"You're about to have the weirdest conversation you've ever had."

"Because that's always what I like to hear when I open my door." Pepper smiled wryly, looking between the two men standing in her open doorway. Tony had the stance about him that seemed like he was on a mission (which he clearly was, if the sentence he just uttered was anything to go by), and Bruce seemed just as quiet, reserved, and willing to smack some sense into Tony as he always did—but honestly, Pepper couldn't say she was surprised to see them there. "I also don't think that's true, but let's see how right you are. Come in."

The two men complied, Tony waltzing into the apartment as if it was his own (because technically, it kind of used to be) while Bruce's steps were more careful, slightly hesitant. His eyes flickered around the immaculately designed, tastefully decorated apartment, everything perfectly in its spot with the exception of the kitchen table that was covered in an array of papers, pens, everything. It reminded Bruce an awful lot of his own place in the tower, even if he hadn't stayed there much even before he moved in with Tony. He couldn't say that he'd expected anything less of Pepper.

"Can I get you boys anything?" Pepper asked, watching Tony plop onto the couch in the room off to the side. Bruce had decided to hang back in the kitchen with her, and he almost made a comment about how really they should be getting things for her, but he didn't get a chance to before Tony replied.

"A beer would be great," Tony called out, "if you have one."

Pepper glanced over at him. "I don't."

"Huh. Makes sense, you've never been much of a beer drinker anyway. Scotch?"

"Nope."

"Tequila?"

"Sorry."

Tony leaned forward on the sofa, eyebrows raised as he looked through the doorway at Pepper. "You don't even have tequila?" he asked, watching her pour a couple glasses of water. "Come on, really? Do you not want me downing your supply or something?"

"There is no supply." Pepper wandered into the room, trailed by Bruce, and handed Tony one of the glasses of water before he could protest. "I got rid of all my alcohol a few months ago. Didn't want to be tempted… which I have been, many times." She gave Tony yet another wry smile. It seemed like it was just sewn into her expression nowadays.

"Shit." Tony lifted the glass to his lips, sipping at his water as Bruce took a seat beside him. He rested his arm along the back of the couch behind his boyfriend and looked back up at Pepper. "Pregnancy sucks."

"You have no idea." It would have taken a keen ear to detect the hint of pain in Pepper's voice, but a quick glance towards Bruce told her that he'd picked up on it, and understood where it came from. "So what exactly is this weird conversation we're apparently having?"

"Oh, yeah. That." Tony leaned over to set his glass on the end table, and shuffled a little closer to Bruce when he leaned back. His arm fell a little closer to Bruce's shoulders, and brushed against his back just enough that Tony could tell how tense the other man was. "So…" Tony's mouth went dry, and he suddenly realized how nervous he was about this, and how little they'd actually planned how they were going to ask this kind of question. "We've been talking. About the, uh… stuff that's happened."

Pepper did her best to keep her expression from giving away the fact that her heart had just dropped into her stomach. She should have known that this is what they wanted to talk about, but it had been a week since she'd kissed Bruce and a couple months since she'd kissed Tony, and—and she'd thought that if they'd gone this long without facing it, then maybe it had gone away. When she really thought about it though, it was actually quite stupid to think that anything like that could possibly go away. Not when the situation was… well, what it was. "Oh," she said plainly, "you have." She paused. "All of it?"

"All of it," Bruce confirmed, looking up and meeting her eyes properly for the first time since they'd gotten there. Pepper was doing a good job of hiding her thoughts behind her typical neutral mask, but Bruce could tell that she was starting to feel just as uncomfortable as he was. God, he just wanted to get this over with. "So we, uh, were thinking—"

"Wait," Pepper said, holding up a palm and cutting off the conversation before it could go any further for now. "I think I know where this is going, so before you get too far I want to say that I understand, and I'm sorry for putting both of you in that position." She looked between the two of them, trying to read their expressions. "I really didn't mean for this to be so complicated. I didn't mean for it to happen at all."

