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Tony doesn’t really intend to get himself a boyfriend. He keeps telling himself it’s too soon after Pepper (after Steve) to date anyone seriously. Sex is sex, and that’s all well and good, but exclusive sex, with one person, mixed up with all this other crap involving feelings and other things Tony Stark Does Not Do? No. It’s not how this is supposed to work.
Anyway, he’s supposed to be miserable and grieving forever because he lost Pepper (and Steve) and he’s never supposed to find happiness ever again, because he’s a horrible, cheating bastard.
Needless to say, Bruce doesn’t take any of his shit, and tells him to shut it the first time Tony starts rambling about how it’s a very, very bad idea for them to be doing this. This whole…dating…thing.
Bruce sighs, exasperated. “Tony, you can’t be miserable forever.”
“Why not?” Tony asks with a pout, and crosses his arms. He stares Bruce down over the table they’re currently sitting at in some nice restaurant that they wound up at entirely by accident. Even if they have been fucking a lot in the past two months, and even if Tony has stopped seeing anyone else, and even if they’re having a civilized dinner, it doesn’t mean they’re dating.
“Because it’s not a very pretty way to live,” Bruce answers easily, sipping at his drink and staring at Tony with those no-nonsense eyes. “Take it from someone who knows.”
Tony raises his eyebrows in silent question, but Bruce doesn’t take the bait. Tony sighs. “I ruined my marriage and broke up my family. Explain to me how I don’t deserve to burn in the pits of hell for all eternity?”
“Because you didn’t mean to,” Bruce answers without hesitation, and Tony nearly chokes on his own spit.
“Uh—” he starts, blankly, and abruptly decides he needs ten times as much alcohol in his system if he’s going to deal with this.
Bruce narrows his eyes as Tony chugs down the rest of his gin and tonic, and then starts calmly, “You figured out you were gay after you were already married, and then you reacted badly. It happens.”
Tony barks out a violent laugh that has their waitress jumping about a foot in the air before deciding to come back later. “‘It happens’, he says. As if that somehow makes it okay that I—”
“Oh, no,” Bruce interrupts immediately, “It’s not okay. Cheating on your wife for three years is definitely not okay, but telling her the truth? Refusing to let it keep going with someone who was also cheating? That’s honorable, Tony, in its own way.”
Tony makes a painful little whimper that’s rather embarrassing, but he calms down when Bruce’s eyes soften and he bumps Tony’s foot with his own. Christ, he doesn’t deserve Bruce. Bruce is the kind of guy that would jump in front of a bus for a complete stranger on the street. Tony doesn’t deserve to have a guy like him playing footsie with him while they chat away over a nice dinner—which has yet to arrive. Tony doesn’t think he really deserves anyone at all, except maybe a psychopath that ends up shooting his brains out at the end of the night, but Bruce keeps trying to convince him otherwise.
And Bruce is really, really good in the sack, so Tony just keeps letting him talk. He should’ve broken it off with Bruce before he started feeling anything for the guy. But here they are.
“No one’s perfect,” Bruce says finally, with a half-hearted shrug and a wistful sort of smile on his face. Before Tony can grace that with a response, the waitress comes back looking a little less flustered and hands them their meals. Tony huffs out another breath just to communicate exactly how displeased he is with both this situation and the cessation of this little chat, and then he digs in and lets Bruce distract him with descriptions of the project he’s working on. Tony doesn’t know much about nuclear physics and biochemistry, but he knows enough math to follow Bruce’s equations and ask intelligent questions.
By the time they’re done with dinner and back in Tony’s apartment, Tony is pleasantly buzzed enough to almost forget how much he wishes he were dead, and he lets Bruce kiss him quiet when the last few doubts make their way to the surface.
“Say it,” Bruce says against his lips as he peels Tony’s shirt from off his shoulders. They’re slowly stumbling their way back toward the bedroom, leaving clothes like breadcrumbs behind them.
“Say what?” Tony asks, when Bruce moves down to start biting at his neck.
“What we are.” Bruce shoves Tony against the nearest wall and starts working on Tony’s pants. He’s starting to think they aren’t even going to make it to the bedroom. His head feels heavy and his thoughts are slow and thick, like molasses, so he has to wait until Bruce prompts him again. “What we are to each other.”
“Uh,” Tony responds blankly, and his fingers act of their own accord and divest Bruce of his shirt and pants before they both get too caught up in what’s going on. Tony’s hips thrust forward when Bruce’s hand grazes over his erection before he uses both his hands to shove Tony’s hips back against the wall. For all his gentleness in daily life, he’s rather aggressive in bed, and Tony can’t say he minds.
“Gay?” He tries.
Bruce sort of growls and shoves their hips together, keeping himself still as he breathes against Tony’s neck, probably trying to hold out, suspecting that this might take longer for Tony to understand than it maybe should. It’s not his fault, Bruce killed his brain with promises of filthy, filthy things that Tony would like very, very much.
“No,” Bruce says shortly, pressing down so hard against Tony’s hips that he whimpers.
“Uh,” he says to cover up his moment of weakness, “uh…”
“Tony,” Bruce sighs impatiently, all the while sliding Tony’s boxers down off his hips until they puddle at the floor. Tony hisses in a breath at the rush of cool air, but is immediately soothed when he feels nothing but skin on skin as Bruce presses back against him, fully undressed. Christ, they’re still in the fucking hallway.
“Uh,” he swallows, wondering if Bruce really will refuse him sex if he doesn’t say it. He doesn’t think he’s willing to take that kind of risk, in the end. “Boyfriends?” He says tentatively, knowing it’s right but still feeling unsure about the word. It just sounds so strange—boyfriends—and he can’t tell if it’s because he used to be straight or because he used to be married and doesn’t deserve to think about himself with those kind of terms.
“Once more, with feeling,” Bruce deadpans, some of the humor back in his voice, and Tony squeaks out a nervous laugh. Bruce chooses that moment to wrap a hand around his thickening cock and begins to stroke, unbearably slow. Tony bites down hard on his lip before he speaks.
“Boyfriends,” he breathes, helplessly. “Lovers, companions, boyfriends, people in a committed relationship, whatever! We’re dating, I’ll admit it, now will you please—”
Bruce drops to his knees and swallows Tony in one swift movement, and Tony thunks his head back against the wall and exhales, “Fuck.”
“Later,” Bruce replies cheerfully, pulling away for one infuriating moment. “First, this,” he goes on, like he’s having a fucking conversation with Tony’s dick. Tony is about one breath away from telling him off for being a tease when Bruce swallows Tony back down, and Tony is too busy spending the next few hours unraveling and worshipping the ground Bruce walks on to do any telling off, or much of anything else at all, really.
He still doesn’t deserve Bruce. But something in Bruce’s eyes gives Tony the feeling that maybe Bruce thinks he doesn’t deserve Tony, and until Tony figures out whatever it is that’s haunting his lover, he’s willing to pretend that maybe they really do deserve each other.
He’s getting far too good at pretending, nowadays.