Avengers - Crossing the Nyx
Once again with the Hawkeye icon because I have no general Avengers one...
Title: Crossing the Nyx
Genre: Gen, Science Bros, Hint of Pre-Bruce/Tony
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~7,300 words
Warnings: Aftermath of experimentation and confinement, PTSD
Synopsis: What's a little paralyzing fear between friends?
Author's Notes: For the "phobia" square at
hc_bingo. I chose nyctophobia, which is fear of the dark.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and am making no profit from this.
Also available on AO3.
It was dark. Somehow, Tony had not expected that. An entire area of the lab, a space that took up roughly a third of the available floor plan, was completely black per all sensors and readouts.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that this was likely where they wanted to be, that behind the heavy doors and multiple locks lay what the Avengers as well as an entire tactical team from SHIELD sought. He grabbed the lab-coated minion that tried to slink away, grip tight on his arm in case he tried ripping the fabric to free himself. "Now, whatever could you be hiding in there?" he asked with mock confusion.
"It's contained," the weaselly little man insisted. There was an odd sort of plea to his tone that put Tony on edge. That edge didn't lessen when the man continued, "It's sedated, and the darkness helps to prevent unintentional startling."
Tony didn't really listen to the rest, he was too distracted by the images Natasha was pulling up on multiple monitors. It would appear she had hacked the system to reveal what even his advanced sensors could not detect on the other side of the reinforced barrier.
"Fuck that!" Clint said after watching less than a minute of footage from earlier in the day. He grabbed an arrow from his quiver and Tony recognized the explosive design what with being the one who designed it. "I'm blowing this and getting him out of there."
"That's not wise," the minion dared to speak. All attention was on him as no one wanted to look at the monitors or the horrors that they held, and he babbled, "It doesn't take well to suddenly stimuli."
It was Steve that cut him off, the full power of command behind his tone as he said, "'It' is one of our teammates, and his name is Doctor Bruce Banner. I suggest you unlock those doors before I let my two friends here play fast and loose with the explosives and leave you to pick up the pieces."
The man quickly nodded and rushed over to a control panel. He swiped a card and typed sequence after sequence of numbers while both Natasha and Clint kept their weapons trained on him. There was a hiss of pressure being released and a click as the first door slid open.
"It was easier to keep it, I mean him, in the dark," the man explained, still typing. "There was less chance of agitation while we worked and-"
"And he didn't know you were coming so he couldn't Hulk out on you until you already jabbed him with more of your drugs," Tony finished for him. He had looked away from the screens, but JARVIS was already helpfully replaying what little he had seen to prepare him for what lay on the other side of a series of doorways.
Tony grabbed the scientist again and pushed him through to the first antechamber. The man, of course, protested, but was silenced when Tony explained, "You're coming with us. You're going to help us remove all those pesky lines and wires in a way that doesn't damage our friend that you have so graciously been using as a lab rat."
"But if he-" the man tried, but was cut off again.
"If he Hulks out, we feed you to him first," Clint helpfully supplied. Sometimes the team really did know Tony far too well. Sometimes, this knowledge came in handy.
The man sputtered and stalled and even pled but, surprisingly enough, no one on the team paid him any mind save for continuing to urge him to open the damn doors already. There was a supply of goggles enhanced for night vision along one wall of the next chamber, and both Clint and Natasha took a set, Steve and Thor relying on their own enhanced senses and Tony relying on his tech. It seemed that the lab as a whole where Bruce was kept had no lighting capabilities, and the invading scientists either brought their own or moved him if needed. He supposed it reduced the risk of accidental exposure, even as he wondered how hellacious it would be to be kept like that for the better part of a week.
The lights dimmed and then went off completely in the second antechamber, and the final door opened soundlessly. Tony pushed the scientist in front of him and ordered, "Get to work."
The sound of his voice was enough to rouse Banner, at least a little, as his very human voice asked, "T-Tony?" His face was lit by the glow of Tony's arc reactor, blue-tinged horror marring his usually placid features.
"In the flesh," he assured him. He paused and amended that to, "Well, in the suit, but there's flesh beneath that. And the rest of the team is here as well so, when it comes down to it, there's quite a bit of flesh, really." His sensors easily adjusted for the lack of light, pinpointing every tube, every needle, every puncture wound. There was an odd looping contraption connected with the back of Banner's skull, the needles and the drugs they held coursing directly to his brain.
His pulse was slow, but steadily rising, especially when the minion reached towards his head, hands highlighted and visible for the first time in days. "Tony, if he releases that... I can't control Him. Not after this long..."
"We're kind of expecting that," Tony admitted. They had no idea what level of damage to expect, other than "Hulk Sized," but had a limited containment procedure in place. Limited, because not a one of them wanted to take Bruce down again or make the situation any worse than it already was.
"See if you can get him to aim for any machine that's not the Iron Man suit," Barton offered without pause. "Thor and I will take care of any scraps you miss so nothing is left behind."
"Nothing?" Banner verified, his voice a pained chuckle.
"They will never do this to you again. No one will ever do this to you again," Steve told him.
"On this, we swear," Thor promised.
The only person left to affirm this and advise Bruce of their status was Natasha and, though she did not speak to him directly, she let her allegiances be known when she keyed her comm and ordered, "All SHIELD agents fall back. Likely uncontrolled transformation commencing." There was a pause, and Tony saw her cock her head to the side slightly as she listened to some junior agent complain. She silenced him and any others with, "If you violate these orders and enter this zone, we will not offer aid or rescue... from the Hulk or from Director Fury should you survive."
Though the line was still open, only silence came across it. Tony cycled through the available comm frequencies until he found verification that everyone was evacuating the containment area, some even leaving neatly wrapped packages of the captured enemy behind. He nodded to Natasha to confirm and then pushed at the minion's shoulder and said, "Let's do this."
The final lines were pulled, though the heavy restraints left in place, not that they truly mattered. Tony watched as Bruce's heart rate grew steady and strong, and then as it grew some more. Bruce began to almost convulse, and his muscles began to expand at an even more alarming rate than usual. "I'm so sorry," he managed to whisper before any chance of human control was erased from the situation and the Hulk snapped through leather and metal as though they were nothing more than string.
The scientist attempted to run, but was possibly tripped by a certain master assassin, and ended up sprawled half across one of the many equipment tables that littered the room. Steve tucked said assassin behind him while Thor stepped in front of Clint and Tony, and they waited for the worse to happen.
The Hulk loomed huge and towering, and made quick work of what had once been his prison, the metal table and more than a single diagnostic machine shattering under his force. He whirled around, ready to smash anyone and anything else, but paused at the group lit by the glow of the reactor, hands raised with something that may have been a table leg in one of them. Everyone assumed as non-aggressive of a pose as they could manage, which was not necessarily saying much for a group that contained two assassins and three men who were pretty much permanently armed when they went out in the field.
Thor did not put down Mjolnir, but did lower the hammer slightly to show it was not a threat. "Friend Banner, we are solely here to see to your release," Thor promised him. He did not, however, move out from in front of the others in the least.
"Try not to destroy us or the nice men in the black suits, but anyone else is fair game," Barton helpfully provided.
The very edge of some very green lips curled upwards and the Hulk grunted something that may have been an acceptance of those terms, and then stepped back and returned to destroying everything else. Equipment sparked and walls crumbled, the light from the other rooms filtering in through the dust to illuminate the destruction.
Clint and Natasha tossed their goggles to the side and started to work on any data that may have been contained within the machines, intent to keep their promise that no one should ever have access to such things. Tony quietly downloaded just enough to determine if Bruce himself would have some sort of horrific reaction to the drugs given to him, seeing no reason to start from scratch with blood tests when that much could be obtained without harm. He localized the data though, and placed it under his personal authorization codes so that no one, not even JARVIS, could access it without his explicit approval.
Finally, hours later, the team surveyed the ruins and declared them good enough to set fire to. Between Thor's lightning, Tony's repulsors, and a couple of incendiary arrows from Clint's quiver that Tony may have needed to replace so that SHIELD inventory didn't catch on, damn near nothing used against Bruce survived enough to ever be used again.
