Chapter Text
‘There are my friends!’ Clint called from the porch of his farmhouse, leaning on a beam just next to the steps. ‘And Stark.’
‘You think you’re offending me, but you’re really not,’ Tony sniffed disdainfully as he looked at his Porsche that was now extremely dusty from the forty mile drive on dirt road. Lowering his sunglasses briefly to examine the damage better, he pushed them back on his nose before leaning back to take in Clint’s home with his usual over-exaggerated movements. ‘The less association I have with you and this disaster you call a house, the better for my reputation.’
‘I wouldn’t worry too much,’ Natasha slung a canvas bag over her shoulder, brushing past the billionaire. ‘The boat on your good reputation has long sailed.’
He waggled his eyebrows at her. ‘Who says I was referring to my good reputation?’
She was tempted to punch him in the shoulder, but Bruce was close by, grabbing his duffel bag out of the trunk of the Porsche, so she decided not to.
Clint saw her self-restraint too. As she jogged up the steps to give him a hug, he whispered in her ear. ‘So, how goes the “Operation: Charm Bruce with My Loving and Gentle Nature” going?’
She pulled back to smile over-sweetly at him. ‘Be grateful it’s in full swing otherwise you’d be finding it a lot harder to breathe right now.’
Clint nodded seriously, gulping. ‘Duly noted.’
The archer’s whole demeanour soon lightened though as soon as Bruce started towards the house. ‘Doc!’ He called warmly, jumping down the steps and wrapped his strong arms around Bruce’s waist, actually lifting the smaller man off the ground.
Bruce laughed out in shock, automatically bringing his arms around Clint’s neck to secure himself better. ‘Nice to see you too, Clint,’ he grinned, not too put out by being man-handled by the archer.
Outside of Tony, Clint was the one most physical with him so the physicist had gotten quite used to it. Besides, it had become a bit of a thing between Clint and Tony that whenever they hugged Bruce they lifted him off the ground. It had started ever since Bruce came back and the smaller guy seemed helpless to do anything but accept it with as much grace as a grown man being lifted with every chance possible could.
Clint grinned back, usually steely grey eyes warm as he set the physicist back on his feet, giving his wild curls a ruffle, which did gain him a shove and furious blush.
‘You really should be used to that by now,’ the archer laughed, causing Bruce to roll his eyes good-naturedly.
‘I’m not three, Clint,’ he retorted. ‘I prefer not to have my hair ruffled like a kid that’s just done well at baseball.’
Clint snorted. ‘I’m ruffling you’re hair like a kid that just won the science fair. There’s a difference.’
Bruce simply smirked at the archer’s sense of humour and shook his head in defeat, rolling his eyes to the air. His gaze landed on Natasha as she stood on the porch watching the interaction and his smile became quite a bit shyer, but no less affectionate.
Natasha returned it with a quirk of her lips, by now, used to the flutter in her chest whenever Bruce looked at her like that. It was no less exhilarating, but just didn’t shock her anymore that her body reacted to him that way.
Natasha remembered clearly how she reacted the day he walked back in the communal lounge room, almost two months since the Sokovia incident. She had been training the second Avengers team to be a secondary back-up to the main crew so the original Avengers had a bit more free time than before. The second team would take those missions that were above the normal person’s pay-grade, but still less than the first Avengers team. It made holidays much more frequent.
She’d just gotten back to the now dubbed Avengers Tower, tossed her bag on the floor and was sitting on the L lounge suite, iced tea in hand when Tony came flying in, a little manic, showing he hadn’t been sleeping again.
He paused when he saw her, chestnut brown eyes actually a lot happier than she’d seen him since Bruce left and a dazzling smile lit up his face, not the false one he used when it was time to smile for cameras.
‘Do you know if we have any green tea left? You know, that blueberry junk that Bruce loves?’
Natasha stiffened at the mention of the physicist’s name. Initially, she used to stiffen from anger. It had become guilt the day Tony came out of his lab and threw a pillow at her head, not more than a week since Bruce disappeared. The damn idiot had caught her off-guard too, hitting her right in the forehead.
‘What the hell, Stark?’ She’d growled, already looking for something to throw back at him.
