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Bruce had been thinking about it for a while, but looking at Thor now, he made his decision. He wanted to propose.
But that was significantly easier said than done, and he was having trouble saying it aloud even weeks later.
“Well. Um, I was thinking and-” Bruce knew he was blushing
“Spit it out, Banner. I haven’t got all day.” Loki groaned.
“I want to propose to Thor.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Fantastic. Took you long enough to say it. What does this have to do with me?”
“Well actually I was wondering if you would help me with my proposal? Not that you have to, it’s totally optional.” Bruce waited anxiously as Loki pondered.
“Do you have any ideas yet?” he asked.
Bruce smiled. He did have an idea. Ever since Thor’s hair had gotten long enough, he had been braiding it. It had become a Thing between them. Whenever Thor was stressed he would ask Bruce to do his hair and Bruce liked to braid it when he himself felt anxious.
Years of this had allowed Bruce’s braiding skills to grow fantastically. He could french braid in his sleep and if he concentrated, he could do way more intricate up-dos.
He remembered the first time Thor wore one of the braids to a battle. The rest of the Avengers had been surprised, to say the least, when they saw it. No one got dolled up to fight a bunch of aliens, but Thor had insisted that it kept his hair out of his eyes. And when they saw how he furiously he fought after one of the aliens ruined the hairstyle, they had no more comments.
“Yeah, I was thinking of do something special with his hair? I’m not sure yet though, it’s just an idea. I could do something else if you want.”
“No, that is exactly what you will do. I will teach you the braid. Come back tomorrow and you’ll be ready to propose by Sunday.” Loki said, a small smirk on his face. Bruce wasn’t quite sure what had caused the smirk but he felt that if he commented on it, Loki would rescind his offer to help.
“Alright, Loki. I guess I’ll see you later, then.”
Thor was definitely surprised to hear that Bruce couldn’t go to Saturday bowling with him and Nat because he was hanging out with Loki .
“My scoundrel brother? What will you be doing together?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“Oh, um… knives.”
“Knives? What does that mean?”
Okay, so, maybe Bruce had panicked. He hadn’t thought of a reason for seeing Loki. They didn’t exactly have much in common. Things had improved between them since they came back to Earth, but the certainly weren’t close. They never hung out.
“He’s teaching my to fight with knives?” Bruce wasn’t sure how well his excuse would hold up. But luckily, Thor didn’t press it.
“Oh, that's nice. Loki has been such a good brother recently. I hope he doesn’t try to kill me again…” Thor trailed off, looking thoughtful. “Well! Have fun with that!”
When Bruce arrived at Loki’s place, Val was passed out on the couch and the majority of the main room was filled by a large desk with a mirror and a spinny chair. Loki was nowhere to be seen.
“Loki? Are you there?” Bruce called out tentatively.
“Am I here in my own apartment when I told you to come over, no I couldn’t possibly be. You’re late.” Loki said, walking out from the other room.
“Yeah, we never decided on a time. I’m ah sorry about that, though.” Bruce was hesitant to disagree with Loki because he had a past of “accidentally” stabbing people who did.
Loki ignored him and walked to the couch to wake Val up. She sat up groggily, muttered something about “shitty Midgard alcohol” and fell on the floor.
“Sit in the fucking chair, woman.” Loki grumbled as Val slowly crawled across the floor the seat.
“Right so um what are we doing?” Bruce wasn’t quite sure what he was doing. Loki had volunteered his help with very little explanation.
“You will learn the braid for the engaged. You will braid it into my brother’s hair. You will propose to him and get married.”
“Oh. Okay. That works, I guess. Thanks Loki.” Bruce was a little overwhelmed by Loki’s straightforward way of talking, he didn’t mess around. “Do you really think he’ll say yes?”
Val snorted. “He’d be dumb not to. You’re a catch, Brucie Bear! Have some confidence!”
“Alright so here’s the plan. I’m going to show you the braid on Valkyrie’s hair. Then you will try it with my instruction. After that, you will try it on your own. You should have it down after that, you can even use one of your PhDs for it if you want.”
“That’s not how PhDs work , Loki, and you know that.” Bruce said, exasperated.
