A/N: Written for the Hurt/Comfort prompt for HulkWidowNet's Four Weeks of Prompts. This is set post-Captain America: Civil War and speculates about the events and ending of that movie, borrowing a bit from the Fallen Son #5 comic. It also totally ignores the recent info about Bruce/Hulk appearing in Thor: Ragnarok, because I need him on Earth, not in Asgard. ;) Many thanks to malintzin for her spot-on beta work, and to magicaldestiny whose cheerleading kept me from getting bogged own in the angst. They both prove that writing, like being a superhero, is not an endeavor to be attempted alone.
Laid To Rest
Her hair was the only color in the midst of a sea of black-well, her hair, and the stripes on the flags.
"The red symbolizes the valor of the patriots who fought for our freedom," the voice of some grade school teacher whose name Bruce no longer remembered whispered from the recesses of his mind as he peered out from beneath his umbrella at the rows on rows of headstones washed grey by the rain. He'd put up a small tentative hand and asked the teacher, "I thought it was for their blood?" Well-acquainted with it, even at such a tender age.
As was Natasha.
But her hair, despite being pulled back, drew his eye at once from the flags and the faces of the funeral-goers to hers. She wore black, too: knee-high boots which ended where her raincoat began, a scarf knotted above the collar, gloved fingers curling around an umbrella handle, sunglasses. Somehow, he had a sense that behind the dark lenses, she was staring straight back at him. Ridiculous, really, as he'd never been the kind of guy who stood out in a crowd, much less of thousands. At least not in this form.
Nevertheless, he resisted the urge to reach up and scratch his beard and risk drawing attention to himself, jammed his hand deep into his coat pocket and balled his fingers into a fist instead.
Not that a beard would fool her for a New York minute if she did so much as glance his way.
Of course, fooling her was never the point.
There were plenty of people in attendance who he hoped would be, one who was currently stepping up to the podium at the base of the statue. For maybe the first time in his life, Tony looked dazed by the camera flashes rather than dazzling them with a flash of his grin. He didn't speak for a several moments, the crowd as spellbound by his silence as they ever had been by his showmanship.
"It's a loud silence," a news reporter's voice reached Bruce from somewhere close by, "the question on everyone's minds obviously being will Iron Man express any sense of guilt or remorse that while the Avengers were fighting each other, Hydra was able to regrow and bring down Captain America?"
Bruce gripped the handle of his umbrella hard enough for the plastic to crack as he fought a new urge to go right over and snap the reporter's mic. The only thing stopping him was the fact that it would be broadcast live on every network in the world. Thankfully, an ear-piercing squeal from the microphone as Tony finally leaned in to speak shut up the reporter.
"It wasn't supposed to be this way," he began. And ended, too, emotion getting the better of him and sending him abruptly off the stage.
"Tony Stark," Bruce heard the reporter intone as Tony resumed his seat beside Pepper, who took his hand, "never one to shy away from drama, although in this case, he speaks for us all. Now it appears we'll hear from former US airman Samuel Wilson, perhaps better known as the Falcon…"
As Bruce shifted his attention back to the podium, the red once more caught his eye. This time, he was sure Natasha saw him, because she glanced away as soon as he looked at her. He continued to watch her for a moment as Wilson's voice echoed over the speakers.
"Some of you know me as Sam Wilson. Most of you know me as the Falcon, but you never would have if it hadn't been for the man we mourn today. He made me look deep inside myself and discover that I could be the Falcon."
A man near the front, unabashedly wiping the tears from his eyes, rose to his feet. The woman with a bobbed haircut seated beside him looked up at him for a moment before she, too, stood, linking arms with him as she held her umbrella over them both. Ant-Man and the Wasp, the nearby reporter identified them.
"That's what Cap did," Wilson tried to go on, but had to pause again to clear his throat. "He inspired men, women, and children to be the heroes he knew they could be."
More people began to stand, some of whom Bruce recognized: Maria Hill…Fury, no longer bothering with the pretense of being dead…Barton, Wanda Maximoff...Natasha.
"If Steve Rogers inspired you to fight, whether in a suit or civilian clothes, please, stand."
"Dr. Banner, now might be a really good time for you to get angry…"
Bruce was already on his feet. If he hadn't been, would he have stood? His heart beat faster, his palm sweat around the broken handle of his umbrella despite the chilliness of the weather. Cap had believed in him, made him want to believe in himself, but it wouldn't have been the first time for either of them to misplace his belief.