Night was falling by the time Bruce de-Hulked and returned to his mild-mannered and rather almost naked ways. Steve grabbed one of the singed lab coats to drape over him, but Bruce only caught sight on the white and must have panicked as soon enough they were dealing with an exhausted Hulk once more. Natasha eventually approached with a dark gray blanket from the stores of SHIELD Medical, and simply stood nearby until Bruce collapsed into a heap at the edge of what had once been a primary entrance into the building.
She wrapped the blanket around him while Tony and the others leaned perhaps a bit too close, earning a wane grin for their troubles. "I guess I'm going to Medical lock-up for a while?" Bruce asked. His voice was harsh from both his ordeal and the Hulk's adamant vocalizations.
"I would have thought you'd want something a little less constraining than that," Tony mused, mask up so that his friend could see it really was him.
Which was how, after a quick exam in the open air of the destroyed compound, a passed out Banner was transported via Quinjet to the Tower instead of the Helicarrier. Doctors, plural, were ready and waiting for him there, with any and all equipment and medication only the push of a button away.
It took three days for Tony to notice Bruce wasn't sleeping. Well, that wasn't quite true. It took three days for Tony to notice how Bruce was sleeping, and how it appeared to be far from restful.
"You know, these things go off too," Tony said as he walked into the lab.
Bruce startled from his place sprawled about a counter, and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes in confusion, inadvertently exposing the bandages still wrapped around his wrists with the action. Tony gestured to the bright lights that flooded the room and Bruce shrugged with mild embarrassment. "Not quite a fan of the whole darkened lab thing right about now," he admitted. He grabbed his glasses from next to one of the displays and put them on, but the only seemed to highlight the shadows under his eyes.
"There's two solutions for that," Tony said, pulling up a stool beside him. Bruce looked at him expectantly, so he continued, "You could actually sleep in a real bed, which would be a hell of a lot more comfortable than a table, or you could, you know, dim the damn things a bit. No, scratch that, three things. You could also sleep in a bed with the lights there dimmed and get the best of both worlds."
Bruce looked to him with equal parts wariness and confusion, but Tony took that as his turn to shrug and say, "It doesn't take a genius, which I am by the way, to guess you aren't sleeping well and the whole lights thing probably doesn't just apply to the lab."
"You hack the surveillance to my room?" Bruce guessed.
Tony shook his head. "No, but I could if you want me to. Anything good there? Weird and kinky things done with or to test tubes or the secret hiding place of the last of the Twinkies that you don't want us to know about?"
That earned him a hint of a smile and a smirked, "Those Twinkies are mine, man, Use that genius of yours to get your own." The brashness disappeared disappointingly quickly though, as did the smile. Tony was met with a mask that even he could tell was false, and was not at all surprised when Bruce lied, "I'm fine, really. Just need some adjustment time is all."
"No, you're not, but you will be, eventually," Tony told him. "Let someone in to help and maybe it will be sooner rather than later."
"Because you're the expert at letting people help," Bruce scoffed.
"No, I'm not," he agreed readily enough. He stood to leave and tossed over his shoulder, "But there are enough of us on this team that we should be able to patch together some sort of relief effort."
He did not find Bruce in his lab like that again, but he did find him in the common room, all lights ablaze, at three in the morning two days later. He had thought maybe one of his teammates had left them on by accident - it wouldn't be the first time and it wouldn't be the last, he was sure. The quiet hum of the television and a gentle prod from JARVIS told him otherwise.
Sure enough, passed out on one of the couches lay one bedraggled scientist. He stirred slightly as if his body registered it could be more comfortable, but was clearly too exhausted to fully fight sleep's hold on him.
Tony sighed and grabbed a blanket from another couch to drape over his friend. He ordered the lights to be turned off, but heard a rather quiet plea of, "Please, don't."
"Fifty percent?" he amended, and received a reluctant nod for his troubles.
Bruce sat up despite Tony's mother hen routine, though notably still kept the blanket and clutched it around him as he took in the darkened area. "It- it's silly, I know," he finally relented with a breath that was part exhaustion and part embarrassment.
"It's really not," Tony disagreed. He wandered over to the bar and poured his friend a jigger in a cut crystal glass. After a pause, he poured one for himself as well as, if he was going to do this, he was going to do it right.
Bruce eyed the shot warily, but took the glass in his hands, possibly so that Tony wouldn't drop it as he continued to walk by and settle himself in a nearby chair. Whatever worked, really.
Tony took a sip from his glass and tried to think of the proper phrasing for what he was about to say, something he most definitely was not used to doing. Normally, he'd just say what was on his mind and move on, leave others flailing in his wake. Even he knew that was not the right approach here, and not just because he had noticed the rest of the team noticing something was off with their usually easy going teammate.
The lack of sleep was clearly getting to him, as was the avoidance of talking to anyone about anything that happened while he was taken. As much as Tony himself felt the same way a scant few years ago, and as much as no one had heard the full story of everything that had happened during his time in captivity to this very day, he wasn't a genetically altered rage monster that could demolish all of New York single-handedly just because he refused to take some Ambien or melatonin.
"They call it 'PTSD,' or 'Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,' but it's a load of crap," he started. He took another sip of his drink and shrugged. "It's something made up by people who didn't have to go through it; a treatment process that may or may not work because, get this, everyone is different and everyone reacts to stress in different ways."
"PTSD is real, Tony," Bruce corrected him, as he knew he would. He eyed his own drink but didn't take a sip yet. "The part about everyone being different is real too, by the way. The doctors and psychologists can guess what might work based on what's worked for others, but have to adapt if their methods don't produce the desired results." There was a long pause, and then a look that was less than friendly, "But you knew that already and were just trying to get me to talk."
"Guilty as charged," Tony agreed, and wondered if he should have brought the bottle with him. Next time, maybe.
Bruce took the tiniest of sips, and licked a few drops from his lips. "I don't have PTSD," he insisted. "Bring me to the field and I will function for you, I will do my part."
"No, the Other Guy will do his part," Tony corrected. "We've already established that you're both the same and different; we've got your own files to prove it. He didn't have to go through that shit, you did."
The look turned into a full on glare, but there was no true heat behind it. Besides, JARVIS would warn him if they were approaching Hulk-worthy heart rates. "I can do my work, I can function in the field if need be, but I'm not overly fond of quiet dark lab-like places right now," Bruce allowed.
"And I hate cold and cluttered caves, and sometimes the smell of molten metal or singed skin will make me want to hurl, which is problematic when I have to build the damn things keeping me alive." He didn't realize he had raised his hand to his reactor until he felt the solid weight of it beneath his fingertips, didn't feel the need to expand upon the ways even seeing himself with the glowing circle of light embedded in his chest could set him off on a bad day as he knew the man before him had seen him on days that in no way could be described as good.
The admission had done what he knew it would though, and edged a flitting quirk of lips from Banner. "I will reluctantly allow that the whole avoiding dark and quiet places is playing hell with my sleep schedule," he admitted.
There was a long pause where Bruce took another sip from his glass and Tony knocked back the last of his. Finally, empty glass in hand, he asked, "Is there anything I can do to help?"
Bruce shook his head. "I'm a grown man, I don't need a nightlight or nightcap or anything like that," he said, though the dimmed lights of the room rather proved otherwise. He set his remaining drink down on the small table before him and stood, very clearly to leave. "Thank you though, Tony. It means a lot that you cared, that you... well, that you and the others came. I need to get past this on my own though."
He stepped towards the door, but paused when Tony called out, "We will always come, you know that, right?"
"I'm starting to, yeah," Bruce said with a huff of what might have been surprise.
He wandered off, likely to a well-lit room to pretend to sleep again, and left Tony alone with some truly bad television, a half-finished drink, and far too many thoughts. The contents of the glass did not survive the evening, but everything else did, so he counted it as a win. He ordered everything powered down and headed for his own rooms wondering just how much sleep he would not be getting that night.
Bruce had either made progress with his whole dealing with things schtick, or was getting better at faking it. He started showing up at team breakfasts again, and even looked more than slightly rested. He retired to his rooms at the same time every night, and reappeared each morning as if to stress to the others than he was still there, alive and functioning.
Tony respected his privacy enough not to check the surveillance feed from his floor to see what he was actually doing each night when he slipped away, but was admittedly nosy enough to check the power readings for the various rooms. Needless to say, he was not surprised in the least to see the near constant and steady flow that indicated damn near nothing was powered down, even at the oddest of hours.
