Glass Houses
XIII.
“Why do you put up with this bullshit?”
Bruce glanced up from the belt he was hooking all his equipment to, to see what Tony was referring to. The other man had tossed a newspaper down onto the table and clearly expected Bruce to abandon what he was doing and come take a look at it. Bruce could see the headline he was referring to, so he just made a noncommittal noise and went back to his work. He had to admit that Tony knowing he was Batman had brought about some definite benefits, such as the ability to raid Tony’s supplies for new weaponry development.
“You don’t get to ignore me,” Tony said.
“Why not? You ignore Pepper all the time.”
“Because Pepper knows me well enough to know when I’m ignoring her and not discuss anything of importance then. You don’t know me that well, and this is important.”
“No, it isn’t,” Bruce said.
“You’re crazy, you know that?”
“Glass houses, Iron Man.”
“No,” Tony said. “No, that is different. That is me correcting something I’ve done wrong. Where in this headline are you trying to fix anything?”
Bruce glanced up from Tony’s worktable long enough to verify that he had read the headline correctly. He had. It was yesterday’s issue of Gotham Times, and he wondered where Tony had gotten it from. The headline boldly splashed across the front page was ‘Batman Goes on Rampage: Kills 2, Wounds 3’. He sighed and went back to his work.
“Say something,” Tony said.
“Hand me the pliers.”
Tony did. “I know you didn’t do this.”
“Someone thinks I did.”
“Ever since that whole thing with the Joker, all of Gotham has been hunting Batman down. It’s not because you’re the one really responsible for all this. So why is it?”
Bruce looked up again. “Don’t you think you should have asked this before you started to trust me? How do you know that I’m not the one doing this?”
Tony stared him down. “I’ve met monsters,” he said. “I’ve looked them in the eye. I’ve watched them kill a friend. You’re not a monster.”
Bruce looked away first. “It’s complicated.”
“Okay. I’m good with complicated things. Genius, remember? Try me.”
“There are two reasons why Batman is being hunted by Gotham’s finest,” Bruce said. “First of all, because you’re a one-of-a-kind. People who admire you can’t go get their own gold-titanium-rocket-shooting-robot-suit, as much as they may want one. But anyone who can buy a bat-shaped mask and some hockey pads can be out on the streets, getting themselves killed.”
“Copycats,” Tony said with a nod, “Okay. I get it. But that’s not the reason for this.”
“After the Joker incident, some people were hurt and killed. After the Joker was in custody. It was blamed on me, because that was better than blaming it on the person who actually did it.”
“Who was that?”
Bruce just looked at him.
“Okay, someone important,” Tony said. “But why frame you? Why not frame some other person? Why not make a person up and say some henchman of the Joker’s did it, and then got away? Why does it have to be about you?”
“I can take it.”
“Yeah, so could an imaginary henchman.”
“The people of Gotham City wouldn’t have felt safe if one of the Joker’s goons had gotten away,” Bruce said.
“And they feel better hating the one guy who actually managed to pull their ass from the fire? Fearing him? Oh, sure. That makes sense.”
Bruce grit his teeth in frustration. “Look,” he said. “You don’t know Gotham. You don’t know Batman. And you have no right to pass judgment on me. Don’t think I haven’t seen the articles about you. About how you’re a psycho.”
“Those articles are different,” Tony said, “because they are people’s opinions on what I’m doing. What I’m actually doing. This article is saying you did something you didn’t do, and that’s not the same at all.”
“But Batman doesn’t have a public persona. So he’s equipped to take the heat.”
“You’re joking, right?” Tony asked. “Do you seriously think that I’m the only person in the world smart enough to figure out who you are?”
Bruce felt slightly queasy. He remembered Coleman Reese. He remembered the Joker’s comments about saving Rachel, and about how he had been sure that the Joker had nailed his true identity. Nothing had ever come of it, but what if the Joker did know? What if one of these days, he just happened to mention it to one of the guards at Arkham?
“Look,” he said, “when it all went down, there wasn’t time to think of a better option. And now it’s gone too far to put a stop to it.”
Tony folded his arms over his chest, momentarily blocking the glow of the arc reactor underneath his shirt. “We’ve been having this conversation for several minutes and you still haven’t given me the real answer.”
“What do you want me to say?” Bruce asked, his temper fraying. “You obviously have your own ideas about what’s going on. Why don’t you clue me in, if you’re so damned smart?”
