By The Time The Bar Closes

by boombangbing

Summary:

Bruce and Jane get drunk in Vegas and find themselves accidentally married to each other the next morning. Piecing everything together ends up being... kind of fun. Vaguely set after Thor 2, but only takes into account one of the outfits that Jane wears in the trailer.

August 2nd, 10am

The first thought that drifts into his head as he starts to wake up is: he hasn't slept this well in years. He's stretched out on his stomach, face mashed into something soft, and although his head is kind of pounding, he still feels this sort of bone deep comfort. He doesn't know exactly where he is, or why his head hurts, but he doesn't much feel like examining it right at this moment. Instead, he breathes out heavily and nuzzles into the soft cushion again.

Everything is peaceful for a blissful while longer, and Bruce is lulled back to sleep, until there's a sudden indignant squawk and he finds himself levered up and tumbling in the opposite direction.

That doesn't do his head any favours. “Oof, ow, what's--”

“Oh my God.”

He flails and grabs hold of the first thing that comes to hand, the edge of a sheet, and pulls it over his head with a grunt.

“Oh my God.”

“Shh,” he mumbles, “my brain is melting.”

“Bruce!”

He recognises that voice... “Jane...?” he asks tentatively, pulling the sheet from his head. The world is pretty blurry, but he can definitely make out a female shape, with a halo of tangled hair around her head. “Wait, what's goin' on?”

She shoves her hand in his face and waves it a little. There's a big plastic pacifier ring on her finger. “Okay...” he murmurs, scrubbing a hand through his hair.

She sighs and leans over, grabbing his free hand, which he's currently using to prop himself up. He almost loses his balance completely, but manages to catch himself and frown at Jane, who pushes his hand in front of his face this time. Huh, matching ring.

“They're on our ring fingers!” she insists.

“They're...” He blinks heavily, eyes falling on her chest. “Maybe it's a...” She doesn't have a bra on. Those are Jane's breasts. They're kind of small, but they're perky and nice and... and he hasn't seen breasts in a really long time. Not in this close a proximity, anyway. “Um. Joke.”

She clears her throat and crosses her arms over her chest, gaze drifting down his chest to his crotch, which she looks at for a long moment before clearing her throat again. “Can you... uh.” She looks at his dick again. “Deal with your situation?”

“Sorry,” he mutters, bunching the sheets up around his waist, while Jane hugs a pillow against her chest. “Do you, uh... Do you think we had sex?”

She squirms a little and shakes her head. “I don't think so.”

“How do you know?”

“It doesn't... feel like anything's... happened,” she says and lifts her chin. “Do you feel like you've had sex?”

He shrugs. “I barely remember what sex feels like.”

She snorts and hugs the pillow a little more. “Well, anyway, I doubt we did. I mean, we must have been hammered last night, so I can't imagine that you would have... you know, been able to get it up.”

“Hey...” He ducks his head and smiles. “Yeah, you're probably right.”

She chuckles. “Okay, I'm going to... go grab a shower. Can you... um... shut your eyes while I...?”

“Oh, yeah, sure.” He shuts his eyes and feels the mattress bounce a little as she gets up. There's some rustling and footsteps, which stop after a minute or so.

“Can I open my eyes yet?” he asks.

“Shit,” she replies.

“Is that a yes?”

“Look at this,” she says.

He opens his eyes and looks around as she walks back over to him, dressed only in one of his shirts, which doesn't leave much to the imagination in terms of her legs. She has nice legs. Christ, his brain is in permanent park this morning.

“Look,” she repeats, holding out a card to him. He leans in and squints at it. It says along the top, 'Congratulations on your (he pauses here to grimace) wedding!', with a picture printed underneath of Jane grinning like a fool, and Bruce hiding his face in her shoulder. He might not be able to see his face, but he knows it's him. Jane opens it up and show him the marriage certificate held inside.

“Not a joke, then,” he says.

“No...” She drops the picture onto the bed and sighs. “I'm gonna take that shower and see if I can shake any memories loose, and then I guess... annulment.”

He looks at the picture again, blurry at this distance. “Yeah. I'll stay here, try not to puke.”

-

August 1st, 3.30pm

Seeing Tony in Las Vegas is like seeing him return to his ancestral home. He sweeps through Caesars Palace, calling out greetings to people and signing things and giving his new PA, a twenty-something guy who looks terrified, rapid fire instructions about things. Bruce and his somewhat stubby legs have trouble keeping up.

When they finally get to their destination, one of the many restaurants the casino has, Tony turns with a flourish and shoos his staff away.

“It feels good to be back,” Tony says, stretching his arms wide.

“Mm,” Bruce murmurs, “I've never been.”

“Your life story just gets sadder and sadder,” Tony says. “Well, I guess we've gotta amuse ourselves for a couple of hours until the conference starts.”

The conference he's talking about is a big pan-discipline scientific conference that Bruce is pretty sure Tony had some sway in getting put on in a casino. Bruce hasn't been to one of these things in years, he's kind of looking forward to it.

Tony smiles widely at him. “Oh, and by the way, you're on at six.”

Bruce frowns. “On what?”

The light in Tony's eyes dims a little. “On, uh, the conference. It's a forty five minute slot.”

Bruce blinks. “What?”

Tony looks considerably less confident than usual. “Well, come on, you've been telling me about your gamma radiation research for months.”

A pit starts to form in Bruce's stomach. “That research is nowhere near completed.”

“Neither is anyone else's. This conference is all about innovation and invention, and you've got both of those in spades. And don't even try to tell me that you can't talk for forty five minutes about your research, because I know that you can. Look, I even wrote you up a plan of how to organise your talk.”

He pulls a piece of paper from his bag and presents it to Bruce. Bruce looks at it, as Tony pokes it in his chest. “I don't... I'm not good at public speaking...”

“You'll do fine!” Tony says, poking him one last time. Bruce takes the paper slowly and Tony smiles in triumph. “Okay, I'm going to see if I can track down Gordon, we've got to discuss meal options for tonight. I'll be back soon.”

And with that, Tony's gone, leaving Bruce standing there like a loose end, looking at Tony's instructions on how to format a talk (they're pretty good, actually), heart starting to pound in his chest. He really doesn't like public speaking.

He's weighing up his options – fake a heart attack, Hulk out, run away – when someone taps him on the shoulder. “Hey, Bruce!”

He jumps and looks around at the person with wide eyes. Jane Foster smiles back at him, clearly unfazed. Most people would be fazed by a startled Bruce Banner.

“I'm really looking forward to your talk,” she says, still smiling.

Bruce makes an unhappy noise.

“Is something wrong?” she asks, eyebrows rising in concern.

He narrows his eyes a little. “I just, uh, found out that I'm... giving the talk.”

“They only just told you that they accepted your submission?”

“I only just found out I submitted something,” he says, running his fingers through his hair.

She looks confused for a moment, then widens her eyes. “Tony?”

He nods slowly. “Yeah... I really don't like public speaking...”

“Shit,” Jane murmurs.

“Mm.”

She twists her mouth. “Do you wanna go get a drink? You've uh, you've got a bit of time before you go on.”

“Uh...” He runs his fingers through his hair and looks around. Tony's nowhere to be seen, of course. Bruce is still strongly considering all three escape options, but he guesses he can do that sitting down as well as standing out here. “Um, sure.”

They find a bar and get seated in the back, a short distance away from a group of guys who are watching some game on the wide screen television and cheering at regular intervals. It sets Bruce's teeth on edge.

“Is it okay in here for you?” Jane asks.

The group of guys holler some more and Bruce cringes a little. “Yeah, it's... fine.”

She nods and smiles awkwardly. They barely know each other, to be honest, they've only met once or twice at Stark Tower, and had a couple of quick conversations about how great the tower was and about their respective times at Culver. But they've never had a proper conversation, and when they've met before Bruce was doing his impression of a normal human being, which right now feels pretty hard to grasp.

“Can I get you guys anything?” a server asks.

“Um... just a lemonade,” he murmurs.

“I'll have a beer,” Jane says.

The server takes their menus back and starts to step away when Bruce suddenly changes his mind. “Actually, uh, I'll have a beer too.”

“Sure,” the server says, smiling.

Bruce nods back, then turns to Jane. “I don't normally drink, but you know...”

She smiles. “Yeah...”

“Are you giving a talk?”

“No, my paper wasn't accepted.”

“You want my spot?”

She chuckles. “I don't think the organisers would be so happy with that.”

He hums and looks down, starting to fiddle with a coaster. “Sorry, this is kind of awkward, isn't it? I'm not great company...”

“It's fine, you probably would have preferred if I hadn't bothered you, huh?”

He shakes his head, smiling. “You're not bothering me. I'm just... me. I live my life at a steady level of mild depression.”

Jane laughs and the server comes back over with their beers, so Bruce doesn't tell her that he's not really joking about that. They drink their beer in companionable silence for a little while, and Bruce tries not to grimace at the taste. He hasn't had a drink in a long time, and even when he did occasionally drink, he didn't actually enjoy it, he mostly just did it because that's what Betty's friends did when they all hung out together.

Maybe because of his lack of regular drinking, or maybe it's just the way he is, but he gets drunk pretty fast, and by the time he's halfway through the bottle he feels that warmth come over him.

“This talk is going to be a disaster,” he says, drawing out the last word and smiling. “Crash and burn.”

“No, it won't,” she says, “you'll do fine.”

He shakes his head. “Mm-mm. There are like... there are gonna be a lot of people watching and I am...” He waves his hands vaguely and then makes a gun motion to his temple.

Jane rolls her eyes. “You'll do fine. Look, why don't you run over it with me? We can... workshop it.”