Considering he himself was awake at these hours, he really did not have an argument against Bruce's actions. He debated stopping by for an idle and pointed chat, but his friend had made it clear he wanted deal with this on his own terms, which is something Tony himself more than understood. Besides, the Tower ran off of its own grid powered by its own ingenious source, and it wasn't like money was short even if he had to pay an actual power bill. So he ordered a few more lightbulbs for the old school appliances and set up a protocol in case Bruce's wanderings took him from his private sanctuary out into the shared areas, and made certain lighting was available in key locations should his approach be detected.
It all came to a head when the inevitable mission came down. Blah blah scientists, blah blah insane group, blah blah save the world. Bruce was fine during the briefing, and even fine during the ride in the Quinjet, despite everyone shooting him less than subtle worried glances. It was his first mission since his abduction and he had every right to sit this one out, but he refused when there was the slightest chance that the Hulk's strength could protect the others and/or be the thing that turned the tide in battle.
Tony had been chasing down some of the escaping bad guys and their minions with Thor and Steve when he heard the call over the comms. Several of the various experiments had been left on the burners, quite literally, and Natasha and Clint could not make heads or tails of what needed to be done with them, or if there were even ways to turn some of them off without making them go boom. Bruce offered his services as a scientist instead of a rage machine and that seemed to be that.
Flash forward not twenty minutes later and Barton was swearing profusely over the comms and the place was rocking not with explosions, but with an equally destructive force. Two hours, a destroyed lab, and some shit-scared junior agents later, and Bruce was laying panting on the floor in the tattered remnants of his clothing.
With only a little coercing, Tony was able to convince the junior agents that Bruce's highly sensitive system had an adverse reaction to one of the experiments and that it was in no way tied to some idiot thinking the best way to turn everything off was to throw the main power switch and send the room into utter and complete darkness. Clint swore by the story easily enough, and Natasha was threatening the agent in question within an inch of his life for daring to break protocols, even though every single one of them did so on a damn near daily basis. Bruce, for his part, lay shivering in a corner, horrified by his actions and reactions, and ignoring Steve and Thor's attempts to get him the hell out of there before something else triggered another transformation.
Tony could have told them he was in the clear, but needed to wait until the fumes from one of the experiments cleared if his cover story was going to work. The factory was well and truly destroyed, and the sun shone brightly through the damaged roof, highlighting the variously colored and thankfully not-that-toxic gasses that floated up and out to the open sky.
Natasha finished reaming the agent a new one and Clint handed over the bag of spare clothing that they carried pretty much everywhere on the off chance the Hulk came out to play. Barton and the others formed a human-ish wall around Bruce to give him his privacy, but even Tony noticed they did so in a way that also gave him plenty of room and plenty of light. It seemed the others were not quite as certain about their teammate's triggers, but we're going to do their best to avoid them anyway.
They needed to take the Quinjet back, and both Clint and Natasha seemed edgy about forcing Banner into the smaller area for a prolonged time. Tony found it ironic that Barton placed his bets on claustrophobia considering his own love for small and confined spaces, or at least his habit of finding them on pretty much any mission he was sent on and a fair deal of his spare time as well. Natasha didn't seem quite as sure, and he figured she was on the right track when she "accidentally" forgot to turn down the lights in the back all the way as they took off, which was remarkable as it involved overriding a default setting to do so.
She had also slipped Bruce a fricken glow stick and made up some story about the small toy-like item serving as a meditative distraction if nothing else. Tony watched his fellow scientist turn it in his hands halfheartedly, watching the luminescent liquid slosh along the insides of the tube, avoiding eye contact with the others and fought the urge to roll his eyes. He pointedly sat down across from Bruce and had JARVIS up the glow on his reactor a bit. The glow stick was forgotten long before it burnt out.
They got back to the tower and Bruce, as expected, slipped away to his lab. He claimed it was to check the readings on his exposure, Tony claimed it was for solace. He was in no way surprised when, long after a slightly subdued team dinner, Bruce was still there, poking idly at readings that didn't mean a damn thing.
"You look like shit," Tony said from the doorway, mainly because he did. Even from this distance, the shadows under his eyes and the sloop of his shoulders were impressive.
Bruce chucked his glasses to the side and rubbed at his hollow eyes. "I..." he began, but didn't seem to know where to go with it.
"Need to sleep," Tony finished for him.
"I have been sleeping," Bruce insisted, but his voice was petulant to even Tony's untrained ear.
"Just not restfully?" he guessed. He edged closer, and even dared to lean up against the lab table while he waited for his answer. When Bruce reluctantly nodded, he chided, "You know what helps with that? Not staying up all hours of the night with a thousand and one distractions around you."
Bruce scoffed, his eyebrows as expressive as his tone as he said, "Like you're one to talk."
Tony shrugged because he was guilty as charged and there was no denying it, but he also countered with, "Let's just say I know what it's like to try to avoid nightmares, only to crash spectacularly and have them anyway."
Bruce sighed and reached for his discarded glasses. He didn't put them back on, but he fiddled with the frames while he admitted, "It's not just nightmares." Tony gave him the time he needed, mentally cycling through better alloys for the frames if Bruce was going to abuse them like that, and eventually got the embarrassed self-depreciating almost whisper of, "I'm a grown man that's afraid of the dark."
"There's a lot of things lurking in it to be afraid of," Tony shrugged. "You're not the first and probably won't be the last to need a nightlight every now and then."
"Yeah, but I'm probably the only one that turns into a gigantic rage monster when he doesn't get one," Bruce huffed. He looked over to Tony and revealed a fear greater than the lack of a few bulbs. "I could have hurt someone today. I could have killed someone."
Tony wisely kept quiet about Natasha's innate reflexes having prevented such a thing several times over, but opened his mouth to offer some other hollow platitude, only to be cut off.
"All because I can't get over a stupid fear?" Bruce asked. It was clear he was taking more to himself, finally sounding out what he had been avoiding, than actually addressing Tony at this point. Tony let him go, understanding that when it came it came and you had to get it out or it'd just build into something that much more horrible the next time around.
"I was locked down, restrained, experimented on, kept in the dark and quiet for days, yet I have no problem with small spaces or needles or readouts. I lived my life, I survived, by hiding in quiet little holes where no one would find me. Now I flinch away from silence, and god forbid that silence be joined with darkness. I don't just get cranky like some child; I can't even make that comparison. If it were just that than it'd be one thing and we could move on. I get deadly. I get scared, I get angry, and others pay the price. I avoid it, avoid the sleep and the nightmares and everything else, and I can't focus enough to hold Him back. I can't function like this. I can't exist like this." The frames scraped against the lab table and Bruce ran his now empty hands through his hair, tugging and pulling and making a general mess of it. There was probably something poetic and deep about it or something tied to the symbolism of it all, if only Tony cared enough to make the connection.
The glasses were a lost cause at this point, but Tony would like to think Bruce himself was not. So he said, "Then don't."
"Don't?" Bruce laughed disbelievingly. He lowered his hands and looked over to Tony and repeated, "Don't? Just... don't? Like it's that easy?"
"I didn't say it would be easy," Tony pointed out. "In fact, it's going to suck. You're going to whine, you're going to bitch, you're going to be miserable, and you're going to be stressed beyond all belief and still try to fake it and probably fail horribly doing so."
"Great pep talk," Bruce muttered, but Tony ignored him and pressed on.
"But you're going to get through it and you want to know why?" He didn't wait for an answer because he was on a roll and didn't need the full-on pessimism yet. Besides, he let Bruce talk and now it was his turn to be heard. "Because you're not going to do it alone. You have a team that cares. You have a team that's there for you. And you have me."
Bruce hung his head, shoulders slouching at what looked to be an uncomfortable angle. "The team doesn't need to be involved in this..."
"They kinda already are," Tony pointed out. "Think about today. Think about how Clint got the power back on in a matter of minutes, how he even knew it was a trigger. Think about how Natasha reamed that guy a new one or gave you your own little glow stick of destiny. Think about how everyone covered you, covered for you, when you need it."
"They shouldn't have to..." Bruce protested, but was cut off again.