“Okay,” Tony said, “you’re a masochist.”
“Excuse me?” Bruce asked.
“You,” Tony said, more deliberately, “are a masochist.”
“I heard you the first time.”
“Whatever happened during this whole Joker thing, you obviously blamed yourself for it. This was your idea, right? The only way to atone for your sins was to set the entire city on yourself. To bury yourself in everyone’s fear and anger so you didn’t have to deal with your own. Well, congratulations. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Bruce tried to remember to stay calm. “You don’t know anything about it.”
“Look, you lost someone, I get it,” Tony said. “I’ve lost people, too. When I was getting out of that terrorist cave, there was this doctor named Yinsen. He saved my life. Helped me build the suit prototype. On the way out, he gets himself shot. Tells me that his family’s dead and he’s going to go see them, that he wants to die. And I’m like ‘thanks for including me in your assisted suicide; you know, I could have stood knowing about that beforehand’. Do you think I felt great about that?”
“So you lost some guy who you’d known for three months?” Bruce asked. “It doesn’t compare. Trust me. It doesn’t.”
“You’re just going to flog yourself to death to make up for it? For not being able to protect someone? Things don’t always go the way you want them to.”
“Look, just shut up,” Bruce said.
“I would,” Tony said. “If I thought you were right, I would. But what you’re doing is not helping you. And it’s not helping Gotham, either. And if you don’t care about the first, you’d damn well better care about the second.”
“It’s not any of – ”
“How do you see this ending, Bruce?” Tony asked. “Are you going to live as an outcast the rest of your double life? Is Batman just eventually going to fade away into memory? Are the police going to catch him and let him be lynched in the town square?”
“I haven’t – ”
“Thought that far ahead? Yeah, I can tell,” Tony shot back. “And what happens if someone else like the Joker shows up? What happens when Gotham needs Batman again? And you try to make your grand re-entrance, but you’re hampered by the fact that now everyone hates your guts?”
“And what about you?” Bruce shouted. “What are you going to do when you’ve destroyed every last weapons depot in Afghanistan? What’s the next move for you? Just hang up your helmet and go back to being a bored genius with nothing to do?”
“That was my general plan, yes.”
“It’s not that easy!”
“For you, I guess not. Because you’re all tied up in being Batman. I’m not like that. Iron Man is something I do. It’s a goal I want to accomplish. I do it because it’s the right thing to do. I have convictions. What are your convictions, Bruce? What the hell are you trying to accomplish, besides slowly destroying yourself?”
“I’m trying to save my city.”
“Then why aren’t you listening to the opinion of an objective observer?” Tony asked, with maddening calm. “You know that I’m right anyway.”
“You’re not right.”
“Look, the Joker scared the shit out of you. He scared the shit out of everyone in Gotham. I can understand that. I’ve seen some of the video. It was enough to give me bad dreams, and this is after I’ve spent three months in a terrorist camp. You know what I’m doing? I’m atoning for what I spent the first half of my life fucking up. But this is different. One mistake doesn’t have to be the rest of your life.”
Bruce thought of Rachel. Of Harvey’s coin.
He managed his next sentence between clenched teeth. “You. Don’t. Know.”
“Then I’ll find out,” Tony said. “The facts are all there. Maybe I’ll do a little more research. I found enough about you pretty easily. If I can find the mistake, maybe I can find out who really committed those crimes that you’re being hounded for. Maybe I can tell some important people in Gotham and get you – ”
Bruce grabbed him by the shoulders and flung him against the wall. Tony was smaller than him, and although he wasn’t a wimp, he had nothing against Bruce’s training. Bruce followed and pinned him up against the wall. “You wouldn’t,” Bruce said. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Would it be such a catastrophe for the world to know that you’re not a monster?”
“You don’t understand,” Bruce said.
“Or is it that you think you are a monster, and can’t stand anyone saying you’re not?”
“Just shut – ”
“I don’t think you’re a monster.”
Bruce said nothing.
Tony held his gaze steadily. “Oh, a little nuts, maybe. Guy dresses up like a bat; clearly, he’s got issues. But you’re not a monster. No more than I am. You looked at the Joker for too long. Stop seeing him everywhere you go.”
Bruce shuddered and let Tony go. He slumped back onto the workbench.
“You don’t know,” he whispered.
