kore_logs | it's a blacked out blur

And there it is. The million dollar question Tony’s been avoiding since waking up with a head full of memories he hadn’t had prior to his arrival. He should have been thinking about it, he knew he was going to have to deal with it, but he hasn’t wanted to. There’s so little of actual value that he has in his life, especially now, that choosing to keep one and lose the other isn’t something he wants to do.

But do it he has to, and right now, because the question’s out there and it needs an answer. When he thought he could have only one of the people he loved, it was so much easier. But both? Both is hard, and Tony hates making decisions. If he thinks about it, though, he knows that he already has. He made it when the Hulk asked about Extremis, and Tony decided to throw away his mortality for him.

“If I stopped what? Loving you?” Bluntness, he decides, is the way to go here. “Don’t be stupid.” He leans over, reaching out to touch his face. This might be difficult to hear, and he’d like to just gloss over it, but Bruce deserves to know. “We didn’t remember this place. I’m not sure why. I didn’t start remembering until I woke up here again. So when I was there, you were, I don’t know, busy with your work and your whole I turn into the Hulk, no one must ever love me thing. And I was too busy having… problems—” He doesn’t know how else to explain the anxiety attacks without actually naming them. “—and then not getting blown up like the rest of my life to do anything about it. But I never stopped. I’m not going to stop. Is this okay?”

It’s his turn to move to kiss him, but he doesn’t quite make contact. Not yet. Not when he’s filled with the irrational fear that Bruce is going to hear that he had a year off without him and take it as an opportunity to get away from him now. “Jesus, I hope so. Because I just spent a year watching you, not being able to have you, and I’d really like to put that behind me.”

He's not entirely surprised to hear that they didn't remember being here, and he doesn't know what to think about them not getting together; there it would be harder for Bruce to connect, that makes sense. Here he didn't have much choice; he can't go hide in India and ignore his feelings for Tony. Hell, he'd even tried to separate them here.

But they aren't separated. God, what a relief. He's been through something like this before with Betty but not only did he have years to adjust to the idea, but he and Betty kind of really didn't do a good job. If Tony had told Bruce no, that they couldn't have this, then he wouldn't have had a very dignified response. Tony stops just shy of kissing him, and Bruce's heart feels like it gets stuck in his throat. He starts to say yes, but then he leans forward and catches his mouth, kissing him slowly as he slides his fingers into his hair.

"Yes, it's okay," he says, breathless against his lips. "I love you too; you have me."

“Good.” There’s a substantial amount of relief packed into that one little word, and Tony cuts himself short to kiss Bruce then. The slow, consuming kind of kiss that’s been a year and a depressing number of tragedies in the making, equal parts relief and passion and happiness at being reunited after what’s felt like an eternity apart.

Later, if Bruce wants to talk about it, Tony can go deeper into detail about everything that happened. He can tell him about Happy’s injuries and salvaging the robots from the depths of the sea. He can tell him about JARVIS’ linguistic ticks and the hours of entertain he’s gotten from ribbing him about them, even though they’ve been ironed out now. They can talk about reasons why they couldn’t remember and possibilities for ensuring that that doesn’t happen again.

For the moment, however, he simply wants to kiss him.

“Because if it’s all the same to you, I’m never letting you go again.”

"I can deal with that." Bruce isn't really much for an efficiency expert, but it seems like the best use of their mouths right now would be for kissing and not so much for talking. He runs his fingers through Tony's hair and pulls him closer, kissing him hard, though the thirst in Tony's kiss is leaving him breathless. They do have a lot to talk about, and since waking up, Bruce has been through a roller coaster of emotions; he wants to hear about Tony's year and not just about world-changing scientific formulas, but for now some desperate kissing and clinging seems in order.

When he needs to come up for air, he toys lightly with the hair above the nape of Tony's neck and kisses one cheek, then the other, before he sits back enough to see him properly.

"You changed your hair too," he says finally, eyes sweeping over him. It's such an unimportant thing compared to everything else, but focusing on the big details for too long can be suffocating.

"I like it."

After everything’s that happened - the upheaval back home, the arrival here, remembering things he’s forgotten, sorting through his memories and trying to make sense of them, making a number of life-changing decisions – Tony’s forgotten about how he looks. What stands at the forefront of his mind is the absence of the reactor, as he tries to adjust to the weightlessness, the darkness, and the lack of barely there constant sensation he’s been feeling in his chest since the device had been implanted. His hair hasn’t crossed his mind.

“Really? You sure? I don’t need to grow it out?” Mostly, he’s kidding. Of all the things to be self-conscious about, his hair’s at the bottom of the list. But there’s a grain of sincerity there, buried beneath the grin and the light tone. If Bruce hates it, he won’t be adverse to going back to the way it was.

