Checkmate

“Hey Bruce?”

The scientist briefly peered up from the code layed out in front of him, humming softly in response. Tony paused in his work and stared blankly in front of him, softly gnawing at his lip as thoughts whirled about in his mind. Noticing the lack of response, Bruce turned to look at his friend, eyebrows furrowing at his expression. “What’s wrong, Tony?”

Sighing softly, the billionaire shifted his gaze downwards, his hand falling limply on the table in front of him. “What if this isn’t enough?”

“What do you mean?” Bruce asked, scanning Tony’s expression worriedly. “We’re already creating more than advanced than we’ve ever attempted. There isn’t much else we can do.”

“I know, but,” Tony sighed, turning to look at Bruce, “What if it’s even stronger? Sure, we’re making an artificial intelligence, but what if the threat’s beyond technology?” Bruce tensed slightly seeing Tony’s eyes become distant, and he took a step towards him, setting a hand softly on his shoulder.

“Tones, you’re getting in your head again,” Bruce said softly, quickly cutting him off when the billionaire opened his mouth to respond, “and I get it, I really do, but you can’t let your anxiety consume you like this. Some things are just out of our control.” Tony fell silent after his words, continuing to stare in front of him, and Bruce could see the gears spinning in his head. He sighed, taking his hand off his shoulder.

“Tony--”

“But what if we could control it?” The engineer looked at his friend, a wild look in his eyes. Bruce stared at him for a few moments, his mind trying to process his words.

“What?”

“What if we could just start it over?” Looking back at the holographic lines of code in front of him, Tony scanned it over, the soft blue light reflecting something fiery in his eyes. “We’re essentially making a digital brain right now, right? We’ve already achieved that, so what’s to say we can’t transport our own?” Holding out a hand, the philanthropist zoomed out of the code with his fingers so the two could see the full holographic structure, and with a few more taps he pulled up a picture of the bifrost’s rainbow beam next to it. “Einstein-Rosen bridge travel’s already a thing, and we all know what the opposite of traveling at lightspeed is.”

Eyes widening in realization, Bruce muttered, “You can’t be implying what I think you are.” Tony looked back at him. “Think about it, Bruce. It isn’t as far-fetched as it seems. With the two of us putting our brains together, this could really work.”

“I-I don’t know,” Bruce stammered, taking a step back from the table. “An artificial intelligence is one thing, but time travel?”

“We would only use it for emergencies,” Tony started, “and it wouldn’t mess with any time paradox shenanigans either. Think about it--we scan a person, identify who they are, right? Then we scan their brain, transfer it temporarily into an AI, and send it back. We have a sea of arc reactors here already, so energy won’t be an issue. We would be able to go back and undo things just like that.” He snapped in time with his words, and his eyes lingered on his hand for a brief moment before moving back to the doctor. Taking a step closer to Bruce, Tony met his gaze. “This could really save our ass one day.”

Staring at the hero, Bruce noticed something different in Tony’s eyes. When his friend had approached him about the idea of Ultron, all he saw was a man being trapped by his own mind, and his eyes showed nothing but a man captured with fear. The only reason Bruce had agreed to help him was because he knew the billionaire was stubborn, and this was going to be the only way that he would be relieved of at least some of his anxiety. He couldn’t stand seeing the haunted look in Tony’s eyes whenever New York was mentioned, so he really had no choice but to agree. But now, Bruce saw something else buried underneath that fear. It was only for a split second, but the genius could’ve sworn he’d seen something lighter in his eyes. A glimmer of hope.

Nodding softly, Bruce spoke softly, “If you think it’ll help, you know I’m right behind you.” A giddy smile broke out on the hero’s face, like one you would see if a parent granted their child access to the candy isle while at the grocery store. Bruce couldn’t help but reflect his smile. “But we have to finish Ultron first. I don’t think I can handle both at once.”

Tony’s smile faded a little, but the billionaire nodded nonetheless, “Right--yeah, of course. Ultron comes first, time travel thingy afterwards.” He turned back to the blue light of the code, muttering something about coming up with a name to himself before taking a sip of coffee. Pulling up his section of the hologram, he turned to Bruce, flashing his signature toothy press smile before urging him, “Well, since we have an order, let’s hurry up and finish this bad boy. We’re almost done, anyways.”

“Right,” Bruce smiled, shaking his head fondly as Tony quickly started to edit the code, before turning to do the same. As much as he hated being dragged along, he relished in the moments where Tony felt comfortable enough to allow himself to feel happy. The billionaire barely got a break between his responsibilities with Stark Industries and his own issues with his mental health, and Bruce understood how it felt to carry that baggage around with out. The defined dark circles and constant companion of coffee wasn’t something he wasn’t familiar with, and it killed him to see Tony fall into the same hole he had fallen down, and still sometimes found himself in. He just wished Tony would be able to open up to someone about what he saw in New York sometime soon. Whatever it was clearly haunted him, and Bruce would be lying if the thought of something larger didn’t terrify him as well.

Maybe that’s why he agreed to work with Tony on Ultron, he mused, tapping away at the lines of the code in front of him. Maybe he wanted to work on these crazy projects because he himself was concerned about the same things as his friend was, albeit not as strongly. Regardless, Tony was putting his hope into these creations, and into Bruce for allowing him to work on them with him, and he wasn’t about to let his friend down. Not when many lives could be at stake. Pausing in his work to take a small sip of tea from his cup, Bruce let out a heavy breath, his eyes meeting the softly glowing yellow stone resting on the table in front of them.

He just really hoped this would work.

“That up there? That’s the endgame.”