He looks at her and smiles; he really should spend more time with her, she's a hell of a lot nicer to him than most. “Yeah, okay, thanks.”

Workshopping it with her turns out to actually be not-awful. She's a receptive audience for his rambling, and points out flaws in his research, and really seems actually interested. They spend a good two hours going over everything, while Bruce gets increasingly tipsy and comfortable with the situation.

By the time his phone buzzes in his pocket, it's past five thirty, and he realises as he fumbles to bring up the text message that he has no idea where he actually has to go for the conference.

where r u? your on in 20, Tony's text reads. Bruce squints at Tony's use of 'your' and congratulates himself still being able to spot grammatically incorrect messages while drunk.

“Do you know where I'm supposed to go?” he asks Jane.

“Yeah, I'll walk over with you. Was that Tony?”

“Yep, I think he's worried I've skipped town. I mean, he did just drop a bombshell on me and then walk off, so he'd deserve it, but...”

Jane smiles and pushes her chair back. “Let's pay up and get over there then.”

Bruce follows her and stumbles as he gets up from his chair. Jane puts her hand out to steady him.

“You okay?”

He smiles. “Yeah, just drunk. Hm, I wonder how well I can do drunk science.”

She smiles back. “You're kind of a lightweight, huh?”

“Kinda.”

Jane laughs and pulls out a bottle of water from her bag. “Drink that.”

They make it over to the room by five fifty, and Tony pounces on him pretty much as soon as he steps through the door.

“Got stuck on the slot machines, Bruce?” he asks. “I thought you were more sensible than that.”

“I was with Jane,” he says, pointing vaguely over his shoulder.

Tony looks round at her and nods. “Hey, Foster, I didn't know you were going to be here.”

“Hey, Tony,” she replies. “I'm going to go grab a seat. Good luck, Bruce.”

He looks over his shoulder and smiles. “Thanks,” he says, and waves to her as she leaves. When he turns back, Tony is standing very close to him, inspecting his face.

“You're drunk,” he says, eyebrows rising.

Bruce leans away from him. “You're too close to me.”

Tony narrows his eyes. “Can you get through your lecture drunk?”

“I'll be fine,” he says. “Tell me where I need to stand.”

The lecture does go fine – even better than fine, maybe. He can talk more easily than normally, without the constant stream of thoughts about fucking up or not making sense or the awkwardness of being absent from the field for so long. Jane is in the third row from the front, and she smiles at him every now and then, and that makes him feel kind of pleased too. He even gets some clapping at the end and people come up to talk to him afterwards. There's a lot of, 'wow, I haven't seen you in years' and 'I thought you'd moved on to something else' and everyone tries to figure out just why the mysterious Bruce Banner has reappeared, but he gives bland answers and ducks out as soon as he can.

Tony has business associates to go out with afterwards, since his talk isn't until the next day, and Bruce cries off going along. He's looking for his keycard when Jane catches up with him.

“You did great,” she says, patting him on the shoulder.

“Thanks. And thanks for helping me figure the whole thing out. It would not have gone like that otherwise.”

She smiles. “Well, I don't know about that, but you're welcome. Have you sobered up now?”

“Getting there,” he says.

“Do you want to go get something to eat?”

“Uh...” His stomach growls its approval and he crosses his arms over his chest, smiling sheepishly. “Don't you want to go to the next lecture?”

“Nah, it's just some chemist,” she says, quirking an eyebrow for a moment. “I mean, if you've got other plans, don't worry about it...”

He shakes his head. “I don't have any other plans. Yeah, dinner would be nice.”

-

August 2nd, 12.30pm.

When she comes back out of the bathroom, ring ditched on the bathroom counter, Bruce seems to have kind of wilted on the bed, his curved back facing her. He has pink scratches along his shoulder blades, mixed in with much older white scars. They must have really gone at it last night.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asks.

His shoulder blades jump a little, and he turns to look at her. “Huh? Oh yeah, sorry, it's just my head is pounding. And I can't find my glasses.” He lifts his hand and scratches absently at his neck, over reddened skin shaped like her mouth. She's pretty sure he doesn't realise they're there, and she squirms a little, thinking about the similar row of bites she found along her hip bone.

Bruce holds up his phone. “Tony texted me, I told him I was, uh, sightseeing for the day. I figure we're going to be busy.”

She hooks her thumbs loosely through her belt loops. “Yeah...”

“He also asked me where I was, but I actually don't know...”

“We're still in Caesars Palace,” she says.

“How do you know?”

She shrugs. “It says 'Caesars Palace' on all the soap and towels in the bathroom.”

“Oh.” He pauses and frowns at her a little. “You're kind of really calm about this whole situation.”

She shrugs again. “Well, it's... it's kind of surprising, but annulments are easy enough to get and freaking out isn't going to help.”

“You do this a lot then?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

“Get wasted and marry random guys? No, that's not a normal night out for me,” she snaps, crossing her arms over her chest.

He cringes. “Sorry, I didn't mean it to... sound like that.. I'm just... I feel very confused right now.”

She sighs; she knows he's not trying to be mean. He's not a mean person, and she happens to like him a lot – she guesses they're just both feeling a little turned upside down. “I know, so do I, but it can't be that hard to get an annulment in Las Vegas of all places, and once we work out how that works, we're good.”

He nods. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“You want to jump in the shower, and then we can figures out how the day's going to go?”

“Sure, a shower sounds pretty good right now. Can you, um...?”

“Oh! Yeah, of course.” She turns her back to him and hears him get up and collect his clothes before slipping into the bathroom. Once she hears the door shut, she sets about picking everything up off the floor and searching the room. She finds various receipts and socks and her bag behind a chair. Amazingly, her iPad, wallet, and all her cards are intact, but the fifty dollars cash she had (she told herself she could spend only fifty dollars at the casino) is nowhere to be found. She digs around and finds her birth control packet – yesterday's pill is still on the strip. Shit.

Bruce's wallet turns up under the bed, and she flips it open just to make sure it isn't someone else's. He has a few cards in there, along with an ID card slotted in a clear front pocket. It reads 'Simon Green' and he has short hair in the picture. Huh, okay then.

She puts the wallet down on the bed and sits down. After looking around the huge room for a couple of minutes, she tentatively pulls down the waistband of her jeans and traces her fingers over the hickeys. They might not have been able to go all the way last night, but they sure gave it a good go, and she wonders how far they actually managed to get. Her right hand is also oddly sore, and she doesn't know what the hell that's about.

The bathroom door opens and Bruce wanders back out, towelling at his wet hair. Jane pulls her waistband back up quickly.

“Feel better?” she asks.

“Bit more human, at least,” he says, and tips his head down to scrub the towel through his hair. He kind of looks like a dog that's been caught in the rain. The thought of that makes her smile.

“Hey, I found your wallet. You better check all your cards and stuff are still there. Your glasses haven't turned up, though.”

He nods and tosses the towel back into the bathroom. “Thanks.” He rakes his fingers through his hair, seemingly trying to comb it out, but only making it more of a mess instead. She notices that he's taken off his ring too.

“So, uh, Bruce? I've got to ask you something and you might be offended, so... don't be offended.”

He blinks. “Okay?”

“Okay. So, the thing is...” She looks at him and grimaces. “Are you... clean?”

“Well, I just had a shower...”

She's not sure if he's joking or not, so she just kind of pulls a face at him and his eyebrows jump up.

“Oh, you mean... STDs?”

She nods. “Yeah. Sorry. I'm just not sure exactly how far we got, so...”

“No, no, it's fine. I'm clean. I mean, I haven't – or hadn't, depending – had sex in seven years, and I was in a pretty steady relationship for the fifteen years before that, so...”

“Fifteen years?” she repeats. That's twenty two years in total. Twenty two years ago, she was in elementary school. Somehow, she'd never really considered the age difference between the two of them.

He nods. “Yep. I'm... quite a bit older than you.”

“How old are you?”

“Forty five. How old are you?”

“Um, thirty two.”

He pulls a face. “I was thirteen when you were born. That's kind of weird.”

“Kinda, I guess.”

Bruce chews on his lip and tugs at his hair. “I'm infertile, by the way. So, no surprise babies to go along with the surprise marriage, if we did manage to do anything.”

“You're sure about that?”

“Um.” He nods kind of sadly. “Yeah, pretty sure.”

“Okay... It's just, I am on birth control, but I normally take it in the evening and I didn't yesterday. I just really don't need any more surprises, you know?”

“Sure. If you want to take the morning after pill just in case, then you should.”

She smiles. “Maybe I will. It's not that I don't believe you or anything, I just want to be sure.”

He shrugs. “Don't worry about it.”

“Okay.” She taps her fingers against her knee and takes a breath. “Okay, so also, I have to ask...” She glances at his pants, and then shakes herself slightly, She should definitely not be thinking about his dick. His big dick – that was a big dick she got a glimpse of before...

Bruce snorts. “My blood's poisonous, but my other secretions aren't. So, sweat, saliva... sperm... no radioactive properties. Also, sex doesn't make me Hulk out, just as an aside.”

“Well then,” she says. She's had some awkward morning after conversations in the past, but this takes the cake. “By the way, I'm clean too.”

He nods. “I assumed you were.”

“Yeah... I guess I should go find a drug store pretty soon.”

Bruce's stomach growls really loudly and he crosses his arms over his chest and pulls a face. “Sorry. Can we go somewhere to eat after? Somewhere with wifi so we can look stuff up?”

She tries not to look surprised that he's assuming they're going together. She figured he'd stay in the hotel while she tried to find a drug store and not get knocked up with his kid. “Sure,” she says, with a slight smile.