She had stopped dead in her tracks though when he came right up to her, eyes burning with that fury, which made smart people sit up and watch out. And she was a smart person.
‘You pushed him?’ He hissed and as he got closer, she could see he was actually shaking.
Her mind immediately concluded what he was talking about. ‘He thought he was going to hurt people, that he was a monster,’ she snapped right back. ‘I was proving him wrong.’
Before she could add the ‘And I did’ part to that, Tony got right in her face, showing no fear whatsoever that she could disembowel him on the spot if she wanted to.
Again, brave or insane?
‘You took the choice from him,’ he growled. ‘You had no right.’
She didn’t back down whatsoever, feeling her own gaze burn and she gritted her teeth. ‘This is coming from the man who zapped him the first time you met him? Don’t be a hypocrite, Stark. You’re not one.’
He paused at that. It wasn’t because of her words though. His eyes had become appraising, quickly studying her face, and something shifted in him. The anger dimmed. It was still there, but now, there was something else.
The engineer took a step back and Natasha watched him closely, wondering what he was planning. However, Tony simply slipped his hands in his pockets, regarding her quietly, before talking again, this time, a lot calmer. However, there was a sadness there that immediately had Natasha backing down as well. She and Tony could clash sometimes, but she would never hurt him, physically or emotionally. She cared for him too much to do that.
‘What was the last thing he did as the Hulk, Red?’ He whispered, eyes pained now as he glanced away. ‘In fact, how was the last time he transformed?’
And just like that, Natasha’s world fell from furious and hurt to shattered and guilt-ridden.
Wanda had forced Bruce to change, given him no choice whatsoever in the proceedings. And then … then … oh hell.
Natasha closed her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. Her throat hurt … her chest hurt … her heart hurt.
Then the Hulk had attacked Tony. Tried his hardest to kill him. It was thanks to Bruce and Tony’s intelligence that Tony was alive right now with creating Veronica.
Bruce hadn’t just been scared of hurting people. He’d been terrified of hurting his friends … his family. And she’d just gone and taken that choice away from him. Exactly like Wanda had.
Tony had put together what she hadn’t. At that moment in time, Bruce needed a choice then more than ever. She could have convinced him. She’d just grown impatient, trying to just show him, basically saying, ‘Look! You’re not a monster at all. I’ll show you how you’re not a monster!’
Arms wrapped around her, fingers swiping across her face, getting rid of the tears. When had she started crying? At the moment though, she couldn’t bring herself to care.
She’d just melted into the arms, more tears coming and coming until the shoulder she was literally crying on was damp.
‘I thought …’ she choked. ‘I thought …’
‘I know,’ Tony murmured, somewhere above her. ‘I know what you thought. Only thing saving me from killing you right now.’
She’d clung on to him tighter at that. For a moment, she had been scared. She really couldn’t take Tony turning on her, not now, not after realising she’d scared Bruce, hell, basically scared the Hulk since it was him that initially ran because both he and Bruce feared they were going to be forced into a position to kill the very person that had become Bruce’s family after Rebecca Banner.
Tony hadn’t though. For someone that acted so out of touch with people’s emotions, Tony got it because he had been doing the same thing to Bruce the very first time the scientists met. He tried to force Bruce into seeing how the Hulk wasn’t a monster. However, unlike Natasha, he’d known that after what happened in Johannesburg where the Hulk and Veronica faced off, that wasn’t the approach Bruce needed.
But Tony understood her intentions had never ever been to hurt Bruce. In fact, she’d thought she was doing a good thing, helping him.
So, rather than turning away from each other, Tony and Natasha had probably become even closer. She knew he was in contact with Bruce somehow. There was no way those two would stay out of contact and it was the only way the engineer would know about Bruce being pushed. For those two not to talk for more than a day was an impossibility. However, she respected the privacy of them and was just happy when she saw Tony walking around with a bit more of a spring in his step, showing that a recent conversation with Bruce had gone well.
Still though, whenever the physicist was mentioned, she couldn’t help but be flooded with guilt and a heaviness that made it hard to breathe through.
‘Why?’ She finally managed to breathe out at Tony’s question about the tea.
Tony simply stepped back, waving his hands out to the side like a showgirl on a prize television show. ‘Ta-da!’