"No, they shouldn't," Tony agreed. "But remember that whole 'team' thing? 'Cause that's pretty important." He shifted how he was leaning against the table, getting into his friend's personal space a bit more but, really, he was already there mentally so he might as well make it physical too. Whatever it took to get through to him. "The Wonder Twins figured it out on their own. Well, most of it. Cap and Thor stood up for you because that's what they do. None of them will fully understand what you went through or what you're still going through, but they understand the suckage factor because they've all been through their own separate horrific situations before and know it doesn't just go away."
"It'd be nice if it did," Bruce offered quietly.
Tony snorted. "Yeah, it really would." He thought of how much time he had wasted dealing with his own demons, and how much meaningful work he probably could have gotten done instead. He also thought of how just talking about said demons meant he was probably in for some nightmares of his own, or at least a flashback or three, in the coming days. He wondered if the evil scientists and Doombots and all the other horrors could take a break for like a week so he could enjoy a good drunken stupor. He then wondered just how annoying Captain America would purposely be during the ensuing hangover.
His thoughts skidded to a halt when Bruce whispered, barely audible, "I'm tired, Tony."
It seemed like the easiest thing in the world to let his friend slump against him, to wrap an arm around him in a sort of pseudo-hug, to rest a hand upon his truly and utterly messed up hair, and just be there for him. They stayed like that for a long moment, Bruce's breath evening out slowly until it seemed like he was falling asleep, even here, even now. He caught himself though, and Tony felt him tense half a second before he started to pull away.
Bruce reached for his glasses, likely to bury himself in work again, but Tony stopped him by blurting, "I have a really bad idea." It was half-formed and less than intelligent and there were a thousand ways it could end badly, but it also had the slightest chance of actually working and Tony was used to working with odds worse than that so, really, it was worth a shot.
Which is how they found themselves in a yet untested "sanctuary" room. Built with materials that should, in theory, withstand the Hulk in all his glory, tucked away from anything vital to the day to day operations of the Tower itself.
Bruce looked at the padded floor, cheap decor, and softly colored walls doubtfully, a look that only grew in intensity when Tony hauled in blankets and pillows and more than a single tablet just in case the whole plan failed and they were left awkwardly bored in a neatly padded room. With Bruce's insistence, the suitcase suit was tucked in a corner as well, just in case, but both really hoped it wouldn't be needed.
Tony sent Natasha a quick message about his ill-formed plan knowing she would be the most discreet should anything come up that either needed the full Avengers team or needed the remaining team to intervene should everything go horribly wrong. With that, he settled himself in against the pillows, grabbed a tablet, and waited for the results to scroll by.
Bruce settled himself in a bit more awkwardly, hesitance rolling off of him in waves. "You sure about this?" he asked for at least the sixth time.
"Sure, why not?" Tony shrugged as if he locked his unarmed self in with a genetically altered rage monster on a daily basis. "Let's start at half - that seems nice and basic and arbitrary, right? JARVIS, drop lights to fifty percent," he ordered, and the room began to slowly dim. They had gone that far before, though it was only for a short time before Bruce fled to the safety of his room. This time, there would be no fleeing. Well, okay, fleeing would still be possible, just not quite as easy what with the need to release locks and protocols and such.
Bruce's breathing sped up beside him but, eventually, his grip on his tablet changed from white knuckled to something a little less deadly.
They worked in relative silence for a while, the only sound the chiming dings from the incredibly monotonous games Tony loaded on Bruce's tablet. Even those died out as the volume decreased at the steady pre-programmed rate.
Bruce broke the silence with a sigh so deep it sounded like it hurt. "What about you?" he asked. "You talked about 'them' and 'they' but not you, not what... not anything actually personal about what you went through and how you got through it."
Tony had wondered when he was going to bring that up, was rather surprised he hadn't before. He set his tablet aside and took a breath that totally was not to steady himself before he began. "I could tell you what happened to me, what I went through and how I got over it, but there are two very important things to remember. The first is that everyone is different. What I went through is not the same as what you went through, and whatever the hell I did to cope with it is not going to be the same as whatever the hell works for you. I mean, really, are you going to build yourself a mechanized suit of armor from scraps to deal with dark? Probably not. The second is something nobody actually wants to admit. Not the doctors or psychologists or self help gurus or anyone like that. It's that you don't get over it, not ever. You cope, you deal, but it's always there and will be for the rest of your life."
"Again with the pep talk?" Bruce asked, but there was a hint of acceptance to his tone. Sadness too, but at least the acceptance was still there, on some level.
Tony shrugged. "It is what it is. You want me to lie to you? Tell you that some day you will find the mystical magical cure all that makes everything better? That there won't be weeks where you're sailing along and everything is fine and then, bam, a reflection of a fricken candle on a table on a five star restaurant makes you run to the men's room and hurl up snails because for a moment, for a split second, you thought you were in a cave on the other side of the world watching the man who saved you be tortured with hot pokers?" He shivered despite the warmth of the lab, memories a visceral thing at times. "It sucks. You deal. You move on as much as you can. The stuff you can't shake or move past? You learn to cover for pretty damn quick. And, when all else fails, there's a full bar that can be stocked with your favorites if you only say the word."
Bruce huffed, sad and resigned. "Drinking's not really my thing," he admitted.
"Might help you sleep," Tony suggested.
"Drunken stupors are not that conducive to actual rest," Bruce pointed out, which, well, point.
"Details," Tony waved it off with a chuckle. Knowing he was probably pushing it but also knowing it was the only way he had ever gotten anywhere in life, he asked, "Should we try dropping them further?" He waved his hand to encompass the room and the neat row of lights that edged the ceiling.
Bruce tensed again, but nodded almost numbly. When Tony ordered the lights reduced to thirty percent luminosity, he pointedly shifted, adjusting himself against the mountain of pillows. Bruce's shoulder brushed against Tony's once, then settled as a steady and reassuring weight.
They sat like that for a while, Tony poking at his tablet and Bruce's own forgotten at the side. Tony watched and waited while Bruce's breathing slowly evened out, while the carefully measured breaths became gentle snores. About an hour into the experiment, Bruce flopped over, arm loosely tangled in Tony's own. He tensed immediately, and Tony stayed as still as he dared without seeming like he was actually trying, as though having your nyctophobic friend cuddle you in a darkened room was an every day occurrence.
Bruce's eyes opened wide, highlighted by the blue of the reactor that shone through Tony's worn t-shirt. They seemed to focus on that light and then slowly, ever so slowly, they slid shut again, Bruce's breathing returning to the quiet snuffles and snores.
It happened several more times throughout the night but, each time, Bruce quieted at the blue glow. In the morning, long hours later, a chime from a discarded tablet woke them both, the good Captain Rogers letting them know that SHIELD's science division wanted a full report on the fake gasses that leaked to know what protocols they should put in place for any future occurrences. Bruce pushed himself up with a yawn and Tony untangled his hand from where it somehow had gotten knotted in Bruce's hair and attempted to stretch.
Bruce had the faint imprint of the edge of the reactor on his cheek, but looked far more rested than he had since the whole debacle began. "I, um, thanks," he muttered, more than slightly embarrassed.
"For what?" Tony asked. He looked at his half finished work on one of the tablets and tried to figure out just where he had been going with that algorithm. He shrugged and figured he'd sort it out later as he typed a quick message back to Steve that there better the hell be coffee in vast amounts, and decided shoes were decidedly not necessary for the meeting.
"For being my nightlight," Bruce said with no little amount of embarrassment.
"Hey, if it's just the reactor you're after, I could build you something," Tony shrugged. "Maybe like a mini one on a wristband, like those old Indiglow watches but cooler; it could stretch when you transform and everything. You could keep it off when you don't need it, but turn it on if things got too much." He started already planning out the design in his head, and wondered why he hadn't thought of it earlier.
Bruce bumped up against his shoulder with a subtle laugh and shook his head. "Okay, so for being something a bit more than just a nightlight," he amended.
"Whatever it takes," Tony told him, and realized he meant it as a promise. He wrapped an arm around his friend and tugged him towards the door and hopefully great amounts of caffeine. They hadn't made it to complete darkness that night, and may never get to that point, but it was a start and, considering the smile Bruce graced him with for his efforts, a damn good one at that.
End.
