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When it begins, Bruce feels like a young man again, like he's with Betty and things are safe and comfortable, before the accident happened and he could never be comfortable again. Until Thor, that was.
Their first kiss is.. awkward. They're on a ship bound towards a wormhole and it jolts, sends them flying and presses their lips together. And yet, somehow, it feels perfect - exactly like them, exactly how they should be. Awkward and spontaneous and spur-of-the-moment.
They don't get a chance to address it for a long while, being busy destroying realms and all. Once Hulk decides he's had enough and turns back to Bruce on the ship to earth, though, they talk.
"So," Bruce says.
"So," Thor says back.
And they laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, and they end up talking all through the night - or what feels like night, for in the void of space there's little way to tell.
They fall asleep in each others arms for the first time that night, cuddled close, and Bruce feels like a young man, not like the achey, greying old fool he's become in his eyes. Its wonderful to wake up with someone for once, and not be scared that he could be a danger to them, because Thor is one of the strongest people hes ever known, and he knows he can hold his own against Hulk.
So he feels safe.
Until Thanos attacks.
He loses Thor again then, thinks him dead, goes through the motions of returning to earth with a dull ache in his chest, feels it until the Wakanda battlefield, when his wonderful, beautiful boyfriend shows up in a blaze of glory.
They deal with the dust together.
Thor and Bruce need each other post-battle, can't keep their hands off each other, desperate for the reassurance of the others presence.
Bruce can sense a deep sadness in Thor's heart, though, unmasked by the heat of battle or the anger of vengeance. His eyes are downcast more often, his lips more commonly downturned than up. He rarely laughs. His hands shake when he handles objects.
Bruce doesn't know how to help. He tries to be there for Thor, comfort him where he can, but more often than not he just feels like he's being bothersome, so more often than not he keeps his words to himself, doesn't mention all that Thor has lost.
A chasm begins to grow between them.
It stretches and yawns, widening with every passing day, every fraction more of space between them in bed at night. Neither can comprehend what the other is going through, and so the stretches of silence grow longer and thicken with tension.
When they do talk, though, its nervous and awkward and not in the way they'd come to embrace. They stumble over their words, interrupt each other without meaning to, speak in halting sentences and harsh tones and grate on each other's frayed nerves.
It makes Bruce's heart ache.
Here was a man whom he loved more than anything else, who was hurting and grieving and deserved only love and comfort and kindness, and all Bruce seems to be able to do is push all the wrong buttons and make him snap. Words that Bruce intended to be comforting make Thor's face crumple, gestures that he thought to be sympathetic result in cold looks and depressed sighs.
He knows its not Thor's fault, that he's dealing with a great loss, but he can't help but feel snubbed - or worse, that he's a burden.
Before long he stops trying to comfort Thor, tired of the fruitless attempts.
Somehow, that seems like a worse decision, because he can feel Thor growing away from him, the chasm between them deepening and widening every moment they don't talk, until Bruce can barely even see Thor on the other side.
Its him who makes the decision, sick of feeling useless and bothersome and having to lie in bed next to the man he loved, wondering if he even loved him back.
Their last kiss is uncomfortable, Bruce's knowledge of what he's about to say sitting in his chest like a rock, painful and distracting, and their last kiss lasts barely a moment.
"I think we need to break up," he tells Thor, sadness curling deep in his gut. Thor's face barely changes, imperceptibly twitches with an unreadable emotion, before he nods.
"A wise decision."
He turns away with no further discussion, and that hurts more than the separation - the fact that Bruce was right, that Thor had ceased loving him, that their comfortable bliss had ended a long time ago, replaced with uncomfortable tension.
But he says nothing, and nods, and leaves.
When it ends, Bruce feels like the oldest man alive, creaking with the weight of loneliness, and he knows he doesn't deserve to feel so bad, that Thor had lost so much more than him, but he can't help it. It was over.
It was over. He would never again clasp Thor's hand tight, run his thumb across his knuckles, kiss his cheeks and forehead and lips, brush their shoulders together casually, cuddle up close to him in bed. He was... alone.
If he'd known their last kiss would truly be their last, he would have held on longer.