The Avengers Book Club (As Founded by Bruce and Natasha)
An ace!Bruce, ace!Nat, Avengers Family, BruceNat fluff fest. There is book reading, tea drinking, and Steve and Tony play a lot of chess. There will be more of this. This is for the lovely @ishipallthings who reminded me how much I love BruceNat, and I’m also gonna tag @xtaticpearl because you’ve been on fire with prompts lately and deserve a mention an a little something in return.
This is also on Ao3, here.
The first time it happens, it’s raining.
Bruce can’t hear it inside the tower, but he can see it through the windows at the end of the long room Tony transformed into a library. Tony thinks Bruce doesn’t know no such room existed before both Bruce and Steve expressed a love of reading, and Natasha had had that glint in her eye, but he knows. Pepper told him. It’s full of shelves of books Bruce strongly suspects all belonged to Tony’s parents – not in the least because a couple of the textbooks are scrawled all over, and more of the cookbooks and the more coding based maths books have Italian corrections added to them. Tony’s filled it with comfortable armchairs and throws and cushions. The fire is fake, but the room is always warm and glowing. It’s Bruce’s solace in a tower full of activity and life, and sometimes…
Right on cue, the door slides open with an almost silent whoosh of air, and feet pad in. The noise is intentional – socked feet on wooden floor, belonging to an assassin who could’ve charged at him with boots on and not made a noise. Natasha’s in a long grey hoody – she stole it from Tony – and purple sleep pants that Bruce recognises as his own. The socks, large fluffy and pale blue, knobbly as hell, are her own (Thor knitted them for her, under Clint’s instruction. Bruce has a scarf that Clint knitted for him, and he loves it very much. Tony pretends to hate the bobble hat he has, but he wears it all winter).
(Mobile Readers, ‘ware the read more!)
She doesn’t greet him, and he lowers his book to watch her as she walks past his chair – her fingers brush casually over his shoulder, and he feels it like a brand on his skin – and heads towards a shelf. She doesn’t take the books out of the library, and sometimes she’ll bring a notebook with her, to make notes of passages she enjoys. She loves Tony, and respects him as much as she would respect Fury, or Coulson, perhaps even Clint (though that respect isn’t blatant). Tony might not see it yet, but she does, and she will know where the books came from; she’ll treasure ever little bit of trust placed in her.
She selects a large dusty volume with faded Italian on the spine. She smiles when she catches Bruce’s gaze as she turns, and Bruce finds himself smiling back. The Black Widow doesn’t do casual affection, but Natasha Romanoff and the parts of her that she’s rebuilt from the chipped off bits of other people revels in it. He fully expects her to pad over to his chair, but instead of stealing a cushion and folding herself to the floor to lean against his legs like she usually does, she hesitates.
That alone amazes Bruce – Natasha, for all her broken parts (and don’t they all have them?) is never anything but confident, her moves calculated for the best possible outcomes – to see her nervous makes the breath catch a little in Bruce’s throat. He wants to preserve this moment, staring up at her with a tiny smile and receiving a smile in those pale green eyes of hers. He almost expects her to bite her lip, but instead she remains silent, and gestures towards him. For a moment he thinks she means his book, but then he realises that it’s not his book at all – it’s where it rests.
He doesn’t think it all the way through before he moves his book aside so she can sit. The armchair is large enough that they’re not cramped together, and she folds herself into his lap like- like- like she belongs there. She’s half curled against his chest, her legs arched over his. She can rest her own book against her legs, and Bruce can rest his against her knees. Turning the pages is a little difficult, but Bruce doesn’t want to move the arm that’s almost cradling Natasha’s shoulders. She smiles as she read, and Bruce finds himself watching her mouth the Italian soundlessly more than he reads.
If Natasha notices (and she will have, Bruce knows) she’s kind enough not to mention it.
It doesn’t happen again for a few weeks. The next time Natasha joins him in the library she returns to leaning against his legs, and Bruce misses the weight of her curled against him. Her presence alone though is always a comfort – the other guy has a soft spot for her, for all the Avengers, but mostly for her – and he quiets when she’s around, like he too is quite happy just to bask.
