Work Text:
The front door rattled in its frame as Bruce closed it behind his back with a sigh, immediately leaning against it as if he had just come home from a 20 hours shift at a mine instead of a six-hours one at a relatively tranquil university.
He unceremoniously discarded his satchel and jacket to the side, and tiredly smiled when he heard his boyfriend hum an unfamiliar but catchy tune as he prepared dinner for both of them.
“Good evening, love,” said Thor’s cheerful voice from the kitchen. From the constant clatter than came from it sounded like he was beating eggs, probably for a tortilla, “How was your day?”
To be fair, the day would’ve been completely fine, if it wasn’t for his friends, considered Bruce as he leaned his head back and closed his eyes for a second. He was pretty damn lucky for having his closest friends as colleagues, but it sometimes became too much for him. Especially if they all decided to conspire against him because none of them actually believed that his boyfriend existed.
Not wanting to bother Thor with his silly problems- it was their movie night after all, and he had been excited to have Bruce over at his apartment all day long, he had a whole thread of mostly incoherent text messages to prove it- he cleared his throat and tried to go with an unconvincingly cheerful, “It was okay"
His tone seemed fake even to his own ears and his boyfriend seemed to think the same because the clattering abruptly stopped, and a moment after that Thor’s head peeked from around the corner like a curious but concerned meerkat. He took in his boyfriend’s appearance for all but one second before setting the bowl on the nearest flat surface and marching across the room towards him with a soft kind of determination. Once he was a foot away from him he stopped and tilted his head to the side, which made Bruce smile softly.
He was wearing sweatpants and an oversized shirt, and he looked so soft Bruce almost cried at the sight.
“Is it a mental or a physical foe we’re dealing with here?” he asked without preambles, his hoarse baritone voice quiet but so dead serious that it warmed his boyfriend’s heart. Bruce expected him to envelop him in one of his tight bear hugs, but instead, he just stood in front of him with an open expression, waiting for him to make the first move.
By now, he was used to dealing with a sad or melancholic Bruce too often for either of their likes, so he knew perfectly well how to console him. It had taken just one bad episode of sensory overload for him to decide to keep his mother hen instincts at bay and let his boyfriend seek the comfort he needed.
Bruce sighed and leaned his head forward until it hit Thor’s stomach, his glasses slipping along his ears but stopping an inch shy of falling to the ground, making the carpeted floor blurry and unfocused.
“Neither, it’s just that my friends are being asshats,” he mumbled tiredly. He was aware that he sounded utterly pathetic, and that he was acting like someone had died- worrying his caring boyfriend as a consequence- when all that was bothering him were Tony and the others teasing him for his alleged fake boyfriend, but the moment Thor started running his hands through his curly greying hair he sighed, shame melting in favour of contentment.
“They still think you made me up to get out of unwanted situations?” he asked with a smirk in his voice, his rumbling voice washing over Bruce in calming waves.
Bruce nodded, which made his glasses completely slip from his nose, but Thor was quick to catch them.
“It’s just, so annoying,” he whined, “And kind of offensive, too. Is it really that improbable for me to have a boyfriend?”
“Quite the opposite, actually,” was Thor’s cheerful answer. A callous finger poked at his chin until Bruce took the hint and lifted his head. Bright blue eyes- a shade darker than they were a second before- came into focus as his boyfriend gently slipped his glasses back on, “It is very probable. Too probable, if you ask me. Remember that science convention we met at? Everyone was all over you, it was girlfriends and boyfriends and whatnot-friends everywhere”
“It was a science convention, Thor. It’s normal for scientists to be 'all over each other' there,” he replied with a smile. Neither of them was the jealous type (Bruce was more of a self-loathing type, feeling like he was not enough for his boyfriend, until said man pulled him out of that state and reminded him just how much he was worth), but it was a recurring joke for them to act jealous to make the other laugh. Thor had once thrown a fake tantrum at him in the middle of a supermarket for not wishing him a happy three-months-and-a-quarter anniversary, and Bruce had laughed so much he had tripped over the watermelon stand.
“Right, you’re the most renowned scientist of this generation,” he replied matter-of-factly, and before Bruce could interfere- he had seven PhDs, but that was an exaggeration- he started unfastening his tie, slowly but deliberately, without taking his eyes off his boyfriend's, “My most renowned scientist of his generation”
Bruce didn’t need to feel the tips of his ears warming to know that he was blushing, Thor’s cheeky smile was enough of a proof of it. His boyfriend slipped his tie off and threw it somewhere behind his shoulders with the same dexterity of a magician performing a trick, but he was too distracted by the sudden but familiar flutter in his stomach to notice. He should have that checked, it was starting to happen too often.
