Give Us Your Beautiful Countenance
Bruce watched as Natasha shifted and straightened up. He heard her speak to FRIDAY, softly, so softly, he couldn’t make out what she had said. But FRIDAY clearly did as the AI brought up a screen of the Avengers all sitting around. The only thing that struck him as odd was that they were all completely silent.
All of a sudden, the image changed. It now showed a boy that Bruce didn’t recognize, and Wanda, who sat on a sofa, curled up under multiple blankets, laughing and smiling along with the young boy. Natasha stared at the screen, unblinking while she ran her fingers through his hair. Her nails massaged his scalp and pulled on his curls, it felt like old times. Meanwhile, Bruce closed his eyes and listened to the conversation between the two.
“Then they all turned around, and I nearly died laughing.” The boy said, “Every single one of them had on a make-shift cardboard mask with an Avengers face on it. Seriously! Can’t make this stuff up. Don’t know if they thought I was an idiot and would leave them alone if I recognized the masks, but lemme tell you that the guy with the Hulk mask was the shortest out of all of them. I don’t know why, but that ticked me off. Banner’s the strongest out of all of them. ‘Could prolly kill Cap with a glare.”
That made Bruce smile, even though he still had no idea who the child was. No one had ever called him the strongest Avenger other than Tony, sure, people had called Hulk the strongest. But he was Banner. Bruce Banner. And no one but Tony, Nat, and this random kid, had ever been kind enough to put that into the world.
“Sure, so what happened after you saw them?”
“I said, ‘Whoa, what are you guys doing here? You didn’t tell me you were in town!’ And then proceeded to web them all up, and then went home. And then my best friend found out I was Spider-Man. So… fun night, all in all.” Bruce nearly let out a laugh, but thought better of it, trying not to disturb Natasha from the trance she seemed to be in while watching them. He did pop an eye open, though.
They were both silent for a moment, Wanda contemplating what he had just told her. She laughed, quickly and softly, still outwardly concerned about the story. Smiling wide, the boy spoke up.
“Should I do a backflip?”
“What? No, Peter, that's dangerous!” Wanda cautioned, however, it was as though Peter went temporarily deaf as he promptly ignored the warning and proceeded to backflip off of the ceiling. He landed perfectly, in a position that Bruce knew all too well. Chin up, arm raised, other hand planted face down for support. He’d become familiar with the pose, as did the Hulk. Natasha would land like that during multiple different battles.
Bruce shifted slightly, trying to move closer to Natasha. He didn’t realise that she would obviously notice him move. The red-head stilled immediately, turning to look at him. He managed to shut his eye before she saw that he was awake.
Next to him, he felt Natasha edge toward him, felt her body and muscles relax, felt her drape his arm over her. She rested a hand on his face and became lost in her thoughts again. He then heard the soft ins and outs of breathing exercises that she had given him to keep Hulk at bay.
This meant that her eyes were closed and that she was off in no-man's-land, so Bruce opened his to look at her for a moment. She was peaceful like this, quiet, and relaxed. There were too few times she’d ever seen her like this before. Before Ultron, when some of them were living at the tower or at least visiting it, she would be relaxed. Around Tony at parties when he would “force” her to dance with him, she would be relaxed. In the medbay when Bruce was cleaning everything up and ranting to her about absolutely nothing, she would be relaxed.
A flinch from Natasha told Bruce that it was time to pull her out. He liked that he was able to do this. Liked that he could give back to her after all the times she’d silenced the Hulk.
“You alright, Nattie?” ‘Nattie’. Gods, he hadn’t used that name in forever. It tasted sweet on his tongue. He knew that he probably sounded awful with his voice gravelly and low, laced with sleep, but he couldn’t help but smile at the faint blush crept onto Natasha’s face. She smiled right back, brushing her hand over his cheek.
“I’m perfectly fine, Bruce.” Liar. He knew that she was lying straight to his face, but he didn’t say anything. Didn’t want to upset her. Can you blame him? No way he was about to piss her off right after he finally got her back. He wasn’t an idiot.
However, she did have a way of making him feel like one. As her lips planted themselves on his forehead, and her smile grew on her face, he felt completely and utterly hopeless. It was insane to him. No one had ever done that before, not even Betty.
“We.. um.. should - uh - probably talk at some point.” Bruce stuttered, and he just knew his face was bright red. Obviously, he knew what her answer would be. She didn’t want to talk about it right now. She wanted to bask in the euphoria of laying next to each other for the first time in years.
“Later, please.” Natasha’s voice sounded desperate, pleading, and it was all Bruce could do to nod and pull her closer, letting her curl up. Clearly they needed to talk. But maybe Bruce could let them rest for a little while longer. It had been an extremely long trip.
As the minutes ticked by, Natasha relaxed and relaxed while Bruce tensed and tensed. The upcoming conversation was instilling paranoia in the man. And the Hulk did not do well with paranoia. He liked to say that paranoia was another form of anger, a weaker form, but still. Bruce hated that he couldn’t just lay back and relax like a normal person, like anyone else who probably deserved Natasha much more than he did.
They were trapped in this endless loop, he realized. She would never be ready to talk, he would never be ready to wait, and it would ultimately end with them being ripped apart by fate. Much like two years ago, when he left Earth.
“Nat?” Bruce whispered, the sound quiet to him, muffled by the screaming in his mind. The woman next to him barely even moved, simply tapped his stomach once, letting him know she was listening. “Look, I know you said later, and probably meant a few days or at least a few hours, but I gotta know.”
