I think I need another "Let's see here..." thread.

[Zphal]

bruce laughed, his boyfriend had the attention span of a squirrel. “allright well here is the layout,” he gestured to the entire cafateria, “those are the scientists, ” he gestured to them, “we are the interns, nat and clint are interns in a way… but only because they aren’t 18.” he said smiling and then walking to the line. “so pretty much scientists dont do the whole clique thing we do at school, just… avoid fury. he might kill you.” he said smiling.

Tony thought about this a little deeper. He'd never seen those two around school or whatever. "Are Nat and Clint homeschooled or something?" he asked as he stood in line with Bruce. He nabbed a plastic tray off the large stack, drumming out a beat against it with his fingers.  

[Zphal]

“clint dropped out, got his GED and could have gone to college but is training here and at the S.H.E.I.L.D government facility in the next city over. Nat was home schooled, in Russia, graduated at 14 and now is training with Clint in a program I’m not even allowed to know the name of.” he said shrugging, like it happened every day. he spotted a mop of blonde hair towering over pretty much everyone else. “that is Steve. he’s the one I was teasing Coulson about. Coulson has a horribly awful crush on him and Steve hasn’t even noticed. he is one of the nicest people i have ever met but he isnt very good at picking up on those things… not to mention coulson’s trying pretty hard to hide it… jailbait and all.” he said with a smirk.

That word combined with the rhythm he was already tapping out against his tray sent Tony into song, re-enacting the chorus from the Aerosmith song, "Ooooh, J-j-j-Jailbaaait...!" Shamelessly he danced and sang in line. "Aaaah, J-j-j-Jailbaaait...!"  

[Zphal]

*Drops everything he was carrying on the ground, including but not limited to his laptop and a model rocket, and dashes over to the bespectacled boy standing in the park* "Bruce?? Oh my God, is it really you? Are you really real?" *Reaches out and pats the other teen's arms to make sure he's not just seeing things* "I-- after that day you showed me where you were interning, you... you just vanished. I thought..." *blinks away wetness in eyes* "...I'd never see you again."

Bruce stood very still, he wasnt actually sure if this was a good idea— seeing Tony again. He loved the guy, he knew that much, but god… these last few months had been hell. He wasn’t sure he could just— he wasnt sure he could do anything really.

He took a breath, “It’s me." he said nodding, pulling his sleeves tight around his arms and shying away from the contact slightly. “god Tony, I am so sorry."  

[Zphal]

"It's fine, no, it's good," Tony laughed off the apology, quickly swabbing his thumb underneath each of his eyes so Bruce wouldn't get a chance to see. "I barely missed you at all," he joked feebily (because, in fact, the very opposite had been true). He gave the other boy a light punch on the shoulder.

Bruce frowned, Tony was a total s**t liar. That probably came from the fact that he didn’t lie… like ever, if he didn’t like you, he told you. simple as that, it was one of the things Bruce loved about him. It was one of the reasons he was such a good boyfriend, or had been. Bruce didn’t really know what they were anymore.

"I missed you." Bruce mumbled under his breath.

Every second of every day he had missed Tony. Locked in that stupid government cell, no way out, no way of telling how much time had passed. They let Alex visit once, but mostly they just ran tests. Poking, prodding, trying to see if he had been effected by the blast that had killed his mother apparently. Most annoyingly they hadn’t given him a phone, or answered any of his questions. he had been forced to just, disappear off the face of the earth without even saying goodbye.

Tony had every right to be furious with him, but it didn’t seem like he was.  

[Zphal]

"I-- what?" Tony felt his hand snap up to rub the back of his neck awkwardly. He lowered his gaze to the grass to ensure he wouldn't accidentally catch eyes with the other boy. "Y-you did? I mean, I just..." he gestured limply. There were a million questions buzzing in his head about where Bruce had gone, /why/ he had gone, but he didn't know if he should ask them, or if he would be able to handle the answer in the chance that /he/ was the reason Bruce had left.

Bruce frowned, “yeah, I mean… I get if you don’t ever want to talk to me again." he said, pushing his hands awkwardly into the depths of his pockets. “especially because I can’t exactly tell you where I went, only that I really didn’t want to go."

Bruce took a deep breath, trying to shove any feelings he had about this all down as deep as they could go. He knew, this whole time that Tony would probably be mad, would probably move on. Now it was just time to accept that and move on.

"I just— I missed you." he said, head hung, fully prepared to walk away without another word.  

[Zphal]

Bruce hadn't wanted to go... That information alone made Tony feel better. He gnawed his lip, weighing his options. But after thinking about it for only a little while, he realized he really only had one option. Dropping the pointless act he'd been keeping up, Tony threw his arms around Bruce and pulled him into a tight hug. "I /actually/ missed you a lot," he admitted, the sentiment making his chest feel tight. "I wanna hang out and stuff again, if you know, you want to..."

Bruce let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding at those words. Burying his face into the crook of Tony’s neck. God he missed this- this feeling, this safety, this security. " I was so afraid you would hate me." he muttered into tony’s skin. “I’d love to hang out… And stuff."  

[Zphal]

Tony gave a chuckle. "I don't think I could /ever/ hate you," he said honestly. He drew back from the hug to smile at the other boy and ruffle his mop of hair. "You're too cute to hate, bookworm." The nickname slipped out like he'd seen Bruce only yesterday, rather than almost nine months ago. "So... hanging out..." Tony pondered, suddenly remembering the objects he'd dropped and snapping his fingers. "I was about to test this baby out!" he proclaimed, standing the rocket up.

