Inspired by the most adorable artwork ever: (brakken) dot tumblr .com post/31396473097/science-buddies

"BRUUUUUUUUUCE!"

The sudden scream made Bruce jump nearly a foot in the air. "Tony! . . . JARVIS, why didn't you give me a warning?" He took a deep breath as he rubbed the back of his hand across his forehead.

"My apologies, Dr. Banner, but—"

"—But J-man is in on my brilliant plan to stick it to those SHIELD bastards who think you're unstable by supplying them with video evidence to the contrary," Tony said with a beaming grin on his face. He leaned his hip against a table and glanced up at the ceiling. "Aren't you, buddy?"

"I have full confidence in your sense of control, Dr. Banner."

"Um . . . thanks." Now with his heart-rate back to normal, Bruce shifted his attention to whatever Tony had behind his back. "So I'm assuming whatever it is that you're dying to tell me has to do with . . ." He made a vague gesture in Tony's direction.

"But of course!" Tony eased back off of the table and stopped in front of Bruce. "Introducing the coolest dynamic duo of all time!" He thrust his hands out to reveal—

"Stuffed animals of . . . the other guy and Ironman?"

"I believe in this circumstance the correct term is plushie, but yes you are correct."

"Where . . . " Bruce leaned forward hesitantly, as if afraid to get too close. "Where did you get them? They don't look like they came from a store. Homemade?"

"Correct! My, my you are an astute one, doctor." Tony tossed them both into the air. "These, along with four other, regrettably less attractive plushies arrived in the mail from some group of girls who were so impressed by our handling of the Chithauri they decided to make these for us an expression of their gratitude." He held up the Ironman for inspection. "The suit's a lot sexier in real life, but I've got to say the likeness is uncanny." He shifted his attention to the Hulk. "And this one could pass for the Big Guy's little brother. In fact, I'm gonna make sure the Big Guy sees his the next time he comes out to play. Think there might even be tears, the big softie.""

"O-others?" Bruce stammered, still trying to process the existence of the small, green and purple fluffy thing before him. Purple? He could have sworn the pants that security guard gave him were more grey—

"Yeah, everyone's in the kitchen with theirs, seeing how it's lunchtime, you know? Don't ask, I surprised myself by showing up. Anyway, Pep came in with the box and handed them out. Rogers looked like he was about to explode with . . . feelings while Clint and Thor immediately grabbed their's and started battling each other. Hope Thor doesn't accidentally fry his to a crisp. Natasha had this evil gleam in her eye as she looked at mine. Thought those things only happened in the movies. Do Russians believe in voodoo? Well, it was enough for me so I hightailed it down here so we could have our own little party."

Bruce let out an amused, long-suffering sigh. Tony's ability for incessant chatter and carrying on a conversation with himself would never cease to amaze Bruce. He was startled out of his musings by Tony tossing the Ironman plushie at his face. Bruce caught it with a small amount of grace and raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Tony.

The engineer smirked and balanced the Hulk plushie on his head. "Playtime! These things aren't meant to be locked in some glass case, yeah?" He grasped the Hulk's arms and contorted his own face into a snarl. "HULK SMASH!"

Bruce raised an eyebrow and gave Tony a you've-got-to-be-kidding-me-we're-grown-men face. Tony nodded vigorously, causing the Hulk sitting atop his head to move along with him. Bruce rolled his eyes and made a halfhearted swish through the air with the Ironman plushie.

"Aww, come on, you're killing me!" Tony whined. "I know you can do better than that. And if you can't do it for me, at least do it for the suit. Or better yet, do it for JARVIS since he's the reason why the flight trajectory is so smooth."

"Thank you, Sir. I'm afraid without my assistance you would spend most of your time running into buildings and accomplish very little in the realm of actual crime-fighting."

Tony placed one of Hulk's tiny arms on his green chest and another against his forehead while he himself adopted a wounded expression. "And this is the thanks I get for being generous with the compliments. I told Pepper that kindness thing was overrated."

"Just in your case, Sir."

Bruce laughed. As per usual when Tony was concerned, Bruce figured why the hell not? and made a whoooooosh-ing noise as he caused Ironman to fly toward Tony's face and veer off at the last minute. When he brought Ironman back around Bruce made him float upright, facing Hulk.

"Oops—sorry Big Guy," he said in a halfway decent, mechanical imitation of Tony's speaker-hampered voice. "Didn't see you there."

Tony's face burst into a wide, proud grin. "SILLY METAL MAN! HULK WANT TO SMASH!" Tony pounded Hulk's arms down on top of his head.

"You betcha," Bruce said. He turned Ironman's head toward his worktable and lifted an arm. "JARVIS, increase cannon capability by fifteen percent." He paused for a brief second, then caused Ironman's arm to move with the backfire as he imitated the sound effect for a booming explosion.

Tony let out a pleased roar and had Hulk jump onto the table. "PUNY BAD GUYS! HULK SMASH ALL WEAPONS!" He then moved Hulk all about the table, smashing imaginary enemies with exaggerated actions. At the same time, Bruce had Ironman fly all around Hulk, blasting away the enemies that Hulk didn't see. Both accompanied their actions with appropriate side effects and soon became completely engrossed in their play.

At the same time, Pepper and Natasha were sitting in one of the Tower's smaller rooms. They were seated in front of a wide screen that was transmitting the live security feed from Bruce's lab. Both were nearly bent over with laughter as they watched the unsuspecting scientists before them.

"JARVIS, please tell me you're saving this?"

"It's being uploaded to your phone as well as the others' as we speak, Ms. Potts."

She smirked and leaned in closer to the screen. "Perfect."