Feedback is always welcomed.
This entry was originally posted at http://cat-77.dreamwidth.org/416747.html. Current comments
Title: Crossing the Nyx
Genre: Gen, Science Bros, Hint of Pre-Bruce/Tony
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~7,300 words
Warnings: Aftermath of experimentation and confinement, PTSD
Synopsis: What's a little paralyzing fear between friends?
Author's Notes: For the "phobia" square at
hc_bingo. I chose nyctophobia, which is fear of the dark.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters and am making no profit from this.
Also available on AO3.
It was dark. Somehow, Tony had not expected that. An entire area of the lab, a space that took up roughly a third of the available floor plan, was completely black per all sensors and readouts.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that this was likely where they wanted to be, that behind the heavy doors and multiple locks lay what the Avengers as well as an entire tactical team from SHIELD sought. He grabbed the lab-coated minion that tried to slink away, grip tight on his arm in case he tried ripping the fabric to free himself. "Now, whatever could you be hiding in there?" he asked with mock confusion.
"It's contained," the weaselly little man insisted. There was an odd sort of plea to his tone that put Tony on edge. That edge didn't lessen when the man continued, "It's sedated, and the darkness helps to prevent unintentional startling."
Tony didn't really listen to the rest, he was too distracted by the images Natasha was pulling up on multiple monitors. It would appear she had hacked the system to reveal what even his advanced sensors could not detect on the other side of the reinforced barrier.
"Fuck that!" Clint said after watching less than a minute of footage from earlier in the day. He grabbed an arrow from his quiver and Tony recognized the explosive design what with being the one who designed it. "I'm blowing this and getting him out of there."
"That's not wise," the minion dared to speak. All attention was on him as no one wanted to look at the monitors or the horrors that they held, and he babbled, "It doesn't take well to suddenly stimuli."
It was Steve that cut him off, the full power of command behind his tone as he said, "'It' is one of our teammates, and his name is Doctor Bruce Banner. I suggest you unlock those doors before I let my two friends here play fast and loose with the explosives and leave you to pick up the pieces."
The man quickly nodded and rushed over to a control panel. He swiped a card and typed sequence after sequence of numbers while both Natasha and Clint kept their weapons trained on him. There was a hiss of pressure being released and a click as the first door slid open.
"It was easier to keep it, I mean him, in the dark," the man explained, still typing. "There was less chance of agitation while we worked and-"
"And he didn't know you were coming so he couldn't Hulk out on you until you already jabbed him with more of your drugs," Tony finished for him. He had looked away from the screens, but JARVIS was already helpfully replaying what little he had seen to prepare him for what lay on the other side of a series of doorways.
Tony grabbed the scientist again and pushed him through to the first antechamber. The man, of course, protested, but was silenced when Tony explained, "You're coming with us. You're going to help us remove all those pesky lines and wires in a way that doesn't damage our friend that you have so graciously been using as a lab rat."
"But if he-" the man tried, but was cut off again.
"If he Hulks out, we feed you to him first," Clint helpfully supplied. Sometimes the team really did know Tony far too well. Sometimes, this knowledge came in handy.
The man sputtered and stalled and even pled but, surprisingly enough, no one on the team paid him any mind save for continuing to urge him to open the damn doors already. There was a supply of goggles enhanced for night vision along one wall of the next chamber, and both Clint and Natasha took a set, Steve and Thor relying on their own enhanced senses and Tony relying on his tech. It seemed that the lab as a whole where Bruce was kept had no lighting capabilities, and the invading scientists either brought their own or moved him if needed. He supposed it reduced the risk of accidental exposure, even as he wondered how hellacious it would be to be kept like that for the better part of a week.
The lights dimmed and then went off completely in the second antechamber, and the final door opened soundlessly. Tony pushed the scientist in front of him and ordered, "Get to work."
The sound of his voice was enough to rouse Banner, at least a little, as his very human voice asked, "T-Tony?" His face was lit by the glow of Tony's arc reactor, blue-tinged horror marring his usually placid features.
"In the flesh," he assured him. He paused and amended that to, "Well, in the suit, but there's flesh beneath that. And the rest of the team is here as well so, when it comes down to it, there's quite a bit of flesh, really." His sensors easily adjusted for the lack of light, pinpointing every tube, every needle, every puncture wound. There was an odd looping contraption connected with the back of Banner's skull, the needles and the drugs they held coursing directly to his brain.
His pulse was slow, but steadily rising, especially when the minion reached towards his head, hands highlighted and visible for the first time in days. "Tony, if he releases that... I can't control Him. Not after this long..."
"We're kind of expecting that," Tony admitted. They had no idea what level of damage to expect, other than "Hulk Sized," but had a limited containment procedure in place. Limited, because not a one of them wanted to take Bruce down again or make the situation any worse than it already was.
"See if you can get him to aim for any machine that's not the Iron Man suit," Barton offered without pause. "Thor and I will take care of any scraps you miss so nothing is left behind."
"Nothing?" Banner verified, his voice a pained chuckle.
"They will never do this to you again. No one will ever do this to you again," Steve told him.
"On this, we swear," Thor promised.
The only person left to affirm this and advise Bruce of their status was Natasha and, though she did not speak to him directly, she let her allegiances be known when she keyed her comm and ordered, "All SHIELD agents fall back. Likely uncontrolled transformation commencing." There was a pause, and Tony saw her cock her head to the side slightly as she listened to some junior agent complain. She silenced him and any others with, "If you violate these orders and enter this zone, we will not offer aid or rescue... from the Hulk or from Director Fury should you survive."
Though the line was still open, only silence came across it. Tony cycled through the available comm frequencies until he found verification that everyone was evacuating the containment area, some even leaving neatly wrapped packages of the captured enemy behind. He nodded to Natasha to confirm and then pushed at the minion's shoulder and said, "Let's do this."
The final lines were pulled, though the heavy restraints left in place, not that they truly mattered. Tony watched as Bruce's heart rate grew steady and strong, and then as it grew some more. Bruce began to almost convulse, and his muscles began to expand at an even more alarming rate than usual. "I'm so sorry," he managed to whisper before any chance of human control was erased from the situation and the Hulk snapped through leather and metal as though they were nothing more than string.
The scientist attempted to run, but was possibly tripped by a certain master assassin, and ended up sprawled half across one of the many equipment tables that littered the room. Steve tucked said assassin behind him while Thor stepped in front of Clint and Tony, and they waited for the worse to happen.
The Hulk loomed huge and towering, and made quick work of what had once been his prison, the metal table and more than a single diagnostic machine shattering under his force. He whirled around, ready to smash anyone and anything else, but paused at the group lit by the glow of the reactor, hands raised with something that may have been a table leg in one of them. Everyone assumed as non-aggressive of a pose as they could manage, which was not necessarily saying much for a group that contained two assassins and three men who were pretty much permanently armed when they went out in the field.
Thor did not put down Mjolnir, but did lower the hammer slightly to show it was not a threat. "Friend Banner, we are solely here to see to your release," Thor promised him. He did not, however, move out from in front of the others in the least.
"Try not to destroy us or the nice men in the black suits, but anyone else is fair game," Barton helpfully provided.
The very edge of some very green lips curled upwards and the Hulk grunted something that may have been an acceptance of those terms, and then stepped back and returned to destroying everything else. Equipment sparked and walls crumbled, the light from the other rooms filtering in through the dust to illuminate the destruction.
Clint and Natasha tossed their goggles to the side and started to work on any data that may have been contained within the machines, intent to keep their promise that no one should ever have access to such things. Tony quietly downloaded just enough to determine if Bruce himself would have some sort of horrific reaction to the drugs given to him, seeing no reason to start from scratch with blood tests when that much could be obtained without harm. He localized the data though, and placed it under his personal authorization codes so that no one, not even JARVIS, could access it without his explicit approval.
Finally, hours later, the team surveyed the ruins and declared them good enough to set fire to. Between Thor's lightning, Tony's repulsors, and a couple of incendiary arrows from Clint's quiver that Tony may have needed to replace so that SHIELD inventory didn't catch on, damn near nothing used against Bruce survived enough to ever be used again.
