Carol drummed her fingers along the chair's arm and sighed. She probably shouldn't have conned James into buying her a giant mocha-frappa-whatever from the Starbucks kiosk.
James reached over to put his hand over hers. "I hate it when I'm flying and I'm not the pilot, too."
Her lips rolled into a smile. "I'd be better if it weren't delayed."
"Or if you were the one doing the pre-flight check?" he asked.
"That, too."
He started to quell her anxiety with tales about studying avionics and engineering at MIT. He threw in the occasional story at Tony's expense, and surely but slowly, Carol felt her nerves start to relax.
She didn't want to be nervous, not about this. James was better than she could ever ask for, and she still kicked herself for causing their relationship hiatus in the spring. He, on the other hand, acted like it never happened, that they had just picked up where they left off and nothing more. She didn't know whether to kiss him or smack him for that.
When they finally boarded, there was a family sitting across the aisle from them. On the mother's lap sat a toddler with Down's Syndrome. Carol's heart pulled at the sight, and her mind flashed back to when her cousin was little. She smiled at the boy and waved; he held up his Ziploc bag of treats to share. "No, thank you," Carol replied. "But good of you to share. You should come in teach that trait to my students sometime."
She felt James lean around her so he could see what was going on. A small smile crossed his face as he nodded to the family. He then took her hand in his. "Last chance to bail," he said softly.
"I'm good."
The door opened just as Bruce raised his hand to knock. "Thank you for coming," Pepper said, "because I need to tag you in."
He frowned. "Tag me in for what, exactly?"
Not for the first time in their lives, she leveled him the most dubious look on the planet. "What do you think?" she asked.
Bruce sighed. "I'm already rethinking my stance on sobriety," he muttered, but he stepped into the house, too.
In truth, Bruce loved Tony like the brother he'd never had. For all his lumps and quirks, Tony'd somehow become a constant in Bruce's life, a fixed point in a chaotic universe. Bruce needed that sort of certainty in his life, and he never stopped appreciating Tony's willingness to play that particular part.
But sometimes, he deeply regretted ever bonding with the maniacal stranger from his AA meeting.
"Follow my lead," Pepper murmured as she led Bruce into the living room. He'd just started to agree when he stopped to gape at the sight in front of him. In the space usually occupied by the coffee table, Tony sat cross-legged and surrounded by no fewer than four electronic devices and even more glossy pamphlets. Animated splash pages from various sites cast weird shadows across his face as he peered at a tablet or laptop screen.
Bruce pursed his lips. "Was this what he was like planning your wedding?" he asked under his breath.
Pepper rolled her eyes. "Worse," she intoned, just as quietly. Before Bruce managed to ask the obvious follow-up (namely: how did I miss this level of crazy back then?), she plastered on a huge smile. "You know, I heard the same thing about Hamilton House from a lady at the nail place a couple days ago," she said, her voice much louder than required for a normal conversation. "I just don't know if there'd be enough time. The turnaround on the party's pretty fast."
When Bruce blinked at her, she gestured for him to pick up the loose thread on the conversation, so he shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "To be fair, my friend, uh, Hank, he's not a 'big venue' kind of guy, so . . . "
He trailed off (mostly because he didn't know what else to add to the entirely fake conversation), but Pepper just winked at him. She paraded him past Tony and into the kitchen, her voice still carrying. "Did he give you any idea on the turnaround?" Pepper asked as she started to bring down coffee mugs just like every other time Bruce visited. "Tony's found a lot of good places, but if it's a little smaller and really as nice as Hank said—"
"What's this about Bruce's friends and Hamilton House?" Tony suddenly asked, and Bruce nearly leapt out of his skin when he realized his friend was now standing right behind him. Tony held up his hands. "Sorry, Science Brother, I just happened to overhear you and my wife discussing one of my top five favorite wedding shower venues, and I had to ask."
Pepper sighed. "We were having a private conversation."