Tony blinked slowly at the apology. He was tempted to ask where the apology even came from, or what she meant by it when she said that she didn't mean for it to happen. It could have meant anything, like she hadn't meant to kiss Tony, or start having feelings for Bruce, or become pregnant in the first place since that was basically what started this whole mess. Obviously nobody had meant for the baby to happen, but it did, and at least Tony had finally realized that it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. "Slow down there, Pep," he said after he'd somewhat digested everything she had just said. "That's not even where we were going."

"How is that not where you were going?" Pepper asked, and despite the condescending connotations of a question like that, her tone and expression conveyed that she was genuinely confused. The way that both Tony and Bruce hesitated didn't really help her curiosity or worry, nor did the quick glance the two of them exchanged. They looked as if the words they wanted to say were caught hanging in the air between them, and neither of them could quite catch what was meant to be said.

"Well… were thinking that since, um…" Bruce was finally the one to start the sentence, but he stumbled over his words like he couldn't figure out how they felt on his tongue. "Since we all seem to have some… feelings… for each other, that, uh—"

"Do you wanna date us?" Tony saved Bruce from having to continue, mostly because he just wanted to rip off the band-aid and get the question over with. It was a weird enough question as it was, and he especially didn't want to give Pepper's mind too much time to spiral into worry about whatever else they could have been there to ask.

Now it was Pepper's turn to gape and stammer. Her expression shifted from confused to incredulous to something like disbelief, and she couldn't quite pick just one. "Excuse me?"

"Do you," Tony repeated, gesturing at Pepper before pointing back at himself and Bruce, "want to date us. Both of us."

"At the same time?" Pepper raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah." Tony just seemed so casual about this, and Pepper really couldn't wrap her head around it. Neither could Bruce, honestly, despite how much he was definitely on board with the idea. "Like a threesome, but not just a sex thing."

"The word here is polyamory," Bruce mumbled, correcting Tony's terminology yet again before he turned his gaze back to Pepper. She looked… like she was trying very hard not to look stressed, or at least like she was trying to figure out if this was actually happening.

"Yeah, yeah, I know what it is," Pepper said, her voice somewhere between aloof and sounding like the question was finally starting to dawn on her. Her eyes roamed along the plush carpet as she thought, but it was until she caught a glimpse of her still-growing stomach that she looked up at fixed her gaze on Tony. "Are you asking this because of the baby?" she asked, and the betrayal building behind her eyes was already visible before anyone had time to answer the question. "Because if you are—"

"No." Tony sat up straighter, very much taken aback despite how much he'd been expecting this kind of response. "Christ, you really think I'm that shallow?"

"Well, I'd certainly hope not," Pepper retorted calmly, her tone so steady that it was almost unsettling. "Because I have to admit this kind of sounds like a pity thing."

Tony's eyes narrowed, and he could feel that familiar, prickly heat start to build up under his skin that was always there whenever he and Pepper butted heads. He was definitely starting to question if this was even a good idea at all. "How the hell did you manage to turn this into a pity thing?" he nearly spat.

"Oh, I don't know," Pepper started caustically, dropping her hands into her lap to try and keep them from curling into fists. "Maybe because it wasn't until literally last week that you decided you even wanted to be a part of your kid's life, and after that you probably realized that kicking your pregnant girlfriend to the curb for so long was a pretty shitty thing to do, and because you're you and you always have to make things right—even to your own detriment sometimes—you had to find some way to make that all go away. Which, apparently, is…" She gestured vaguely, trying to get the point across, "this."

"Wow." Tony huffed an exasperated, disbelieving sigh. "Well, if that's how it's going to be—"

"He's not the only one asking you, Pepper." Bruce had finally found enough of his voice to interrupt, because he really couldn't listen to that argument any longer, and he knew that if he did that he'd probably be leaving a Hulk-shaped hole in the wall. He would have hated to make such a mess in Pepper's impeccably organized apartment. "It's not a pity thing. It never could be a pity thing, I would never let it be a pity thing, because I care about you too and Tony's not the only one asking you."

