Handling Pointy Things; Chapter 9: Pointy Things
Title: Handling Pointy Things
Author: Del Rion (delrion.mail (at) gmail.com)
Fandom: The Avengers & Iron Man (MCU)
Era: Post-Avengers movie, after “Blue Glow” fic.
Genre: Drama
Rating: M / FRM
Characters: Bruce Banner (Hulk), Clint Barton (Hawkeye), Jane Foster, Nick Fury, Happy Hogan, J.A.R.V.I.S., Darcy Lewis, Pepper Potts, James “Rhodey” Rhodes (War Machine), Steve Rogers (Captain America), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), Thor, Tony Stark (Iron Man)
Pairings: Bruce/Tony, Happy/Pepper, Jane/Thor (, Clint/Natasha, implied past Pepper/Tony)
Summary: It starts with a dream and ends with something that resembles strutting more than tiptoeing; in other words, Bruce has a new-found obsession with Tony, Tony finds that endearing and wants to take it further while everyone else - including Bruce - seems to think it might actually be a very bad idea.
Work in progress. Part of the “Turquoise” -series.
Warnings: Slash (m/m relationship) and some sexual content, past and current het (f/m), superheroes vs. villains violence, language.
~ ~ ~
Author’s note: I found that I actually had to tone things down a bit to keep within the main rating (and I still could be slipping on the side of explicit)… Avengers is evidently slipping porn back into my brain. Sexy(ish) times lie ahead!
Chapter 9: Pointy Things
Avengers Mansion
Manhattan, New York, NY, USA
Bruce entered the workshop some time after Rhodey and Rogers took their leave. Tony hadn’t really paid attention to how long it had been and while he knew J.A.R.V.I.S. could have told him with the accuracy of a hundredth of a second, he didn’t bother asking.
“There’s a weird scene going on upstairs,” Bruce commented as he stopped beside Tony’s current location.
“Yeah?” Tony replied absently.
“I think your friend Rhodes is… He and Steve seem to get along.”
“Bonding over war stories; I’m sure they have a secret handshake or something.” He lifted the small welding machine to see if the seam was up to snuff then raised his eyes towards Bruce. “Did you need something?”
The other man just stared at him for a moment, as if trying to get him to read his mind. When that didn’t work he had to resort to speaking: “Did you and Rhodes argue?”
Tony’s first instinct was to deny everything but when he thought about it, what was he going to win by doing that? Especially when the topic of their argument was right in front of him, more or less. “Maybe,” he finally admitted.
“About?” Bruce pushed although it sounded like he had an idea of his own.
“It doesn’t matter,” Tony shrugged and switched off the welding machine, unable to focus on his work now that Bruce had brought it up again.
“If it’s about me, I think it does matter,” Bruce pointed out.
Tony gave him a hard look. “It’s between me and him - me and Pepper. There’s no reason to go on the warpath -”
“Who said anything about a warpath?”
“Don’t play cute with me,” Tony snapped.
Bruce gave him another one of those long, infinitely patient looks yet it didn’t last as long as usual. He reached up towards his face, only to realize he wasn’t wearing his glasses and couldn’t take them off to fiddle with them. His fingers moved through the side of his hair instead before settling at the level of his stomach, doing that twisty-thing with both his hands. “What’s their problem?” he asked again.
Tony felt compelled to tell him, for whatever reason, although he knew it was a better idea not to. They were in a good place; there was no reason to ruin it. On the other hand there was a certain level of honesty between them and Tony didn’t want to act like he was holding things back; Bruce had enough trust issues with people.
“They think I’m making a mistake being in a relationship with you.”
“I agree,” Bruce noted.
“I know, and I told Rhodey just that,” Tony frowned unhappily, annoyed that Bruce could still say shit like that with a straight face; he’d thought they had moved beyond that, somewhere around the time Bruce jerked him off, but apparently not. It bothered him more and more the longer the silence stretched between them and eventually he couldn’t contain it anymore: “What do you mean, you agree?” he snapped. “We’ve been at this for months. We’ve talked about things. We’ve taken it easy. We’ve worked around a dozen issues and not the least impressive of them being my gigantic need to have actual sex with you.”
Bruce raised an eyebrow at that.
“What, as if you don’t know? We can go upstairs right now and ask Rhodey about how long my dry streaks usually last. I used to measure it in hours, just so you know. I think I’ve been very good at handling this -”
“You have,” Bruce replied, calm and caring, totally throwing him off. Tony hated that Bruce could do it so easily when he was in the middle of a rant. “No one is disagreeing with that,” he went on, taking a step closer to Tony. “You’ve been very patient and a complete gentleman.”
“Now you’re just making fun of me,” Tony bristled a little. “The things I’ve been doing to you with my mouth alone surpass any and every definition of gentleman-like behavior.”
A slight smile passed over Bruce’s face. It was his dirty smile; not like Tony’s own, but dirty for him. “I’ve been wondering if there’s something else you might want to do with that mouth of yours.”
Tony stopped breathing for a moment, analyzing the words. Yes, Bruce was coming onto him; check that. Was he suggesting what he thought he was suggesting - which hadn’t been on the table prior to this moment? “J.A.R.V.I.S.,” he asked, “would you care to repeat what Dr. Banner said about seven seconds ago?”
“Dr. Banner stated he’s been wondering whether there is something else you might want to do with your mouth, sir,” the AI responded without missing a beat.
Bruce looked fairly amused by that but fought against commenting on it before Tony had worked it out. Well, that’s what Tony hoped it was, and not being totally turned off by his broaching the subject.
“Okay,” Tony straightened in his chair. “Did you just ask me to -?”
“Blow me,” Bruce finished the sentence for him.
Tony swallowed. Yes, he had done it before but no, they hadn’t done it before. Bruce had jerked him off - which was a total understatement in describing that fantastically mind-blowing moment - but there hadn’t been any mouth-on-dick action, nor had Bruce suggested he was ready for it, especially if he was going to be on the receiving end of it.
“You could say something,” Bruce suggested next.
