruce had turned him on a bit. And that was certain, for sure, if you looked down at Tony’s trousers. The genius quickly exited, hurrying out of Bruce’s room and having JARVIS turn the lights off as he went to his own room, but he didn’t go to bed. Obviously. He stripped and went for the bathroom, hurrying in and turning on the water to jerk off a bit.
So.. He was kind of gay, was that bad?
Bruce made his way down to the lab floor of the Stark Tower, long after the cookie incident, looking for something to entertain himself with, like possibly a chemistry or physics book to read or interesting test-tube liquids to play with, he paused when he saw Tony slumped over onto the table. He moved closer to investigate, running his fingers through his friend’s hair curiously. The past few weeks had felt different to him, like he was closer to Tony than before… yet farther away from him... But he couldn’t pinpoint why.
Tony didn’t stir at the touch to his hair, not even when Bruce repeated the action several times.
Bruce frowned and grabbed Tony’s arms to move them away, finding the man dead asleep, breathing slowly and steadily through his nose.
Bruce just chuckled to himself and told JARVIS to dim the lights for Tony, though it obviously wasn’t necessary.
It had been a few hours and Bruce was still in the lab, playing with different chemicals and reading different things at the same time. Tony still hadn’t woken. By near the third hour, Bruce began to worry. He moved over and tried waking Tony, calling his name, shaking him, moving him. The only response he got from Tony was a garbled sound when he was forced to sit upright with Bruce shaking his shoulder, followed by Tony slumping back to the table.
Bruce checked his heart rate, and it was barely there. So, he freaked out. Just a little.
And by freaking out, he went and got Thor and Steve.
“He is simply in a deep slumber!” was Thor’s explanation.
Steve didn’t know what to think. He had the three of them try to wake him up together. It almost worked; Tony’s eyes opened to slits and shut tightly again after wiggling out of their arms.
Steve huffed, swearing up and down that Tony muttered a curse at him, and he knew Tony was fine. The blondes departed, and just left Bruce there to read a book next to Tony worriedly, though not much reading got done.
Bruce didn’t remember much of the day of the cookie incident, other than sleeping, and just brushed it off as being very tired; he must’ve turned in early. But then, he began to wonder. What if something else did happen?
Tony eventually woke up, starving from not eating since breakfast. Though, as soon as he woke, Bruce was pestering him with questions and almost demanding to have Tony get some tests done to see if he was okay.
But Tony was okay.
And that’s what was okay about it, Tony knew it. Tony knew he had used himself as a guinea pig, for Bruce.
That’s what Bruce didn’t know.
Tony had Bruce in the lab with him this time.
“Do you want tea?”
“Sure.”
And Tony made the tea for Bruce, doing as the man instructed with only a half teaspoon of sugar.
But he added a serum to the tea, with his back turned from Bruce. He had the little test tube hidden up his sleeve, and carefully slipped it out to pour its contents into the tea. When he brought the cup to Bruce as the man read, Bruce simply thanked him and waited, continuing to read.
It took him awhile, but he eventually took a sip. His nose scrunched up a bit and he leaned his book on his lap, looking at the tea with confused eyes, Tony missing every movement due to being so drawn into the Arc reactor model that the translucent computer screen displayed. “Tony,” didn’t even pull him away. He just hummed in response.
“What did you put in this?”
That’s what drew the engineer’s attention away. “Nothing.” He shrugged as he looked at Bruce. “C6H12O6 and H2O. And tea leaves.”
A sigh came from Bruce’s lips. “Tony. Really.”
Tony shrugged, and grimaced when Bruce set the cup down and pressed for more information. “I’m not drinking it, not until you tell me. It’s too bitter to be my tea, Tony.”
The engineer groaned after a long moment of silence and frowned. “It’s something I made. For you. Just for you, Bruce.”
With only a little more explanation, he convinced Bruce to drink it all before he told him that the reason he was asleep so deeply with near to no heart beat was because of what he out in the tea. He made it to calm Bruce’s heart rate exponentially. Any normal person would sleep if that happened, but he was sure Bruce wouldn’t.
The doctor began to panic slightly, until Tony moved his chair closer to wrap an arm around his shoulders, trying to soothe him. “Watch, Bruce, in an hour, you’ll be fine, in two, you’ll be more than fine.” He promised, and, true to his word, that’s what happened.
Bruce was so relaxed then, it wasn’t funny. They had migrated back to Tony’s personal floor, where both their rooms were located, and they’d settled at the kitchen table.
Tony chose to sit on the table rather than what Bruce chose, to sit in a bland chair. Bruce was so calm and relaxed that he didn’t care that much after Tony told him that he had spiked his tea with vodka the first time and drugged the cookies.
He even, after a long time, confessed to what happened on the night he gave Bruce the drugged cookies. After Bruce asked why he used himself as a guinea pig rather than someone else. Or why he lied.
“It was all because I kind of.. Y’know.. Care about you, bro..” he’d mumbled, looking at the bottle of rum he’d gotten for himself. “I know you don’t like him, and I want to help get you a temporary cure since there isn’t a permanent one.”
Bruce, at these words, knew the Hulk would have at least growled, but not a sound other than his own thoughts could be detected. The Hulk was quiet. Or Tony’s serum worked.
He liked to think the latter.
The answer surprised Bruce, though. They were friends, the two, but Bruce always helped Tony; Tony didn’t dare try helping anyone but himself. That’s why it seemed odd to him.
After a bit of fumbling around with his words, Bruce caught what he’d said when it was too late, “I care about you too.”
Tony’s smile could have lit up the room, the entire tower, if he’d not tried to press his lips together. “..Yeah?”
Bruce nodded a little, shyly. “Yeah, Tony…” he paused and glanced up at him from under his lashes, fiddling with the bottle top on the Coke can. “..A lot.”
That’s when things changed.
Tony got a burst of confidence and set the rum down, slipping off the table’s edge to pull Bruce up into a big hug. “..You’re the best, Bruce…” he’d mumbled into the physicist’s shoulder. “I thought you’d freak out..”
Bruce held him in the hug as best as he could without dropping the soda he held altogether, a tight, warm hug that brought butterflies to his stomach, as cliché as that sounds. “No, Tony. I really do care about you. More than you know,” he breathed, his nose brushing at Tony’s neck softly.
They stayed like that for a moment, both comfortable just in each other’s arms, neither feeling awkward or out of place, until Tony decided to pull away just a bit, looking at Bruce for a moment, and moving one hand to brush at the curls near his brow, his chocolate eyes locked on Bruce’s darker ones before hesitantly pulling away, he turned to grab the bottle of rum, and taking a big swig, leaving Bruce standing there, confused with no physical contact.
When Tony pulled his mouth from the bottle, though, Bruce’s eyebrows were set determinedly over his eyes as a hand flew to one side of Tony’s neck to pull his face a bit closer, kissing his cheek, near the corner of his mouth.
Really horrible aim, Bruce, he thought.
Tony’s eyes were almost stunned, and he stayed there. He didn’t move away, and he didn’t move closer, but he pulled the scientist back to him, after Bruce repeated his last words.
“More than you know.”