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Bruce had noticed, of course, the small signs - Laura had stopped bringing out wine with dinner quite so often, stopped drinking almost altogether, and wine was in her blood, it was part of how she did things. Her parents' vineyard might have been sold when they'd died, but part of her always lived there, always respected and paid tribute to the grapes they'd grown and the labor that went into wine. Cooper's name was even a nod to that. So it meant something.
So did the number of times she relied on toast for breakfast, where oatmeal or eggs or yogurt and fruit usually factored more heavily. Bruce would have worried, but the way she smiled when he asked if she was okay led him to suspect that they both knew what it was.
It was mid-December when Laura mentioned, over tea after the kids had gone to bed, that she was probably pregnant. Natasha was just back from a mission, or she'd have said something before. Natasha beamed, and Bruce just barely caught a glimpse of the tiny sliver of bitter jealousy behind her eyes.
Bruce ached for her, and for himself. The joy in Laura's face and in Clint's movements as the couple shared the news could never quite be theirs.
The conversation moved on, plans and babbled excitement. The first thing that Bruce really heard of it was Laura saying, "I was thinking we could name the baby Robin."
"Has it come down to bird puns?" Clint asked, amusement stretching his face, but Bruce just smiled small and quiet and Laura and Nat shared a significant glance. Clint looked around at them. "What?"
Laura shook her head, then she raised her eyebrows at Clint, smiling that knowing smile of hers. "Do you realize the only one in this room who we haven't paid tribute to in one of our kids' names is Dr. Robert Bruce Banner here, and I can't think of a good way to make a variation on Bruce."
(That might have had something to do with the fact that Lila's middle name was already Bernadette, after someone else Clint didn't talk about very often.)
Clint's face lit up with discovery, and then he grinned, bouncing over to kiss Laura, then planted one on Bruce, flopping down beside him. "How about it?" he asked the physicist. "You want our littlest baby bird to be your namesake?"
Bruce was smiling wider now, but hiding it, ducking his head. Clint leaned down to try and catch his eye, and his smile fell a bit when he saw the wetness in Bruce's eyes.
"Hey," Clint said, so gently. "Hey, hey. Bruce. You okay?"
"It's too much," Bruce said.
"No," said Clint immediately, throwing an arm across Bruce's shoulders and pulling him in a bit. "You're one of us. You're family, like Nat. We want to."
Bruce knew it shouldn't have felt so big, but it was the last straw. "This isn't mine. This can't be mine." Bruce's words were getting a bit unsteady now. He bit his lip, looking at Clint out of the corner of his eye. "I keep feeling like I'm taking something away from you, like I'm taking your place, and I have no right to it. Clint... these are your kids. This is your family. You're both acting like I'm an equal here, I'm one of their parents, and even if that's something I want...." Bruce swallowed loudly. "I know it's something I can't really have. But it's hard to remember that when you keep... handing parts of it to me."
Beside him, arm still around him, Clint made a hurt noise. "Bruce...." he said. But whatever else he wanted to say got stuck in his throat, and he looked to Laura, pleading with his eyes.
Laura came over and settled herself on the coffee table, her knees just brushing Bruce's. "You know," she said, "I was worried, when Nate was just starting to kick, because he felt like another rambunctious little Barton, and I didn't know if I could handle three of those, being here by myself most of the time. I was afraid of being outnumbered." She smiled at him, taking his large hands into her delicate smaller ones. "Clint and Natasha are wonderful, and I love them, with all my heart, and the kids love them. They're important to this family. But they're... they've got this drive to be out there where the action is, helping to make the world a better place the best way they know how. I love that about them. But having someone here, someone else who spends their days taking care of the farm and being here for the kids... I don't feel outnumbered anymore. And I want you to realize that you are a huge part of this, Bruce. I wouldn't want to do this without you."
Bruce was shaking, now, the Hulk shifting just slightly under his skin, more confused and concerned than anything else, but it still scared Bruce, still intensified the feeling that he shouldn't be here, shouldn't be trusted with all this.
"You need me to put a ring on it, Brucey?" Clint asked, and a startled bark of laughter escaped Bruce, but Clint wasn't laughing. The archer continued, tone growing more insistent. "You wanna know you're equal here? Because you are, an' I don't know how else to show it."
Bruce's eyes widened, and he looked at them, and then at Natasha.
"Don't look at me," she said. "I'm not going to play jealous to help you beat yourself up for wanting something you think you don't deserve. You're good, Bruce. There are a lot of people who love you. And it was wrong of me to think that the two of us could work by ourselves, out there, with no one else. I get that now." She glanced down and to one side. "You're important to this mess of Bartons. Accepting that isn't going to make you less important to me."
Laura sighed slightly. "Natasha..." she said. "Our offer to you still stands too, okay?" She held out a hand in Nat's direction. "We're all equals here."
That was when the tears finally escaped Bruce's eyes to roll down his cheeks, when he saw the denial, the fear, the longing in Natasha's eyes. It was no wonder that they'd gravitated towards each other, and no wonder that they'd collided in a spectacularly destructive event, like two moons in unstable orbits around each other.
Perhaps they were always meant to come to ground here, to be part of something larger, something more stable.
"Marry us, Natasha," Laura said, and Clint said, "Marry us, Bruce."
Bruce looked at Natasha, and she looked back at him, and somewhere in that look, they both decided that holding themselves separate was no long-term solution, but that they needed more than each other - they needed this.
Bruce gave a soft sigh, and he leaned towards her slightly, and she came closer, going to her knees so that she could kiss him. Slow and deep, but gentle. Full of wonder and peace that they could never quite manage on their own.
"Yes," he whispered into her lips.
One of his hands was still cradled in Laura's, and Clint's solid hand rested on the back of his neck, one thumb stroking through his hair. Natasha's fingers brushed feather-light against the side of his neck and Clint's hand, as if afraid to break whatever had just been freshly formed.
"Yes," she agreed, barely breathing as she waited for whatever came next.
"Good," Laura said, with a great rush of relief. "Then we're all in this together."
"I have the best family," Clint crowed, wrapping them all in strong arms and raining kisses down on their faces until they couldn't help but laugh at him, laugh with joy.
A few months later, there were four proud, anxious parents present as Robin Antonia Barton came screaming into the world.
It wasn't a perfect world, but between the whole flock of them, the little bird was getting a pretty good start.