It just seems that upstream I keep rowing

[dayswithoutincident]

Manage your expectations. It's a simple enough concept, but one a lot of people struggle with, and Bruce Banner is no exception. There's a trick to it, of stepping apart from yourself and finding true objectivity, of having the strength to recognize your own weaknesses and strengths.

What Bruce hadn't realized until recently, however, was that when it came to his own life, expectations involving any degree of reasonable normalcy were so far removed that they might as well have been on another planet. Another planet in another universe, actually, but only if it was one about fifty trillion lightyears away and at least ten thousand years from producing anything resembling intelligent life.

At this point, Bruce isn't sure what reasonable expectations for the average person would even consist of, but he's pretty sure he can rule out accidentally tripping through wormholes to alternate dimensions. What he's also sure of is that it says a lot about him (and how much time he's been spending with Stark) that it hadn't shocked him much to step out of his bathroom and find himself at Pocket Universe Inn. He has colleagues who use robotic suits and giant hammers to fly; it's probably past time to redefine what 'normal' means.

Not that it didn't occur to him that he should probably be a little worried about the whole benevolent way station vibe of the place. There's apparently some kind of celestial philanthropist of unknown motive providing his room and board, but overall it's calm and quiet, and there are dozens of ways out. He hopes it doesn't come to it, but if all else fails, he can take a running leap into the abyss. It's more than he can say for where he came from.

This is his third day, and he's still deep in the thrall of new discovery, a quiet figure skirting awkwardly around other guests on his way outside. On the lawn he pauses, face upturned like a child. The view of the sky is still breathtaking, the infinite cosmos bending around their little island like a stream parting over a stone.

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[iron_y]

After the first mysterious doorway he'd been through had disappeared before he could show it to Pepper, when another one showed up just as mysteriously, Tony viewed it with a jaundiced eye. He had better things to do. He had Extremis experiments to run, research to conduct and developments to develop, Pepper to keep happy, Happy to visit in the hospital... Not to mention a certain director of SHIELD to bug -- not with literal bugs, though it might come to that, but Tony had started off by being annoying and persistent with his questions about Coulson, and he thought he was making progress.

Which was pretty damn interesting, he had to admit.

His inquiries into HYDRA were far more discreet, but just as interesting.

So he wasn't ignoring the hotel. It was too useful for that. But he wasn't running through the hallways rubbernecking at the dinosaurs either. He'd sent a few robots through with orders to roam and report, set up some sensors and a few dozen Jarvis-controlled weapons pointed at that door just in case -- And then he let it be.

Oh, he went through one time just to say he had, and one time to rescue Dummy from the maze, and one time because he wanted an ice cream sandwich from the hotel bistro, but mostly he was just too busy for mysterious doorways. The data from the sensors piled up, Dummy seemed to enjoy the outings to the other side of the doorway, but Fury was starting to crack, so he had to redouble his attention in that direction --

But sometimes, late at night, Tony found himself staring at that particular door, especially when the Extremis experiments weren't going well. Thinking about threats and opportunities. Excitement, and fear. And tonight it was just too much.

"I'll be back in a few hours," Tony said to Jarvis, pushing away the 3-D display of the genetic model he'd been working on. That brought the real contents of his workbench into sight -- a bunch of repulsors he'd been tinkering with, and some structural pieces from a new suit. Or a new something. Maybe not a suit, exactly. He grabbed them all, a vague plan for what to do with them already forming, and hurried through the door before he changed his mind.

He wasn't sure if he was proving something, or just looking for a bit of fun. And he wasn't expecting to find Bruce Banner out on the grounds staring at the sky.

"Hey," he said to Bruce, and tossed one of the inactive repulsors at Bruce to see if he'd catch it. "Heads up!" It was a friendly test, really. A moment later, it occurred to him that Bruce might not know him yet -- Loki hadn't. But when he played that conversation through in his mind, he just wasn't interested in discussing space and time and all the things he didn't know about the nexus, not even with Bruce.