"In my kitchen, at a volume I can hear. Therefore, not private." He jabbed his phone in Pepper's direction, and she shook her head at him. He glanced back at Bruce. "Why are you here, anyway? Shouldn't you be spending your break watching Mythbusters repeats on Netflix?"
Bruce rolled his eyes. "It was one time, and you and Pepper were in Montreal for the long weekend."
"And I am still offended you didn't take my phone calls," Tony needled. When Bruce waved him off, Tony poked him in the side with his phone. "Tell me more about Hamilton House."
"It's a fancy bed-and-breakfast with a room for private parties," Bruce provided (thanks primarily to the e-mail Pepper'd sent out after their meeting at Starbucks). Tony raised his eyebrows expectantly, and Bruce shrugged. "That's all he told me. Said it was a nice place."
"For what event?" Tony pressed.
"Tony," Pepper warned as she finished filling the kettle.
"Please, Pep, I'm learning things that might help me plan this party. A party that you do not want to plan, no matter how much Barnes and Rogers try to reassign it to everyone except me." Pepper raised her hands in supposed defeat, but Bruce caught the tiny smile pressing at the corner of her mouth. "From what I remember," Tony continued, turning back to Bruce, "your science friends don't have horrible taste. Do you know the turnaround on renting out the private room?"
Bruce opened his mouth to fabricate some slightly believable answer when Pepper, very subtly, rubbed her chin with two fingers. "Two weeks?" he guessed, and Pepper nodded before returning to the coffee mugs. Bruce grinned. "I think it's their slow season. You should call."
"Do they do their own food, or do we cater in?" Tony asked.
"They have a kitchen with a very good chef," Pepper volunteered. Tony whirled around to blink at her, and she pulled at face. "The woman next to me at the salon where I get my nails done was telling me about it. Raved about the food. And from the sounds of it, her party couldn't have been much bigger than ours will be."
"Hank's wasn't either," Bruce lied.
Tony narrowed his eyes. "I'm going to look into this," he decided, his attention already dropping back to his phone. "And then, once I've called them, we'll put on some Mythbusters."
"I don't—" Bruce started to say, but Tony was already retreating back into the living room, phone pressed to his ear.
He waited until his friend was out of earshot to lean in closer to Pepper. "I'm pretty sure the Hamilton House has much longer than a two-week turnaround," he murmured.
Pepper smiled. "Not if you call them ahead of time with a huge deposit and a request they lie to your husband when he calls," she replied, and Bruce laughed as she handed him his tea.
The conference was three days. Fly in Wednesday night, fly back Sunday afternoon. No big deal. James apologized multiple times that he'd be busy with workshops and boring keynote speakers. "Just remember there's a weight limit for the bags, and if you buy a bunch of new clothes, you have to pay for a new suitcase and the extra baggage fees."
"I'll try and contain myself," Carol'd replied before shoving him away and watching him leave their hotel room.
She'd done some research before coming down here. She wasn't really someone who loved shopping, which James knew. TripAdvisor had mentioned a number of parks in the area, so she tugged on some exercise-friendly clothes and her running shoes.
Today's park was actually pretty for being located in Texas. Despite it being mid-October, it felt like summer. Carol stretched and turned her face to the sun with a sigh. The warmth melted through her body and untangled knots within.
After a four-mile run, she went back to the hotel. Since it was still in mid-eighties, she took advantage of the temperature and changed into her red bikini. The hotel's pool was mercifully quiet, and she gleefully opened one of the smutty romance novels Jessica had not-so-subtly packed into her carry-on. She lost track of time and was interruption free until a shadow fell over her.
"Here I was thinking sneaking back here to find you for lunch would be a good idea," James half-heartedly complained. "But now I'm going to be stuck in sessions thinking about how good you look right now. I'm not going to learn a damn thing."
Clint groaned. "Kill me."
He tried to keep it under his breath, but Phil nudged his ankle under the table anyway. He plastered on his best smile as he reached for his wine glass. Across the table, Barney kept flipping the pages of his menu like he thought a snake might climb out from between them; next to Barney, well—
Phil cleared his throat all of a sudden. "Jessica," he murmured, and Jessica Drew—as in coworker and bra-abandoner Jessica Drew—glanced away from her menu and down at her cleavage.