“My brain just froze. Overloaded. It’s rebooting,” Tony managed. “Where is this coming from?” he asked then, suspicious all of a sudden. “This doesn’t have anything to do with my arguments with certain people, right? Because I might feel a little… no, a lot hurt by that. Well, not hurt, but uncertain whether we would be doing it for the right reasons - not that I’m saying we wouldn’t do it even if it was for the wrong reasons, and -”
He stopped as Bruce moved the rest of the way to him and touched his chin, gentle as ever, yet signaling that Tony was done talking. “I want us to do it because… well, we don’t have to, if you’re not okay with it. We haven’t exactly talked about preferences.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Tony rushed to say. “That’s well within all my preferences, desires and wet dreams. Did I mention fantasies?”
Bruce gave him that amused look he had whenever he was wondering whether Tony just came up with stuff on the fly - which he totally did. “Shall we go to the bedroom, then? I don’t think I want to try it here, seeing as Rhodes still needs to pick up his armor.”
“Got it,” Tony agreed, shifting his chair back slightly so that he could stand. All the while Bruce kept that hand on his face, maintaining eye-contact. “J,” Tony called out, “please make sure Mr. Rhodes’ armor is ready to go whenever he feels the need to leave. Do assist him in anything he needs but please, don’t pester me about it; I have better things to do in the foreseeable future.”
“Of course, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied.
They took the back stairs up to Bruce’s room. While they usually slept in the same bed and more often than not in Tony’s room, Bruce’s was more likely to go undisturbed, seeing as bothering a man with rage monster issues was something no one in the mansion wanted to do. Which meant they could go perfectly uninterrupted for as long as they wanted.
Considering how hard he already was, anticipating this, Tony wasn’t sure how long it would actually take.
Bruce seemed to lose some of his confidence once the door was closed. He eyed the bed with a hint of uncertainty, taking long, deep breaths.
“We don’t need to do this,” Tony told him, seating himself on the edge of the bed. “Not now, anyway, if you don’t feel you’re up to it.” He tried to hide the nasty bite of disappointment, telling himself once again that they had to do this at Bruce’s pace or they wouldn’t be doing it at all.
It was worth the wait.
Tony felt like correcting himself. ‘Worth the wait’ was such a cliché; sex was sex, there wasn’t much to it that differed from one person to the next. Sure, some people were better at it, some were prettier to look at - and then came the area that Tony hadn’t explored all that much: people who mattered. Bruce mattered to him, and thus the idea of being intimate with him mattered, too. Sometimes he choked up thinking about it, how a simple kiss made his mind work over-time, wanting to drown in its significance. Sure, it was still just a kiss, but…
He had sometimes felt the same with Pepper. Maybe it was the long wait, the build-up, and the eventual downfall he probably anticipated although he didn’t want to acknowledge it.
With Bruce it was similar yet different; as they tried to find ways to overcome Bruce’s fears and very real restrictions, it left them open to what Tony called ‘feelings’. He refused to call it by another name - a name some people threw around like freebies at a promotional event - but he was aware that sitting here, waiting for Bruce to center himself and either give him the green light or call it off, it wasn’t just the sex he was looking forward to, and it wasn’t the possible lack of it that gnawed at him.
Bruce took another deep breath and then started to undo his shirt. “I want to do this,” he stated, wiping Tony’s mind clean of anything he had previously been contemplating.
“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” Tony reassured him but didn’t move to take off his own clothes. Bruce would tell him how he wanted to do this. If it was just a blow-job, Tony didn’t need to get naked for it.
Bruce let out a laugh that betrayed his nerves. “No? I can think of a few things.”
“Maybe you should talk me through them, then,” Tony offered, voice calmer than he felt. He toed off his shoes and pulled his legs up, sitting cross-legged on the edge of the bed, trying to recall some of those breathing exercises Bruce had shown him; he may have done this before but he hadn’t done it with Bruce, and that set it apart from anything and everything he had ever experienced. A new territory to map; a new experiment to undertake - and yet there was no science in this, no equation to follow other than the two of them and the complicated mechanics of their bodies and minds.
Bruce had shed his shirt while Tony let his mind wander. “I’ve been avoiding this for so long,” he started talking, forcing Tony’s mind to follow, to listen, to pay attention even when the scientist started undoing his pants. “The fear of another episode… of another uncontrollable rampage triggered by an emotional high… I decided I could go without it. I could isolate myself and hope for the best. But then you happened,” he said, allowing his pants to fall down his legs, leaving him standing there with his underwear, undershirt and pants bunched up at his ankles along with his socks. Not the sexiest thing Tony had had the pleasure of seeing, yet he didn’t feel cheated or disappointed looking at Bruce.
Tony dragged his eyes up. “I’ve been known to do that… The Stark Experience. Maybe I should build a theme-park with that name?” He grinned, but it didn’t last; not with Bruce looking at him, deadly serious, allowing the joke to slide by because that was how Tony played Seriously Serious Moments; he tried not to show how much of an impact they had on him.
“You happened,” Bruce went on as if Tony hadn’t spoken at all. “The first battle, living together, talking me into staying - and then I almost killed you.” Bruce stopped moving, stopped breathing, that haunted look passing his face.
Why he had to remind himself of that now was beyond Tony’s understanding.
“You got under my skin,” Bruce went on finally, stepping out of his pant legs, standing there almost awkwardly. He wasn’t hard yet, Tony could tell, and his own arousal had dissipated a while ago, waiting for a cue to return. “I have no idea… but I’ve begun to think I let you in there; that I wanted you to be there. And that’s… that’s why we should be doing this, or trying, but I’m still concerned it’s too soon - that I’m not in control and that this will end up with half the mansion in pieces and you rushing out to put on the armor.”
“It won’t,” Tony reassured him. “You’ve got a lid on it and the big guy knows me.” Well, whether the Hulk would like him as much when he came out in the middle of sex, thinking he was in danger, was another thing entirely. He knew he could have told Bruce he trusted him - trusted both of them - but he had gone down that road before and it never got him more than a sad look and a shake of Bruce’s head. Tony had learned his lesson from all those mistakes: “You can trust me,” he said instead.
