A/N: Thank you all for your reception of the first installment last week! Bruce is actually in this one, and it inspired my alternate title for this fic, "Domestic Dumb-Dumbs with Daddy Issues." Although it's heavy on the DDD part and not so much on the DI. For now. ;) As always, much thanks to my beta-reader, malintzin.
Enjoy!
1. You've Got Mail
November, 2020
The drive home from campus was short enough that the car had only just warmed up by the time Bruce pulled up to the curb and rolled down the window. Shivering at the sudden blast of crisp, cold air, he reached out to open the mailbox, leaning lightly into the horn in his haste, the honk shattering the silence of the suburban dusk and briefly distracting him from the contents of the mailbox. Or rather, the lack thereof.
He sat back in the seat, gloved hands grasping the steering wheel as he breathed his heart back to its resting tempo, puffs of steam clouding in the air. There were plenty of reasons for the mailbox to be empty: the postman might be late, or Natasha might've gotten it already. He didn't need to get all Charlie Brown about it. Yet.
Especially when the letter they were waiting for might bring more disappointment than no mail at all.
Rolling the window back up again, he pulled the car into the long driveway, scarcely believing as he gazed up through the trees, mostly bare now except for a handful of tenacious golden leaves quivering in the autumn wind as they clung to their branches, that the grey brick split-level house tucked into the wooded hillside belonged to him. Well-to him and Natasha. The garage door lifted to reveal her car parked in the empty space.
Bruce parked next to it, hurried to the door, but had to dart back again for his leather laptop bag forgotten in the front passenger seat. In the mud room, the aroma of the chicken tikka masala he'd started in the slow cooker that morning before classes greeted him from the adjoining kitchen.
"Tasha, I'm home!" he called out, less Desi Arnaz than Dick van Dyke as he stumbled in the process of toeing off his shoes, though in fact he and Natasha had attended their neighborhood Halloween block party as the I Love Lucy stars.
"Welcome home, Dr. Banner," intoned a British-accented baritone from an overhead speaker. "Ms. Romanoff is down in the gym. Shall I let her know you've arrived?"
Tony's housewarming gift to them had been-in his words-a domestic. In true Tony fashion, he'd given them a number of choices for their AI butler's personality: Alfred from Batman, Carson from Downton Abbey, Cogsworth from Beauty and the Beast in case certain hopes panned out and the house one day heard the patter of little Hulk or Widow feet (though hopefully not eight in the case of the latter), and to be an equal opportunity employer, the creepy Mrs. Danvers from Rebecca.
"Thanks, JEEVES," Bruce replied, unwinding his scarf and hanging it up with his overcoat, "just put her on intercom."
"Very good, sir."
As he padded in his sock feet into the kitchen, Natasha's voice came over the speakers. "Hey, Big Guy," she panted. "Just finishing up a run. Give me ten?"
"Take your time," he replied around a mouthful of almonds he grabbed from the pantry when he went for the basmati rice.
Natasha didn't normally work out this time of day; she was a hit the ground running type-literally. When she was stressed out, she could be found in the gym at random.
He swallowed, the nuts sticking in his throat, and tried-unsuccessfully-not to glance at the granite bar top as he turned to take the rice to the counter.
A neat stack of envelopes lay on it.
If Natasha had brought the mail in and then needed to run, it could only mean…
Swallowing again, Bruce deliberately looked away from the bar, rolled up his sleeves, and got on with his dinner prep.
He stood at the sink rinsing the rice, back to the doorway, but he saw her reflection in the window overlooking Cayuga Lake even though she crept up without a sound.
"Good run?" He set the bowl in the sink and wiped his hands on a dishtowel as he faced her, even though they weren't wet.
"Yeah, not bad," Natasha replied, in a breathless way that told him the run wasn't really of the utmost concern at the moment.
Nodding, Bruce went to her.
"I'm gross," she warned as his hand skimmed her hip.
He looked her over, in her black sports bra and form-fitting capris, face flushed and pulled-back hair darkened at the roots from her sweat.
"Sweetheart, if this is post-workout gross, there's no hope for the rest of us."
He slid his hand into the slick small of her back to pull her hips snug against his, and pressed his lips to hers. Natasha made a soft sighing sound and tangled her fingers in his hair. This wasn't her usual welcome home kiss. She opened to him, clung to him, and Bruce had a sense that she was seeking reassurance. Or maybe he was projecting. He splayed his fingers across her bared midriff, sliding them between the notches of her ribcage and spine, loving how perfectly their bodies seemed to fit together.
Even after the kiss ended Natasha didn't withdraw, lingered in the circle of his arms, looking up at him. Her fingers did leave his hair, to trail along his jawline, and he pressed his cheek into her touch.
"You're going back to this, then, huh?"
Bruce's brows pulled together as he didn't at first know what she was talking about, then he heard the sandpaper whisper of his beard against the pads of her fingers.
"Oh." He brought one hand up from her waist to rub his chin. He'd shaved the beard off for Halloween, but hadn't maintained the clean-shaven look. "I hadn't really thought about it, I just keep staying in bed too long to have time to shave."