With the tie off, Thor moved to undo the first two buttons of his work shirt, and once he was done he made a soft sound of triumph. It was entirely too cute.
If Bruce hadn’t been blushing before he certainly was now that his boyfriend leaned down and loudly kissed his now exposed skin- 'loudly' as in that he made an actual, unequivocal kissy noise. Bruce couldn’t help but giggle at that as his boyfriend trailed a path of equally loud kisses all over his neck and jaw- and his beard wasn’t helping either, tickling rather than scratching him.
God, he loved this idiot.
By the time Thor leaned back, both hands on either side of his boyfriend’s face, Bruce was positively beaming, the stress of the day already forgotten under his lover’s affection.
“If your stories about them are anything to go by,” he said as he gazed at Bruce like he was a particularly stunning landscape, rather than a tired middle-aged professor that doesn’t get enough sleep at night, “I’m going to love your friends when you introduce me to them, but if they make you stressed like this again I’m going to kick their asses”
Bruce laughed, more at the unexpected use of the word ‘ass’ rather than Thor’s actual threat, and his boyfriend chose the occasion to lean down and kiss him. It was ridiculous at first- they were both smiling too hard like the in-love idiots they were for it to be actually considered kissing- but Bruce soon melted against his boyfriend, knees going embarrassingly weak under him as a soft, content sigh escaped his nose.
Thor took the opportunity to lean down and grab his boyfriend from behind his legs and Bruce found himself off the ground with a surprised yelp. He instinctively grabbed the nearest thing he could find for balance, and it happened to be Thor’s short hair and part of his face, which caused an amused groan from him.
“I’m not going to drop you, you moron,” he laughed, stumbling towards the couch with an unsteady pace that suggested the opposite. He did end up almost dropping him, then, but he made it look like it had been his plan all along by laying his boyfriend down on the couch and immediately following. The force with which he fell on top of him made Bruce wheeze and didn’t fool him in the slightest, but any complaints he might have had about the situation died on his lips the second Thor leaned down to kiss him again, more openly this time, both muscular arms on either side of his boyfriend.
Whatever had been bothering Bruce before, or the fact that neither of them had eaten yet, was completely forgotten- hell, he even forgot his own name, why did he even have a job? To hell with that, they should do this and only this 24/7- so the pathetic whine that escaped him when Thor pulled back was more than justified.
His boyfriend giggled at the sound, and giggled even more when Bruce tried to lean up to chase his mouth, “Should I come to pick you up myself some day next week?”
Bruce blinked a couple of times, the question gaining no more sense than before with each passing second, “Uh?”
Thor smirked, probably amused to have made someone so smart so incoherent so quickly, “Should I come to pick you up at work at some point next week? You know, to prove to your friends that I am a real tangible human male”
The dots seemed to connect in Bruce’s brain because he immediately lightened up, “Oh, yes!” he instinctively tried to sit up, and avoided banging his forehead against Thor’s by pure miracle, before laying down again, “I actually meant to ask you if you could do that, it would definitely make them shut up about this whole nonsense for good”
“Alright, that’s settled then,” Thor nodded, then asked, in total seriousness, “Should I wear my slutty tank top?”
Bruce almost had a stroke right there and then.
“Your what?!”
His boyfriend laughed loudly, which meant he was probably sporting a comically shocked expression, “That one tank top that is a size too big for me. I picked up Loki once while wearing it and that’s how he called it”
“Oh,” the gears spun around in Bruce’s head for a second, all it took for him to remember the ridiculously large top that made his equally ridiculous swell muscles show more than common decency would ask for, the one that his boyfriend loved to wear when he wanted to make an impression on him, “Oh! Yes, please, do wear that. They will probably die on the spot if you do, and so will I, for the record”
Thor rolled his eyes in annoyance, but he could tell he was only pretending, “You only love me for my body”
“And your amazing cooking skills,” added Bruce, trying to keep the teasing going even as his boyfriend’s hands started to wander along his chest in a quite distracting manner, “Speaking of which, shouldn’t we eat something?”
Thor winked at him, a gesture that was probably meant to be sexy but that turned endearing when mixed with the smitten expression on his face, and his hands started undoing even more of his boyfriend’s shirt buttons, “All in due time, love”
Feeling so in love that he might explode, Bruce leaned up to kiss Thor’s scar across his face- adoring the way he softly held his breath in anticipation- before letting himself melt into the couch and let his boyfriend take care of him.
Tony was so going to eat his shirt.