Disclaimer – I don't own, just borrowing.

Don't Make Promises You Can't Keep

Chapter One - The Road To Hell…

"Remember the Legionnaire Romanoff," Steve says as he comes to stand beside her.

"Stark's retired," she snorts glaring at their host safely surrounded by the other guests imagining a small target on his forehead. Of all the sneaky, snide things the son of a bitch had said and done he topped them all tonight. "He's fair game."

"He's trying to help."

"He can help by staying out of it," Natasha tells him pointed glare. Steve stares back and she tries a different tack. "He never knows when to back off."

"You're surprised by that? This is Stark we're talking about," he jokes back at her with a commiserating look.

Natasha rolls her eyes more surprised that Steve is poking fun at her rather than defending Tony. She quirks an eyebrow and allows a small growl to underline her usual playfulness, "Is this payback for all the times I tried to get you laid?"

"I'm just trying to return the favour," he quips trying to cover the blush by holding his hands up in surrender and a forced grin.

Shocked by his smooth reply she chuckles lightly, it's rare for him to play with her and if it were different circumstances it might stand a chance to drag her out of her foul mood. To his benefit, he doesn't ask her to explain like he had so many things after Fury assigned her to him. Her chuckle relaxes into twisted smirk and she eyes her friend who is trying to make the best of an awkward situation. It's certainly a new experience for her, that's for sure. Probably for him too. She doesn't want to be up here crying on his shoulder. He never attempted this after Sokovia, she doubted she would have allowed him to if he tried. She only talked to Fury about it when he approached her to offer his own brand of consolation which left her feeling more empty than before. It's a little late but Steve has a knack for making people confident when they normally aren't and she could use one of his pep talks because she has no idea what she's doing or what she wants to do. She only has a few options at party full of strangers and she won't give Stark the satisfaction of walking out after he embarrassed her. In order to giver herself a small measure of privacy Natasha turns her back to lean against the railing of the elevated balcony overlooking the grand living area of the Tower. At least she trusts Steve to have her back, he's not the smoothest when it comes to being covert and she'll have to come up with a quick cover story because she knows it won't be long before someone interrupts or at least starts to speculate on Captain America and the Black Widow in what appears to be an intimate conversation on a balcony. Only a few of them would know he's trying to console her over another man. That's a whole other complication she doesn't need, least of all if it's Bruce who stumbles across them.

Steve's her friend and Bruce knows that but he would also think Steve was the kind of guy Natasha should want. Yes, she kissed him as a diversion. Yes, she flirts with him. She flirts with everyone especially her friends. People expect her to flirt. She plays into it but it doesn't go any further. Steve's just so decent and he flusters so easily that she enjoys taking him out of his comfort zone. He's loyal, a great leader and she admires his abilities in the field, he's proven himself to be a good friend but he's nothing more than that.

She had been reluctant to fall back on flirting to foster a friendship with Bruce, not just because he would naturally assume she was trying to manipulate him, he was just as paranoid as her when they first met and rightly so, but because it felt different with him. Reticent, even. After witnessing his transformation and the quiet apology as well as her heartfelt acceptance Natasha wanted Bruce to feel at ease around her, it was paramount in the situations they were likely to face. Though it was difficult for her, honesty was key to establishing a friendship with him and she didn't want anything to mar that or to be questioned. Their flirting came later, once they were friends, after they started developing the lullaby. At first he would fluster or pretend to be oblivious but there were times when flirted back and for months she refused to identify the tiny flutter in her chest.

She exhales abruptly, blinking rapidly as she breaks out of her daydream. She lifts her head to look at Steve to find him watching her with concern.

"I know you mean well but I don't need you or Stark to wade in and try and fix this. Forcing us into a situation is only going to make it worse." Steve doesn't look satisfied by her answer and she can't blame him because it sounds like she's given up without even trying. "Look, Bruce left and he came back. I haven't had a chance to talk to him alone and I don't know if I should." Natasha leaves out the part where he never let her know he was safe, let alone tell her he was back.

"You weren't exactly agreeable to the idea when he tried to talk to you," Steve points out.

Her jaw tightens as she thinks about the incident he's referring to which happened less than twenty minutes ago. She had been fixing herself a drink at the bar with the intention of getting a buzz going if she was going to have to deal with the masses when Bruce approached her much like he had after finding Loki's sceptre, there was no flirting, no veiled admissions. He uttered a tentative yet heart-felt apology only to be met with an angry accusation of being Stark's accomplice. She'd left him and her unfinished drink there and stormed off to the quietest part of the room which is where Steve found her minutes later. She needs to get a grip, she never used to be like this. It never mattered before this team integrated themselves into her life with so much as asking. She rues the day Coulson dragged her into this team.

"I doubt Bruce had much say in any of this." Silence meets his reply which she knows is a fair assumption. "You were always different with him," he chides gently and she feels like he's chastising rather than encouraging.

"We flirted," she dismisses offhandedly, she looks over her shoulder to check on the sea of party goers, to find one notably absent. He probably retreated to one of the labs, safer for him there. Big or small, crowds always put him on edge even though Stark wouldn't allow anyone through the door unless they had been thoroughly vetted. He had no reason to hide, she was the one actively avoiding him. She wasn't exactly hiding it either, stealth went out the window when Stark ambushed her. She wishes she weren't so proud to go looking for him, pull herself up onto the work bench beside him and talk or listen to him as he worked, just like she used to.

