The Return of Bruce Banner
Tony was waiting for the quinjet to land. Bruce was going to be back at the tower and now that he was there they could actually do more things. Sure facetime was nice but it was always easier to do things in person.
The jet landed and Bruce stepped out. Tony rushed over to him and started dragging him further into the tower. "Now that you're here we need to go to Bread & Co. before Rita sends Nana after us," Tony said.
"Rita actually threatened that?" Bruce said.
"Yes, also the Soldier might be there so I can show you why I want to send him a fruit basket."
Bruce facepalmed himself. "You're determined to send the man some fruit, aren't you Tony?"
Tony nodded, "I sent him some bread because you said to wait on the fruit."
"Tony!"
"You never said anything about bread!" Tony defended hinself.
Bruce heaved a sigh and closed his eyes for a second before looking at Tony. "We will talk about this after I get a serving of briouat."
Tony nodded and said nothing more about the matter as they made their way towards the bakery. Instrad he and Bruce talked about Ultron and what tests they wanted to run through with Veronica today. They reached the bakery and the door opened with a small ding. Rita wasn't working today, instead it was Jamie. Well, his real name was James but he said that made him feel old. Jamie was working at the bakery because he needed to get more money before heading off to college. Tony was more than happy to give him hundred dollar tips to help him get an education, the kid was brilliant and Tony was hoping that he would be willing to join SI after getting a degree.
"Jamie!" Tony said excitedly.
"Hey Tony, hey Bruce. How was Africa?" Jamie said with a smile.
"Pretty good, but I'm glad to be back," Bruce answered.
"Great! Now what can I get for you?" Jamie said.
"I'll take a serving of briouat and Tony js getting...." Bruce trailed off.
"A slice of red velvet cake," Tony said. Jamie nodded and wrote down they're order. "Also I think Rita wants to see Bruce is she here?"
"She's in the kitchen with Mia," Jamie said. "I can call her over if you want."
Tony nodded, "Yeah that that would work."
Bruce was looking around the bakery. Tony guessed that he was either looking for a place to sit or wondering if the Winter Soldier was going to show up. "We're going to sit down, see you on a bit," Tony said as he dragged Bruce to a two person table.
"Do you think the Winter Soldier is going to show up?" Bruce asked slightly worried. Probably because he didn't want to hulk our if the Soldier threatened somebody or something like that. Tony looked around and found him sitting in the same corner, this time with a tablet and a journal.
"Well he's already here. Although I don't think he's feeling very murderous right now," Tony said with a discreet point towards the man.
Bruce studied him for a couple minutes. "I can see why you want to send him fruit. That man does not look like he's doing so well."
"Exactly! Now will you let me send him fruit?" Tony asked.
Bruce sighed and stared at the ceiling for a bit. "I don't even know why you are bothering for my permission but sure. Although you do need to keep in mind that he is a deadly assassin that could probably beat Nat based on what I heard," Bruce warned.
Tony had nothing to say about that as the Winter Soldier probably could take down Nat if he really wanted to. From the files that Tony was able to see it looked like the man was a a master at this. The master assassin. No. The master assassin of winter. Yep that's what Tony is going to name his folder with the files on the Winter Soldier.
A small bell dinged and Tony stood up to get their order when he noticed Rita walking towards him already holding the order plus a tart for herself. "Bruce!" she said with a smile.
"Hey Rita," Bruce answered. Rita set the order on the table and then dragged a chair over for her to sit in. She had a small bit of flour on her cheek and more above her eyebrow.
Tony snagged his piece of cake and took a bite. "Rita you've got flour on your face," he said.
Rita reached to wipe it off but only succeeded in getting flour onto more parts of her face as well as her hand. "You know what Tony, maybe I want it there," she said and then ate some of her tart.
Bruce took out his briouat and stared down at it.
"If you don't start eating that I am," Rita warned. Bruce covered his briouat with his hands and stared at her in dismay.
"You wouldn't!"
"I would and you know it," Rita said as she finished her tart. "Now Tony said that we would have things to talk about when you got back and Tony you better have something or else I will bring back Tony Stank."
"Me and Brucie have started on a new project. Right now it's name is Ultron and will remain that until I come up with a different name," Tony declared.
"That sounds a little ominous. How far have you gotten on this?" Rita asked.
"Well seeing as we would need to have a huge technological leap for this to actually work, not very much," Bruce said.
"Speak for yourself Bruce. All we need is to find a working piece of alien technology, find out how it works, and then take that technology to make Ultron and bam! Problem solved!" Tony said.
"Couldn't you just use the chitauri technology left over from their attack?" Rita questioned.
Tony paused and Bruce looked at him as if to ask, yeah, Tony, why aren't we using that technology?
"The technology isn't advanced enough for Ultron," Tony decided to answer. And it was true in a way, the chitauri's weapons worked kind of the same way Tony's reactor blasts did. Their ships were really interesting except most of the ships were blown to scrap metal by now. Bruce just raised his eyebrows and stared and Tony.
Rita sighed and stood up, "I need to get back to my muffins. Have fun with Ultron."
"Yes, ma'am," Tony replied with as much seriousness as he could. Rita chuckled and walked back into the kitchen. "Are you ready to head back to the tower yet Brucie?" he asked.