Her eyes glinting mischievously at him, she disentangled herself from his embrace, sidestepped him to go to the counter and lift the lid from the crock pot.
"I think maybe it makes me look more professorly." And less Hulk-like. "It is No-Shave November. Why? Do you not like it?"
"I like it." Natasha inhaled the tikki masala, which Bruce had to admit was making his stomach rumble, then gave it a stir. "I'm sure your female students do, too. And a few of the males."
A chuckle rattled dryly in Bruce's throat, and a flush prickled up his neck and across his cheekbones, but both stopped when she added:
"Might give a kid beard burn, though."
She glanced back over her shoulder, grin fading as their eyes held.
"Did you see the mail?" Her voice cracked on the upward lilt of the question.
"I didn't look, but I guessed…We got our letter?"
"Go look."
Natasha turned back to the slow cooker and stirred it again. Bruce obeyed automatically, his legs carrying him to the bar and the stack of mail without his brain commanding them to. He had that breathless, heart-pounding, nauseated feeling he remembered from many years ago, when he'd checked the mail anxiously for college acceptance letters.
With trembling hands, he picked up the top envelope.
"It's from my Aunt Susan."
Normally this would be a source of excitement, which occurred a couple times a year. He couldn't be sure when it would; Susan never did anything as predictable as write on his birthday or Christmas, but she was a wonderful letter-writer, in the old-fashioned sense, and would write randomly if she'd tried a new recipe he would like or had a music recommendation.
Today, though, Bruce heard the flatness of his own voice. He held the envelope up in Natasha's direction, as if for explanation. Had they miscommunicated about what they expected in the mail? Had she intentionally misled him? Immediately Bruce discarded the thought. Clearly he'd lived with Tony too long if he even considered Natasha would joke about something like this.
Without facing him, she replaced the slow cooker lid and placed the ladle on the stainless steel spoon rest beside it. "Underneath."
Bruce looked again. Sure enough, his eyes rested on return address they'd alternately anticipated and dreaded for weeks:
New York State Office of Children and Family Services
He placed Aunt Susan's letter on the bar and picked up the other envelope.
"Should I…? Do you want to…?"
"Open it."
Natasha faced him now, leaning back against the counter, arms flexed as she gripped the edges with white-knuckled hands.
Bruce ripped it open messily, tearing part of the letter itself. The envelope fluttered to the stone tile floor as he drew out the single-page typed letter and unfolded it. Before he read, he looked up at Natasha, whose eyes were riveted to the backside of the stationery, and heaved out a tremulous breath.
"Dear Dr. Banner and Ms. Romanoff,
It is my pleasure to inform you that your application for adoption in the State of New York has been-"
All at once the meaning of the syllables registered in his brain, and he didn't even have to read further.
Pleasure to inform you.
"Accepted!" He looked up at Natasha. "Accepted, they accepted us!"
"Yeah, to begin the home study."
Bruce crossed the few feet of kitchen to her and wrapped his arms around her again, brushing his lips across her forehead before he drew her against him in a tight hug. "Honestly I never thought we'd make it this far."
"That's not the impression you gave when you agreed to buy this five bedroom house in the suburbs with me," Natasha replied, dryly. With a squeeze of his waist she tucked her head beneath his chin and added, quieter, "Neither did I."
Bruce knew she didn't mean she'd doubted because of him any more than he'd doubted because of her. On paper, neither of them looked fit to parent at all, never mind not living up to some ambiguous ideal. When they agreed to finally take the plunge and apply to adopt, they'd promised each other that when those moments of doubt inevitably came, they would never be talking about the other. Though they also promised they would do their best to keep those moments to a minimum, to be positive and have hope, to believe in themselves as they believed in each other.
Several minutes passed in silence as they hugged, swaying slightly, in the middle of the kitchen, but finally, his happiness bubbled out.
"They accepted us!"
Natasha emerged from the bathroom to find Bruce reading in bed, as she did every night. He appeared totally engrossed by his book-an actual book, from the campus library, no less-rubbing his fingers across his beard in an absent gesture, not looking up at her even when she untied the belt of her robe and shrugged it off her shoulders. She'd be a little miffed if she were seriously trying to seduce him, but she was used to his scientist's focus making him a tough nut to crack. Plus, he more than made up for it by applying that same concentration to her, once she finally did capture his attention.
Tonight she had a pretty good idea that it wasn't the book that absorbed him. Her first clue was that he'd been on the same page whole time she'd been watching him; Bruce read at the speed of light, and The Martian was a page-turner. She didn't need a second clue beyond her own experience with Bruce when faced with major life changes.
"Where are you in that?" she finally broke the silence as she hung her robe on the knob of the dresser. "Is Mark Watney sciencing the shit out of stuff?"
Bruce didn't acknowledge she'd spoken, and remained seemingly aware of her presence at all till she'd slipped beneath the covers with him and put her feet on his shins where his PJ bottoms rode up. Then he jolted, whacking himself in the face with his book, the rewarding reaction that made her keep doing this to him. It never got old. Neither did the dorky joke he normally made at this point about how her feet were so cold he couldn't believe she was really human, or really alive, and she'd respond in similar fashion about being Russian.
