The Things We Carry With Us

“You coming out over Christmas?” Tony asks, keeping it casual.

He and Bruce have maintained near-constant contact in the last couple of months, and Bruce is one of the few people who understand about the panic attacks, and everything else. Rhodey and Pepper try, and they do get it in their own ways, but Tony continually has the impression that they just want him to be okay.

Bruce, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to mind that he’s not.

Guilt flashes across Bruce’s face. “Were you planning on me coming out?”

“No, not necessarily,” Tony replies easily, swallowing his disappointment. “I just thought it might be fun. You could bring Elaine and Jen, too.”

“We’re actually going to take a trip together,” Bruce admits sheepishly. “Aunt Elaine wanted to take a family vacation, since this is our first Christmas together in years.”

Tony feels a flash of raw envy. He doesn’t begrudge Bruce the time with his aunt and cousin, not after everything Bruce has gone through, but it’s been months since he’s seen Bruce in person, and he misses him.

“Where are you guys going?” he asks, keeping his tone light.

“Aunt Elaine and Jen wanted to go to the beach, and there’s a place I know of that’s pretty far off the beaten track,” Bruce explains.  “Fair warning, but I’m not even sure that there’s internet.”

“What, you’re leaving me?” Tony asks, only half-feigning hurt.

Bruce rolls his eyes. “It’s ten days, Tony. Surely you can manage to stay out of trouble for that long.”

In retrospect, Tony is perfectly willing to blame Bruce for jinxing him, although Bruce has nothing to do with Tony challenging the Mandarin, daring him to come after him, and giving his home address.

He half-expects Bruce to get word and read him the riot act, and when he doesn’t, it’s obvious that Bruce really is out of touch. Pepper hits him with both barrels, though.

“I can’t do this anymore, Tony!” she shouts as she drops a bag over the railing. “Did you even stop to consider that this is our home? You’re not the only one in the relationship.”

Tony feels a sick sense of dread that has nothing to do with giving out his address to an international terrorist. “I know that. You know I love you.”

Pepper descends the stairs, her posture ramrod straight with anger. “You don’t have any place for me in your life. You have the suits, you have science, you have Bruce—there isn’t anything left for me.”

Tony swallows. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I can’t do this anymore,” Pepper replies. “I can’t compete with your suits, or with Bruce.”

“You don’t have to compete with Bruce,” Tony protests.

“Don’t I?” she counters. “You talk to him more than you talk to me.”

“We speak the same language!”

“Exactly!” Pepper closes her eyes and takes a deep, audible breath. “I still love you. I will always care about you. But you say that you care about me, and then you go and challenge a terrorist and give him our home address, and you didn’t even give me a second thought.”

Tony can’t argue with her; he knows she’s right. He knows that he had acted rashly, without really thinking about the ramifications. For all his protestations that he wanted to protect her—the one thing he couldn’t live without—he’s doing a piss-poor job of it.

“I’m sorry,” he offers.

“Tell me that when we get out of here,” Pepper replies grimly. “I told you, Tony. I love you, and I would really prefer if you survive this moment of insanity.”

Of course, it only gets worse from there, because Maya Hanson shows up, and then his house gets blown up, and Tony winds up in—of all the fucking places—Tennessee.

He leaves a message for Pepper, because he knows she’ll get it somehow, and because he has no means of contacting Bruce. Jarvis is offline at the moment, and he doesn’t have the number for where Bruce is staying readily at hand. If Bruce even gets the news before Tony saves the day.

