Work Text:
It is, apparently, a really big asteroid.
Tony knows something about asteroids — google definition: a small rock body orbiting the sun; also known as a planetoid, 951 Gaspra: the first asteroid photographed in close-up, composed of rock and ice, smaller bodies tend to break up in the atmosphere — and he knows something about things ending and scrambling to fix them as the entire world sort of falls apart around you. Chaos is kind of his forte.
NASA fucked up, according to Fury. His words, not Tony's. Leave it to specialists to screw over humanity. We're probably headed for that big bird's nest in the sky he says, mostly to humor Clint. Tony picks at his cuticles and ignores most of what's being said before Natasha lands a kick in his shin that hurts like hell, but he manages to stifle a screech.
"In case you haven't noticed, Stark, we're all about to have our asses handed to us by a piece of space debris if we don't pull our God damn thumbs out of our mouths and do something. So pay attention," Fury snaps.
Tony nods. "Listening, Chief."
"How do you feel about space exploration?"
"Tried it. Not really my thing. I get queasy."
"Well bring some Pepto. The Mark VIII is capable of surviving brief exposure to zero-gravity conditions, yes?"
"Maybe." Fury narrows his eyes and fixes Tony with an icier glare than usual. Tony rolls his eys. "It needs to be tested." From his left, Tony hears a wheezing noise and sees Bruce shaking with laughter. It pulls a smile out of him, sour mood be damned. He relents. "Sure, why the hell not? Let's throw me back into deep space. Shouldn't be too hard, as long as Dr. Banner here promises to catch me."
"Dr. Banner will be monitoring your vital signs from a safe place on the ground," Fury says, pointedly not looking at either of them. Bruce shifts in his chair. "We're being trusted with an incredibly important task, people. So I'd appreciate it if we could remain serious about this."
"Director. We're prepared to do whatever it takes to save this world." Sometimes Steve is so earnest it makes Tony sick. But he swallows and moves on because everyone seems a little sickly today, a little on edge. Bruce keeps squeezing a stress ball and counting ceiling tiles. Tony knows. He's been counting them, too.
Apocalyptic debriefings sort of give Tony an itch he can't quite get rid of, his hands tapping a frantic rhythm on his leg as they drive back to the tower.
"What would you do, if the world was really ending?" he asks, because it's been bothering him since he watched those steely Cold War movies in grade school. He's always been obsessed with the end. That's what his entire life has led up to, some grand, explosive finale. He thinks about cars consumed by fireballs and wonders if there's any vodka in the freezer.
"The world is ending," Bruce says dryly, flicking through a journal on his tablet. "Maybe you missed the meeting?"
"You mean like a last day on Earth sort of thing?" Clint asks. Tony nods. "I'd go to South America. Spend some time on a beach somewhere. Maybe get some hiking in. Die on a mountain."
"I hiked near Machu Picchu a few years ago," Bruce says. "It's nice."
Natasha puts her boots in Clint's lap and shrugs. "I'd sit on the roof. I like a good show."
"The apocalypse isn't a show," Steve snaps, which is sort of a first. Steve never snaps at a lady, and never Natasha. "We need to get in contact with Thor, see if his people have tracked anything strange headed for Earth."
Tony laughs. "You know Asgard doesn't give two shits about what happens to us, right? Like, Thor is a special snowflake, Cap. His generosity doesn't exactly run in the family."
"It's better than knowing nothing."
Bruce turns off his tablet with a heavy sigh and Tony knows this must be like explaining algebra for him. "Look. Here are the facts. An asteroid roughly 66 miles in diameter, which we have apparently and affectionately dubbed Lucy, is headed for our planet. There's no intel, Steve. No one sent it here, no one is piloting it. It's a free-falling piece of rock and ice and it is going to kill everyone. Like, all of us. Unless the Stark Apocalypse Bunker is finished in time for the end of the world." Tony likes that Bruce can keep his sense of humor. "I don't want to get short with you, Steve. But this isn't a regular mission. The asteroid isn't thinking like a soldier. You can't either."
Steve draws back and shrinks into his corner of the car. Clint watches him, chewing on his lip like he wants to say something. The whole backseat is thick with the feeling of people wanting to fuck each other senseless. Tony squirms in place and checks his phone, texting something terrible to Pepper about end of the world sex.