Loki and Val shared a Look. Bruce recognized that look from prior conversations. It was the Play Dumb For The Puny Human Look. Sometimes, even Thor got in on it.
“What are they good for if you can’t use them to learn things?” Loki asked, feigning innocence.
“What’s the point , Brucie?” Val exclaimed, dramatically throwing herself on the floor.
Loki gave her a disapproving look. “You were just looking for an excuse to lay down on the floor, weren’t you?”
Val sighed. “I don’t want to be here.”
“Well too bad. Sit in the chair, Banner needs to learn this braid, and quick.” Loki tried to pull her up to the chair with little success.
“Ew, get off me, Lackey.” Val whined. “I’ll let you braid my hair but only for him not you.”
Hours later, Bruce thought he could actually pull it off. It wasn’t one of the most complicated braids he had learned, but it was delicate. It was made of two braids, that started at the top of the head and fell down together, intertwined. It was beautiful.
But the braid was one of the easier parts of Plan Proposal, as it was now called. Thor would agree to let Bruce do his hair without question. The real problems came with the proposal itself.
And since Loki and Val didn’t quite have the right expertise in Earth customs, Bruce called Tony over. He had been reluctant to let Tony in on his plans due to his inability to keep secrets but the billionaire had assured him that he wouldn’t tell anyone. He had insisted that Bruce propose as soon as possible. When Bruce asked why he was so invested, he had simply said that he didn’t want to “get in the way of true love”.
“So you’re finally tying the knot with Point Break, huh.” Tony said. “Why are you doing it? Is it just for the wedding night? I bet it’s just for the wedding night.”
Bruce wasn’t sure how to respond, but luckily he didn’t have to. “Human, watch how you talk about my brothers,” Loki growled.
Everyone stared at him. “What? What did I say?”
Val recovered first. “You called Bruce your brother.”
Loki looked aghast. “No I didn’t.” Val glanced at Tony and Bruce, amused. “I didn’t say that! I don’t even Like Bruce, I definitely don’t consider him my brother!” He looked around nervously.
“Of course, buddy. You’d never say that.” Bruce said, lifting his arming in what he hoped was a placating way.
“Sure, Loki. Just take deep breaths,” Val said. “The sun's getting real low.” She and Tony looked at each-other. The room was silent for a second before they started cackling.
Loki sighed, and it seemed to be from both disappointment at their sense of humor and relief that they had changed the topic.
Laughter finally fading, Tony became all business. “So you’re going to braid his hair. Fun, but what comes after that?”
They looked around at each other. They hadn’t planned that far. “Well… The hope is that he asks if I know what it means to Asgardian culture. And then I can be all ‘Yes, and I’m hoping that you will be engaged.......to me!’ and then we can get married and all that good stuff?”
“Well shit Bruce, try not to over plan it. Is that seriously all you’ve got? I’m in a room with what? The second smartest man on Earth, a god, and a Valkyrie? And you can’t even plan a marriage proposal? My god.” Tony put his face in his hands. “Is there any beer here? I swear, you guys are hopeless. Good luck finding love, weasel.”
Loki looked affronted at the jab while Valkyrie ran to the kitchen with the most enthusiasm she had showed all day. A while later, they were settled on the couch with drinks and ready to actually plan a proposal. As the leading expert in being romantic, Tony got to talk first.
“So, do you want a grand night out or a cozy night in? ‘Cause I can totally work with either. I could arrange for fireworks, if you want.”
“No, no I think a cozy night in sounds good.”
Tony sighed disparagingly. “I suppose...if it’s what you want...if it would make you happy...but just know that you’re an incredibly boring person.”
“That’s for sure.” chimed in Val. “I’m sure it’s because of the seven PhDs. Personally, I think you should go to a bar and prove your commitment by outdrinking everyone there. That’s what I used to do. It’s how I won over…” Her smile turned sad, thinking of times, and people, lost. “Well anyway, I am sure that a night in will suffice for Thor! Don’t worry about it, little guy.”
“Yeah, so a night in…” Tony trailed off, thinking of ideas. “Hey do you even have a ring yet?”
“No…”
Tony brightened. “Perfect. I’m honored that you wanted me to go with you when you get the ring, let’s go.”