“I know what a monster is,” Tony said. “And I know what one isn’t.”
Bruce again said nothing.
“Come on,” Tony said, “that’s enough angst for one day. We can talk about the actual problems and possible solutions later. Let’s go get some Scotch.”
“You lecture me for my issues,” Bruce said, “and then suggest we go get Scotch?”
“Yeah. Good, you’re keeping up. C’mon.” Tony extended his hand to Bruce. After a moment, Bruce sighed and accepted it, letting Tony pull him out of the chair. He was surprised a moment later when Tony had him backed against the table and was kissing him.
“What?” he managed.
“What?” Tony replied.
“You – ”
“You really are that dense,” Tony said. “I had wondered.” He kissed him again.
Bruce pushed him away again. “This isn’t one of those times when you can bypass explanations with a flippant remark,” he said.
“There needs to be an explanation?” Tony asked. “Come on. You’re hot. I like you. You don’t sleep with women. I sleep with people of either gender. Now I’m kissing you. All that seems to be pretty self-explanatory as far as I can tell.”
“I don’t sleep with women because there was one woman,” Bruce said. “One woman, Tony. You aren’t her.”
“Uh, not last time I checked,” Tony said. He backed off. “Okay. Misunderstanding. They happen all the time. No big deal. So who’s the lucky lady? Alfred’s never mentioned any – ” Tony stopped then, as he got it. “Oh. Jesus Christ. I’m sorry.”
Bruce cleared his throat. “Anyway, I thought you and Pepper were – ”
“Pepper? I love Pepper. I couldn’t live without her. But, uh, she’d kill me if I ever pulled a move on her, and that sort of ruins the whole sex thing.”
He went to the cabinet and poured them both a shot of Scotch.
“She was going to marry someone else,” Bruce said, for no reason that he could really define.
Tony knocked back his shot of Scotch. “That’s rough.”
“She said she was going to wait for me,” Bruce said. “For the day Gotham no longer needed Batman. I thought that day was coming. And she never said anything, but she had given up on it. Given up on me. For months, I’ve tried to pretend that it all might have meant something else. But it didn’t. That’s what it meant. That she gave up on me.”
Tony said nothing.
“Look, if you want to get laid, you could have anybody,” Bruce said, frustrated.
A grin flitted across Tony’s face. “You know, for someone who claimed a simple misunderstanding, you’re kind of perseverating on this,” he said.
“I’m right, though.”
“No,” Tony said, “you’re not. I haven’t had a girl here since I got back from the camp. It’s been a long dry spell, believe me.”
Bruce frowned. “Why not?”
Tony shrugged. “I haven’t been in the mood. And I was, you know, taking my time with you. I thought maybe you were afraid of what people would think. That’s why I made Pepper believe we’d slept together – well, that and because I didn’t want her knowing the real reason you were here. I knew she’d tell Alfred. She did, right? And nothing happened. Nobody’s opinion of either of us changed at all.”
“Alfred said I seemed happier,” Bruce muttered.
“Yeah?” Tony scooted his chair a little bit closer.
“Yeah,” Bruce said. “Like he knows anything about it.”
“Come on. You roamed the world as a criminal for what, ten years? Are you going to seriously tell me you never had sex with a man in all that time?”
Bruce looked at him. “I loved Rachel. I really did.”
“Okay. I’m not asking for your hand in marriage. I’m not asking you to love me.”
“Why do you want this?”
Tony paused. “Because I trust you.”
Bruce sighed.
“And also, because you really need to lighten up.”
XIV.
Before Bruce had really assimilated everything that had just happened and what it all might mean, Tony knocked back his Scotch, grinned his manic grin, and said, “Last one to the bedroom has to be on the bottom.”
“Wh – what?!” Bruce sputtered, as Tony leapt to his feet and began a mad dash through the workroom. A few moments later he was on his feet as well, trying to jump around the piles of stuff strewn about the room. It was difficult; between the robots, armor, computer parts, and car parts, the room was always a certifiable disaster. But of course, Tony knew exactly where everything was.
“Ha!” Tony reached the door first.
“No way,” Bruce growled, catching up and grabbing him by the shoulders, trying to shove him back into the workroom.
“Dummy, sic him!” Tony yelled, and Bruce turned just in time to get a spray of monoammonium phosphate right in the face. He could hear Tony’s maniacal laughter as the man bolted up the stairs.
