As Natasha walked into the room, she could hear the faint gushing of the shower running. She walked slowly around the guest room, which wasn't really a guest room as it was her bedroom. Looking at pictures of Clint and his family, she grinned and recalled all the times Clint had tried to get her to be in the picture rather than taking it. It was the least she could do for the man who had essentially saved her life, on numerous occasions. She had spent the first week after becoming a SHIELD agent in this room and ever since then, it had felt like home.
She was grateful for Clint, and for his wife, Laura who always patched them up when they stumbled home bruised and beaten. Over the years, she had gotten so used to bandaging herself up, she had forgotten what it felt like to be cared for by another. But even though she knew that she was a part of their family, sometimes when she watched Clint and Laura with their kids, she couldn't help but feel alone.
Outside, Natasha smirked as she saw Steve and Stark chopping wood. Steve had a noticeably big pile and she could tell that Stark was struggling to keep his ego intact. Although the two men could make a cohesive duo at times, she knew that there was always an underlying tension between them. The strain on the team and specifically between the two of them was at an all time high after everything that had happened in the past few days.
The door to the bathroom opened and Natasha was pulled away from her thoughts. She turned around to see a flustered Bruce Banner, whose hair was still wet.
"I didn't realize you were waiting." Stammered Bruce.
"I wasn't, not really. " Natasha replied back and began to pace around the room again. She never really got anxious or nervous, a consequence of her training, she supposed, but the conversation she was about to have didn't come as naturally to her as killing did. "I actually came by to tell you something."
Bruce looked at her quizzically, and she hinted a bit of shock lying in his features as well. She knew he wouldn't expect her to tell him anything. No one did. Even Steve, who had become a trusted companion, would never believe Natasha if she told him she had something to tell him.
"Something about me." A silence filled the room after Natasha spoke and Bruce moved over to sit on the bed, fiddling with his hands and looking down as he did so. After a while, he finally looked up and stared at Natasha straight in the eye.
"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. We all have secrets." He said earnestly.
"What I have to say will help you Bruce." Natasha firmly responded, but quickly changed her tone to something softer. "Let me help you."
Bruce hesitated for a second but then nodded silently much to Natasha's relief, although she noticed he looked slightly taken aback at the sudden and sincere gentleness in her voice. She realized he had probably never heard her speaking so candidly before and she didn't blame him. Honesty wasn't a particularly important skill as a spy.
Taking his nod as the signal to begin talking, Natasha started from the beginning.
"It all began in the Red Room…"
For the next few minutes, Natasha told Bruce all about her childhood. How the KGB had recruited her, along with 27 other orphans, into the Red Room academy. How she had trained to be a ruthless killer and soon became known amongst all as the Black Widow. And finally, how she tried to fail when she realized her graduation ceremony wasn't really a celebration at all.
She explained everything from the ruthless ballet training to using people as target practice. Natasha wasn't an emotional person and she had been punished the one time she had cried in the academy, but she was still inwardly shocked that her eyes didn't water in the slightest as she recounted her story. When she finished, she looked expectantly at Bruce and found conflict all over his face.
Yet again, another silence filled the room but to her surprise, it wasn't uncomfortable in the slightest. Natasha still couldn't believe how strange the situation was and almost laughed, never imagining she would be telling anyone about her time in the Red Room, let alone Bruce Banner. Finally, Bruce let out a small sigh and faced Natasha. Sensing his hesitation, she smiled in an attempt to reassure him.
"You can speak freely, I haven't got any weapons on me." Natasha gestured down at her blue bathrobe Clint's wife had lent her. It was times like this when she was glad she was the only female on the team, although she had enjoyed teasing Clint about how small his t-shirt had looked on Steve.
"I know you mean well Natasha, but it's not the same. I'm a monster." He paused and for a moment Natasha thought he was going to burst out laughing, but his expression became deadly solemn. "Literally."
"I know. But just because I don't turn into a raging green beast doesn't mean I don't understand what you're feeling. For as long as I can remember, I thought I was a monster too. I've killed, god knows how many people Bruce and I can never give those lives back." Natasha watched as Bruce stood up suddenly and dropped his head into his hands.
"It's not the same." He said exasperated. "You can leave, change, and forget all of this. I'm stuck with, with the 'Other Guy' forever."
"You've got to be insane to think that I could ever forget anything I've done. Killing people isn't something you can forget Bruce."
She stood up and walked to stand by the window. "There was a time when I thought about leaving. "
"Really? I thought you loved, all this. Whatever this is." Bruce gestured and Natasha recognized the absurdity of the situation. Camping out at Clint's farmhouse had been the one thing none of them had expected. But then again, none of them had expected that they would be here because they had had their minds meddled with by an inhuman girl who was under the control of the artificial intelligence that Bruce and Stark had built behind their backs.
"I do love it, but I sometimes I wonder what a normal life would be like. A husband, a house, kids maybe." She paused briefly before continuing to ponder out loud. "But fighting alongside all of you, as an avenger, is good enough for me." Natasha remembered when she used to dream about having a family, long before she graduated from the Red Room, before they took away any chance of her having something that might make killing someone harder. There was nothing she could do about that now, besides she loved her job. Although she figured it didn't really classify as a job considering that she was no longer getting paid.
She slowly turned back to look at Bruce again and saw that in place of pity, there was only admiration. "You're a very strong person Natasha, but I'm not an avenger. I'm a time bomb waiting to explode. I've done bad things, things that I can't even remember."
"We all have our demons Bruce. Whether you're a super soldier, a god or you sometimes turn green. They will always haunt us unfortunately." Natasha smiled. "And if it's worth anything, I believe in you."
Bruce shook his head in disbelief. "Yeah right."
"I do. I knew you would come in New York -"
"How could you have possibly known that? I didn't even know I was going to come. I'm not a superhero. " There was the slightest hint of anger in his voice and Natasha knew she had to watch where she was treading, or there wouldn't be anywhere for her to tread much longer.
"But you're a good person Bruce." She continued and stepped closer to him. "There's nothing wrong with who you are. We're all a little messed up, we all have red on our ledger, but we've also taken all of that and tried to do good. Hell, we saved the world from an alien race."
At that last comment, Bruce finally let out a small chuckle; surprising Natasha and she couldn't help but smile back. "You aren't a monster. Scientists make mistakes sometimes, it's human nature. And you are a human after all."
"I guess."
"You definitely are. I read your files and they definitely said you're human." Natasha joked and smiled even more when she realized that Bruce was smiling too. They would never be perfect and the would probably make more mistakes in the future, but she knew at the heart of it all, they were all good people with extraordinary skills who just wanted to help.
"Can I ask you one question?" Bruce gingerly asked.
"Fire away."
"Why me?" Natasha cocked her head at his question. "Why trust me with this?"
Natasha spent a couple of seconds thinking, but she had known the answer even before he had asked.
"Because you trusted me in that shack in India way back when."