Her freaking Jakarta Trench of cleavage.
"Shit," she muttered, and tugged at her dress.
Clint decided against downing his wine in one big gulp.
Barney's offer to buy him and Phil dinner for their anniversary had sounded pretty good on paper (or over text message, whatever), but at this point, all the flaws in the plan are blinking up at them like the neon signs outside a strip joint. For one, the restaurant boasted one hell of a line even for a Friday night, requiring that they stand out in the October chill for an hour before being seated. For two, everything on the menu was pretentious as hell and possibly (probably) outside of Barney's price range. For three, Jessica had shown up on Barney's arm wearing this slinky red dress and showing off—
"For the last time, I didn't know you were coming," she stressed as she tugged at her neckline. "Barney said he was going to surprise me—"
"What were you expecting?" Barney grumbled.
"—and after I googled the address, I figured hey, why not? My best friend's off finding out whether everything's bigger in Texas. I might as well play the same kind of game."
Clint choked on a mouthful of wine hard enough that it almost shot out his nose. "Danvers is in Texas?"
Jessica shrugged. "Sure, with her hot chocolate sundae."
Phil raised his eyebrows. "Meaning Rhodes?" he asked, and Jessica nodded. "You know that's vaguely racist, right? Calling him—"
She rolled her eyes. "Carol says the same thing."
"She's maybe right." She swung around to glare at Barney, but he just raised his hands. "Read an article on the internet about comparing skin colors to food. Article said it's pretty racist."
"Whose side are you on?" Jessica demanded.
"And when'd you start reading articles about race relations on the internet?" Clint added.
Barney's whole face tightened, but Phil distracted him by snapping his menu shut and smiling. "I think what Clint means," he said while he squeezed Clint's knee hard under cover of the tablecloth, "is that he'd like to hear more about what you've been reading." When Clint didn't immediately nod, he dug his fingernails in. "We talk about books all the time. I think I've converted him into a couple dozen different series he wouldn't have read, otherwise."
"You know I only read what you tell me so you won't kick me out of bed, right?" Clint asked.
Phil's eyes glinted when he replied, "Whatever works."
"Uh, well," Barney said after a couple seconds, his fingers digging under his shirt collar, "it's not like I read a whole lot of anything. May's nephew, he just left a bunch of tabs open on the computer, and that one sounded kinda, I don't know. Interesting, I guess."
"You read the first Hunger Games book, didn't you?" Jessica asked.
"Nah, just watched the movie." Barney mouth twitched like he wanted to smile but couldn't quite make it all the way there. "It was pretty okay. I kinda just like that girl. Jennifer whatever."
Mercifully, the waiter killed that conversation by showing up to take their orders—and again, a minute or two later, to bring more wine.
All the way through their appetizers and salads, it continued on like that, an awkward dance between interests that nobody at the table shared. Clint tried to con Barney into talking about college football until he discovered that the bastard'd turned against their Iowa Hawkeyes (and seriously, the thought of picking any other team over them felt like a stab to the heart); Jessica steered them to movies just long enough for her and Phil to fall down the Star Wars versus Star Trek rabbit hole (and put Clint to sleep).
As for Phil, well. Clint loved Phil down to the bottom of his soul, he really did, but that didn't stop him from groaning when the guy leaned his arms on the table and asked Barney, "How's the landscaping business going, anyway? Are you winterizing all the school grounds? Raking leaves?"
Barney scratched his fingers through his hair. "My contract's up at the end of the month," he said, his voice tight. "I'm trying to figure out what I'm gonna do next."
For one half-second, all the embarrassment in the world rushed across Phil's face. He stamped it down quickly before saying, "I did not know that about your job."
"Yeah, I wasn't really telling the world that one," Barney replied as he pushed back his chair. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom."
He'd hardly walked ten feet before Jessica smacked Phil with her napkin. "Smooth, Coulson."
