It feels like it's been a million years since I published anything. Work and life have been running me ragged! But I'm hard at work on a BruceNat Christmas fic for the hulkwidownet Secret Santa exchange and on a multi-chap BruceNat fic...so you haven't heard the last of me. ;) In the meantime, here's some BruceNat goodness mixed with the Thor and Natasha interaction that the movies have never given us! But then, quiet, character-based conversations are perfect for fanfic. Let me know if you enjoy!

Stargazers

"That's quite a dress you almost have on."

Bruce's voice came from behind her, and Natasha raised her eyes to smirk at him in the mirror hanging beside their closet. She slid her drooping shoulder strap into place and settled the dress over her hips.

"And that's a movie line," she commented, drawing an approving smile from Bruce as he absently glanced at the pair of neckties he held in one hand. "From — don't tell me —"

"An American in Paris, " he supplied.

Natasha sighed heavily. "I almost had it. And you should wear the black." Bruce nodded and tossed the other tie away to land on their bed.

"You don't have to wear a tie," she reminded him as he arranged it under his collar. "It's just dinner."

"You look nice," he shrugged. "So I'll look nice, too."

In the mirror, her lips twitched into a tiny smile. "You match me better than a handbag. I love that in a man."

"I knew there was a reason you kept me around."

"You have your uses. Zip me?"

Bruce left his tie dangling around his neck and maneuvered the zipper at the back of her dress much more easily than he had the first time she'd made the request, a few years ago now. His fingers skimmed just under her shoulder blades when he finished, tracing the backline of the dress. He met her eyes in the mirror and looked as if he was going to say something either very sappy or very amorous.

Natasha was tempted to wait and see what he'd say, to lean back against him and forget about everything else for a little while; she loved it when he got cheesy. But there was also something to be said for a good jab — delivered with the utmost affection, of course. Besides, they really did have to leave soon.

"That line — you cast me as the desperate woman looking for an artistic lover to put on a leash," she said in her driest tone. "Why didn't I get to be Leslie Caron, the pretty ballerina?"

Bruce winced a laugh, and she immediately missed the warmth of his hand against her back when he lifted it to rub his neck as he shrugged. "Because that would make me the much older man who harassed you into a date."

"Well," Natasha said, leaning forward to retrieve her earrings from the dresser, "if the tap dancing shoes fit."

"I never harassed you," he protested in surprise, but Natasha caught the reflection of his stifled grin in the mirror as he got to work on his tie.

"You should try it sometime. And you got pretty close when you drooled all over the opportunity to meet Dr. Foster tonight."

Bruce's fingers fumbled over the half-formed knot of his dark tie. It was a stylish tie to match his tailored suit. He still tended to dress like a middle-aged academic from the midwest when left to his own devices, but she'd discovered that gradually introducing

more fashionable clothing into his side of the closet had produced the pleasing effect of Bruce looking very, very good on an increasingly regular basis. The man could wear a suit.

"I did not — " he argued, meeting her eyes in the mirror a moment too late to see her open evaluation. Natasha raised an eyebrow and he subsided into silence. "Okay," he admitted. "I was a little excited. But I told you about her theories on wormholes, and her papers on the properties of stellar radiation. How could I not be? Her work on cosmic gamma radiation is astonishing stuff." He seemed to have forgotten the tie looped pathetically around his neck as he gestured absently and got one of the blank looks that indicated he was far, far away.

"The way to a Bruce Banner's heart," she replied, half to him and half to her reflection. "Through his gamma."

"That doesn't even make sense," Bruce grumbled, his lips twitching as he fought fruitlessly to work his tie free and try again.

Natasha watched him for a full five seconds before turning him by the shoulders to face her, and setting to work on a perfect knot. It was the work of only a moment; she glanced up at him in triumph, but his eyes were sparkling with mischief and he was leaning in to kiss her.

Sneak attack, she registered faintly, but she was too distracted to chastise herself for falling for his klutzy act. He pressed his lips against hers, taking full advantage of the dip of her dress to stroke his fingertips across the bare skin of her back.

He pulled away, and Natasha smirked to hide her sudden breathlessness. "Stealth and guile," she complimented. "Nicely done."

Bruce shrugged. "I learned from the best."

Natasha had never met Jane Foster in person. She'd always been busy with other assignments whenever the astrophysicist had required SHIELD attention. Natasha learned that she was pragmatic and frugal when they found the address Thor had passed along; the apartment was nice, but not extravagant. If she was indulgent, it was in one way only: the balcony that afforded a sweeping view of the skyline. Bruce glanced around the lobby with interest as they made their way to the elevator. He was always talking about the possibility of moving out of Avengers Tower and having their own home somewhere. So far nothing had come of his talk except for the occasional whining fits from Tony, who was very reluctant to be "abandoned" by his friend, even though Tony himself resided in New York only part-time.

Bruce's hunt for the perfect home faded quickly from his thoughts, judging by the way his curious energy shifted into the nervous variety. He fidgeted with his tie absently.