Bruce grabs his wallet and quickly flicks through it. “Hey, I put the keycard in here. How thoughtful of drunk me. Actually, we better get out of here pretty fast, or Tony will definitely catch us.” He pushes his fingers through his damp hair and just makes it look even crazier than before.

“Sure. There are some combs in the bathroom, if you want to...” She points to his hair.

“It's fine,” he says. “It's hot, it'll dry off.”

She has a sudden memory of really intensely wanting to touch his hair last night, and her fingers start tingling. She curls them into her palms and nods. “Yeah, let's go.”

Getting the Plan B at the drug store makes her feel like she's about sixteen. The pharmacist is perfectly pleasant, asks her what medications she's on, and explains how to take it, but Jane still feels absolutely mortified. She guesses it's not as bad as the last time she feared getting pregnant, after the condom broke her sophomore year of college, with a guy she definitely did not want to be tied to forever – that time she just waited in terror for a month, and celebrated the negative pregnancy test by not sleeping with another guy until senior year.

Bruce is hanging around behind her, making her even more agitated, so she gently suggests that he go try on some reading glasses in lieu of his lost pair. Bruce mumbles his ascent and does as he's told. By the time the cashier is ringing up the Plan B, Bruce is back with a pair of glasses and a bottle of Tylenol. Jane grabs them from him and gives them to the cashier.

“I can pay for those...” Bruce murmurs.

“I'm paying,” she snaps. She'd buy the entire store if it meant getting out of here faster.

They find a greasy spoon nearby, and Jane scrutinises the instructions again, just in case she misunderstood something the pharmacist told her, while Bruce squirms in his seat, waiting for the cheeseburger and fries he ordered before the waitress even got them seated.

“I know I'm being paranoid,” she says as she takes the little pill.

“Hey, it's fine,” he says, “I get it, really.”

She sighs. “Yeah... So, have you ever been married before?”

He shakes his head. “No. I almost proposed to someone once, but...” He shrugs. “What about you?”

“Nope. I mean, who would marry me? Except you, I guess.”

Bruce snorts, and shakes his head. “Lots of people would marry you, Jane.”

Her cheeks warm as he smiles softly at her. It takes her a minute to think of something to say back to that, and when she does open her mouth, the waitress comes round and drops off their food. Bruce attacks his burger with an amazing amount of ferocity. Jane blinks.

“Hungry?”

“Mm-hm,” he hums around a mouthful of food. His fingers are already covered in grease and ketchup.

“You're kind of a messy eater, huh?” she asks.

He grabs a napkin and wipes his hands and face. “Yeah, sorry, am I grossing you out?”

She shakes her head, smiling. “It's fine.” She looks down at the salad she ordered – she admires Bruce ability to eat with a hangover, she'd be puking everywhere in his position.

“Should we, uh...?” He points to her iPad.

“Oh yeah, right,” she murmurs, picking up the piece of paper with the wifi password on it. “Yeah, annulment here we come.”

-

August 1st, 7.30pm

Jane watches as Bruce shovels food into his mouth, bits of food escaping every now and then. After a little while, he notices her looking and slows down, grabbing a napkin and tidying himself up.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, “I'm kind of messy...”

She grins. “It's fine. I guess you were hungry.”

“I'm always hungry,” he says.

“All the time?”

He shrugs. “Most of the time, it's a metabolism thing. You know, Hulk... stuff.”

“He affects your metabolism? That's so cool!” At his widened eyes, she clears her throat. “I mean, not cool... interesting. Kinda, I guess? Sorry.”

He laughs and shakes his head. “You can think it's cool, it's better than the reactions I normally get.”

“Yeah...” She bites her lip and looks at him, then down at her plate of lamb curry.

Bruce makes a cutting motion across his neck and grins. “Like a bucket of ice water down the back of your shirt. Sorry.”

“Hey, don't say that, I started it. Let's... find something else to talk about... Where are you from?”

“Ohio. You?”

“Virginia. My dad was already at Culver when he met my mom.”

“So, you're legacy, huh?”

“I guess. I was kind of groomed to go to Culver. I rebelled and went to Harvard first, though.”

“Whoa, slow down there, James Dean,” he says in what she's coming to realise is his usual lazy, mumbly way of speaking.

She barks with laughter and shakes her head. “We can't all be the Hulk,” she says, regret coming over her immediately as Bruce's eyes widen. But as quick as they do, they crinkle up as he laughs.

“I did stuff before that.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

He closes one eye and looks at her. “Like... shoplifting. Getting into fights. Trying various kinds of drugs in different combinations. Uh... setting fire to a car once.”

She narrows her eyes a little. “Are you fucking with me?”

“I'm not fucking with you. The car was my high school principal's; we didn't see eye to eye on a variety of important issues. I got two months in juvie for that. The term 'bad kid' got thrown around a lot.”

She raises her eyebrows; she guesses there's no reason to be surprised, since she barely knows him at all to compare past behaviour to, but he just seems so calm and reasonable all of the time.

“Well, look at you now,” she says.

“Yeah, I'm the first real life movie monster. Just what I always wanted...” he says, with kind of a bitter smile on his face.

“Hey,” she murmurs, and slides her hand across the table until her fingertips brush lightly against his. “You're a lot more than that.”

He looks at her hand, then up at her, the bitterness in his face slowly being replaced by a kind of shyness. He looks down at his plate, then back at her, then runs the fingers of his free hand through his hair, drawing her eyes there. His hair looks really thick and soft, and she kind of wants to touch it...

She shifts and clears her throat. “Do you want to go somewhere else after this?” she asks.

Bruce widens his eyes, still smiling, then nods. “Yeah, that'd be nice.”

-

August 2nd, 1.45pm

“So, either you can file the papers, or I can,” Jane says as they leave the diner, “and then the papers get sent to whoever didn't file, and you just have to sign to say you received them, and then just don't respond to it. I figure that's going to be better than having the papers served, because then we have to find someone to serve them.”

He nods, looking around at the aggressive fakeness of the place. The sun is high in the sky and baking down on them, and it makes his woolly head even woollier.

“Bruce?” Jane prompts.

“Mm?”

“Who should file the papers?”

He blinks a couple of times and rubs at his eyes. “Oh, uh... I guess since they've got to be mailed to the other person and I live with Tony... I'll file?”

She shrugs. “Okay, sure. I guess now we just have to find the courthouse. I'll look up directions on my phone.”

He nods slowly, rubbing at his mouth. The heat has settled on his skin, and he starts feeling dizzy, as he follows along after her. Jane is saying something that he can't focus on, so he just nods and makes affirmative sounds. They stop at a crosswalk, in a particularly hot patch of sunlight, and Bruce suddenly gags.

“Shit, I think I'm gonna be sick,” he mumbles.

“What?” Jane says, looking round at him as the crosswalk sign turns green.

He presses a hand over his mouth and gags again. Jane's eyes widen in alarm, and she grabs him by the shoulders, steering him away from the road and over to a bush.

“You okay?” she asks.

He takes a couple of deep breaths, hunching his shoulders in, and nods jerkily. “I think--” he begins, and then his stomach lets him know that what he thinks really doesn't matter because they're going to vomit into this bush on a busy street in Las Vegas no matter his opinion on the situation.

Jane pats him on the shoulder lightly as he heaves. “I think you might have eaten a little too much...”

“You-- think--?” he stammers between gags. “Is everyone looking?”

There's a long pause before she takes a breath and says, “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Fucking amazing,” he mutters, and his stomach gurgles angrily again.

“Do you think you're done?”

He swallows down bile and nods. “For the moment.”

“Okay,” she says quietly, and a moment later hands him a tissue.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, wiping at his mouth.

“Come on, let's find another drug store and get you some Pepto-Bismol.”

He sits back and tries to get up with as much dignity as he can. Which, considering that he's still pretty unsteady on his feet, is very very little. “God, I probably threw up the painkillers I took.”

“Probably,” Jane agrees, and takes hold of his upper arm to guide him away from the scene of the crime. That's going to make a nice surprise for some gardener soon.

They manage to find a shaded spot to sit after buying the Pepto, some mouthwash, and some crackers, to soak up all the grease and alcohol, Jane says. Bruce has already washed his mouth out in the drug store restroom.

“I think it was the heat that did it,” Bruce says, glancing at Jane. “Which is ridiculous because I used to live in Brazil. And India. Heat isn't a problem for me.”

“Maybe it was more to do with the fact that you inhaled your food in about a minute flat,” Jane says, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, thanks, Mom,” he says, and then snorts. “Uh, sorry.”

Jane grins back. “It's fine. It's just I know that people say grease is good for a hangover, but since you don't drink much, you should probably figure out what works for you first.”

Bruce drags his fingers through his hair and Jane watches the motion for a moment before looking back at his face. “Don't worry, I'm not going to be drinking like that ever again.”

“Yeah... Sorry about that, by the way,” she says.

“Why are you sorry?”

She rubs at the back of her neck and twists her mouth. “Well, I'm pretty sure I goaded you into drinking with me...”

He shrugs and scratches his neck. It's been itchy ever since he woke up. “Hey, you didn't force me, I wanted to... keep flirting with you, I guess.”

She looks down at her lap. “Oh,” she murmurs.

“I mean, that's what we were doing, right?”

“Yeah, I guess it was...” She starts picking at her nails, glancing at him a couple of times. He smiles, remembering that kind of warm, happy feeling from last night when they were awkwardly flirting over dinner.

Jane takes a breath and looks at him. “We should, um. We should probably go catch a bus to the courthouse soon. I haven't seen a single unoccupied taxi so far.”

“Yeah, okay.” He braces his hands against the seat of the bench and pushes himself forward. “I hope I don't throw up again.”

Jane pats his hand. “I'm sure a lot of people throw up outside Las Vegas courthouses.”

