#marvelpolydayexchange

“I didn't spend two years writing about this beforehand,” Bruce reminded him wryly.

Tony had waved him off, the way Tony did most things. “You lived it, that's even better.”

After an hour of mingling, Bruce grudgingly has to admit he was right. He knows exactly what he needs to say to these people to get their support. Natasha gives him a wide-eyed look when he says as much to her.

“You can never tell him that, Bruce. God, he'd be unbearable.”

Bruce fights down a smile. “Who, Tony?”

“What did Tony do?” Steve asks mildly as he arrives, offering them both glasses. They all drink sparkling cider with a splash of club soda to mute the sweetness both in solidarity with Tony, who's approaching his eight month anniversary, and because it gives them an edge in situations like this. “Do I need to give him a talking to?”

“No, he's been very charming tonight,” Tasha says and then lets her eyes slip sideways to give Bruce a sly look. “He's doing his best to make sure Bruce's big night goes off without a hitch. The foundation is up to a million dollars in donations so far.”

Bruce chokes on his cider.

Steve takes his glass and pats him on the back until his eyes uncross and he can breathe without coughing again. “A million?” he wheezes.

Natasha nods and her eyes sparkle like a well-fed cat's. “I'm up to 300,000 and Tony's got 350, but I'm going to wipe the floor with him. I can get 600 out of these old geezers, I'm sure.”

Bruce blinks at her. “How?”

She laughs, light and carefree, her red curls tumbling away from her face as she tips her head back, exposing the long, creamy line of her throat. One of her hands touches Bruce's elbow, soft and warm, and he can feel himself start to blush. Natasha leans in, her hand moving to rest lightly on his chest, so close he can smell her perfume. “Bruce, I could ask for the moon,” she says quietly in his ear and then shifts away to catch his eye. The affection in her gaze makes him a little weak in the knees. Then she glances at Steve and smiles at him too, trails her fingernails down between his lapels. Bruce shivers, imagining the way they feel through the fine fabric. Steve turns pink and swallows visibly. “Too bad for them I've put my chips in with you boys.” She smiles. “Fortunately for you, Bruce, that just makes some of them want to put in a higher bid.”

She waves at them, a playful little waggle of her fingers, and slips back into the crowd.

“Wow,” Steve says, shaking his head. He looks a little like he's been clubbed in the head and Bruce doesn't think he's faring much better. “She's something isn't she?”

“Yeah,” Bruce agrees, dazed. He still has trouble believing sometimes that this is where his life has brought him. Six years ago he couldn't have even imagined having one romantic partner, let alone five. Especially not five of the most objectively beautiful people he's ever met.

Steve smiles at him, warm and fond, and then clasps Bruce's shoulder—the closest they can come to PDA somewhere like this. The world is just getting comfortable with the Avengers, it's not ready for the polyamorous Avengers. Steve and Tony are out as a couple, as are Natasha and Clint, but Bruce is “more private”.

The media speculates regularly that he and Thor are in an on-again-off-again kind of relationship and that Thor is sleeping with the rest of them on the regular because he takes advantage of being “the alien” and publicly displays his affection for whoever he likes whenever he likes to do it and claims “that is the way of Asgard”.

Bruce has had too many people try to insert themselves into his private life, so he doesn't mind the rumors. Every so often he thinks he'd like to be able to kiss one (or all) of them in front of God and everybody, but he likes knowing that what they have is private. It's just for them, and no one else matters.

“I'd better get back out there,” Steve says. “Looks like I've got my work cut out for me if I'm going to keep up with Natasha and Tony.”

“It isn't a competition,” Bruce sighs, but he's smiling.

Steve just winks at him. “Anything's a competition if you put your mind to it, Doctor Banner.”

Bruce curses him for the way the formality makes pleasure zing up his spine.

Honestly, the gala is much less awful than usual. It's amazing what a difference it makes, having a goal and a cause that he's passionate about. Getting people to listen and to understand how important this is, it really warms something inside him. The Hulk has been quiet at the back of his mind all night.

He's just a few minutes from convincing the couple he's been speaking with for the last fifteen minutes that people in America do need help affording health care and that it's not just a third world problem when Clint slides up behind him. He doesn't say anything and Bruce manages to make the close and get four thousand out of them, but it's not as strong a finish as it could have been.

Clint steps right up to his shoulder when they've gone off to submit their donation and he touches Bruce's arm, which is the first indication that something's horribly wrong. Bruce's stomach sinks. “What's is it?” he asks, dreading the answer. “Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone's fine,” Clint assures him, his voice even and pleasant, but his eyes are roving over the guests, on alert. “Why do you always jump to conclusions?”

“You touched me in public, you never touch me in public,” Bruce mutters, eyes skimming anxiously around the room.

