"You don't have to rig anything, Nat. I think I've been embarrassingly open about that." Bruce isn't really surprised at Nat's lack of jealousy, because she has no reason to have any. Betty is his past, and he has the best kind of closure a relationship can ask for, with the other person being happy. But he's so uncertain of the rules of dating having never been good at it, but he shakes his head. Mostly at himself, not at her. "It's stupid for me to keep worrying about the right thing to say or do or wear is with you. The dating rules I used to know something about really don't apply to us." They were superheroes, Avengers. They'd been through hell separately and together. They knew things about one another that no one else did.

"I have a tendency to put things in a box so I can understand it better. So I know what to do better." He's a scientist and pragmatic to a fault. Bruce wants everything to be right, but he often ends up being wrong because of it. "But we can't be put in a box." It was more like they had several boxes together. Strangers. Teammates. Friends. Almost exes. Almost somethings. He caresses her palm with his thumb gently. "I'm still going to figure out a real date. I mean, if you decide you want one."

That thinking is so much better than the reality of how much she might've seen that he didn't want. But he sighs and accepts it. What else can he do? "I told Tony that one of the worst things about Ross was that I wanted him to be my father." Bruce was marrying his daughter. He worked on his project. He was desperate for his approval. He had no luck with father figures. "The thing is, I was absolutely right. He was exactly like my father." Bruce smiles without any humor to it. "He hated me on sight, didn't see me as a real person, and tried to kill me." It was just his luck, really, to stumble on the same kind of sociopath that he grew up with.