-

August 1st, 8.45pm

He shouldn't drink, really. Before this afternoon, he hadn't in years. It was one of the many, many failings of his father, though the older Bruce got, the more he realised that the alcohol was nothing. It didn't change his father, didn't turn him into an evil son of a bitch; he just always was one.

Still, Bruce has long suspected that he might be prone to alcoholism, because he also has many, many failings, and he's been known to go through bouts of intensely obsessive behaviour. So steering clear just seemed to be the safest bet.

Tonight, though, he's not feeling like being safe and sensible, he feels like relaxing and having fun. Jane gets him a beer and hustles him into a squashy booth, and a little while later he's finding just about everything funny.

Jane laughs along with him, tipping her head to one side, watching him.

“You're an adorable drunk,” she pronounces.

He laces his fingers on the table and rests his chin on top. “Thank you,” he says and smiles with his teeth.

The corners of her eyes crinkle up, and she takes another sip of her beer. “So, when was the last time you got drunk?”

“Mm... four hours ago?”

She rolls her eyes. “Before today, smartass.”

He ducks his head for a moment, then looks back at her. “Probably my... twenty... eighth birthday? Yeah. I've drunk alcohol since, but I haven't been...” He waves his hands vaguely and knocks his beer bottle over. There isn't much left in it, so the dregs just drip onto the floor. He turns and looks at it for a moment as Jane stifles a laugh. “Whoops,” he mumbles, righting the bottle again. “Uh, what was I saying?”

“That you haven't been really drunk since you were twenty eight.”

“Oh yeah, right. Yeah, and that was a long time ago.” He drains the last of his bottle and licks his lips. “I am old, Jane.”

She clicks her tongue. “No, you're not.”

“Mm,” he hums. “On the other hand, Hulk is only seven years old, so... that's creepy.”

Jane laughs and points at the empty bottle in his hand. “You done?”

“I should be,” he murmurs, “so... I'll have another.”

She gets up and goes back over to the bar, and Bruce rolls his head to one side to look at her. He thinks this might be a date, but then maybe he's just so overcome by getting positive attention from anyone, but especially a beautiful woman, that he's making too much of it. He's like a freaking abused dog or something. He chuckles to himself; that actually sums it up pretty well.

He refocuses on Jane, leaning against the bar, trying to get the bartender's attention. A guy slides up next to her and ostensibly reaches over for something on the other side of her on the bar, but it's so obviously a move it's kind of hilarious. Jane leans away, nose wrinkling, and the guy takes his sweet time withdrawing his arm. Bruce narrows his eyes and regrets that all this alcohol means Hulk is out for the count for a while.

Jane finally manages to flag down the bartender and the guy next to her leans in again, saying something into her ear. She pulls away again and turns to point at Bruce, who waves back. The guy looks at him for about half a second, then goes back to leaning into Jane. She shakes her head. The guy doesn't seem particularly interested in that answer, leaning in a fourth time and laying his hand on her back, sliding it slowly downwards.

Fuck, that's it. Bruce swings his legs out of the booth and starts to get up. The guy's faster than Bruce though, and has his hand firmly on her ass before Bruce has even managed to get his shit together enough to stand up. In the blink of an eye, Jane turns and slugs him square in the nose, and the whole bar erupts into peels of laughter. Jane pushes her shoulders back and picks up the beers, then walks with drunken dignity back to their table.

Bruce scoots back into his seat and looks at her with raised eyebrows. The guy is being escorted out by security, bleeding profusely, and Bruce laughs for a full minute as Jane puts the bottle down in front of him and sits. When he catches his breath again, she runs her hands over her hair, primping it a little.

“Touch my flat ass, get punched,” she says.

Bruce grins. “Good policy. Your ass isn't flat though.”

She narrows her eyes at him and he ducks, only half in jest. Jane bursts into laughter and rubs at her knuckles. “Ow, my hand hurts.”

“Did you cut it?” Bruce asks, reaching across the table for her hand. “You dunno what that guy might've got.”

“I don't think I did,” she says, giving him her hand. He picks up a napkin and wipes off the stray blood off her fingers.

“I think you're good,” he says, and rubs his palm over the back her hand. “It'll, uh, it'll swell up, probably.”

Jane shrugs and leaves her hand underneath his. “It was worth it.”

-

August 2nd, 2.10pm

They sit at the front of the top deck of the bus going to the court – Jane's kind of missed double deckers since her time in London. Although the rest of her London trip was considerably less fun.

Bruce still looks pretty green, though, and she's a little worried that they're going to have a repeat of earlier.

“Hey, you want to sit in the back?” she asks, touching him gently on the shoulder..

“Ugh,” he grunts, and swallows heavily, “I'm fine.”

Jane looks at him worriedly for a second, then nods and looks out the window. It's a pretty amazing view of Las Vegas, even under the circumstances..

“Um, so...” she starts. Bruce squeezes his eyes shut for a second, then tips his head towards her. “How much do you remember? Because little things keep coming back to me.” Like tugging at his hair and pulling his head to one side to kiss at his neck. Maybe that's when he got those hickeys.

Jesus Christ. She blinks away the memory and focuses on him.

“Well...” he says, eyebrows drawing together. “I remember that we had dinner, and then went to a bar.” He rubs at his ear. “You punched a guy...”

She blinks and looks at her sore fingers. “Oh wow, I did, didn't I? I'd totally forgotten about that.”

He smiles. “It's a good thing that guy didn't make a thing of it, because I don't think either of us were in any shape to do anything about it.” At her nod, he smiles again. “Do you remember anything?”

“Um...” She crosses her arms over her chest and tries to look casual. “I remember... making out. I think we were outside a bar.”

“Okay,” he murmurs, pulling a face for moment before laughing slightly. “Um. That all?”

She frowns and squeezes her eyes shut, trying to drag something else up. “I remember... singing along to something?”

She opens her eyes and Bruce looks equally thoughtful. He tips his head to one side and starts humming something. “It went something like that, right?”

“Yeah!” She sits up and tries to hum along with him. “It's that song... that young song. We Are Young?”

“And I said, 'some of us are',” Bruce adds.

Jane grins. “That's right! And I tried to make you dance but you wouldn't!”

Bruce smiles back and scratches at his neck. “Yeah, well, I'm not much of a dancer.”

She settles back down, feeling a blush start to warm her cheeks. “Yeah...”

“The last thing I remember is telling you to rack up the shots. That was our downfall, I think,” Bruce says.

“Probably. Tequila's a killer.”

The bus jolts over a pothole and Bruce grimaces. “Oh God, how much longer is this trip?”

She pulls out her phone to check the time. “About another thirty five minutes.”

Bruce grimaces some more. “Okay, I can do this.”

“I'll hold your hair back if you need to puke again.”

He snorts and runs his fingers through his hair. Her fingers tingle again.

-

August 1st, 10.30pm

“...so I'm wearing the fucking dress and the fucking...” She waves vaguely at her chest. “Fucking... boob guard, and it's still not enough, it's never enough for these fucking stuck up assholes. I'm still just mortal, like that's such a bad thing, like their culture didn't stagnate about a thousand years ago, and we've gone from not knowing how to make fucking fire to going to the fucking moon, all on the backs of people who only lived for like seventy years on average, and way less than that for most of the history of the planet!”

Bruce is nodding along with her slowly, and she takes a deep breath and has another sip of her beer.

“Boob guard?” Bruce asks.

“Yeah, it was like a... You know how Amazons apparently cut off a breast so that they could use a bow and arrow?” Bruce looks kind of confused, but nods anyway. “Well, it was like that but without losing breast tissue. Which, you know, I never used a bow and arrow, so why the hell did I even need to wear it, you know? And it's not like I have any boobs to protect, anyway, so...”

Bruce is staring, looking kind of like she's blown his mind. “You okay?”

He blinks heavily. “I'm thinking about your breasts. Sorry.”

She bites her lip. “I'm thinking about your hair. I wanna touch it. I've wanted to touch it all afternoon.”

His eyes go round. “You can touch it.”

She presses her teeth harder into her bottom lip. “You sure?”

He leans across the table, pushing empty bottles aside. There's a bunch of them, and they clink together, some of them tipping over and hitting the table. “Yeah,” he says, a little breathlessly.

“Okay.” She lifts her hand, twitching her fingers. She hesitates for a moment, locking eyes with Bruce's wide, slightly watery ones, then strokes her hand over his hair. His eyelids droop and she licks her lips, and pushes her fingers through his hair. He makes a soft sound and dips his head a little.

“God, your hair's really soft,” she murmurs.

He doesn't reply and she scratches her fingernails over the hair at the back of his scalp. He groans, high and sharp, and she digs her fingers in harder, into the top of his neck, and he makes another sound. Her focus shrinks down to a pinprick and somewhere in her daze it registers with her that Bruce is basically making sex noises and that this is only a couple of steps away from screwing in the booth.

The music in the bar changes and that shakes her back to the present. She sits back and Bruce lifts his head, colour high on his cheeks. She smiles at him, and he looks back at her, mouth slightly open.

“I love this song,” she says suddenly, and Bruce's eyes flicker to the ceiling. “Toni-iii-iiight, we are young,” she sings along, and the corners of Bruce's mouth tip up.

“Some of us are,” he mutters.

She laughs and jumps up. “Set the world on fiiire,” she sings and grabs his hands. “Come dance with me?”

His eyes go really wide and he shakes his head. “No,” he says, drawing out the word.

“Aw, come on!” she insists, pulling harder at his hands. He's a dead weight, though, probably like fifty percent alcohol at this point.

“Nope,” he counters, and tugs back, pulling her into him. She lets go of his hands and grabs his shoulders to steady herself, coming almost nose to nose with him, one knee between his legs. He looks up at her, and she notices that he has really full lips.