And he’s going to save the day.

~~~~~

Bruce is honestly feeling a little twitchy without ready access to the internet. Granted, he could have brought his Stark phone, or Stark Pad with him and gotten satellite access, but his aunt had insisted that a vacation wasn’t a vacation if he didn’t get away from work.

Since he still feels as though he owes his aunt for disappearing for so long, Bruce acquiesces, but he regrets it when he spots the front page of the newspaper in the lobby of the resort. He snatches it up from one of the side tables and scans the headline quickly.

TONY STARK PRESUMED DEAD – SEARCHERS STILL LOOKING FOR BODY

Reading the article quickly, Bruce swallows hard and reminds himself that if the body hasn’t been found, Tony is very likely still alive.

He hopes, anyway. Bruce has been to Tony’s Malibu mansion, and given the details in the article, if it slid into the sea, it’s entirely possible that his body is trapped in the rubble.

Someone snatches the paper out of his hand, and he hears Jen say, “Oh, fuck. Bruce—I’m sorry. Let me make some calls, okay?”

He doesn’t ask who she’s calling, although he assumes it’s Steve. Bruce is also fairly certain that SHIELD is keeping tabs on him and Tony, so he can only think that they don’t know where Tony is either, and they don’t need him.

That’s the problem with his alter ego, and with SHIELD not officially knowing about his past relationship with Tony. There’s no reason they would tell Bruce if they know anything at all.

He suddenly has a very good idea of how Tony had felt all those years go, although his aunt or Jen would have told him if they knew anything concrete. Bruce doesn’t even have that comfort.

He stares at the headline and contemplates what he’s going to do, and who he should call if Jen doesn’t have any information. It turns out that Steve doesn’t know anything, because Jen returns without any additional answers.

“Tony survived three months in Afghanistan,” Jen says, trying to console him. “They didn’t find a body then, and he came back a superhero. He’ll probably come back from this with even better superpowers.”

Bruce tries to summon a smile. “You’re right, I’m sure. I should try to call Pepper, anyway.”

Calling Pepper should have been his first thought, but Bruce’s brain had short-circuited at the possibility of Tony’s death. If anybody has inside information, it would be her, and if the worst had happened, he could at least offer his support.

His call to Pepper goes straight to voicemail, and he leaves a brief message. “Pepper, it’s Bruce. Call me when you get this, okay?” He gives the phone number for the hotel where they’re staying and hangs up.

“Nothing?” Jen asks.

Bruce shakes his head. “She might just be busy. She’d have to be, right?”

“I’m sure that’s all it is,” Jen agrees. “What do you want to do?”

Bruce swallows. The reality is that there’s nothing he can do. He could join the search for Tony’s body, but he’s not going to be able to offer anything unique. And he’d told Tony where they were staying. If Tony is alive, surely he’d call.

Elaine enters the lobby, wearing a long dress over her bathing suit. “Why the long faces, you two?”

Bruce hesitates, and then holds out the newspaper.

Her hand goes over her mouth as she reads the headline, and then she shakes her head. “No. Tony will land on his feet. He has before, and he will again.”

Maybe she’s just in denial, but Bruce feels better anyway. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“What do you want to do, sweetheart?” his aunt asks, running an affectionate hand over his new, shorter haircut. “We can leave early.”

Bruce figures that he’s either going to fret in New York, or on the beach, and he doesn’t want to deprive his aunt and cousin of their vacation. “No,” he says finally. “I can go back to New York and be useless there, or I could enjoy the beach here. Tony knows how to reach me.”

Elaine reaches out and pulls him to his feet. “Come on. I think you and Jen have a surfing lesson, and I want to watch. That should be a distraction.”

It is, and it isn’t. Jen is absolutely terrible at surfing, but she’s never met a challenge she doesn’t like, and she insists that if Bruce can do it, so can she. The physical demands of surfing, and trying to keep his patience with Jen’s ineptitude are a good distraction.

Still, thoughts of Tony intrude frequently, although Bruce hopes that he hides his worry, at least for Jen and Elaine’s sakes. Worry won’t change anything.

But of course he can’t let it go, because it’s Tony, and Bruce is still in love with him, no matter how hard he’s tried to fight it.

Bruce can honestly say that the most important person in his life is Tony, and while his loss will not be the end of Bruce this time—or the attempted end—he can’t imagine losing Tony again. He hopes that Tony is fine, and holed up somewhere, hiding from the Mandarin, finding a way to come back and make things right.

The worry eats at him over the course of the day, and into the evening. He tries to call Pepper again, and gets no answer. There’s nothing in the news either, at least not until the announcement comes out about Air Force One going down.

At that point, Bruce knows that it’s going to be impossible to get his flight changed, so he might as well stay through his vacation.

Even if he feels as though he’s slowly going insane from the uncertainty.

Elaine and Jen try to keep his spirits up by ignoring the elephant in the room and staying away from the topic of Tony entirely. Bruce pushes the worry to the back of his mind, the same way he had ignored his fear of being hunted while trying to help people. It was always there, but it became white noise after awhile.

His present worry is more like a constant drumbeat of fear.

Bruce doesn’t sleep that night, sitting up in his room at the resort and flipping through news stations. He still hasn’t been able to reach either Pepper or Jarvis, and that just makes things worse.

Finally, shortly after the sun has come up, Bruce sees the breaking news alert: Iron Man and the Iron Patriot Save President… Vice President Implicated in Assassination Attempt… Mandarin Captured.

No one has any details beyond that, although you’d never know it, as often as they repeat the same few facts. The important thing is that Tony is alive, and has apparently saved the day, although there’s still no word on Pepper. Bruce hopes that no news is good news for Tony’s sake.

Bruce just hopes that Tony picks up the phone and calls him.

Elaine gives him a sharp look when he appears at breakfast. “Did you sleep at all?”

“No, but apparently Iron Man is in one piece, and that’s the important thing,” Bruce says wearily. “I just hope that Tony remembers to call me at some point in the near future.”

As though his words have summoned him, one of the hotel staff approaches their table. “Dr. Banner? You have a phone call. You can take it here or at the front desk, or I can take a message.”

“I’ll take it here,” Bruce replies, and accepts the cordless phone from her. “Banner.”

“I need you here,” Tony says. “I know you’re on vacation, but I need you to come home. It’s Pepper.”

Bruce feels his heart sink. “Did—”

“She’s alive, for now, but—there’s too much to explain over the phone. Just say you’re coming home.”

“Where?” Bruce asks. “I heard your house in Malibu got blown up.”

“The Tower,” Tony replies. “For the foreseeable future, anyway. Say you’ll come.”

“You’re an asshole,” Bruce complains. “I was worried about you! I saw the headlines, and they said you were dead.”

“It fucking sucks, doesn’t it?” Tony counters.

Bruce sighs. “I’ll have to change my flight.”

“I’m sending the jet,” Tony says. “Just be sure you’re at the airport by midafternoon.”

“Are you okay?” Bruce asks.

Tony lets out a sound that might almost be a laugh. “I don’t know. Pepper broke up with me, I blew up all of my suits, and I’m still having panic attacks.”

“But you saved the President,” Bruce points out. “And I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay? Just hang in there.”

His aunt looks sympathetic when Bruce hangs up the phone. “Do you want us to go back with you?”

“No, that’s okay,” Bruce replies. “You should enjoy the rest of your vacation.”

“Let us know if there’s anything we can do,” Elaine replies.

“Thanks,” Bruce says, but his mind is already a thousand miles away with Tony, and whatever problem it is that they’re going to solve together.

