p • r • e • s • s • u • r • e

a question of atonement

"Why would you do that to yourself?"

He'd blown a damn. You could tell from the flare of muscle at his jaw and the sharp crack as cup met saucer  "Because I deserve it," he snapped. As if it were obvious. As if he were irritated he'd made him say it out loud, because he knew how it sounded.

"No you don't, after everything you've done? Not when you were just such an asshole and the drinking and the sex and not taking anything seriously at all-" he caught himself. "-not when they called you the-the 'Merchant of Death'-not now, not ever."

Tony threw up an amused eyebrow over the rim of his cup in the hopes that it would distract from the way his hand trembled as he lifted it. 

"You practice that in front of a mirror?"

"I'm serious."

"Are you now."

"Yeah, Tony. And I need you to be serious as well. You're-you're damaging yourself."

"So?"

"I care. More than you know."

He breathed, drew something from within himself and the words seemed to pour from it. 

"I know you're punishing yourself. I know you think that it's just part of our jobs, to keep the bad guys from getting away with it. But please, listen to me when I tell you that it isn't your decision, okay? You aren't one of the bad guys. At the least-and I mean the very least, you are an asset to this country and to its people, two of whom are legally and genetically tied to you."

"Which protects them and ensures their safety in the event of my death," he countered.

"You're still more useful to them alive than dead."

"Well aren't you a bundle of laughs, Clarence Odbody."

Bruce ignored him. 

"And you don't need to keep being...this."

"Maybe I like it."

"What, being...an Isaac Asimov's sci-fi mag character...or the pain?"

"Bit of both." Tony smiled. "I remember the old Asimov magazines...I think I have a collection somewhere."

Bruce grinned. "Yeah, I do too." He sighed. "Everything was simpler then..."

"Not for everyone."

And didn't that just...hurt. He tried to use it.

"You've suffered enough."

"That isn't up to you."

"Yes! Yes, actually, it is."

Tony quirked an eyebrow.

"It is up to me. Because I am unbiased, and I know the worst things you've done but all the best too, and you're just making it up as you go along. I know for a fact that it's time for you to let yourself live."

"It's not worth it," he hissed, adamantly. 

"Would I be here, if you weren't? Would I stay here, by your side? You absolute buffoon?"

"Ooh, sweet talk. Easy tiger, I'm taken," he joked. 

Bruce's face went beet red and there was something strange in the way he breathed.

Tony frowned, and then laughed. 

"Oh my god Banner, I was kidding."

"I know. Shut up."