Boston, Massachusetts, Summer 1984
Bruce clutches the strap of his backpack a little more tightly and tries to keep his voice even. He knows better than to show his anger, even though the panic is clawing at him. “I don’t understand.” He looks down at the letter in his hand. “This says I got accepted.”
“And you are!” The woman gives him a pitying look. “I have your registration right here. I’m saying that we don’t have a room for you right now. We’ll definitely find somewhere you can sleep.”
Bruce takes a deep breath, in and then out, and then again. “I still don’t understand.”
She looks over his shoulder. “I’m—I’m sorry. I’ll be right back, and we’ll sort this out.”
Behind Bruce, in the lobby of the MIT dormitory where he’s supposed to be staying, is a man in a suit. Bruce doesn’t have any trouble recognizing him—his face has been on the cover of a lot of magazines.
Billionaire industrialist Howard Stark shows up, and of course everybody’s jumping to do his bidding, even though Bruce had been there first. Even though he’d worked his ass off to get here, to earn the money needed to make up the difference between the registration and the scholarship he’d been offered. Even though his aunt and uncle had saved their pennies to be sure he could get the airfare, and had the materials, and decent clothes, and enough spending money to keep him comfortable.
None of that makes any difference. Bruce wishes that surprised him, just like he wishes it surprised him that even though there had already been two others fluttering around Stark, the lady helping him thought she needed to be there, too.
Of-fucking-course.
“What an asshole, huh?”
Bruce turns to look at the speaker, a kid about his own age, maybe a little younger. He’s thin, with dark hair that flops over one eye, and he’s wearing designer jeans.
Bruce tries not to judge him on that last fact. The two-week intensive science camp isn’t cheap, although there are more than a few scholarships available. A lot of the kids here are going to be a lot more well off than Bruce is.
“You know who he is?” Bruce asks.
The other kid shrugs. “Sure, who doesn’t? That doesn’t make him less of an asshole.”
Bruce grimaces. “Yeah, I guess.” He stares at the crumpled letter in his hand, and he’s glad he’d been paranoid enough to bring it now. His aunt keeps telling him that he doesn’t have to expect the worst, but so far, he hasn’t seen any evidence as to why he shouldn’t.
“What are you here for?”
Bruce glances up at him again, and now the kid is leaning against the registration desk, which is really just a card table with a banner taped to it that reads, “Welcome, Future Scientists!”
Bruce would have found it really cheesy if there hadn’t been a lot of truth behind it. A camp like this could mean scholarships down the road, even fellowships later when he does his doctorate. Contacts made here could open a lot of doors for him, and Bruce needs that, just as much as he needs two weeks around people who don’t think he’s weird for having an interest in physics and chemistry.
Realizing that he hasn’t answered the question—and that he’s not quite sure what the question is—he asks, “I’m sorry?”
“I’m here for robotics,” the other boy says. “Engineering. My main interest is in artificial intelligence, though.”
It’s the way his eyes light up when he says “artificial intelligence” that makes Bruce relax, recognizing the same kind of glee he has when talking about gamma radiation and particle physics.
“Physics,” Bruce admits. “Although I like chemistry, too. And, uh, pretty much anything science related.”
The registration lady still isn’t back yet, and Bruce is beginning to think that he might get stuck sleeping on one of the couches in the lounge. It’s not the worst fate, but he’s still annoyed by the idea.
“Do you know Carl Demmer’s work on the use of the biomechanical processes to create prosthetics that respond to a person’s thoughts?” the kid asks.
Bruce frowns. “Demmer’s theories are sound, but the technology needed to actually back them up is decades away. Battle bots are a nice idea, but completely outside the realm of possibility now.”
“With the proper AI, I think it’s possible,” the kid replies hotly.
Bruce finds himself forgetting the trouble he’d had registering, the fact that the lady who’s supposed to be helping him is still fluttering around Howard Stark, and the fact that he might be sleeping on the lounge couch for the next two weeks if this doesn’t get straightened out.
This is what he’d come here for. Bruce feels challenged for the first time in—well, ever.
“And computers are still a long way off from being able to sustain that kind of artificial intelligence!” Bruce protests. “You’d need a computer the size of a skyscraper to do what you’re suggesting.”
