Chapter Ten: Water Sports
Title: Calling a Truce: Water Sports
Authors: Destinyawakened and MJLS
Rating: pg-13
words: 3400
Pairings/Characters: Tony Stark/Bruce Wayne
Summary: a simple boat outing turns into a run from the paparazzi
Warnings: spoilers for Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and Iron Man
Disclaimer: We don't own or claim to own the characters or settings, the books mentioned or make any money.
Song: Never Take Us Alive - Madina Lake
Parts: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine |
"What are you doing?"
"Waterproofing your cast, now stand still," Tony bit his lip and tried to attach this flimsy looking fabric on top of Bruce's cast, it looked like plastic but considering Tony's resources, Bruce was sure it was more than that, "it also vibrates if you want to get rid of an itch, trust me, it's useful."
"An itch, huh?" Bruce asked, teasingly. He stood as still as he could and let Tony finish what he was doing. How Tony convinced him to go boating with a broken arm, Bruce would never figure out; Tony was persuasive.
"Well, yeah, I mean, it worked last time I used it, I'm sure it still works; I upgraded it too now, it has stealth mode so people don't see your arm is in a cast, ain't that genius?"
"That's... a little creepy," Bruce said, looking at the cast that was sort of there and sort of not now that Tony had the covering over it. "Do we really have to go boating? I'm not so sure that's the best idea..."
"Come on Bruce, it won't be like you'll fall in the water, we'll just be on my yacht, sitting in the sun, tanning. Because god forbid you'd actually look good."
Bruce frowned. "But knowing you, you'd find a way to push me in, just to spite me." He looked at the now water-proof cast. "I mean, that is what this is about isn't it?"
"Why would I do that? I just want to make sure that if you're clumsy enough to actually fall in the water, your cast won't be ruined."
"I'm not that clumsy," Bruce said, rather annoyed that Tony would even assume or suggest such a thing. "Let's just go."
Tony kissed Bruce's lips once he was finished and dragged Bruce with him by his good wrist. Bruce allowed Tony to pull him down to the dock where his yacht was waiting for them. Tony helped Bruce onto the boat and then he proceeded to find his mini-bar and to make drinks, forcing one on Bruce as he pushed him into one of the deck chairs. Bruce sat, wearing his typical swim trunks and a light weight button down shirt, holding the tumbler of scotch that Tony handed him, and staring at it.
"I didn't drug it or anything," Tony scrunched up his nose and looked at the scotch, "why would I ruin a perfectly good scotch?" "I'm not saying you did. I'm just remembering the last time we drank together, the after effects weren't pleasant," Bruce answered, sipping the scotch, or so it looked, slowly.
"Pish-posh, I remember we had rather a lot of fun," Tony thrusted his chin up in the air and tried to look as posh as he possible could, wearing only a pair of red (and gold) swim trunks and a white tshirt covered in grease stains, claiming it was because the arc reactor attracted sun and sometimes burned the skin around the hole in his chest.
Bruce grinned at him; Tony's antics (though once annoying) had really grown on him. "Well, yeah..." he trailed off, looking out over the water as the yacht started to pull away from the dock. "But I was talking the morning after."
"Morning after? Oh yeah, you had quite a bit of bodily fluids to disperse then didn't you?" Tony grinned, "well, I'm sure you'll be alright this time. It's just scotch. Well, the best there is but still, just scotch."
Bruce looked down into the drink again and then finished it, placing the glass on the desk beside him. "Do you go out on this thing often? It looks rather new and unused," Bruce commented as a silence, which rarely happened between them, set in.
"Eh, every now and then, sometimes me and Pepper use it to come out, she does her job while trying to get a tan while I actually tan or work on the motor from under water," Tony trailed off, looking at the glistering water in front of him.
"Pepper didn't want to come with us today?" Bruce asked, feeling now as thought he might have been taking some time that Tony seemed to like to share with his assistant from them both.
"She claimed she had the right to a free day. I'm sure JARVIS can handle my life for a bit while I spend time with you," Tony smirked, kissing Bruce on the lips lovingly. Bruce pulled on Tony's shirt before he could stray away too far, pulling him for another, more passionate kiss.