The stifling silence in the room made it clear that neither of the other two had been expecting Bruce's interruption, but neither Tony nor Pepper made any attempt to stop him from continuing. Instead, they just looked at him, Tony shrinking down just slightly while Pepper's expression seemed to soften minimally.

"Look, obviously the baby is the elephant in the room here, and I'm not going to lie and say that she wasn't part of what started this whole conversation," Bruce continued, "but that's not saying she's the only reason, and I'm sure that we all could have come to this conclusion some way or another eventually, but… circumstances are circumstances. I know that better than anyone." He had to pause for a moment to gather his thoughts. This wasn't like anything he'd ever had to explain before. "Us asking you to be a part of our relationship has nothing to do with pity or making up for the past or any of that, but it has everything to do with Tony and I thinking that we could all be happy together. Now, I don't know how you feel about us," he felt like he did, but he wasn't going to assume anything, "but we both feel things for you. It's both of us asking, okay?"

Bruce swallowed thickly once he finally got all his words out, and made an effort to sit back against the cushions and try to loosen up. He made a point to look down and scratch the back of his neck to give himself a moment before he had to deal with Pepper's reaction, and he wasn't sure if Tony's gentle hand on his back meant that the aftermath was good or bad.

Really, though, it wasn't either of those. Pepper's feelings were all over the spectrum at the moment, hopping between frustrated and shocked and confused and maybe even a little lonely. For some reason, it always seemed like people always waited until she'd finally figured her life out to spring something new on her, and then she had to reevaluate all the factors and line up the facts and generally just go through the whole mess of putting her life back together all over again.

It sucked.

Maybe though, just maybe, it would be easier if she actually had someone else, or in this case, two someone elses, to lean on. And those two someone elses were sitting on her couch right across from her, watching and waiting with those big, inky eyes of theirs that were brimming with something that looked awfully close to love. (Well, Tony's definitely were, but she was surprised to notice that Bruce's expression was well on its way to being identical to his boyfriend's. She couldn't help but wonder when that had started, how long it had taken, but most importantly, why.)

With a quiet sigh, Pepper sank back further into the sofa. She rubbed a hand over her face before she moved it to brush her fingers through her hair, and set her gaze back on the two men opposite her after giving herself a moment to look away and try to process. "I, um, I need to give it some thought," she admitted, and the small, simultaneous nods of Tony and Bruce's heads indicated that they'd been expecting exactly that. "It's just… it's a lot to process."

"I know it is," Bruce said as he straightened up, and Pepper watched the discreet movement of his hand as he gave Tony's leg an affectionate squeeze. He gave Pepper what looked like his best attempt at a smile, fidgeting slightly since he really didn't know if that was their cue to leave. "Take your time."

Pepper nodded, and at that point the two men definitely knew it was time to leave her alone. Bruce was the first to stand up, and he held out his hand for Tony to take, but the other man seemed to be hesitant to look away from Pepper just yet so Bruce took a few quiet, cautious steps towards the door to give them a minute.

Tony kept his eyes locked on Pepper even though his body was trying to tell him to get up and follow Bruce, but when his legs finally managed to lift him he ended up taking the few short steps towards where Pepper was sitting instead. She looked at him quizzically as he just stood there, but then he leaned over and braced his hand on the armrest beside her, and Pepper's mind was suddenly more preoccupied with just how close he was as he murmured to her only loud enough for both of them to hear.

"Just because I fell in love with him doesn't mean I stopped loving you, Pep."

It was a sentiment she'd heard before, and just like the last time, Tony walked away and left her to mull over it. She called out a gentle "see you boys later" as they left, listening to the door click shut before she was left alone with her thoughts again.

So she just sat there quietly for another few moments, trying to keep her emotions in check for the sake of staying calm, until the logical part of her brain spoke up and she realized that maybe sitting alone and in silence wasn't the best way to deal with all of that sudden, ridiculous information. She leaned over and grabbed her phone from the table beside the sofa, unlocking it before she pulled up her message stream with Natasha.

