Unhealthy Fixations
Title: Unhealthy Fixations
Fandom: The Avengers
Pairing: Tony/Bruce
Summary: For months pretty much every last one of Tony’s (extensive) sexual undertakings had the spectre of Pepper hovering somewhere in the background. So when Tony caught himself jerking off in the shower one night to Bruce’s hands, Bruce’s mouth, and Bruce’s stupid goddamn glasses of all things, it was a definite shock.
“You can’t have sex?”
Bruce fiddled awkwardly with the petri dishes on the desk in front of him, moving them around for no apparent reason.
“It’s not a big deal,” he muttered with an uncomfortable shrug. When he finally did glance up, Tony was just staring at him with an expression of uncomprehending horror.
“Not a big deal? How is that not a big deal? I just... I... wow, I am actually speechless.”
“Good,” Bruce muttered decisively, scribbling something on his research notes.
“No wait, I lied, I have questions.”
Bruce dropped his pen and covered his eyes with one hand.
“When did you find out you couldn’t do the big nasty exactly? Was there an actual event of some kind? I thought it was just anger than brought out your big, green and whimsically destructive side. Unless it was hate sex. Was it hate sex? Hey, I won’t judge, some of the best sex I ever had was hate sex, I’m just saying that’s no reason to give up on the whole shebang. Emphasis on the ‘bang’ there by the way.”
“Tony...”
“So how long has it been for you anyway? Wait, can you still...” Tony made a complicated motion with his fingers. “I don’t know what the kids are calling it these days. Take matters into your own hands if you get my drift. You can still do that right? Because otherwise...”
“Tony,” Bruce interrupted loudly. “Look, it’s not, it’s just....” he sighed. “It’s just that... sex is... it’s too easy to lose control. And when I lose control...” he waved his hand to indicate the unspoken ‘I turn into a crazed violent green destruction magnet’.
“So in theory you could still do the deed?” Tony persisted. “If you didn’t lose control?”
“Do we have to talk about this?” Bruce asked gloomily. He looked upset.
“No,” Tony conceded at once. “Sorry. Let’s just do something else. Pretend I never said a word.”
Bruce nodded and managed a weak, conciliatory smile before going back to his petri dishes and lab notes. Tony returned to idly tweaking the repulsor gauntlet he’d hauled into Bruce’s lab a half-hour before, complaining that he was bored alone in his own workshop, and what was the point of living with other people if you never saw them? But even as he tried to focus on something else, his brain treacherously kept on turning the issue over. So how long exactly had it been since Bruce had last had sex? If it was the danger of going all tall, green and ragey that was the reason behind it, then presumably not since before the accident. Which meant, Jesus, years. How did someone go years without sex? The longest Tony had ever gone between rolls in the hay was the time he’d spent imprisoned in a cave in Afghanistan with a bunch of terrorists. He made a mental note to look up the precise date of Bruce’s gamma exposure. There had to be some way around it. But then, surely if there was, Bruce would have found it by now. He must have tried. If it had been Tony he’d have dedicated every waking moment to finding a way to weasel around the problem, what guy wouldn’t, and...
“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” Bruce said, pulling his glasses off and staring accusingly at Tony.
“What? No. Prove it,” Tony retorted with an unconvincing attempt at offended innocence.
“Look,” Bruce said with a resigned sigh. “It’s pretty simple actually. If I wanted to have sex, it would have to be the most careful sex in the world, okay? No surprises, nothing rough, even the just-playing kind of rough. Slow, boring, completely safe. And if it all started to get a bit much, we’d just have to stop, no matter what. Who wants that? How can I ask someone to put up with that kind of passionless relationship? It wouldn’t be fair to them. And anyway, at the end of the day, what does having that really matter compared to keeping people safe from... the other guy? It’s a small price to pay. Really, it’s not so bad.” He trailed off, looking down at his lab bench and fiddling awkwardly with his glasses. Tony sympathised, he suddenly felt uncharacteristically awkward as well, not to mention like a complete asshole for having brought the subject up in the first place.
“Hey,” Tony said carefully. “You don’t have to explain it to me. I’m just unnaturally preoccupied with sex. Really, ask Pepper. The stories that woman could tell you. Not from personal experience,” he added hastily. “I’m not constantly sexually harassing her or anything. Well, not much. She’s just had to throw a lot of strange people out of my bedroom over the years. Walked in on some weird stuff too. Really it’s a miracle she’s prepared to sleep with me at all. This one time...”
Tony launched into one of his most embarrassing stories, one about himself, Pepper, three Miss World finalists and a lifesize waxwork mannequin of Marilyn Monroe. It was worth it for the way the dull unhappiness on Bruce’s face melted into a smile, especially when Tony got to the bit with Donald Trump and the most uncomfortable elevator ride of his life. When he was done telling it they both went back to work, and it was like the sex conversation had never happened.