"This is how it's supposed to be."
Wilson looked at Tony, then out over the crowd of superheroes, special agents, soldiers, and World War Two survivors. Bruce ducked his head.
"All of us, standing together."
The echo of his voice faded into a quiet pattering sound which Bruce at first mistook for the ripple of applause. In fact it was just the falling rain. At Wilson's nod, the honor guard marched to the coffin and began the meticulous folding of the flag draped over it.
Bruce took this as his cue to go. The funeral was over, and getting caught in the crush of thousands didn't appeal to him even when his emotions weren't this raw. He cut across the wet grass, shoulders hunched, holding his umbrella low, and avoided grave markers and camera crews and anyone who might recognize him.
"You've got a hell of a lot of nerve, showing up here."
The voice stopped him in his tracks. Not because it or the words surprised him, simply because it was the first time he'd heard that familiar feminine rasp since he'd shut off the quinjet comms over a year ago.
Bruce had imagined speaking to Natasha again countless times, despite his determination not to. Somehow, he still wasn't prepared for how the sound of her voice would make him feel. For a moment, he couldn't turn, couldn't lift his eyes from the concentric circles radiating from the raindrops in a puddle at his feet.
When he finally faced her, he said, "People don't usually accuse me of that."
"Truer words were never spoken."
A blunt reply, yet it still managed to sting. He tried not to feel it-or at least tried to bear in mind that he deserved to, had set himself up for it in fact. Nevertheless, his cheek muscle twitched, and his jaw popped as he ground his teeth.
"From what I heard, you and Cap weren't exactly fighting on the same side."
"At least I picked one."
That should have been the end of it. Her words, her tone, resonated with finality, but the scrape, scrape, scrape of her heels on the wet cement as she walked on were an ellipsis.
Also, she was going the same way as him.
Bruce followed, pivoting around a couple who were just coming in through the Memorial Entrance, bumping umbrellas with Natasha as he caught up to her.
"You can imagine how it gave me the warm fuzzies to see you and Tony on the news with my old pal General 'That Man's Body Is the Property of the US Army' Ross."
"You'd have preferred he lead a manhunt for you?" Natasha pronounced her words in clipped syllables that matched her stride toward the bus stop up ahead. "We defended you to Ross. Tony was on every news outlet making sure the word got out that Johannesburg wasn't your fault, it was Wanda Maximoff-"
"Who was somehow an ideal new recruit for the Avengers."
In profile, he saw her chin tighten. She didn't speak again until after they'd boarded the bus and found seats at the very back.
"Wanda was one of the main reasons Tony retired."
"You apparently didn't have a problem being on the team with her."
It was a cheap shot, and Bruce knew it. Knew Natasha felt she had a debt to pay, one she never could in full, though she'd give everything she had to try, as an agent of SHIELD or as an Avenger. If the price she was asked to pay was her personal relationships, she would. Why else would she have fought against Rogers and Barton?
She took off her sunglasses, and he saw the fine lines etched in her fair and previously flawless skin, the fatigue that shadowed her eyes.
"That was about accountability," she ground out. "That was what this was always about. You of all people should understand-"
"Okay, yes, I understand. Logically, I get why you'd want to keep an eye on Wanda and even why you'd support Registration. But the Other Guy? Doesn't do logic. Or containment."
Bruce saw a few of the other bus passengers glancing back at them, and realized his volume wasn't exactly appropriate for sitting right next to her. Letting his gaze drift past Natasha, out the rain-streaked window at the gloomy street scene of bare trees and wet office buildings and hotels-they seemed to be near the airport-he drew a calming breath, long and slow through his nose.
"I couldn't get involved, Natasha" he said, quieter. "It would've been Johannesburg all over again, right here on American soil. And more people buried today than Cap."
The bus squeaked to a stop. Natasha started to stand, and Bruce had to get up and step aside to let her out of her seat. He didn't know what stop it was, what stop he needed, hadn't paid attention when he boarded with her, and he followed her off again now.
She waited for him on the sidewalk as he disembarked, and as he struggled to open his umbrella she didn't bother to put up her own, keeping it hooked over her elbow instead. He held it toward her, tentatively, and she ducked beneath it with him. Wordlessly, she began to walk, and since she seemed confident of where she was going, Bruce kept pace with her. The conversation, however, she apparently was leaving to him.
