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Tony strolled into the common room, arms open wide. “Thank god it’s Friday!”
There were groans all around the table.
“Tony, shut the fuck up,” Bruce said.
“Wow, it took you—what, two months to snap? I’m honestly surprised none of you have tried to maim me earlier.”
“I don’t know, it just hasn’t lost its appeal to me yet,” Clint said, drawing a card. He frowned at it.
“Stark, I haven’t been listening to a word you’ve said since Thursday,” Natasha intoned.
“Oh, ha ha, I get the joke. Because it’s Friday. And it’s been Friday for seventy-two fucking days now.” Throwing up his hands, Tony said, more than exasperated, “How am I the only one who still gives a shit about trying to fix this?”
Steve sighed, and fixed him with a disapproving stare. “Tony, you heard what Thor said. Amora’s curse has to run its course—one hundred days and this’ll be over.”
“Oh, come on. That’s bull. How can you guys be so complacent?”
Inwardly, Bruce agreed. For the first few days, he worked with Tony to find ways to break the time loop the six of them were stuck in. But when Thor came back from Asgard and dropped that bombshell, Bruce figured he’d...relax a bit. Thankfully, no one outside the six of them had been affected, so people had been going about their lives same as usual.
But Bruce was getting a bit crazy cooped up in the Tower. The second Friday, Tony had convinced them to watch Groundhog Day. The third, it was Edge of Tomorrow. They ran out of appropriately themed movies on the fourth.
Bruce’s eyebrows wrinkled at the hand he drew, which was a whole lot of nothing. “Fold.”
“Come now, Banner. Is that all you have got?” Bruce hated that Clint had ever taught Thor to trash talk.
Bruce sighed, thinking he was done for the day. And it was only 10:52am, a quick glance at the clock informed him.
“I’m going for a walk, you guys. I need some fresh air.”
Tony, surprisingly, gave him a calculated look.
He broke the moment with his next statement. “Let me join you, Bruciekins. We can go to T.G.I. Friday’s. There are a bunch throughout the city, take your pick.”
Bruce rubbed his temples. They grabbed their coats and left.
If he had been completely honest, Tony had been getting on Bruce’s nerves these past couple of weeks. Tony could be composed at the best of times, and for a while he was earnest about fixing things. Tony was an engineer; if things stopped running smoothly, you could bet your ass he’d make things right. But lately, he had been doing everything in his power to rile everyone up and be as obnoxious as possible.
He seemed to take the most pleasure in annoying Bruce who was, as always, cool as a cucumber. Bruce wasn’t afraid of the other guy coming out, in fact he hadn’t Hulked out on any of the days prior.
Now, they walked through one of the smaller parks near the tower. Tony had been singing “I’m Henry the eighth I am, Henry the eighth I am, I am…” for the past ten blocks and Bruce was done.
“Tony.”
“I got married to the widow next door, she’s been married seven times before …”
“Tony. Enough already!”
“And everyone was an Henry—oof!”
Bruce was breathing heavily.
“Did you just—did you just shove me?”
“Tony, I put up with a lot of your shit. But everyone’s on edge and I can’t believe you’re trying to get me to Hulk out right now.”
“You think…that I’m trying to get you to Hulk out?”
“What the fuck else have you been doing the past twenty days?!”
And then Tony started laughing.
Bruce wanted to punch him in the face, but then he realized that Tony didn’t sound amused at all.
“Bruce. I—” he started. “Look, shit, I’m sorry. I’ve been a dick. But I wasn’t trying to get you to Hulk out. I’ve just been…”
“...been what?” Bruce looked at him warily.
“I don’t know.” Tony said, laugh dying down to a mirthful chuckle. “Bitter, I guess.”
“About all this? Oh, Tony.” Bruce looked at him with sympathy. “I know things are a bit—boring right now, but—”
“Boring? Bruce, it was a relief to get a vacation for the first few days, but I’ve been itching to do something, anything productive. But that isn’t why I’ve been—you know.”
“Then why have you been such a dick to me?”
Tony looked at him with bright eyes that made Bruce want to turn away. “Look, I’m a pretty tough guy, I’d like to think. But when you act like nothing happened it actually fucking hurt, okay?”
Bruce felt like he was missing something.
“What.”
“Like, it might have been a fling or whatever with you, but I don’t do that anymore. Not since Pepper.”
“What.”
Tony—paused. He caught onto things pretty quickly, after all. As it dawned on him, his eyes widened and he looked horrified. “Fuck, Bruce, you don’t remember?”
Now Bruce was alarmed. “Remember what?”
“We, that time—with the party. I...kissed you, and you kissed me back.”
Oh, Bruce remembered the party. Until, well, a certain point. Then he was sure he got pretty shitfaced.
“Oh shit.”
Tony looked very small in that moment.
“Yeah.”
“Tony, I’m so sorry—”
“Yeah, no, I get it. Heat of the moment. Didn’t mean anything, I’ll forget it ever happened—”
Bruce covered Tony’s mouth with his and swallowed his words. He licked into his mouth and proceeded to apologize for all the time they had wasted.
“Oh.” Tony said, when they had finally broken away.
“Yeah.” Bruce was blushing, but he forced himself to maintain his gaze.
Tony looked thoughtful, in that moment. He seemed so far away.
Bruce let out a tiny smile. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking about all the hickeys I’m going to give you later, and wondering if there’s a way I can make them show up tomorrow.”
“Tony!” Bruce laughed, not even pretending to be anything less than delighted.
They walked home, hand in hand, and both were grateful for the thirty days they had to explore this new found love of theirs.