Except Tony kept on thinking about it. He couldn’t get what Bruce had said out of his head, about the way, if he was going to have sex, it would have to be. Slow. Incredibly so. How long would it even take to get all of the clothes involved off? And gentle. None of the hot, heavy and frantic stuff that Tony had always favoured. No rolling around, no playful push and shove, and no giving into that complete, overwhelming desperation to be all over each other right goddamn now. Just... slowness. Being careful. Taking your time over every little thing.
Tony became increasingly preoccupied with the idea, until one evening, after a ‘date’ with Pepper that chiefly involved eating pizza on the couch and discussing the awesome things Tony was going to build for SHIELD once Fury pulled his head out of his ass long enough to just ask, he decided to give it a try. Instead of tumbling her down onto the thousand dollar Egyptian cotton sheets and manhandling her out of her clothes, he took them off carefully, one by one, enjoying the feel of the fabric and Pepper’s milk white skin under his fingertips. He kissed her carefully, slowly, sweetly for once. Let his hands take their time, caressing rather than greedily grasping. Lowered her onto the mattress with absolute care, as though she were made from the finest, most delicate china.
Eventually Pepper had rolled over, pushed herself up on her elbows, looked him very seriously in the eyes and asked if he felt alright. When he’d insisted that he was fine she’d put a hand to his forehead, then gotten up off the bed, put all her clothes back on - which definitely hadn’t been the plan - and insisted he tell her the truth. It had taken twenty minutes to convince her that he wasn’t dying again.
They did eventually get around to having sex, but after five minutes of Tony trying to take it slow again, Pepper had just manhandled him out of his clothes and pushed him back onto the bed, and it was so goddamn hot that Tony’s already tenuous self control had snapped immediately.
He largely forgot about his ‘Bruce safe’ sex obsession after that. Until six months later, when he - as he’d half known he inevitably would - fucked his relationship with Pepper up beyond repair.
They didn’t see each other for a whole month after that, a month in which Tony felt constantly as though there was a gaping hole in his life. Or a raw wound - yeah, that analogy worked a lot better. A raw, seeping, infected, Pepper shaped wound.
She was so appallingly nice when they finally saw each other again, like they were still friends, like she still cared about him, when just looking at her and how perfect she was felt like a punch in the gut to Tony. He was as rude, sullen and obnoxious as he knew how to be, which was astronomically so. And she’d just kept on smiling, kept on being nice to him, even in the face of Tony at his worst, until eventually he’d just given in and grudgingly begun to be at least civil back. Then, slowly, basic civility had morphed into a return to the repartee of old, without Tony even noticing. He felt like he’d been violently mugged by some kind of stealth maturity, tricked into being friends with an ex, like a normal person.
He still fantasised a lot about her though, because while she might’ve made it to the platonic friends stage, Tony was still languishing pathetically at the desperately in love part of their relationship. He thought about her when he took people home with him, imagined it was Pepper with him between the sheets (or on the floor, or up against the wall) when he had sex with them. He even accidentally called out her name while a bona fide supermodel was going down on him. She’d taken it surprisingly well, just slapping him round the face and giving kicking him in the nuts a damn good try before storming out.
For months pretty much every last one of Tony’s (extensive) sexual undertakings had the spectre of Pepper hovering somewhere in the background. So when Tony caught himself jerking off in the shower one night to Bruce’s hands, Bruce’s mouth, and Bruce’s stupid goddamn glasses of all things, it was a definite shock.
And yeah, alright, first and foremost because Bruce was a guy. Tony had slept with men before, because he was a great believer in leaving no stone of sexual experience unturned, and okay, probably he’d slept with a lot more guys than most men, maybe even ones who actively went for other guys, but really, it wasn’t that many at all once you stacked it up against the amount of women he’d done the horizontal tango with. He’d rate himself a solid ‘1’ on the Kinsey Scale. Maybe a 2.
And secondly... well Bruce wasn’t exactly his type. Not that the guy was ugly or anything, he just wasn’t... sexy. Yeah, probably that was the word. Or possibly ‘provocative’. If Tony was going to really go for another guy, he’d have imagined going for someone like Clint. Smart mouthed, attractively dangerous, and with a seriously, seriously ripped pair of arms. A nice ass too, which wasn’t exactly hidden away by that skin-tight SHIELD issue uniform - a uniform that some sage individual had also wisely decided didn’t need sleeves either.
Whereas Bruce wore baggy, ill-fitting clothes by habit, no matter how many times Tony tried to persuade him to accept a new wardrobe on Stark Industries dime. He also wore a ridiculous pair of geeky wire-frame glasses that perched on the end of his nose while he worked. His hair was scruffy, and greying at the temples, although now Tony came to think of it he quite liked the streaks of grey. And there was something undeniably inviting about Bruce’s eyes, attractively big, brown and vulnerable, and on rare occasion when he was a pretty pissed off, they glowed an unusual shade of radioactive green. And who knew what kind of a body he was keeping hidden away under those oversized shirts and Hulk-ready pants?
