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“Do you think it’ll -”
“Yeah, Bruce, it’s probably going to hurt a little,” Tony interrupted, closing a clamp on one of the needles sticking out of Bruce’s back. “You know - metal, muscle, electricity. But then, I’ve seen you take a truck to the face - ”
“You’ve seen the Other -”
Tony waved his unoccupied hand dismissively, a little irritated. “Fine, I’ve seen the Other Guy, who lives right inside of little Brucie here,” he tapped on Bruce’s back for emphasis, “take some pretty serious blows. So I think you can handle a little electrical current. Can I get on with my work now?”
Bruce let out a slow breath, sinking a bit deeper into the table, and wondered why he’d agreed to this. Tony just had this way of putting something that made it sound like a good idea, the best idea ever - until, that is, they acted upon it. Then, crazy things happened, like Tony calling a massage parlor at 2 am to buy a bunch of acupuncture needles and a TENS unit. And Bruce ended up in awkward positions - in this case, face down on a cold stainless steel table, covered only in a towel, half a dozen long needles sticking out of his back that Tony was painstakingly attaching to said unit.
“And you’re sure you’ve got them in the right spots?”
Tony clucked his tongue as he put another clamp in place. “Bruce, Bruce, Bruce - don’t you trust me?”
Bruce lifted his head, looked down his side and back up. He lifted an eyebrow.
“Sheesh.” Tony shook his head, turning back to the last needle. “I learn thermonuclear astrophysics in an evening, and you question my ability to master an acupuncture map.”
“Not your ability, just your interest,” Bruce answered, but settled his face back on the table. Tony had a point.
After putting the last clamp in place, Tony stood back, eying his work with a hint of a smile. “It’s...kind of pretty, Bruce.” He brushed the needles with a fingertip, sending them rocking, appreciating the entire scene even more for the fact that the movement made Bruce wiggle a little uncomfortably. “Mind if I take a picture? You know, for the record?”
“Don’t you dare,” Bruce responded, voice muffled by the pillow, the only thing between him and the cold steel.
“It’ll make analysis easier later -” Tony started, but Bruce interrupted.
“No, it’ll make it more amusing - for you, at least.”
Tony rolled his eyes and pushed off the table he’d leaned on. Sometimes dealing with the sharpest guy in the room had its downsides. “Let me integrate this thing with Jarvis, then, and we’ll get started.”
They were trying out a new approach to putting the Hulk back in the box, so to speak. It was based on an article Tony had happened across in one of the dozens of journals that hit his inbox every month. The author’s work dealt with acupuncture, which, when used with other forms of therapy, seemed to greatly assist soldiers dealing with post-traumatic stress. The study seemed sound, the data promising, so Tony had spent an evening delving into the art, learning what each point on the body was meant to do. From there, he posited, it was just a matter of finding the right combination of points leading to calm and release from anger, and bam - they’d have Hulk control.
Or would, once Tony managed to convince Bruce to let him implant electrodes in his back, and once they tested to ensure that the same points applied on the Hulk, and...
One thing at a time.
“Sir, I have full access to the transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation unit - which, I might add, is quite primitive. I could have put together a more sophisticated -”
“Jealous, Jarvis?” Tony chuckled.
A moment’s silence. “No, sir, just...accustomed to using higher quality equipment. Your equipment.”
Tony smirked. “Yeah, well, I was in a hurry.”
“Haste makes waste, a wise man once said.”
Bruce lifted his head. “Ahem.”
“Right.” Tony glanced back at Bruce, wearing that big grin he always wore right before he did something possibly stupid and definitely dangerous, and Bruce started to worry. Maybe they’d rushed into this.
“Ready?” Tony asked.
Bruce started to shake his head no, so Tony didn’t wait. He turned the first switch to one.
A heavy thrum started in Bruce’s back, light and steady. It felt warm, vibrating, spreading - the kind of sensation you want to sink into as it came. He felt a slow smile spread across his face, and might have blushed if it were any other situation. But just now, he couldn’t muster the urge to care. Wow, that was nice. He laid his head back on the pillow, eyes closing all on their own as he let out a relaxed little hum of pleasure.