It wasn’t a magic word to conjure rainbows and small singing animals, but it was what Bruce needed to hear. Tony wasn’t sure how he hadn’t thought of it in the beginning, thinking that Bruce needed to know Tony had faith in him instead. As it turned out, it seemed more important that Bruce had faith in Tony.
Bruce’s hands were shaking as they came up to Tony’s shoulders, then the right one continued up his neck and to his hair, in a caress seeking confirmation. The pressure that came after was almost nonexistent but Tony went with it, feeling it, leaning forward. The other man was standing right in front of him so he didn’t feel like he might fall off the bed when he leaned too far out. Bruce was right there and Tony kissed his stomach, innocent enough, smelling him, body hair teasing his nose. He felt the inhales and exhales, making himself wait, eyes closed, mustering every last cell of patience in his body.
If he blew this, there was no guarantee he could ever put it back together again.
“Tony,” Bruce murmured, the hand in his hair shifting.
“Either you say it - tell me what to do - or I’ll take the reins,” Tony mused, leaning back slightly, looking up at the other man.
Bruce nodded slowly. “Maybe I should lie down.”
“Always a good plan,” Tony agreed, scooting over.
Bruce followed him after removing his undershirt, hesitation making him look every bit like an awkward science nerd at a sleepover with half a dozen hot girls who were planning on treating him like a big teddy bear. Well, not that Tony knew what that was like first hand - he had just been forced to watch a few silly teenage movies - and he wasn’t going to treat Bruce like anything other than what he was; a brilliant man who had to hold back so much, and who had gotten into the habit of holding back everything for fear of losing control. He could afford to let go a little, in Tony’s opinion, without the fear of the other guy tearing down the walls.
Despite how awkward it all was, Tony noticed to his satisfaction that Bruce was getting a little hard and it was criminal he was still wearing so many clothes. “Can I touch?” he asked, which was perhaps the clumsiest and the most considerate thing he had ever said in bed in his entire life.
Bruce licked his lips and nodded, settling down, making no move to take off his underwear. It was the last barrier between success and failure and perhaps the scientist wasn’t yet convinced which one this was going to be. As much as he wanted it - enough to come fetch Tony from the workshop - there was still room for mistakes.
He slid his hand over the slight bulge in his boxers, feeling the heat, the pulse, and wondered if he could monitor Bruce through that. Perhaps not the most reliable fail-safe… Bruce was lying very still, staring at the ceiling and Tony wondered if this was really that hard for him. Being anxious about the whole thing couldn’t help, however, so he leaned forward and kissed the other man’s stomach again, all the way up his chest - a chest that wasn’t a scarred mess with an arc reactor stuck in the middle. While he did that, his hand grew firmer and surer, seeing as they had come to the bedroom with a goal and he was nothing if not determined to reach it.
Bruce’s eyelashes fluttered and he raised his head, looking down at Tony, a mixed expression on his face.
“Too much?” Tony asked.
“Not yet,” Bruce replied, licking his lips again. “Kiss me.”
Tony smiled and moved up to comply. Their lips knew the familiar dance. Bruce’s mouth tasted clean and from experience Tony knew the man had probably spent half an hour in the bathroom before fetching him, checking that he didn’t have cracked lips or sores on the inside of his mouth that might lead to an unwanted blood molecule to pass between them. Personally Tony didn’t see a danger in something so insignificant but if it gave Bruce the guts to ask Tony to blow him, he didn’t mind.
After all, these were building blocks towards the main act.
Tony’s hand picked up the pace a little, fingers tracing the ridges through the clothing. Bruce’s chest heaved and one of his hands pushed up Tony’s back to his neck, then to his hair, while the other wandered down. Tony fully expected him to ask for a break, to bring himself down so they could work their way up again, but to his shock Bruce tugged his flesh out of his boxers through the flap on the front, presenting himself to Tony’s fingers.
It was getting very real very fast.
“Condom,” Bruce ordered and Tony found a box conveniently placed in the bedside drawer. He reached out, inspecting the label, noticing that Bruce had probably gone to some trouble to find these; they were extra thick and durable, nothing he had ever seen before, definitely not something an average man was interested in wearing. Tony, of course, knew it had to do with Bruce’s fear of the gamma radiation and they had agreed on precautions should they ever get this far.
And here they were.
Bruce was holding himself as Tony opened one of the packets and then had a brief struggle trying to roll the latex over him. Bruce’s hand fell away when it was safely in place and Tony took over, stroking, not teasing but not pushing either. However, it didn’t take long before his self-control began to tremble at the seams. “Ready for step two?” he asked.
The other man hesitated, looking at the ceiling again. Tony was tempted to look and see if there was some kind of picture taped there like at a dentist’s office. “Okay,” Bruce finally gave him the go-ahead, “but go slow, please,” he amended in the next breath.
Tony wondered if they understood ‘slow’ in a similar fashion as he brought his mouth down to Bruce’s member, reminding himself that the condom would probably cancel out a lot of the sensations.
Apparently not; Bruce’s entire body jumped and he was scooting up the bed so fast he almost kneed Tony in the face. Tony sat up, watching him, but Bruce didn’t seem green; just a little wild.
“What was that?!” Bruce demanded.
“Well, if we comprehend the term ‘blow-job’ the same way, it includes my mouth on your dick,” Tony defended himself.
Bruce heaved in mighty breaths of air. “You could have… eased into it.”
“Give me a map next time,” Tony muttered, looking to the side.
He heard Bruce sigh, or maybe it was a very long, measured exhale. “Alright. I’m sorry. Maybe next time don’t go straight for the trigger, okay? Especially if you’re going to… pull. Fuck,” he finished, sounding rough and shaken.
Tony looked at him again, taking a few breaths of his own, trying to remind himself that it had been a while for the other man and maybe he was just… “Are you sensitive?” Tony asked.
“What?” Bruce frowned.
“Some people are more… you know, some people can take a touch while others can’t, so maybe it doesn’t take much to get you all jumpy.”
“I’ve been shot, stabbed and pricked with a few dozen different kinds of darts and needles,” Bruce noted. “I would assume I’m pretty thick-skinned by now.”