“We’ve got the microchip now,” the kid argues. “We have portable calculators. We have computers. I built one when I was four. It’s not that hard. I think it can be done.”
Bruce pauses, really thinks about it, because that’s what he’s here for—to have his boundaries tested, to rethink what’s possible. “The neural links necessary for that kind of system, the sheer intelligence…”
He’s still thinking about it when the kid asks, “So what was the problem with the registration thing?”
Bruce flushes. “It’s no big deal.”
Maybe it shouldn’t be, but it’s humiliating. Bruce just wants to fit in; he wants to be normal for a change. That’s not possible back home, but he thought he might have the chance here, surrounded by other people who are just as bright and scientifically minded as he is.
And yet—Bruce gets screwed over once again. Story of his life.
“Maybe I can help,” the kid replies.
Bruce doesn’t see how, but he says, “They have my registration, but they said they don’t have anywhere to put me. Something went wrong with the room assignments or something.”
He’s a little surprised to see guilt flash across the kid’s face. “You can bunk with me,” he says.
Bruce shakes his head. “That’s—that’s actually really nice of you, but they’ve probably already assigned you a roommate. I don’t want to kick anybody else out.”
“Pretty sure they haven’t,” the kid replies. “Fair warning, I’m a total dick, and it’s probably not going to be fun rooming with me, but you won’t be bored.”
There’s something niggling at the back of Bruce’s mind, some thought that he should know this kid, and that something really weird is going on, but he’s in the dark.
“I have nightmares sometimes,” Bruce replies, startled into honesty. “You shouldn’t try to wake me up, even if I’m screaming.”
He hadn’t meant to say that, but something about the kid’s forthrightness makes Bruce want to lay his cards on the table, especially since that’s one of the things he’d been the most concerned about with sharing a room.
“I can handle it,” the kid says. “Let me deal with this.”
Bruce watches, bemused, as the kid marches up to Howard Stark. He can’t hear what’s said at this distance, but he can see that everyone stops to listen to the kid, and he can see Stark pat the kid on the shoulder awkwardly.
And that is when everything falls into place.
Bruce has been talking to Tony Stark, heir to Howard Stark’s vast fortunes and industrial empire—and he’d just kind of agreed that Howard Stark is an asshole.
He groans. Even for him, that’s a remarkably poor start to the two weeks he’s supposed to spend here.
~~~~~
By now Tony knows that the thing about being rich is that people will just assume shit. Like, he finally gets rid of his nanny—thank fucking God—and his dad wants to get rid of him for a couple of weeks, and Tony is going to MIT in another year, so his dad promises to donate a bunch of money if they’ll let Tony attend their camp so Howard can go on his trip to whatever far-flung location needs his presence now while his mom does one of her charity trips.
Honestly, Tony doesn’t mind all that much. From his research, he knows it’s a good camp, with cutting edge technology available to everybody who attends (not that he can’t get that at home), with the best and brightest minds of his generation.
So, the administrators say yes, of course he can attend, because he’s the son of Howard fucking Stark, billionaire and war hero, and they give Tony his own room. Because why would a rich kid need to share?
And the thing is, Tony wouldn’t normally want to share, but he sees this kid standing by the registration desk, a form letter clutched in one hand, and the other hanging on to his backpack, and the kid looks like his world has just ended.
Tony has an eye for people, and his mom had drilled it into his head that he had a responsibility for those who were less fortunate. From the worn pack, to the obviously new off-brand jeans, and the t-shirt that is just a little too big, Tony figures he’s a scholarship student.
A couple of questions, and it’s pretty damn obvious that the kid is smart—really smart—which isn’t a surprise since he clearly doesn’t have a rich daddy to buy his way into the camp.
Tony figures he can make this right. The kid can stay with him, because he knows how this works by now, and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t have a roommate. Even if he does, Tony figures his dad can fix this problem by throwing money at it, like he does everything else.
And there’s something about this kid that he likes—from the defiant set of his chin, to his obvious intelligence, to his honesty. Tony doesn’t know for sure, but he doesn’t think it will be a chore to share a room with him for a couple of weeks.
Besides, the kid had agreed that Howard Stark was an asshole. Tony kind of likes him already.