"Don't worry," Natasha commented with a smirk. "You look pretty."

Bruce gave his version of a withering look, which was so adorable that Natasha was hard-pressed not to hit the emergency stop button and spend a few minutes kissing it right off his face.

"I don't care how I look," he muttered.

"You just want to talk science," Natasha added with a knowing grin. "I know. You big nerd."

The elevator pinged and let them out on the top floor. It was Jane who opened the door for them when they knocked, with Thor a few steps behind. She was petite, a full foot shorter than Thor at least, soft-featured, and brunette. When Thor moved to stand beside her, over six feet of sculpted muscle and half-tamed blonde hair, they looked wildly mismatched, as though someone had been challenged to a game of pairing up exact opposites. She was brimming with nervous energy when Natasha and Bruce stepped into the apartment.

"Agent Romanoff, Dr. Banner, so nice to meet you at last," she said, a little breathlessly, and Natasha didn't miss the way her gaze lingered on Bruce. But she knew the difference between physical lust and whatever weird nerd connection was already forming between the two of them, so she just smiled and aired out a few polite remarks from her collection. Bruce was as accidentally charming as ever.

"Welcome, my friends," Thor added in his deep and grand voice, smiling at them as though he were welcoming them to a castle. Jane shuffled uncertainly for a moment, smiling nervously, before she finally remembered to lead the way into the dining room. They passed an office as they walked the length of the hall, and Natasha noted that the mighty hammer Mjolnir was resting on the carpet, glimmering dully in the blink of lights from a dozen computers and scattered instruments she couldn't identify. They passed into the dining room, where something that smelled delicious awaited them — Thor was saying something about Asgardian recipes, although she'd only believe that Mr. I'm-A-Space-King could cook when she saw it — and she spied a pile of notes that had been hastily shoved onto a side table. The worn papers were covered in a scrawl too inelegantly human to be Thor's, but there were also a few notes and doodles that looked as though they'd come from a larger, more accomplished hand. Natasha was wondering about the content of Asgardian love notes when Jane invited them to sit down.

The conversation, predictably, wandered through Avengers' reminiscences before finally landing on more current events. Bruce brought up Jane's work with the subtlety of a trainwreck, which was about his usual level of social grace, accidental charm notwithstanding. She'd grumble at him later about how she couldn't take him anywhere.

Thor excused himself to get another drink once the conversation turned into a detailed discussion of Culver University's faculty past and present. When Bruce mentioned that Jane's work on satellites had been both instrumental and inspirational to him in some of his projects (the Hulkbuster system sprang immediately into Natasha's mind), and Jane replied with, "No, your work was inspirational to me — " Natasha bailed as well.

Thor was standing on the balcony just beyond the kitchen when she wandered in. He looked almost normal when he slouched over like that, dressed in slacks, and a blue button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his enormous forearms. Of course, the cascade of golden blonde hair that fell halfway down his back spoiled the "normal" look.

She thought it looked deliciously quiet outside. She knew it wasn't, of course, given that they were only a few dozen floors above the cacophony of New York City, but the picturesque illusion was hard to break. She slid the glass door aside and stepped out into a light, warm wind. A few potted flowers dotted the table and concrete wall of the balcony, their color impossible to determine with only the moonlight and ambient glow of the city for illumination. Thor's massive hands were clasped together, resting on the concrete between two of the wilting plants.

"I didn't know that the god of thunder grew flowers on his balcony," she opened. Her voice sounded flat and quiet in the open air as the wind nearly carried her words away altogether. She leaned on the balcony's edge two flowerpots away from Thor. He had bent significantly to rest his hands on the concrete; his stoop put him almost on eye level with Natasha for once. His lips pulled into a smile before he answered.

"He does not. These are Jane's."

That made sense. The neglected beauty of the flowers corresponded perfectly with the impression Natasha had formed of Jane's brilliant absent-mindedness. Still, she was sad to surrender the image of Thor wielding a bag of Miracle Gro.

She glanced back through the glass doors, across the kitchen, and she could just see the back of Bruce's head and Jane sitting across from him in the warm light of the dining room. She was laughing; Natasha suspected Bruce had finally found an audience for that physics joke he was always complaining no one understood. "How long do you think it will be before they notice we're gone?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Thor huffed a laugh and straightened up to his full and very imposing height. It hurt her neck to look him in the eyes from this angle; she didn't even come up to his shoulder.

"It may yet be many hours," he answered. "I once traveled to Asgard and back and Jane did not notice. Her focus is without equal."

"But not her notice, apparently. How long were you gone?" Thor's lips twitched. "One day and one night."

Natasha's laugh rang into the night air. "Ouch." She studied the drooping flowers beside her for a long moment and shrugged. "Bruce is the same way," she continued. "Must be the science. I think it wrecks their ability to be normal."

Thor was shaking his head. "Jane is —"

This again. Natasha had listened to Thor wax eloquent on Jane's amazingness for a cumulative time of many, many months. She headed him off. " — not normal," she interjected smoothly. "She's extraordinary. You've said."