Night was falling by the time Bruce de-Hulked and returned to his mild-mannered and rather almost naked ways. Steve grabbed one of the singed lab coats to drape over him, but Bruce only caught sight on the white and must have panicked as soon enough they were dealing with an exhausted Hulk once more. Natasha eventually approached with a dark gray blanket from the stores of SHIELD Medical, and simply stood nearby until Bruce collapsed into a heap at the edge of what had once been a primary entrance into the building.
She wrapped the blanket around him while Tony and the others leaned perhaps a bit too close, earning a wane grin for their troubles. "I guess I'm going to Medical lock-up for a while?" Bruce asked. His voice was harsh from both his ordeal and the Hulk's adamant vocalizations.
"I would have thought you'd want something a little less constraining than that," Tony mused, mask up so that his friend could see it really was him.
Which was how, after a quick exam in the open air of the destroyed compound, a passed out Banner was transported via Quinjet to the Tower instead of the Helicarrier. Doctors, plural, were ready and waiting for him there, with any and all equipment and medication only the push of a button away.
It took three days for Tony to notice Bruce wasn't sleeping. Well, that wasn't quite true. It took three days for Tony to notice how Bruce was sleeping, and how it appeared to be far from restful.
"You know, these things go off too," Tony said as he walked into the lab.
Bruce startled from his place sprawled about a counter, and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes in confusion, inadvertently exposing the bandages still wrapped around his wrists with the action. Tony gestured to the bright lights that flooded the room and Bruce shrugged with mild embarrassment. "Not quite a fan of the whole darkened lab thing right about now," he admitted. He grabbed his glasses from next to one of the displays and put them on, but the only seemed to highlight the shadows under his eyes.
"There's two solutions for that," Tony said, pulling up a stool beside him. Bruce looked at him expectantly, so he continued, "You could actually sleep in a real bed, which would be a hell of a lot more comfortable than a table, or you could, you know, dim the damn things a bit. No, scratch that, three things. You could also sleep in a bed with the lights there dimmed and get the best of both worlds."
Bruce looked to him with equal parts wariness and confusion, but Tony took that as his turn to shrug and say, "It doesn't take a genius, which I am by the way, to guess you aren't sleeping well and the whole lights thing probably doesn't just apply to the lab."
"You hack the surveillance to my room?" Bruce guessed.
Tony shook his head. "No, but I could if you want me to. Anything good there? Weird and kinky things done with or to test tubes or the secret hiding place of the last of the Twinkies that you don't want us to know about?"
That earned him a hint of a smile and a smirked, "Those Twinkies are mine, man, Use that genius of yours to get your own." The brashness disappeared disappointingly quickly though, as did the smile. Tony was met with a mask that even he could tell was false, and was not at all surprised when Bruce lied, "I'm fine, really. Just need some adjustment time is all."
"No, you're not, but you will be, eventually," Tony told him. "Let someone in to help and maybe it will be sooner rather than later."
"Because you're the expert at letting people help," Bruce scoffed.
"No, I'm not," he agreed readily enough. He stood to leave and tossed over his shoulder, "But there are enough of us on this team that we should be able to patch together some sort of relief effort."
He did not find Bruce in his lab like that again, but he did find him in the common room, all lights ablaze, at three in the morning two days later. He had thought maybe one of his teammates had left them on by accident - it wouldn't be the first time and it wouldn't be the last, he was sure. The quiet hum of the television and a gentle prod from JARVIS told him otherwise.
Sure enough, passed out on one of the couches lay one bedraggled scientist. He stirred slightly as if his body registered it could be more comfortable, but was clearly too exhausted to fully fight sleep's hold on him.
Tony sighed and grabbed a blanket from another couch to drape over his friend. He ordered the lights to be turned off, but heard a rather quiet plea of, "Please, don't."
"Fifty percent?" he amended, and received a reluctant nod for his troubles.
Bruce sat up despite Tony's mother hen routine, though notably still kept the blanket and clutched it around him as he took in the darkened area. "It- it's silly, I know," he finally relented with a breath that was part exhaustion and part embarrassment.
"It's really not," Tony disagreed. He wandered over to the bar and poured his friend a jigger in a cut crystal glass. After a pause, he poured one for himself as well as, if he was going to do this, he was going to do it right.
Bruce eyed the shot warily, but took the glass in his hands, possibly so that Tony wouldn't drop it as he continued to walk by and settle himself in a nearby chair. Whatever worked, really.
Tony took a sip from his glass and tried to think of the proper phrasing for what he was about to say, something he most definitely was not used to doing. Normally, he'd just say what was on his mind and move on, leave others flailing in his wake. Even he knew that was not the right approach here, and not just because he had noticed the rest of the team noticing something was off with their usually easy going teammate.
The lack of sleep was clearly getting to him, as was the avoidance of talking to anyone about anything that happened while he was taken. As much as Tony himself felt the same way a scant few years ago, and as much as no one had heard the full story of everything that had happened during his time in captivity to this very day, he wasn't a genetically altered rage monster that could demolish all of New York single-handedly just because he refused to take some Ambien or melatonin.
"They call it 'PTSD,' or 'Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,' but it's a load of crap," he started. He took another sip of his drink and shrugged. "It's something made up by people who didn't have to go through it; a treatment process that may or may not work because, get this, everyone is different and everyone reacts to stress in different ways."
"PTSD is real, Tony," Bruce corrected him, as he knew he would. He eyed his own drink but didn't take a sip yet. "The part about everyone being different is real too, by the way. The doctors and psychologists can guess what might work based on what's worked for others, but have to adapt if their methods don't produce the desired results." There was a long pause, and then a look that was less than friendly, "But you knew that already and were just trying to get me to talk."
"Guilty as charged," Tony agreed, and wondered if he should have brought the bottle with him. Next time, maybe.
Bruce took the tiniest of sips, and licked a few drops from his lips. "I don't have PTSD," he insisted. "Bring me to the field and I will function for you, I will do my part."
"No, the Other Guy will do his part," Tony corrected. "We've already established that you're both the same and different; we've got your own files to prove it. He didn't have to go through that shit, you did."
The look turned into a full on glare, but there was no true heat behind it. Besides, JARVIS would warn him if they were approaching Hulk-worthy heart rates. "I can do my work, I can function in the field if need be, but I'm not overly fond of quiet dark lab-like places right now," Bruce allowed.
"And I hate cold and cluttered caves, and sometimes the smell of molten metal or singed skin will make me want to hurl, which is problematic when I have to build the damn things keeping me alive." He didn't realize he had raised his hand to his reactor until he felt the solid weight of it beneath his fingertips, didn't feel the need to expand upon the ways even seeing himself with the glowing circle of light embedded in his chest could set him off on a bad day as he knew the man before him had seen him on days that in no way could be described as good.
The admission had done what he knew it would though, and edged a flitting quirk of lips from Banner. "I will reluctantly allow that the whole avoiding dark and quiet places is playing hell with my sleep schedule," he admitted.
There was a long pause where Bruce took another sip from his glass and Tony knocked back the last of his. Finally, empty glass in hand, he asked, "Is there anything I can do to help?"
Bruce shook his head. "I'm a grown man, I don't need a nightlight or nightcap or anything like that," he said, though the dimmed lights of the room rather proved otherwise. He set his remaining drink down on the small table before him and stood, very clearly to leave. "Thank you though, Tony. It means a lot that you cared, that you... well, that you and the others came. I need to get past this on my own though."
He stepped towards the door, but paused when Tony called out, "We will always come, you know that, right?"
"I'm starting to, yeah," Bruce said with a huff of what might have been surprise.
He wandered off, likely to a well-lit room to pretend to sleep again, and left Tony alone with some truly bad television, a half-finished drink, and far too many thoughts. The contents of the glass did not survive the evening, but everything else did, so he counted it as a win. He ordered everything powered down and headed for his own rooms wondering just how much sleep he would not be getting that night.
Bruce had either made progress with his whole dealing with things schtick, or was getting better at faking it. He started showing up at team breakfasts again, and even looked more than slightly rested. He retired to his rooms at the same time every night, and reappeared each morning as if to stress to the others than he was still there, alive and functioning.
Tony respected his privacy enough not to check the surveillance feed from his floor to see what he was actually doing each night when he slipped away, but was admittedly nosy enough to check the power readings for the various rooms. Needless to say, he was not surprised in the least to see the near constant and steady flow that indicated damn near nothing was powered down, even at the oddest of hours.
