fic: Holding onto Stars 2/2
Title: Holding onto Stars.
Fandom: MCU.
Rating: NC-17.
Pairing/Characters: Bruce/Jane, Erik, Thor.
Summary: Jane, Bruce, and Erik go to the desert to test out the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, which means that, just maybe, she's finally going to see Thor again.
She might be a little less excited about this than she expected to be, three years ago.
Notes: Sequel to Flew Away or Started Sinking, some discussion of past canon abuse
Part 1
In the morning, Bruce is holding onto her arm, only loosely curled up. She smiles at him, blinking away sleep, and runs her fingers through his hair. He murmurs happily but doesn't wake.
She pushes his hair back and leans in. “Bruce,” she whispers.
He does that puffing out his cheeks thing that he does in his sleep, and turns his face into the pillow. She kisses his forehead and gently pulls her arm out of his grip, then pushes the covers back and scoots to the edge of the bed before she realises that she is buck naked.
“Ah,” she mutters, and pokes her head out of the curtains, in search of some clothes. She can hear Erik moving around in the kitchenette, separated from her and Bruce by only a thin partition. She grabs the first things that she can reach, her sweater and Bruce's boxers, and quickly tugs them on.
She feels like a total cliché when she shuffles into the kitchenette, like she's sneaking back into the house the night after prom, or something. Erik raises his eyebrows at her.
“Coffee?” he asks.
“Yes, please,” she says in as dignified a manner as she can muster.
He makes it just the way she likes it in the morning, black as night with four sugars and a tar-like quality to it.
“Sleep well?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“And Bruce?”
She sits down at the little kitchenette table and tries not to sigh. “Well, he's still asleep, so I guess he had a good night.”
“Mm. You smell like pot, you know.”
She hunches over her mug, turning her head to the side to sniff at her sweater. Oh man, she smells like the basement of the house she lived in her junior year. “I'll jump in the shower in a minute,” she says.
He takes the seat across from her, and gives her significant look. It's a dad look, the one he started working on a couple of months after her father died. He perfected it right around the time she was sixteen and made herself sick on tequila for the first time. “Jane,” he says.
Here it comes.
“Are you... okay with Bruce?”
“We've already had this conversation.”
“Not really,” he says. “Perhaps more of an exchange of ideas would be good? Instead of me just feeling like I'm lecturing you.”
She raises her eyebrows.
“Okay, so maybe I am lecturing you.” He sighs, tapping his fingers on his mug. “I've known Bruce a lot longer than you have. He has always been a strange man.”
“You're a strange man,” she says, and she didn't mean it to come out sounding quite so childish.
“Not like him.”
“I'm thirty two years old,” she says, “I can take care of myself.”
“I'm well aware of how old you are. But they're are some things... his father--”
“I know, he told me.”
That gets him. That actually surprises Erik. “He did?”
“Yeah, a while ago.”
“Uh huh.”
“Did you...” She shouldn't ask this, this is such an invasion of privacy... “Did you ever meet him?”
He nods. “A couple of times. He was a very... a very unsettling man. He was never outwardly aggressive, but there was something... it made my skin crawl.”
“Bruce is nothing like that.”
“No, he's not,” he agrees, “not at all, but he has problems. Big problems.”
“So does everyone.”
“Not like him. And what about Thor?”
And what about Thor? That's the big question, isn't it? That's why they flew out here, why they're living in a cramped RV, that's why Bruce got a load of pot off Tony to calm him down enough to fly, and why they ended up on the roof, making out. Thor is the root cause of all of this.
She shrugs. “I don't know. Thor... was a whirlwind, I've never had anything like before, but I feel... very comfortable with Bruce. I'm not even sure why, to be honest. And I've never had that before, either.”
Erik nods. “I just worry about you,” he says. “Bruce is quite a bit older than you, and he's gone through a lot things that you haven't, that I hope you never do.”
“I know, I know,” she says, running her fingers through her hair. “I don't know what I'm going to do, honestly.”
“Well, you're going to have to--” Erik starts, as Bruce shuffles in.
“Hey,” he murmurs, flopping down on the chair next to her, face planting into the table, mostly for her benefit, she thinks, because he turns his head to one side slightly and smiles when she laughs. If he's heard anything they've said, he doesn't let on.
“Coffee?” she asks.
“Please,” he mumbles.
“I'll be working on the computer in there,” Erik says, glancing at Bruce's curly head for a moment before leaving. Bruce blindly raises a hand to wave at him.
Jane spoons out some of the coffee Erik made and mixes some milk in, then sets it down next to Bruce's head and pushes her fingers through his hair. He hums happily and looks up at her.
“Hey,” he says again, and she lets her fingers slide out of his hair and down his neck before she sits back down beside him. He takes a sip of coffee and grimaces. “Gah,” he spits, “that's like sludge.”
She shrugs. “That's how I like it. How'd you sleep?”
“Like a log,” he says. “You?”
“Pretty good. I smell like a frat house, though.”
“You smell fine to me,” he says, braving another sip of the coffee.
She smiles. “Well, I think there's a reason for that.”
“Yeah...” He picks a little at his nails, chewing at the corner of his mouth. “I didn't do anything... embarrassing, did I?”
“Of course not,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Why, did I?”
“No! No, uh... it was nice last night, wasn't it?” He asks it like he needs the reassurance, like he thinks he might have overstepped some invisible boundary. She kind of wants to ask if it was eating her out that's got him a little nervous, but she's never been someone who blurts out the crude things that go through her head.
“It was really nice,” she says, patting his hand for a moment.
Bruce twists his mouth in a funny half-smile and glances at the table. “That's good,” he says quietly. “I'm a little... rusty, these days.”
“Well, I couldn't tell,” she says, her cheeks heating up. “I'm, uh, I'm going to have a shower before Erik yells at me,” she adds.
“Okay,” he says, his gaze skittering off of her and back to his coffee.
She quickly does her teeth and strips off her clothes in the little bathroom, hopping into the shower before it's even properly heated up. It certainly shakes off some of her hangover. She's only been in there a minute when there's a quiet knock at the door. “Yeah?” she calls.
“Can I come in?” Bruce calls back.
“Oh, uh, yeah, sure,” she replies, wiping soap from her eyes, “come in.”
The door opens and closes softly, and she peers around the curtain.
“Sorry,” Bruce says, stepping around her clothes to reach the sink, “I just wanted to do my teeth, the taste of that coffee kind of... lingers.”
She smiles, ducking back under the spray. “Not everyone can handle it,” she says.
“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters. “So, what are we doing today?”
“Praying for bad weather?” She soaps up her hair until suds are falling down her back and thinks about their deadline - lightning was only reported for the next couple of days, and she doesn't think she'll be able to convince Erik to stay any longer than that, he's already doubtful about her sanity and uncomfortable about being around her and Bruce together.