Phil raised his hands, not that it stopped her from hitting him again. "How was I supposed to know that his work was going to—"
"Stop hitting my damn husband on our anniversary," Clint snapped, and grabbed the napkin right out of Jessica's hands as he stood. She huffed and crossed her arms—at least, until she realized it only made her whole dress situation ten times worse. "I'm gonna go fix this before it officially turns to shit. While I'm gone, I need you two put your heads together and come up with something we can talk about that isn't awkward as hell."
Jessica stopped tugging on her dress to blink at him. "You really think I can come up with something that's appropriate and not awkward?"
Phil just smiled. "We'll think of something," he promised, and squeezed Clint's hand as he walked away.
In the bathroom, Barney glanced up from where he was leaning down over the sink and immediately rolled his eyes. "Lemme guess," he said as he reached for a towel, "you're here to tell me this was a stupid fuckin' idea and that we should cut our losses."
Clint frowned. "You think I'm pissed at you about this?"
"Why not? We stood around for an hour to order prissy food that's gonna cost me more than I figured, and all while Jess sulks that the surprise isn't the hometown equivalent of whatever her best friend's getting." Clint almost smiled at that, but Barney shook his head. "I wanted to do somethin' nice, but it blew up. Story of my life. I get it."
"Nice for us, or nice for the girl you like?"
Barney's jaw clenched, same as a thousand times during their childhood. Clint ignored it. "This is probably one of the best things you've done for me and Phil," he said, and he watched as all of Barney's anger morphed into something a whole lot softer. "Maybe it's not perfect, but we know you're trying, and that's pretty much all either of us ever wanted. I think the conversation only sucks because we all want it to be TV-show perfect."
Barney snorted. "May likes classy fuckin' TV."
Clint grinned. "You mean our reality shows are too low-brow for you now?" he returned, and Barney actually laughed for a second. "But you know that we do mediocre Thai food for our anniversary," Clint pressed, "and you brought us and Jessica here, instead. And her as a surprise."
Barney ducked his head a little. "Think it's that obvious?" he asked, scratching the back of his neck.
Clint shrugged. "For me and Phil to figure out, sure. For Jessica Drew? You'd need a marching band and some skywriters, and that's just for a start." When his brother grinned, Clint jabbed a finger in his direction. "Not a suggestion for next year, Casanova."
"You never know," Barney joked, and clapped Clint on the shoulder before they both left the bathroom.
"Sorry," Carol apologized while trying to catch her breath. "I really thought it was on silent." James tried to respond, but it just mostly came out as a moan against her shoulder. Nothing like having Jess's obnoxious text notification sound on her phone seven times in the last three minutes.
Three very fun and important minutes.
Not that it stopped them.
And, for the record, things between them could last for more than three minutes, thank you very much.
"Answer it," James said as he rolled away. "If you can move enough to text her back, then you're in better shape than I am."
She was, but barely. It took a few seconds of groping in the general area of her night stand for her to grab her phone. Carol unlocked the screen and groaned at the flurry of text messages that had come through from Jess.
"Good or bad?" James asked.
"With her? Crap shoot." Carol scanned the words, telling James as she went along about Jess's misunderstanding of her date with Barney and how she'd ended practically throwing her boobs in Coulson's face all night long.
"Which one's Coulson again?"
"The saint of a librarian who Tony hates."
"Right," James replied.
Before she responded to Jess's latest text of complaining about how she was taking the relationship more seriously than Barney and when did she become that person , Carol switched over to her group chat with Clint and Phil. Happy anniversary! Congrats, Phil, on getting through another year without murdering Clint.
It didn't take long for a response to chime through. Work Huzz : How's tx?
"Shit," Carol muttered.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm going to murder Jess."
"Why?"
Carol sighed. "Look, this isn't like before, just so I'm clear." James rolled up onto his elbow, and Carol felt her stomach swim. "Jess is the only I told about coming down here with you. It's not that I'm trying to hide you, it's just… I wanted this to be ours."
James grinned shyly. "I didn't tell Tony. Thankfully, he has some wedding to plan or something, or else I'm sure he would've picked up on it."