“Good?” Tony asked, stepping toward Bruce to look him over, checking the monitors. Everything looked normal. “You feel calm?”
“Mm,” Bruce managed as the sensation continued spreading through him, across his back and into his hips, down his legs and up to his chest. Yes, he thought, feeling floppy, I’d say this is calm.
Tony captured data - pulse, EEG - for review later, then turned his attention fully to study Bruce. There wasn’t much to see; the man was completely still, breathing evenly, almost as if asleep. He captured that, too.
“First set looks good,” he murmured, moving back to the machine. “Let’s try the second.”
The vibration only grew deeper, warmer, spreading now to Bruce’s skin, which prickled in goosebumps for a moment. Bruce shuddered, then let out a contented sigh.
Tony chuckled, noticing the shudder even as he clicked away at the data. “I take it you like?”
“Like...” Bruce murmured, feeling distant and floaty. “Yeah.”
Tony smiled. The results thus far were promising. “Third and final set, then,” he stated, turning the last knob.
Bruce’s back arched of its own volition as the sensation growing under his skin seemed to turn, curl, twisting in his muscles in an absolutely delicious fashion. Morning’s first stretch, an afternoon sunbeam perfectly timed, a hug from a long-missed friend, a touch from someone you just achingly adored. God, it was all these things and none of them, something deeper, something more basic, that coalesced in his stomach and rolled its way downward until he felt himself responding, pressing suddenly hard and tight against the table.
And god, was it a good feeling. He hadn’t felt that stiffening - pure, without fear of what might follow - in years, and here it was, and he moaned with the pleasure of it, pressing hips hard against the table and letting the sensation roll through him.
That kind of sound was hard to ignore. Tony, busy at the monitors, halted mid-calculation, turning back toward the table. “Bruce? Everything okay?”
“God, yes,” Bruce responded without looking up, hips lifting and pushing back down, face pressed into the pillow as he held onto the table legs with his hands. Of course everything was okay - wait, better than that. Good, absolutely amazingly fucking good, and he wanted nothing more than to press his hardness into the steel of the table warmed by his own body, roll up against it, pull back and do it again, again, because he could, because he wasn’t afraid. He groaned again, lifting his chest a bit off the table to push his hips down harder.
Tony saw - hard to miss something like that. “Okay,” he decided, watching Bruce lift himself and press his pelvis down, “something’s...yeah. Not right with this.” He headed toward the unit connected to the needles that now twitched and shuddered as Bruce, close-eyed and open-mouthed, humped the table. “Sorry, big guy,” he quipped, uncomfortable. “We’ll get it next time.”
Bruce’s hand closed on Tony’s wrist, stronger than usual, just as Tony touched the last dial. It squeezed painfully. Tony, wincing, looked back to see Bruce’s face turned toward him, eyes bleeding to greenish-white. Shit.
“DON’T,” came the voice. Not quite Bruce, not quite Hulk. Tony froze.
Bruce let his head fall back, the kind of groan escaping him that Tony didn’t think Bruce had in him. Need was in it, a primal desire that made Tony’s stomach shudder. He shouldn’t be hearing this. He shouldn’t know it.
But Bruce had hold of his wrist, squeezing so tightly that Tony’s fingers were tingling, and those eyes had him fixed and locked.
Tony swallowed, hard, working up courage. “Bruce, please, let me turn this off.”
His friend’s head shook side to side in response, and those fingers squeezed tighter. Hips kept moving, up and down, slow. It was really, really hard not to look - such an unexpected, nearly hypnotic, motion.
Bruce felt pure, real, present in a way he hadn’t felt since the accident. His body lit with need, pilfering energy from every source - the table under him, the smooth steel leg his left hand still gripped, the flesh he held in his grasp, the worried look on Tony’s face. As if he didn’t know. As if he didn’t feel the rush, too. Bruce knew, could smell it on him. Stupid Tony, not even aware how much he’d been holding back.