“Do you wanna go into the town again?” he asks. “There's uh, a museum that does um... historical re-enactments of the wild west?”
He doesn't exactly sound sure about it. “I guess we could...” she says.
“It's stupid,” he follows up quickly. “There's just not a lot to do around here, so I thought...”
She pushes the curtain back a little to look at him - he's midway through brushing his teeth, with his toothbrush sticking out of the corner of his mouth. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
“Trying to,” he says, laughing a little. “Never been very good at it, though. It took two months before Betty realised that I was trying to date her.” He leans over the little sink and spits out his toothpaste, and Jane closes her fingers around the shower curtain.
“Okay,” she says, “I love re-enactments anyway, I went to Renn Faires all through high school.”
“I liked, uh, the Civil War re-enactments the local historical society used to do when I was a kid,” he says. “History wasn't really my thing, but I liked the muskets and stuff.”
“It's a date,” she says, and smiles. “Hey, do you want to, uh, jump in here with me?”
“The shower?” he says.
“Yeah...”
“Okay,” he says, smiling back. He washes his mouth out quickly, then pulls off his t-shirt and pants and steps in. They shuffle around each other for a moment, trying to figure out where to stand, until Bruce chuckles and backs up a little. “It's been a while since I've showered with anyone.”
“Me too.” Don used to like having shower sex, but she hated it. She was trying to get clean, not get more bodily fluids on herself.
She passes Bruce a bottle of body wash and starts putting conditioner in her hair, moving around him as best she can. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea of hers. He gets underneath the water while she works the conditioner into her hair - she doesn't often make the effort, but she figures that if she's going on a date - even a not-really one like this - she should at least have nice-looking hair. Bruce has his back to her, and she takes a moment to admire his shoulders. He really does have a nice upper body, strong but kind of delicate, tapering off into a narrow waist with slight love handles. She lets her gaze drift down his ass and legs, noticing for the first time thin white scars on the backs of his legs - they look old and stretched out with time, and she thinks instantly of those old newspaper articles.
Bruce is humming a little under his breath, lathering up his chest with body wash. She shakes her head and grabs a bottle of shampoo. She squeezes some out into her hand and pounces on him, rubbing it into his hair.
He jumps a little and turns to look over his shoulder. “What're you doing?”
“Washing your hair. Do you mind?”
He lifts a shoulder. “It feels nice,” he says. He turns around to face her fully and tips his head forward, letting her work shampoo in his hair. “My mom used to wash my hair for me,” he says quietly.
She blinks. “Oh...”
“Sorry, I just made it weird, didn't I?”
She pulls a face. “Little bit.”
“Sorry,” he repeats. “I just... I don't know, it's nice. It's a nice memory.”
“I get it.”
“Not that I'm comparing you to my mom, because you're not really anything like her and we're, you know, we're having sex...”
She puts her soapy fingers to his mouth. “Stop digging yourself into that hole.”
He smiles and shuts up.
-
They leave Erik alone, again, when they leave for the town. She feels kind of bad about that, because it seems like she's always dragging him places to help her with stuff, and now she's leaving him to watch the equipment all on his own. Erik just nods and picks up his book, though, waving them out the door.
“I really do feel like a teenager around him sometimes,” Bruce says as they set off towards the town. “Not that I got many dates with pretty girls back then.”
She raises her eyebrow and laughs. “Smooth.”
“I'm so smooth,” he says, “you don't even know you smooth I am.”
“Sure,” she says, looping her arm through his. “So, what was teenage Bruce like?”
“Teenage Bruce was a nerd,” he says.
“Really.”
He chuckles. “Uh huh. Teenage Bruce had read all the Dune novels at least ten times each by the time he was thirteen and was absolutely devastated by the movie adaptation. He was briefly obsessed with the Roswell landing, and I've gotta say, I'm starting to think that maybe there really was something to that after all. And he asked out his first girl via a note written on the back of a candy wrapper.”
“How did that go?”
He screws up his face for a moment. “We got ice cream and made out in the front seat of her car. I came in my pants after a few minutes, rushed home in shame, and my cousin walked in on me trying to wash the stain out of my pants. He teased me about it for months. I was mortified.”
“Aw,” she says, laughing a little. “What happened with the girl?”
“We had sex a couple of weeks later, then she dumped me before junior prom for someone who was about twice my size, vertically and horizontally. I stayed home from the prom and decided to hack into the school's database, WarGames style.”
“What did you do?”
He shrugs. “Nothing. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. What about you, what were you like as a teenager?”
“Oh, ugh,” she says. “Well, I didn't have my first kiss until I was seventeen, and it was gross. The guy got his tongue halfway down my throat before I decided that the date was over.”
“That sounds... unpleasant.”
“Yeah. I dated around a bit in college, mostly guys I worked on projects with, but nothing stuck. Until I broke my arm and met Don at the teaching hospital, anyway.”
Bruce nods and scratches at the back of his head. “So, what was it about this guy? 'Cause from what you've said, he doesn't sound like he was much of a catch.”
She shrugs. “He was a good guy, just not so great at relationships, or... feelings. Look, he was hot,” she says, and he laughs softly, “it was a big draw for me.”
“Why'd you break up?”
“We just drifted apart. He always had a chip on his shoulder - he blew his knee out really badly playing football, so he had to go to medical school instead.”
“How sad,” Bruce murmurs, and earns himself a light slap to the shoulder. “Ow,” he mutters.
She tuts. “Don't be sarcastic, it was a really bad injury.”
“I'm being totally sincere,” he says flatly.
“You've been spending too much time with Stark.”
“Yeah, probably,” he sighs. “So, you went out not with a bang, but a whimper?”
“Pretty much. We dated for six years, and then I wanted to move out to New Mexico to do my research, and he didn't want to come with me, and I guess I just realised that he didn't really care that much about me, and I didn't care that he didn't care. I was gone within the week.”
Bruce frowns a little, and glances at the sidewalk ahead of them a moment, before looking back at her. “You deserve better than that, you know.”
She shrugs.
“No, you really do,” he says, with a little more force behind his voice than normal, and takes her hand. His fingers kind of twitch around hers.
She gives them a squeeze. “Okay,” she says.
He tips his chin down a little and smiles ruefully. “Okay,” he murmurs.
-
The place is ridiculous, like walking around the set of The Rifleman or something. There's a shoot out at midday that strikes Jane as just about the funniest thing ever - she has to turn her face into Bruce's shoulder to stifle her laughter and they move off pretty quickly, because people start to stare and she doesn't want to hurt the reenactors feelings, no matter how silly they are.
They have lunch at an outdoor barbecue place, in a pretty exposed area, but Bruce seems to handle it well. In fact, he's in high spirits - for him, at least - all day. They eat and chat and Bruce puts away a lot of greasy barbecued beef (Jane kind of wants to talk endlessly about how Hulk's latent power affects Bruce's physiology, but she refrains), getting it all over his hands and his chin. She leans over and helps him wipe it off, knocking over his glass of water in the process, and they both end up giggling and apologising profusely to the waitress.