"That was nice of her," Bruce mumbled against Tony's mouth as he pulled away. "And she does deserve a day off from dealing with you."
"You're talking as if I'm a menace to deal with..."
"You can be a bit over the top," Bruce replied, but to reassure the other man he back tracked a little. "But I honestly wouldn't want you any other way."
"Over the top? Are you saying I'm not nice?" Tony frowned, "I'm the nicest person you can get, best boss too! I mean, damn, Pepper's got a really good salary, and she gets to see me every day how about that eh? Every day Brucie!"
Bruce grinned at Tony rather sheepishly. "I never said that you weren't nice. And you pay Pepper to deal with you every day," Bruce said. "Heck, if you paid me I'd deal with you every day, too." Bruce waited for the backlash, hoping Tony caught that he was just kidding.
"Even if I didn't pay her, she'd still come. I mean, man, I'm one sexy man, but if you want me to give you money...sure."
Bruce pressed his lips into a thin line and glared at Tony. "It had nothing to do with you being sexy or not. Pepper is just loyal to you."
"Bullshit," Tony huffed and sat down on the deck pouting.
Bruce shook his head. "Oh, come on, Tony."
Tony kept sitting on the deck and waited for Bruce to get to his level before he tackled the man and sat down on Bruce's hips, grinning like a four year old at Christmas. Bruce looked up at Tony, his good hand on the outside of Tony's left thigh.
"You know, you actually have the upper hand this time," Bruce said, snaking the tips of his fingers up the inside of Tony's swim trunks.
"Mmm, so I do," Tony smirked before leaning down and kissing Bruce again, clearly doing nothing to stop the man's advances. Bruce returned Tony's kiss, his hand making it way around to Tony's ass, gripping tightly and pulling Tony down closer on top of him.
"Just know, anything you do now," Bruce said breaking the kiss for just a moment, "you will be paid back for later when this cast comes off."
"Mmm, you can't repay love, or can you?" Tony frowned for a second before he shrugged and started kissing down Bruce's neck, clearly enjoying the fact that the man was nearly naked on his ship.
Bruce letting out a hiss from between his teeth as Tony started to hit a few sensitive spots with his lips, craning his neck to allow him slightly better access. "No, I...uhh, suppose.. not."
Tony stopped kissing Bruce's chest and looked up as if he was a watchful dog of some sort. One eyebrow was perked up and his mouth was hanging slightly open before he frowned and stood up from straddling Bruce and walked over to the railing. Bruce let out a deep breath and sat up, getting to his feet and walking over Tony. He placed his hand to the small of Tony's back and looked out a the water seeing exactly what Tony had heard: Water scooters, and not just any ordinary ones for that matter.
"Well, this is... untimely," Bruce muttered.
"I'm just wondering how they got the scooters," Tony frowned.
"The paparazzi can get just about anything they want," Bruce said, looking at Tony out of the corner of his eye. "I have a terrible feeling about this."
"I'd put the ship in overdrive but don't want them to follow us," Tony frowned, "which they will. This ship still needs lots of modifications to race out a water scooter."
Bruce leaned against the railing, back to the scooters circling the boat. "So, what do we do? I'm sure they've already gotten more than enough pictures to have everyone speculating about us in the tabloids."
"Speculating? It won't be speculating anymore Bruce if they got pictures of us from a few minutes ago..." Tony sighed, for a second until he stalked towards the cabin.
"Where are you going?" Bruce started to follow Tony.
"I don't know," Tony halted in the middle of his step and nearly had Bruce walking against him.
Bruce held up his hand to stop himself from running into Tony, placing that hand instead on the man's shoulder. "I'm sure we've both had worse articles written about us before," Bruce assured him. Although, for Bruce, he usually did this kind of stuff on purpose to play up his charade. This wasn't really what he wanted to deal with either, however.
"Trust me, this is not an article we want about us in the tabloids," Tony sighed, "I just hope they didn't see the arc reactor, I really want to keep that under wraps for a bit longer."