It doesn’t take more than a few whispered sentences to figure out that yes, everybody had assumed Tony would want to room by himself, and that had probably displaced Bruce, and that Tony definitely wants the kid in his room, thank you very much.
Sometimes, it does pay to be rich. Okay, it pays all the time, but Tony now feels like kind of a jerk for displacing a kid who clearly doesn’t have rich parents to pave his way.
Tony’s not all that surprised when he gets no more than a pat on the shoulder from his old man, and the lady from the registration desk says, “I’ll show you to your room, Mr. Stark.”
“Us,” Tony corrects her. “It’s me and him.”
He ignores his dad. The only reason he’s there is because he got a flight out of Boston on the way to wherever, so he can keep on searching for Captain America, or whatever else catches his attention. It’s not like his dad cares.
“Be good,” his dad calls.
Tony shrugs. “Yeah, sure.”
The other kid won’t meet his eyes when Tony gets back to the desk. “You don’t have to do this,” he mumbles.
Tony smirks. “Yeah, I kind of do, since it’s probably my fault you got booted in the first place.”
The registration lady makes a noise in protest, but Tony figures it’s more that she doesn’t like the fact that Tony is stating it so baldly, than because he’s not right.
They all know it’s true.
“Tony,” he says, thrusting his hand out, really hoping that the other kid will take it and forget Tony’s last name, forget that he’s a billionaire’s kid who bought his way into this camp.
For once, he wants to be accepted for who he is, rather than his name.
The kid looks up, and dark eyes search Tony’s face long and hard, and then the faintest smile touches his lips. “Bruce. It’s nice to meet you.”
They clasp hands, and Tony thinks that maybe, just maybe, the next two weeks will be more than just bearable.
His time here might just be awesome.
~~~~~
The room is actually pretty nice—there are several narrow windows that let in plenty of light, two neatly made single beds, and lots of closet and shelf space in light-colored wood. It’s not quite as small as Bruce thought it would be.
“Got any preference on which bed you want?” Tony asks.
Bruce shakes his head. “They look pretty much the same to me.”
Tony dumps his suitcase at the end of the closest bed. “Suit yourself.”
Bruce has to admit that he’s a little surprised Tony doesn’t have someone to carry his bag for him, or a bodyguard or personal assistant. Hell, he has no idea what Tony Stark is doing at a science camp.
“My dad wanted to get rid of me for a couple of weeks,” Tony says out of the blue.
“Huh?”
Tony throws himself down on his bed, crossing his legs at the ankles. “You were wondering why I’m here. I told you—my old man wanted to stash me somewhere for a couple of weeks while he fucked off.”
Bruce isn’t sure what to say to that, so he says nothing.
“It’s okay, I wasn’t kidding when I said he was an asshole,” Tony replies. “What’s your story?”
Bruce shoves his bags under his bed. “I’ve been saving up to come here for the last year.”
“And now I feel like an asshole,” Tony says after a pause.
Bruce smiles. “It’s not a big deal, really.”
“Sounds like a big deal,” Tony says. “You know there’s a competition. If you don’t have a team already, you can be on mine.”
Bruce sits down on the bed across from him. “Since I don’t know anyone other than you… How many people do we need?”
“At least two, and no more than five,” Tony says. “But I’m not really a team player, so I’m thinking we’re good with two.”
Bruce looks out of the windows. “Yeah, I guess we’ve got tonight before classes start tomorrow. I think the information packet said dinner was served at six.”
“Fuck dinner,” Tony says. “Let’s go find something. You want to see something of Boston, right?”
Bruce doesn’t have a lot of spending money, but he figures one dinner out won’t break him.
“Hey, my treat,” Tony says. “Least I can do for nearly getting you kicked out of your room.”
Bruce shifts uncomfortably. “You don’t have to. I mean, you made it right.”
“So? Let me make it a little more right with pizza,” Tony says with a quick, charming grin.
Bruce stares at him. “Does anyone ever say no to you?”
“My father, frequently,” Tony says. “But everybody else? Pretty much never.”
“Yeah, okay, pizza,” Bruce replies.
Tony slides his sunglasses on. “Come on. Let’s hit the road.”
Bruce doesn’t have a lot of friends—well, he doesn’t really have any friends, other than his cousin—so he doesn’t have a lot of comparisons to draw on, but he doesn’t think Tony’s like anybody else. Tony walks close to him, their shoulders bumping companionably, and talks about computers and coding and building networks.