She pushes herself up and takes a breath. “You're no fun,” she says softly.

“Sorry,” he says, equally as quietly.

She shrugs and looks at the bar. “You want another drink?”

“'kay.”

She shouldn't have encouraged him to drink so much, she reflects a little while later, when he has a permanent blush across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, and he has the attention span of a gnat. She excuses herself to the restroom, which is a hilarious trip involving having to brace herself against the toilet paper thingy to stop from slipping off the toilet and subsequently pissing all over the seat, and when she eventually gets back out, Bruce's forehead is resting against the table.

She trails her fingers along his neck as she passes. “I think someone's done for the night.”

“'m still conscious,” he mumbles.

She stumbles back into her seat. “Barely. I'm amazed you lasted this long.”

“'m not that drunk,” he argues, without lifting his head.

“Sure,” she says.

“The mass of an atomic nucleus is M equals Z M P plus N M N minus E B over C two,” he mumbles, before lifting his head and smiling goofily at her.

She smiles back. “In that case, wanna do shots?”

“Rack 'em up,” he murmurs.

The first shot goes down easy enough, as easy as swallowing fire ever does, she guesses, and it numbs the way for the second and third, but when they hit the fourth, Bruce gags and ends up spitting it back out into the glass.

“Fuck, you win,” he mumbles and leans his head back against the padded booth, his Adam's apple working up and down as he swallows.

Jane reaches under the table and taps his knee gently. He moves it towards her and smiles lazily.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Mm-hm,” he murmurs back and takes a deep breath. “I feel great. Maybe this is why Brian drank so much.”

She blinks several times and frowns. “Who's Brian?”

Bruce responds with a hiccup; a high-pitched, completely adorable sound. And then another and another.

“Sh-- hup-- it,” he mumbles, lifting his head slowly.

“Aw...” Jane says.

“Don't-- hup-- laugh,” he says, trying to frown but mostly just looking confused.

“I'm not laughing, it's just cute.”

“No, it's-- hup-- fuck-- not,” he argues.

“Okay, it's not,” she says.

He tries to frown at her again, with all the gravitas of a puppy, and it occurs to her that she really wants to kiss him, and that surprises can cure hiccups.

Two birds, one stone.

She leans forward and reaches across the table, grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him towards her. He comes easily and she mashes her mouth into his without another word and there's this moment that seems to stretch on and on into drunken infinity with the two of them exactly like this, until Bruce suddenly comes out with this whimper and slides his hands around her cheeks, deepening the kiss.

She scrambles to get closer, pulling her knees up onto her seat and leaning into him as far as she's able, shoving her hands into his hair. Bruce moans against her mouth and she pulls harder at his hair and he just moans louder. Something falls sharply, sounding like glass connecting with wood, but Jane is more concerned with whether or not she's going to climb onto this table to get to Bruce or not.

“Guys,” a voice says, and then when that fails to make a dent, “guys!”

Jane jerks to a stop and glances around, at the bartender standing in front of their table, a cloth and their bottle of tequila in his hands. Bruce mumbles something incoherent, and she reluctantly lets go of him.

“Guys, I think it's time for you two to pay up and go somewhere else,” the bartender says, not unkindly. “Here's the bill,” he adds, handing a slip of paper to her.

“Thank you,” she practically sing-songs, and the guy raises his eyebrows in amusement and walks off. She looks back at Bruce, whose chest is heaving and there's something kind of... unrestrained in his eyes, then looks at the bill. She can't makes out what it says at all.

“Fuck it,” she mutters and gets out her wallet, pulling out all the cash she finds in there and throwing it on the table. “Let's go,” she says, and grabs Bruce's hand. He stumbles up with just as much haste as her, and she almost leaves her bag behind in the booth, but manages to remember at the last moment, leaving Bruce by the doors as she weaves back through the crowd to retrieve it.

When she gets back to Bruce, she practically shoves him bodily through the open door and jumps him as soon as they hits the dry, hot night air. Bruce makes the most desperate sound she's ever heard and she grabs a hunk of his hair, yanking his head to one side and kissing down the other side of his neck.

“Oh God, Jane, Jane,” he babbles.

She shoves her other hand under his shirt, finding the thick chest hair that she's always imagined would be there. She strokes at it and bites and sucks at the column of his neck, and he takes about a dozen ragged breaths, body shuddering against her.

“Jane,” he whines, and as soon as she pauses, he wraps his arms around her middle and captures her mouth again.

She pulls her hand out from under his shirt and runs it back through his hair, and he manages to manoeuvre her around and gently press her up against a wall. His arms around her waist loosen as he continues to kiss her – and he is an amazing kisser, they should have started this hours ago – and he flattens his hands against her back, slipping them down and down until they're hot against the small of her back. Then his hands still, and they continue to kiss for a few minutes as Jane slowly begins to realise why his hands have stopped moving. She smiles against his lips and removes one hand from his hair, to his marked annoyance, and takes hold of one of his hands, moving it down to sit firmly on her ass.

Bruce chuckles in understanding and slides his other hand down as well, hiking her up a couple of inches between the wall and his chest. The height difference between the two of them isn't that great, but it still takes the strain off her neck a little.

In the recesses of her mind, it occurs to her that they're both really, really drunk, and while she feels pretty okay, considering, Bruce is seriously hammered.

She reluctantly pulls away a couple of inches, and Bruce grunts and stares in confusion at her, with blown out pupils.

“What's the Pauli exclusion principle?” she says.

“No two identical fermions can occupy the same quantum state at the same time. The wave function of the identical fermions is anti-symmetric in the exchange of the particles,” he says easily.

God, that's hot. She kisses him hard on the mouth and grins. “Marry me, Bruce.”

He stares at her with wide eyes, panting slightly. “Okay,” he says, and ducks his head to kiss her again. Over his shoulder, she can see a huge neon sign that says, 'Wedding Chapel, open 24 hours'. She kisses him harder.

This is an awesome idea. And she's totally cured his hiccups.

-

August 2nd, 3.10pm

There's a pretty long line to file at the courthouse, which Bruce guesses makes him feel a little better – they're not the only ones to have done something stupid last night. Jane grabs the forms they need and finds them a place to fill them out. There are a lot of boxes to tick.

“So, what's our reason for annulment?” he asks, spinning the pen between his fingers.

Jane leans in, shoulder bumping into his. Arousal flushes through him like a physical memory and he swallows heavily as she taps one of the options with her finger.

“'Lack of understanding of his/her actions',” she says, and looks up at him. “Want me to take over for a bit?”

He shrugs and takes a half step away from her. “Sure. Thanks. My eyes are starting to cross, looking at all those boxes.”

She smiles and takes the pen from him. Bruce crosses his arms over his chest and curses his stupid body for deciding that now is a good time for a hormone rush. An hour ago he was puking in a bush and now he's getting horny? Fucking ridiculous.

His memory's been coming back in fits and starts since they talked about it on the bus. It's still pretty fuzzy on the whole, but he's definitely starting to remember what it felt like to kiss her and have her hands in his hair, tugging mercilessly, and he really, really enjoyed that last night, judging by how his body's reacting now. It's been so goddamn long since he's really done anything with anyone. Isolation and that fucking heart monitor saw to that, so he's hardly surprised that the horny and drunk version of himself last night wasn't anxious to turn down whatever Jane wanted to give him.

He's not totally sure that he would right now, sober as he is.

“Okay,” Jane says, turning back to him. He tries to arrange his features normally, and if she notices any strangeness, she doesn't comment on it. Maybe that says something about Bruce as a person.

She hands him the pen. “You've got to sign and date it.”

“Oh yeah, sure.” He quickly scrawls his name where Jane points to and dates it, then turns and looks at the line. “Show time.”

“Yeah, come on,” she says.

The line moves steadily but slowly and there isn't much to look at in the filing office. The guy currently being served by the clerk is in floods of tears and everyone is trying their best not to listen, while at the same time listening intently. There's also a couple a little way from the front who appear to be drunk and very angry at each other. Bruce guesses him and Jane aren't doing too badly, considering.

“So... an annulment means we were never legally married, right?” he asks. He knows that he sounds like an idiot for even asking, but while there are lots of things he knows about, the ins and outs of dissolving a marriage isn't among them.

“Yeah, like it never happened,” she says, smiling slightly.

“Okay...” He runs his fingers through his hair and looks around. Jane is standing half in front of him, one of her shoulders almost touching his again, and he kind of really wants to touch her. Only Bruce would be able get himself into a situation like this.

He sighs and starts scratching at his neck again. Jane looks at him with slightly raised eyebrows.

“I think I have fleas,” he jokes. The lady in front of them turns and looks disapprovingly and Bruce clears his throat.

“You don't have fleas,” Jane says, “you have... They're hickeys.”

He blinks, fingernails still scratching over irritated skin. “Oh.”

“You didn't see them in the bathroom mirror earlier?”

He shakes his head. “I didn't have my glasses on. I wasn't that concerned about my appearance...”

“Right, yeah...” she murmurs and crosses her arms loosely over her chest. “Well... you should probably stop scratching.”

He drops his hand. “Yeah...”

The argument between the drunk couple in front of them explodes into yelling and some slapping, which serves as a helpful distraction for a few minutes, until security come and drag the both of them away.

“I'm gonna divorce your ass!” the girl yells at the guy as they're hauled out. “I'm gonna get so much alimony!”

“Well, some people have it worse than us,” Bruce murmurs.

“Yeah,” Jane says, “I'm not going to sue you for half your estate.”

“Ten dollars and a button,” Bruce says.

She laughs and wrinkles up her nose. “Um. By the way, I've got some hickeys too.”