Bruce looked down at his feet and then up at Tony. "Would you like me to go beat them up for you?" Trying to make light of a serious situation that he knew they didn't have a lot of control over. "Even with one fist I'm sure I could get the point across."
"I'm not sure if that'll do you any more good than a report filed with the police saying you harassed the poor men. Freedom of press remember?"
The last bit of smile that Bruce had on his face vanished. "I know that, Tony. I'm sure they didn't get close enough to get pictures of the reactor. Or clear enough photos to prove anything." Although, not even Bruce was buying that bit.
"They did have pretty big lenses," Tony winced, clearly worrying about this, "wouldn't surprise me if they got some clear shots of us on top of each other at the least...maybe I should call Pepper..."
"Do that," Bruce said, "can't hurt anyway." And he walked into the main cabin to find his own cell phone, Alfred would need to be notified as well so that the old man didn't have heart attack when he saw the published pictures without warning.
Tony immediately called Pepper, explaining the situation and asking what the best next course of action was. After a call of a good ten minutes, Tony hung up and started the boats motor. Bruce was still talking to Alfred, who had him on hold while he called Lucius, not that Bruce thought Lucius would be of any help in this situation. He watched Tony as he started the motor, looking at him questionably.
"I thought you said that was a bad idea since they'd just follow us back?"
"I'm not going to make them follow us back," Tony smirked, "the ship is on autopilot to go towards the house, but we're not that far from my private beach, completely surrounded by the rocks my house is build on. We can swim there."
Bruce furrowed his eyebrows and ended the call with Alfred. He put the phone into the water proof pocket in his trunks. "Right, swim," he said, nodding his head at Tony.
"Trust me, they'll think we're still in the cabin, perhaps we can use the diving gear and exit to sneak out while the boat goes back to the docks and they follow them..." Tony mused, pacing around the room and thinking about the best way to get out.
Bruce sighed, "If we take much longer to think this over, we may as well just stay on the boat. Swimming is fine," Bruce said, motioning to the cast that was now water proof. He walked out the other side of the cabin, checking to see if the scooters were on that side, which they were not.
"Got it, although, we'll be less likely to be spotted if we're diving," Tony frowned, "I mean, considering swimming makes a huge splash and diving doesn't..."
"Fine, Tony, fine." Bruce walked up to him and waited for Tony to hand him some gear.
Tony looked long at Bruce, kissed him briefly on the lips before he walked to the closet and handed Bruce one of the diving suits. These were thankfully, specially designed for Tony and so, easy to get on and even with the cast, Bruce didn't seem to have a lot of trouble putting it on. Tony dressed as well and then helped Bruce with the air tank and helmet, before getting his own on.
Before Bruce was going to slide himself in the water, Tony placed a hand on his shoulder, made eye contact and nodded at Bruce before letting the man get in the water and then getting in himself. Thankfully, Tony was pretty good at navigating himself, even under water. Either he had done this before or he had some sort of GPS in his helmet, maybe even a connection with JARVIS, wouldn't surprise Bruce if he did. Bruce just followed behind Tony, the best he could really with out straining his arm too much, which he found he didn't really need.
Somewhere in the distance, Bruce heard the distinctive noise of the boat's motor and the scooters following it, and for the first time, Bruce actually felt relieved to be alone with Tony again. Tony was motioning to him to move back up and soon, the two men were using the simple movements of their flippers to try and stay afloat, taking off the helmets.
"Well, that was considerably easy. They really are stupid aren't they?" Tony grinned at Bruce, swam a bit closer to the man and kissed his wet lips.
"Mhmm," was Bruce's reply against Tony's lips. "So now what? We wait it out and hope they leave soon?"
"Nope, we got a secret elevator in the mountain, it leads up to my workshop," Tony grinned, "you see, I'm prepared for anything. Besides, this is my private little beach, sometimes I come here if I want to catch some sun and Pepper doesn't want to work inside."
Bruce swam towards the land. "You do think of everything," he muttered. It wasn't that surprising to Bruce though; these days everything Tony had or did just seemed typical.