It’s pretty fucking great, actually, mostly because Bruce feels like there’s finally someone who can keep up with him.
“So, what’s your story?” Tony asks over a couple of greasy New York-style slices, which Tony insists is the only pizza worth eating. “Let me guess—two parents, kid sister, and you live in the suburbs.”
Bruce freezes. This is why he doesn’t have friends—at least a big part of the reason he doesn’t, other than his generally anti-social personality, and being leagues ahead of his peers. But he’d known he’d have to say something, have to tell some story.
He’s rehearsed it in his head, but faced with Tony’s open expression and warm grin, Bruce is left speechless.
Tony’s eyes widen. “Oookay, so I’m way off base, huh?”
Bruce clears his throat. “That obvious?”
“Only in the sense that you’d rather bolt than answer that question,” Tony replies. “And you don’t have to. Answer, that is.”
Bruce hesitates. “Aunt and uncle, one cousin, but yes on the suburbs. Although my cousin is basically my kid sister, if that makes you feel any better.”
Tony grimaces. “Sorry, man.”
When he doesn’t ask any other questions, Bruce relaxes. “It’s okay. I’m lucky to have them.”
It’s an automatic response, the sort of thing a normal person would say, although it’s also true.
Bruce isn’t ungrateful, not at all. If anything, he’s just a little too aware of how much he has to be grateful for every single day, and sometimes it’s a little too much for him.
“Still fucking sucks,” Tony replies with conviction, even though he doesn’t know half the story.
Somehow, that makes Bruce feel a lot better. “Yeah, it does.”
“What would you do with a particle accelerator?” Tony asks.
Bruce frowns, not quite following the turn in the conversation. “What?”
“Say you had a particle accelerator in your basement,” Tony says, leaning forward and speaking through a mouthful of pizza. “What would you do with it?”
Bruce has never thought about it. “I—” He stops and really thinks about it. “How long do I have?”
Tony grins. “One week.”
And Bruce’s mind spins with the possibilities.
~~~~~
The thing about Bruce is that he’s smart—really fucking smart, almost as smart as Tony—but he’s reluctant to draw attention to himself. Whatever lecturer is talking that day, he’ll ask a question, and if Bruce knows the answer, he’ll just slump down a little farther in his chair. He should be strutting, but he never does.
They’re in a biochem lecture, one Bruce had been excited to attend, and yet he keeps his mouth shut.
Tony gives him a considering look, and the next time a question is asked, he says loudly, “Bruce here knows the answer.”
Bruce glares at him and hisses, “Tony!”
Dr. Mueller smiles. “Yes? Mr. Banner?”
Bruce sighs, but he answers, and probably gives a better answer than the other kids would have, and a lot of them have a couple of years on Bruce.
That just makes it better, in a way. Most of the kids here are seventeen or eighteen, and are going to MIT in the fall. He and Bruce are nearly the same age, and Tony knows the rest of them think that Tony’s just some rich asshole who bought his way in.
Which, okay, is fair, but Tony knows that he and Bruce are going to smoke the competition with the combined power of their intellect.
Bruce jostles him as they leave the lecture hall. “Seriously? Way to throw me under the bus, man.”
“Is this a strategy I didn’t know about?” Tony asks in a low voice. “A way to fool the competition into underestimating us, because if so, I like the way you think, and I’m sorry if I ruined it.”
Bruce sighs, sounding deeply put upon. “It’s not a strategy. I just don’t like calling too much attention to myself.”
Tony frowns. “But we’re here! We’re at fucking science camp. I get wanting to keep your brain under wraps when you’re worried about getting shoved into a locker, but there are no lockers here! Word is out, you’re a giant nerd.”
Bruce rubs his eyes. “That’s not exactly—”
“Okay, not to land a low blow or anything, but putting yourself out there is exactly what you need to do,” Tony says. “If my old man ever taught me anything, it’s that you need money to make money, and if you don’t have money, you need connections.”
Bruce leans against the wall. “I’m not good at this, Tony.”
“Beg to differ,” Tony replies. “I was there, and you did awesome. And if you keep practicing, it’ll feel natural. You gotta put yourself out there. I’m assuming you want a Ph.D. eventually.”