Considering he himself was awake at these hours, he really did not have an argument against Bruce's actions. He debated stopping by for an idle and pointed chat, but his friend had made it clear he wanted deal with this on his own terms, which is something Tony himself more than understood. Besides, the Tower ran off of its own grid powered by its own ingenious source, and it wasn't like money was short even if he had to pay an actual power bill. So he ordered a few more lightbulbs for the old school appliances and set up a protocol in case Bruce's wanderings took him from his private sanctuary out into the shared areas, and made certain lighting was available in key locations should his approach be detected.
It all came to a head when the inevitable mission came down. Blah blah scientists, blah blah insane group, blah blah save the world. Bruce was fine during the briefing, and even fine during the ride in the Quinjet, despite everyone shooting him less than subtle worried glances. It was his first mission since his abduction and he had every right to sit this one out, but he refused when there was the slightest chance that the Hulk's strength could protect the others and/or be the thing that turned the tide in battle.
Tony had been chasing down some of the escaping bad guys and their minions with Thor and Steve when he heard the call over the comms. Several of the various experiments had been left on the burners, quite literally, and Natasha and Clint could not make heads or tails of what needed to be done with them, or if there were even ways to turn some of them off without making them go boom. Bruce offered his services as a scientist instead of a rage machine and that seemed to be that.
Flash forward not twenty minutes later and Barton was swearing profusely over the comms and the place was rocking not with explosions, but with an equally destructive force. Two hours, a destroyed lab, and some shit-scared junior agents later, and Bruce was laying panting on the floor in the tattered remnants of his clothing.
With only a little coercing, Tony was able to convince the junior agents that Bruce's highly sensitive system had an adverse reaction to one of the experiments and that it was in no way tied to some idiot thinking the best way to turn everything off was to throw the main power switch and send the room into utter and complete darkness. Clint swore by the story easily enough, and Natasha was threatening the agent in question within an inch of his life for daring to break protocols, even though every single one of them did so on a damn near daily basis. Bruce, for his part, lay shivering in a corner, horrified by his actions and reactions, and ignoring Steve and Thor's attempts to get him the hell out of there before something else triggered another transformation.
Tony could have told them he was in the clear, but needed to wait until the fumes from one of the experiments cleared if his cover story was going to work. The factory was well and truly destroyed, and the sun shone brightly through the damaged roof, highlighting the variously colored and thankfully not-that-toxic gasses that floated up and out to the open sky.
Natasha finished reaming the agent a new one and Clint handed over the bag of spare clothing that they carried pretty much everywhere on the off chance the Hulk came out to play. Barton and the others formed a human-ish wall around Bruce to give him his privacy, but even Tony noticed they did so in a way that also gave him plenty of room and plenty of light. It seemed the others were not quite as certain about their teammate's triggers, but we're going to do their best to avoid them anyway.
They needed to take the Quinjet back, and both Clint and Natasha seemed edgy about forcing Banner into the smaller area for a prolonged time. Tony found it ironic that Barton placed his bets on claustrophobia considering his own love for small and confined spaces, or at least his habit of finding them on pretty much any mission he was sent on and a fair deal of his spare time as well. Natasha didn't seem quite as sure, and he figured she was on the right track when she "accidentally" forgot to turn down the lights in the back all the way as they took off, which was remarkable as it involved overriding a default setting to do so.
She had also slipped Bruce a fricken glow stick and made up some story about the small toy-like item serving as a meditative distraction if nothing else. Tony watched his fellow scientist turn it in his hands halfheartedly, watching the luminescent liquid slosh along the insides of the tube, avoiding eye contact with the others and fought the urge to roll his eyes. He pointedly sat down across from Bruce and had JARVIS up the glow on his reactor a bit. The glow stick was forgotten long before it burnt out.
They got back to the tower and Bruce, as expected, slipped away to his lab. He claimed it was to check the readings on his exposure, Tony claimed it was for solace. He was in no way surprised when, long after a slightly subdued team dinner, Bruce was still there, poking idly at readings that didn't mean a damn thing.
"You look like shit," Tony said from the doorway, mainly because he did. Even from this distance, the shadows under his eyes and the sloop of his shoulders were impressive.
Bruce chucked his glasses to the side and rubbed at his hollow eyes. "I..." he began, but didn't seem to know where to go with it.
"Need to sleep," Tony finished for him.
"I have been sleeping," Bruce insisted, but his voice was petulant to even Tony's untrained ear.
"Just not restfully?" he guessed. He edged closer, and even dared to lean up against the lab table while he waited for his answer. When Bruce reluctantly nodded, he chided, "You know what helps with that? Not staying up all hours of the night with a thousand and one distractions around you."
Bruce scoffed, his eyebrows as expressive as his tone as he said, "Like you're one to talk."
Tony shrugged because he was guilty as charged and there was no denying it, but he also countered with, "Let's just say I know what it's like to try to avoid nightmares, only to crash spectacularly and have them anyway."
Bruce sighed and reached for his discarded glasses. He didn't put them back on, but he fiddled with the frames while he admitted, "It's not just nightmares." Tony gave him the time he needed, mentally cycling through better alloys for the frames if Bruce was going to abuse them like that, and eventually got the embarrassed self-depreciating almost whisper of, "I'm a grown man that's afraid of the dark."
"There's a lot of things lurking in it to be afraid of," Tony shrugged. "You're not the first and probably won't be the last to need a nightlight every now and then."
"Yeah, but I'm probably the only one that turns into a gigantic rage monster when he doesn't get one," Bruce huffed. He looked over to Tony and revealed a fear greater than the lack of a few bulbs. "I could have hurt someone today. I could have killed someone."
Tony wisely kept quiet about Natasha's innate reflexes having prevented such a thing several times over, but opened his mouth to offer some other hollow platitude, only to be cut off.
"All because I can't get over a stupid fear?" Bruce asked. It was clear he was taking more to himself, finally sounding out what he had been avoiding, than actually addressing Tony at this point. Tony let him go, understanding that when it came it came and you had to get it out or it'd just build into something that much more horrible the next time around.
"I was locked down, restrained, experimented on, kept in the dark and quiet for days, yet I have no problem with small spaces or needles or readouts. I lived my life, I survived, by hiding in quiet little holes where no one would find me. Now I flinch away from silence, and god forbid that silence be joined with darkness. I don't just get cranky like some child; I can't even make that comparison. If it were just that than it'd be one thing and we could move on. I get deadly. I get scared, I get angry, and others pay the price. I avoid it, avoid the sleep and the nightmares and everything else, and I can't focus enough to hold Him back. I can't function like this. I can't exist like this." The frames scraped against the lab table and Bruce ran his now empty hands through his hair, tugging and pulling and making a general mess of it. There was probably something poetic and deep about it or something tied to the symbolism of it all, if only Tony cared enough to make the connection.
The glasses were a lost cause at this point, but Tony would like to think Bruce himself was not. So he said, "Then don't."
"Don't?" Bruce laughed disbelievingly. He lowered his hands and looked over to Tony and repeated, "Don't? Just... don't? Like it's that easy?"
"I didn't say it would be easy," Tony pointed out. "In fact, it's going to suck. You're going to whine, you're going to bitch, you're going to be miserable, and you're going to be stressed beyond all belief and still try to fake it and probably fail horribly doing so."
"Great pep talk," Bruce muttered, but Tony ignored him and pressed on.
"But you're going to get through it and you want to know why?" He didn't wait for an answer because he was on a roll and didn't need the full-on pessimism yet. Besides, he let Bruce talk and now it was his turn to be heard. "Because you're not going to do it alone. You have a team that cares. You have a team that's there for you. And you have me."
Bruce hung his head, shoulders slouching at what looked to be an uncomfortable angle. "The team doesn't need to be involved in this..."
"They kinda already are," Tony pointed out. "Think about today. Think about how Clint got the power back on in a matter of minutes, how he even knew it was a trigger. Think about how Natasha reamed that guy a new one or gave you your own little glow stick of destiny. Think about how everyone covered you, covered for you, when you need it."
"They shouldn't have to..." Bruce protested, but was cut off again.