When they're done, they wander around some of the other attractions, and Bruce buys her a t-shirt at the gift shop, one with a cartoon bucking bronco on it.
“This feels vaguely sexual,” she says, tugging it on.
“My bucking bronco can go all night,” he says, fixing his eyes ahead.
She squeals with laughter and bumps him with her shoulder. He reaches out and reels her back in, kissing her quickly, then more deeply when she digs her fingers his hair.
She pulls back a little. “I guess we should get back to Erik.”
He gives her a peck on the mouth. “Guess so.”
-
When they get back, laughing over all the terrible jokes that Bruce knows, Erik eyeballs them.
“When you said you were going out, I didn't realise you meant all day.”
Bruce pulls a face at her. “Sorry, Erik,” he murmurs, the corner of his mouth tipping up.
“We're sorry, Eeyore, we didn't mean to ignore you,” she says, moving around to sit down on the couch. Bruce follows her, frowning.
“Eeyore?” he asks.
“That's what she called me when she was five,” Erik says.
“Because he was grumpy all the time and I was obsessed with Winnie the Pooh.”
“Yes, and then her father started calling me that, too.”
Bruce shifts a bit closer to her, until their legs are touching. “So, I guess you really have known each other a long time.”
Erik glances at them, and Jane puts her hand on Bruce's knee, widening her eyes at Erik. “I met her father in grad school, he was the one who suggested that I should interview for a teaching position at Culver.”
“He was a pretty regular fixture in the house once we moved to Virginia,” she says.
“I'm like her father,” Erik says, tipping his head at Bruce, who's looking a little caught between the two of them. She sighs.
God, she kind of hates when he does that. She had a father for fourteen years, and now she's an adult, and she doesn't need another one. “But you're not, so sit down.”
Erik sighs heavily and sits down across from them. “Did you fun, kids?”
She looks over at Bruce and smiles. Bruce adjusts his glasses. “I think we had fun,” she says.
“Yeah,” he says, leaning back. “We did.”
-
They've been asleep for a couple of hours when the thunder and lightning starts.
Jane wakes instantly, rolling away from Bruce's grip, and lands in a pile on the floor.
“Erik!” she shouts.
“What's goin' on...” Bruce mumbles into the pillow.
“Thunder!” she cries, shoving on a pair of pants.
Bruce pushes himself up. “Thunder... Oh. Oh. Where're my glasses?”
“I don't know,” she says, scrambling up and out of their little nook. “Erik!”
There's so much to do and so little time to do it in, she maybe gets a little screechy as they chart the course of the lightning (coming right at them), pull out equipment and flashlights and hurry to set up the power conductors as the wind picks up. It's just... this might actually happen this time, this represents the culmination of years of study and research. She wants to shake someone and yell in their face about it, but instead she just runs from machine to machine, checking readings and giving directions to Erik and Bruce.
“Bolt of lightning just hit about two miles out,” Erik shouts over the wind.
“Got it! Bruce, can you--” She glances over her shoulder and frowns, then turns in a circle. “Bruce? Erik, where's Bruce?”
Erik shrugs. “Last I saw him was about ten minutes ago.”
“Okay... Can you watch the equipment for a minute?”
“Oh, I thought I'd leave it unattended...” Erik says, raising his eyebrows.
She sighs. “Thanks.”
There's really only one place Bruce can be, the RV, and she can hear him moving around in it as soon as she steps through the door. “Bruce?” she calls
“Yeah, I'm just... I'll be out in a minute.”
She follows his voice to their little bedroom, where he's sitting on the floor, going through his bag. “What are you doing?”
“I'm just...” He scrubs his hand through his hair. “Have you seen the bag of weed?”
“I think we finished it last night,” she says and he squeezes his eyes shut, ducking his head. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing, just...” He stands up and shoves his balled up fists into his pants pockets. “I'll be back out in a minute.”
He's twitching like crazy, though, and not his usual low level discomfort with the world. She's not sure she wants to leave him alone right now. “What's wrong?” she repeats.
“Nothing. Go reunite with Thor, okay?” he bites out, cheek twitching.
“Excuse me?”
He shakes his head. “Sorry, I guess the... the thunder's got me a little anxious.”
“If you were scared of storms, why'd you come with us?”
He shrugs. “Forgot.”
Thunder rolls above them, shaking the RV slightly, and she glances over her shoulder. She really hasn't got the time to waste in here. “Bruce, come on.”
“Just leave me alone,” he snaps, his voice going deeper than normal.
She starts, leaning away from him a little, and he looks like he's been hit. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asks.
He opens his mouth, closes it, takes a deep breath, and looks at the floor. “I don't want you to leave me,” he murmurs.
Oh.
“I know this was only a temporary thing,” he continues quietly, “but I guess I was just starting to get used to... it all.” He's starting to curl in on himself, head down and shoulders hunched, like when she first met him, all wet and pitiful.
“Why did you agree to come with us?” she asks.
“Thought I could deal with it,” he says. “And I wanted this to work out for you, and wanted to go storm-chasing with you, but... hah, Hulk's getting kind of upset, and you know what happens then.”
It's not Hulk who's upset, though, she knows. “Oh...” The RV shakes again. Another clap of thunder; she really needs to get back out there. “I'm... sorry. I didn't think...” Well, that's not exactly true, Erik told her to think about it, told her more than once, but she ignored him.
“It's fine,” he says, and smiles awkwardly. “I'll be fine.”
“I'm not... I--” she begins, not sure where she's going with this, but Bruce saves her the trouble.
“Don't make any promises you can't keep.”
“I...”
“Jane!” Erik calls from the door. “Get out here, lightning's almost on top of us!”
She turns towards his voice, then looks back at Bruce. “I have to...”
“Yeah,” he says, and smiles thinly again. “Go on.”
It's like a tornado outside, whipping her hair around her face. She pulls the hood of her coat up and pulls hard on the strings to keep it in place.
“How long?” she shouts to Erik.
“Any minute!”
She tries to think about Bruce in the minutes that follow, tries to weigh up Thor and Bruce, as if they're really at all comparable, but it's like the wind keeps blowing all her thoughts away, and then the sky brightens with lightning, hitting the power conductors, and she can't think at all any more.
Erik swears in Norwegian beside her as Einstein-Rosen bridge, the thing she's devoted herself to for three years, actually works, it actually powers up and up and up until its light breaks into the sky above.
“It's incredible,” Bruce says, close to her ear. She looks around at him and smiles, though he doesn't smile back, and she thinks that maybe there's a hint of green in his eyes, but then again maybe she's imagining it.
“Now what?” Erik asks.
