Aftermath (a BH6 crossover)

Chapter Thirty Five: He Already Knows

Bruce almost hesitated to enter Tony's hospital room, not sure how he'd be received. After all, he had technically just left him there. Admittedly, he'd had good reason, needing to take care of the rest of the students, getting them away from the carnage. But he wasn't sure if the billionaire would see it that way.

"Are you going to skulk there are day or are you actually coming in?" Tony quipped, noticing Bruce outside his door.

Looking more than a little sheepish, Bruce entered the room, running one hand through his hair. "Hi, Tony," he greeted hesitantly.

Tony tried to sit up a bit and ended up using the bed's controls to make it tilt higher. "I was expecting you much sooner. Doesn't take that long to take a bus full of kids back to a hotel, even if they're inclined to disagree." He looked more than a little disgruntled.

"I decided to give the Hamada kid a visit," Bruce confessed, "since I wasn't sure how long they'd try and keep you."

Iron Man looked a bit impatient as he waved an arm for him to continue. "And? What did you find out?"

Bruce pulled up a rolling stool he found near the back counter, keeping far enough away that Tony couldn't lunge at him if he decided to get irate. The fact that the man had a few wire leads covering his chest, and an IV plugged into his arm did soothe him a bit, but he knew they wouldn't keep the man back if he were truly determined. "Well, I found him at that Lux place. I hope you don't mind but JARVIS decided to tag along." He pulled out his cell phone, cautiously setting it on the moveable table.

"I'm not sure how to explain what happened," the physicist continued. "But when I got there, I found that Lucifer Morningstar character and Hiro's aunt. Hiro was asleep so I couldn't ask him, and his aunt wouldn't let me wake him to ask. The best I can gather is that Hiro somehow managed to connect with the computer system at the airport, and that's how he knew the bomb was there."

Tony forced himself to relax. He supposed it made sense. After all, Hiro had somehow managed to merge with the computer system at Hydra. It was entirely possible, even if not probable, that he'd somehow managed to do it again with a completely different system. "Hmm," he mused.

Bruce looked down at the floor, twiddling his fingers together between his knees. "Without running some kind of test, I don't know if there's really a way we can find out how he did that. It would mean hooking him up to an EEG machine while he's somehow connected to another system, which I somehow doubt is going to happen."

The billionaire somehow doubted it as well. "Guess I'll have to talk to him myself," he decided as he started to remove the electrodes stuck to his chest. The monitor started to beep in protest but he ignored it. "Mind shutting that thing up for me?" he asked instead.

Bruce moved to comply with the request, turning off the monitor. He turned around just as a nurse entered the room.

"Just what do you think you're doing?" the nurse said, hands on his hips as he glared at Bruce.

"I uh..." Bruce looked far from comfortable as the male nurse stared him down.

Tony continued to remove the electrodes, sliding the IV line out from under his skin. "I'm checking myself out," he announced. "And no, I didn't call him to come rescue me. I was planning on doing this from the beginning. Now bring me my clothes."

The nurse left the room in a huff.

"You really didn't have to be that mean to him," Bruce admonished in a worried tone. "Who knows what he'll do?"

But Tony just ignored him as he slid off the mattress. "Nothing I can't handle. Now find me my shoes. We're going to get to the bottom of this."

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