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THIS ROUND IS NOW CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS.
ROUND FOUR WILL OPEN AT 10PM EST ON MONDAY THE 14TH.
ROUND THREE
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REMINDER: THERE IS A SPOILER POLICY IN PLACE UNTIL 7 MAY.
PROMPT FORMATTING:
Alphabetize pairings. They will be archived that way!Put [RPF] before RPF prompts ( Read more... )
He sits up in a bolt, and finds Bruce’s one good eye open. They stare at each other for a strange moment, Tony unable to believe his days of grief have ended in just as sudden and random of a moment as they had begun.
“Bruce,” Tony says hoarsely, “Bruce, God, fuck-”
He surges forward and kisses him. Bruce’s fingers slide along his cheek, around to the back of his neck. It’s an awkward meeting of lips, Bruce having little strength and tasting strange, medical. After they pull back Bruce tries to say something, but it comes out as an incoherent rasp.
“Hey, hey,” Tony chides, reaching for the water and sponges at the bedside table. He wets a sponge, and lets Bruce roll it around in his mouth. “Take it easy, big guy.”
A dubious look comes to Bruce’s face. Like I’m going anywhere? Tony gets the most hysterical urge to laugh because that look, more than anything, tells him that Bruce is okay.
Bruce pulls the sponge out of his mouth with a hoarse swallow. “Where are we?”
“S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. I know, not your preferred port of call, but it was the best I could do.”
A smile - exhausted, kind of helpless - warms Bruce’s face. “Well, if it’s up to Mr. Stark’s standards...”
“See? You are coming around.” Tony strokes Bruce’s hair back from his forehead. “How do you feel?”
Bruce takes in a long breath, surveys his injured body with some disbelief. “Not great.”
“Yeah.” Tony toys with his hair. “You know I’m pretty much never letting you out of the tower again.”
This gets a weak attempt at a laugh out of Bruce, followed by a cringe when it aggravates his internal injuries. “Tony…”
“Hm?”
Bruce turns his head away, mouth a thin line, for a long quiet moment. “Were they trying to capture me, or kill me?”
“You don’t need to worry about that now.” Tony glares off. “Fury’s gotten Ross’s people off your back, and I will never-”
“Ross,” Bruce repeats. His good eye widens, skips along Tony in alarm. “Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
“But you fought him…” Bruce says, a distant horror dawning.
“We all fought him.”
This doesn’t reassure Bruce. If anything, it troubles him more. “Ross never stops. He’ll come after you, Tony.”
Tony tightens a fist. “I’d love it if he tried.”
“You wouldn’t talk like that if you knew him.” Bruce swallows. “God…”
Tony lays a hand over Bruce’s, pulling together their fingers. “Did I tell you not to worry about this right now? Maybe wait until you’ve regained mobility in a couple of your limbs? Just a thought.”
“Yeah.” Bruce smiles to himself, a little uncomfortably. “About that. The other guy, he’s - not liking this.”
“Conversation?” Tony says.
“No,” Bruce says, and holds up his lead-wrapped arm, glances at the monitors. “This.”
“Oh. Well, he’s a little late to the party. The last ten days have been kind of a downer for everybody.”
Bruce’s good eye bugs. “Ten days?”
“Yeah.” Tony winces, realizing he should’ve broken that news a little more delicately. “They, uh, really did a number on you.”
"I believe it." Bruce glances toward the door. “I don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re suggesting,” Tony answers, and they share a smile that reminds him of the first day they’d met, on this very Helicarrier no less, when they were the only people in the room who really got each other.
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The arrival of a medical bed is an odd sight if there ever was one; Bruce modest about how the wind catches his medical gown, right before he turns over on his side, hunching over, and rips it during his transformation anyway.
Tony’s seen him transform countless times, but this one - this one holds his particular attention. It takes longer, Bruce straining more than he usually does, as the Hulk’s massive form swallows up and heals the burns and the shrapnel gashes. The bandage falls away from his right eye, which has grown out and restored itself. It’s always strangest when his face distorts, but Tony even welcomes the green regression to Cro-Magnon, because it’s rough and alive.
Tony gets a bullhorn and clears one of the runways, not that an announcement is needed once Hulk springs out of the broken medical bed and bounds for freedom. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on deck scatter and start making frantic phone calls; Fury’s console must have just blown up.
Hulk runs and leaps, as if there’s no other way to shake off the last ten days of confinement, and springs up into the sky. He does not attack, because the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents know how this works, and none are stupid enough to provoke him (no doubt Fury is bellowing reminders in their earpieces). They all stand clear, but for a few brave souls who find hiding places to watch.
Their fascination is right.
Tony sits by himself in a jeep one of the agents had abandoned, with an awed little smile as he watches Hulk roar at the sky. And he finds himself laughing as an enormous green thing comes bounding toward him, flinging himself from place to place like a thousand-pound acrobat, flying and joyous and green and defiant. Maybe Bruce isn’t indestructible, but for now, it’s enough that he looks for all the world like he could be.
=end=
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The whole thing made might chest ache (except the end, which just made me so happy!)
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