Bruce jerked on the wrist he held, and Tony stumbled toward him, away from the machine. Good. Leave machine alone, because this was too precious, too freeing. He wanted to be here forever, lost in desire, fearing nothing. He’d make sure Tony didn’t touch it.
Fear, though, was in the air, acrid and sweet on the other man’s skin. Bruce wanted suddenly, more than anything, to lick that scent off Tony, feed on it. Eyes still locked on his prey, he lifted himself slowly from the table, not even noticing when the towel fell away, when a line of pre-cum dragged from table to tip, breaking only when he finally sat up, facing Tony fully, still holding on.
He had Tony’s wrist gripped tightly, low, between his legs. And the fear he could smell now had something else underneath, something he knew, something he’d waited for. Bruce leaned in to Tony until he was an inch from the man’s throat, less, just inhaling the heady smell of him in all its complicated mess of emotion, and wanted.
He gave in.
“Help,” Bruce demanded, voice too deep and reverberating to just be his own as he pressed Tony’s hand onto his cock. He licked a line up the man’s neck and felt a shudder, the hand open. He pushed himself into it hungrily, and starting thrusting. “Help.”
Fingers closed around Bruce’s shaft, and he moaned with need. His left hand went around Tony’s waist, pulling him in tight, face still pressed to throat as he licked and chewed and groaned.
A pause, and Bruce snarled, meeting Tony’s eyes as the man lifted his hand to his mouth, licked. And then, forehead to forehead, eyes locked, Tony found Bruce again, and his hand started thrusting for him, up and down, hard, needy. Something electric thundered through Bruce, huge and pushing, as he thrust deep into that fist, his eyes never looking away even when he wanted to lift his head and roar.
At last, wet fingers twisted, found his tip, pressed, and Bruce knew that something terrible and wonderful was coming and wanted it more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. He bit, hard, wherever teeth landed, and felt Tony cry out, squeeze, buck.
And then Bruce was undone - everything came in a rush, pouring out of him as he moaned and bucked and felt and felt and felt until no feeling was left, until his eyes fell away and he was slumping, messy, against Tony’s wonderful chest, the current of the electricity still ticking through him as steady as a cricket’s song - up and down, up and down, spent.
“Yes,” Bruce groaned, hoarse and empty. Then Tony backed away, went to the machine, and the sensation gave way to black.
Two days passed in which they didn’t speak. For one, Bruce was unconscious, but for the other, they simply didn’t know how. Bruce’s confidence had faded with the electrical impulse, and Tony was still...processing.
On the third day, though, they both sat down without a word at the same table, an invitation. Bruce, driven by impulse, spoke first.
“I’m sorry,” he managed, clearly ashamed.
Tony flashed irritation. “For what, Bruce? Needing something that every human being on this planet needs? Giving into it? Wanting it?”
Bruce blushed, ran a somewhat shaky hand through his hair, fell silent.
Tony leaned back, frowning. “Fuck that, Banner. You were there, in the moment, and I’m not...not...” He tapered off, his big speech lost. Bruce was looking at him, eyes real and brown and big and needy and human, and he just didn’t know what word was supposed to come next any more.
So fuck talking, Tony decided. Science was better.
“Look,” Tony continued, leaning back in his chair now enough that the front legs lifted off the ground, “I still think the theory is sound. Data suggests that the electrical current was doing the trick up until that last round, though next time I think we should take blood samples to check -”
“Wait - next time?”
Tony flashed Bruce that smile, the one that let the world know he was going to try something crazy, and sprung out of his chair, motioning for Bruce to follow. “Sorry, I meant this time. Come on, big guy,” and Bruce’s flush wasn’t lost on him, even though he didn’t stop, didn’t look, kept right on striding toward the lab. He heard Bruce’s chair scoot back from the table, and grinned hard, triumphant.
“Let’s get to round two.”