Alright, so Tony was prepared to accept that he found Bruce somewhat attractive, even though he was a man. He was also a little concerned about his exact feelings regarding various parts of Clint, but there was only so much introspection a guy could take in one go, so he judiciously swept that issue under the proverbial carpet.
That didn’t mean he was going to act on it or anything. He’d jerked off to plenty of people he had no intention of actively pursuing, like Natasha for example. She’d taken many a starring role in some of his more masochistic fantasies, but there was no way he was ever going to make a move, because masochistic fantasy aside, he liked his dick where it was - firmly attached to the rest of him.
Besides, Bruce had been pretty clear on the whole ‘no sex’ thing, so the entire issue was a moot point. A little bit of casual fantasy never hurt anyone. At least it wasn’t Pepper he was fantasizing about for once, which was progress right? ‘Move the hell on’, that was what Rhodey had advised him to do, like a blunter, crappier Dear Abby. Wanting to fuck someone else, that definitely had to count as quality moving on material right? And who better than Bruce, who was off limits in the most basic way? Tony couldn’t fuck him, and thus couldn’t fuck it up. Perfect. Their friendship was safe, and Tony got to get some solid moving on under his belt.
Tony processed all this information and drew his conclusions in roughly the time it took him to finish his shower, pull on some sweat pants and climb into bed. It was only then, lying on his back in the darkness, ruing the Red Bull binge of two hours earlier, that he remembered that saying Bruce couldn’t have sex wasn’t exactly, entirely true.
Slow sex. Super, super slow, careful, taking your sweet time sex. Maybe having to stop and start all over again sex. A drawn out slow burn, everything eased into, gently and softly. Lots of scrupulous attention to detail, conscientious, painstaking consideration and care - all the qualities that great scientific thinking was made of. But for sex. Jesus.
Despite having just gotten his own rocks off ten minutes earlier, Tony found himself compelled to indulge in a second go round. After he came he just about managed to ride the endorphins into a blissfully dreamless sleep, putting off any unpleasant and unwelcome introspection for the next day.
Tony went about sex the same way he went about everything else he enjoyed, loudly, energetically, and occasionally in a manner that might get him arrested. He’d always been a hot, heavy and frantic kind of a guy between the sheets, or up against the wall, on the floor, or hell, anywhere you wanted really. He liked tearing clothes off, and having his torn off in turn. A bit of manhandling, y’know? And he’d had the scratches and the bite marks to prove it. Slow burn, touchy feely sex was never his thing, not since the first time he got laid when he was fourteen years old, all the way through his entire, complicated carnal history, right up to now.
Except he suddenly found himself completely fixated on it. Or to be more precise, the idea of doing it with Bruce.
Weeks after his unexpected and somewhat unwelcome revelation, he was in the middle of an argument with Bruce on the subject of whether or not Stark Tower required some kind of emergency anti-Hulk protocol installed. Bruce not only thought it did, he’d also drawn up detailed plans for how it should work, and was currently a little peeved that Tony had thrown the paper copy out of the penthouse window.
“Other people’s safety has to be the most important issue here...” Bruce tried to insist.
“No. My building, my rules. I say we don’t need it, so it’s not happening. End of story.”
“I’m not letting this go Tony...”
“You’ve been living here for nearly a year,” Tony retorted. “And so far the big guy hasn’t made any unscheduled appearances. I’m not getting what the problem here is exactly Dr. Banner.”
Bruce sighed and slumped his shoulders, reaching up with one hand and pushing his glasses back off his face and up into the mess of his hair. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers and looked very much like a deeply aggravated man taking a moment to regain his composure. Tony recognised that look, he saw it a lot.
“I just think, that for everybody’s safety, it would be best...”
“For everybody’s safety?” Tony interrupted. “That’s bullshit. Look at you, you’re like the zen master, you’ve got this under control.”
“For now,” Bruce argued. “But in the wrong circumstances...”
“What wrong circumstances?” Tony gestured around at the penthouse apartment. “I don’t see any wrong circumstances here. All I see is a goddamn unbelievably cool building full of unbelievably cool stuff, and you’ve got free rein on all of it. Peace and quiet, your own lab, a bunch of R&D minions at your beck and call... I’ll even buy you a CD of pan pipe music if you want. Nothing more zen than pan pipes right? These are the right circumstances.”
Bruce visibly gave up, sitting down heavily on Tony’s sofa, slumping right back into the cushions and shutting his eyes. He looked like a man who badly needed a drink, so Tony got him one.
“Here,” he said, holding the whiskey on the rocks out to Bruce. Bruce opened his eyes to find the amber drink hovering an inch or so in front of his face, and took it gratefully. Tony sat down on the sofa next to him, nursing a drink of his own.
“You’re not going to Hulk out and destroy the building,” Tony said bluntly. “So stop worrying about it.”