~~~~~

Tony paces near the door of the private hangar, waiting for Bruce’s arrival. He’d offered to stay with Pepper, but she said he was making her nervous. At least Tony had gotten word that Happy was awake, and looked to make a full recovery—eventually.

It’s just that Tony needs to see Bruce right now. He needs the anchor that Bruce provides.

The jet taxis into the hangar, and the stairs descend. Bruce emerges a few seconds later, looking tanned and rumpled, with several days’ worth of stubble on his face.

“Tony,” he says immediately, and closes the distance between them.

There are no more recriminations. Bruce just wraps his arms around Tony and holds on tight, and Tony does the same. Bruce smells of sweat and salt and something subtly spicy, and Tony breathes him in.

When Bruce releases him and steps back, Tony can’t resist any longer, and he cups Bruce’s face in his hands and leans in for a kiss.

There’s a moment where Bruce freezes, and Tony thinks that maybe he doesn’t want this anymore, but then Bruce’s hand slides up to cup the back of Tony’s head, his fingers threading through Tony’s hair. Tony feels the scrape of Bruce’s stubble, the heat of his mouth, the sly swipe of Bruce’s tongue against his.

And Tony suddenly feels as though he’s waited twenty years to do this again, and it’s been worth the wait.

When they both break off to catch their breaths, Bruce murmurs, “Are you sure it’s not too soon?”

