PROMPT: Tony takes care of a weakened Bruce after he De-Hulks.

WORD COUNT: 438

RATING: PG for violence?

WARNINGS: brief mentions of tentacles, mild violence, tired authors.

A/N: [Update] Quick note to those who haven't read my other story "You and Me" that this story now is now officially an offshoot of that one!

You can read the two separately, or not read the other one at all, and still have complete stories!

"Whoa, easy there Big Guy".

The voice of Tony Stark easily cut through the haze in Bruce Banner's mind.

"Not so big anymore," he weakly joked in reply. God he felt tired. He wanted to do nothing more but collapse into the nearest bed and sleep for the next week. Or month.

Hell, maybe even the next year, he thought as the next wave of nausea hit him, creating turbulent tremors all through his body. Two strong arms quickly wrapped around him and he was pulled back into a strong chest, a hard metallic circle indenting onto his back.

They were sitting in the middle of what used to be a field and now looked more like the surface of the moon. Flashes of what happened were slowly seeping back to him. There was a fight of sorts and army of…something… that had surprised them during a training session. He had managed to keep his cool, for his teammate's sake until…

Until one of them had hit Tony.

He was in his Iron Man suit, of course. But the many tentacle… thing had gotten past his defences somehow, the long appendages had wormed its way into the circuitry, finding the soft, tanned skin underneath. Tony's scream of pain awoke the 'other guy' and that was the end of Bruce's memories about that.

"Tony…" he managed to get out, letting his head fall back on one strong shoulder. He didn't really want to remember the rest, truth be told. Hurting things, even if they had hurt his Science Buddy, was not really his favourite pastime.

"You called?" the tone was trade-Stark flippant, with an edge of some indefinable emotion that the man was probably trying real hard to eradicate.

'You okay?"

"Of course I'm okay? Why wouldn't I be okay? I'm the king of Okay! Wait, no I'm the Man of Iron, aren't I? But if I wasn't I would totally be the King of Okay. Or the Prince of Okay. That's more me, isn't it? Hmmm. Prince of Perfectly Fine perhaps? Bit much?"

Bruce would've replied with something witty or at least with his usual wan smile, but thinking was becoming a bit difficult at the moment, seeing as the post-change fog in his head was about to send him off to sleep, so a vague "yeah.." was going to have to do. He both heard and felt the soft chuckle coming from the man currently holding him sitting upright and a whispered "let go, Big Guy' before everything went black.

He didn't notice at all the hand which had been slowly stroking his hair.

AUTHORS NOTES:

Oh god. What is this even?

There is more to this story, but I felt like it should be ended here to spare all unwilling souls further torture. I just wanted to contribute to the fanbase of the SCIENCE BOYFRIENDS.