Bruce laughed quietly. “Thanks for the reassurance. This thing let you see the future too?” he asked, reaching out with one hand to tap the arc reactor through Tony’s t-shirt.
Tony reached over and tapped the equivalent spot on Bruce’s own chest. “You should have a little more faith in the big green guy y’know. He’s not that bad.” Tony at least certainly owed him big style.
Bruce just snorted disbelievingly, and slumped a little more into the sofa, and coincidently a little closer to Tony. They were close enough that Tony could faintly feel the warmth emanating from the other man. He could see each individual strand of grey amongst the rest of Bruce’s dishevelled, black hair, and the faint laugh lines at the corner of his eyes - presumably a relic from happier times, although Bruce smiled more and more these days, and not just that sad little ironical isn’t-my-life-complete-shit smile either. And only the week before he’d laughed and laughed when Tony’s new model of repulsor gauntlet had ricocheted straight backwards during its first test, smacking Tony right in the face. He’d also been holding an increasingly bloody cloth to Tony’s profusely bleeding nose, but he’d definitely been laughing - the sadistic bastard.
He smelled good too. Like the hand sterilizer in the microbiology lab, the pizza Tony had ordered for dinner, and the faint tang of oil which hung around anyone who spent any extended length of time in the immediate vicinity of Tony’s workshop (a list exactly four people ever Tony realised, himself, Bruce, Rhodey and Pepper). It wasn’t quite the mix of Chanel, mint and indefinable something that Pepper had always smelled of, but it was pleasant in its own way nonetheless. Tony surreptitiously leaned in a little closer to try and get a better whiff of it. His side was pressed right up against Bruce’s now, and when Bruce lifted his arm to drink some of his whiskey Tony’s eyes followed as the tendons in his wrist shifted under the skin. He was incredibly warm Tony realised, and now the rich aroma of the whiskey had been added to... shit shit shit, Tony was thinking about sex. He was totally thinking about climbing on top of Bruce and shoving his hands under Bruce’s shirt, down his pants, anywhere he could get them onto bare skin really. See if he tasted half as good as he smelled. Fuck.
“Are you alright?” Bruce asked, and only then did Tony realise he’d made some sort of weird groan of horror.
“Yeah, I’m good,” Tony replied, trying to keep his voice as normal as possible while shifting around to cross his legs in an attempt to hide the fact that he was kinda half hard at this point. Fortunately Bruce’s eyes didn’t stray downwards.
Tony downed the rest of his whiskey pronto before making a bid for both the safety of the bar, and the rest of the bottle.
...
Tony honestly tried to get it out of his system with other people. He picked up beautiful women at parties, and when that didn’t work he took home a handsome but terminally closeted actor from a charity event in LA. That failed scratch the itch as well.
Finally, with depressing inevitability, Tony’s efforts to not fuck it up with Bruce failed miserably. There was another outing for the Avengers, combating some rogue Hydra terrorist cell out in, of all the shitty places to set up your super secret base, Siberia. Bruce had transformed and gone on a little rampage, nothing too bad because there was only so much on hand to smash into tiny bits in the Siberian wilderness. He’d changed back, collapsed into a snowdrift, and spent the whole journey back to the States fast asleep.
Fury had judiciously decided to postpone any kind of a debriefing, probably motivated by the knowledge that the odds of getting Thor and Tony to agree to sit still for an hour of chronic boredom at that point were not good. Bruce woke up long enough to get into a chopper with Tony, at which point he fell asleep again, an impressive achievement considering the noise levels.
The chopper dropped them at Stark Tower’s helipad. Bruce woke up again, took a moment to take a few deep breaths (unsurprising, loud noises and high altitude made a sure fire recipe for stress) and followed Tony out. He looked a hell of a lot happier once they were inside the building, but still kind of out of it.
Bruce was a grown man. Tired or not, he was perfectly capable of finding his own way back to his own goddamn room. But that didn’t stop Tony from giving into the compulsion to wrap an arm around Bruce’s waist and take him back there personally, talking loudly about how much Hydra ass he’d kicked all the way. It was also a handy opportunity to feel him up, just a little bit. Purely in an above the waist kind of a way.
It was a recipe for disaster really, Bruce all tired and pliant, relaxed in a way he rarely ever was, not to mention leaning right up against Tony. With things arranged like that, it was all too easy to imagine what the sex would be like, Bruce soft and comfortable like he was right now, yielding, yeah, that was the word for it. Yielding. Tony had never had yielding before, or been it. It had never interested him previously, but now it seemed like a criminal oversight.
He got so caught up in thinking about it that, when they arrived at Bruce’s door, he’d kissed him before his conscious mind had even had the opportunity to get involved in the decision.
“What the hell are you doing?” Bruce exclaimed, pushing Tony back with both hands planted on his shoulders.
“I hope it was kinda obvious,” Tony said before he could help himself.