"You're not mad?" Carol asked.
"I'm too post-coital to care right now."
"This was a horrible idea," Rebecca Barnes half-hissed, and Steve forced a smile.
Outside the safety of the kitchen, Bucky's groan echoed over the sound of their respective mothers laughing. "Ma, we really don't have to look at allthe pictures," he complained, but Winifred just tsked at him. "Seriously, the last thing Steve and his mom want is to—"
"Is Steve's mother complaining?" Winifred asked sharply.
Bucky fell suspiciously quiet for a few long seconds before answering, "No."
"And was Steve complaining before he ducked out to use the bathroom?"
Bucky heaved a sigh. "No."
"Then you do not get to rain on our parade," Winifred finished triumphantly, and even in the kitchen, Steve swore he heard her turn to the next page of the photo album.
"Here," Rebecca said suddenly, and Steve glanced down just as she pushed her half-full wine glass into his hand. When he raised his eyebrows, she shook her head. "You need this more than I do."
"I think I need the whole bottle," Steve admitted, and she grinned as he downed most the glass in one greedy swallow.
Inviting his mother to visit the Barnes family on fall break had sounded like a good idea when Bucky'd suggested it, a way to cut down on potential awkwardness during their actual wedding shower. "If we're stuck with Stark on this, at least we can make sure our families like each other," Bucky'd said, his legs in Steve's lap as they'd channel surfed.
Steve'd frowned. "You really think our families won't get along?"
"I think your mom could get along with a rabid pit bull no problem," Bucky'd replied with a shrug, "but between my ma and sisters? She needs to know what her son's marrying into." He'd paused for a moment, lips pursed. "And she maybe needs to learn how to brace for impact."
Chuckling, Steve'd shaken his head. "They're not as bad as you think they are."
"The fact you say that means it's too late for you. They've already dragged you into their clutches." Bucky'd sighed solemnly. "I'll be sorry to lose you. You were the greatest man I ever loved."
"Opens me up for that cute guy who runs at our park, then," Steve'd mused, and Bucky's offended face had been ten times better than the punchline.
When Steve walked back into the living room to join Bucky and their mothers, however, the punchline was apparently Bucky's baby fat. "He had so many tiny rolls!" Winifred declared, flipping through another couple pages of the photo albums. "Tammy loved to take baths with him, too. Said he reminded her of a fat little doll."
Bucky's ears burned bright red. "She never said that," he muttered.
"She absolutely did," his mother immediately replied. "She'd wanted a baby sister, but she decided a 'fat little doll baby' was a good consolation prize."
From her place over in an armchair (a safe distance, Steve supposed), Bucky's sister Kristin snickered. "Baby doll Jamie," she sing-songed.
Bucky glared at her. "At least I had hair before I was three."
"You had so much hair," Steve's mom said suddenly. She was leaning over the album, admiring pictures of a frankly adorable toddler-aged Bucky, complete with fat cheeks and the messiest swatch of dark hair Steve'd ever seen. He reached over to thread his fingers through the hair on the back of Bucky's neck, and Bucky squirmed a little. "Your girls had fairer hair, it looks like."
Winifred grinned. "Until Rebecca came along, George accused me of sleeping with the mailman." Steve's mother laughed, but Winifred's face turned softer. "He was the sweetest baby. Always wanted to cuddle, never talked back. At least, until he learned that he needed to stand up for himself with his older brother and the girls. Then, there was no shutting him up."
Bucky pulled a face. "I wasn't that bad."
"I think Steve would've liked having a sibling or two to fight with," Steve's mom admitted. Steve whipped his head up to blink at her, and she smiled gently as she shrugged. "I always wanted a big family, and given how many fights you picked at school—"
Heat blossomed across Steve's face while Kristin started cackling. "You?" she demanded, waving off Winifred's warning glare. "Mister All-American Boy-Next-Door? You're like this generation's Fred Rogers and you have the cardigans to prove it!"
