Kitsune here with a new story. YEAH I already have a ton I'm working on. I'm blaming WeRunYonder for this one, she said I could. It'll be a fun one and updated whenever. Let me know what you think, alright?

Question of the chapter: "Is there any such thing as too many stories?" Not for me apparently.

"Bruce! Bruce, you're just in time!" Tony crowed, a maniacal look in his eyes brought on by a combination of too much caffeine and being in the lab too long.

Bruce naturally didn't let that stop him from coming into Tony's lab, but he was a tad bit more cautious than he would normally be. "In time for what?"

"THIS!" He flapped a grease covered hand. "Though, since it's a temporal displacement device, you could argue you're always on time…"

"You built a Time Machine." Bruce wasn't expecting more than the distracted nod as he felt the usual 'dealing with Tony' headache coming on. He shouldn't be surprised really… they'd all left him alone for about a day to get over the latest fight he'd had with Pepper, but still… "Really Tony?"

"Mmmm, just got to name it. JARVIS, be a dear and think of a witty acronym for Time."

"Might I suggest Travel Improves Man's Existence, Sir?"

"Is that the best you can do, J?"

"Well, it's that or Tony's Idiocy Might Explode." The AI sniped back. "Doctor Banner, perhaps you can talk some sense into him."

"I can try…" Bruce took those last few steps closer to the machine. It wasn't exactly pretty to look at yet. That would come after Tony's maniacal high wore off and his sensibilities were offended by the bare wires everywhere - but it was still a thing of beauty. "Tony. Why did you build a time machine?"

Dark brown eyes, glassy from lack of sleep looked at him like Bruce was the one who was nuts before Tony slowly blinked, chewing on his tongue. "I wanted to see if I could."

And this was why Pepper needed to be sainted for being willing to stay in any form of long term relationship with Tony. The physicist reminded himself of that and tried to squash the voice in his head that was telling him it was all her fault. To be fair, she should know by now Tony wasn't going to change who he was, even if he wanted to. But once a year or so she brought up how dangerous being Iron Man was, and how much stress it put on their relationship… If Bruce didn't honestly love the woman like family he'd be as angry as Clint was over her putting their friend in such a spot. He knew she brought it up out of worry though, even if her constant reminders were what was really killing their relationship.

"Alright, you built it. Now why don't you come away from there and let's go get something to eat?" Bruce suggested. "I think there might be some poptarts left…" He muttered, knowing to start small. Step one, get Tony away from the machine. Step two, distract him. Step three, have JARVIS archive it so he wouldn't go poking it again. Wasn't the first time he'd Tony-wrangled.

Tony chewed absently on a grime covered thumb, eyes flitting over his latest invention as he practically bounced with nervous energy. "Yeah yeah, in a second. I just want to-"

"TONY NO!" The inventor's hand flitted out and depressed a panel as the world flashed white-black and spun. Bruce thought he heard JARVIS attempt an override but everything sounded too loud and muffled at the same time. His head was killing him and the Other Guy was shifting nervously in the back of his mind. Just as suddenly as it all started it stopped. "TONY!"

"What? I was just testing it!" Tony grumped, fiddling with the smoking wires still.

"What's wrong?"

"It fried some wires. I'm going to need to fix it. JARVIS, give me a reading."

There was no answer, and Tony froze in place, eyes rising to Bruce's before both men spun in a tight circle and took in their new surroundings. It was definitely not the Tower, even if a good amount of things not bolted down in the lab seemed to have made the journey with them. No, it was what appeared to be a construction site. Bruce took of his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Stay here, and don't touch anything." Tony mutely nodded, even as he started gathering up the debris. Well, he wasn't touching the machine, so that counted for something. Sneaking out of the construction site was too easy, thanks to all the practice Bruce had. The Other Guy was fond of hiding out in abandoned places after all. What he saw on the other side of the fence though, that was going to take some getting used to.

"So, what did you see?" Tony asked, jittery as ever when Bruce came back. "Don't tell me I dumped us off in Russia. Nat'll be so pissed if I did and we left her behind-"

"The good news is we're still in the city." Bruce sighed sardonically.

"Awfully quiet to be the city…"

"Well, you did invent a TIME MACHINE Tony!" The normally calm man shot back.

Both men stared at eachother for a moment. "Alright, when are we?"

"1940's? I'm not sure. Can you get us home?" Bruce was definitely NOT going to think about what damage the Other Guy could do here. NOT thinking about it.

"No. Yes. It'll be a while. And I'm going to need some things." Tony pouted. "I was just trying to go back to last week." Before the fight started, of course. "Honest Bruce."

"It's fine, Tony." He sighed. "Just… we need to fix this."