Special Needs: A Bruce and Natasha FanFic

Chapter 14: Just a Temporary Setback

Tony Stark had held a grudge against Santa Claus for most of his childhood. From the time he was four, Tony—the kid who had almost everything he could build or ask for—had very politely requested a brother every year in writing until he quit believing in jolly old elves. (Not that he would have turned down a sister, but girls could be icky!) At that point, he became desperate enough to ask his parents, but the request had so upset his mother and angered his father that he'd dropped it and never mentioned it again. He was a gregarious, but lonely kid who tended to drive the adults around him crazy with questions. He loved his parents, distant though his father might be, and Mr. Jarvis, but he really wanted someone to listen to him, look up to him, and be his co-conspirator. At least that was how it had started out. Later, after his parents had died, he'd wished he had someone with whom to share his pain and grief, someone to understand why he was so angry.

As the years went by, Tony had gradually forgiven Santa—if not his parents—and moved on to find other reasons to be brilliant, unhappy, and self-destructive without needing a sibling. In fact, he'd pretty much forgotten about his childhood wish until Agent Coulson had dumped that digital dossier on him with all the information about the Avengers Initiative. He had felt interested enough in the other folks' backgrounds, but when he flicked opened Bruce Banner's folder, he instantly remembered reading the man's paper on predicting random fluctuations in proton charge reversal in irradiated metals and thinking the mind behind it was brilliant. Tony also remembered reading about the guy's unfortunate accident and the following transformation and destruction at Culver. The Battle in Harlem hadn't been pretty either, and he'd toured that firsthand just to see what two behemoths could do. Naturally, Tony dug into the S.H.I.E.L.D. files under Dr. Banner's name with relish, hoping to find out more details to understand what had gone wrong and disrupted what had otherwise been a promising scientific career.

His conclusion was Banner had been heartbreakingly close, but he'd been pressured into taking a gamble as funding was being yanked by the military. Tony didn't have to read much between the lines to understand who had done the pushing and goading because General "Thunderbolt" Ross's reputation was well known among military contractors. After having met with the man, it was easy for Tony to imagine the pressures the infamous bully had applied to a young scientist desperate for a breakthrough. After that, the files became either vague or redacted, but it was clear to Tony that Banner had made a breakthrough. (Although Bruce now shut him down every time he suggested this,) Tony firmly believed the experiment had not been a failure. True, the side effects had turned out to be a bitch, but the Hulk was at least 80% of what the military had wanted to achieve. The Big Guy just wasn't always controllable or good at taking orders. In Tony's book, that wasn't a failure, it was just a temporary setback. When he finally met Bruce, then insulted, poked, fed him fruit snacks, and teased him a bit, Tony knew this was what he'd been missing: if not a brother, at least a peer who shared his passions and interests, someone he could talk theory with and who balanced him out when he did cross a line. It was a rare day that went by without Tony thinking he ought to thank Santa (or maybe a not-so-sainted guy named Nick) because what he shared with Bruce had been worth the wait.

That's what Tony had been thinking as he watched Bruce finally quit playing 'possum and drift off into a fitful nap. Tony spent the next half hour flicking through the reports and data he'd neglected from Cho's team over the past few months. He was just finishing up with some of Bruce's notes, when it hit him that he was going to be proven right in the end. Even if it took another decade, Bruce's body was self-correcting and adapting to his conditions. The bad news was that it wasn't returning to a human norm; instead, it was finding and redefining what it would be. Take that, Ultron, some of us do evolve. As long as Bruce stayed Bruce, this didn't bother Tony, but he wasn't sure what Bruce thought about this situation. Surely, his friend already understood what was happening since it was clear enough for Tony to see it?