1. Never the Same

Bruce admired how cool Natasha played it when he first met her. She was like ice right up to the moment he called her out and he finally saw what she had locked away. Her brain was flooded with primal terror at the very thought that the Other Guy might show up, and Bruce talked her down from shooting him but for a moment he wasn’t sure she would pull out of her fear.

Bruce was used to it, by then.

He found out later that she was a highly regarded agent, by all reports a ruthless and unflappable assassin, but Bruce had learned that none of that mattered—would ever matter—when someone was faced with staring down the Other Guy. People steered clear of him, if they knew who (what) he was, and he did not blame them for that. He tried to steer clear of them first.

Bruce’s mother had been affectionate, but she died when he was young and from that point on, Bruce did not expect people to touch him unless they were in his bed. Being the man who became “the Hulk” only added a new element to what had been his life all along, taking away the one release (sex) he had relied on because he couldn’t risk anything that elevated his testosterone levels. It was (he was) too dangerous.

The irony was that after he went on the run, he became far better at touching other people. Working as a medical doctor in poverty stricken areas of the world forced him to touch people more often and more intimately than he had explored some lovers in college. Everyone around him, though, learned quickly that the doctor in their midst did not like being touched. He always made that clear from the start.

Which was a lie, because Bruce was only human (most of the time) and needed to be touched as much as anyone else did. He just couldn’t risk it.

Unsurprisingly, it was Tony who first reached out with complete disregard for Bruce’s defenses. Aside from the random poking, Tony took to slinging an arm over Bruce’s shoulders when they walked. Touching, for Tony Stark, seemed second nature, or at least it was when he was around Bruce. He patted Bruce’s arm as he passed him in the mornings on the way to the coffee pot, and once even ruffled Bruce’s hair when Bruce accidentally fell asleep at his lab bench waiting for some numbers to crunch.

Pepper gave Bruce a genuine hug when Tony brought him home like a lost puppy, asking Pepper if they could keep him. She laughed and told Bruce wearing a collar was optional, which had Bruce blushing in mortified embarrassment while Tony nearly cried himself sick laughing. Pepper shook her head, gave Bruce a fierce hug, and told him good luck. Bruce watched her walk away, thunderstruck.

Steve was not as handsy as Tony but he was from an era where manly affection was not colored by the subtleties of homophobia. Men were supposed to walk arm in arm and even dance together, which Bruce found out when he caught Steve doing a simple waltz step to a song on the radio one afternoon. Steve laughed and easily bustled Bruce into his arms to teach him the step, which Steve’s mother had taught him. It filled Bruce with a deep, aching longing for his own youth which he did not hide successfully. Steve sat them down on one of Stark’s endless couches and they held hands while they walked down memory lane, mourning what they had lost or never had. Steve got teary eyed, gave Bruce a massive hug that nearly crunched his ribs, then kissed him on the top of his head before getting up to find something for dinner.

Bruce sat on the couch for over an hour afterward, waiting for the rabbit hole to open up.

Then there was Clint Barton. The man was invisible—Bruce would swear to it—and not very sociable. He was witty and sarcastic and underfoot whenever food was being served, but otherwise he came and went from Stark Tower without notice. One morning when they were all hung over from a wretched mission the night before (the Avengers didn’t win every battle, no matter what SHEILD’s PR department said), Bruce was wrapped up like a burrito on a couch in the living room, staring at dawn cresting over the horizon of the city with the television off, when Clint walked in. He had a beer in his hand. He was not drunk, though, and Bruce wasn’t going to bitch at anyone for drinking before noon, not when he had his own demons (one large demon) to fight. Clint looked at Bruce, looked out the windows, then back at Bruce. He sat down on the couch, put his beer on the floor and his feet in Bruce’s lap, and promptly went to sleep.

Bruce was still staring at him when Natasha came in. She gently kissed Clint on the lips before stepping over and patting Bruce’s cheeks with her deadly, fearsome, and soft hands. Her expression was open and kind, and he just looked at her because he did not know what the hell to do with Clint half on his lap and his face in her hands. She smiled, then picked up the unfinished beer and went to start a pot of coffee in the kitchen.

Bruce wasn’t really sure what was going on, but he put one hand on Clint’s leg, settled into the couch, and fell asleep. When he woke up, Natasha was curled up on a lounge chair with a cup of coffee, whispering to Steve who was improbably perched on the arm of the chair, leaning down in order to hear her. Clint was still passed out and tucked around Bruce’s midsection, like a child who had toppled over in the middle of a run.

But the oddest part was that Bruce was in Tony’s arms. He wondered how Tony managed to squirm in behind him without waking Clint. Tony ran his fingers through Bruce’s hair absentmindedly, his breathing heavy and even and soothing. It was all very weird but Bruce figured it was, as always, Tony’s fault, then went back to sleep.