Come down to my place when you can, she typed. Bring alcohol. You're gonna need it.

"You know, Stark is lucky I had one last bottle of Vodka in my cabinet so I didn't have to raid his for some decent alcohol," Natasha commented offhandedly as she wandered through the door to Pepper's apartment. She turned the bottle over in her hands, eyes scanning the label. "Shame you can't have any." She looked over at Pepper with a crooked smile on her face before she flopped down beside the other woman on the couch.

"God, I wish I could." Pepper sighed and rolled her head over on the cushion, looking up at Natasha from where she was slumped down against the sofa. The sly little smirk on Natasha's face prompted a tiny smile to curl the corner of Pepper's mouth, but it was slightly bittersweet and only lasted for a moment. "But I'll be exercising that impeccable self-control I've gained from twelve years of working for SI."

Natasha chuckled dryly, quirking her eyebrows in a way that confirmed she knew exactly what Pepper meant. "I get the feeling you're already exercising that control," she commented, "because you never tell me to actually bring extra alcohol unless it's something Stark-related. What stupid thing did he do this time?"

"Wow, completely skipping the small talk?" Pepper teased. "Not gonna do your little spy thing, feel me out and see who I really am?"

"I already know who you really are," Natasha said matter-of-factly, but still rolled her eyes fondly. "I've figured it out by piecing together all the tidbits I've gotten from years of small talk. But if you insist… how are you, how's work, how's baby?"

"Unfortunately, I haven't had the same luck with you," Pepper said with a dry smile. "Work is work, still trying to fend off this one investor who seems to have come out of the woodwork from Hammer Industries. Baby is fine… restless, as always… and I'm…" She trailed off, twisting a strand of hair between her fingers as she tried to figure out what exactly she was at the moment.

"Confused? Conflicted? Trying to figure out whatever stupid thing Stark did?" Natasha guessed, eyebrow quirked.

Pepper turned her head towards the woman beside her again. "How'd you figure that one out?" she asked, almost rhetorically, because she had to admit that it was probably obvious.

"You're twisting your hair." Natasha flashed a grin. "You do that when you're confused." She watched Pepper look down at the lock of ginger hair between her fingers before consciously untangling it and dropping her hand to her stomach instead. "It's also just totally obvious, so don't get too creeped out that I've memorized your habits."

"Not creeped out at all," Pepper replied with a quiet, half-hearted laugh. If it was a few years ago and she'd only known Nat for a short time, she may have been, only because she wasn't used to anybody actually paying that much attention to her. But Natasha's sneaky and over-analytical personality had become something of a regular expectation by now, so Pepper really couldn't be surprised that the woman knew her most miniscule nervous habits. "Trust me."

"Good. So are you gonna tell me what's got you so twitchy? I'm not quite at the mind-reader skill level yet."

"Thank god." This time Pepper's laugh was more genuine, and it prompted a chuckle from Natasha as well. The moment faded quickly though, and Pepper was back to trying to figure out how to even bring this up. "I don't even know how to word this," she admitted with a shrug.

Natasha all but rolled her eyes. "Trust me when I say that I've heard and probably seen worse than whatever Stark's gotten himself into this time."

"Well, it's not that it's bad," Pepper started, and the more her mind beat around the bush the more inclined she was to just say it and lay it all out there. Maybe actually getting it out of her mouth would make it feel more plausible, less ridiculous and doubtful. "Tony and Bruce just came down here and asked me to be in a threesome with them," she finally blurted, and she had to admit that it was a relief to just rip off the band-aid.

When she looked over at Natasha, the redhead looked very much like she was trying to hold in a bout of hysterical laughter, lips pursed as her green eyes twinkled with amusement. She carefully reached over and grabbed the bottle of vodka she'd set aside, popping it open but hesitated before bringing it to her lips. "What?" she asked, the giggle audible in the one simple word. She took a draw from the bottle, clearly using it as a mechanism to keep her from laughing too hard. "You mean they waited until you're six months pregnant to ask you to have sex with them?" she asked after she'd swallowed, hints of that shit-eating grin still on her face. "That's kinky."