“Alright then, what the hell were you thinking?” Bruce retorted. He wasn’t sleepy now, or even the faintest bit yielding. In fact, he looked pretty pissed off.
“I really wasn’t,” Tony admitted.
Bruce stepped back until he was leaning against the wall, shut his eyes and ran a hand over his face. When he looked back over at Tony, just for a second, he looked at Tony’s mouth first. Ah ha.
“Look, Tony, I really don’t think...” Bruce started to say, but he got cut off when Tony stepped forward and kissed him again. This time there was a definite hesitation, maybe even a moment of reciprocation, before Bruce shoved him off.
“Look, what’s the problem here?” Tony complained the moment his mouth was available for talking again. “I know it’s not that I’m a guy. I looked up your SHIELD file, eight years ago you slept with this lab tech, male lab tech that is, and three years before that...”
“You hacked my SHIELD file? Who am I kidding, of course you did...” Yes. Pissed off. Bruce was definitely pissed off. Which was frustrating, because Tony had been aiming for ‘overcome with sudden unexpected lust’.
“Look,” Tony argued. “If you’re saying you’re not interested, fine. I promise you I’ll get it, I really will. I’ll back off, and we’ll go back to hanging out in my workshop and doing the whole saving the world thing. It won’t be weird. In fact it’ll be like it never happened.” Bruce opened his mouth to say something, but Tony cut him off with a raised finger. “But...” Tony continued, “I think that you are interested.”
“You think everyone is interested in you,” Bruce retorted.
“That’s not a denial,” Tony pointed out.
Bruce sighed, the anger fading away, replaced by a kind of sad tiredness, a look which Bruce had practised to perfection. This time however it did strange things to Tony’s stomach.
“Even if I wanted to...” he said, which frankly was as good as saying ‘I definitely want to’. “I can’t. Not in the way you want. You know I can’t. We talked about this.”
“What do you mean you can’t?” Tony demanded, even though he knew very well what Bruce meant. He wanted to hear the guy say it.
“I can’t...” Bruce trailed off, then threw his hands up in exasperation. “I can’t have sex. You know that. I explained it to you, so I don’t understand what you think you’re doing here, unless you’re just trying to send me off the deep end.” He looked at Tony suspiciously. “You’re not are you? Tell me this isn’t the sexual equivalent of poking me with a sharp stick, because I swear Tony, if it is I don’t think I’d even mind if the other guy came out and stomped you into the carpet...”
“Hey!” Tony said indignantly. “Alright, I’m no Mother Teresa, but give me some credit here. And you didn’t tell me you can’t have sex. What you told me was that you could have sex, just only under certain, you know, conditions. I can work with that.” Tony thought it was probably best not to mention that, in fact, the thought of that super careful sex was part of the whole allure.
Bruce gaped at him like he’d grown another head for a moment, then suddenly he started laughing.
“Jesus Tony,” he said. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“What?” Tony demanded, wrong-footed by this turn of events.
Bruce stopped laughing and slumped back against the wall again. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose like it ached, even though he wasn’t wearing his glasses.
“You honestly expect me to believe that you, of all people, would be willing to settle for what I can offer? It’ll be... it wouldn’t be good. For you. Especially compared to your usual... experiences. It would be boring, and frustrating, and passionless as hell. Nobody wants that. I’m not even sure I want that. You Tony Stark, you definitely don’t want that. Do yourself a favour, go find a spare Miss Universe or something.”
Bruce opened the door to his room and moved to step inside, but Tony caught him by the arm first. Bruce sighed but didn’t resist, letting Tony hold him there for a moment.
“Okay,” said Tony firmly, letting Bruce go. “For starters, I don’t believe all this bullshit you’ve told yourself. Passionless? Boring? Scientific research told you that did it? No, you told yourself that Bruce. Just because you can’t get too excited doesn’t mean you’ve got to have crap sex or no sex. There’s ways around it, we’d just have to be careful. Take it from me, I’m an expert in these matters, just ask the National Enquirer.”
Bruce didn’t look impressed or convinced. “Even if that’s true,” he said, his tone implying he didn’t believe it was true at all. “Then there’s still the matter of self-control.”
“Oh come on, your self-control is ridiculously good.”
“No,” Bruce said. “Not my self-control. Your self-control. What if, right in the middle of it, right when you were on the brink, we had to stop. Because we probably would have to, at some point. Could you do that? I’d need to know that you would, whatever the circumstances, I’d have to trust that you’d just get up and step away, and let me get myself back under control. And you’re a great guy Tony, you’re brave, you’re charismatic, you’re the cleverest man I’ve ever met and I owe you more than I can ever repay, but one thing you are definitely not, and that’s self-denying. I don’t think I could rely on you to do what I needed you to. I’m sorry.”
“Alright, first off,” Tony said once he’d let all that sink in. “You owe me nothing, okay? Let’s just get that clear right now. And secondly, I could totally do that. If that’s what you needed, I would do that for you.”