He looks at her unblemished neck. “You do?”

“Yeah, um.” The line shuffles forward and she goes with it, bringing them almost to the front of the line. “On my... hip,” she says quietly.

“Oh,” he breathes. Jane looks back at him with a pink flush on her cheeks, and he gets another slew of memories, sheets under his hands and Jane's legs around his shoulders. “I think I went down on you last night,” he says, just like that, not thinking about the words he's saying.

“Oh,” she echoes, cheeks darkening. “You remember that?”

“Kind of. It's... vague.”

“Okay. It feels kind of weird that you remember it and I don't.”

“Sorry.”

She shrugs. “It's not your fault.”

Bruce smiles. “Jane?”

“Yeah?”

He takes a breath. “Can I kiss you?”

She blinks. “Oh. Okay.”

He leans in and brushes his lips against hers, and it's a weird sensation because in one way it's so familiar to him, like he knows all her sounds and exactly what she likes, but in another, it's totally new.

Jane sighs, placing a hand on his neck and running her fingers over the short hair there. He presses into her, nose brushing against her cheek, and she pushes herself up a little, fingertips pressing into his skin. Her mouth closes around his top lip for a moment before opening again, and he curls one arm around her waist, turning his head into the kiss.

“Next,” the clerk calls.

The longer the kiss lasts, the more familiar it becomes, the more he kind of remembers what happened last night without actually remembering the events. He remembers how it felt to be... happy, for a little while.

“Next,” the clerks calls again.

Someone taps him on the shoulder. “Dude, you're next.”

Bruce pulls away from Jane and looks up. Everyone's staring. “Shit, sorry,” he mumbles, and awkwardly steps up to the counter, Jane at his side.

“How may I help you,” the clerk says flatly. It doesn't even sound like a question.

“Um, uh...” He drops the forms on the counter. “Annulment.”

The clerk's eyes flicker from him to Jane and back again. “Have you filled everything out?” she asks.

“Um, yeah. I think so.”

“Mm,” the woman murmurs and gets up, taking the forms into the back. Bruce watches her leave for a moment, then turns to look at Jane.

“Uh...” he murmurs, then stops and glances over her head. Everyone is still looking at them.

“We should probably save the conversation for outside,” Jane says quietly.

“Yeah, maybe,” he mutters back.

The clerk takes her sweet time coming back with the forms, awkwardness growing both between him and Jane, and him, Jane, and the rest of the room. Bruce taps his fingers on the counter and keeps glances at the clock on the wall.

Jane rests her hand on his back for a second, then knots her fingers in his shirt. He looks at her out of the corner of his eye then back at the clock. All in, it takes the clerk nearly eight minutes to come back with the paperwork and present him with a receipt.

“Two hundred and sixty nine dollars, please,” she says.

“Two hundred and...? Wow, okay,” he mutters, pulling his wallet out of his pocket. “Do you take credit cards?”

Once payment's out of the way, the clerk mutters something about hearing back in six weeks and dismisses them. It's kind of an abrupt and unimpressive end to a marriage, but he guesses the marriage's start was pretty abrupt and unimpressive, too. And the middle was completely forgettable.

“So,” he says, as they walk down the steps out of the building. “Um.”

“Yeah,” she murmurs.

“What do we do now?”

She looks around and shrugs. “We could kiss some more.”

He looks back at her, that bubbling, happy feeling slowly creeping back in, and smiles. “Okay,” he says.

-

August 1st, 11.30pm

Jane is really strong, Bruce thinks as she drags him down a very gaudy, brightly lit street. It's not a bad thing, he figures dimly, because he probably wouldn't be able to stay vertical without the help. Actually it's nice. And hot.

God, Bruce wants to have sex so bad.

“Oh!” Jane says suddenly, coming to a stop so suddenly that Bruce just keeps going and runs into her back.

“What?” he asks. It sounds more like, 'whuh?', though. His head is really spinning.

“Rings!” she yells and steps back, leaving him to pitch forward. She grabs at him and manages to steady him, though it turns into kind of an awkward dance for a moment. “We need rings,” she says breathlessly, “for marrying.”

“Oh. I don't think jewely-- jew-ler-ree-- stores are open this late,” he manages to get out.

“I'm not an animal, Bruce!” she exclaims, then bursts into giggles and buries her head in his chest. Bruce wraps his arms around her and kisses the top of her head. “We still need rings,” she insists into his shirt.

“Isn't a law,” he mumbles.

“It's my law,” Jane says.

“Fine,” he sighs, “so what're we gonna go?”

She huffs and pushes herself up onto her tiptoes in his grip, wrapping her arms around him like an octopus. God, he's missed that, he missed having someone touch him, hold him, make him feel like he's there and he's solid and he won't break apart and fly away in the breeze. Or something. He tightens his arms around her and she hums happily.

“Oh! Over there!” she says, her voice sharp next to his ear.

He tries to ask her what's over where but she pulls away from him and grabs his hand again before he can get his brain in gear enough. Suddenly they're off, and his glasses fall from his pocket and skitter into the road, but he doesn't bother going back for them. Jane's on a mission.

“There,” she says a few feet later, pointing at what looks like a gumball machine outside a flashy looking dollar store. Why is a dollar store open so late?

“I don't get it,” he says, squinting at her.

She rolls her eyes dramatically. “They're rings, look.”

He looks closer, at the picture on the outside of the machine. It's one of those ugly pacifier rings that he was never sure was supposed to be practical or fashionable. “They're kids' rings,” he says.

“They're still rings,” she says, and starts digging around in her bag. “Damnit,” she mutters a while later – Bruce isn't sure how long because he keeps zoning in and out – and looks up at him. “I don't have any change. Do you have change?”

He shakes his head wordlessly.

“Now what are we going to do?” she mutters, screwing up her face.

There's a part of him – the smart part – that says, 'go into the dollar store and get them to break a five dollar bill', but that's a really long and complicated thing to verbalise right now and Jane looks disappointed, so instead what comes out is:

“I bet I could break into that.”

She looks up at him with an arched eyebrow. “What?”

He points at it. “I set fire to a car once. I can break into that.”

She looks at him with big eyes. “Do it, then.”

He nods and kneels down in front of it, wobbling unsteadily from side to side for a moment before finding equilibrium. He scrutinises the coin slot and release mechanism.

“Gimme a bobby pin,” he says, reaching his hand out blindly behind himself.

“I don't have a bobby pin,” Jane says.

He looks around at her. “Why not?”

“Why would I?” She pushes her fingers into her hair and ruffles it, leaving it all tousled and looking like she's just had sex. “Does it look like there's one in here?”

“You're a girl!” he argues, even though distantly he knows that this is a really dumb argument. “Girls have pins in their hair.”

“Not this girl!”

He stumbles back up. “Fine.” He glares at the gumball machine. “Fuck it,” he adds, and drives an elbow into the thing. It shudders from side to side slightly.

“Bruce, what are you doing?” Jane asks in loud whisper.

“'m breakin' inna the thing like I said,” he says, slamming his elbow into it again, which hurts, and also he's the Hulk, he should be able to do something to this thing.

“Bruce, we're gonna get arrested,” she says gravely.

He shushes her and glares at the machine again. If he just had a bobby pin. He smacks the machine in frustration and it makes a kind of clunking/whooshing sound.

“What's it--?” Jane starts, as a plastic ring drops out. “Oh my God, you did it!”

He grins and retrieves the ring, then thumps the machine again with his open palm, which gratifyingly spits out another. Jane whoops and runs up to him, throwing her arms around him and kissing him. He wraps his arms around her middle and kisses her back, pulling her flat against his body.

“What the hell is going on out there?” a voice says from inside the store.

Jane squeaks adorably and grabs for his hand. “Shit, it's the fuzz,” she says, giggling, and starts dragging him down the street again.

By the time they get to the wedding chapel, Bruce's head is spinning like crazy, and the brightness of the chapel makes his eyes sting and water.

“How much is it to get married?” Jane says, smacking her hand down the counter like she's about to haggle for it. She's still holding onto his hand, her fingers curling around his.

“Fifty-five dollars,” the guy says with a bright white smile. Everything is bright here, Bruce thinks vaguely. Maybe he is, too.

The rest of it is pretty much a blur. Mostly he just remembers kissing a lot and her hands on him a lot and some guy with a camera yelling 'cheese!' and Jane laughing as Bruce hides his face in her shoulder. His head isn't spinning any more, it feels like he's spiralling, not just his head but his whole body, maybe. Whatever that even means.

“Let's go have sex,” Jane whispers in his ear.

-

August 2nd, 4pm

“Is this a good idea?” Bruce asks as they make it back into his hotel room and close the door. His cheeks are flushed and his lips are kind of pink from all the sporadic kissing, and now, when they're finally good to go after hauling ass back here, he's clamming up. Awesome.

She shrugs. “Well, I mean... the last, what, twenty four hours have been marked by bad decisions...”

“Pretty much everything that happened after the third beer,” Bruce adds.

“Yeah.” She slides her hands up his chest and clasps them loosely around his neck. She can't help but notice how he leans into her touch. “So, this barely even registers on the bad decision scale at this point.”

Bruce's eyes flicker over her for a moment before he nods and leans in. “Okay,” he says on a sigh, and slants his mouth over hers again.

She sinks her fingers into his hair and walks him backwards into the room, towards the bed. Bruce stumbles a couple of times and she winds her other arm around his waist to keep him steady, smiling to herself at how adorably inelegant he is. He's the polar opposite of Thor; short and dark to Thor's tall, blondness; clumsy and unsure to Thor's composure and confidence. It's a nice change. It's nice not to feel... awed and overwhelmed.

She misjudges where the bed is, running the backs of Bruce's knees into it and he wobbles, throwing one hand out behind himself to stay upright.