“But those all lead to the other guy coming out. They’re painful. I’m talking about the non-painful stuff. Just because I handled your… pointy thing with a little more intensity than you’ve been used to for the past few years, I don’t think it warranted you almost kicking me in the head.”
Bruce managed to look bashful, then smiled. “Pointy thing?”
Tony grinned back at him. “So, shall we proceed?”
Bruce looked at him, eyes still wary but he eventually nodded and unfolded himself a little, sitting against the headboard. Tony moved over to him, exchanging a kiss with him before handling his flesh again, bringing it back to attention, then moved a bit further down to trace his lips over the latex-covered flesh. This time he went easy, tracing the sides, little licks and pushes and either Bruce got excited really easily or this was really pushing the threshold because he kept trembling a little, breathing in an even rhythm, seeming quite tense.
Ever so often he asked Tony to stop, twice before Tony finally managed to coax him into some real oral action. Bruce came a bit unglued and Tony pulled back again, anticipating that he would be told to anyway. “Hey, big guy, come on; you can do this. It’s supposed to feel like going over the edge, you remember that, right?”
Bruce nodded slowly, beads of sweat on his forehead.
“If you start to go green - and I mean actual skin color and not just the sensation - tell me to back off. If not, we’re riding this one to the end.” He didn’t mean to sound bossy, to tell Bruce what to do, but he felt like his lover lacked the courage to take the final leap of faith.
When no verbal disagreement met his demands, Tony moved back down, placing his mouth on his flesh, almost used to the taste by now which wasn’t anything like the rest of Bruce, yet he knew discarding the condom wasn’t exactly an option. Perhaps they could work on something thin and durable, which might actually pass through the scent and taste but now anything else…
Thinking of that was a distraction right now, though, regardless of how sexy the idea of working on something like that was, and he slid further down, keeping it light then increasing the suction and the pressure of his tongue until Bruce’s hips shot up. Tony moved along with him as best he could, seeing Bruce’s hand flex on the bed beside him, no doubt wanting to call this off and spend the next fifteen minutes sitting a few feet apart waiting for his erection to deflate - yet he didn’t.
It felt like a bit of a struggle on both sides until Bruce finally grunted and twitched, from head to toe, and Tony lifted off, stroking the base soothingly as the other man finished coming. Bruce was shaking a little, the act itself being secondary to the struggle within him, yet Tony felt a sudden surge of accomplishment and moved up, kissing the man with deep, slow passion. “We did it,” he murmured against his lips then plopped down on the bed beside him.
Bruce gathered himself for a few moments then got up to go to the bathroom and take care of the condom. Tony waited, listening to the water and the open and close of the special trash can that was reserved for possible radiation risks. A chuckle escaped him; not in a million years had he thought giving such a crappy excuse for a blow-job would have felt like one of his greatest triumphs and that lying here while Bruce methodically wiped away every last trace of it would be somewhat comforting.
When the other man finally joined him, Tony smelled soap and little else. Bruce still looked a bit rumpled but relaxed too, now that it was over.
“I imagine not all of your similar encounters were like this,” Bruce commented, a note of self-loathing in his voice.
“Oh, none of my previous encounters have been like this,” Tony agreed, then lifted one hand to trace Bruce’s shoulder in an idle pattern, stopping only when he spoke up again: “None of them were with you.”
Bruce huffed. “You don’t have to sugar-coat it; I know this wasn’t what you -”
“Expected? Wanted? Deserved?” Tony interrupted him. He propped himself up on one arm. “It went better than I thought it might. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, and it’s going to be easier the next time around.”
“It… shouldn’t be a struggle,” Bruce kept arguing, softly, tiredly. “You shouldn’t have to hold back and wait.” He glanced down Tony’s body. “Plus, it could at least turn you on.”
Tony grabbed his jaw so hard and fast that Bruce’s eyes glowed green as they stared at each other, yet Tony had a feeling reasoning with the Hulk might go easier than convincing Bruce of what had just happened. “Listen carefully, Banner. No, it wasn’t pretty, and yes, it was nothing I’ve gotten used to, but I chose this. I chose you over every super-model and easy fuck in the world. What I just got to do to you is something no one else has since you bombarded yourself with gamma rays. If that isn’t the biggest turn on in my life, I don’t know what is, but the task was a bit too emotionally demanding for me to be sporting a huge hard-on right now.”
The green faded, leaving Bruce’s eyes a familiar brown.
Tony took that as a sign to continue, his hold on the man’s jaw not relaxing: “We’ve gotten this far, which is a fucking miracle. We battle aliens, gods and super-freaks once a week, the other guy almost killed me and no one has a clue what will happen tomorrow, yet here we are, trying to build something. I’m not going to give you a speech about how wonderful it could be or how happy we might be, because we both know the odds. So either we’re doing this or not, and… I damn sure can’t do it alone.”
There were very few things that Tony could admit he couldn’t do without help, yet his relationship with Bruce was one of them and if he could have worked around that, he would have already done so. As it was, he needed Bruce to work with him and not wimp out after they had invested so much in this relationship.
Tony felt something wet on his thumb and noticed one single tear sliding down Bruce’s face. He let go of his jaw, realizing maybe he had hurt him, yet the other guy hadn’t come out…
Bruce’s hand shot up, fisting in his hair, pulling him closer. “Come here,” he said, voice strained, then pulled Tony into a kiss that was long enough to make his lungs burn. He was just about to call for a pause when Bruce unsealed their mouths and leaned their foreheads together. Tony’s eyes had trouble focusing on something that was so close but he was aware of Bruce’s intense gaze burning into his.
“So…” Tony started.
“We’re doing this. Together,” Bruce told him then pulled him closer and made them lie down, the lights in the room going dim without an order from either one of them.
“If J.A.R.V.I.S. congratulates us, I swear I’ll actually re-wire his system,” Tony muttered against Bruce’s shoulder.
“I will leave any such congratulations for later, then, sir - should any actually be in order,” the AI replied snidely.