“I guess we wait and see?” Maybe he's not even home, that didn't even occur to her until right now. Maybe he went out to get milk, or whatever it is that Norse gods put on their Lucky Charms.
The sheer absurdity of it makes her laugh, and Bruce and Erik both look at her with frowns on their faces. She shakes her head and looks back at the light.
“We're getting some... interesting readings here,” Erik says. “Radiation's spiking.”
She leans over and looks at the needle of the geiger counter going crazy. It's not enough radiation to be dangerous, but it's definitely something.
Bruce tugs on the arm of her coat. “Jane,” he says, and points up.
The light is changing, filtering through the colours of the rainbow as a figure solidifies. Oh shit...
He's even more beautiful than she remembered, larger and more golden than before as he steps out of the light in his armour and stands in front of them, drawing himself up to his full height. Bruce lets go of her sleeve.
“Jane,” Thor says, with all the weight of a god, injecting more meaning into a one syllable name than she could probably convey in a whole thesis. He keeps his gaze on her and she feels that same burn of instant attraction, that pull towards him. She pulls her stupid hood back down. The corners of his mouth crease, and his eyes move from her to the others.
“Erik, Dr Banner!” he says warmly. “It is good to meet again under better circumstances.”
“You said it,” Erik replies, stepping forward to shake his hand. Bruce hangs back, and Thor lets it go without a word. She wonders if he knows or not - Thor called for Heimdall, she remembers, because he saw all, so did he see Bruce going down on her last night? Oh, God.
“Well, we'll leave you to it,” Erik says, quickly shaking Thor's hand again.
Jane looks around at Erik and Bruce as they head back to the RV, and waves slightly at them. She turns back to Thor. “So...”
He claps his hands on her arms. “It's good to see you, Jane, I worried I never would again.”
“Yeah,” she says, “me too. Well, after your first visit, at least.”
Thor lowers his gaze. “I am truly sorry to have caused you distress,” he says, “but... it wasn't all my fault.”
“Oh, really?” she says, in as disapproving a tone as she can muster. He has the good sense to look chastened.
“Yes, well,” he says. He shifts from foot to foot. “I see that you are friends with Dr Banner.”
“Yeah...”
“He's a good man,” Thor says, betraying no sign that he knows - or cares - about her and Bruce. “A bit angry, though.”
“Yeah.”
Thor smiles, crossing his arms loosely over his chest. “This...” He turns and motions at the Einstein-Rosen bridge. “This machine you've built is incredible. How long will it remain open for?”
Jane shakes her head. “Not long, maybe another three minutes.”
“I see... I wish we had longer to talk.”
“Me too,” she says, and she means it, she would love to sit down and talk to him properly, about Asgard and its science, about what happened in New York, just about him and who he is, but yet, now, she can't think of anything else to say.
“Well...” Thor says, and glances at his feet. It's comforting to know that she isn't the only one with little to say. “Will your machine work again?”
“Now that it's worked once and we've got readings from it, yeah, I think I can make it more stable. I'm sure Stark will chip in some more of his renewable energy.”
“You know the man of Iron?”
She chuckles. “Yeah, Bruce is working for Stark Industries at the moment.”
“I see.” He lays his hands on her shoulders. “I'm glad that I will see you again. Perhaps longer, next time.”
“Yeah, hopefully,” she says, looking up at him. Wow, he really is very tall, she thinks, and she feels that little thrill again. He draws her into an embrace, splaying his hands over her back, and she rests her cheek on his chest. It's nice. It's very nice.
He loosens his grip on her, and she steps back, smiling. “I'm sorry,” he says, “I should return before my mother starts to worry.”
She bites her lip. “Your mom?”
Thor rolls his eyes. “Yes, she's been most worried about me since I returned from your New York. I believe I'm more a child in her eyes than ever before.”
She can't help but laugh, and he ducks his head, laughing along with her. “It's a small price,” he says, and takes a deep breath. “I should go.”
“Okay,” she says. She pushes herself up onto her toes and kisses him on the cheek. “Don't be a stranger.”
“I shall... write? Is that what you say?”
“That's what we say, yeah.”
He nods. “Goodbye, Jane.”
She takes his hand and squeezes it. “Goodbye, Thor.”
He steps back over to the bridge and scrutinises it for a moment, before turning back to her and waving for a moment as the light engulfs him again. He chooses just the right moment, too, because a few seconds later the machine shuts down and the desert is plunged back into relative darkness. She stares up at the sky, and maybe it's her imagination (or just the storm abating), but the stars seem a little brighter.
“Wow,” she mutters to herself. She stands there for a few more minutes, before turning around and heading back into the RV.
Erik and Bruce are on the couch, talking quietly, Bruce's expression shuttered and anxious.
“Hey, guys,” she says, and they both start a little. Erik casts a look at Bruce, who smiles tightly. “Uh, can I talk to you outside, Bruce?”
“Yeah, uh, sure...” he mumbles, getting up too quickly and bumping his legs into the coffee. He jabs his glasses up the bridge of his nose and moves over to her. She steps back outside and he follows, tugging his sleeves down over his hands when he meets the cold air.
“Where's uh, where's Thor?” he asks.
“He went home.”
“When's he coming back?”
She shrugs. Bruce looks confused.
“Um, did...” He looks around, the bridge, the RV, the empty land around them. “What's happening?”
“We're going home too, I guess, everything's over.”
Bruce rubs his sleeve against his glasses and blinks. “Are, uh... did you choose me over Thor?”
She shrugs again. “Maybe.”
“Oh...” he says, and his laughter comes out as high-pitched bark. “Really? I mean, really?”
“It's...” She shakes her head. “Look, I'm really attracted Thor.”
“Okay...”
“But with you...” She sighs. “I don't know. I don't know, okay? I mean, I mean it's... yeah.”
He smiles. “Yeah. Wow, okay. I just... I have to say, no one has ever chosen me over... anyone, probably.”
“Really? You think Dr Ross didn't have offers?”
He looks at her like the thought had never occurred to him before.
“I mean, she's a pretty good-looking woman,” she says.
“I-- well, yeah,” Bruce says, getting flustered. “But let's not... I mean, exes, let's just... not, for a while.”
“Okay. So, how are we going to break it to Erik?”
“He was just telling me not to freak out at my inevitable dumping, so he should be happy, shouldn't he?”
She raises her eyebrows.
Bruce smiles. “Or we could get him drunk.”
That's more like it. “I think we've got some donuts leftover, too.”
Bruce smile gets bigger, and he reaches down to take her hand. “You know, Tony said that maybe you'd surprise me.”
“Really? You talked to Stark about us.”
He squeezes her hand and shrugs. “He's the only other friend I have, so... That's why he was so eager to pay for everything. He said, 'maybe magic will happen'.”
“He's a weird guy.”
“He is, but I guess he was right.” Bruce shakes his head and chuckles. “He'll be in more insufferable than usual.”