Natasha’s chest basically seized up as Bruce stepped around the corner.
He had recently showered, probably on Tony’s insistence, curls combed back to try to resemble order but already, they were springing into his face. They were longer too and he was freshly shaved, showing off his dimples as he gave that slow, beautiful smile when he saw her, though his honeyed brown eyes were inexplicably sad. They even appeared to glint in the overhead light while his fingers fiddled together with such renewed agitation that it hurt her.
‘Natasha,’ he breathed.
And that was all she had to hear. She knew what he meant by that one word. That he was sorry, that he had been scared, terrified, confused, not knowing what to do, but he never wanted to hurt anyone, that’s why he left in the first place. But (and most definitely thanks to probably the numerous conversations and scoldings he would have gotten from Tony) he realised how flawed that thinking was.
She was up and in his arms, tangling her fingers in his hair. He’d stiffened in her hold, but quickly came to, bringing his arms around her painfully carefully.
There was going to be a lot of work to do again. Bruce had been scared, thinking he was a danger to those around him again, so it would be like drawing a skittish cat out, proving over and over again that there was no danger because for a long time, it was going to be running back underneath that table.
But Bruce was here. In her arms, breathing steadily against her, tender hands pressed against her back, cheek leaning slightly on her head, smelling of coconut conditioner, coffee and some grease from probably being hugged by Tony. That was all that mattered.
‘Bruce,’ she murmured back and she knew that he knew what she meant. Because they had grown to know each other after such a long time, knowing what simply tones and words met.
‘All right, all right, enough snuggles there,’ Tony had snarked, causing her to huff out a laugh, pulling back to look into Bruce’s face.
It was him blushing furiously, honeyed eyes shyly flicking up to meet her gentle gaze for no more than a few seconds at a time that made her realise nothing had changed since he’d been away. No one in her life made her feel like Bruce did. He hadn’t been back for more than a few seconds, but already her heart was dancing, all heaviness gone that had been slowly suffocating her for two months.
She knew Bruce would be hesitant to even think of going back to what they were heading towards when he left. He would be more scared now, back to the threat argument of how she shouldn’t be so close to him. And not only that, she had broken his trust. Though it was unintentional and he knew it, she had to build that back up again, no matter how good her intentions were.
She would do it though. By god, she would do it because she knew, then and there, she wasn’t letting him go again.
Tony had interrupted her thoughts then by grabbing Bruce into a huge hug, lifting him off his feet. Bruce laughed, that beautiful husky, dorky lilt, blushing even more. It was obviously not been the first time Tony did this since the physicist came back. Come to think of it, Bruce had probably been back for hours but Tony probably refused to let him out of his arms until thirty minutes ago. Bruce returned the hug just like a real little brother would, slinging his arms around Tony’s neck and burrowing his face in his neck, enjoying the safety he had been missing for far too long.
For the first time in a long time, the skin around Tony’s eyes crinkled.
Natasha had laughed as well, happy for once. Warmth seeped into her body as she watched the two brothers finally reunited, Tony setting Bruce back on his feet, but not letting him go, swaying exaggeratedly from side to side, gaining more laughs from Bruce as the smaller man held on to his adopted big brother so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. And though Bruce was chuckling, there was a slight hitch in his breath, purely overwhelmed by being back. Natasha knew how he felt. She really … really did.
The celebration that night had been epic. Clint flew in from the farm, Steve left the new SHIELD training facility to come back to the Tower, Thor in tow from when he had returned from Asgard last week and Pepper took work off for three days.
For someone that was usually touch averted, Bruce had never looked to enjoy the hugs more, blushing furiously at the playful slaps upside his head, mumbling apologies and explanations, which ended up in numerous scoldings again (mostly from … well, everybody), causing those looking on to have a grin. Pepper even threatened grounding. Bruce was too in shock to even really argue that one. However, thanks to Tony, though the brash engineer would never admit it, the team knew why Bruce had left. Tony, once again using tact that he pretended he didn’t have, didn’t mention Natasha directly, but had more shown how Bruce would have been affected by Wakanda so did what the physicist always did when he thought people he loved were in danger: he ran.