“I like yours too. Obviously. Though, little secret?” He drops his voice conspiratorially, as though this is the most important secret of all. “I didn’t really mind the new 'do either.”

He laughs and kisses him, but quickly this time before they fall back into it and never emerge. Which -- why is that a bad idea? But no, eventually. He needs to make sure there's nothing else that should be said first, that shouldn't be put off to uncomfortable pillow talk after.

"No, I like this. It's a good look for you, but most things are." He touches his cheek, tracing the edge of his beard.

"How are you? With the reactor gone, with being back here again?" It's a lot to take in, and he wishes he could make any of it better for Tony.

“You say that now,” he remarks lightly, sliding his arm around Bruce’s shoulders. Talking may have trumped kissing, but he doesn’t intend to stop touching him now that he’s started. A year, even without the accompanying memories, is still a long time. “Wait until you see me without facial hair.” He keeps threatening and one day he’ll do it; just shave it all off and wait for Bruce’s reaction. He suspects it won’t be pretty.

“But yeah, no, I’m fine. I’m great. It was an adjustment at first, trying to make sense of where I was and what I was remembering. But I think the disorientation’s gone now, so I’m back to normal. Really, I’m fin—I’m not fine.” With his arrival back here, it’s true. He is fine. With everything else, he’s lying and he knows it. What prevents him from continuing the lie is that he knows that eventually, he’ll have another breakdown and it will be obvious that he’s not fine at all.

“I have—It’s—Like the nightmares, only worse. It happens when I’m awake sometimes. These, I don’t know, anxiety attacks. It's been happening all year. I can’t control them, I know they’re stupid, but they happen sometimes and I—it’s like I fall apart. Which has nothing to do with being here or you or anything like that. I really am fine with being here. But it, I thought you should know in case—If you find me on the floor some afternoon, freaking out, that’s why.”

He doubts Tony's facial hair will make that much difference. The way Tony looks doesn't make that much difference to him because though he enjoys the package Tony comes in, Bruce is far more attracted to the man underneath, the one who built himself up again and into a hero, the one who doesn't think he's a hero even when he's posturing as one for the papers. When Tony admits he isn't fine, Bruce is worried; either in the last year Tony learned how to say when he isn't okay, or it's bad.

He'd almost been expecting something worse than anxiety attacks, not that that's any less of an issue, but that's nonfatal, at least. He lets out the breath he'd been holding and then touches Tony's arm, squeezing gently.

"It's not stupid. It's a natural reaction to the things you've been through, the things you've seen. Have you talked to anyone about them?"

“You. Right now and back home.” He rolls his eyes, but there’s no condemnation in his voice when he adds, “You kind of fell asleep on me, though. Gave me the ‘I’m not that kind of doctor’ speech when I called you on it. But you’re the only one I really tried to talk to about it. The others…”

Tony shakes his head. “A ten-year-old kid who saw me having one of my fits, asked about it, and then kept triggering them on purpose. Rhodey, who saw one but just figured I was drunk or not getting enough sleep. And Pepper, who didn’t want to hear about it and yelled at me a lot for it.”

Of the three, the most useful in terms of coping with it had been the kid, if only because he’d tried to talk him down from one of his episodes. “The kid suggested I get medication. I haven’t.”

Of course he hasn't gotten help, but then a lot of people don't even without having issues like Tony has with asking for help and admitting when he needs it. He's not sure what to think of his other self brushing Tony off like that; he guesses it depends on the kind of relationship they had, and if Bruce didn't remember coming here, he can't be sure how likely he would've been to want to put down roots.

"You could, you know. I have some here. But I really am not that kind of doctor." He smiles softly and leans in to kiss him gently.

"That doesn't mean I don't want to help you or listen to you here, now. I do. And I can try to tell you some strategies to help you manage it, too. I'm not this kind of doctor, but I'm no stranger to needing to deal with overwhelming tides of emotion."

"I don't want medication." Sure, he's a mess, but he's gotten this far in life without resorting to pills. A case can be made that pills are better than alcohol, but there's a crazy stigma attached to pills that Tony just isn't prepared to take on. Especially when people already think he's nuts.

"It's fine. I know you're not. I knew it when I paid you a visit there. I just..." Shrugging, he trails off. He'd just wanted to talk to someone he trusted, who wouldn't ignore him or brush him off or tell him just to get over it, and there aren't many people like that in his life.

"I'm not as bad as I was. It's getting a little better, and maybe now it'll get better a little faster." Because he's here. Because he's away from the things that trigger an episode. Because he has something better than pills. "One day at a time, right? That and carry a paper bag for when I start hyperventilating."