“God damn it, Tony!” Bruce shouted as he staggered out of the room, trying to wipe the chemical fluff off his clothes. “Remind me again why I’m willing to sleep with you!”
“I’m Tony fuckin’ Stark, that’s why!”
Bruce stopped in the kitchen to clean off his face. He took off his shirt and chucked it into the kitchen sink, then made his way to Tony’s bedroom. Tony was sitting on the bed, just waiting and smirking. “I want you to know,” Bruce said, “that I don’t buy your childish bullshit, and my being the last one to the bedroom has absolutely no bearing on what’s about to happen.”
“Oh yeah?” Tony said. He sounded impressed.
“Yes,” Bruce said firmly.
“And why is that?” Tony asked.
“Because I,” Bruce said, advancing on the bed, “am a God damned ninja.”
“But that means respecting what it means to be a ninja,” Tony said solemnly. “Don’t exploit the ninja.”
Bruce frowned. “Are you – ”
“Seriously, Bruce? You’ve never seen that video?”
“What – ”
“Shut up and get over here, will you? Before I start without you.”
Bruce sat down on the edge of the bed. Then he leaned over and kissed the other man. It felt good. Unfamiliar, but good. It had been years since he had last been with another man – or with anybody at all. Tony was a good kisser, and he smelled like motor oil and soot and gold titanium and sunlight. Bruce decided that he liked it.
Tony lay back, pushing Bruce down with him. For the moment, he seemed perfectly content to simply take advantage of the fact that Bruce had lost his shirt, running his fingers along the skin. Bruce kissed him again, and then his hand hovered, just momentarily, over the arc reactor that glowed through the front of Tony’s thin T-shirt.
“Don’t,” Tony said. He was serious now, and his sharp gaze pinned Bruce down. “Don’t treat me like I’m fragile. Don’t you dare. I will kick your fucking ass.”
Bruce wasn’t sure what, if anything, he could say to that. After a moment, he decided that no words were the best words. He simply gave a nod of agreement and apology. Then he grabbed Tony by one arm and gave it a sharp tug, using the momentum to flip them over. He pinned Tony to the bed and leaned in for another kiss, this one harsher and more demanding.
“That’s more like it,” Tony said, trying to catch his breath.
XV.
Bruce jerked awake as the shades rolled up and Jarvis’ mellow tones began announcing the weather and surf conditions for the day. As alarm clocks went, he’d heard worse, but sleep was still clinging to him. Tony was already awake, and had apparently been watching him sleep for some time. “What?” Bruce muttered, pawing his hair out of his face.
“Nothing. Just thinking.”
“You think too much.”
“Glass houses, Batman.”
Bruce sat up slightly, but then again up and flopped back against the pillows, ignoring the news stations that Jarvis was turning on. He lifted his hand and idly traced a circle around the arc reactor in Tony’s chest. Tony tensed, then relaxed.
“This why you’ve been celibate ever since getting back?”
Tony shrugged. “One of the reasons. I don’t like letting people I don’t trust touch it. Especially not after the guy I looked up to as a father paralyzed me and yanked it out of my chest.”
Bruce winced. “Yeah. I can see that.”
They sat in silence for a minute.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Yeah,” Tony said. “No problem.”
Bruce sat up. Jarvis apparently took this as a signal that they’d be getting up, because he asked, “Would you like me to send in Miss Potts with the coffee, sir?”
“Uh, no, thank you,” Tony said. “That won’t be necessary. It can wait until we make our way out there.”
“Very good, sir.”
Bruce sat on the edge of the bed and stared out at the ocean. “Why does Jarvis give the surf conditions?” he asked.
“Why do you think?” Tony asked. He sat up as well, leaning his chest against Bruce’s back and draping his arms around his shoulders. Bruce felt the warm metal of the arc reactor press into his back, a tiny buzz of electricity against his skin. Tony rested his chin on Bruce’s shoulder. “I like surfing. You wanna go?”
“Sure,” Bruce said. “That sounds like fun.”
XVI.
In the end, Bruce found that he was a little surprised by everything that had happened. Tony accepted him. He didn’t expect him to be anything he wasn’t. That didn’t mean that Tony approved of everything he did, or would accept it without question. But Tony knew the darkness in him, and unlike Rachel, it didn’t scare him away.
They hadn’t really solved anything.
But Bruce felt pretty good about it regardless.