Fandom: MCU.
Rating: NC-17.
Pairing/Characters: Bruce/Jane, Erik, Thor.
Summary: Jane, Bruce, and Erik go to the desert to test out the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, which means that, just maybe, she's finally going to see Thor again.
She might be a little less excited about this than she expected to be, three years ago.
Notes: Sequel to Flew Away or Started Sinking, some discussion of past canon abuse
Part 1
In the morning, Bruce is holding onto her arm, only loosely curled up. She smiles at him, blinking away sleep, and runs her fingers through his hair. He murmurs happily but doesn't wake.
She pushes his hair back and leans in. “Bruce,” she whispers.
He does that puffing out his cheeks thing that he does in his sleep, and turns his face into the pillow. She kisses his forehead and gently pulls her arm out of his grip, then pushes the covers back and scoots to the edge of the bed before she realises that she is buck naked.
“Ah,” she mutters, and pokes her head out of the curtains, in search of some clothes. She can hear Erik moving around in the kitchenette, separated from her and Bruce by only a thin partition. She grabs the first things that she can reach, her sweater and Bruce's boxers, and quickly tugs them on.
She feels like a total cliché when she shuffles into the kitchenette, like she's sneaking back into the house the night after prom, or something. Erik raises his eyebrows at her.
“Coffee?” he asks.
“Yes, please,” she says in as dignified a manner as she can muster.
He makes it just the way she likes it in the morning, black as night with four sugars and a tar-like quality to it.
“Sleep well?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“And Bruce?”
She sits down at the little kitchenette table and tries not to sigh. “Well, he's still asleep, so I guess he had a good night.”
“Mm. You smell like pot, you know.”
She hunches over her mug, turning her head to the side to sniff at her sweater. Oh man, she smells like the basement of the house she lived in her junior year. “I'll jump in the shower in a minute,” she says.
He takes the seat across from her, and gives her significant look. It's a dad look, the one he started working on a couple of months after her father died. He perfected it right around the time she was sixteen and made herself sick on tequila for the first time. “Jane,” he says.
Here it comes.
“Are you... okay with Bruce?”
“We've already had this conversation.”
“Not really,” he says. “Perhaps more of an exchange of ideas would be good? Instead of me just feeling like I'm lecturing you.”
She raises her eyebrows.
“Okay, so maybe I am lecturing you.” He sighs, tapping his fingers on his mug. “I've known Bruce a lot longer than you have. He has always been a strange man.”
“You're a strange man,” she says, and she didn't mean it to come out sounding quite so childish.
“Not like him.”
“I'm thirty two years old,” she says, “I can take care of myself.”
“I'm well aware of how old you are. But they're are some things... his father--”
“I know, he told me.”
That gets him. That actually surprises Erik. “He did?”
“Yeah, a while ago.”
“Uh huh.”
“Did you...” She shouldn't ask this, this is such an invasion of privacy... “Did you ever meet him?”
He nods. “A couple of times. He was a very... a very unsettling man. He was never outwardly aggressive, but there was something... it made my skin crawl.”
“Bruce is nothing like that.”
“No, he's not,” he agrees, “not at all, but he has problems. Big problems.”
“So does everyone.”
“Not like him. And what about Thor?”
And what about Thor? That's the big question, isn't it? That's why they flew out here, why they're living in a cramped RV, that's why Bruce got a load of pot off Tony to calm him down enough to fly, and why they ended up on the roof, making out. Thor is the root cause of all of this.
She shrugs. “I don't know. Thor... was a whirlwind, I've never had anything like before, but I feel... very comfortable with Bruce. I'm not even sure why, to be honest. And I've never had that before, either.”
Erik nods. “I just worry about you,” he says. “Bruce is quite a bit older than you, and he's gone through a lot things that you haven't, that I hope you never do.”
“I know, I know,” she says, running her fingers through her hair. “I don't know what I'm going to do, honestly.”
“Well, you're going to have to--” Erik starts, as Bruce shuffles in.
“Hey,” he murmurs, flopping down on the chair next to her, face planting into the table, mostly for her benefit, she thinks, because he turns his head to one side slightly and smiles when she laughs. If he's heard anything they've said, he doesn't let on.
“Coffee?” she asks.
“Please,” he mumbles.
“I'll be working on the computer in there,” Erik says, glancing at Bruce's curly head for a moment before leaving. Bruce blindly raises a hand to wave at him.
Jane spoons out some of the coffee Erik made and mixes some milk in, then sets it down next to Bruce's head and pushes her fingers through his hair. He hums happily and looks up at her.
“Hey,” he says again, and she lets her fingers slide out of his hair and down his neck before she sits back down beside him. He takes a sip of coffee and grimaces. “Gah,” he spits, “that's like sludge.”
She shrugs. “That's how I like it. How'd you sleep?”
“Like a log,” he says. “You?”
“Pretty good. I smell like a frat house, though.”
“You smell fine to me,” he says, braving another sip of the coffee.
She smiles. “Well, I think there's a reason for that.”
“Yeah...” He picks a little at his nails, chewing at the corner of his mouth. “I didn't do anything... embarrassing, did I?”
“Of course not,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Why, did I?”
“No! No, uh... it was nice last night, wasn't it?” He asks it like he needs the reassurance, like he thinks he might have overstepped some invisible boundary. She kind of wants to ask if it was eating her out that's got him a little nervous, but she's never been someone who blurts out the crude things that go through her head.
“It was really nice,” she says, patting his hand for a moment.
Bruce twists his mouth in a funny half-smile and glances at the table. “That's good,” he says quietly. “I'm a little... rusty, these days.”
“Well, I couldn't tell,” she says, her cheeks heating up. “I'm, uh, I'm going to have a shower before Erik yells at me,” she adds.
“Okay,” he says, his gaze skittering off of her and back to his coffee.
She quickly does her teeth and strips off her clothes in the little bathroom, hopping into the shower before it's even properly heated up. It certainly shakes off some of her hangover. She's only been in there a minute when there's a quiet knock at the door. “Yeah?” she calls.
“Can I come in?” Bruce calls back.
“Oh, uh, yeah, sure,” she replies, wiping soap from her eyes, “come in.”
The door opens and closes softly, and she peers around the curtain.
“Sorry,” Bruce says, stepping around her clothes to reach the sink, “I just wanted to do my teeth, the taste of that coffee kind of... lingers.”
She smiles, ducking back under the spray. “Not everyone can handle it,” she says.
“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters. “So, what are we doing today?”
“Praying for bad weather?” She soaps up her hair until suds are falling down her back and thinks about their deadline - lightning was only reported for the next couple of days, and she doesn't think she'll be able to convince Erik to stay any longer than that, he's already doubtful about her sanity and uncomfortable about being around her and Bruce together.