When it does happen again, Bruce isn’t alone in the library. The battle was long and hard and trying for all of them. Steve’s curled up in a window seat, sketching away, occasionally staring out across the skyline without seeing it. Clint’s high-up on the shelves, moving between them softly – Bruce thinks he’s reciting poetry to himself, but he only catches snippets as the archer comes closer. He’ll settle down to knit eventually, but he’s still got all that adrenaline to work off.
Tony, however, has crashed. He’s on the lounger opposite Bruce’s armchair, muttering to himself but otherwise not doing a whole lot with an arm thrown over his face. Bruce is buried in his armchair, wrapped in a blanket, book forgotten in his lap as he tries not to give in to the pounding in his head.
Natasha’s silent when she comes in, or quiet enough that she’s lost under the breathing and muttering, and the occasional scritch-scratch of Steve’s pencil. She murmurs something softly to Clint which brings her to Bruce’s attention, just beyond his peripheral vision. He almost turns to stare at her, eager to drink her in and see that she’s okay; that her hair is still vibrant and her eyes are alight, but instead he waits. She wanders over to Tony, and before Bruce can fully treasure the sight of her bundled into a fluffy grey blanket, she sweeps it off her shoulders and over the genius, pausing to tuck it around him and drop a swift kiss to the genius’s head. Tony’s mouth quirks, and stretches into a full, genuine smile at whatever she mutters, and then she’s standing up and turning away.
Bruce knows what she will ask before she reaches him, and with his book closed and placed beside the chair, he unfolds the blanket enough that he can open his arms to her. Surprise is brief across her face, and her smile is blinding though it is small. She’s tense as she curls up against him, her feet tucked up on his thigh instead of under the other arm of the chair, and she nestles her head in the hollow of his throat instead of on his shoulder. He wraps the blanket around them both, and when she seems to relax as he reaches around her to do so, he remains. They’re cuddling, Bruce realises, and he can’t help but grin into her hair, even brush a featherlight kiss there in a sudden surge of bravery.
“Thank you…” she whispers.
“My pleasure.” He tells her honestly, and feels how she smiles against his chest.
Bruce is discussing Jane Austen with Pepper when she asks, in a lull of the conversation; “is Tony okay?”
Bruce almost blurts why wouldn’t he be? but taking a moment to sip his tea – he’d made them a teapot, with china Tony bought him after teasing him about his other set, and they’re both curled into chairs in the library – he observes her. “You broke up.” He realises, and it isn’t a question. Pepper doesn’t ask him if Tony hadn’t told them, it’s clear she realises that by her pained expression.
“He deserves more than I know how to give him.” She tells him, and Bruce understands that. He tells her so.
“Maybe not quite in the same way,” he concedes – it’s been no secret among the Avengers that while Pepper likes them all as people very much, she’s not fond of what they do for a living – “but I know a little of it.”
“Oh?” Pepper asks, a chance to explain but no pressure behind it, and Bruce takes a moment to feel happy that he doesn’t hesitate to tell her.
“Asexual,” is all he has to say and she’s nodding in understanding. There’s a silence between them, a little tension, and Bruce tries to decide how to answer her question – wonders, in fact, if there’s a way to answer it that won’t hurt Pepper.
“Steve’s keeping him distracted.” He settles on. She sips her tea, but after hours of watching Natasha’s shielded countenance he catches the little bit of hurt there. “He probably doesn’t know what from, yet, just that Tony’s been a little distant. He’ll be just fine, and so will you.” Pepper smiles over the brim of her cup.
“Thank you.” She tells him. “They’d be good for each other,” she murmurs, and then a sly smirk is sliding onto her face that would make lesser men quake. On the contrary it makes Tony nervous, and there’s not an Avenger besides Natasha that wouldn’t be a mite afraid of what that smirk meant. “Like you and a certain superspy.” She’s teasing – comfortable enough to do so, and oh, Bruce does love this little family they’ve all built for each other.
Oh.
Oh.
Bruce feels his cheeks a little, but makes no effort to hide it.