Steve rubbed the side of his neck. "I never really liked bullies," he said. Bucky squeezed his knee, but not without a shit-eating grin. "When older kids—or just meaner kids—would swoop in and start bothering the little ones—"
"Never mind how much bigger they were," his mom interjected fondly.
"—I'd, you know, help out." Bucky snorted a laugh, and Steve rolled his eyes. "You weren't there. You couldn't possibly know."
"You really think your ma never told me the stories?" Bucky retorted. "'And then there was the time that Steve came home from the eleventh grade with a black eye because Justin Baker wouldn't leave poor Amanda Dwyer alone.'"
Kristin and Winifred both laughed, but Steve groaned. "You told him that story?" he demanded.
His mother shrugged. "You were very noble," she defended.
"Right up until Amanda cold-clocked me, sure," Steve retorted, and Kristin almost fell out of her chair laughing. Winifred at least managed to hide her shocked bark of laughter behind her hand. "How was I supposed to know they had some sort of hot-and-cold thing going on?"
"You're great with women, all right," Bucky muttered.
Steve knocked their legs together. "Like you can talk. Or should I remind you about the incident with Lainey's best friend that I'm not supposed to know about?"
All the humor dropped off of Bucky's face as Kristin's laughs morphed into rough, uneven wheezing. "Oh, if Steve's about to retell this story, I amin," Rebecca announced as she burst in from the kitchen. "Because if Lainey told you her side of the story—"
"The only side Lainey ever tells," Kristin added between breaths.
"—your face is going to turn the best colors."
Winifred raised her eyebrows. "I don't think I know this one," she said after a beat.
Bucky groaned and hid his face in his hands. "I never thought it'd come to the point where I was repeating this to my mother," he moaned, and rested his head against Steve's shoulder.
Steve grinned and stroked his fingers through Bucky's hair, shaking his head. Except when he glanced up and away from his suddenly horrified boyfriend, he caught his mother watching him from the chair she'd dragged up next to the couch. Her smile, soft and fond, cut right into his heart, and when she nodded, he nodded back.
"We can always look at more baby pictures," she suggested to Bucky, and they all laughed together when Bucky groaned again.
Their goodbye kiss in Carol's entryway was as searing as the Texas sun . It was just after midnight, which meant today was technically a work day for Carol. But she didn't care because James's hand was gripping her hip and he was doing that thing with his tongue. When he pulled away, she wasn't even ashamed of her whimper. "You could stay," she offered.
He smiled. "Tempting."
"Then do it. Didn't you take tomorrow off to rest up from the trip?"
"It's mostly to rest up from you, but yeah."
"Then stay," she repeated. "It can be your turn to stay in bed while I have to crawl out from under the sheets for work stuff."
When morning came, Carol swore and punched her alarm. James chuckled, but kept his eyes closed. "Shut up," she warned.
"That's no way to talk to your guests."
"I was saying plenty of complimentary things to you five hours ago, deal with it." She didn't move, despite knowing she needed to. There was a shower to take, a cat to feed, students to teach, and either a whiny or shit-eater-grinning Barton to deal with . None of those things sounded appealing.
"You could take the day off, too," James suggested as he wrapped an arm around her waist.
"Don't tempt me."
"If I wanted to tempt you, my hand would be lower."
"Yeah, okay," Carol said as she climbed out of bed. "I think I've stroked your ego enough this weekend . Any more, and you'll turn into Stark."
She darted around her condo getting ready. Before she left, she went back to the bed and placed a kiss on James's forehead. "Stay as long as you like. There's a spare key in the kitchen drawer next to the sink for when you leave."
"I could keep the key, if you wanted," he suggested.
"One step at a time."
Bruce swore to himself that he was going to have a talk with Natasha about the Thanksgiving predicament before fall break was over. On Monday morning, forty-five minutes before school started, it was still fall break. Technically.
His stomach churned the entire walk to the gym. He knew Natasha would be there; she had a habit of showing up early on the first day back from breaks in order to double-check everything and to psych herself up for crazed children coming back from an extended weekend. His dress shoes echoed as he walked across the wooden floor, and knowing that Natasha would hear the noise was the only thing that kept him from turning around.