"That's a start." He lays his head on Tony's shoulder, getting comfortable against his side. Bruce doesn't have a lot of reasons to be optimistic or hopeful about anything, really, but being with Tony somehow makes him feel like... more things are possible. If Tony's floundering now, if he has trouble with anxiety, that doesn't change any of that; they can handle that together.

"So increased anxiety, decreased arc reactor. Anything else you think I should know about what happened?"

“About back home?” Because that’s the easiest way to avoid something Tony thinks Bruce ought to know but that he isn’t going to tell him. Namely, I promised the Hulk that I would make myself invulnerable so that I could live forever with you both. Not because he doesn’t want to tell him – he kind of does – but because he doesn’t think it will be met with the same kind of enthusiasm as it was with the Hulk.

“I destroyed all my suits, Rhodey calls himself Iron Patriot now, I promised JARVIS I’d built him a body, I rescued my robots from the bottom of the sea, and I think Happy might finally have a girlfriend.” He gives Bruce’s shoulder a tiny squeeze and leans his head to the side until it’s resting against his. “And before I blew it up, I actually did manage to make a suit I could control with my mind. Just for the record.”

"You destroyed -- so you're... retired now?" Bruce is having a hard time accepting this. Not that he thinks Tony should be more reckless or continue risking his life, but being Iron Man wasn't just about being reckless and living dangerously. There'd been an element of wanting to help people and genuinely make the world better, and he doesn't know how he feels about Tony giving that up. He'll support his choices -- so long as they're healthy ones. He can't help but wonder if Tony's anxiety is playing into this.

"No more Iron Man?"

“That’s what everybody wants, but…” He gives a tiny shake of his head. “It took forty-two suits to bring down Killian and four of his Extremis soldiers. They weren’t—I was in a prototype for most of it and it wasn’t complete yet, I realize that. But the others were just, I don’t know. I’ve been reinventing the wheel, not improving on it, not making it get any faster or stronger or more useful. I needed to start over. Redesign the whole thing.”

Maybe he doesn’t need the suits to shield himself against the world anymore, but he can’t stop being who he is. And unfortunately for all of his friends who would rather he not be Iron Man, he is and there’s nothing he can do to change it.

“There’s going to be an Iron Man again. A better one.”

Bruce hesitates, taking in that and all its implications, especially after what Tony showed him today, this formula. Tony's belief that he isn't as good as, say, Steve. His fascination with the Hulk. Why Tony might envy someone being twisted into something else -- Steve didn't really get a raw deal, though Bruce doesn't think immortality is all that great -- Bruce doesn't really understand.

"Better, huh?" He picks his head up so he can see him, and it's pretty clear he's trying to see through something. They've been dancing around this; it's time to actually talk about it.

"Like super serum better?"

Bruce’s scrutiny isn’t something Tony enjoys. Everything in him wants to either sink back against the couch in hopes that the cushion swallows him or get up and pace off some of the nervous fight-or-flight energy building inside him. The easiest answer in the short term is to lie, pretend that he doesn’t know what Bruce is talking about, and change the subject. And he wants to do it. He just doesn’t want to lie to him.

Which brings him uncomfortably back to the truth. And he knows that the truth is going to cause a problem.

“What, and turn into Steve? No. I’m not a soldier. I’m not going to make myself into the super variety.” He knows he should leave it at that; it answers Bruce’s question and it isn’t a lie, but Tony has always had a problem with saying too much. “I’m just going to make a few minor alterations to my genetic code. No super strength, no super speed, no fire breathing.”

It takes just about every ounce of patience Bruce has not to flip out here and now. This is what he and Tony fought over that finally led to Bruce pushing him away, and while that had nothing to do with the reason for their time apart, it still wasn't something they ever really went back and resolved. He inhales through his nose and exhales through his mouth, as subtly as possible, and he closes his eyes for a few seconds.

"Because nothing can go wrong and accidentally give you super speed or fire breath or..." He lifts his eyebrows. He can't say monster. He can't really imply the Hulk is bad, can he, without alienating Tony. "Any unexpected side effects?"

Here we go, Tony thinks, inwardly bracing for the explosion. He remembers the last time they went down this path and it leaves him feeling anxious and sick to his stomach.

“Ordinarily, no. You’re right.” He hasn’t gotten better at fighting over the year he’s been at home, but he desperately wants to keep this from blowing up. “There’s a lot that can go wrong with it. Everything that happened with it since it was created is proof of that. But this isn’t me playing around with something that I don’t understand. And it’s not me letting my ego run wild, either.” Because he can just imagine what it must sound like.

“I fixed it, Bruce. It was killing Pepper and I fixed it. I know I can use it the way it was meant to be used because I’ve done it already. Without side-effects. Without anything unexpected happening.” He lowers his voice to something quiet and somber. “I wouldn’t take a risk like this with myself if I didn’t know I could do it.”