“Suave,” he mutters.

“You or me?” she asks, letting go of his neck and dropping her hands to the top button of his shirt.

“Both. We're both very suave,” he says, glancing down as she curls her fingers around his shirt. “Oh, we're doing that now?”

“Well... having sex with our shirts on is kind of weird.”

“Yeah... I'm just kinda... lumpy.”

She clicks her tongue. “No, you're not,” she says, and kisses him again. “You're a-- mm-- good kisser, though.”

“Thank you,” he says, and grins.

“Any time. Come on, I'm getting this shirt off you.”

“Okay,” he concedes, and she hurriedly unbuttons his shirt, brushing her fingertips against his stomach as she gets lower and lower. His muscles twitch in answer and once she gets the shirt open, she flattens her palms against his sides and pulls him closer.

“That wasn't so bad, was it?” she murmurs, and presses her mouth to his collarbone.

“No,” he says, voice rough. His hand settles on the back of her head and he sighs. “Are you sure this is okay? It might be... weird, after.”

“It's weird now,” she says, trailing her mouth higher, up towards the hickeys she left behind last night. “We may as well take advantage of it, don't you think?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, “I guess s--” he stammers as she reaches the first hickey and bites down on it lightly. There's a moment's hesitation before his fingers dig into her hair, nails scraping across her skin a little. “Uhn, okay, huh, Jane.”

She lifts her head. “You like hickeys, huh?”

“I like the-- uhn-- process,” he says breathlessly as she starts up again, moving over to start a brand new one. “Haven't got one in-- years.”

She smiles against his skin and slides one hand around his back, lightly trailing her fingers up and down his spine, to another little huff. She can't deny that it's nice to be able to get reactions like this out of a guy, and so easily. She wonders what she could do to make him completely incoherent.

“Okay,” she says, pulling back. Bruce grunts a little. “Sit down.”

He drops down onto the bed on cue, and looks up at her, mouth slightly open. She smiles triumphantly and pulls her t-shirt over her head, tossing it behind her. Bruce follows, slipping his arms out of the sleeves of his shirt and throwing it on the floor.

“Scoot up,” she says, ushering him back. He pulls his legs up onto the bed and shifts closer to the centre, giving her room to climb on. She kneels on the mattress for a moment, then crawls closer and sits down in his lap.

“Is this okay?” she asks.

“It's great,” he says, and rests his hands gently on her waist. His fingers are rough and feel callused against her skin. She wonders if his calluses are in the same places as hers. She'll have to check later. He moves one hand around to the front and runs his fingers over her hipbone, over reddened skin, and bites his lip, glancing up at her with a strange kind of innocence.

She kisses him quickly, closed mouthed, and puts her hands on his shoulders. Bruce tips his head up and pecks her on the mouth again. It's weird; they've been kissing each other on and off since last night, but she suddenly feels kind of shy. Maybe the fact that they're both shirtless and she's sitting in his lap, on his growing erection, is making the situation just a touch awkward.

Bruce snorts, glancing down and back up quickly. “This is nice.”

“Hopefully it's better than nice,” she says.

“You know what I mean,” he mumbles, cheeks flushing.

She grins and kisses him again, pushing her fingers into his hair. That breaks the tension or, rather, Bruce's guttural groan does. He presses into her, sliding his hands up to her shoulders and she falls into an easy rhythm with him, tugging and twisting his hair around her fingers. She drops her hands from his hair and runs them down his back to the waistband of his jeans, and then up to his shoulder blades, where she can feel the the slightly raised scratches that she saw earlier. She ghosts her fingertips over them and shifts in his lap.

Bruce groans in response, deftly unhooking her bra and sliding his hands down to her hips to resettle her.

“You're pretty good at this,” she says, pulling away slightly. “You dealt with my bra like a pro.”

He shrugs. “I never got what guys find so hard about undoing bras. They're just hooks.”

“You'll make someone a good husband someday,” she says, kissing the corner of his mouth.

Bruce rolls his eyes, pouting slightly. “Ha ha.”

She grins back. “I think... we should take our pants off.”

He nods, starting to smile again, and she scoots off his lap, standing back up to shed first her bra, then unzip her jeans and push them down to her ankles. Bruce watches this show with his hand on his fly, looking at her in just her socks and off white underpants. She feels a little under dressed, honestly, though Bruce's impressive bulge does help some.

“Are you just going to stare at me?”

“Maybe for a little while?” he says. “You're beautiful.”

She feels her cheeks warm and looks away. “Thank you.”

He smiles. “You're welcome.”

She clears her throat. “I'm gonna get a condom.”

“Oh, you've got some? That's good.”

“Yeah. I carry them in my bag in case... I marry random guys and then have sex with them.”

“Ah,” he says.

She digs her condoms out of her bag, and by the time she turns back to Bruce, he's stripped right down, leaving her the one overdressed. He does indeed have a very well-proportioned dick.

She hands him the condom, kind of trying to look away, but at the same time not, because she's thirty two, not twelve, and they're about to get intimately acquainted. She settles on standing by the bed with her arms loosely crossed, waiting for Bruce to get his shit together and get the condom on.

“Did you forget how?” she asks.

“No,” he mumbles. “...maybe a little. I got it now.”

“I certainly hope so.”

He looks up at her, blinking owlishly at her. “You look really severe over there.”

She uncrosses her arms and shakes them out a bit. “Sorry.”

He chuckles and nods towards the bed. “Wanna join me?”

She smiles and climbs back onto the bed, scooting over to him. “So.”

“So,” he echoes.

“How about I go on top?”

He shrugs. “Okay.”

She smiles; he's awfully blasé about this, considering that he's sitting there with a pretty serious boner. Bruce seems to realise this, because he chuckles and glances away.

“Where do you want me?” he asks.

“On your back,” she says, raising her eyebrows.

He lies back and she quickly tugs her underpants off, then she puts her hands on his hips. This is all pretty bizarre, frankly. This is not how she thought her post-Thor rebound or whatever would go down.

“You okay?” Bruce asks softly.

She takes a breath and crawls up his legs. “Yep. Okay, ready?”

“Mm-hm,” he murmurs. She notices that he tenses up just before she sinks down on him, but his hips jerk up sharply as soon as she's there, and he slides in a little faster than she really would have liked.

“Ah,” she mutters.

“You okay?” he asks again, his voice kind of slurred. If she didn't know better, she'd think he was drunk again.

“Yeah, you just-- you've got a big dick.”

“Sorry,” he says, and tips his head back against the mattress. “God, shit, I don't think I'm going to last very long.”

“Don't worry,” she says, and places her hands on his chest, arching her back for a moment before trying to find her rhythm. Bruce makes a choked off sound that seems to be mostly in pleasure, maybe a little in pain.

“Bruce, you still with me?”

He groans long and low and her toes curl a little. “Yeah,” he breathes.

“Okay,” she murmurs, rubbing her fingers over his chest hair. His eyelashes flutter and his mouth drops open a little. She rocks forward and he whimpers a little, tilting his hips up to meet hers.

“Christ,” he mutters.

“Good Christ or bad Christ?”

He huffs a laugh, rolling his hips up again, and she moans a little, a shudder travelling down her legs. “Good. God, Jane, don't stop.”

“I don't intend to,” she says, and leans forward, stretching up to him and kissing his chin. The movement makes them both moan and Bruce captures her mouth quickly, sliding a hand up her back and holding her there.

Things escalate from there, kiss deepening and Jane moving as much as she can, which is a pretty limited amount, being not the most flexible person ever. Bruce's hands roam up and down her back, and after a few minutes he curls his arm around her waist and rolls them on their sides.

“Okay?” he mumbles.

“Yeah,” she says, and hooks one leg around his. “This is better.”

Bruce smiles and kisses her again, harder, and rocks his hips into hers. She groans and pushes her fingers into his hair again and he thrusts harder, tipping her over so that she's mostly on her back. He's good at this. It only take a couple more minutes before Bruce starts panting and pressing open mouthed kisses to her lips.

“Shit,” he groans, “I'm gonna...”

She hums and pushes a hand between their bodies, pressing her fingers to her clit. Bruce looks at her for a moment with fluttering eyelashes, then slides his hand down to meet hers and presses his thumb against her clit as well. Her breath stutters as he rubs along with her, rocking his hips in rhythm with their hands, and she squeezes her eyes as her muscles flutter and clench and her orgasm rolls through her. Bruce groans at the feel of it and presses his face to her shoulder, panting lightly.

“Bruce,” she murmurs, and pauses at the way her voice sounds, all strained and rough and sexy. She didn't know she could sound like that. Bruce groans again in response and she pushes one hand into his hair, leaving the other on her clit and rubbing occasionally, enjoying the sweet aftershocks.

Bruce shakes as he comes, pressing himself into her and whimpering. She strokes and tugs at his hair in turn, and he huffs and moans in pleasure for a few minutes before stilling. She keeps stroking his hair until he sighs and rolls off her, hitting the mattress with a groan.

“Wow,” she says.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and rubs a hand over his face, then drops it on his stomach and sighs.

For a couple of minutes they just lie there in companionable silence, thinking about nothing. At least that's what Jane is doing, and she enjoys the pleasant blankness that comes over her in the haze.

“Um,” Bruce murmurs, breaking the moment. He clears his throat and looks at her. “Technically we're still married, right?”

She looks back at him. “More than technically. They probably haven't even processed the paperwork yet.”

His eyebrows pull together thoughtfully. “Okay.”

“Yeah,” she says. “So, what should we do now?”

Bruce lifts one shoulder. “Order room service?”

-

August 2nd, 1am

“Take your shirt off,” she murmurs, kissing along his jaw and then down his neck.