“I can think of a few reasons,” Bruce murmured before the room fell comfortably silent.
to be continued…
Story Info
Author: Del Rion (delrion.mail (at) gmail.com)
Fandom: The Avengers & Iron Man (MCU)
Era: Post-Avengers movie, after “Blue Glow” fic.
Genre: Drama
Rating: M / FRM
Characters: Bruce Banner (Hulk), Clint Barton (Hawkeye), Jane Foster, Nick Fury, Happy Hogan, J.A.R.V.I.S., Darcy Lewis, Pepper Potts, James “Rhodey” Rhodes (War Machine), Steve Rogers (Captain America), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow), Thor, Tony Stark (Iron Man)
Pairings: Bruce/Tony, Happy/Pepper, Jane/Thor (, Clint/Natasha, implied past Pepper/Tony)
Summary: It starts with a dream and ends with something that resembles strutting more than tiptoeing; in other words, Bruce has a new-found obsession with Tony, Tony finds that endearing and wants to take it further while everyone else - including Bruce - seems to think it might actually be a very bad idea.
Work in progress. Part of the “Turquoise” -series.
Warnings: Slash (m/m relationship) and some sexual content, past and current het (f/m), superheroes vs. villains violence, language.
~ ~ ~
Author’s note: I found that I actually had to tone things down a bit to keep within the main rating (and I still could be slipping on the side of explicit)… Avengers is evidently slipping porn back into my brain. Sexy(ish) times lie ahead!
Chapter 9: Pointy Things
Avengers Mansion
Manhattan, New York, NY, USA
Bruce entered the workshop some time after Rhodey and Rogers took their leave. Tony hadn’t really paid attention to how long it had been and while he knew J.A.R.V.I.S. could have told him with the accuracy of a hundredth of a second, he didn’t bother asking.
“There’s a weird scene going on upstairs,” Bruce commented as he stopped beside Tony’s current location.
“Yeah?” Tony replied absently.
“I think your friend Rhodes is… He and Steve seem to get along.”
“Bonding over war stories; I’m sure they have a secret handshake or something.” He lifted the small welding machine to see if the seam was up to snuff then raised his eyes towards Bruce. “Did you need something?”
The other man just stared at him for a moment, as if trying to get him to read his mind. When that didn’t work he had to resort to speaking: “Did you and Rhodes argue?”
Tony’s first instinct was to deny everything but when he thought about it, what was he going to win by doing that? Especially when the topic of their argument was right in front of him, more or less. “Maybe,” he finally admitted.
“About?” Bruce pushed although it sounded like he had an idea of his own.
“It doesn’t matter,” Tony shrugged and switched off the welding machine, unable to focus on his work now that Bruce had brought it up again.
“If it’s about me, I think it does matter,” Bruce pointed out.
Tony gave him a hard look. “It’s between me and him - me and Pepper. There’s no reason to go on the warpath -”
“Who said anything about a warpath?”
“Don’t play cute with me,” Tony snapped.
Bruce gave him another one of those long, infinitely patient looks yet it didn’t last as long as usual. He reached up towards his face, only to realize he wasn’t wearing his glasses and couldn’t take them off to fiddle with them. His fingers moved through the side of his hair instead before settling at the level of his stomach, doing that twisty-thing with both his hands. “What’s their problem?” he asked again.
Tony felt compelled to tell him, for whatever reason, although he knew it was a better idea not to. They were in a good place; there was no reason to ruin it. On the other hand there was a certain level of honesty between them and Tony didn’t want to act like he was holding things back; Bruce had enough trust issues with people.
“They think I’m making a mistake being in a relationship with you.”
“I agree,” Bruce noted.
“I know, and I told Rhodey just that,” Tony frowned unhappily, annoyed that Bruce could still say shit like that with a straight face; he’d thought they had moved beyond that, somewhere around the time Bruce jerked him off, but apparently not. It bothered him more and more the longer the silence stretched between them and eventually he couldn’t contain it anymore: “What do you mean, you agree?” he snapped. “We’ve been at this for months. We’ve talked about things. We’ve taken it easy. We’ve worked around a dozen issues and not the least impressive of them being my gigantic need to have actual sex with you.”
Bruce raised an eyebrow at that.
“What, as if you don’t know? We can go upstairs right now and ask Rhodey about how long my dry streaks usually last. I used to measure it in hours, just so you know. I think I’ve been very good at handling this -”
“You have,” Bruce replied, calm and caring, totally throwing him off. Tony hated that Bruce could do it so easily when he was in the middle of a rant. “No one is disagreeing with that,” he went on, taking a step closer to Tony. “You’ve been very patient and a complete gentleman.”
“Now you’re just making fun of me,” Tony bristled a little. “The things I’ve been doing to you with my mouth alone surpass any and every definition of gentleman-like behavior.”
A slight smile passed over Bruce’s face. It was his dirty smile; not like Tony’s own, but dirty for him. “I’ve been wondering if there’s something else you might want to do with that mouth of yours.”
Tony stopped breathing for a moment, analyzing the words. Yes, Bruce was coming onto him; check that. Was he suggesting what he thought he was suggesting - which hadn’t been on the table prior to this moment? “J.A.R.V.I.S.,” he asked, “would you care to repeat what Dr. Banner said about seven seconds ago?”
“Dr. Banner stated he’s been wondering whether there is something else you might want to do with your mouth, sir,” the AI responded without missing a beat.
Bruce looked fairly amused by that but fought against commenting on it before Tony had worked it out. Well, that’s what Tony hoped it was, and not being totally turned off by his broaching the subject.
“Okay,” Tony straightened in his chair. “Did you just ask me to -?”
“Blow me,” Bruce finished the sentence for him.
Tony swallowed. Yes, he had done it before but no, they hadn’t done it before. Bruce had jerked him off - which was a total understatement in describing that fantastically mind-blowing moment - but there hadn’t been any mouth-on-dick action, nor had Bruce suggested he was ready for it, especially if he was going to be on the receiving end of it.
“You could say something,” Bruce suggested next.
