Work Text:
Purple.
Very purple.
Purple everywhere.
Light purple, dark purple, medium purple, bluey purple, reddy purple, all the purple under the sun.
Bruce needed to clear out his yarn collection.
At least it hadn't been ransacked when the army took possession of all his old stuff. He wasn't quite sure how (or why) Nick Fury had taken it upon herself to deliver it all back to him, but considering he never did get paid and Natasha said Fury and Ross didn't get on, that was probably the reason.
But he still had three rather full boxes of yarn. He wasn't entirely sure where it had all come from, it probably just accumulated over the years and he never did get round to knitting Betty that cardigan so that must be in there somewhere.
Having more yarn than clothes was probably a bad thing, but at least he could knit some socks to make up for there not being any. That would take a couple of weeks at least. But first, he had to sort through all this purple.
(Some of this was not here before, this might have been Fury's idea of a joke. Bruce wondered if he could somehow knit him a purple lightsaber to make up for it, he couldn't deny the resemblance.)
"Right," he said, picking up the first ball. "You're not long enough to do anything with except maybe make a square, I should get rid of you." He put it in a box, scribbling the word Bin, then paused. "On the other hand, I could not get rid of you. But what use do I have for you?"
Bruce put another small ball of purple in with the first.
And then a second.
And a third.
That really was quite a lot of purple.
"Oh, I know."
Bruce crossed out the word bin and replaced it with a new word.
Blanket.
"Let me get this straight. You threatened a terrorist."
"Yes. A bit. I think I should tell you the whole story. There was this elevator in Switzerland…"
Bruce drifted.
"You're not much help, Bruce."
"I told you, I'm not a therapist. I'm a nuclear physicist, I don't have any medical training. I did a bit once, but I'm not an MD and I'm defiantly not a therapist."
"But you've got the whole Hulk shebang going on."
"You want to know how I stay calm? Tony, anxiety is nothing like the Hulk."
"How do you know?"
"Because I have different problems. Go to an actual therapist."
"But I don't want to go to an actual therapist."
"Then I can't help."
"Fine. Do you have new socks?"
"Yes."
"They're very purple."
"Everything is going to be very purple for quite a while."
So it turns out you could kind of knit a purple lightsaber. Who knew? It ended up being a long bit Bruce managed to knit in the round then stuffed with a short grey bit he sewed on, but it worked. Natasha delivered it for him. She laughed. Apparently Fury had a growing collection. Most were from Clint.
It wouldn't have been entirely truthful for Bruce to say he was surprised.
Hearing Maria Hill and Phil Coulson were the two other biggest culprits though, maybe slightly.
Bruce started on his blanket after that. A nice few months of uninterrupted peace. Just what he needed.
Then the news started going on about Thor and London and aliens, but by the time they got there, it would have been too late.
Bruce's blanket was probably big enough to cover him now, but it was always nice to have a bit more, so he kept going.
Then some stuff appeared on the news about Steve and Natasha being wanted fugitives and SHIELD going down the drain, so Bruce got ready to suit up before Clint Barton appeared on the doorstep of Stark Tower and told him to stay put because HYDRA were everywhere and Nat had a plan.
Bruce carried on knitting. At least it took his mind off all the stuff that was going on.
It took another three months before everyone else moved into the tower too. Steve brought his new friend, Sam Wilson, but he didn't move in, he still had a job up in Washington.
Bruce's blanket was rather large now. But at least he'd got rid of all the scraps of purple. Most of the yarn actually, he'd gone through almost two boxes.
Once this was done, he'd have to get some more, oh what a shame.
Maybe some colours other than purple this time. Maybe.
It took a grand total of four hours for Tony to convince everyone film nights would be a good idea.
They ruled out science fiction after one film where Tony corrected half of it and Bruce had to try and stop himself laughing.
There was a Viking film Clint found that he thought Thor might like. Turns out Thor had actually been at the event and it was possibly the worst historical adaptation ever.
They were going to watch a war film, but then decided that would probably be a bad idea. Bucky and Tony found one of Steve's old ones though, they had a riot with that one. Steve in tights and short shorts. Needless to say, they didn't try those ones again. Steve made sure of it.
You couldn't go wrong with a spy movie, Tony declared. Turns out you could when you were sitting next to two.
Clint put his foot down when the word circus was mentioned.
"Oh for crying out loud," Nat said on their next attempt. "Someone find a comedy. It's not supposed to be taken seriously, so you two can laugh at pseudoscience, there's non historical ones, and any spies are supposed to be bumbling idiots."
"That's actually a good idea," Sam said.
"Comedy, Nat? Are you sure this isn't just your secret love?" Clint asked.
"We all know you have a soft spot for Disney, Clint, keep dreaming."
"We need a blanket or something," Tony said. "A big nest of blankets."
"I'll be back in a sec," Bruce said. He brought the needles, only a few more rows. The blanket almost covered everyone. Maybe he'd knit a bit more then.
"This is very purple," Steve said.
"I had a lot of purple. I think people were adding to it."
"That was Fury, not me," Clint said. "I had nothing to do with it, I just said it looked like you liked purple and why wouldn't you? Purple's great."
"You would say that, wouldn't you, Boy Wonder Shot," Natasha said.
"I regret ever telling you that."
"Found one," Tony said. "Any complaints? No? Off we go."
They finally managed to watch a film the whole way through. Bruce managed to finish his last section during the film, everyone else curled up underneath it.
A blanket hadn't been such a bad idea after all.
And he did like purple.