"Sure," Bruce said as he stood up. Once they got back to the tower Tony took both of them up to his lab. Upon reaching his lab Tony flung himself onto his office chair and went rolling across the floor. As he passed anothe roffice chiara he flung it over to Bruce who joined him in rolling across the floor.
While both of them were adults with severe PhD's sometimes the temptation of rolling around in office chairs was too much. Soon Bruce and Tony had gotten o their respective desks to start working on various projects.
Tony paused what he was working on for now and started shopping for different fruit baskets after he was reminded of his fabulous idea. "Hey, Bruce?"
Bruce looked up from his desk to look over at Tony, "Yeah?"
"I need help deciding what fruit basket to send."
Bruce sighed and rolled over to Tony looking at the two options. One of them had more decorations and exotic fruits while the other was more simple. "I would choose the more simple one."
Tony nodded, it would probably be better to send simpler foods. From what Tony could find from the files, the Soldier wasn't exactly fed. He was instead given nutritional shots to make sure that he had the energy needed to perform what was asked of him. He ordered the fruit to have it delivered to the Soldier's apartment.
"Are you ever going to see the man for yourself or just keep sending him random items?" Bruce questioned.
"I don't want to frighten him, and my appearance would probably bring unwanted attention to him." It was true, but what Tony wasn't saying was that he wasn't quite sure if the Soldier would be happy with him just popping up. Tony doubted that he wanted anything to do with the Avengers and for all he knew this was just some complicated HYDRA plot to catch him unaware.
Bruce nodded and looked around the lab before checking the time. "Tony I think it's time to stop."
Tony frowned and looked at the clock, was it 7:30 already? The clock showed that it was and he looked sadly down at his project. While Tony would love to continue working on it Bruce was more sensible on keeping a healthy and normal sleep schedule. Of course if they both really got into their projects they could go for days without sleeping to get it done.
"What do you want for dinner?" Tony asked as he stood up and started walking towards the elevator door. Bruce followed behind him.
"I don't really care whatever you wantm"
"Jarvis order some shawarma for us will you?"
"Yes, Sir," Jarvis said as he ordered Tony's favorites from the shawarma shop they had found after the whole Loki fiasco that helped to form the Avengers.
"Have you checked with Steve yet? I've seen that he had actually gotten hospitalized," Bruce asked as they walked into the common area.
"I actually haven't. I've talked to Nat and she said that she would call me when she found the time."
Bruce nodded and sat down on one of the many couches strewn about the room. Tony sat down across from him and opened up a call with Steve.
"We should probably call him now and see how's he's holding up."
Steve answered and the first thing they saw was a fuzzy black screen. A groan came across the screen and they could hear Steve asking for a guy named Sam to grab his phone. Tony cackled, Steve, the old geezer, must have dropped his phone and wasn't allowed out of the bed to grab it. Soon they could see Steve's face. He was looking a little worse for wear with bruises covering his face and healing cuts. That was all they could see.
Tony whistled, "Steve you look like you went running face first through several brick walls."
Steve rolled his eyes, "Nice to see you too, Tony."
"How did your mighty fight against the master assassin of the ages go?" Tony asked. Bruce hadn't said anything yet as he www studying Steve's appearance probably to try to gauge the extent of damage.
Someone who wasn't on the screen answered for him. "Cap here kept trying to talk the Winter Soldier out of whatever he was doing because apparantly he was Steve's friend." Tony could hear the anger in the man's voice over the phone.
"What friend?" Bruce asked.
Steve sighed, "Bucky. He must have survived the fall and was taken by HYDRA and brainwashed to be their assassin."
Well that wasn't expected. War hero Sergeant James "Bucky" Barnes was the Winter Soldier. It made sense now why Nat had taken some files away from the public. Or it wasn't even digital because of old people. Tony wondered if he should tell Steve that he knew where Bucky was, but Steve might not be the person that Bucky needed right now.
"I knew I should have looked. Maybe then this mess wouldn't have happened..." Steve's face had adopted a kicked puppy look.
"It wasn't your fault you didn't know that he would've survived," came a tired voice. Tony had a feeling that Steve believed that and said it quite a bit.
"You know, you haven't introduced me to your friend, Steven. I'm starting to feel kind of hurt," Tony pouted to help strengthen his point. Bruce rolled his eyes and Steve chuckled before shifting the camera to look at a dark skinned man.
"Tony, Bruce, meet Sam Wilson"
Sam smiled and waved to them. "Hey," he said.
"How did you meet Steve?" Bruce asked.
"He lapped me multiple times on my running route and then I helped him take down SHIELD."
They can hear Steve laugh off camera, "If that's what you want to call running."
Tony laughed and Bruce smiled. Sam's face could still be seen on the camera. He wasn't looking amused and that was before he threw the phone at Steve. They heard Steve squawk as the room flashed on the camera.
They continued talking and Tony deciddf to build Sam new wings after his were destroyed by the Winter Soldier. Steve tried to convince Bruce and Tony to get him out of the hospital, it clearly didn't work. Tony would have been happy to continue talking if it weren't for one small complication.
"Sir, there appears to be a problem that may require you," Jarvis interrupted. He showed Tony some video feed of HYDRA agents launching an attack on the Soldier. Tony cursed and stood up and started running out of the lab.
"Sorry I've got to go! Stay in that hospital until the docters say otherwise!" He yelled back. By the time Steve had responded Tony was already flying through the air in his suit.