Bruce found Tony in his lab, making some routine adjustments to Butterfingers. He didn't seem to realize that the sun had set, plunging the room into darkness. He could only see what he was doing because the thin material of his shirt, single-layered for once, allowed soft blue light to shine through. He watched for a while, last minute doubts being filed far away. He called on Jarvis for lights.

Tony jokingly covered his eyes, claiming that he was blind. His bots began to make small, panicked, whirring noises, and Dummy tried to knock one of the lights out with a twisted piece of wire before Tony and Jarvis managed to convince them that he had just been kidding.

Bruce continued to stand in the doorway, chuckling silently. Then Tony grinned at him from his workbench, and instead of smiling back, his face took on a determined set. He walked up to his friend/partner/fellow science enthusiast/something more, stopped barely a foot away, and nodded to himself.

Bruce kissed him. It lasted far less than a second, and could barely be called a kiss at all, if it weren't for the intention behind it. After a moment's pause, in which Bruce had pulled away in order to study Tony's expression, lips chased after retreating lips, searching for more. They met slim, steady fingers and paused. Not yet, then. That was okay. Tony could be surprisingly patient when he wanted to be.

For a while this was their new normal: Tony would kiss him wherever, whenever the mood called for it, and Bruce would do the same, but in private.

It didn't go beyond that, but it didn't really need to, for the moment.

After a while, people outside the Avengers began to catch on. Tabloids spread gossip about how kinky their sex probably was, with the Hulk and two of the biggest brains in science in the mix. Fox News complained about their corrupting the young, until one day Tony invited himself to their studio for an interview. It went pretty well, as far as he was concerned, so the resulting 'meeting' with Fury, who certainly lived up to his name, was more than worth it.

Elsewhere, on the internet, a photo of a fully armored Ironman, sans mask, gleefully kissing a very undressed and very sleepy looking Bruce in the ruins of a Starbucks downtown became a big enough hit to launch a small superhero-watching blog to stardom.

At some point, kissing evolved into making out. Making out with very clear cease-and-desist signals, and safewords, and every other possible precaution Bruce could think of, but making out, nonetheless.

Bruce still worried about the Other Guy hurting Tony, but they were learning to manage it.

They got married, to the surprise of absolutely everyone, including Bruce. Tony mainly wanted to make sure that they were each other's emergency contacts, and thought hacking into the state's marriage registry to add them to it was the easiest way to go about it. Bruce was a lot less surprised after that explanation, but made him go back in and change it.

They got added to the registry the normal way two days later, by going down to the courthouse with their friends in tow. They all went out for schwarma afterwards. As weddings go, it was a pretty good one.

Tony saw Bruce unclothed many times, thanks to various superhero shenanigans. After a certain point, you'd think he'd be desensitized to it. For the most part, you'd be right.

But the first time he saw Bruce get undressed on purpose, no giant green men involved, Tony thought it was like he was seeing him naked for the very first time.

Bruce still worried about the Other Guy hurting Tony, because at the end of the day he was still a giant made of unstoppable rage. He worried about not being able to stop himself. He worried that if he lost it, no one would be willing to do what it took to stop him, not until he'd done something unforgivable (again).

But the thing was, Tony trusted him. He trusted him enough to feel safe poking and prodding and pushing and pulling. He felt secure enough to give him a quick peck, mid-transformation, before flying off into battle. And Bruce trusted Tony. Maybe this time, that really was enough.