That, and maybe some disappointed looks from people tied to Phil Coulson.
He tightened his grip on the coffee carrier in his hand. With the other, he knocked on the doorframe of Natasha's little office.
"Yeah?" she said distractedly, looking over a calendar and not raising her head.
Bruce swallowed his nerves and the overwhelming urge to flee. "You got a minute?"
Natasha's head snapped up, and he caught a quick glimpse of confusion on her face. "Sure," she answered. "What's going on?"
Her puzzlement only grew when he pulled out one of the coffees and set it down in front of her. "Two sugars, no cream, pinch of cinnamon."
"Thanks," she said as she picked up the cup and sniffed the aroma. "So, what's going on?"
Bruce scratched his head and took a deep breath. "Phil and Clint talk to you about Thanksgiving?"
"Yes," she said tightly. "Clearly you've heard about Judy's ultimatum, too."
"Yeah. Um, if you don't want to go, I'd understand. I'm sure there are other people that you'd rather be around for the holiday."
"And if there isn't?" Natasha asked. Bruce clamped his mouth shut, scared to respond around the tightness in his chest. "We're adults, Bruce. Surely we can be around each other for six hours. And if we're too far gone for even that, then I hurt you a lot more than I realized."
"Pretty sure the hurt went both ways," Bruce said quietly. "But if you want to try it and go to the Coulsons, that's fine with me. Just didn't know if you would hang out with the Barnes family or go see your dad." He tried his best to keep the bitterness out of his voice for those last two words, but it didn't work. He still hurt over the fact that she up and left him over the summer to spend time with the father she couldn't tolerate. That he was better company than Bruce.
The corners of Natasha's mouth tipped downward, not in anger but in hurt. "You still don't get why I went to see him do you?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "I went there to remind myself what I would turn into if I wasn't careful. I needed to see what I'd become if I didn't… Not that it mattered," she finished quietly.
"I'm sorry," Bruce said.
"Me, too. But you were probably right to end it. Try as we might we're just not that kind of couple."
He nodded. "But you're still okay with us being friends, right? I mean, I'm sure you've got other guys forming a line, but if we could—"
"Forming a line?" she asked in a mocking tone that was usually reserved for Clint.
Bruce shrugged. "You and Trip seem pretty close, which is fine. I'm sure he's—"
"Not dating me," Natasha finished for him. "According to the rumor mill, he has some kind of deal worked out with a couple of the teachers at the middle school."
Bruce felt his eyebrows shoot up. "Seriously?"
Natasha shrugged a single shoulder. "Guess he's really lucky, or just amazing in bed."
"I remember what it felt like to be that lucky," Bruce commented. The words flew out of him in a Stark-like manner, just shooting from one quick thought and out into the air in a nanosecond.
Before he could stammer through an apology, Natasha said, "And I liked being with someone that amazing."
Bruce blinked a few times. "Me?"
"Yes, you."
"I'm over a decade older than you, have hair everywhere, and a paunch."
"You can believe me or not, but I mean it."
Bruce was about to make another comment at his own expense when he noticed the look in her eye. He knew that look and had seen it a number of times in the last year since they started sleeping together. "What are you thinking?"
"Just about how you said we should go back to how things were before."
He nodded. "When we were friends."
"Only friends?" Damn. The thought was enticing. So very, very enticing. Memories of Natasha in his bed crashed into his brain, and yeah, it was hard to try and pass on that kind of offer. "Just an offer," she continued. "You don't have to follow up on it if you don't want to. There won't be any hard feelings from me. We can be people who avoid eye contact with each other, just friends, or friends who have sex every now and then and don't get tangled up in feelings."
He wanted the third option, and badly. So much so that if he continued thinking about it, he wouldn't be fit to teach small children without some alone time. But he also knew it was a slippery slope. Yes, their sex was great, but would it restore their friendship or destroy what little was left of it?
"Just think about it," she said. "You know how to get in touch. And thanks for the coffee."