"I'm going flying," he said conversationally, instead. On impulse he tossed another repulsor in a high trajectory and watched its perfect parabola toward Bruce's head with a smug smile. The first one had been the warning, and this one was slow; Bruce could hardly miss it. "Want to come?"

If this was some past version of Bruce, well, Bruce was smart. He'd figure it out. "And by the way, 'no' is not an acceptable answer. It'll be fun."

[dayswithoutincident]

In the time since the incident with Loki, Bruce has spent an inordinate amount of time with Tony Stark. Like the directive just posed, Bruce had little say in the matter, Tony's hospitality foisted upon him as if irrefutable fact: Obviously Bruce had nowhere to go, and what would he do with himself anyway, cower in some remote corner of the world like a fugitive, trading medical services for goats? No, he had more important work, world-altering work, there at Stark Tower, and look at all the R and D, look at the free reign to do whatever he wanted, and anyway, he was a hero now, there were kids and old ladies depending on him.

That was the line, anyway, and given that it was generally true, Bruce hadn't exactly been a hard sell. And if he hadn't anticipated playing psychiatrist as well as lab partner, he guessed it was a relatively small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. Never mind that keeping Tony Stark sane benefitted the world as a whole.

Early in, he'd grown used to this: The heads-up toss, the poking with sharp objects, the sudden leaping from behind pieces of furniture in Freddy Krueger masks. At some point, he's pretty sure the point got a little lost, and that it became less about provoking the Other Guy and more about Tony's brusque brand of fondness. Bruce endures it all with a resigned sort of patience, like an old dog in the company an overly-enthusiastic puppy.

Just now, there's only warning enough to half-duck out of the way of the first repulsor, which glances off his shoulder before skidding across the well-manicured lawn. The second he doesn't catch, but rather steps neatly out of the way of, and then watches as it tumbles across the grass to clank against the first.

"I really don't think trapping me inside a metal suit is the best idea, if that's what you mean," he says, not bothering to wonder how Tony ended up here, at the hotel.

[iron_y]

"Nah, I was thinking more..." But his original idea hadn't factored Bruce in, that was true. Tony only hesitated for half a second. "...flying carpet." If only he had brought along a carpet, that would be perfect. "Or maybe flying bedspread," he admitted. There had to be some of those around, and he could reinforce one of them...

Tony bent to drop his armload of spare parts onto the ground next to the two repulsors, giving Bruce an exasperated look as he straightened up. "You were supposed to catch those, you know." On the ground, the spare parts hummed and bounced oddly, repeatedly clanking against each other. They were each part of a experiment Tony liked to call distributed embodied intelligence, and the bouncing and humming was part of how they oriented themselves.

[dayswithoutincident]

"Yes, I know," Bruce says, unapologetic as he looks to the pile of parts twitching atop the grass. He shifts a dubious look up to Tony, who Bruce expects will hardly notice: Most of the looks he gives him are dubious. In this case, it's less to do with whether Stark can manage a flying carpet, and more to do with the fact that Bruce will undoubtedly be forced to join the maiden voyage.

"Please don't tell me this makes me Princess Jasmine in this scenario," he says, squinting against the sunlight.

[iron_y]

"Unhelpful," Tony accused. He squatted to watch the moving parts, rolling his eyes as he caught the tail end of Bruce's dubious look. "Has it ever occurred to you that -- " he reached out and snatched one particular part from the jumble -- an oddly shaped piece with an accordion fold two thirds of the way up -- "if you can't dodge every throw, you might want to learn to catch?"

That would have been a good time to throw something else at Bruce, but Tony had other plans for the part in his hand. "It's not that hard, children everywhere learn to play catch with very little difficulty. And besides --"

Standing up again, he held the odd part up to his mouth like a microphone and intoned hollowly, "Not engaging is a form of engagement."

A moment later his expression turned sour -- not really funny. Not just the oracular delivery bringing back the style of the Mandarin, but... Not engaging was how he'd been dealing with this nexus, and yet here he was.