"I'm full of surprises," Tony winked as he got up on the beach and kicked his feet in the air to shake off some of the water. Bruce followed suit and and then followed Tony towards the rocks where he said the hidden elevator was. Bruce didn't even wait until they reached the the top before he started to strip out of the suit, tired of the skin tight wetness against him. Tony looked sad at Bruce who was looking at his cast and was sort of admiring the technology Tony had developed to make sure it didn't get wet. It was as dry as before he got in the water.
Bruce looked from the cast to Tony. "What's wrong?"
"I was hoping we'd have a great day together, stupid paparazzi just ruined my day. I even had champagne on the ship and stuff," Tony pouted, looking rather sad and angry at the same time to know his plan was ruined.
Bruce shrugged the rest of the diving suit off as they reached Tony's workshop, tossing it down into a corner, now just wearing the trunks he still had on. "There's still time left in the day," Bruce replied. "I'm not going any where, so I'm all yours."
Tony smiled and stroked Bruce's cheek lovingly with his thumb, "we both know how this will end if we're not...careful."
Bruce wrapped his right arm around Tony's waist and pulled him closer until they were meshed together. "Good thing I'm never careful," he answer in a slight growl.
Tony shook his head and kissed Bruce on the head, "I'm still not done mothering you though, you're not getting any until that cast comes off and I can take full advantage of you again. Besides, my handcuffs won't fit around that cast."
Bruce sighed and let go of Tony, walking over to one of the chairs and plopping himself down. "You mean to tell me that you, Tony Stark, are going to go a whole month -- or more -- without sex?"
"Are you, Bruce Wayne, telling me I should break my handcuffs trying to tie you to the bed with that cast on?"
"You don't need handcuffs for that," Bruce said, picking up something off Tony's desk and looking at it. "Be creative." He looked up at Tony. "And just so you know I can get out of handcuffs in less than two minutes. You're gonna need more than that to tie me down."
"...But, how else would I tie you to the bed?"
Bruce gave Tony an 'are you serious' look. "Master Genius can't figure that out? Maybe we should wait..."
"Until you're better," Tony nodded, "finally you agree with me, Wayne."
Bruce tossed down whatever the item was he was holding in his hand. "Yeah..." He stood. "I smell like salt water and seaweed. You suppose the paparazzi is still hanging around?" He motioned up the stairs.
"I guess so yea, they're probably all camping around my boat now. Poor thing."
Bruce started up the stairs. "I'll take my chances. I have got to get this stink off."
"Bruce?" Tony stopped him, standing at the bottom of the stairs, "I do...care for you. You know that right?"
Bruce stopped short a few steps, going back down a few to look at Tony. It was sort of sudden and a bit unlike Tony to bring something like this up. Bruce took the last few steps back down to Tony, keep their eyes locked. "Yes," Bruce said carefully, trying to assess what might be bothering Tony.
"I mean, because, I don't care what people might think if they see those pictures of us in the tabloids. I just...don't want you to think I don't want people to know or something about us because of the incident on the boat and all..."
"Tony," Bruce said softly, "I know it's not about that. I understand." Though a part of Bruce was a bit worried himself about those pictures getting out and his reputation as playboy womanizer being shot, but even this worked to his favor and still covered up his nightly activities.
"I mean, I'm not ashamed of us being...well, I guess we're together," Tony winced, "I don't want you to think that and stuff because I was so frantic about getting away from the paparazzi..."
Bruce leaned his shoulder against the wall of the stairs. "You're trying to say something else here, aren't you, Tony? Because you've repeated yourself and you're mumbling and stammering like an idiot," he said playfully, moving a piece of Tony's hair away that had fallen in his face.
Tony winced again and looked away, not really knowing what he was trying to say but he figured the point came across before to Bruce, but he was wrong apparently. Tony opened his mouth a few times, moving his hands and trying to get the right words without sounding all too cliché but in the end only found himself throwing his arms around Bruce's neck and kissing the man fully on the mouth.
"I love you to bits, you goddamn flying rodent."