“I think you think you could,” Bruce countered. “I think it’s easy for you to say that now. But I don’t... look I don’t want to say I don’t trust you, because I do, generally speaking, more than almost anyone else I know. Just... not in this one, particular regard.”
“But you’re not saying you don’t want to?” Tony asked, clinging to the one positive he could see in the entire, rejection filled mess.
Bruce brought out his sad little smile again, a real killer one this time too, and reached out to squeeze Tony’s shoulder gently. “No,” he admitted. “I’m not saying I don’t want to. But I don’t get a lot of the things I want. Goodnight Tony” He stepped into his bedroom, shutting the door quietly behind him, leaving Tony standing in the corridor, for once at a loss over what to say.
...
Probably at this point a normal person would chalk events up as an unfortunate, awkward incident, best to be forgotten.
Tony, on the other hand, decided to pour all his energies into trying to convince Bruce that he, despite all prior evidence to the contrary, had the self-discipline of a goddamn monk. One of those really serious monks too, the kind who whipped themselves daily and all that crazy Da Vinci Code stuff.
The first thing to go, fairly obviously, was the casual sex. Tony still went to the parties, still flirted with all and sundry when he got there, but he stopped taking anybody home with him. Right from the night he kissed Bruce onwards, the only occupant of Tony’s bed was Tony. His right hand got one hell of a workout, but otherwise he felt his sudden abstinence showed a remarkable degree of self-control and self-denial. Especially if you disregarded the fact he was only abstaining from sex with other people in order to wrangle his way into bed with one person in particular.
He didn’t stop drinking, because come on, even monks got to partake of the communion wine for crying out loud. But he did make a concerted effort to drink less around Bruce. He even, and this in particular chafed across his very soul, started following orders. The first time he sat quietly through a SHIELD briefing, no smart comments, no interruptions of any kind, he wound up with everybody staring openly at him with identical expressions of intense distrust. Fury in particular eyeballed him in a way that only a guy with just one eye left to eyeball with knows how. Bruce rolled his eyes for every last one of Tony’s few, concise and spectacularly polite comments, but there was a smile tugging at his mouth that he was less and less able to hide the more ridiculously compliant Tony got.
He tried to be the same in the field as well, biting his tongue every time he had the urge to say something less than diplomatic. He slipped up a couple of times sure, because there were some opportunities too good to pass up even to get laid, and telling Thor, in glorious detail, about the Norse myths surrounding his brother and a horse was one of them. Tony would have given half his fortune just for one blurry camera phone shot of the expression on the man’s face, it had been that good.
But on the whole, he was pretty damn successful thanks. And it was not easy, because practically everything about Steve Rogers invited merciless ridicule sometimes. If the guy saw a cat up a tree, Tony didn’t doubt for one second he’d stop to rescue it, with some photographer on the government payroll on hand, ready to snap the heart-warming moment when Captain America handed Mr Fluffles back to his pigtailed six year old owner.
But, and it was a little painful to admit it, Steve was a talented soldier, and even when Tony thought (privately for the time being) that whatever plan their illustrious leader had cooked up was agonisingly boring and sensible, it got the job done. Even if there were only the bare minimum of explosions involved. Besides, it was sort of amusing seeing the look on Steve’s face when Tony agreed placidly with what he was saying, like a gazelle suddenly being offered a four course dinner and aperitif by a tiger.
Tony always looked pointedly at Bruce after any display of obedient self-control, just to make sure he was getting the message. When he did, Bruce was always looking steadfastly in some other direction, refusing to make eye contact. Natasha had begun to notice this going on, narrowing her eyes when she saw it, and raising one eyebrow at Tony in a way that managed to convey several layers of suspicious interest.
At the same time, Tony also started another, slightly less honourable campaign of action. He started brushing up against Bruce when they were working together, nothing major at first, just their arms touching slightly when they were sat at a lab bench together, looking over schematics or research data. Then he invited Bruce into the workshop to take a look at the prototype for the new version of the suit he was working on. When Bruce was examining the new arc reactor housing, Tony stepped right up behind him, so they were stood back-to-chest, reaching around Bruce so he could - ostensibly at least - point out all the really cool new features. Bruce’s breathing had picked up ever so slightly, only a little, but then Tony had been listening out for it.
He was a little ashamed to admit this, but he’d also taken to wearing a lot of wifebeaters around the place. He was no Steve, with his annoying ‘peak of human physical perfection’ bullshit, but Tony was confident that he was no slouch in the physique department. He worked out a lot - he had to if he wanted to counteract the effect of all that booze and fast food. The number of calories in good champagne was ridiculous, and he still rued the day he’d googled the average fat content of the typical Burger King sandwich. The point was, Tony knew he looked pretty good - he was fairly sure that most of the people he’d taken to bed had been there for reasons other than his bank balance. He just happened to also know that he looked particularly good with his arms out on display (only when it was appropriate though, he wasn’t Clint) and maybe a bit of engine oil ‘accidentally’ smeared in advantageous places.
