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None of the Avengers keep decent hours, but Bucky and Bruce keep running into each other at the oddest ones. At first, they just nod and go about their business, separately snacking on opposite ends of the kitchen and both watching the lights of midtown shine through the windows. Bruce wonders, at first, if he should say something, but he stays quiet until one night when Bucky looks particularly haunted (and Bruce, deep down, feels precisely the same), and Bruce realizes that of anyone on the team, they are each the most likely to understand the other.
“The Cubs are never going to take it,” Bruce says over the edge of the day-old newspaper Steve’s left lying around.
“Least they’re not the Indians,” Bucky replies, and they grin at each other. The grin leads to a conversation about batting averages and the best center fielders. That conversation leads to a running, two-dollar bet on who’s going to win any particular game on a Saturday and both break pretty much even.
A few months later, at another strange hour of the night (that hour as the stars are starting to dim out for the sunrise but aren’t quite gone just yet), Bruce walks into the kitchen to find Bucky reading, and suddenly they’re talking books.
“I like Ed McBain,” Bucky tells Bruce. “It reminds me of the pulps Steve and I used to sneak.”
“I like Chabon. His sentences are calming.”
They exchange books, passing them back and forth in the daytime hours, and then slowly meandering into one another’s space. Bruce leaves a string of Pulitzer Prize winners on Bucky’s nightstand; Bucky drops off his well-worn collection of Spillane followed by a stack of classics. Frankenstein and Dracula and the Island of Doctor Moreau. Bruce begins to wonder if they’re code for something, and then Bucky leaves him Jane Eyre, and he’s certain there’s a point. Certain that Bucky, too, has realized that they can understand each other.
“We’re men as much as monsters,” Bucky tells him one excessively early morning (the sky just slightly gray on the edge, pure black above that for another hour at least). “I’m made up of spare parts and questionable memories, and you trap the Hulk in the attic in your head.”
Bruce isn’t insulted at the comparison. It’s Bucky’s tone, soft and matter-of-fact, acknowledging their shared twitchiness in their own skin in a way that doesn’t feel overly kind or forced like it does sometimes when the others try to talk about it. They more than understand each other, he realizes. They’re friends.
“We should see a game,” he says. “The Mets are playing.”
“Fuck the Mets,” Bucky replies. “Dodgers or nothing.”
They smile at each other, and two days later, they’re at the ballpark, courtesy a private jet from Tony in that over-affectionate way he has for being kind to his friends that Bruce is only just starting to really trust. Bucky wears a silicone skin over his arm, and Bruce buys them both brand new hats. They break in the brims over nine innings, yelling insults to the other team and slopping beer on their shoes. When they get back late in the evening, sunburned and laughing, Steve looks so pleased Bruce feels awkward for the first time all day.
“It’s good to see you happy,” Steve tells Bucky. “You, too,” he says to Bruce, and it doesn’t sound like an afterthought, just the truth.
“So, you’d make a move during the seventh inning stretch?” Tony asks as he walks by.
“Or is that second date territory?”
Bruce and Bucky look at each other, then away, a matching uncomfortable feeling building between them. They avoid each other for a few days, and then comes a 3:17 a.m. like they haven’t had in a while, and they run into each other in the kitchen again.
“I like you,” Bruce says before Bucky can back away at the sight of him. “And we get each other. I’m happy to be your friend, but I think…” he falters for a moment, can’t believe he’s about to say it out loud. “I think we’d be good together.”
“I don’t…” Bucky shakes his head and turns away. “I don’t know myself half the time,” he says. “I’m not just me.”
“I know,” Bruce tells him, and even though he knows Bucky understands, he’s not surprised when Bucky turns away and walks off. Bruce spent a lot of time trying to walk away from the worst part of himself; he can’t begrudge Bucky making the same effort.
A week goes by with silent, middle-of-the-night meetings, and then disaster hits midtown as it always does, and halfway through the battle, Hulk out in full force but Bruce still vaguely aware in his head, Bucky yelps on comms and there’s the sound of a building collapsing, of Steve’s quickly indrawn breath, of everyone else absolutely silent.
Hulk takes over completely, and the next thing Bruce knows, he’s waking up in S.H.I.E.L.D. medical, everything aching, and Bucky by his bed, the cool fingers on his bionic hand just barely touching his own on the sheet.
“You saved me,” Bucky says. “Pulled a whole damn building off of me.”
Bruce isn’t sure what to say, but he tries to smile. Bucky reaches up and touches his hair, and Bruce can see his hand shaking.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Bucky says. “I still don’t know who I am half the time, but you…I think we might be good for each other.”
Bruce coughs twice before he can answer. “Yeah,” he grates out, shifting his hand to wrap it around Bucky’s, tracing the seam of Bucky’s metal knuckle with one finger. “I think we might.”