“Do you wanna go into the town again?” he asks. “There's uh, a museum that does um... historical re-enactments of the wild west?”
He doesn't exactly sound sure about it. “I guess we could...” she says.
“It's stupid,” he follows up quickly. “There's just not a lot to do around here, so I thought...”
She pushes the curtain back a little to look at him - he's midway through brushing his teeth, with his toothbrush sticking out of the corner of his mouth. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
“Trying to,” he says, laughing a little. “Never been very good at it, though. It took two months before Betty realised that I was trying to date her.” He leans over the little sink and spits out his toothpaste, and Jane closes her fingers around the shower curtain.
“Okay,” she says, “I love re-enactments anyway, I went to Renn Faires all through high school.”
“I liked, uh, the Civil War re-enactments the local historical society used to do when I was a kid,” he says. “History wasn't really my thing, but I liked the muskets and stuff.”
“It's a date,” she says, and smiles. “Hey, do you want to, uh, jump in here with me?”
“The shower?” he says.
“Yeah...”
“Okay,” he says, smiling back. He washes his mouth out quickly, then pulls off his t-shirt and pants and steps in. They shuffle around each other for a moment, trying to figure out where to stand, until Bruce chuckles and backs up a little. “It's been a while since I've showered with anyone.”
“Me too.” Don used to like having shower sex, but she hated it. She was trying to get clean, not get more bodily fluids on herself.
She passes Bruce a bottle of body wash and starts putting conditioner in her hair, moving around him as best she can. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea of hers. He gets underneath the water while she works the conditioner into her hair - she doesn't often make the effort, but she figures that if she's going on a date - even a not-really one like this - she should at least have nice-looking hair. Bruce has his back to her, and she takes a moment to admire his shoulders. He really does have a nice upper body, strong but kind of delicate, tapering off into a narrow waist with slight love handles. She lets her gaze drift down his ass and legs, noticing for the first time thin white scars on the backs of his legs - they look old and stretched out with time, and she thinks instantly of those old newspaper articles.
Bruce is humming a little under his breath, lathering up his chest with body wash. She shakes her head and grabs a bottle of shampoo. She squeezes some out into her hand and pounces on him, rubbing it into his hair.
He jumps a little and turns to look over his shoulder. “What're you doing?”
“Washing your hair. Do you mind?”
He lifts a shoulder. “It feels nice,” he says. He turns around to face her fully and tips his head forward, letting her work shampoo in his hair. “My mom used to wash my hair for me,” he says quietly.
She blinks. “Oh...”
“Sorry, I just made it weird, didn't I?”
She pulls a face. “Little bit.”
“Sorry,” he repeats. “I just... I don't know, it's nice. It's a nice memory.”
“I get it.”
“Not that I'm comparing you to my mom, because you're not really anything like her and we're, you know, we're having sex...”
She puts her soapy fingers to his mouth. “Stop digging yourself into that hole.”
He smiles and shuts up.
-
They leave Erik alone, again, when they leave for the town. She feels kind of bad about that, because it seems like she's always dragging him places to help her with stuff, and now she's leaving him to watch the equipment all on his own. Erik just nods and picks up his book, though, waving them out the door.
“I really do feel like a teenager around him sometimes,” Bruce says as they set off towards the town. “Not that I got many dates with pretty girls back then.”
She raises her eyebrow and laughs. “Smooth.”
“I'm so smooth,” he says, “you don't even know you smooth I am.”
“Sure,” she says, looping her arm through his. “So, what was teenage Bruce like?”
“Teenage Bruce was a nerd,” he says.
“Really.”
He chuckles. “Uh huh. Teenage Bruce had read all the Dune novels at least ten times each by the time he was thirteen and was absolutely devastated by the movie adaptation. He was briefly obsessed with the Roswell landing, and I've gotta say, I'm starting to think that maybe there really was something to that after all. And he asked out his first girl via a note written on the back of a candy wrapper.”
“How did that go?”
He screws up his face for a moment. “We got ice cream and made out in the front seat of her car. I came in my pants after a few minutes, rushed home in shame, and my cousin walked in on me trying to wash the stain out of my pants. He teased me about it for months. I was mortified.”
“Aw,” she says, laughing a little. “What happened with the girl?”
“We had sex a couple of weeks later, then she dumped me before junior prom for someone who was about twice my size, vertically and horizontally. I stayed home from the prom and decided to hack into the school's database, WarGames style.”
“What did you do?”
He shrugs. “Nothing. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it. What about you, what were you like as a teenager?”
“Oh, ugh,” she says. “Well, I didn't have my first kiss until I was seventeen, and it was gross. The guy got his tongue halfway down my throat before I decided that the date was over.”
“That sounds... unpleasant.”
“Yeah. I dated around a bit in college, mostly guys I worked on projects with, but nothing stuck. Until I broke my arm and met Don at the teaching hospital, anyway.”
Bruce nods and scratches at the back of his head. “So, what was it about this guy? 'Cause from what you've said, he doesn't sound like he was much of a catch.”
She shrugs. “He was a good guy, just not so great at relationships, or... feelings. Look, he was hot,” she says, and he laughs softly, “it was a big draw for me.”
“Why'd you break up?”
“We just drifted apart. He always had a chip on his shoulder - he blew his knee out really badly playing football, so he had to go to medical school instead.”
“How sad,” Bruce murmurs, and earns himself a light slap to the shoulder. “Ow,” he mutters.
She tuts. “Don't be sarcastic, it was a really bad injury.”
“I'm being totally sincere,” he says flatly.
“You've been spending too much time with Stark.”
“Yeah, probably,” he sighs. “So, you went out not with a bang, but a whimper?”
“Pretty much. We dated for six years, and then I wanted to move out to New Mexico to do my research, and he didn't want to come with me, and I guess I just realised that he didn't really care that much about me, and I didn't care that he didn't care. I was gone within the week.”
Bruce frowns a little, and glances at the sidewalk ahead of them a moment, before looking back at her. “You deserve better than that, you know.”
She shrugs.
“No, you really do,” he says, with a little more force behind his voice than normal, and takes her hand. His fingers kind of twitch around hers.
She gives them a squeeze. “Okay,” she says.
He tips his chin down a little and smiles ruefully. “Okay,” he murmurs.
-
The place is ridiculous, like walking around the set of The Rifleman or something. There's a shoot out at midday that strikes Jane as just about the funniest thing ever - she has to turn her face into Bruce's shoulder to stifle her laughter and they move off pretty quickly, because people start to stare and she doesn't want to hurt the reenactors feelings, no matter how silly they are.
They have lunch at an outdoor barbecue place, in a pretty exposed area, but Bruce seems to handle it well. In fact, he's in high spirits - for him, at least - all day. They eat and chat and Bruce puts away a lot of greasy barbecued beef (Jane kind of wants to talk endlessly about how Hulk's latent power affects Bruce's physiology, but she refrains), getting it all over his hands and his chin. She leans over and helps him wipe it off, knocking over his glass of water in the process, and they both end up giggling and apologising profusely to the waitress.
