Work Text:
Months of casual touches, soft feather-light contact, and Tony had finally noticed that Bruce no longer tensed up. It felt like he had won the Noble fucking Peace Prize.
It was especially rare when they were in the lab together and Tony didn’t have some sort of rock playing. Today he was alone in the lab, Bruce had stayed upstairs to meditate. Maybe it was harder, finding the common ways to keep his control faded. Maybe he was worried that having the routine made him too sloppy too open to letting the Other Guy come out to play. At any rate, Tony gave him his space in that regard.
The softer open of a more jazzy cover of ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ started up and Tony almost skipped the song. Somehow though the music made him stop. The lyrics kicked the wind out his sails.
Oh simple thing where have you gone?
I’m getting old and I need something to rely on
So tell me when you’re gonna let me in
I’m getting tired and I need somewhere to begin
And Tony, though not known as a romantic at heart found his thoughts slowly turning to how life had been for the past year.
How he had liked - no, LOVED - having Bruce there. How he loved when he made an off color joke and Bruce would laugh at him with the corners of his eyes wrinkling before apologizing on Tony’s behalf to JARVIS. He loved how he never had to say a word but Bruce always knew where to set what he needed, he never tried to hand him anything. He never pushed the boundaries that Tony never even spoke about.
"Shit, Stark, you don’t even have a fucking heart to love with anyways." Tony grumbled to himself and tried to focus on his work.
Somehow though all he could do was think of that curly grey brown head of hair and running his hand through it while he kissed Bruce so gently, so tenderly, that he wouldn’t flinch. Maybe even melt into it. Maybe even enjoy it; return it.
Tony sighed softly and shivered. “What the hell are you even doing, thinking that? Get it together Tony."
Tony Stark was not a sentimental person. Tony Stark played hard, worked hard, and while he had a few circumstances of emotional binges he did not wallow like this. He did not worry like this. He did not let an emotion come and consume him; to burn him up. He did not relinquish control. But he had been thinking far too much, he had been thinking way too long - it ate him up really. He found himself getting distracted all too often.
There was a reason that Tony Stark lived for his flings, his sexual conquests, it was why people did not remain in his life and why he did not allow them to stay for too long. To date only the Avengers (not exactly his choice), Pepper (not like he had a say - she’d never leave now), and Happy (not like he would ever stop, even if Tony told him too) had remained a true fixture in his life. It made it easier to not trust people. It made it easier to pretend that he was beyond human emotions like affection. Sex was great, he enjoyed it, and before he had to get to the scary part like feeling something for a person he could kick them out and send them away. Not this time.
What scared him more than feeling, what scared him more than the thought of letting someone in, was of letting Bruce go. Being without him scared him more than being with him.