Pepper: Does this mean the meeting went poorly?
Tony: opposite. meeting went swimmingly. headed into deep space.
Tony: pep?
Pepper: I'm breathing, Tony. Let me breathe.
Tony: i'll be fine.
Pepper: Famous last words.
Tony: let's make out when i get back and you can tell me everything you're worried about
Tony looks up, feeling worse than before. Bruce is looking at him over the rim of his glasses, like he has a hypothesis and he's just trying to wrap everything up, submit the results. Here, look, the specimen Stark is as twisted inside as he is handsome. Tony always feels like an experiment when Bruce watches him. "What?"
Bruce shakes his head. "Nothing."
Tony is out of the car before it rolls to a stop, punching in the code to get in from the garage and waiting for everyone to file into the elevator after him. It's like the start of a bad joke. When the door opens again, Steve gets off on his floor.
"We should meet later," he says, but he's looking at Tony, like he knows this is going to be another fight and he just doesn't have time for this shit right now. Tony continues to pick at his nails.
"You make a better door than a window, Cap. Dinner's at eight." Steve steps out as the doors slide shut.
Tony shouldn't get mad. Steve already lost one world. He went to sleep and it slipped away, like he didn't even matter. It isn't fair to ask him to save another one, to risk losing this one, and everything that he's worked so hard to understand and hold onto.
Clint and Natasha get off on the same floor, mumbling in Russian. Bruce checks his watch. "You never answered the question."
"Sorry?"
"About what you'd do. When the world ended. You didn't answer the question," Bruce explains.
"It was a joke, I was kidding. The world isn't ending. The suit can make it to the asteroid and back, you know that. This job is gonna be quick and dirty and to the point and there's no point in everyone getting so damn worked up about it."
"It was your question, not mine."
"Well it was stupid and I take it back."
"I liked what Clint said." Bruce smiles like he hasn't heard. Tony rolls his eyes.
"Yeah, you would."
"You should enjoy the world, if it's about to end."
"It's not ending—"
"But if it was." And now Bruce is paying attention. He looks at Tony dead on, gaze a little frightening, if Tony was going to admit to something like that. Which he isn't. He looks away. Counts the number of screws on the walls of the elevator. The door opens to Bruce's floor.
"Rain check, doc."
Bruce looks back once before stepping out. "Sure. Rain check."
Tony is trying not to be distracted because Pepper is riding him and he usually really likes that. Not even usually. Always. He always likes that. She looks at him and groans because she's seriously giving this her all, okay, and being ignored during sex is fucking annoying. She flicks his chin, hard.
"Ow, Pep. Jesus Christ, what—" She pushes herself off of him and rolls over. "What's wrong?"
"Are you serious?" Pepper runs a hand through her hair. "Tony. Where the hell are you right now?"
"An asteroid, plummeting toward the earth."
"You said you didn't want to talk about it," she murmurs, dipping her head and kissing his neck. "You said you wanted to be distracted."
"I do."
"So? Distract yourself."
Tony buries his tongue in her cunt, thinking only about the way she tastes and the things she says when she's close and the way she swears when he pulls back and when he dips his tongue, deep, and pushes in two fingers. He presses his mouth hard on her clit until she comes with a satisfied groan. Tony pushes himself up and kisses her, panting into her neck as she works him with her hand. It always surprises him, that this is what they like. That he would rather make her come first, taste her and listen to her and know her completely before she even begins to touch him. Sometimes he saves it for last, just because he wants her voice to be the last thing he hears before he goes to sleep.
It surprises him, that she could make him this way.
"What would you do?" he asks quietly. "If the world was ending? Where would you go?" Pepper laughs and twists his hair between her fingers.
"I'd want to be with you." She kisses his forehead. "Right here. Just like this." Tony presses his hand to her stomach, wide and warm on her skin. He draws his fingers over her hip and breathes because she smells like fabric softener and clean, white soap and something she sprays in her office. Like coconut and sunscreen and beaches. He closes his eyes and thinks about waves, pulling in and out of the shoreline and he remembers the first time he was old enough to stand in the spray. He wonders what it would be like to watch the ocean burn away.
Bruce is running him through a series of tests and they are all sort of embarrassing, namely because Steve keeps watching and asking what everything is and Bruce is a terrible awful person and keeps lying about it and making Steve flush because most of his tests, apparently, involve the size of Tony's dick.