“We waited twenty years for this,” Tony says, pressing his forehead against Bruce’s. “So, no.”

“Just promise me that the next time everybody is presuming you dead, that you call me,” Bruce says, and his voice sounds wrecked.

Tony pulls back slightly. “I’m kind of hoping that the next time something like this happens, we’ll be together.”

A smile breaks out over Bruce’s face. “I can live with that.”

Tony fills Bruce in as they drive back to the Tower—about Maya, about Extremis, about the last few days, and how he needs Bruce to help him fix Pepper. “I know we broke up,” Tony says as he finishes his story. “But I owe her, Bruce. I have to fix her if I can.”

“Of course you do,” Bruce agrees easily. “It’s Pepper. You’d have to try to save anybody in that situation, right? And since it’s Pepper, that’s doubly true.”

“I thought that with the two of us working on it, we’d be more likely to figure this out before Pepper loses control, or Extremis kills her, however that works.”

Bruce yawns. “Definitely. Between the two of us, we’ll figure it out.”

“I can work on it while you get some sleep,” Tony says. “You look exhausted.”

Bruce offers a half-hearted glare. “Yeah, because I couldn’t sleep while I was waiting for news about you, asshole.”

Tony just gives him a fond look. “I thought we talked about this already.”

Bruce snorts. “We did, but I think I might be better at holding a grudge.”

Tony can’t resist wrapping an arm around Bruce’s shoulders, pulling him in close. The fact that Bruce presses his face to the side of Tony’s neck suggests that he’s not holding a grudge so much as reminding Tony to maybe not nearly die without giving Bruce some word again.

“You’re actually terrible at holding a grudge,” Tony replies. “You probably don’t even harbor any ill-will towards Ross.”

“I just want him to leave me alone,” Bruce mutters, his voice muffled in Tony’s skin.

Tony smiles. “I fucked him over, by the way.”

“What? Why?” Bruce asks, although he doesn’t move.

“Because I was pissed as hell that he’d been responsible for whatever happened to you, and Coulson asked me to irritate him enough so that he didn’t release the Abomination,” Tony replies, a little surprised that he hasn’t told Bruce the story until now.

Then again, they’d had other things to think about, and talk about, besides Ross.

Bruce groans. “Blonsky was an asshole, and he was an even bigger asshole after he took the serum.”

“Where the Hulk is generally just pissy, particularly when people are shooting at him,” Tony supplies.

He has his reasons for being rather fond of the Hulk, starting with the fact that he’s a part of Bruce, and ending with how the Hulk had saved Tony’s life.

“I’m kind of an asshole,” Bruce admits.

“True,” Tony agrees. “But so am I, which is why we’re perfect for each other. If you were any nicer, you probably wouldn’t like me at all.”

“I’ve liked you since I was fifteen,” Bruce replies.

“I was an asshole at fourteen, too.”

“Weren’t we all?”

“Teenagers usually are,” Tony says softly, because Bruce is half asleep against him, and Tony has realized that he doesn’t feel guilty about that fact.

They aren’t stealing time any more. Maybe there will be people who will be upset at the idea that Iron Man is in love with a man, but they’re bigots. Most people won’t care. Most people are inured to his sexual exploits anyway, and as long as he keeps saving the world, they won’t care who he’s fucking.

He feels a small pang because he knows that he hadn’t been an entirely innocent party in his breakup with Pepper, and he’s sorry for any hurt he caused her.

But the fact is that Bruce is plastered to Tony’s side right now, sleepy and pliable. They’re going back to Tony’s lab to find a way to fix Extremis.

And it doesn’t matter who knows. It doesn’t matter.

“I’m not letting you go again,” Tony murmurs. “Just FYI.”

Bruce pulls back slightly, and his expression holds a tinge of wonder. “Good,” he replies. “I kind of need someone to hold on to me. Just FYI.”

And Tony surges forward and kisses him again, not even noticing when the car comes to a stop, not until the driver clears his throat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, but we’re here.”

Bruce pulls back first, but he runs a hand through Tony’s hair and presses his forehead to Tony’s. “We have some work to do.”

“Yeah,” Tony replies, but he thinks that might just be fine, because they’re working together.