“My brain just froze. Overloaded. It’s rebooting,” Tony managed. “Where is this coming from?” he asked then, suspicious all of a sudden. “This doesn’t have anything to do with my arguments with certain people, right? Because I might feel a little… no, a lot hurt by that. Well, not hurt, but uncertain whether we would be doing it for the right reasons - not that I’m saying we wouldn’t do it even if it was for the wrong reasons, and -”
He stopped as Bruce moved the rest of the way to him and touched his chin, gentle as ever, yet signaling that Tony was done talking. “I want us to do it because… well, we don’t have to, if you’re not okay with it. We haven’t exactly talked about preferences.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Tony rushed to say. “That’s well within all my preferences, desires and wet dreams. Did I mention fantasies?”
Bruce gave him that amused look he had whenever he was wondering whether Tony just came up with stuff on the fly - which he totally did. “Shall we go to the bedroom, then? I don’t think I want to try it here, seeing as Rhodes still needs to pick up his armor.”
“Got it,” Tony agreed, shifting his chair back slightly so that he could stand. All the while Bruce kept that hand on his face, maintaining eye-contact. “J,” Tony called out, “please make sure Mr. Rhodes’ armor is ready to go whenever he feels the need to leave. Do assist him in anything he needs but please, don’t pester me about it; I have better things to do in the foreseeable future.”
“Of course, sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied.
They took the back stairs up to Bruce’s room. While they usually slept in the same bed and more often than not in Tony’s room, Bruce’s was more likely to go undisturbed, seeing as bothering a man with rage monster issues was something no one in the mansion wanted to do. Which meant they could go perfectly uninterrupted for as long as they wanted.
Considering how hard he already was, anticipating this, Tony wasn’t sure how long it would actually take.
Bruce seemed to lose some of his confidence once the door was closed. He eyed the bed with a hint of uncertainty, taking long, deep breaths.
“We don’t need to do this,” Tony told him, seating himself on the edge of the bed. “Not now, anyway, if you don’t feel you’re up to it.” He tried to hide the nasty bite of disappointment, telling himself once again that they had to do this at Bruce’s pace or they wouldn’t be doing it at all.
It was worth the wait.
Tony felt like correcting himself. ‘Worth the wait’ was such a cliché; sex was sex, there wasn’t much to it that differed from one person to the next. Sure, some people were better at it, some were prettier to look at - and then came the area that Tony hadn’t explored all that much: people who mattered. Bruce mattered to him, and thus the idea of being intimate with him mattered, too. Sometimes he choked up thinking about it, how a simple kiss made his mind work over-time, wanting to drown in its significance. Sure, it was still just a kiss, but…
He had sometimes felt the same with Pepper. Maybe it was the long wait, the build-up, and the eventual downfall he probably anticipated although he didn’t want to acknowledge it.
With Bruce it was similar yet different; as they tried to find ways to overcome Bruce’s fears and very real restrictions, it left them open to what Tony called ‘feelings’. He refused to call it by another name - a name some people threw around like freebies at a promotional event - but he was aware that sitting here, waiting for Bruce to center himself and either give him the green light or call it off, it wasn’t just the sex he was looking forward to, and it wasn’t the possible lack of it that gnawed at him.
Bruce took another deep breath and then started to undo his shirt. “I want to do this,” he stated, wiping Tony’s mind clean of anything he had previously been contemplating.
“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” Tony reassured him but didn’t move to take off his own clothes. Bruce would tell him how he wanted to do this. If it was just a blow-job, Tony didn’t need to get naked for it.
Bruce let out a laugh that betrayed his nerves. “No? I can think of a few things.”
“Maybe you should talk me through them, then,” Tony offered, voice calmer than he felt. He toed off his shoes and pulled his legs up, sitting cross-legged on the edge of the bed, trying to recall some of those breathing exercises Bruce had shown him; he may have done this before but he hadn’t done it with Bruce, and that set it apart from anything and everything he had ever experienced. A new territory to map; a new experiment to undertake - and yet there was no science in this, no equation to follow other than the two of them and the complicated mechanics of their bodies and minds.
Bruce had shed his shirt while Tony let his mind wander. “I’ve been avoiding this for so long,” he started talking, forcing Tony’s mind to follow, to listen, to pay attention even when the scientist started undoing his pants. “The fear of another episode… of another uncontrollable rampage triggered by an emotional high… I decided I could go without it. I could isolate myself and hope for the best. But then you happened,” he said, allowing his pants to fall down his legs, leaving him standing there with his underwear, undershirt and pants bunched up at his ankles along with his socks. Not the sexiest thing Tony had had the pleasure of seeing, yet he didn’t feel cheated or disappointed looking at Bruce.
Tony dragged his eyes up. “I’ve been known to do that… The Stark Experience. Maybe I should build a theme-park with that name?” He grinned, but it didn’t last; not with Bruce looking at him, deadly serious, allowing the joke to slide by because that was how Tony played Seriously Serious Moments; he tried not to show how much of an impact they had on him.
“You happened,” Bruce went on as if Tony hadn’t spoken at all. “The first battle, living together, talking me into staying - and then I almost killed you.” Bruce stopped moving, stopped breathing, that haunted look passing his face.
Why he had to remind himself of that now was beyond Tony’s understanding.
“You got under my skin,” Bruce went on finally, stepping out of his pant legs, standing there almost awkwardly. He wasn’t hard yet, Tony could tell, and his own arousal had dissipated a while ago, waiting for a cue to return. “I have no idea… but I’ve begun to think I let you in there; that I wanted you to be there. And that’s… that’s why we should be doing this, or trying, but I’m still concerned it’s too soon - that I’m not in control and that this will end up with half the mansion in pieces and you rushing out to put on the armor.”
“It won’t,” Tony reassured him. “You’ve got a lid on it and the big guy knows me.” Well, whether the Hulk would like him as much when he came out in the middle of sex, thinking he was in danger, was another thing entirely. He knew he could have told Bruce he trusted him - trusted both of them - but he had gone down that road before and it never got him more than a sad look and a shake of Bruce’s head. Tony had learned his lesson from all those mistakes: “You can trust me,” he said instead.