"No, they shouldn't," Tony agreed. "But remember that whole 'team' thing? 'Cause that's pretty important." He shifted how he was leaning against the table, getting into his friend's personal space a bit more but, really, he was already there mentally so he might as well make it physical too. Whatever it took to get through to him. "The Wonder Twins figured it out on their own. Well, most of it. Cap and Thor stood up for you because that's what they do. None of them will fully understand what you went through or what you're still going through, but they understand the suckage factor because they've all been through their own separate horrific situations before and know it doesn't just go away."
"It'd be nice if it did," Bruce offered quietly.
Tony snorted. "Yeah, it really would." He thought of how much time he had wasted dealing with his own demons, and how much meaningful work he probably could have gotten done instead. He also thought of how just talking about said demons meant he was probably in for some nightmares of his own, or at least a flashback or three, in the coming days. He wondered if the evil scientists and Doombots and all the other horrors could take a break for like a week so he could enjoy a good drunken stupor. He then wondered just how annoying Captain America would purposely be during the ensuing hangover.
His thoughts skidded to a halt when Bruce whispered, barely audible, "I'm tired, Tony."
It seemed like the easiest thing in the world to let his friend slump against him, to wrap an arm around him in a sort of pseudo-hug, to rest a hand upon his truly and utterly messed up hair, and just be there for him. They stayed like that for a long moment, Bruce's breath evening out slowly until it seemed like he was falling asleep, even here, even now. He caught himself though, and Tony felt him tense half a second before he started to pull away.
Bruce reached for his glasses, likely to bury himself in work again, but Tony stopped him by blurting, "I have a really bad idea." It was half-formed and less than intelligent and there were a thousand ways it could end badly, but it also had the slightest chance of actually working and Tony was used to working with odds worse than that so, really, it was worth a shot.
Which is how they found themselves in a yet untested "sanctuary" room. Built with materials that should, in theory, withstand the Hulk in all his glory, tucked away from anything vital to the day to day operations of the Tower itself.
Bruce looked at the padded floor, cheap decor, and softly colored walls doubtfully, a look that only grew in intensity when Tony hauled in blankets and pillows and more than a single tablet just in case the whole plan failed and they were left awkwardly bored in a neatly padded room. With Bruce's insistence, the suitcase suit was tucked in a corner as well, just in case, but both really hoped it wouldn't be needed.
Tony sent Natasha a quick message about his ill-formed plan knowing she would be the most discreet should anything come up that either needed the full Avengers team or needed the remaining team to intervene should everything go horribly wrong. With that, he settled himself in against the pillows, grabbed a tablet, and waited for the results to scroll by.
Bruce settled himself in a bit more awkwardly, hesitance rolling off of him in waves. "You sure about this?" he asked for at least the sixth time.
"Sure, why not?" Tony shrugged as if he locked his unarmed self in with a genetically altered rage monster on a daily basis. "Let's start at half - that seems nice and basic and arbitrary, right? JARVIS, drop lights to fifty percent," he ordered, and the room began to slowly dim. They had gone that far before, though it was only for a short time before Bruce fled to the safety of his room. This time, there would be no fleeing. Well, okay, fleeing would still be possible, just not quite as easy what with the need to release locks and protocols and such.
Bruce's breathing sped up beside him but, eventually, his grip on his tablet changed from white knuckled to something a little less deadly.
They worked in relative silence for a while, the only sound the chiming dings from the incredibly monotonous games Tony loaded on Bruce's tablet. Even those died out as the volume decreased at the steady pre-programmed rate.
Bruce broke the silence with a sigh so deep it sounded like it hurt. "What about you?" he asked. "You talked about 'them' and 'they' but not you, not what... not anything actually personal about what you went through and how you got through it."
Tony had wondered when he was going to bring that up, was rather surprised he hadn't before. He set his tablet aside and took a breath that totally was not to steady himself before he began. "I could tell you what happened to me, what I went through and how I got over it, but there are two very important things to remember. The first is that everyone is different. What I went through is not the same as what you went through, and whatever the hell I did to cope with it is not going to be the same as whatever the hell works for you. I mean, really, are you going to build yourself a mechanized suit of armor from scraps to deal with dark? Probably not. The second is something nobody actually wants to admit. Not the doctors or psychologists or self help gurus or anyone like that. It's that you don't get over it, not ever. You cope, you deal, but it's always there and will be for the rest of your life."
"Again with the pep talk?" Bruce asked, but there was a hint of acceptance to his tone. Sadness too, but at least the acceptance was still there, on some level.
Tony shrugged. "It is what it is. You want me to lie to you? Tell you that some day you will find the mystical magical cure all that makes everything better? That there won't be weeks where you're sailing along and everything is fine and then, bam, a reflection of a fricken candle on a table on a five star restaurant makes you run to the men's room and hurl up snails because for a moment, for a split second, you thought you were in a cave on the other side of the world watching the man who saved you be tortured with hot pokers?" He shivered despite the warmth of the lab, memories a visceral thing at times. "It sucks. You deal. You move on as much as you can. The stuff you can't shake or move past? You learn to cover for pretty damn quick. And, when all else fails, there's a full bar that can be stocked with your favorites if you only say the word."
Bruce huffed, sad and resigned. "Drinking's not really my thing," he admitted.
"Might help you sleep," Tony suggested.
"Drunken stupors are not that conducive to actual rest," Bruce pointed out, which, well, point.
"Details," Tony waved it off with a chuckle. Knowing he was probably pushing it but also knowing it was the only way he had ever gotten anywhere in life, he asked, "Should we try dropping them further?" He waved his hand to encompass the room and the neat row of lights that edged the ceiling.
Bruce tensed again, but nodded almost numbly. When Tony ordered the lights reduced to thirty percent luminosity, he pointedly shifted, adjusting himself against the mountain of pillows. Bruce's shoulder brushed against Tony's once, then settled as a steady and reassuring weight.
They sat like that for a while, Tony poking at his tablet and Bruce's own forgotten at the side. Tony watched and waited while Bruce's breathing slowly evened out, while the carefully measured breaths became gentle snores. About an hour into the experiment, Bruce flopped over, arm loosely tangled in Tony's own. He tensed immediately, and Tony stayed as still as he dared without seeming like he was actually trying, as though having your nyctophobic friend cuddle you in a darkened room was an every day occurrence.
Bruce's eyes opened wide, highlighted by the blue of the reactor that shone through Tony's worn t-shirt. They seemed to focus on that light and then slowly, ever so slowly, they slid shut again, Bruce's breathing returning to the quiet snuffles and snores.
It happened several more times throughout the night but, each time, Bruce quieted at the blue glow. In the morning, long hours later, a chime from a discarded tablet woke them both, the good Captain Rogers letting them know that SHIELD's science division wanted a full report on the fake gasses that leaked to know what protocols they should put in place for any future occurrences. Bruce pushed himself up with a yawn and Tony untangled his hand from where it somehow had gotten knotted in Bruce's hair and attempted to stretch.
Bruce had the faint imprint of the edge of the reactor on his cheek, but looked far more rested than he had since the whole debacle began. "I, um, thanks," he muttered, more than slightly embarrassed.
"For what?" Tony asked. He looked at his half finished work on one of the tablets and tried to figure out just where he had been going with that algorithm. He shrugged and figured he'd sort it out later as he typed a quick message back to Steve that there better the hell be coffee in vast amounts, and decided shoes were decidedly not necessary for the meeting.
"For being my nightlight," Bruce said with no little amount of embarrassment.
"Hey, if it's just the reactor you're after, I could build you something," Tony shrugged. "Maybe like a mini one on a wristband, like those old Indiglow watches but cooler; it could stretch when you transform and everything. You could keep it off when you don't need it, but turn it on if things got too much." He started already planning out the design in his head, and wondered why he hadn't thought of it earlier.
Bruce bumped up against his shoulder with a subtle laugh and shook his head. "Okay, so for being something a bit more than just a nightlight," he amended.
"Whatever it takes," Tony told him, and realized he meant it as a promise. He wrapped an arm around his friend and tugged him towards the door and hopefully great amounts of caffeine. They hadn't made it to complete darkness that night, and may never get to that point, but it was a start and, considering the smile Bruce graced him with for his efforts, a damn good one at that.
End.
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