"If you want to see it so bad you should just ask," Tony mutters after the fifth joke. Steve finally takes off, muttering about how nobody takes this seriously, this is the end of the world dammit, stupid dick jokes why is that even a thing? Bruce shrugs.
"Interest level is low. Steve's funny when he's mad."
"Kinda like you?"
"Mmhm." Bruce checks the readouts on the arc reactor and messes with some numbers on his screen. "Your heart should hold out, it's not really a problem. I'm just worried about the container. You built it, so it's probably fine. I just want to run some tests. Can you construct a decoy reactor?" Tony just watches him move and talk, like he was born in this space and learned to live around it and with it. Bruce is scarily adaptable and he melted into the spaces around Tony's life and now he's stuck there, just so. But Tony's knows he can melt away just as easily and vanish and leave nothing of himself behind and it's kind of fascinating and terrifying all at once. "Tony."
"Sorry. Distracted."
Bruce nods because he understands. He always understands.
"You know you're going be fine, right?" Tony nods. "Okay then."
They don't talk about dying anymore after that. They talk about schematics and facts and blood tests. No more drinking, Bruce tells him. Sleep more. Six hours minimum, every night. Keep your heart going, work out, run do something keep it going don't let it stop not ever and Bruce isn't really saying this anymore, he's just talking about Tony's muscles and bones and brain, but all Tony can hear is the pounding of his own heart in his ears and the whir of the reactor and what it will mean one day when all he hears is silence.
And then Bruce's hand is under his chin and forcing Tony to look at him, really look at him. "Six hours, Tony. Say it."
"Six hours. Eat my broccoli, no TV. Sorry, pops. Won't happen again." Bruce rolls his eyes. "Do I get a sticker?"
"Get out of here."
"Remember to eat something," Tony calls over his shoulder, but Bruce is already lost, shifting vials around and turning up his music. Francoise Hardy or something like that. Bruce's tastes are questionable, but classic. He listens to a lot of old French music and knows the words to "The Girl From Ipanema" in Portuguese. He uses his SHIELD stipend to buy records and shitty clothes because every time Tony tries to give him money they don't talk for a couple of days.
Upstairs, Pepper is coming in from the elevator, ordering dinner for everyone and signing something her Assistant of the Week is brandishing in her face. She shoos the girl off and sort of floats onto the sofa, tossing her phone across the room. "Cancel our service."
"We are our service," he mutters, rolling over the back of the couch and settling next to her. No floating, though. Tony Stark doesn't float. He might, soon. But right now, he settles like a stone and doesn't move, curling his arms around Pepper and pulling her in tight. "Doc gave me the all clear."
"Mmm." Pepper is somewhere between sleeping and going completely insane, which is kind of her middle ground.
"What'd you order?"
"Gyros."
"Funny."
Pepper hums. "I thought so."
Tony keeps waking up from a dream where he is being suffocated under a black blanket. It scratches his face and grips his arms and holds him down, shoves him into a tub of nothing that seems so thick for nothing, so murky and vile. He wakes up sweating and gasping for breath and scrambling for Pepper. And Pepper is so beautiful, so graceful, so good. She holds his face in her hands and sometimes she sings and sometimes she just talks. She talks about numbers and benefits and dancing and stocks. And Tony just listens and breathes and answers her when she asks him something and they don't talk about it in the morning.
He's starting to wish he'd never asked that stupid question. He's starting to wish he'd kept his fucking mouth shut and his head down and yes-sir'd Fury and said ahh when Bruce told him to and been nice to Cap and just left well alone.
But he asked it and he's an asshole and now he has to fly to an asteroid and this is fucking stupid. This isn't what he was expecting. This isn't what he wanted. He wants to be in bed, right now, because Pepper is napping and he wants to close his eyes and rest and let her put her hands on his face because her hands are always so cool and he's always running so hot. Burning up. Skin and eyes and limbs on fire.
