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Steve thinks Tony has a death wish. It’s really much simpler than that.
Actually, Tony is quite fond of living. He’s, for the most part, past the point where every trip out in the suit was a trip he wasn’t sure he wanted to come back from. He has his ups and downs, but what mentally balanced person decides to become a super hero anyway? (Thor’s different, he’s an alien.) That’s besides the point, and this isn’t even supposed to be about Tony.
Were Pepper only here to hear that.
Nope, this is not about Tony, no matter how much Steve, or even Romanoff, says it is.
“I wish you’d just leave us all out of it,” Steve says one day, having wandered up to watch Tony work on developing a new material for his spangly suit. Normally he’d have let SHIELD deal with it, but Agent Hill had said something about doubling his consultant fee and somehow Pepper had managed to somehow keep him from yelling something about where Fury could shove his fee and accept the job without payment.
Needless to say, Tony hasn’t been on board with SHIELD policy since they attempted to level Manhattan with a nuke. (Or some shadowy council did. That didn’t excuse Fury’s already stupidly-high level of resorting borderline evil, shadowy bullshit. Tony was, frankly, sick of it.)
“Cap, your concern is flattering, but I’m a big boy. I think I know what I’m doing,” Tony manages to reply coherently around the stylus in his mouth. Probably coherently. Mostly coherently?
“I really don’t think you do,” Steve intones. “I know last time he had it under control, but Thor’s gone and neither of us are a real match for—”
“Steve, this is just sad,” Tony snaps, tired of everyone’s ‘concern,’ and perhaps a little surprised at just how offended he is. “Walking on eggshells around him won’t make it better. In fact, it’s probably making it worse. Aren’t you supposed to be about team cohesion and all that? Do we have to do trust building activities like fucking boy scouts? I thought we did that already--and destroyed half of Manhattan in the process.”
Steve looks vaguely offended, but he doesn’t say anything else and that suits Tony just fine. He leaves shortly after that, goes to wherever Steve goes whenever he’s not running ops for SHIELD or bothering Tony. (Turns out Steve is slightly more forgiving than Tony is, how surprising.)
Deciding he’s done enough on Cap’s uniform, Tony waves a hand over his touch screen monitors to turn them off. “Jarvis, save those designs and transfer all of the copies to my personal server - that should make Fury mad if he decides to come snooping.”
“Certainly, sir,” Jarvis intones smoothly, infuriatingly calm for all Tony’s not.
He needs to blow off some steam.
This is how Tony finds himself two floors down, sneaking up on one Bruce Banner. (And maybe he wants to give Steve a metaphorical middle finger too, but he’s not too concerned with the specifics.) Bruce is absorbed in whatever’s on his computer screen - from a cursory glance, Tony thinks it looks like calculations for self-sustaining cold fusion, which only means 'not as important as Tony' - and so doesn’t notice him until he speaks, hovering over his shoulder, “Looks like we've got the next Nobel prize winner over here.”
Bruce barely jumps, for which Tony is a little disappointed, but he has to give him credit. “I thought you were working on Steve’s suit today,” he says, spinning his chair around. Their knees knock together because Tony may have no real concept of personal space.
“Dr. Banner, asking about top secret contracts? For shame,” Tony replies effortlessly. Fury had upheld his end of the bargain admirably - after Loki had been conjured to Asgard with Thor, SHIELD had let Bruce go without a fuss. It had taken a little more work to keep him in New York at Stark Industries, but Tony managed it.
He’s kind of very glad he did.
Bruce only smiles indulgently. “So that’s how it is.”
“‘fraid so,” Tony replies with a sly grin. “Come on, let’s grab lunch.”
“Only as long as it’s not shawarma.” Tony is about to retort when Bruce continues exasperatedly, “No, really, your cravings can only go so far. I’m starting to forget what other things taste like.”
“Fine, fine, we’ll get whatever you want. Grab your jacket, I’m feeling claustrophobic.”
This has gotten easier, Tony thinks. It was hard to convince Bruce to stay. Despite any success he had had controlling the Hulk in the battle against Loki’s crazy-ass alien army, Bruce was ready to disappear again. It had basically been a day by day thing until eventually… it wasn’t.
Bruce trusts him now. Or, at least Tony likes to think so. All he knows is that he trusts Bruce, something neither Bruce, nor Steve, nor Natasha can seem to grasp. The only one who really matters is Bruce, but it gets old having Steve remind him every time he came to the Tower to stop ‘antagonizing Bruce, what if he Hulks out and destroys another chunk of Midtown?' It gets old telling Steve that it’s not going to happen, mostly because he gets that odd resigned look on his face that is more disappointing than blatant disbelief. It drives Tony mad.
So he tries to show them all by doing what they tell him not to. Sneak up on Bruce, poke Bruce with pointy objects, give Bruce a developer’s crazy impossible side project on a crazy short deadline (okay that last one is just how Tony assigns all of his projects, really). He thinks Bruce is starting to realize that Tony really means it. He’s decided not to push, for once in his life, but only because quiet trust seems more… just, more.
Huh, introspection . Pepper would be proud.
“How does Indian sound?” Bruce asks, returning and pulling on his coat.
Tony’s grin is bright. “Perfect. Let’s go.”