He knows when Bruce gets Tony’s point, because his shoulders slump. “And I need fellowships, academic advisors, and the rest.”
“And you can’t do any of that if you’re not willing to put it out there,” Tony agrees.
There’s something complicated going on in Bruce’s head right now; Tony can see the wheels turning, can see how hard this is for him. Tony doesn’t know why, but he’s willing to bet it has something to do with the nightmares Bruce says he gets sometimes.
Tony slings his arm around Bruce’s shoulders. “Come on. Let’s grab a couple of sandwiches and eat outside.”
They sit under a tree to eat, their backs against the trunk, not looking at each other, although their shoulders are pressed together.
“We need to talk about our project,” Bruce says.
Tony digs around in his bag of potato chips. “Okay, yes, if that’s what you want to talk about.”
“I don’t know how to be what you want,” Bruce says. “What I need to be.”
Tony honestly has no idea what to do with that. He’s not good at shit like this. Still, he knows there’s one thing he can say. “I don’t need you to be anything. I like you.”
“I think you’re insane,” Bruce replies, but Tony can hear the humor in Bruce’s voice.
“You’ll figure the rest out,” Tony assures him. “You’ve got some time to practice, and you can always practice on me.”
Bruce bumps his shoulder. “Have you given any more thought to the competition?”
“We won’t know what we have to work with for a few days,” Tony replies. “But I figure that with my superior skills in robotics, and your knowledge of physics, we’re a shoo-in for first place.”
He knows that the other kids are wheeling and dealing, trying to figure out the best people to team up with. They all get the same materials to work with, and have to build a working machine that utilizes either chemical or mechanical power to perform a simple task, like moving ping pong balls. Machines are allowed to bump each other off, too.
But Tony doesn’t have any doubt that the two of them are enough for a team. And while Tony figures that they’re probably supposed to be making other friends, it’s not like they haven’t talked to the other kids.
It’s just that Tony likes Bruce; he’s smart and nice and good company. Tony doesn’t see the need to go further afield for companionship. Even if they hadn’t been sleeping in the same room, Tony’s pretty sure they still would have been hanging out together.
Tony’s the youngest person there, and Bruce looks younger than he is. The other kids haven’t come around to the fact that Tony would be awesome even if he weren’t the son of a billionaire, and Bruce isn’t strutting, so no one knows that he’s awesome.
They’re going to have to prove themselves in order to make friends, and the big competition is their best chance to do that, but that’s at the end of the two weeks.
Tony’s okay with that, but maybe he should be making more of an effort on Bruce’s behalf. He could help Bruce bridge the gap.
Bruce sighs. “We should probably scope out the competition, right?”
“Call it practice,” Tony advises him. “We’ll start tonight at dinner.”
Bruce turns his head to look at Tony. “What? You can bring yourself to talk to someone who isn’t me? Are you sure you won’t be shocked by the sheer mediocrity?”
Tony laughs, delighted. “Now you’re getting the picture.”
~~~~~
Honestly? Bruce misses having Tony to himself.
He’s pretty sure that’s fucked up, and he should be happy to be making other friends, but he misses the intimacy of just the two of them together.
Because when Tony is on, he’s on—all slick surface and glib answers, and better with people than Bruce could ever hope to be. As far as Bruce is concerned, he’s not the same guy who had made sure Bruce wasn’t sleeping on the common room couch, or who had taken him out to dinner that first night to make up for the near miss.
When Tony is charming the masses, the best Bruce can do is trail in his wake and try to keep up, although he’s pretty sure he just looks like one of Tony’s sycophants.
At least, that’s what he thinks until the end of the first week, after Tony keeps elbowing Bruce when he knows Bruce has the answer to a question, and if Bruce doesn’t answer, starts throwing him under the bus.
By the end of the first week, Bruce has some of the other kids coming to him for help with the course load, and they don’t come to Tony first. They come straight to Bruce, and they’re nice about it.
As Tony had said, there are no lockers here. The other kids aren’t threatening him in exchange for homework help; they genuinely think that Bruce can help them understand.
It turns out that Bruce is good at that. He’s really good at helping people understand complicated concepts.
“I’m telling you,” Tony says. “When you go back home, you should market your skills as a tutor. You could make a fucking fortune.”