"You flirt to distract Nat, it's your cover. This is more than that," Steve tells her knowingly.

She bobs her head quickly hoping to stop him from probing deeper. She doesn't want to go into the details especially when she didn't have a handle on them herself. "That's why it hurt."

"I know you're angry with him," he starts but she shuts him down before he finishes.

"I'm not, not with either of them," Natasha says sharply. "I'm angry at myself for thinking I could have anything more than this." She swallows and looks down.

"You deserve more," Steve promises.

"We don't always get what we deserve," she agrees with a sigh. She lifts her head to look out the window. "We were going to leave together after Ultron," she adds it as an after-thought, for her own benefit rather than his.

If he's shocked by her admission he doesn't show it. "Why didn't you?"

"I made my decision when I pushed him into the crater," Natasha retorts bitterly. They're silent for a long time, leaning against the railing, listening to the chatter and laughter from the people below them. "I betrayed him to finish the job."

"Job comes first," Steve says thoughtfully beside her. It's not the first time the motto they live by sounds like an admonishment rather than the motivation it should be. She softens immediately, realising her mistake. He's well versed in missed opportunities.

"When did you last see Peggy?"

"Yesterday," comes the curt reply. "She, uh, didn't recognise me." A beat. "It was a bad day."

The sadness in his voice cuts through her. She knows he won't stop going, he'll take anything he can instead of losing more time. "I always thought there would be time…after. I missed our window."

Natasha casts her eyes downwards at his words. She could tell him about the intimate moment in the Barton's guest room but it doesn't feel right, she's already vulnerable and he's lost in his own thoughts.

"You have a chance to make this right, don't wait too long."

"I'm not sure he wants me to."

"He does," Steve says it with such authority that she stares at him in wonder. "He came back."

"I don't know if it was for me."

"Have you asked him?" He knows she hasn't. She steadfastly looks out of the slanted slats at the city. Besides her Steve shifts again moving into the peripheral of her vision but not invading it completely. "You were going to leave with him."

Natasha wrinkles her nose as she hears the unasked questions in his voice. "What are you trying to say?"

"You made a huge decision when you hadn't gone on one date with him," Steve replies. Natasha twists her mouth to one side in a guilty grimace. "Unless you did and none of us noticed."

"Us? You boys been gossiping?" She teases to avoid confirming his assumption. There had been no dates. They bought each other coffee and dinner and went to the movies, even took walks in the park together without the rest of their team because people rarely recognised them and they didn't want to stay in the tower twenty-four seven but they never labelled it.

"There was some speculation," Steve admits with a wry smile.

"Who 'speculated'?" Natasha allows a warning to creep into her voice when he has the good grace to look guilty.

"Myself and Tony," he presses out and she wonders if he's trying to take her focus off their former team mate by casting himself just as responsible. "But that's not the point I'm trying to make. You don't make decisions lightly and there must have been a reason why you made this one."

"So you're asking 'why him'?"

"I'm trying to remind you of his good qualities before you see him again."

'Ever the diplomat,' she thinks wryly. Her lips twitch upwards in spite of herself.

"He never let me get away with anything," she says simply with an impish shoulder shrug, remembering their first meeting in that small hut in Calcutta. Other men fell for her charm yet he refused to be manipulated or persuaded, turning the tables on her when she least expected it. He was the reason she preferred face to face contact to get a proper read on a mark. He was a contradiction to the oblivious scientist she'd read about in his file; he still had his moments. "I never met anyone like him."

"He intrigued you," Steve's voice breaks into her thoughts.

"You could say that." She isn't ready to divulge the intimate connection they developed while they worked on the lullaby. Thankfully the team focused on the massive step forward in working with the Hulk and she was able to cover the impact it had on her.

"Also, I made him a promise," Natasha answers surprising herself and Steve with her honesty and he waits for her to elaborate. She doubts Bruce remembers it. If he did, he never mentioned it. Though it took a while to figure it out, the lullaby stemmed from her need to keep her word and fulfil that promise. She casts her eyes upward to find Steve looking at her expectantly. "There was this moment on the hellicarrier when he was changing. He was convulsing and I was trying to talk him through it. I didn't think he could hear me but then he looked at me," she holds her breath for a moment.

"I swear on my life I will get you out of this. You will walk away and never ever…"

"You're life?!" He roars.

Bruce threw his head back, writhing in pain as his chest expanded, fabric stretching and tearing as the green hue creeps up his neck and down to his fingertips. He stumbled to his feet only to falter again, falling to his knees as he hunched over. He heaved, his stomach contracting against the convulsions. She could barely tear her eyes away to free herself as he groans against the agonising toll the transformation takes on his body. Her head is telling her to move, put as much distance as she can between herself and the Hulk. She tries to shift her leg beneath the pipes holding her down and they shift a fraction, it's enough to lift her knee and position her foot to push out from under the rubble. Bruce gasps in pain and her head snaps up again She meets his eyes, brown shooting through the green, panic and pain.

"Bruce," her voice hitches with one last desperate effort to bring him back from the brink. She sees a glimmer of those soulful browns as they realise it's too late, then he's gone as his eyes shift green and the Hulk rises. She staggers to her feet and with no time to test her legs she runs.

"I've never been that scared for or of anyone in my life," Natasha says to herself in a whisper. She clears her throat and speaks louder. "Guess I kept that promise when I pushed him over the edge."

Author note – If you have the time let me know what you think by either leaving a review or sending me a PM, any feedback is much appreciated. Would anyone be interested in second part?