He's in Bruce's lab, focusing on his breathing and his heartbeat and his hands, clenching and unclenching them as each breath comes and goes. Bruce is so good at this. He's so good with Tony all the time, like handling a yowling, dying cat. Tony opens one eye and peeks, watches Bruce like he's far away, muffled by the ocean and time and years that Tony doesn't know or understand. Getting to know Bruce is getting to know his silences and his moods and the way he spears his fruit with the end of a knife and eats it out of the fridge. It's getting know the way he says fuck and the way he laughs and why he doesn't laugh very often. It's getting to know a lot of things and Tony isn't patient, but he's learning. He could get there.
"That was good." Bruce smiles as he comes out of his meditation, stretching slow and lazy and spreading out on the floor. "You look tired."
"Rough night."
"Six hours, Tony."
"Sure thing, boss." Bruce shakes his head and stands and even there, he is graceful. Tony wonders how he falls in with such quick-limbed people because he is lumbering and slow and always tripping over everything around him. "You get the test canister for the reactor?"
"I ran it through some scenarios this morning. Everything is fine. Fury's only nervous because the President called him yesterday. Coulson says he has a yellow phone on the wall and it's locked up. Never rings except when the President calls. Yesterday it rang." Bruce shrugs. "I guess there's a lot riding on this."
Tony nods. "You know. The world."
"Yeah. That." Bruce leans against the table, cracking his knuckles and smiling slow at Tony. "I'm not so attached to the world."
"You attached to living?"
"I'm not sure I'd really die."
That hits Tony like a ton of fucking bricks. He shivers and breathes and tries not to curl up on the ground and fucking die. Because Bruce has put bullets in his brain and guns in his mouth and shot himself up with God know what. He got sad-drunk one night and told Tony about every building he threw himself off of that first year, after the guns didn't work. How it was like a game and how he liked it and how sometimes that's how he did it. Hulk-out quickie. Violent and blooming with blood and bone and then he would stretch and roar and that would be it.
"Guess this had better work," Tony says, sniffing and shuffling his feet. He feels stupid. "Wouldn't want you to be the last man on Earth."
"What a travesty it'd be." Bruce turns and settles back into his work, effectively shutting Tony out. Upstairs there's the other half of a bed waiting and Pepper is probably half-naked and not really sleeping so Tony just goes because Bruce's walls are down and it's pretty much impossible to pry him out with anything but midnight snacks and White Russians and Tony isn't up for it. He leaves Bruce to his work and takes the stairs two at a time, jogging toward the elevator. His body is thrumming with energy. He needs a good fuck or a ten mile run and he's constitutionally opposed to any sort of real exercise whatsoever. Which is why he's bouncing like a toddler on his heels when the doors slide open and he gets a really excellent view of Steve going to fucking town on Clint's dick.
They sort of watch one another for a minute. Steve's entire body is like a newly discovered shade of fuscia and Clint looks satisfied and pleasantly smug.
"Nothin' to see here, Stark." He pushes the button to close the doors and grabs Steve by the back of the head. And that's the last thing Tony needed to see because his dick is fucking alive now and Pepper couldn't be further away. The second elevator opens like a gift and Tony slips inside, finally letting himself laugh. He's still laughing when he crawls into bed with Pepper, who groans and slaps him until he shuts up. He's still sort of laughing when she reaches between them to curl her hand around his dick and he's laughing when he kisses her and when he comes.
"Why are you so happy?"
"Because my life is an episode of Gossip Girl."
"Stop letting Thor use the Netflix account."
"I am just really invested in Blaire's story line, I can't help it."
Pepper rolls her eyes, but she's laughing. "You're a goof, you know that?"
"You love it."
"I love you," she murmurs, pressing in close and kissing him. "How was your deep breathing sesh?"
"Relaxing. Introspective. I'll probably feel the emotional trauma of getting so close to my id later on this evening, but otherwise I'm unscathed."
"Bruce is always working."
"He's trying to make sure I don't die."
"That's very kind of him. You should do something for him."
Tony thinks for a minute. "Like a blow-job."
"If that's what you want." Pepper sits up and looks around for her sweater. "He's into you, probably. You're both geniuses and you have matching self-destructive tendencies. It would probably work out." She draws her knees into her chest and smiles. "He's cute, too."
"Miss Potts, are you crushing on Dr. Banner?"
"He just seems lonely. That's all."
"I don't think Bruce would appreciate pity sex."
"Then don't pity him," Pepper says, like it's the easiest thing in the world. "Appreciate him."