It wasn’t a magic word to conjure rainbows and small singing animals, but it was what Bruce needed to hear. Tony wasn’t sure how he hadn’t thought of it in the beginning, thinking that Bruce needed to know Tony had faith in him instead. As it turned out, it seemed more important that Bruce had faith in Tony.
Bruce’s hands were shaking as they came up to Tony’s shoulders, then the right one continued up his neck and to his hair, in a caress seeking confirmation. The pressure that came after was almost nonexistent but Tony went with it, feeling it, leaning forward. The other man was standing right in front of him so he didn’t feel like he might fall off the bed when he leaned too far out. Bruce was right there and Tony kissed his stomach, innocent enough, smelling him, body hair teasing his nose. He felt the inhales and exhales, making himself wait, eyes closed, mustering every last cell of patience in his body.
If he blew this, there was no guarantee he could ever put it back together again.
“Tony,” Bruce murmured, the hand in his hair shifting.
“Either you say it - tell me what to do - or I’ll take the reins,” Tony mused, leaning back slightly, looking up at the other man.
Bruce nodded slowly. “Maybe I should lie down.”
“Always a good plan,” Tony agreed, scooting over.
Bruce followed him after removing his undershirt, hesitation making him look every bit like an awkward science nerd at a sleepover with half a dozen hot girls who were planning on treating him like a big teddy bear. Well, not that Tony knew what that was like first hand - he had just been forced to watch a few silly teenage movies - and he wasn’t going to treat Bruce like anything other than what he was; a brilliant man who had to hold back so much, and who had gotten into the habit of holding back everything for fear of losing control. He could afford to let go a little, in Tony’s opinion, without the fear of the other guy tearing down the walls.
Despite how awkward it all was, Tony noticed to his satisfaction that Bruce was getting a little hard and it was criminal he was still wearing so many clothes. “Can I touch?” he asked, which was perhaps the clumsiest and the most considerate thing he had ever said in bed in his entire life.
Bruce licked his lips and nodded, settling down, making no move to take off his underwear. It was the last barrier between success and failure and perhaps the scientist wasn’t yet convinced which one this was going to be. As much as he wanted it - enough to come fetch Tony from the workshop - there was still room for mistakes.
He slid his hand over the slight bulge in his boxers, feeling the heat, the pulse, and wondered if he could monitor Bruce through that. Perhaps not the most reliable fail-safe… Bruce was lying very still, staring at the ceiling and Tony wondered if this was really that hard for him. Being anxious about the whole thing couldn’t help, however, so he leaned forward and kissed the other man’s stomach again, all the way up his chest - a chest that wasn’t a scarred mess with an arc reactor stuck in the middle. While he did that, his hand grew firmer and surer, seeing as they had come to the bedroom with a goal and he was nothing if not determined to reach it.
Bruce’s eyelashes fluttered and he raised his head, looking down at Tony, a mixed expression on his face.
“Too much?” Tony asked.
“Not yet,” Bruce replied, licking his lips again. “Kiss me.”
Tony smiled and moved up to comply. Their lips knew the familiar dance. Bruce’s mouth tasted clean and from experience Tony knew the man had probably spent half an hour in the bathroom before fetching him, checking that he didn’t have cracked lips or sores on the inside of his mouth that might lead to an unwanted blood molecule to pass between them. Personally Tony didn’t see a danger in something so insignificant but if it gave Bruce the guts to ask Tony to blow him, he didn’t mind.
After all, these were building blocks towards the main act.
Tony’s hand picked up the pace a little, fingers tracing the ridges through the clothing. Bruce’s chest heaved and one of his hands pushed up Tony’s back to his neck, then to his hair, while the other wandered down. Tony fully expected him to ask for a break, to bring himself down so they could work their way up again, but to his shock Bruce tugged his flesh out of his boxers through the flap on the front, presenting himself to Tony’s fingers.
It was getting very real very fast.
“Condom,” Bruce ordered and Tony found a box conveniently placed in the bedside drawer. He reached out, inspecting the label, noticing that Bruce had probably gone to some trouble to find these; they were extra thick and durable, nothing he had ever seen before, definitely not something an average man was interested in wearing. Tony, of course, knew it had to do with Bruce’s fear of the gamma radiation and they had agreed on precautions should they ever get this far.
And here they were.
Bruce was holding himself as Tony opened one of the packets and then had a brief struggle trying to roll the latex over him. Bruce’s hand fell away when it was safely in place and Tony took over, stroking, not teasing but not pushing either. However, it didn’t take long before his self-control began to tremble at the seams. “Ready for step two?” he asked.
The other man hesitated, looking at the ceiling again. Tony was tempted to look and see if there was some kind of picture taped there like at a dentist’s office. “Okay,” Bruce finally gave him the go-ahead, “but go slow, please,” he amended in the next breath.
Tony wondered if they understood ‘slow’ in a similar fashion as he brought his mouth down to Bruce’s member, reminding himself that the condom would probably cancel out a lot of the sensations.
Apparently not; Bruce’s entire body jumped and he was scooting up the bed so fast he almost kneed Tony in the face. Tony sat up, watching him, but Bruce didn’t seem green; just a little wild.
“What was that?!” Bruce demanded.
“Well, if we comprehend the term ‘blow-job’ the same way, it includes my mouth on your dick,” Tony defended himself.
Bruce heaved in mighty breaths of air. “You could have… eased into it.”
“Give me a map next time,” Tony muttered, looking to the side.
He heard Bruce sigh, or maybe it was a very long, measured exhale. “Alright. I’m sorry. Maybe next time don’t go straight for the trigger, okay? Especially if you’re going to… pull. Fuck,” he finished, sounding rough and shaken.
Tony looked at him again, taking a few breaths of his own, trying to remind himself that it had been a while for the other man and maybe he was just… “Are you sensitive?” Tony asked.
“What?” Bruce frowned.
“Some people are more… you know, some people can take a touch while others can’t, so maybe it doesn’t take much to get you all jumpy.”
“I’ve been shot, stabbed and pricked with a few dozen different kinds of darts and needles,” Bruce noted. “I would assume I’m pretty thick-skinned by now.”