It wasn’t Tony’s finest hour, but it was working. He’d caught Bruce staring plenty of times. He usually coughed awkwardly and made an excuse to leave the room, but a few times he’d smiled instead, and then let Tony flirt with him a little.
It happened once while Pepper was in the penthouse, trying (and largely failing) to get Tony to commit to at least putting in an appearance at a couple of shareholder meetings. Tony leaned back against the bar, bracing himself in a way he knew made the muscles in his upper arms flex enticingly. He had half an eye on Bruce, sat right across the room reading a newspaper, waiting for him to look. And sure enough he did, just briefly, before hiding his face back behind the New York Times, fingers gripping the paper noticeably tighter than they had been before.
Unfortunately, Pepper totally caught it. Too damn observant for her own good that woman, too well practised at it, with her years of trying to nip Tony’s little indiscretions in the bud before they became national news. She looked between Tony and Bruce, and for a horrible moment Tony thought she was going to get upset, but then she rolled her eyes and trotted out her classic long-suffering glare of exasperation. Tony had missed that glare. In turn he produced his traditional response - wide-eyed faux innocence.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, because I am not clearing up the mess,” Pepper whispered to him before she left. Tony presumed that was as close as he was going to get to receiving her blessing. He’d take it.
This state of affairs lurched on for nearly two damn months. Two incredibly frustrating months. Until one day, in the middle of a fight over Los Angeles, a stupid, idiotic fight with some goddamn amateurs, one of the bastards got in a lucky shot. He had some kind of energy weapon clutched in his shaking hands, apparently powered by some kind of Asgardian jewel that Thor claimed contained the power at the heart of a newborn star, and that had turned up at the bottom of a deep sea oil well in the Caspian Sea. Whether the newborn star thing was true or not, the weapon packed one hell of a punch when it hit Tony right in the chest at virtually point blank range, instantly shorting out the armour’s systems and sending him plunging to the pavement below. His last thought before the world went black was that someone really, really needed to tell Thor’s dad that he needed to learn to keep a better goddamn eye on his goddamn stuff.
...
Tony woke up to the sound of hospital equipment and distant voices. Everything ached. He was in SHIELD’S medical facility aboard the Helicarrier. It turned out the assholes in LA hadn’t lasted five minutes after Tony’s unexpected trip to the concrete. Miraculously, the worst of his injuries were some cracked ribs, a concussion and some really spectacular bruising. His entire left side was purple. It was awesomely gross.
After the doctors had finished running tests and fussing over him (and there were not hot nurses, so it was not worth it even a little bit) he had a few visitors. First there was Fury, who offered his compassionate support in the form of ‘I shoulda known even a drop to the ground from sixty feet up wouldn’t crack your thick skull’. It was touching. Sweet even. Then Steve, then Natasha, and finally, Bruce.
“How are you feeling?” Bruce asked, sitting next to Tony’s bedside. He looked exhausted, but he smiled warmly for Tony.
“Well, I think I might die of boredom if I have to stay here as long as they want to keep me,” Tony complained. “I think I might try to bust out tomorrow. Want to help?”
“Tony, you need to rest,” Bruce insisted. “No escaping. How long do they want to keep you in?” He peered at the monitor next to Tony’s bed where his medical notes were displayed.
“Too long,” Tony muttered. “Four days.”
“Four days isn’t that long,” Bruce admonished. “Think about how long it could have been. Apparently you hit the ground pretty hard. You could even have...” Bruce paused for a moment, eyes dropping away from Tony’s briefly. “And then you’ll have to take it easy for a while. No working.”
“Nah,” Tony dismissed that idea at once. “Are you kidding? Fury wouldn’t tell me what kind of condition the armour was in, but I could see it in that beady little eye of his, it looks like a crushed tin can doesn’t it? Gotta get working on that. And I want to get a look at whatever the hell that was I got shot with, I need to figure out how it managed to take out the operating systems, work out a way to safeguard against it. You never know when the next jackass with a...”
He had to stop talking, because Bruce had suddenly leaned over and kissed him.
It was brief, careful and soft. He felt Bruce’s hand curl gently around his arm, squeezing lightly before he pulled his head back a few inches to look Tony straight in the eye.
“I think you should take it easy, and let yourself heal properly,” he murmured.
“And why’s that Dr. Banner?” Tony just about managed to force the words out. He wanted to sit up and kiss Bruce again, to hell with talking, but the pain in his ribs kept him where he was.
“I’ve reconsidered some long standing principals of mine. Maybe it’s time I gave certain activities another chance.”
Tony felt a wide grin spread over his own face as he digested the implications of that. “They’ve got me on the good painkillers,” he said finally. “And they tell me I’m concussed. So I want to be absolutely clear that what I thought you just said is what you actually just said. We’re gonna have sex right?”