They are a week out from Project: fuck we might all die holy shit and Tony is still trying to figure out who you gratefully proposition the dude who might be the only friend he has who can do math with him while they get wasted together. Rhodey was never into that, always skirt-chasing before they both kind of settled and established a "dudes with significant others" drinking routine. Bruce doesn't drop a lot of hints about how he likes to be picked up, and he knows from Clint's stealth missions that he's been celibate since he moved into the tower.
"That's a fucking weird question, Stark."
"Captain America blew you in my elevator last week. Answer the question."
"Those two things aren't related, like, at all."
"They are now."
"Fine." Clint hands over some good intel, but it's pretty much details on when Bruce goes to the kitchen, then the lab, then for a walk. Nothing scandalous. "You were expecting...what?"
"Not much. If you get semen in my elevator I'll string you up by your bow."
"Only if you can catch me."
It turns out, propositioning Bruce is super easy.
Tony compliments his shirt. Bruce smiles. Tony melts in his shoes. Bruce kisses him. Progression, good. Execution, A+.
"This is supposed to be me thanking you," Tony says between expansive, open-mouthed kisses that have so much tongue and teeth in then he think Bruce might be trying to swallow him whole.
"How about I fuck you until you pass out and sleep for twelve hours because your body needs it."
"My body needs you." Bruce grins and slips his hand below the waistband of Tony's jeans.
"Obviously."
The fumble and walk like kids to Bruce's room, losing clothes along the way. Bruce is an odd balance between violent and tender, his hands pressing hard on the corners of Tony's body as he kisses every knucklebone in Tony's hand. He swears and pulls almost everything out of his bedside table looking for lube while Tony shimmies out of the rest of his clothes and takes deep, calming breaths.
"Do you want this?" Bruce asks suddenly and Tony wants to kiss him until they can't move but he also wants to get fucked.
"Do I look like I don't?"
"I don't...I don't know. You just—"
"I want it. You have my consent to fuck me senseless."
"Good." And now Bruce leans over, his fingers slick and teasing. Tony flinches and sinks into it because it's been a while and he doesn't ask Pepper to do this. She's offered, but he always says no. Maybe he was saving himself for this, he isn't sure. Bruce's movements are exact and strategic and good and Tony's panting and pushing against him and trying to take in more, wondering why they just aren't fucking like animals right now, why Bruce isn't completely losing his shit on him yet. His voice keens into a pathetic whine and Bruce laughs and that's a fucking miracle, home run, Tony wins for the night, no matter what happens next. "You really wanted to thank me, didn't you?"
"Pepper thinks it's an appropriate gesture."
"Glad to know we've got the Potts stamp of approval."
"I never do anything without it."
Now it's three fingers, curling up and punching every noise right out of Tony's lungs. Bruce pulls out and Tony clenches around nothing, preparing to throw a proper fit over this new development, when he sees Bruce rolling a condom over his dick and grabbing Tony by his knees.
"God fucking dammit, Banner, just—"
"Yeah. Okay." Bruce pushes in fast and hard and Tony shouts with the force it as Bruce hikes one of Tony's legs over his shoulders and starts fucking him in earnest, his chest slick with sweat. He slows down and rolls his hips and Tony feels the drag of his cock in every fucking molecule in his body, shivering with want right down to his marrow. Bruce is good at this, too, Tony realizes, because this is just another way of handling him, another way of taking care of Tony. Worst thank you sex ever, if he really thinks about it. Which he doesn't, considering Bruce is fucking his brains out and it is totally and completely the thing that he's been needing since Fury decided to slingshot him into outer space.
"That's good," Tony manages. "Fuck, that's good. That's really good." Bruce pulls out and rolls Tony over, pushing him onto his knees. Tony grips the headboard and it bangs and bangs and bangs against the wall, bashing out an unsteady rhythm that people can probably hear on the fucking street. Tony wishes he had a window because he kind of wants someone to see what this is making him do, how his face his flushed and twisted and his arms are trembling. Bruce is gasping for breath behind him and muttering absolutely filthy things that go straight to Tony's dick. He feels his body start to give out, the force of every thrust hitting right in the heart, over and over again, until he thinks he might die like this, die with Bruce buried inside of him, hard and desperate.