Silence fell over them again while Bruce waited for her to answer. There was no way for him to tell what she was thinking, her face turned away from him, and her body equal parts tense and relaxed. She was the embodiment of emotionlessness when she wanted to be. Could block out everything, go completely blank.
“I… I’ve never had this.” Natasha admitted. Relief flooded through Bruce, she was talking, about her feelings, to him. This was progress as far as he could tell. “I want it, I don’t know how to have it.”
“Neither do I.”
“We’re a mess, huh?”
“That’s what Tony said.”
“No. Tony said ‘Just fuck already, it’s getting really fucking annoying that you guys dance around your goddamn feelings all the time.’ Difference.” Bruce barked out a laugh at the memory. Tony had said that mere hours before Ultron burst into the room and tried to kill them. They were all gathered around, Natasha flirting with Bruce for the umpteenth time that night, and Tony burst out ranting about how they just needed to shut up and make out. Needless to say, they both sat farther away from each other, both blushing like idiots.
“Always one for theatrics.” It was a true statement, one of the past, of the Tony they all used to know. Natasha recognized the longing tone that he said it with, recognized the look in his eye. She smiled softly, placing a kiss on his cheek.
“Go play with your machinery and weird-colored liquids. I’ll be fine.” Natasha reassured him, rolling off of him so that he could move. Bruce smiled down at her. He couldn’t believe that they were in the same room. He must’ve done something saintly in his past life to get such an amazing woman to be so kind to him.
Thanking her profusely, he peppered gentle, barely-there kisses over her face. Afterwards promptly leaving the room to go find Tony, he could hear her giggles echoing in his mind the entire elevator ride. That wonderful noise only being silenced when FRIDAY announced that he was on floor 92, his and Tony’s old lab together. Back before Ultron and everything else.
He couldn’t wait to see Tony again, after all these years of being stuck as the Hulk, he was finally going back to one of the only things that kept the other guy at bay. Lab time with Tony. The constant buzz of conversations, no one yelling at him to shut up or go faster or be smarter, because Tony didn’t care. He didn’t care when Bruce ranted, because he would rant right back. If Bruce was having a slower day, delayed reactions, Tony would wait patiently until Bruce finished doing whatever he was doing.
The elevator doors opened and Bruce was instantly greeted with AC/DC’s Back In Black. One of Tony’s absolute favorites, that Bruce somehow still knew all the words to.
Tony was faced the opposite direction, clearly having muted FRIDAY from warning him about visitors. His hands were raised as he danced the same hip sway back and forth that Bruce had copied so many times to mock him.
Number one with a bullet, I’m a power pack
“FRI, turn down the music.” Bruce called out, hoping she would hear him over the deafening guitar strums. It seemed that she did as the volume noticeably lowered. Tony stilled, dropping his arms down, and slowly turning around to face the intruder.
Bruce barely had time to say anything before he was flailing backwards with a death grip tightened around him. Neither commented on the fact that tears were pouring down Tony’s face, or that Bruce was sniffling a little as Tony’s fingers dug dents into his shoulders. Bruce didn’t even have the heart to interrupt the moment by telling Tony how the Hulk was even cooing at the shorter man.
With their bodies still interlinked, the science bros stumbled their way over to see what Tony had been working on before Bruce had so rudely - sweetly, but rudely - interrupted him. Tony showed him the device that should’ve been able to find out where the Hulk, and therefore Bruce, was based on the level of Gamma radiation. (“I started making it when you first left, and it didn’t work, so I wanted to start it up again.”)
“Is everything… okay? Nat didn’t say much, but the others seemed hesitant to say your name.” Bruce asked, concerned about his friend. While Tony didn’t like pity, this didn’t feel like that. It felt like Bruce really wanted to know why Tony was upset.
“The Avengers - me and Cap, really - had a bit of a disagreement. Somethin’ stupid. Wanda hates me. Bucky hates me. Steve tried to kill me. I don’t even know who the hell that Scott guy is, where they found him. Sam… I never got along with him in the first place. But Natashalie-” Tony ranted, pausing to take a deep breath. Bruce’s eyes widened slightly, but tried to let Tony continue uninterrupted. “Natashalie left, and I didn’t see her for months, and I missed my sister.”
That was something Bruce could understand. Natasha and Tony were very close to one another, always watching each other’s sixes, worrying about the other, helping the other. All of the Avengers were family, but they had the most sibling-like arrangement. Tony had made it very clear that he didn’t want to spend his life without her, and Natasha had made the same statement.
“Sorry, glossing over the Natasha part, Steve what?”
“Nothing.”
“Trying to kill you isn’t nothing, Ant.”
“Probably shouldn’t call me that anymore.” Tony winced, pushing himself onto the table.
“Why not?” That had always been their thing. Bruce was “Bear” because Tony said he was cuddly when calm, but when he was angry, the fangs came out. Tony was “Ant” partly because of his name, and partly because he was the tiniest on the team that always stealthily stole food from the other Avengers.
“Scott’s hero name is Ant-Man. So, it’s confusing.” Tony replied, pulling up the file on Scott Lang aka Ant-Man. His shrinking and growing abilities, his family, his health status at the time. FRIDAY can be really creepy, Bruce shouldn’t have forgotten that, honestly.
“I’ll call him Scott. He’ll know the difference.” The chemist retorted, earning a chuckle from Tony.
“Thanks, Bear,” Bruce nodded, gently squeezing his teammates shoulder.
“Of course, Ant,” he replied, “Now seriously, what did Steve do?”