Clint looks at him then, his eyes soft. “I don't? Bruce, I'm sorry, that's not—”

“I don't care,” Bruce says, brushing it off. “Just tell me what's wrong.”

“Nothing's wrong,” Clint repeats and then hesitates. “Ross is here.”

The Hulk surges forward with a roar in response to the panic that shoots up the back of Bruce's neck. His hands turn green, but he manages to clamp down on the reaction just in the nick of time, sucking in breaths through a pinhole throat.

Clint cups his face, standing so close their toes are touching. “Hey,” he murmurs, “hey, it's okay. Breathe. You just stay down, Hulk. We've got him. We won't let Ross do a damn thing to him, so just settle down, huh?”

The Hulk makes a wordless complaint and Bruce feels his eyes shift, glinting with a dangerous flash of green.

“Now come on,” Clint says, reasonable, but disapproving. “Don't be like that. We can handle this. Right, Bruce?”

Bruce can't hide the way he feels like his intestines have frozen and shattered, sitting behind his belly in icy shards, not from the Hulk. He's broken out in a cold sweat that's soaking into the armpits of the beautiful suit Tony bought him.

Clint is soft and steady in front of him though and he manages a nod.

I'll let you know if I need you, Bruce tells the Hulk and he growls once before reluctantly settling in at the back of Bruce's mind again.

“That was stupid,” Bruce tells Clint, tugging a napkin out of his pocket to wipe his face.

Clint rubs a hand soothingly up and down his arm. “There wasn't exactly a good way to go about it.”

“I'll give you that,” Bruce mutters, and for one weak moment, he lets himself rest his forehead on Clint's shoulder. Then he rallies his nerve and starts to look around again—more carefully this time. “Where is he?”

“Security's holding him at the front. Tony doesn't pay them the big bucks just to look pretty.”

“You were on the look out.”

A half-smirk tugs at the corner of Clint's mouth. “I'm always on the look out, Bruce.”

Bruce smiles weakly at him.

“How do you want to handle this?”

“Do the others know?”

Clint shakes his head once. “Came straight to you when I saw him.”

That's—it's touching, although it makes the Hulk rumble with displeasure. “You came to see what I wanted to do first,” Bruce murmurs, and he can't stop himself from cupping Clint's jaw, just for a second. “Thank you.”

Clint lets him, looking just a little like a deer in the headlights. “I R uncomfortable when we R about me?”

Bruce snorts. “Can we go to the others? I want— I'd feel safer—” He's too embarrassed to finish, but Clint just nods.

“Follow me.”

He's almost as good at cutting through a crowd as Natasha and they don't have to go far before they find Thor, who takes one look at Bruce's face and excuses himself from the small group of people he'd been talking to. He moves in close, hooking an arm around Bruce's shoulders and Bruce is painfully grateful for how normal Thor has made that kind of intimacy.

Somehow, it makes him feel small and powerful all at once.

“What is the matter?” Thor asks.

“Ross,” Clint says and Thor's expression darkens.

“He dares to show his face on this night?”

“He probably couldn't resist,” Bruce admits. “Everyone knows I live at the Tower, but it's not exactly accessible. Nothing but a few hundred dollars stood between him and me here.”

Bruce feels sick. He's used to the slimy feeling of anger clinging to his insides, but it's been, god, years since he's had to face Ross and there's a singular blend of fear-anger that's uniquely associated with him.

“Come on,” Clint says, and leads the two of them through the crowd again.

They don't get very far before Natasha appears and threads her arm through Bruce's before he's even noticed. “You have the nicest fans, Bruce. They're very good with the word 'no'.” The wry twist of her red painted lips is strangely reassuring.

“He is not a man who knows when the battle is lost,” Thor agrees and the three of them are flanking him now on all sides. “We will just have to show him.”

Bruce gets a little bit of a thrill out of the idea of Ross facing down Thor.

“Where are Steve and Tony?” Natasha asks.

“At the door,” Clint replies. “Security called for Tony and they both went.”

“Quite a ruckus,” Natasha says and raises a brow at Bruce.

“You know how I love making a scene,” Bruce says. Thor chuckles.

They're guiding him quietly toward an exit hidden on the side of the room and Bruce wants to go, wants to let them take him back to the Tower and surround him and keep him safe, but he's spent so long running. He's tired of ducking and dodging Ross and constantly looking over his shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Wait,” he says and draws to a stop.

The three of them stop along with him and look at him and Bruce's throat fills with a lump momentarily. They've been so patient with him and he loves them, more deeply and in more ways than he ever thought possible. Never in his most fantastic dreams. They helped him tame the Hulk. With their support, he can do anything.

“I want to face him,” he says, drawing in a breath. “It's time I stopped running.”