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Dr. Banner likes to watch.
Mostly because he can’t really do other things.
But regardless.
He likes to watch.
Tony figured it out within five minutes and gave him full authorization to all the cameras in the tower.
So that’s what he does at nights when he can’t sleep.
He Watchs.
He sees Clint late, late at night talking to Laura. Sprawled on his back in bed, his almost unreasonably muscular hand under military issued boxers.
He sees Steve returns to his room after a long workout, still not exhausted enough, tossing and turning in bed for an hour. Two hours. Three.
Sometimes he falls asleep.
Sometimes staring until dawn.
Sometimes giving up. Reaching for a little box tucked under the bed.
Looking at old pictures.
Bruce knows he can enhance the zoom and see the details of the photographs, but somehow that actually feels like an invasion of privacy.
So he just watches Steve touch himself. Furiously. In disgust. Violently.
Calls Bucky's name when he comes. Or Peggy's. Whatever
Bruce only watched Thor once. He didn’t need that kind of reminder of his own feeble body, thank you very much. Watching steve was depressing enough.
He would have liked watching Natasha in her sleep. But she dismantled the cameras three minutes after she moved to the tower. As was expected.
He settles himself in front of cameras when Pepper comes over. She and Tony tear into each other with such happy pleasure he almost feels happy himself.
Eventually, Dr. Banner notices he expects Pepper's visit almost as much as Tony. She is so busy that she comes to the tower for only a night or two every few weeks.
But when she does spend the night, Tony sings to himself in the morning, when he enters the lab, a cup of coffee in one hand and tea for Bruce in the other.
Everything is much easier when Tony is like that. Almost like being happy.
When Pepper goes away again Tony lays in bed hours without sleep.
The first few days he still smells her pillow. Masturbating again and again until he exhausts himself to sleep.
But as the days go by Tony just lies in bed and staring at the ceiling. Sometimes stroking himself unwittingly. Sometimes suddenly asking Jarvis to take notes of an idea.
And sometimes he suddenly looks straight in the camera and smiles.
Gets up and go back to the lab. Bruce meets him there and they work together until morning.
Lately Pepper comes less often. And she and Tony fight a lot.
Then she calls to cancel at the last minute. And again.
And Tony gets cranky and absentminded. Bruce finds himself initiating individual projects. Spending less time alone with Tony.
He stops watching Tony at nights.
When Thor asks Tony at breakfast one day why hasn’t the Lady Pepper visit recently, Tony gets up and leaves the kitchen, an unfinished mug of coffee left on the counter.
That night, Bruce lingers in front of the computer. Trying to decide what to do.
It is already very late, almost early, when he leaves his apartment and goes barefoot upstairs into Tonys penthouse, gets into bed and wraps the blanket around the both of them.
“Go to sleep, Tony“ he says “You’re unbearable when you don’t sleep.”