He arches his eyebrow, entirely skeptical of the idea that Tony wouldn't risk himself without having properly tested everything. Maybe Tony thinks he can do it, but there's a difference between Tony knowing he's ready and Tony actually being ready. The idea is pretty terrifying; there's so much that can go wrong, even if he supposedly knows what he's doing, even if the serum works.

"You fixed it once. In one person who isn't you. What if your body reacts to it differently? What if you get something a tiny bit different in the serum this time? This isn't something you should play with, Tony. Not when you're -- " He stops, clenching his jaw, and he lowers his eyes.

"Don't fix what isn't broken, right?"

Because Bruce intends to find out if this serum can cure him, but not before he checks everything first.

“Sometimes it feels like I’m broken.” It’s a quiet admission and it slips out of his mouth before he can stop it. There’s no getting it back once it’s spoken and in the interest of not elaborating on it – if he even needs to do that, he thinks it’s kind of self-explanatory – he reaches out to touch Bruce’s arm.

“Ten years ago, I wouldn’t care. I admit it. Three years ago, I wouldn’t care. But this isn’t three years ago. It’s now. And I’m not going to do anything to jeopardize the one thing that actually makes me happy.” He gives Bruce a pointed look, hoping that it’s obvious that he’s talking about him.

Now or never, he thinks, and since they’ve already come this far down the road, he takes a deep breath and takes the plunge. “And I gave him my word that I’d do it. Use the serum to make sure you never have to be alone again, no matter how long you live.”

Well, doesn't that admission cut right through Bruce? Tony feeling broken or inadequate is different from him being actually, physically, zapped-himself-with-gamma-rays broken (or this serum, or any other serum, etc.), but Bruce can't go around saying that. That's his opinion; Tony clearly has another one. The fact that he took out the reactor should say a lot, especially compared to his speech on the helicarrier to Bruce about how much it meant to him. He's clearly in a different headspace.

It takes Bruce all the way to the end of Tony's sentence for him to figure out who the him is, and then he clenches his jaw and looks away.

"You really want to be immortal?"

Does he want to be immortal? No, not really. He’s spent the majority of his adult life trying to kill himself. Through alcohol, through reckless behavior, through failing to adhere to common sense and the dictates of his self-preservation instincts. It’s not as overt as the gun in the mouth attempt that Bruce revealed he tried, but Tony isn’t as strong as Bruce. He’s too much of a coward to do something that easy.

“I really want to be with you,” he says quietly. Maybe this is one of those times where Bruce needs space, but Tony reaches out to touch his jaw anyway. It’s not an attempt to force him to look at him. If he doesn’t want to, Tony won’t push the issue. But it’s a request that he do so, if he feels like it.

“And if that means being immortal, then that’s what I have to do. I wasn’t kidding when I said you were stuck with me.”

Bruce isn't sure what he needs right now, but with Tony telling him something as ridiculously romantic and probably stupid as that, Bruce can turn his head for him. The thing is that Bruce doesn't want to be immortal, and if he'd had his way once upon a time he wouldn't even be alive now. Hell, if the accident had gone the way it should've, he wouldn't be here. Why Tony would want to sign onto Bruce's not so excellent adventure into indefinite life is beyond him.

And this is where the whole Tony-and-Hulk thing gets weird mostly because he can't even be that repulsed. Bruce is getting older. He figures at some point his body'll give out, or else he'll just be the oldest and wrinkliest scientist on the planet, and at that point the Hulk will take over completely. That's scary, unless he has Tony with him. And what if some part of Bruce is still around?

That's not to say Bruce isn't perfectly capable of suffering if it means a better life for the people he cares about.

"Tony, I love you." He reaches up and takes the hand from his jaw, holding it instead. "And that's why I can't let you do this, not if you're only doing it to be with me."

Historically, telling Tony that he can’t do something serves not as the detriment that it’s supposed to be, but as encouragement and motivation to do the forbidden thing. Saying that someone else won’t let him pursue a course of action only serves to goad him into disobedience that much faster. It’s been a fact of his life since he was old enough to make decisions for himself, and it continues to be one now.

His respect and feelings for Bruce won’t let him be an ass about disagreeing with him, but his mind’s already been made up. He’s made a promise to the Hulk. His faults notwithstanding, Tony doesn’t go back on a promise if he can help it, and he can help it here. One way or another, he's going to do this.

“How about I make you a deal?” Ordinarily, he isn’t the sort to compromise, but for Bruce, he thinks he can make an exception. “If something happens, you suddenly discover that you’re not as immortal as you claimed to be on the helicarrier or you reintegrate with the Hulk, I’ll reverse the serum. I can do that. It doesn’t have to be a permanent change. Doing a system restore to factory settings will always be an option.”

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