While everyone understood, the team were kind of on high alert to make sure Bruce didn’t get that sort of idea in his head again. Bruce was hardly by himself, but the physicist wasn’t protesting the treatment, watching it all with this look of bemusement on his face that was trying, but failing to hide the pure elation he felt being back with his family. No one really needed to keep an eye on him because he and Tony were practically attached at the hip for the first month he was back. There was no such thing as having a one-on-one conversation with Bruce for a while there. It was completely mutual too. It was endearing as to how much those two had missed each other even though Natasha knew for a fact that Tony had been in contact with Bruce while he was away. Nothing compared to the real thing though.
No wonder as well. Tony had given Bruce a life and love like a real family member that Bruce never thought he would have again. In return, Bruce brought out a softness in Tony. Not to mention a caring side that made Tony happy to be able to be use as well as be needed. Clint had once teased her about the scientists being so close, but she knew he was joking. She would never be able to begrudge the relationship between those two. No matter what happened in life, Tony and Bruce would forever have the most special place in their hearts for each other.
After all, they were brothers.
The creaking of steps brought Natasha back to the present and she was pleasantly surprised to see Bruce had come up to stand next to her on the porch.
He smiled, glancing sideways at her as he shaded his eyes, looking into the surrounding paddocks and trees. ‘Any good clearings out there?’
Tony and Bruce had brought an experiment that Tony insisted needed a lot of room. Natasha had no idea what it consisted of. Tony and … well, no, more Tony had been keeping it hush-hush. It was more to monopolise Bruce than anything. The engineer had been a tad possessive of him since Bruce had come back, which had the rest of the team exchanging knowing grins, In return, Tony was striking out sarcastically, which only caused Clint to say, ‘He’s adorable when he’s angry.’
Needless to say, Clint was Tony’s favourite target in tongue lashing. His words were having no effect on the archer whatsoever, but that didn’t keep Tony from trying to irritate him.
Natasha nodded. ‘Yeah, quite a few. You walk about six miles directly west and there’s a good one there.’
Bruce smiled his thanks and indicated to the farmhouse with his other hand. ‘First order of business?’
She smiled at the way he fell into talking about things in mission language. It had been a thing between him and her for a while now and it did something funny in her chest to realise he still did it.
‘Kids, Laura then shower. Tony’s car scent stinks.’
Bruce snorted. ‘Not a fan of sandalwood?’
‘I’m not a fan of grease from all the times he’s amped it up,’ Natasha retorted with a roll of her eyes.
Bruce outright laughed at that, husky as always, making a tingle zap up her back.
Natasha knew Bruce had been aiming to keep their friendship as that. Friends. However, she knew it wasn’t from lack of wanting on Bruce’s part. She had caught him watching her with an expression she had grown familiar with because she knew it was on her face sometimes when she watched him. A kind of soft, longing look full of lightness and care. She knew she just had to convince him that the minute he let his guard down, nothing bad was going to happen. That he didn’t have to carry all this weight by himself, but that she could help.
So, she was casually trying to get him used to an easy touch. Letting her fingers grace his elbow, she was pleased when he didn’t stiffen at all, but simply looked to where she directed with a tilt of her head.
‘How long do you think it will take for Steve to figure out he’s got child’s lock on his door?’ She asked.
Bruce chuckled, honeyed eyes peering cheekily at her. God, she loved that look on him, that bit of cheek that he was usually too afraid to show, but made him just look handsome and adorable.
Clint overheard from where he had been making his way over to Tony, who was condescendingly flicking bits of dust off his jacket just to try to get a rise out of the owner of the property.
‘You put the child lock on?’ He asked, glancing at Tony with raised eyebrows.
Tony raised one eyebrow back from behind his sunglasses. ‘He kept on threatening to jump out if I kept on driving that fast. Since that wasn’t going to change anytime soon, I just put his child lock on at the next pit stop.’ He blinked up, tilting his head contemplatively. ‘Who knew Porsche incorporated those into their makes?’
‘I’m pretty sure he was joking, Tones,’ Bruce called out with a grin.
Tony shrugged easily, hands going back in his pockets as he did a twirl on his heels, taking in anything and everything. ‘Hey, he jumps out of planes without parachutes. How am I supposed to know what’s a joke and what’s serious?’