Bruce pants and squirms under her and pushes his hands up underneath her t-shirt, trailing his hot hands along her skin. He isn't taking his shirt off, though.

She huffs and pulls back, moving her hands to his shirt and starting to unbutton it. Bruce squirms around and pulls a face.

“Do we have to?” he mumbles.

“What?” she says, distracted by his swirly chest hair. Oh yeah, that's what she's talking about.

“It's not-- 'm not much to look at,” he says quietly.

She narrows her eyes and looks at him. “I'm your wife, I get to see everything. And everything is very nice so far.”

He murmurs something she doesn't catch, and brings his lips together in something like a pout. She grins at him and lowers her mouth to his chest, following the line down as she unbuttons his shirt. She can hear Bruce's breathing get louder and louder as she passes his belly button and throws the shirt open.

“Jane,” he murmurs, pushing his hips up for a moment.

“Mm,” she responds, moving her attention to his pants. “I want to see your penis.”

Bruce's stomach muscles jump as he snorts. “Okay.”

She hums happily as she undoes the button and zipper of his fly and then curls her fingers around the waistbands of his jeans and his boxers and tugs them both down.

“Oh,” she breathes, eyeing his dick. “You have a nice penis.”

Bruce laughs. “Thanks.”

“No, I mean, this is a really nice penis. I've seen enough penises to know.”

Bruce covers his face with his hands and starts laughing again, kind of uncontrollably. She grins and moves back up his body, straddling his chest and tugging his hands away from his face to kiss him. He smiles goofily at her and glances at her t-shirt.

“Can I see your boobs?” he asks.

“Sure,” she says, pulls her t-shirt off and unhooks her bra, tossing them both on the floor. “What do you think?” she asks.

“I think you've got really nice breasts,” he says. “And I've seen a few breasts in my time.”

She grins again and leans in closer like she's going to mash them against his face, then fakes him out and ducks down to kiss him instead. Bruce grunts into her mouth and rests a hand on the back of her neck, pulling her in even closer. That passes a nice few minutes, but her lady parts are tingling and sneakily rubbing against his thigh a couple of times isn't cutting it.

“Bruce,” she mumbles against his mouth. Bruce doesn't seem to want to stop kissing, though, and just hums, pressing his lips to the corner of her mouth. “Bruce,” she repeats more firmly and threads her fingers through his hair. “Sex.”

His mouth forms an adorable little 'o' shape as he looks up at her. “Oh. Yeah, good. Um...” He shifts his hips a little and she rolls off him, intending to settle beside him but misjudging her momentum. She wobbles for a second, then squeals and falls onto her back next him.

“Whoops,” she mutters and pushes herself up onto her elbows. She looks down at his pants still around his knees where she left them and notes the conspicuous absence of an erection.

“Bruce,” she murmurs.

“I know,” he mutters, “'m tryin'.”

She smiles and kisses his cheek. “I'll help.”

She pushes herself up and wraps her fingers around his dick. Bruce huffs and she moves her hand up and down, trying to find a rhythm, which is kind of hard because he isn't hard. She sniggers at the thought.

“Don't laugh at me,” Bruce says in a sad, whiny voice.

“Aw, I'm not,” she says. “Hey, maybe it'll help if we kiss at the same time.”

Bruce's annoyance is forgotten in an instant, and he bites his lip and smiles. “'kay.”

She leans back up to him, keeping her firm grip on his dick with one hand and kisses him again. Bruce wraps an arm around her middle and kisses back eagerly and clearly enjoys the hell out of it, but still... Nothin'.

Bruce lets his head fall back and groans. “Fuck. 'm too drunk. Sorry.”

She shrugs. “It's okay.”

“But I wanted to have sex,” he complains. “God, it's been so long.”

She laughs and kisses him again. “I'm sorry, Bruce.”

“Mm,” he hums irritably.

She sits up and lets go of his dick, trailing her fingernails up and down his stomach instead, smiling when she hits ticklish spots and Bruce squirms. He looks up at her with his bottom lip caught between his teeth and smiles.

“Y'know, just 'cause I can't get it up, doesn't mean you've gotta miss out.”

“Huh?”

He pushes himself up onto his elbows and tries to get up, to minimal success. “Jesus,” he grunts. “Can you gimme a hand?”

“Oh, sure,” she says, and grabs his hand, pulling him up.

“Oof,” he mutters, and gives her a quick peck on the lips. “Lie down?” he suggests.

She looks at him suspiciously but lies down anyway, and Bruce shifts around to kneel over her.

“What're you—” she starts, as he presses his mouth to her collarbone. “Oh,” she sighs. “Okay, that's nice. Your stubble feels nice.”

She feels him huff a laugh and then rub his chin against her skin, scratching it up and down. “Mm,” she hums, “yeah, I like that. Keep doing that.” She presses her hands to his back, running her fingernails up and down his spine, digging in harder and scratching when he hits a particularly good spot.

He trails his mouth further, kissing down her breastbone towards her belly button, scraping his stubble along her skin. When he reaches the waistband of her jeans, he stops and runs his fingertips along her pelvis. “Can I...?”

She nods. “Yeah,” she says, surprised at how breathless she sounds.

Bruce grins and makes quick work of her jeans, pulling them down past her knees, and reaching back up to kiss along one of her hipbones. He scrapes his teeth along her skin and bites down lightly.

“Oh,” she breathes and slides her fingers into his hair. He grunts and sucks on the skin, moving down the sharp line of her hipbone, until his mouth is pressed at the crease of her leg and she can feel his warm breath against the fabric of her underwear.

“Can I--”

“Yes,” she says quickly, tightening her fingers in his hair.

He pulls her underwear down and pauses a moment before burying his mouth between her legs.

“Oh, fuck,” she moans, arching her back and pulling hard on his hair. Bruce groans in response, sending shudders to her core, and hooks her legs over his shoulders.

Bruce is kind of relentless, flicking his tongue against her clit until her thighs shake and she whimpers and pulls at his hair so hard that if she was currently using more than her hind brain, she'd be worried about ripping his hair out. Bruce doesn't seem overly concerned about that possibility either, though.

He presses his tongue in harder and she moans shockingly loud in the otherwise quiet of the hotel room. She'd never thought about how quiet sex is, just the slap of skin on skin and the brief moans and whimpers. In the movies, there's always music and other stuff to cover it, but in real life, all she has to listen to is herself, and it's incredibly arousing. She tips her head back against the mattress, scratching her fingernails against his scalp and whines as she comes.

“Oh, God, Bruce, how did you get so good at--” She cuts herself off with another groan as he flicks his tongue again, and rides out the rest of her orgasm in blissed out silence.

Eventually, Bruce lifts his head again, panting, and grins. “Good?”

“Jesus Christ,” she groans.

Bruce laughs and moves her legs off his shoulders. “Had a lot of practice when I was younger.”

She smiles and lets her eyes drift closed, feeling perfectly content. She hasn't had an orgasm like that in years. She can feel that Bruce is still sitting up beside her, though, unmoving, and she waves her hand at him.

“C'mere,” she mumbles, cracking one eye open.

Bruce smiles and crawls back up to her. She reaches up and tugs him down to her, and Bruce settling with his cheek against her chest and his legs drawn up and overlapping hers. She runs a hand through his hair, her plastic ring catching in the strands, and sighs.

“We're going to regret this in the morning, aren't we?” he murmurs.

“Oh, who cares?” she mutters. “Go to sleep.”

-

September 13th, 8am

The shrill doorbell wakes her from a very nice dream about being a spaceship captain. Watching Voyager always gets her that way - Janeway, indeed.

She sighs and throws her blanket off. The doorbell rings again and she rolls her eyes and stretches her arms over her head. “Gimme a chance,” she mutters, and gets up, snagging her robe off the floor and pulling it on.

She pads out into the living room, rubbing at her eyes, and trips on a pair of pants on the floor.

“Goddamnit,” she mutters, kicking them away and continuing onto the intercom, which rings again as she picks up the receiver. “Yes?”

“Letter for Jane Foster, needs to be signed for.”

“Okay, I'll buzz you in.” She hangs up the receiver and buzzes the guy in, then makes sure that she's all covered up and presentable.

The postman knocks on the door a couple of minutes later and she opens it with a smile, despite having only got to bed at three am.

“Jane Foster?” the guy asks.

“That's me.”

He holds the electronic pad out to her and she quickly scribbles a signature that looks nothing like her own on it. He hands her an envelope. It looks official.

“Have a nice day,” he says.

“You too,” she replies and closes the door. She tears open the envelope and pulls out the letter inside, unfolding it as she goes. “Huh,” she murmurs, and heads back towards the bedroom.

When she gets there she tosses the letter onto the blankets and gives the bed a slight shake. “Hey, guess what?”

The blankets move a little and a hand snakes out and tugs them down, revealing Bruce's squinting face. “What?”

She points at the letter. “We've officially never been married.”

He rubs at his eyes and picks up the letter, holding it close to his face. “Huh, okay, cool. What time is it?”

“Early. It's about eight.”

“Ugh,” he groans. “I'm not gettin' up.”

She smiles. “Mi casa es su casa,” she says. “But could you stop leaving your pants on the floor when you get undressed? I almost broke my neck just now.”

He tips his head to one side and smiles. “Sure. Are you coming back to bed?”

Notes:

- I did research the annulment process in Clark County, but some details are bound to be a little wrong.

- Don't look at anything sciency too closely.

- For some reason, my unbreakable canon for Bruce and Jane is that he enjoys going down on her. Go figure.

- Title from fun's We Are Young.

- The kind of ring referred to in the fic is this kind, which I recall kids used to wear when I was a child, for some ungodly reason.