“Tony, we can’t just go to a ring shop!”
“Why the hell not?”
“We’re Avengers, Tony! It would be all over the news in minutes!”
“Ah, yes. I can already see the headlines. ‘Tony Stark and Friend Go Ring Shopping’”
“Wha-Hey! People know who I am!” Bruce exclaimed. Sure, he wasn’t the most popular person, but sometimes people would recognize him when he was out and about. “Someone came up for an autograph when I was at Walmart last week!”
Tony rolled his eyes. “Okay, bud, let’s get you to the Compound and do some shopping.”
Val and Loki started to move towards the door and Tony frowned. “You guys weren’t invited.”
"Aw c’mon, Tee, that’s Loki’s brother you’re keeping us from!” Val crowed. The only result was Loki kicking her.
Back at the Compound, Tony lead Bruce to a room he had never been in before. “This is the shopping room,” Tony said proudly. He typed a few things into a panel on the wall and jewelry cases appeared around the room. “Projections. So you can feel like you’re walking around a store when you’re really just online shopping. Look, the rings are projected in there, too.”
Bruce walked over to one of the cases and say that, yeah, they were displaying rings. “I found the best ones from over fifty stores,” Tony said proudly. “It took me days.”
“Woah. When did you have time to do this? Tony, I asked for your help this morning.”
Tony visibly paled. “I just thought that you guys might want to get married soon? Yeah! That’s what I thought. So I figured I should put this together for you!”
Bruce was touched. “Gee, Tony that’s really sweet.”
“Yeah. Have a look around. If you see something you like just tell me.” Bruce walked around the room. He pointed out a couple only to have Tony point out their flaws.
“What about this one? I like the way the pieces are intwin-”
“Not that one.” Tony cut him off. “It’s bad.”
“Why is it bad? I really like this one!” Bruce protested.
“You can’t get it, it doesn’t look good.” Bruce sighed and moved on. Tony was doing him a huge favor already and he didn’t want to show his appreciation by arguing. After a few hours, they had found the perfect ring. He was sure that it was better for Thor than the one with the intertwining pieces, even if he still liked it. He’s starting to feel like this could all work out.
Once Bruce had gotten the ring (apparently anything could be sped up if the Avengers were involved) he and Tony had gone back to Loki’s apartment to plan the rest of the proposal. They decided that they would just watch a movie and have an all around low key night. It had been harder to decide what movie to watch. Eventually, they decided on Footloose.
It was the first movie Thor had ever watched, and they had watched it on their first date. Ever since then, Thor would listen to the soundtrack constantly. When they had started the movie, Bruce would ask to braid his hair but they couldn’t plan much further than that. The rest of the night would depend on what Thor’s reaction to the braid. Bruce could only hope it would go well.
“Hey do you want to watch a movie?” he called to Thor from the kitchen.
“Sure, what movie?”
“Footloose?”
“Aww, of course babe. We haven’t seen that one in so long.” Thor said, a far away look in his eyes.
“Can I braid your hair while we watch?” Bruce asked.
Thor smiled. “Yeah. Go ahead.” Bruce sighed in relief. He knew that Thor would never turn him down but he had still been worried.
The movie started and he went to work on the braid. After a while, they ordered pizza. After Bruce had restarted the braid what had to be nearly five times, he finally had it perfect.
“Alright. It’s all done.” Thor cheered and leapt from the couch, running to the bathroom. He always ran to admire the hairstyle as soon as Bruce finished with it. When he saw it in the mirror, he gasped.
“Woah. Um, Bruce it’s beautiful but. Well. do you know what this braid means in Asgard?”
“Yeah, I do,” this was the most nervous Bruce had ever been “and I was hoping that you would marry me?” Too late, he remember to take the ring out of his pocket and kneel.
Thor looked ecstatic. And then he ran away. Bruce was too shocked to to do anything. But Thor was back in a minute, with something in his hand.
“I got you a ring, too! Stark and Loki helped me pick it out! I was going to propose in a few days but I guess you beat me to it.”
Bruce was going to kill Tony for letting them plan proposals at the same time, but that could be a job for tomorrow.
“Is that a yes?” They smiled at each other for a second.
“Yes.”