Bruce digs his fingers into Tony's hips as he comes, shuddering to the end and falling forward. He murmurs quiet things of encouragement into Tony's back as he reaches forward and jacks Tony off with breathtaking efficiency, until Tony is coming all over himself and the sheets and saying Bruce's name like a mantra until there's nothing left inside of him. No bones or guts or anything — just Bruce's name and the memory of how he feels which will probably keep him going well after he comes back from Project: Fuck. The other Project: Fuck.
"How was that?" Bruce's voice is raw and he falls onto his back, stretching and smiling. "You feel good?" Tony knows half of this was to wear him out and it definitely worked but he is definitely not ready to admit that.
He yawns anyway and Bruce just grins.
The world looks really weird from space, Tony decides. Bruce's voice is tiny in his ear, giving him the constant stream of updates that JARVIS can't from out here. It's different, but it's soothing. He's sort of missing J, though, and he's wondering how you tell an AI that you feel that way about them when Bruce's tone gets very clipped and intense.
"Tony. You have fifteen minutes."
"I know."
"Then use it, okay? Use it and get back here because I want to get really fucking drunk when you do."
"The whole planet should go on a bender."
"I'm sure they will. Did you affix the charges?"
"I did. We're wired for detonation. Just gotta make sure they blow when they're supposed to."
"Hurry up and come home." Tony freezes because that's not Bruce that is definitely Pepper and he told her she shouldn't be there, he told her it was a bad idea. But she's there and suddenly he's glad that she never listens to him because he's not sure how he was even managing himself five seconds ago. And now they're talking and Tony knows that he needs to hear that forever, the way the two of them murmur and laugh and worry together. He looks at this hunk of rock and ice thinks you're not so scary from up here.
And then he gets back to the ship and blows the sucker to kingdom come.
Bruce gets fucking wasted. Really, everyone gets wasted, but Bruce is sort of a mess. A good mess though. He's cute and kind of clingy and making out with Pepper in the kitchen because they bonded while Tony was in space and Pepper really does have a crush. Tony gets between them and kisses them both sloppily in turn, until they're all holding one another just to stay standing. Tony isn't sure where everyone even ends up — Clint and Steve are making out on the couch and Natasha is watching and Thor is crying because he's so happy his favorite planet has been saved. There are a lot of other people here, too. Lots of kissing is happening. Sex probably, too. Quiet talks about God and really loud debates about what the hell is in these drinks.
It's an ungodly hour when they finally stumble into Tony and Pepper's room. Tony thinks Bruce might freeze up and ah-uh-um his way back downstairs, but he doesn't. His lips are locked onto Pepper's neck and he's clutching Tony's shirt and trying to take it off at the same time.
"Just wanna touch you," he mutters and Pepper nods fervently in agreement.
And Tony is touched. Their hands are absolutely everywhere and Bruce counts every single bone in his body and names them and kisses them and thanks them. Pepper steps out of her dress and tries to get Bruce out of his clothes, but he's saying a prayer against Tony's hipbone and measuring the curves of his thigh.
They're too tired to fuck. Too drunk to do much more than hold each other and make sloppy promises against each others' skin. The last thing Tony sees is Bruce and Pepper's fingers curled together over his hip and he feels one of them on either side, touching and thanking whoever they can name that they are where they are right now. Because right here and right now is a pretty damn good place to be.
Tony shouldn't have asked the question, but he did and pretty much everyone answered it except for himself. And it's sort of stupid that it took an asteroid hurtling toward Earth with the potential to end it all for him to figure out a few more important things in his life, but that's the way it goes.
Near-death experiences have a way of sneaking up on him and changing his everything. He's starting to get used to it.
The three of them sleep until the afternoon the next day. Same day. Tony wasn't looking at the time when they went to bed. Bruce gets up once and showers and brings a bottle of Advil to bed with him. Tony watches out of one eye as Bruce drops his towel and pulls on a pair of sweats he stole from Tony's closet. "Nice view."
"Go back to bed."
"And miss this show?" Bruce sighs and pulls the blanket over his head. Pepper is dead to the world on Tony's other side. "She'll be a beast when she wakes up, but she's still cute."
"Good to know." They stay like that for a while. Tony thinks Bruce might have gone to sleep until feels calloused, trembling fingers thread through his own. "Hey."
Tony hums. "Hey yourself." Then, "This could be a thing, you know. Us."