Pepper sighed, sinking further into the cushions. "Well… yes, but it's not just a sex thing, Nat," she tried to clarify, but Natasha still seemed far too indulged in that idea to change tracks right now.

"I mean… a threesome sounds like it could be fun," Natasha babbled, taking another sip from the bottle in her hand. "Not sure about both of them, though. If I had to pick one, I'd fuck Banner."

It took a minute for Pepper to process that remark, and when she did her head snapped over to look at Natasha, an eyebrow raised. "Really?" she said curiously.

"Yeah." Natasha shrugged casually. "He acts all quiet and unassuming around all of us, but that has to mean he's a total animal in bed," she explained, turning her gaze to meet Pepper's eyes. "Plus, I kinda dig the whole 'sexy nerd' thing. And considering how you actually seem like you're thinking about this, you probably do too," she added, grinning widely.

Pepper trapped her bottom lip between her teeth, flicking her eyes away from Natasha just for a second. "Okay… yes," she admitted, because she had to face that yes, she was definitely very attracted to both men in this situation, "but, it's not just a sex thing." She almost cringed at the term sex thing, because it seemed to be a very common phrase among the three of them who were involved in this, and she was getting tired of having to try and differentiate.

"Then what kind of thing is it?" Natasha asked.

"It's a relationship thing," Pepper explained briefly, "as in they asked me if I wanted to be a part of their relationship."

"Oh." Natasha blinked, absently tracing the opening of the bottle with the tip of her finger. "Well, what's so bad about that?"

"Nothing." The reply had come on instinct, barely giving Pepper any time to actually put some thought into the question. "At least… I don't think there's anything. I can't figure out what's stopping me."

"Okay," Natasha started, pausing to take one last sip of Vodka before she set the bottle on an end table, "you need to break it down. You have to tear it apart, look at every sign, evaluate it, figure out what it means, then put them all back together and look at the big picture. It'll make way more sense that way instead of trying to look at everything all at once." She shifted on the sofa, turning to face Pepper and tucking her legs up underneath her.

"Is that what you do when you over-analyze me?" Pepper joked dryly, shifting to sit up a little straighter herself.

"That's what I do when I over-analyze everybody," Nat replied dismissively. "Spy thing. Anyway, we'll start with the obvious—you have feelings for Stark, yes?"

Pepper hesitated before she answered. It wasn't that she didn't know how to answer the question, because the answer was fairly obvious, but she just didn't know how she felt about treating this like some kind of math equation. Logically, it probably made more sense that way—it would give her a chance to look at her feelings more objectively and figure out if taking the offer was really the best thing for her and her child. "Yes," she responded eventually, deciding to just go with it. "Always have, always will."

If she'd looked a second later, Pepper would have missed the tiny smile on Natasha's lips before she continued with the next question. "And what about Banner?"

"Yes." The answer was easy, without hesitation; there really wasn't any questioning it anymore. "Before you ask, yes, I've already acted on those feelings for them, and yes, I want to continue acting on them. The feelings aren't really the problem."

Typical Pepper, Natasha thought, always trying to get to the point in the fastest way possible. Natasha probably wasn't the only one who thought sometimes that Pepper needed to work on separating her professional tendencies from her personal ones, but Nat was guilty of the same thing, and she couldn't bring herself to be that much of a hypocrite. "Then what's the problem?" she asked, "Don't say you don't know. You wouldn't have called me down here if you didn't know."

"No. I wouldn't have." Pepper drew in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then exhaled a long sigh as she looked down towards the floor. She could sense Natasha's stance next to her, how she was probably sitting there with those perfect eyebrows arched, open and waiting for an answer. Pepper knew that, of all people, Natasha would be the one for yank the words straight out of her mouth if she didn't say them on her own, so Pepper decided to just face it. "What if it's a mistake?" she asked, the question directed more at herself than her friend beside her.