Bruce smiled sheepishly, it felt good to smile again. Felt good to see Tony, to be called pet names rather than slurs. “yeah? What is it?" he asked, fully aware that it was a rocket of some sort, but knowing Tony it wouldn’t just stop there.  

[Zphal]

Bruce's smile made Tony smile even bigger, if that was possible at this point. He loved getting the chance to explain things, and the best part was knowing that he could explain his little summer project and the boy beside him would understand exactly what he was talking about. "It's a fission-powered rocket," he knocked his knuckles against the metal exterior, "that I toootally didn't steal the parts for out of my dad's lab," he grinned. "I'm using a Palladium isotope for the reaction element. When I set it off, the excess energy is gonna go POW--" he punched his left hand with his right, then motioned his thumb at the sky-- "and the rocket is gonna go flyin'." Tony opened up his laptop, "And I intend to record how high it goes."

Bruce grinned, that was his Tony. Stealing supplies to make a rocket the nerds at MIT would sell their souls for… Just for fun. “and you hooked up the countdown to the laptop I’m assuming, otherwise you have about… Four seconds before you go POW with it…" he said examining the rocket.  

[Zphal]

"Four seconds??" His eyes had just about enough time to bug out of his head before jumping back with a yelp as the reaction ignited and sent the rocket twirling into the sky. He landed on his a**, but quickly forgot it as his gaze went sky-high, gaping. It hadn't achieved maximum altitude yet, as it was still climbing. "Son of a... how high is it?" Tony asked, crawling over to where Bruce and laptop were sitting on the grass.

Bruce snorted, “going on 600 feet now." he said eying the data before looking Tony over. He didnt look bad, well not too bad, he had a tiny cut over his eyebrow but the guy had looked much worse. “you’ve got…" Bruce started before pulling his sleeve down over his hand and wiping the little bit of blood off Tony’s forhead. “just a little cut."  

[Zphal]

"Oh," Tony chuckled as Bruce wiped it away. "Guess that's what I get for not wearing proper safety equipment," he stuck out his tongue. He looked intently at the screen, watching as the feedback came in-- a thousand feet now and not showing signs of stopping. He shaded his eyes and squinted upward; the rocket was only a bright point of light in the sunny sky now. "If it goes too much further, it's gonna go out of range, the antennae I put in isn't that high-end..." he mused.

"leave it to you to underestimate your abilities" Bruce laughed, leaning back to watch the rocket’s accent. “so what happens when it comes back down, how do you make sure it doesn’t like… hit someone?"  

[Zphal]

"Well, uh... the parachute should deploy a few hundred feet before ground..." Tony rubbed the underside of his nose while he spoke. The signal was getting weaker, starting to get static blips between elevation updates. "When it comes down, that is," he corrected. "And it wasn't my abilities, it's that Palladium stuff. I only used point-zero-zero-five grams, I didn't expect--" he cut that thought short as the program announced the object had left range at approximately 2640 feet, or half a mile.

Bruce frowned a little, “you dont think this is going to cause a ‘you set off an Unidentified Object in United States Airspace issue do you?’" he said checking the trajectory, the rocket wasn’t slowing down. “because, uh getting arrested and interrogated by the government isn’t exactly what i thought id be doing today."

which was a lie, because until yesterday he had thought that was what he was going to be doing. except he had already been arrested and was being held in a cell… but the point was, he just didn’t want to go back to all that.  

[Zphal]

"No way!" Tony made a dismissive gesture with his hand. "My dad has permits for this kind of thing. If it becomes an issue and they trace it back, all I gotta do is say I was testing something for him." The teen licked his lips. Of course, his father wouldn't be too pleased about it all if he found out, and he'd probably get a speech from his old man about 'safety precautions' and not 'jeopardizing his future' and blah blah blah. Tony rolled his eyes.

Bruce nodded, “okay." so what do we do while we’re waiting for your super rocket to come back from outer space?" Bruce joked.  

[Zphal]

Tony burst into a fit of what couldn't really be described as anything but giggles, rolling about in the grass on his back a moment. "I dunno, you wanna go grab lunch?" the teen suggested with a grin-- as per usual, he was always interested in filling his empty stomach.

Bruce shrugged," I could eat" he said standing up and extending his hand to Tony to help him up. “where are we going cutie?"  

[Zphal]

Tony felt an awkward laugh bubble up in his throat at the term of endearment. He rubbed the side of his nose idly as he formed a response. "Ever been to the Mongolian place a couple blocks down the road?" he asked, snapping his laptop shut and thrusting it into his bag, "It's really really good."

"can’t say that I have." he said with a smile, “lead the way." Bruce was excited, he really liked the idea of real food, and he liked the idea of eating real food with Tony. Honestly he liked the idea of doing anything with Tony. He had missed the guy like crazy and he was happy to just be friends again. Regardless of any lingering feelings that might have stuck around.  

[Zphal]

Tony smiled nearly a mile wide and threw his arm over his buddy's shoulders to guide him along as they set off down the sidewalk towards the joint. He hummed a tune for a while, before beginning to think aloud, "You know, I'm crazy-glad you're back. Seriously. School was /Snoooresville/ and I've had literally /nobody/ to hang out with all summer."

Bruce frowned, “about school…" he lead nervously, “I’m kindof not going back, like … Ever."