Whatever. He was just here to have some fun.

Tony whispered a few more words to his spare part -- it quit telescoping in and out for a few seconds like it was listening. Then Tony feinted a throw at Bruce before tossing it back to the jumble.

"Hey, princess, you said it, not me." Tony added. "Tell me, when is the last time you wore harem pants?"

[dayswithoutincident]

This Bruce does not deign to answer, although for a moment he does wonder if parachute pants count. The late Eighties had been an odd time for everyone.

"Not to suggest that this plan isn't incredibly interesting," he begins, his signature half-wince suggesting otherwise, "but I would have thought this place would pose more challenging problems for you to solve."

[iron_y]

"Is that what you think?" Tony asked, annoyed. More challenging problems? Was Bruce Banner actually accusing him, Tony Stark, of being an underachiever?

"You're just saying that because you don't want to fly," Tony added. "Okay, that's fine, I can have fun without you, you know. If I didn't know better, I'd think you didn't trust me."

[dayswithoutincident]

"Tony, you routinely jump from behind furniture and poke me with sharp objects, no I don't trust you," Bruce mildly replies. "And I'm bad with flying for reasons you're well acquainted with." They were same reasons for the poking, actually, which probably made his argument somewhat moot.

"Have you tried to breach the atmosphere yet?" he casually asks with a glance toward the sky.

[iron_y]

"I object to routinely," Tony said, just on principle. He squinted at Bruce, briefly distracted and vaguely curious. "Also to that bit about furniture, I've got more important things to do than lurk behind furniture."

He didn't say anything else about whether he should be trusted, didn't even shrug to acknowledge it.

"I've been busy," he said a bit defensively to the question of breaching the atmosphere -- and then quickly went back on the offensive. "But you might as well admit it, you're not bad with flying, you're bad with the idea of flying," Tony said. "You should do something about that, like come flying with me." But he was starting to doubt that he could win this argument, which made it no fun. He changed tacks.

"But I'll settle for--" he nudged one of the parts on the ground with his foot. They were starting to fit themselves together into a framework. "Okay, give me one really good idea for a killer app using five repulsors, and I'll let you off from the flying carpet."

[dayswithoutincident]

Bruce makes a very small show of being imposed upon, mouth open but protest aborted– He knows better than to actually argue. It's just wasted breath.

"How many BTUs do they generate?" he relents, head tilted and eyes squinted in mild curiosity. "What would be the limitations on converting them to mobile power generators? Nothing like an arc reactor, obviously, but you get some good punch with them, and the applications could be virtually limitless."

He tilts his head back again, gaze on the middle distance as his mind kicks more fully into gear. "Where are you at with forcefields?"

Not necessarily something powerful enough to stop weapons, but a mobile means of providing protection from the weather? That could help a lot of people.

[iron_y]

"Huh," Tony said, because that was not a direction he'd ever have considered taking repulsor technology. He wasn't even sure...

He bent down to pick up one of the repulsors that hadn't integrated itself into the growing tangle of flying carpet to be, his fingers exploring the edges like he'd forgotten the shape of something so familiar.

"Forcefields...?" He brought the repulsor to rest next to his chest, where his arc reactor was difficult to see under his heavy shirt, and stared somewhere just beyond Bruce.

And suddenly he was having fun after all.

"It's not really a question of power, power is easy--" At least, when you have arc reactors to spare, it is. "It's what the repulsors do with the energy, and how small can you make them, and how many of them can you array together... I mean, what is a force field, anyway?" Rhetorical question: he hurried on. "And some specialized circuits to control it all, because when I say speed and absolute precision would be vital, I'm totally underestimating what it would take..."

He shook his head abruptly, remembering his challenge. "But oops, I couldn't do all that with just five repulsors. Can't be done. Please try again."

But though his words dismissed it, his gaze stayed slightly abstracted; he was still thinking about the technical details of Bruce's first suggestion while he was waiting to see if Bruce could -- or would -- come up with something else.