"The three of us?"
"It felt good last night."
"It did."
"No one is going to make you stay," Tony says quietly. "If you need to go, you know you can."
"I like it here. I'll travel when I'm ready." Bruce presses his lips in a thin line. "If you hadn't come back, I don't know what I'd have done."
"Taken care of Pepper."
"She can manage herself, I think."
"Her responsibility would have been to take care of you, actually. A mututal care-giving scenario." Tony shifts deeper into the blankets. "I love her more than I've ever loved anyone. But I have rather intense dorky feelings for you, too. Bordering on love. I'm not sure. I need more time to research this."
Bruce's smiles is wide and wicked. "I can provide you with some excellent primary source material."
"Good."
"Now go to bed, Tony." Tony grumbles and closes his eyes, but sleep doesn't come. He shifts a lot in his spot until he throws back the blanket and Pepper makes a ruthless noise, pulling them back and retreating to her corner of the bed. "Tony."
"I know what I'd do."
"What?"
"If the world was ending, I know what I'd do."
Bruce groans. "That was weeks ago. Just sleep. You need like three days of sleep."
"I'd do exactly what I did," he murmurs. Bruce freezes. "I'd do it over and over again. Every time. I'd be with you and I'd be with Pepper." Tony dips his head and kisses Bruce full on the lips. "I wouldn't regret anything."
They kiss like that for a long time, until Tony passes out again and they all sleep for a long, long time. When Tony finally wakes up, he's alone and it's almost seven at night. He goes downstairs and finds everyone sitting at the table, surround five or six pizza boxes and stacking beer bottles around the edge. Thor yells when he sees Tony and the bottles all tumble forward. Clint looks distraught.
"He returns!" Tony finds himself being given a rather excellent hug and just goes with it. He finally settles in next to Bruce and Pepper and eats three slices of pizza without speaking. Steve clears his throat.
"I think we ought to have a toast."
Clint nods. "That's a good idea, babe."
"Call me that one more time."
"Just tryin' it out."
"Boys." Natasha fixes them with a stare and Steve flushes.
"Right. A toast. To Tony."
"To Tony," they all say.
Tony shakes his head.
"To pizza," he says. "And bottled beer. This is the important shit, Steve. You toast to what matters."
"You do matter," Bruce says, his voice low and full of something Tony will call love later on, when he's properly buzzed.
"We all matter," Tony insists. And Steve doesn't disagree. He smiles and lifts his bottle a little higher.
"To living another day, then."
Tony sighs happily and finishes off the beer. There's more pizza on its way and Bruce gets up to make White Russians in the kitchen. Clint and Steve act gross and couply and Thor is confused as to when that happened, but it's not really important. Natasha gives Pepper a foot massage, probably because Tony is watching. Bruce kisses him without hesitating in front of everyone and nothing is strange at all.
Later on, Bruce falls asleep in the middle of Tony's bed, a journal falling off his lap and Pepper's head pillowed against his arm. Tony is wired, but it's only because he's slept so much. He curls up at their feet, caccooned in a dozen blankets and trying to remember what space sounded like.
It's just that every time he tries, every time he closes his eyes and wants so desperately to remember — all he can hear is Bruce, reading off Tony's vitals like he's reading from the Bible. And Pepper, making him promise to come back. And both of them, joking at Tony's expense, their hands probably twisted together until they saw him that next night, tired and smelling like steel and clean, weightless spaces.
And he knows he would do exactly what he said to Bruce earlier that day. He knows he'd bring him into this and fall in love and think about dying and come to bitter, half-hearted terms with it all. He knows he'd come out of it loving Pepper even more and wanting his team and pizza and beer.
Tony finally goes to sleep. He sleeps for a long, long time. And if he ever remembers what space sounds like, he forgets it. But if anyone asks, if anyone ever really wants to know — he will tell them that space sounds like the people who love you, looking out for you, worrying about you, falling in love and laughing at you. It sounds like the feeling you get when you know you'll be home soon and you can't hold out for much longer, but you do because you know it'll be worth it. Space sounds like someone telling you that you matter, like friends bickering about nicknames and people kissing you like they mean it.
Space probably doesn't make sense to a lot of people, but Tony gets it. Tony understands it all, perfectly. And it only took an asteroid to get there.