When they're done, they wander around some of the other attractions, and Bruce buys her a t-shirt at the gift shop, one with a cartoon bucking bronco on it.
“This feels vaguely sexual,” she says, tugging it on.
“My bucking bronco can go all night,” he says, fixing his eyes ahead.
She squeals with laughter and bumps him with her shoulder. He reaches out and reels her back in, kissing her quickly, then more deeply when she digs her fingers his hair.
She pulls back a little. “I guess we should get back to Erik.”
He gives her a peck on the mouth. “Guess so.”
-
When they get back, laughing over all the terrible jokes that Bruce knows, Erik eyeballs them.
“When you said you were going out, I didn't realise you meant all day.”
Bruce pulls a face at her. “Sorry, Erik,” he murmurs, the corner of his mouth tipping up.
“We're sorry, Eeyore, we didn't mean to ignore you,” she says, moving around to sit down on the couch. Bruce follows her, frowning.
“Eeyore?” he asks.
“That's what she called me when she was five,” Erik says.
“Because he was grumpy all the time and I was obsessed with Winnie the Pooh.”
“Yes, and then her father started calling me that, too.”
Bruce shifts a bit closer to her, until their legs are touching. “So, I guess you really have known each other a long time.”
Erik glances at them, and Jane puts her hand on Bruce's knee, widening her eyes at Erik. “I met her father in grad school, he was the one who suggested that I should interview for a teaching position at Culver.”
“He was a pretty regular fixture in the house once we moved to Virginia,” she says.
“I'm like her father,” Erik says, tipping his head at Bruce, who's looking a little caught between the two of them. She sighs.
God, she kind of hates when he does that. She had a father for fourteen years, and now she's an adult, and she doesn't need another one. “But you're not, so sit down.”
Erik sighs heavily and sits down across from them. “Did you fun, kids?”
She looks over at Bruce and smiles. Bruce adjusts his glasses. “I think we had fun,” she says.
“Yeah,” he says, leaning back. “We did.”
-
They've been asleep for a couple of hours when the thunder and lightning starts.
Jane wakes instantly, rolling away from Bruce's grip, and lands in a pile on the floor.
“Erik!” she shouts.
“What's goin' on...” Bruce mumbles into the pillow.
“Thunder!” she cries, shoving on a pair of pants.
Bruce pushes himself up. “Thunder... Oh. Oh. Where're my glasses?”
“I don't know,” she says, scrambling up and out of their little nook. “Erik!”
There's so much to do and so little time to do it in, she maybe gets a little screechy as they chart the course of the lightning (coming right at them), pull out equipment and flashlights and hurry to set up the power conductors as the wind picks up. It's just... this might actually happen this time, this represents the culmination of years of study and research. She wants to shake someone and yell in their face about it, but instead she just runs from machine to machine, checking readings and giving directions to Erik and Bruce.
“Bolt of lightning just hit about two miles out,” Erik shouts over the wind.
“Got it! Bruce, can you--” She glances over her shoulder and frowns, then turns in a circle. “Bruce? Erik, where's Bruce?”
Erik shrugs. “Last I saw him was about ten minutes ago.”
“Okay... Can you watch the equipment for a minute?”
“Oh, I thought I'd leave it unattended...” Erik says, raising his eyebrows.
She sighs. “Thanks.”
There's really only one place Bruce can be, the RV, and she can hear him moving around in it as soon as she steps through the door. “Bruce?” she calls
“Yeah, I'm just... I'll be out in a minute.”
She follows his voice to their little bedroom, where he's sitting on the floor, going through his bag. “What are you doing?”
“I'm just...” He scrubs his hand through his hair. “Have you seen the bag of weed?”
“I think we finished it last night,” she says and he squeezes his eyes shut, ducking his head. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing, just...” He stands up and shoves his balled up fists into his pants pockets. “I'll be back out in a minute.”
He's twitching like crazy, though, and not his usual low level discomfort with the world. She's not sure she wants to leave him alone right now. “What's wrong?” she repeats.
“Nothing. Go reunite with Thor, okay?” he bites out, cheek twitching.
“Excuse me?”
He shakes his head. “Sorry, I guess the... the thunder's got me a little anxious.”
“If you were scared of storms, why'd you come with us?”
He shrugs. “Forgot.”
Thunder rolls above them, shaking the RV slightly, and she glances over her shoulder. She really hasn't got the time to waste in here. “Bruce, come on.”
“Just leave me alone,” he snaps, his voice going deeper than normal.
She starts, leaning away from him a little, and he looks like he's been hit. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asks.
He opens his mouth, closes it, takes a deep breath, and looks at the floor. “I don't want you to leave me,” he murmurs.
Oh.
“I know this was only a temporary thing,” he continues quietly, “but I guess I was just starting to get used to... it all.” He's starting to curl in on himself, head down and shoulders hunched, like when she first met him, all wet and pitiful.
“Why did you agree to come with us?” she asks.
“Thought I could deal with it,” he says. “And I wanted this to work out for you, and wanted to go storm-chasing with you, but... hah, Hulk's getting kind of upset, and you know what happens then.”
It's not Hulk who's upset, though, she knows. “Oh...” The RV shakes again. Another clap of thunder; she really needs to get back out there. “I'm... sorry. I didn't think...” Well, that's not exactly true, Erik told her to think about it, told her more than once, but she ignored him.
“It's fine,” he says, and smiles awkwardly. “I'll be fine.”
“I'm not... I--” she begins, not sure where she's going with this, but Bruce saves her the trouble.
“Don't make any promises you can't keep.”
“I...”
“Jane!” Erik calls from the door. “Get out here, lightning's almost on top of us!”
She turns towards his voice, then looks back at Bruce. “I have to...”
“Yeah,” he says, and smiles thinly again. “Go on.”
It's like a tornado outside, whipping her hair around her face. She pulls the hood of her coat up and pulls hard on the strings to keep it in place.
“How long?” she shouts to Erik.
“Any minute!”
She tries to think about Bruce in the minutes that follow, tries to weigh up Thor and Bruce, as if they're really at all comparable, but it's like the wind keeps blowing all her thoughts away, and then the sky brightens with lightning, hitting the power conductors, and she can't think at all any more.
Erik swears in Norwegian beside her as Einstein-Rosen bridge, the thing she's devoted herself to for three years, actually works, it actually powers up and up and up until its light breaks into the sky above.
“It's incredible,” Bruce says, close to her ear. She looks around at him and smiles, though he doesn't smile back, and she thinks that maybe there's a hint of green in his eyes, but then again maybe she's imagining it.
“Now what?” Erik asks.