Thor's surprised blink melted easily into a grin. "Am I so easy to anticipate?"

"Forgive me, your majesty," Natasha said with all the pomposity she could muster, "But you really are."

If there was one thing she had always appreciated about Thor, it was his ability to take jokes with good humor. His laugh was loud and unguarded.

"I hear Jane finally won that Nobel Prize," Natasha added after a few seconds of comfortable silence.

"She is very proud. And I am very pleased for her. She deserves to have the people of Earth recognize her talents." His smile was warm. Thor always said precisely what he meant, and it was always refreshing.

"Bruce turned down a knighthood, after Thanos," she added, without being quite sure why. "I told him to take it, but he's too modest for his own good."

"Humility is a trait I have never observed in a man as powerful as Banner. It does him credit," Thor replied so solemnly that Natasha nearly winced at the weight of his words.

"Do you ever feel like a trophy wife?" she asked suddenly, half to lighten the mood, and half because she'd never been able to curb the urge to throw as many conversational curveballs at the space god as she could manage.

Thor's brows came together in confusion. "A trophy wife? I do not understand."

Natasha gestured expansively. "You know, like they're the brains and we're the..."

"Ah," he interjected, his eyes lit with understanding. "We are the strength of arms. The brawn."

"I was going to say 'beauty,' actually," she said, just barely keeping a smirk at bay. "But brawn works, too, in your case."

Thor did smirk, briefly, as he replied. "Your words flatter, but you jest." He considered for a moment, crossing his thickly muscled arms over an equally muscled chest. "You are very skilled with words," he continued thoughtfully. "So perhaps you are also 'the brains.' Your mind and Banner's bend in different directions, but they join in the same roots, like Yggdrasil herself." His gaze flicked upward, and the stars were reflected in his eyes. "Jane and I are also this way. I have heard it is always so with pairs joined by Fate."

So implausibly grand and so impossibly genuine. Natasha had never seen such a compelling combination of those two characteristics before Thor had cracked a crater into the deserts of New Mexico.

"You're not so dumb, either," she replied, a grin chasing the astonishment from her face. "For a meathead."

"Again, you jest and speak the truth at once," Thor replied with a grin and a good-natured shrug.

"Like you said, it's my talent."

Thor's eyes didn't leave the stars, and Natasha wondered if he saw more there than she could. She raised her eyes as well, and even when faced with the dazzling glow of the city that sprawled across every visible inch of the horizon, the stars still glimmered against the velvet black of the sky.

"I can see why Jane is so fascinated with the stars," she commented. For just a moment, she let herself forget about the Chitauri and Thanos and Loki and every other horrible thing that had ever emerged out of that black, unknowable silence.

"They are beautiful in every realm," Thor said quietly, his grand voice sounding majestic even at a whisper. "And mysterious. Their secrets are lost in time. Mjolnir itself was forged in the heart of a star many ages ago."

Her eyes slid from the stars to the city below and she blinked against the glow as one corner of her lips twitched upward. "You have the best stories, you know that?"

Thor's grin reappeared, bright and wide as a sunrise. "I know that."

"As for Jane...Well I guess if you have to play second fiddle to something, let that something be the universe," Natasha said dryly.

"It is no bad thing to look to the stars. My mother said that." He trailed off, and the sadness that flickered across his leonine face made her sure that the statement had been directed at Loki. It was strange to think of a celestial family broken into pieces, cracking the universe with the force of its shattering. She knew from the long hours of briefings during Thanos' assault on earth that Thor's family was dead now, and he was left with ghosts trailing behind him for all the unimaginable length of his life no matter which

realm he roamed. She knew a thing or two about ghosts you couldn't shake, no matter where you ran.

It was a strange sensation to feel sorry for a god.

Natasha's eyes were drawn back to Bruce on the other side of the glass. She couldn't make out his words, but the size and speed of his gestures, along with his relaxed posture, and the way he subconsciously leaned forward, assured her that he was having the time of his life. Her eyes slid back to Thor, his face and hair painted silver in the moonlight as his eyes, too, stared inside.

She had always thought that she had nothing in common with the son of Odin, prince of Asgard, the actual god of thunder, worshiped by humans centuries before she'd ever lived. But she followed his gaze to Jane's smile and realized that they were both anchored in a world where they could never fully belong by the most unlikely person imaginable.

"Your mother knew what she was talking about," she replied after a moment. "Bruce doesn't study the stars, but he's always looking to the unknown. I think it's just about the same thing."

"Yes," Thor agreed, his voice uncharacteristically soft. For a moment he didn't seem so unreachably tall, inhumanly grand, or impossibly ancient. For the space of a breath, he looked like a man smiling at a woman he loved.

"But we have lingered beneath these stars too long," Thor said, breaking the spell. "Shall we rejoin our stargazers? Perhaps together we may have a chance of regaining their notice."

"One last battle," Natasha agreed. "For old times' sake."

Thor's smile was as brilliant as always, even in the uncertain light of the moon and the stars.

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