“But those all lead to the other guy coming out. They’re painful. I’m talking about the non-painful stuff. Just because I handled your… pointy thing with a little more intensity than you’ve been used to for the past few years, I don’t think it warranted you almost kicking me in the head.”
Bruce managed to look bashful, then smiled. “Pointy thing?”
Tony grinned back at him. “So, shall we proceed?”
Bruce looked at him, eyes still wary but he eventually nodded and unfolded himself a little, sitting against the headboard. Tony moved over to him, exchanging a kiss with him before handling his flesh again, bringing it back to attention, then moved a bit further down to trace his lips over the latex-covered flesh. This time he went easy, tracing the sides, little licks and pushes and either Bruce got excited really easily or this was really pushing the threshold because he kept trembling a little, breathing in an even rhythm, seeming quite tense.
Ever so often he asked Tony to stop, twice before Tony finally managed to coax him into some real oral action. Bruce came a bit unglued and Tony pulled back again, anticipating that he would be told to anyway. “Hey, big guy, come on; you can do this. It’s supposed to feel like going over the edge, you remember that, right?”
Bruce nodded slowly, beads of sweat on his forehead.
“If you start to go green - and I mean actual skin color and not just the sensation - tell me to back off. If not, we’re riding this one to the end.” He didn’t mean to sound bossy, to tell Bruce what to do, but he felt like his lover lacked the courage to take the final leap of faith.
When no verbal disagreement met his demands, Tony moved back down, placing his mouth on his flesh, almost used to the taste by now which wasn’t anything like the rest of Bruce, yet he knew discarding the condom wasn’t exactly an option. Perhaps they could work on something thin and durable, which might actually pass through the scent and taste but now anything else…
Thinking of that was a distraction right now, though, regardless of how sexy the idea of working on something like that was, and he slid further down, keeping it light then increasing the suction and the pressure of his tongue until Bruce’s hips shot up. Tony moved along with him as best he could, seeing Bruce’s hand flex on the bed beside him, no doubt wanting to call this off and spend the next fifteen minutes sitting a few feet apart waiting for his erection to deflate - yet he didn’t.
It felt like a bit of a struggle on both sides until Bruce finally grunted and twitched, from head to toe, and Tony lifted off, stroking the base soothingly as the other man finished coming. Bruce was shaking a little, the act itself being secondary to the struggle within him, yet Tony felt a sudden surge of accomplishment and moved up, kissing the man with deep, slow passion. “We did it,” he murmured against his lips then plopped down on the bed beside him.
Bruce gathered himself for a few moments then got up to go to the bathroom and take care of the condom. Tony waited, listening to the water and the open and close of the special trash can that was reserved for possible radiation risks. A chuckle escaped him; not in a million years had he thought giving such a crappy excuse for a blow-job would have felt like one of his greatest triumphs and that lying here while Bruce methodically wiped away every last trace of it would be somewhat comforting.
When the other man finally joined him, Tony smelled soap and little else. Bruce still looked a bit rumpled but relaxed too, now that it was over.
“I imagine not all of your similar encounters were like this,” Bruce commented, a note of self-loathing in his voice.
“Oh, none of my previous encounters have been like this,” Tony agreed, then lifted one hand to trace Bruce’s shoulder in an idle pattern, stopping only when he spoke up again: “None of them were with you.”
Bruce huffed. “You don’t have to sugar-coat it; I know this wasn’t what you -”
“Expected? Wanted? Deserved?” Tony interrupted him. He propped himself up on one arm. “It went better than I thought it might. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, and it’s going to be easier the next time around.”
“It… shouldn’t be a struggle,” Bruce kept arguing, softly, tiredly. “You shouldn’t have to hold back and wait.” He glanced down Tony’s body. “Plus, it could at least turn you on.”
Tony grabbed his jaw so hard and fast that Bruce’s eyes glowed green as they stared at each other, yet Tony had a feeling reasoning with the Hulk might go easier than convincing Bruce of what had just happened. “Listen carefully, Banner. No, it wasn’t pretty, and yes, it was nothing I’ve gotten used to, but I chose this. I chose you over every super-model and easy fuck in the world. What I just got to do to you is something no one else has since you bombarded yourself with gamma rays. If that isn’t the biggest turn on in my life, I don’t know what is, but the task was a bit too emotionally demanding for me to be sporting a huge hard-on right now.”
The green faded, leaving Bruce’s eyes a familiar brown.
Tony took that as a sign to continue, his hold on the man’s jaw not relaxing: “We’ve gotten this far, which is a fucking miracle. We battle aliens, gods and super-freaks once a week, the other guy almost killed me and no one has a clue what will happen tomorrow, yet here we are, trying to build something. I’m not going to give you a speech about how wonderful it could be or how happy we might be, because we both know the odds. So either we’re doing this or not, and… I damn sure can’t do it alone.”
There were very few things that Tony could admit he couldn’t do without help, yet his relationship with Bruce was one of them and if he could have worked around that, he would have already done so. As it was, he needed Bruce to work with him and not wimp out after they had invested so much in this relationship.
Tony felt something wet on his thumb and noticed one single tear sliding down Bruce’s face. He let go of his jaw, realizing maybe he had hurt him, yet the other guy hadn’t come out…
Bruce’s hand shot up, fisting in his hair, pulling him closer. “Come here,” he said, voice strained, then pulled Tony into a kiss that was long enough to make his lungs burn. He was just about to call for a pause when Bruce unsealed their mouths and leaned their foreheads together. Tony’s eyes had trouble focusing on something that was so close but he was aware of Bruce’s intense gaze burning into his.
“So…” Tony started.
“We’re doing this. Together,” Bruce told him then pulled him closer and made them lie down, the lights in the room going dim without an order from either one of them.
“If J.A.R.V.I.S. congratulates us, I swear I’ll actually re-wire his system,” Tony muttered against Bruce’s shoulder.
“I will leave any such congratulations for later, then, sir - should any actually be in order,” the AI replied snidely.
“I can think of a few reasons,” Bruce murmured before the room fell comfortably silent.
to be continued…
Story Info