“I guess we wait and see?” Maybe he's not even home, that didn't even occur to her until right now. Maybe he went out to get milk, or whatever it is that Norse gods put on their Lucky Charms.
The sheer absurdity of it makes her laugh, and Bruce and Erik both look at her with frowns on their faces. She shakes her head and looks back at the light.
“We're getting some... interesting readings here,” Erik says. “Radiation's spiking.”
She leans over and looks at the needle of the geiger counter going crazy. It's not enough radiation to be dangerous, but it's definitely something.
Bruce tugs on the arm of her coat. “Jane,” he says, and points up.
The light is changing, filtering through the colours of the rainbow as a figure solidifies. Oh shit...
He's even more beautiful than she remembered, larger and more golden than before as he steps out of the light in his armour and stands in front of them, drawing himself up to his full height. Bruce lets go of her sleeve.
“Jane,” Thor says, with all the weight of a god, injecting more meaning into a one syllable name than she could probably convey in a whole thesis. He keeps his gaze on her and she feels that same burn of instant attraction, that pull towards him. She pulls her stupid hood back down. The corners of his mouth crease, and his eyes move from her to the others.
“Erik, Dr Banner!” he says warmly. “It is good to meet again under better circumstances.”
“You said it,” Erik replies, stepping forward to shake his hand. Bruce hangs back, and Thor lets it go without a word. She wonders if he knows or not - Thor called for Heimdall, she remembers, because he saw all, so did he see Bruce going down on her last night? Oh, God.
“Well, we'll leave you to it,” Erik says, quickly shaking Thor's hand again.
Jane looks around at Erik and Bruce as they head back to the RV, and waves slightly at them. She turns back to Thor. “So...”
He claps his hands on her arms. “It's good to see you, Jane, I worried I never would again.”
“Yeah,” she says, “me too. Well, after your first visit, at least.”
Thor lowers his gaze. “I am truly sorry to have caused you distress,” he says, “but... it wasn't all my fault.”
“Oh, really?” she says, in as disapproving a tone as she can muster. He has the good sense to look chastened.
“Yes, well,” he says. He shifts from foot to foot. “I see that you are friends with Dr Banner.”
“Yeah...”
“He's a good man,” Thor says, betraying no sign that he knows - or cares - about her and Bruce. “A bit angry, though.”
“Yeah.”
Thor smiles, crossing his arms loosely over his chest. “This...” He turns and motions at the Einstein-Rosen bridge. “This machine you've built is incredible. How long will it remain open for?”
Jane shakes her head. “Not long, maybe another three minutes.”
“I see... I wish we had longer to talk.”
“Me too,” she says, and she means it, she would love to sit down and talk to him properly, about Asgard and its science, about what happened in New York, just about him and who he is, but yet, now, she can't think of anything else to say.
“Well...” Thor says, and glances at his feet. It's comforting to know that she isn't the only one with little to say. “Will your machine work again?”
“Now that it's worked once and we've got readings from it, yeah, I think I can make it more stable. I'm sure Stark will chip in some more of his renewable energy.”
“You know the man of Iron?”
She chuckles. “Yeah, Bruce is working for Stark Industries at the moment.”
“I see.” He lays his hands on her shoulders. “I'm glad that I will see you again. Perhaps longer, next time.”
“Yeah, hopefully,” she says, looking up at him. Wow, he really is very tall, she thinks, and she feels that little thrill again. He draws her into an embrace, splaying his hands over her back, and she rests her cheek on his chest. It's nice. It's very nice.
He loosens his grip on her, and she steps back, smiling. “I'm sorry,” he says, “I should return before my mother starts to worry.”
She bites her lip. “Your mom?”
Thor rolls his eyes. “Yes, she's been most worried about me since I returned from your New York. I believe I'm more a child in her eyes than ever before.”
She can't help but laugh, and he ducks his head, laughing along with her. “It's a small price,” he says, and takes a deep breath. “I should go.”
“Okay,” she says. She pushes herself up onto her toes and kisses him on the cheek. “Don't be a stranger.”
“I shall... write? Is that what you say?”
“That's what we say, yeah.”
He nods. “Goodbye, Jane.”
She takes his hand and squeezes it. “Goodbye, Thor.”
He steps back over to the bridge and scrutinises it for a moment, before turning back to her and waving for a moment as the light engulfs him again. He chooses just the right moment, too, because a few seconds later the machine shuts down and the desert is plunged back into relative darkness. She stares up at the sky, and maybe it's her imagination (or just the storm abating), but the stars seem a little brighter.
“Wow,” she mutters to herself. She stands there for a few more minutes, before turning around and heading back into the RV.
Erik and Bruce are on the couch, talking quietly, Bruce's expression shuttered and anxious.
“Hey, guys,” she says, and they both start a little. Erik casts a look at Bruce, who smiles tightly. “Uh, can I talk to you outside, Bruce?”
“Yeah, uh, sure...” he mumbles, getting up too quickly and bumping his legs into the coffee. He jabs his glasses up the bridge of his nose and moves over to her. She steps back outside and he follows, tugging his sleeves down over his hands when he meets the cold air.
“Where's uh, where's Thor?” he asks.
“He went home.”
“When's he coming back?”
She shrugs. Bruce looks confused.
“Um, did...” He looks around, the bridge, the RV, the empty land around them. “What's happening?”
“We're going home too, I guess, everything's over.”
Bruce rubs his sleeve against his glasses and blinks. “Are, uh... did you choose me over Thor?”
She shrugs again. “Maybe.”
“Oh...” he says, and his laughter comes out as high-pitched bark. “Really? I mean, really?”
“It's...” She shakes her head. “Look, I'm really attracted Thor.”
“Okay...”
“But with you...” She sighs. “I don't know. I don't know, okay? I mean, I mean it's... yeah.”
He smiles. “Yeah. Wow, okay. I just... I have to say, no one has ever chosen me over... anyone, probably.”
“Really? You think Dr Ross didn't have offers?”
He looks at her like the thought had never occurred to him before.
“I mean, she's a pretty good-looking woman,” she says.
“I-- well, yeah,” Bruce says, getting flustered. “But let's not... I mean, exes, let's just... not, for a while.”
“Okay. So, how are we going to break it to Erik?”
“He was just telling me not to freak out at my inevitable dumping, so he should be happy, shouldn't he?”
She raises her eyebrows.
Bruce smiles. “Or we could get him drunk.”
That's more like it. “I think we've got some donuts leftover, too.”
Bruce smile gets bigger, and he reaches down to take her hand. “You know, Tony said that maybe you'd surprise me.”
“Really? You talked to Stark about us.”
He squeezes her hand and shrugs. “He's the only other friend I have, so... That's why he was so eager to pay for everything. He said, 'maybe magic will happen'.”
“He's a weird guy.”
“He is, but I guess he was right.” Bruce shakes his head and chuckles. “He'll be in more insufferable than usual.”