Bruce stares at him. “What?”
“You’re good at this!” Tony exclaims. “You’ll notice that nobody’s coming to me for academic help.”
Bruce summons a smile. “I thought that was just because they were intimidated by your devastating good looks and vast fortune.”
Tony points at him. “Fair point, and probably true. The fact remains that you can teach people complicated concepts, and you could make a ton of money doing so.”
Bruce isn’t entirely sure how he feels about that. On the one hand, the suggestion has merit; on the other, Tony’s rich, and Bruce doesn’t know how he feels about a rich kid telling him how he can make money.
Or maybe that’s exactly who should be advising him.
In the evenings, during their designated free time, they hole in up in their room or one of the labs, hashing out the theory and equations behind their project for the competition.
They get through the first week and change without Bruce having a nightmare, long enough so that Bruce thinks he might get lucky, that being here might have seeped into his subconscious.
He should probably know better by now.
Bruce has a few recurring nightmares, although the theme of overwhelming terror remains the same. Sometimes he’s running down an endless hallway, hearing his father’s footsteps echo behind him, knowing that if he doesn’t get away, his father will kill him like he’d killed Bruce’s mother.
Sometimes, Bruce can hear his mother’s screams as his father beats her to death, and he’s racing to reach her in time.
And sometimes, he’s living it all over again—the pain, his mother’s screams, his father’s shouting—and he feels his mother’s blood hot on his face, mixing with his own, and hears the wails of the sirens that came too late.
Those dreams are the worst, and Bruce wakes with his heart in his throat and his chest aching, gasping for air and trying not to make any noise. His heartbeat thunders in his ears, and he can feel the tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.
And then he hears music—rock music, to be precise, full of drums and electric guitars and screeching.
“What—” he manages.
“You said not to wake you up,” Tony whispers. “But I thought—I don’t know. Did it help?”
The music from Tony’s small, portable radio isn’t loud enough to disturb their neighbors, but it had served to pull Bruce back to the present, to ground him in the here and now.
He lies back in bed. “It helped.”
“Are you okay?” Tony asks after another minute.
Bruce wipes his face with his hands and tries not to let his voice hitch too badly. “Yeah. I’ll be fine.”
“Do you want to leave the music on? I can change the station if you want,” Tony offers.
Since Tony doesn’t listen to anything other than rock and heavy metal, Bruce knows Tony’s trying to be comforting. Oddly enough, it’s working.
Bruce still feels the need to offer some kind of explanation. “My dad—he wasn’t a great guy.” Understatement of the century. “And my mom got in the way.”
Tony’s quiet, and Bruce wonders if things are going to be weird now. He hears the creak of Tony’s bed, and Tony sits on the edge of Bruce’s bed a second later. Bruce can just make out his features in the dim light filtering through the windows from the street outside.
He’s in boxers and a t-shirt, and Bruce suddenly has no idea what’s going to happen.
“Don’t make this weird,” Tony orders, and then he hauls Bruce up into a hug.
Bruce freezes, and then he presses his forehead against Tony’s shoulder.
His aunt does this, too, when she hears him having a nightmare. She never says anything, or asks if he wants to talk, she just holds him tightly.
After a minute or so Tony lets go, although he stays seated on Bruce’s bed. “Okay?”
Bruce nods. “You’re not a dick, you know.”
Tony smiles. “Yeah, well, don’t let it get out, okay? I have a reputation to protect.”
“Your secret’s safe with me,” Bruce replies, and it feels like a pact, like a promise that means something.
How is he to know that he’ll still be keeping that promise in thirty years’ time?
~~~~~
The last two days of camp are devoted to the competition. Tony’s pretty sure no one sleeps during that time as they work feverishly on their machines. They’ve got the same materials, and access to the same chemicals as everybody else does, and the lab space to work. He and Bruce drink soda constantly to stay awake, and eat a ton of junk food from the vending machines.
Building something with Bruce is just as awesome as Tony had thought it would be. Bruce has a tendency to think outside the box, and they come up with a bunch of ways to ensure their machine not only does what it’s supposed to do—carry a load of ping pong balls to a trough and deposit them—but also take out their competitions’ machines in the process.
For two days, they don’t talk to anyone but each other, the friendliness of the other students is buried under the fever of competition.