"Anything can be a mistake, Pepper." Natasha did her best to keep her voice from sounding hollow. "We both know that."

"I know," Pepper said, "but what if I do this and it ends up horribly? Tony and I obviously broke up for a reason, so what if I decide to do this and that happens all over again? And it wouldn't be just me and him this time, it would be Bruce too, and then I'm gonna have this baby and she's going to suffer because her parents couldn't get it together and figure it out." She huffed out another frustrated, broken sigh, and set her hands instinctively and protectively over her stomach. "I can't do that to her."

Natasha's eyes carefully tracked Pepper's movements, taking in the defensive way she held herself, and after those observations alone it was easy to tell that this was definitely more than just a sex thing. "Well, I'm obviously no expert in parenting," she said, and she could have sworn she saw Pepper crack a dry smile, "but from what I've seen, no good mother would let her kid get caught in the middle of all that. And we all know that you're gonna be a good mom, so don't even worry about it." Comfort and reassurance really weren't Natasha's areas of expertise and she couldn't tell if she'd been helping at all, but she figured she might as well try. She knew that Pepper would do the same for her—in fact, she already had several times in the past. "Why did you and Stark split the first time, anyway? Is that even something that could happen again?"

"He was in love with someone else." Pepper glanced at the woman beside her, and Natasha didn't need a verbal explanation to know who that 'someone else' was. "I was tired of being in a relationship where I was only second best."

"Can't blame you there," Natasha murmured in agreement, but recomposed herself quickly. "But you know, when you do the math… if you're all in a relationship with each other, and you all love each other—or something like that—there isn't an issue of anyone being second place to someone else on the outside," she explained matter-of-factly with a shrug.

Pepper ran the words over in her head for a minute, quite literally doing the math and eventually arriving at the conclusion that Natasha actually had a point. "That's true," she said, her posture relaxing minimally as some of the tension finally started to drain from her muscles.

"Uh huh." Natasha smiled gently when she noticed that Pepper seemed to finally be working it out. "Until that baby comes," she added, reaching over to nudge the hand Pepper still had on her stomach, "then literally everyone is gonna take a backseat."

"In theory." Pepper smirked, and the expression pulled a chuckle out of Natasha.

"Yeah, I'm still not sure if Stark is capable of loving someone else more than he loves himself," she laughed, grabbing her bottle of alcohol again to swallow some down. "So are you gonna do it?"

Pepper tipped her head back to rest on the back of the couch, eyes tracing the ceiling. Admittedly, actually talking it out definitely had her leaning more towards saying yes, but it was just in her nature to think about things more than that. There were still several variables to consider and probably another conversation with Tony and Bruce to be had, but Pepper decided that her brain had enough for that day. Any more of this and the hormones were probably too likely to take over. "I need to think about it more," she answered, and left it at that.

"Fair enough." Natasha waved the bottle in Pepper's direction as a gesture of an invisible toast. "But if you do do it, you have to promise me one thing." Pepper looked over at her and hummed questioningly. "You have to tell me about the sex."

A bout of laughter bubbled from Pepper's throat, and the suggestive smirk on Nat's face didn't do much to squash it. "Deal," she agreed, and still let the smile stay on her face even after the laughter had faded. They sat in silence for a few moments after that, surrounded by only the ticks of a clock and the swish of vodka in a bottle. "Thanks, Nat," Pepper said warmly.

"Any time." Natasha flashed a smile. "Wanna drink and watch bad reality TV?"

"You can drink while we watch bad reality TV."

"Shit. Right." Natasha took another draw from the bottle before she reached for the remote, flicking the TV on. "Well… sucks for you, works for me."

Pepper just hummed in agreement, fixing her eyes blankly on the TV screen as Nat flipped through the channels to find a distraction that both of them happily welcomed.