“Clint’s not my type.” He tells her instead, and she laughs. Pepper Potts doesn’t get to laugh enough, but maybe she will now. He ducks his head, and sips his tea. “She’s… glorious.” He tells Pepper, and Pepper’s face lights up in a smile.
“You’d be good together.” She replies, soft and nudging, but mostly just warm – like the thought of her friends happy makes her happy too. Bruce realises then-
“Why didn’t you ask her about Tony?” Pepper’s smile dims, and Bruce immediately feels wretched – months ago, the sudden flare of guilt, of anger at himself would’ve resulted in code green, but now he thinks his eyes don’t even flash. There’s no fear in Pepper’s face, only a sadness that Bruce knows he didn’t put there, but feels responsible for.
“She’s mad at me. For hurting Tony.”
“Huh.” Bruce replies, a little shocked – perhaps even a little jealous. Natasha cares for Tony perhaps even more than Bruce realised.
“He’s like a brother to me.”
It’s another rainy day in the Avengers library. Steve and Tony are playing chess with the board nestled between them on the window seat. They’re bickering over the merits of different strategies – and possibly cheating – but their faux anger is entirely off-set by the fact that they’re holding hands beside the board and playing one-handed. Bruce has been watching them for a few minutes, jealous of their little bubble and wondering what Natasha – curled up by his feet – thinks. He glances down, and while she’d not looked away from her book to speak, she now leans her head back against the chair. He brushes her hair out of her eyes with a featherlight touch and she smiles.
“Brother?” he asks. He keeps his voice low, but Steve and Tony are so wrapped up in each other they wouldn’t notice even if they were blatantly gossiping about them, aiming for a reaction. She nods, lips pursed.
“I always wanted one, as a little girl. An older one.” She closes her eyes and smiles. “Someone who would defend me, and wipe my tears away. Tuck me in. It was silly then, and perhaps it’s silly now.” Her eyes flick open, and Bruce can see the amusement dancing in them – so rare it is that she will mention her childhood, and even rarer still that she’ll smile when she does. “But he is what I’ve got.”
Bruce thinks, then, of the press conference after their last battle, when Tony had eviscerated a reporter with nothing more than a scrutinising look and several well-placed sentences; all because the man had dared to question Natasha’s place on the Avengers. Bruce had watched it later, having been asleep when the conference itself happened, and he’d been furious, and then stress baked (blueberry muffins, that found their way down to the lab as a thank you). Natasha had been even quieter than normal. “He’s a good man.” Bruce tells her when he remembers he still hadn’t replied.
“He is.” She reaches up then, and cups Bruce’s cheek. “But he’s not you, Bruce.”
“I will merely aspire to his level of flamboyance.” Bruce agrees, and Natasha’s quiet laugh is everything. It’s not a giggle like Pepper’s is, nor is it Tony’s shocked breathless thing, or Steve’s full-body laugh when you truly amuse him. It’s soft and musical and might be one of the most beautiful things Bruce has ever heard. He reaches up to rest his hand over Natasha’s on his face and lean into it. They remain a moment, and Bruce presses a ghosting kiss to her fingers as she draws her hand away. She tugs his down to return the favour, and then returns to her book.
Your asexual Bruce headcanon write up is so good and so heartbreaking. I thought I was the only one that saw him as ace. Thank you much for the bits you did write.
Aww, thank you! :D
You are not alone, there are actually a lot of ace!Bruce supporters - that I know of anyway.
And I have MAJOR asexual Bruce feels. Like major. Destroy my soul major. I might never write allosexual Bruce ever again (I’m lying, I will, but ace Bruce is taking over my heart at the moment).
Don’t worry though, I have both a) a full headcanon post planned and b) the excerpt I posted is from a fic now called “But This Is What You Should Want”.
I’ve also got a semi-lowkey-kinda asexual Bruce in Under The Road and I’m working on a series called Peace and War on Planet Earth (or PaWoPE) which features a very asexual Bruce and his trans boyfriend vigilante!Joker. I’m looking forward to that one, and I’m hoping the first installment will be released in September.