Tonight, though, he just rested the book on his chest, spine up to keep his place, blinked at her behind his glasses, and said, "Sorry. Did you say something?"
"I asked what you're brooding about. The home study?"
"No, actually." Bruce shifted to put his book on the nightstand, placing his glasses on top of it, then rolled onto his side facing her, arm curled under his pillow. "I was thinking about Aunt Susan's letter."
They'd both read it, but the next steps of the adoption process dominated their conversation over dinner. After the meal, they'd been too busy celebrating getting over the first hurdle to talk about anything at all. It was a sign of how far he'd come since the first tentative beginnings of a relationship that Bruce could actually be preoccupied with something other than his fitness as a parent in the face of potential fatherhood.
"About spending Christmas in Dayton?"
"Mm."
"Could be fun."
"It could…Or it could be really awkward. It's been…" Bruce scratched his chin. "…a long time."
Natasha knew he hadn't seen his aunt since the accident, although Susan contacted him after the Battle of New York and they'd stayed in touch with a sporadic regularity in the years since.
"Is this the first time she's asked you to visit?" she asked.
The pillow rustled with the shake of his head. "There was one other time." His gaze followed the path of his hand as he lowered it to rest on the mattress between them, watching his index finger trace the line of the sateen stripe of the sheet. "Right before we found the scepter."
Natasha puffed out a laugh. Getting the scepter back from Hydra was supposed to have been the end of an era, and it had been-just not in the way any of them wanted. Once upon a time she'd blamed Bruce and Tony for that, although not as vehemently as Rogers; as flawed as their rational was, she did understand they'd had the best of intentions. Now, she saw that Ultron had only accelerated the inevitable.
"Feel guilty about standing her up for space travel?" she asked, curling her hand over his. When his gaze met hers, she went on, "Is that why you think it might be awkward? Because the way I see it, you'll at least have plenty of stories to tell over dinner."
The creases at the corners of his eyes deepened with his wry grin. "Nothing says family at Christmastime like hearing how your nephew almost helped bring about the end of Asgard."
"Sounds like one of those holiday movies packed with celebrities."
"Meet the Banners." Bruce's smile faded. "Honestly, though. All Aunt Susan's seen of me for the past fifteen years is footage of the Other Guy terrorizing Harlem, Johannesburg…Perpetuating the family's cycle of violence."
His voice tightened around the words. Beneath her palm, Natasha felt the tendons of his hand flex. She stroked her fingers over it, working them into the valleys between his knuckles, and he exhaled, long and slow.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to get morose."
"It's okay."
Natasha could count on one hand the number of times he'd talked about his father's abuse, so that she considered even an oblique reference like that a big step in opening up. She was intrigued by the way he'd described it as a family cycle. Did it go back further than Brian Banner?
"Obviously your aunt's not worried about the Other Guy rampaging through Dayton. Or you never know, maybe she hates Dayton and hopes he will." That coaxed the smile back, albeit only faintly. She snuggled closer to him, slipping her knee between his legs, and he drew her hand against his chest, his skin warm and the wiry hairs tickling. "She asked you, Bruce."
"Do you really think it could be fun?" His voice remained tight, although now she thought with restrained hopefulness. It was the same cautious tone she'd heard often when they first began to discuss adoption. "You wouldn't mind going to Aunt Susan's for Christmas? Only it's our first year in the new place…She'd understand if we want to celebrate at home."
As he looked into her eyes, the slightly dopey grin that always crossed on his face whenever he spoke about their home appeared. Natasha felt herself mirroring the expression, as she always did whenever he got sentimental about their life together. She tried not to let it distract her from the fact that he was making excuses to withdraw.
"We could always invite her here," she suggested.
Bruce's brow furrowed as he considered this. "She's over seventy…I don't think she travels much these days."
"Then let's go to her place. I want to meet her, and we'll have other first Christmases before long."
His fingers tightened around hers. "God, I hope so."
"I've never had a guy take me to meet his family, you know," Natasha said, lowering her voice and sliding her foot over the back of his calf. "I'm starting to worry maybe I'm not that kind of girl you bring home to meet your aunt."
"Don't ever think that."
She'd been joking, but the sincerity of Bruce's reply made her heart clench. He brought her hand up to his lips, dropping kisses over her knuckles.
"You are," he murmured, "you definitely are."
There was no response Natasha could make other than to kiss him, which she did, love surging through her. Bruce's soft lips yielded to her at first, then he wrapped both arms around her, matching her passion even though they'd spent a long time doing this earlier. She wasn't sure how long this kiss lasted, and it didn't lead to more like the other, but when it did end, trailing away into light kisses on cheeks and chins and shoulders as they lay holding each other, she felt the bone-deep contentment of knowing that wherever she was, in this house, or in his aunt's in Ohio or in the Avengers Tower or any other place on earth, as long as she was here, she was home.
She felt the prickle of his beard in the crook of her neck, the rumble of his voice in her chest as he spoke.
"I guess if we want to start a family, the family we have would be a good place to start."
Natasha replied, "Spoken like a true genius."