Bruce made a face. “Yes, we’re going to have sex. We’re going to try to have sex. When you’re better, which will go a lot faster if you take it easy and do what the doctors tell you, which includes staying in this bed for the next four days.”
“I am going to rock your world,” Tony said, refusing to be distracted from the important issue at hand. Bruce burst out laughing, and kissed him again.
...
Try to have sex nothing.
A warm, post-orgasmic haze suffused Tony as he dozed, head pillowed on Bruce’s shoulder, and an arm clamped around Bruce’s waist, just in case the guy was quietly building up to some kind of freak out.
Five weeks Tony had waited before Bruce was convinced he was fit and healthy again. Five goddamn weeks. Thank god that it had been worth it. It hadn’t been exactly like Tony imagined - but it would almost have been disappointing if it had been. They'd had to briefly abort mission approximately ten minutes in when Bruce had started to panic about the whole thing, but once they were over that hurdle it had been good. Different - slow, careful, and with a lot more discussion and compromise than Tony was used to - but definitely, unquestionably, good. There was a lot of potential there. Potential that only diligent, dedicated practise would uncover. Tony was prepared to put in the hard work. For Bruce’s benefit, of course.
They lay there for quite a while, until Tony was on the brink of falling asleep properly, when suddenly Bruce started trying to squirm out from under his arm. Tony just held on tighter.
“Tony, let go of me,” Bruce demanded.
“No,” Tony refused. “You’re staying here. You can have a panic attack about this in the morning. Sleep now, freak out later. Deal?”
“I’m not freaking out,” Bruce said. “I’m sticky. I’m not sleeping like this.”
“Oh,” Tony relented. He pushing himself up on his elbow so he could look at Bruce properly. “Shower?” he asked, raising a suggestive eyebrow to indicate that he when he said 'shower' he totally meant 'sex in the shower'.
They did wind up having sex in the shower, but afterwards both drifted back to Tony’s bed. Admittedly Bruce hadn’t had much of a choice, what with the way Tony had grabbed his arm and practically dragged him there.
“So,” Tony said once they were settled, turned in together so they were facing each other, Bruce curling his fingers gently around Tony's wrist, thumb stroking over the pulse point. “I thought that went pretty well. It definitely wasn't... what was the word you used? Passionless. I think we got that one solidly covered there. Plus I didn’t see any green, and I got a damn good look at most of you.”
“Yeah,” Bruce agreed. His hair was wet and starting to curl, and he smelled like Tony's expensive shower gel. It was nice. “It was... thanks.”
“Thanks? Thanks? What kind of an assessment is thanks?”
“I don’t know what else to say!” Bruce replied defensively. His hand around Tony's wrist tightened, like he was trying to cling on to some kind of solid ground. “This was something I thought I’d have to live the rest of my life without. I... It’s a bit overwhelming alright? I’m sorry.”
“You say sorry too much,” Tony complained, easing his wrist out of Bruce's grip. He took the empty hand and squeezed it. “And as for overwhelming... you give me time, I’ll show you overwhelming. I am overwhelming personified.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“I just...” Bruce shrugged, looking at where his hand was held in Tony's own. “I sort of assumed this was a one-time deal. I thought that... well, that you were curious. About my condition. And that once you got it out of your system...”
“Why does everyone assume I’m a complete asshole?” Tony demanded. “No, wait, don’t answer that. Of course it’s not a one-time deal. Did I bring you home in a limo? No, you live here for crying out loud. I want to do it again. Do you want to do it again?”
“Well... yes.”
“Perfect.”
“No overwhelming though, we discussed this...”
“It was just a figure of speech. Now I don’t know about you, but I’m tired. Some of us were in a hospital bed just five weeks ago.”
He rolled half on top of Bruce, kissed him, then rolled back off and turned out the lights. He relaxed - always so much easier after sex - into the mattress, Bruce a reassuring warmth next to him.
“Oh my god,” Bruce muttered after a minute. “That is going to drive me crazy.” He reached out and batted blindly at Tony’s arc reactor, which was casting its usual blue glow over the bedroom.
“Bruce Banner,” Tony exclaimed indignantly. “You have driven me crazy for the past five months. Your issues are truly astounding, but have I cared? No, I have not. So you...” and with this he shoved Bruce over so he was lying on his side facing away from Tony, and promptly curled up behind him, the light of arc rector hidden between their bodies. “... You can put up with this.”
“Sorry...”
“What did I say about sorry?”
“Sor- alright, never mind. Goodnight Tony.”
“Yeah, yeah, goodnight. Oh, by the way, if you tell anyone that I spoon, I’ll tell them about that thing you liked where...”
“Go to sleep Tony.”
...
THE END
Who knew that, off all the things I could have shipped from this movie, my favourite would be Bruce and Tony? They were adorable nerds together, and I loved it.