Tony and Bruce attend a Science Conference to support Elise. After her lecture, they have their very own private conference.
This takes place just after The Tower and before the Holiday Special.
Requested by K-Destiiny. (My dumb ass originally posted this chapter at the end of the wrong book. If you were notified twice about it, that's why.)
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Fear of public speaking has long been said to rate higher than any other fear. Above spiders, incursions from outer space, even death. As I stood at the podium in front of a crowd of mostly strangers staring up at me - I could see why.
It was stupid really. With everything I'd been through in my life, you'd think standing up and giving a lecture on spontaneous mutation would have been a cakewalk. I'd run away from home at seventeen and put myself through college. I dated not one but two ex-Russian assassins. I'd been kidnapped and held hostage - and on one occasion I'd infiltrated a HYDRA base and helped take it down.
Yet here I was, standing in front of a full room, just talking about something I had been studying for years, and my heart was hammering so hard that I think I might have been speaking a little too loud just so I could hear myself over it.
In the sea of faces in front of me, most of whom I didn't know, there were two that I knew very well right at the front, beaming up at me like I was giving a lecture on how I'd personally hung the stars in the sky.
I'd been invited to talk at a Theoretical Evolutionary Genetics at Berkley. Bruce was speaking soon, and Tony had tagged along out of interest's sake. At least that's what he'd said. I felt like there was some pride in the fact that this was my first big conference lecture, and he wanted to be there for it.
I was glad they were there. For starters, looking down and seeing them both beaming up at me, had a calming effect. It wasn't just that though. I didn't get to go out with them very often. We didn't date the way most people did and this was an actual trip together to San Francisco. We were staying in a hotel and going out to dinner together. We were even going to take a couple of days to do touristy things, despite Tony's objections. It was nice seeing them getting recognition for things outside of Avengers stuff too. Tony did draw attention even here, but it was Bruce who was the star of the show. Everyone wanted to talk to him, and I loved getting to see that.
Most of all, it felt so fucking good to have two people there to support me like this. I'd never had that before, and now we were out as being in a relationship, I got to experience something so many people just took for granted.
I finished my lecture to a round of applause and after answering some questions, the room started to empty. I collected my things and came down to where Tony and Bruce were waiting for me. They each kissed me and Tony ran his hands down my arms. "That was so great. I'm dating a genius here," Tony said.
