A/N: After a brief hiatus to participate in NaNoWriMo, I return with a new WIP! I got the idea to explore Bruce's past when I was still working on Sun's Getting Low, and I've been very excited to have a chance to properly plan, write, and now post it. Given the nature of Bruce's backstory, this will necessarily be a darker fic than SGL, though I'll try to balance that with Bruce x Natasha established relationship goodness. As with SGL, I'll keep my tradition of posting new chapters on Sundays.

Many thanks to my fellow BruceNat author Katla, without whose encouragement and enthusiasm I probably wouldn't have attempted anything like this, and especially to Malintzin, my beta reader and partner in crime in the Marvel fandom. Without further ado...

Prologue: General Delivery

2015

He was a sight for sore eyes, but Natasha certainly wasn't going to tell him that. There'd be no living with him, and there barely was now. Not that he was currently living with the Avengers.

"You're making house calls now, Stark?" she said, standing in the doorway of the control room, where she found him at the central computer after Vision informed her he was in the Facility.

"Somebody called about a tiny security problem?" Tony said by way of reply. "And I mean literally microscopic. As in, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids."

The somebody he referred to was her, after the news broke about the super-powered, but not super-sized, struggle at Pym Tech, in light of which Wilson's rooftop shenanigans suddenly made perfect sense.

"I appreciate you getting here so quickly." Natasha stepped further into the dimly-lit room and watched the lines of code reflected in his dark eyes. "Unlike the cable company."

She hadn't actually asked Stark to come. In fact she'd only as gotten as far as, "We had a security breech," before he replied, "On it," and hung up on her.

"Giving people six-hour windows when I might show up…not really my style."

"I waited for you for at least six hours when I was your PA."

"Well, as Pepper has been known to say, I'm worth waiting for."

"Has Pepper been known to say that?"

Ignoring the question, Tony stared at the computer screen with a laser focus, fingers rattling across the keyboard. Abruptly he stopped, leaned back in the swivel chair, and looked up at her.

"New Avengers Facility security protocols updated. You're welcome."

"Thanks. But couldn't you have done that remotely, rather than drive all the way upstate?"

"Romanoff, you woundme." He clasped a hand over the lapel of his sport coat. "Didn't it occur to you that maybe I just thought all of you wanted to see my face? I haven't stopped by in months."

"We've seen your face a lot lately."

Tony had been on almost every news outlet in the world since Sokovia, defending Bruce's innocence in the destruction of Johannesburg. His expression shifted, as infinitesimally as the new kind of heroes and villains they were up against. She swallowed painfully. It wasn't just Bruce he was talking about, but the Accords the World Security Council was proposing to keep powered individuals accountable.

"So how's retirement treating you?" Natasha asked. "Is it the lighting in here, or do you look way tanner on TV?"

He can't have been spending as much time in Malibu as he boasted about back when he announced he was hanging up the cape, so to speak. Not that this was in the least surprising.

Scowling, Tony replied, "That makeup makes me look like an Oompa-Loompa, doesn't it? But hey, at least I still don't look as stupid as Falcon while Ant-Man led him on a merry mini chase."

He leaned forward and typed again, swiveling the monitor so Natasha could see that he'd pulled up the security footage.

"I was on the other end of the comms," she said, unable to repress a smirk, "and giving Wilson hell about it."

"I'd expect nothing less from you. Speaking of which." Tony paused the video and looked to Natasha again. "What would you think of being less?"

Natasha crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow.

"My dad and SHIELD tried to replicate Pym's shrinking tech back in the '80s," Tony explained. "I'm sure it's nothing I couldn't crack."

"Are you asking me if I want a shrinking suit?"

"Itsy Bitsy Spider has a less harmful ring to it than Black Widow, don't you think?"

"Harmless isn't exactly what you want to go for in my line of work."

"Your line of work doesn't exactly have a great reputation right now." The springs of the chair squeaked as Tony stood.

Not an unfair point. Natasha conceded it with a shrug.

"All I'm saying is," he went on, "maybe with the Sokovia Accords we need to change our public image. That, and if Hydra wants to get their tentacles on shrinking tech, they're not going to let a burglar stop them."

"So you want to develop more for them to possibly get their tentacles on?"

Tony hmphed and folded his arms cross his chest.

"Come on, Tony, you've come out in full support of the Accords. You're not honestly dicking around with new tech, are you?"

"Honestly," he ground out, "I can hardly walk past the lab, let alone go in it."

He'd been vulnerable with her before, but this time she didn't have it in her to be gentle with his feelings. Maybe it was because she'd kept hers under such careful restraint since the day Cap caught her brooding, that seeing Tony wearing his heart on his sleeve was too much.

"Is that why you're here?" she snapped. "Because being around me might help you feel closer to him?"

"Right, when your little push him down a cistern and force him to transform stunt is part of the reason he ran off?" Tony reached into the inner pocket of his sport coat and pulled out a stack of envelopes. "I came to show you these." He thrust them at her as he stepped around her to shut the control room door. "Although maybe that was a mistake."

For a moment, Natasha's carefully honed observation skills eluded her as she stared down at letters in her hands, the familiar neat, precise handwriting that spelled out Bruce Banner.

"He'll send you a postcard," Nick Fury's voice resonated in her head, and she looked up at Tony as he stepped back into her line of sight. Bruce wrote to him?

Her brain kicked into gear before she asked the stupid question aloud. Bruce was the addressee. Her heart resumed beating, only to stop again when she read the sender's name:

Brian Banner, Inmate #968121

Lima State Hospital

3200 North West Street

Lima, OH 45801

It was postmarked just two days ago. She flicked through the stack of envelopes, all addressed to Bruce at the Avengers Tower, all from his father, scanning the dates.

"When did these start-?"

"After Johannesburg. So, I can only assume Bruce's dear old dad watched the news in the criminally psych ward and decided to write and, I don't know? Congratulate him on continuing the family legacy?"

"What do you know about Brian Banner?"

"Not a damn thing, until these started arriving. Then I googled. All the best scientists have daddy issues?"

Tony's answer came as a relief, though Natasha hated herself a little bit for being jealous of the alternative. Opening up to someone, her or not, would do Bruce a world of good.

"Some more than others," she replied.

"No wonder he wasn't interested in playing therapist for me."

Natasha watched her thumb slide over the sharp edge of the unopened envelope. "I'm surprised you didn't read them," she said.

"This, from the spy," Tony retorted, then, "Do you think we should?"

"No."

"But what if there's something in there that might help us find him?"

"There won't be. As far as I know, Bruce has had no contact with his father since he went to prison. I'm not about to break his trust any further by violating his privacy."

It was bad enough that everything she knew about Bruce's family history had come from his SHIELD files, and not from him, which she regretted. His trust was such a tenuous thing that she'd never wanted to press her luck by asking him for more than he was willing to offer, although she'd suspected strongly that knowing more about it would give her a better idea into help him with his control.

Tony let out a heavy sigh. "Fine. But if we're not going to read them, what are we going to do with them? I can't keep them, because one of these days my curiosity will get the better of me, and it won't be my dicking around with tech that violates the Accords."

"Have the rest of Bruce's mail forwarded here-"

"But I read his Scientific American!"

"-and I'll keep them all. Bruce can decide what he wants to do with them…when he comes back."

Tony looked at her for a long moment, then nodded. "Until the prodigal son returns."

A/N: Luckily for you, readers, unlike Natasha and Tony, you'll only have to wait a week for Bruce. ;) Until then, I hope you'll let me know what you thought of this start!