Clint made a ‘Fair enough’ expression before his eyes glinted wickedly. ‘Come on, Stark,’ he said, holding his arms out wide. ‘Bring it in here.’
Even from behind his sunglasses, Tony looked downright horrified. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me?’
‘Oh, come on, we haven’t seen each other in like, a month,’ Clint put a deliberate whine in his voice and began to move towards Tony. ‘I know you’ve missed me. You know you have.’
Tony immediately backed up, oblivious that Clint was backing him against the car. ‘No! Just no! Wait for Rogers to figure out how to get out of the damn car. He loves hugs and all that mushy, camaraderie stuff. Hug him, not me!’
‘Sounds like something you’d get written on a t-shirt,’ Clint grinned.
Tony opened his mouth to retort, but Clint didn’t give him a chance as he lunged.
It turned out Tony was faster than what Natasha thought. And spry. He leaped and slid over the bonnet like it was nothing, which was something, considering he was laid down with a ridiculously expensive red scarf, heavy leather jacket and form-fitting jeans. While the ensemble would look ridiculous on most people, Natasha begrudgingly had to admit, at least to herself, Tony pulled it off.
Though, at the moment, he did look quite comedic dashing around the Porsche, arms pumping in a crazy flail, looking wildly over his shoulder, shouting obscenities at Clint whenever the archer almost snagged him.
The inevitable finally happened. Clint was a trained SHIELD agent after all and had made a living out of being able to catch up to people. He caught Tony around the waist, causing the engineer to screech like someone had clipped him with a brand iron, before the archer swung him up into a huge hug.
‘Damn it all to hell, Barton!’ Tony yelled, hitting at the fingers linked around his waist, twisting madly, but never once did he go for a move that would hurt Clint, even though they all knew that he could.
Clint particularly enjoyed that fact. He smiled brightly, looking absolutely devilishly delighted. ‘Aw, Stark, you do love me!’
‘How the hell do you draw that conclusion, bird brain? Oh, wait, that’s right, your brains scrambled.’
‘Fight it all you want. We all know how you feel about me. Just try to tone it down in front of Laura, all right?’
‘Please, if I swung that way, I’d pick up someone like George Clooney. Or Jensen Ackles.’ Tony paused in his mad struggle to get free, glancing questioningly over his shoulder at Clint. ‘I’m not sure if I made the point I was trying to make there.’
Clint nodded along with his reasoning like he wasn’t clutching his friend like a teddy bear and they were just having a casual conversation. ‘Probably not, no.’
At that moment, Steve finally got out of the car, having managed to climb into the front seats and exit there. He rolled his eyes, watching Tony and Clint before looking over at Natasha and Bruce.
‘They’ve wasted no time in starting up, have they?’
Bruce was too busy leaning against the porch beam, laughing, to be able to reply.
Natasha simply shrugged, lips quirking. ‘You seriously expected something more.’
Steve smirked back at her. After the whole Winter Soldier ordeal, they had gotten close. The captain was now well acquainted with her sarcasm while she learned that Steve certainly knew how to snark back and she could also make him blush when she so desired, no matter how much he tried to act like he had it all under control. She knew he wanted to get back at her somehow for the numerous times she made him go red (and the amount of disaster dates she’d set him up on. She could still dissolve into chuckles over some of them), but he was yet to find her weakness.
Steve leaped up on to the porch in one jump, leaving Tony to try to disentangle himself from Clint, who wasn’t making it an easy task.
‘Looking forward to the couple of months off?’ Steve asked, glancing around with a bright-eyed expression, conveying his own excitement at having some time out.
Natasha glanced discreetly over at Bruce.
The physicist was oblivious to her studying gaze, honeyed eyes watching his adopted brother lovingly as the engineer managed to wrestle himself away from Clint. Though Tony was trying to look scandalised, Natasha knew his eyes would have that twinkle in them that let everyone know he was actually having a good time. Bruce did too, that was why he looked so happy at the moment and completely relaxed.
It was the perfect environment for maybe … just maybe … for Natasha and Bruce to become a little bit more than friends.
She smiled softly back at Steve. ‘You have no idea,’ she said, hope seeping into her tone. It was a sensation that had been brought back when Bruce came home and she wasn’t planning on letting it go anytime soon.