"Natasha," he began, after a minute or two, and heaved a sigh. "I'm sorry. For some of the things I said back there…" He indicated the direction of the bus stop with a jerk of his shoulder, brushing against her. "And for your loss," he added, softly. Their pace slowed. "I know Steve was your friend. He was mine, too."
"You both deserve a win." Almost the last words he could remember Steve speaking to him, that didn't involve strategy for how to defeat Ultron. Neither of them had won.
No one had.
"Bruce." Natasha stopped, indicated that he should, too, her fingers curling around the wrist of the hand with the umbrella. "I don't want to fight with you. I've fought too many of my friends…"
"Are we?" he asked, facing her. "Still friends?"
The corner of her mouth hitched in that little half-smile he knew so well, like the sadness in her eyes. "I thought we could be more."
"I adore you." Did she still? Her thumb stroked lightly over his wrist bones, slipped beneath his sleeve and the cuff of his shirt to trace the lines of his tendons and veins. He didn't realize he'd moved closer to her beneath the umbrella until he felt the warmth of her breath with her words.
"Not a day went by that I didn't wish I'd cut and run with you."
Bruce swallowed. "There wasn't a day that I didn't wish I'd had the nerve to stay."
"What about today?"
It was the farmhouse all over again, her face tilted up to his, their noses brushing, lips so close. As her fingers drifted back to his hand, he did what he should have done a year ago, and bent to kiss her waiting mouth.
Although Bruce initiated, the passion Natasha met him with took his breath away. Made him think, too, of the only other time they'd done this, before the final showdown with Ultron in Sokovia. In the months apart from her, he'd visited that moment many times, in his dreams as well as in his waking hours-the former coming less frequently than the latter. Relieving the way his heart leapt at so much longing fulfilled, only to plummet again almost immediately, along with him down, with the realization that they were still too late. "As maybe the world's leading authority on waiting too long…don't."
He drew his hand from his coat pocket and settled it in the small of her back, pressing her firmly against him as he deepened the kiss. With a soft sighing sound, almost a whimper, she parted her lips to his tongue, and for a moment she leaned into him as if giving herself fully to his supporting arm encircling her. Her hand left his to clutch at his lapel, then her palm flattened against his chest and she pushed against him as she broke the kiss.
Bruce's eyes snapped open, and he blinked at her. Had he been mistaken about what she wanted from him?
"I'm sorry," he panted, "I shouldn't have done that-"
Natasha pressed her fingertips against his lips to silence him. "That's exactly what you should have done. I just thought maybe we should take it someplace a little more private?"
Lacing their fingers together, she tugged him toward the revolving doors of the building which he only now glanced up and registered was her hotel. Without another moment's hesitation, Bruce folded the umbrella and let her guide him inside.
Her hair was the only color in the hotel room, the red vivid against the stark linens, the dreary street scene out the window, his own skin as he combed his fingers through the silky strands.
It was still raining after they made love, rolling in crooked rivulets down the windowpane and obscuring the view. Not that the airport area provided much in the way of a real view. If they turned on the TV, every channel would still be showing footage from Captain America's funeral. In its blank dark screen he saw the reflection of them still lying in bed, naked.
Bruce curled around her, one arm draped lightly over her waist, the other stroking her red hair. Natasha hardly moved at all, but her breathing was too shallow for him to think her asleep. She brought her hand up to her face, thumb wiping away the tears he neither saw nor heard her weep.
"This feels horrible," she said. She covered his hand with her own, drawing his arm tighter around her as she pressed her back more snugly against his chest, her bottom against the curve of his hips.
He bent his head, nuzzled her hair out of the way to brush his lips over her shoulder. "Dealing with it alone feels worse."
The crisp pillowcase rustled as she turned her head, so did the sheets as he pushed up on his elbow to look at her.
"Today you stayed." Natasha's voice contained the hint of a question.
Bruce replied, "I needed you." At the faintest twitch of her brow, he added, "And you needed me."
It seemed impossible that she could, that anybody could, but she didn't deny it. So he did his best to believe it.
"What if tomorrow I run?" she asked.
A heartbeat. He replied, "Then I'll run with you."
She cupped his cheek, his beard whispering over the callused pads of her fingers as she stroked it, then pulled him in for a languid kiss.
They didn't know what was going to happen, what was going to come. The only thing they were sure of was how they would meet it.
Together.