The prize isn’t much by Tony’s standards—$1000 per team member—but the winners get their names on a plaque and bragging rights. Tony’s future is assured, but he knows winning this kind of competition will mean a lot to Bruce.
It’s the kind of thing that looks really good on college applications, and Tony thinks it might be good for Bruce to win something for a change.
Bruce got dealt a shitty hand in life, and Tony likes him; he’d like to see things turn around for him.
And they win, of course they do. They win so decisively—fending off all attackers, incapacitating two other machines, and delivering their payload whole minutes before anybody else—that Tony is almost embarrassed.
But only almost, because one, Tony’s not embarrassed by anything having to do with his intellect—or anything else, really—and two, Bruce’s face when they win.
Bruce’s expression is quietly incredulous, like someone had just handed him the whole world on a silver platter, like it’s his birthday and Christmas combined.
Tony slings an arm around Bruce’s shoulders and crows his delight, and Bruce can only stare at their little machine that had scooted its way to victory.
The other teams come up and congratulate them, and other than one or two kids, they’re all gracious losers and sincerely complimentary of Bruce and Tony.
Tony reins in his own glee to appropriate levels, but it’s not until they get back to their room that Bruce finally speaks. “We won.”
“Decisively!” Tony says, throwing himself down on his bed with glee. “We kicked ass, man.”
Bruce sits down on his own bed. “We won.”
“I told you we would,” Tony replies. “Oh, ye of little faith. Did you forget who was on your team?”
Bruce shakes his head. “No. I just—there are a lot of smart people here.”
“I think we can definitively say that we are the smartest guys here,” Tony replies with a grin. “What are you going to do with your prize money, huh?”
Bruce blinks, as though he hadn’t even considered that. “Oh, um, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll buy a car or something. Or save it for college.”
“You can have mine, too, if you want it,” Tony offers carelessly.
Bruce glares at him. “No, Tony. I’m not a charity case.”
“Did I say you were?” Tony asks. “I don’t need the money.”
Bruce’s expression turns mulish. “And I don’t need your money.”
In Tony’s experience, there are exactly two kinds of people in the world—the ones who want to use him for his money and connections, and the ones who are determined not to do that. He’s already figured out where Bruce lands.
“Okay, cool,” Tony replies carelessly. Contrary to popular opinion, he does know when to let things go. “Then you can take me out to dinner tonight.”
Bruce stares at him. “We’ve been up for two days straight!”
“And I’m starving, and I’m pretty sure they’re going to be kind of pissed off if we skip the awards dinner tomorrow,” Tony says. “While I certainly don’t care, I figured you might.”
Bruce shakes his head. “I guess, if you want. I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep right away anyway.”
They wind up at the same pizzeria they’d eaten at the first day they’d met, and Tony lets Bruce buy. He’s starting to crash from the post-win high, and he’s trying really hard not to think about the fact that, in two days’ time, camp will be over, and he might never see Bruce again.
“We’ll stay in touch, right?” Tony says, suddenly unhappy at the thought.
Bruce looks half-asleep as he chews. “Hm?”
“We’re going to stay in touch,” Tony insists. “I mean, I’m going back to boarding school, and you’re going home or whatever, but we can call and write. It won’t be the same, I know, but—”
Bruce seems to gain a little alertness as Tony speaks. “Hey,” Bruce says, interrupting him. “The last two weeks have been the best of my life, okay? We’ll stay in touch. I promise.”
Tony tries to hide his relief. “Okay, good, because I know where you live. Or, actually, I don’t know, but I’m kind of hoping you’ll tell me.”
Bruce smiles. “Address, phone number, the whole nine yards. Hell, you can even visit me on a break or something. My aunt will be thrilled I made a friend.”
“My mom, too,” Tony admits. “And, you know, you can visit me, too, although it’s usually just me, and it kind of sucks.”
“Then you should definitely visit me,” Bruce replies with a shy smile. “I mean, it’s not a mansion, but I’ve got space on the floor.”
Tony thinks about how much he’s going to miss knowing Bruce is on the other side of the room, and the floor doesn’t sound too bad. “That sounds great.”
“I’m going to miss you, too,” Bruce admits.
And Tony thinks that maybe he might get to keep this.