Gasp! Another story, so soon? Yes, yes it is. The fanfiction muse is being fed after all my finals and major projects are done. And by God, I wanted more Brutasha. I might actually do bonus chapters on my other major story: A Product of the Red Room, but for now, I'm going to start working on this. It's another "What the fuck happened between Winter Soldier and Avengers Age of Ultron" fic. Hope you enjoy.

Update: Shit, thank you so much for telling me the character tags weren't on. I didn't realize that didn't save. Whoops! You all can find me now!

He stared at the digital clock on the wall, dread rolling off of him with more and more frequency the closer the number got to 1:50 PM. She was never late and he knew this wasn't going to be any different.

1:44 PM: He thought that he should at least make it look like he was doing something. She would see right through it.

1:47 PM: Maybe she wouldn't even visit the lab.

1:48 PM: It's not like she needs to go to the lab, right?

1:49 PM: He tried to kill her. She probably didn't wave it off as easily as made it sound.

1:50 PM: Oh God, they would have to meet anyway. Tony would no doubt call for a friendly dinner

1:51 PM: He sighed in relief and picked up a tablet to monitor levels.

"Hey, Big Guy."

The tablet slipped from his hands and fell, almost in slow motion. He watched it shatter instead of looking at her in the eyes, using the mess as an excuse to stoop and avoid her. He fumbled, not really knowing what to do outside of take the large bits and not touch anything that might still have a charge on it. His hands didn't seem to be working.

Natasha bent down in front of him, helping him pick up the pieces by sweeping them up in her slender hand, "I didn't mean to startle you—quiet steps are a force of habit."

"I uh—" Words were not forming properly in his mind, let alone his vocal chords and mouth. The corner of her mouth twitched upward slightly.

"I'm not that scary."

"I beg to differ." Tony walked in, interrupting whatever what was going on, "Nice to see you again, Natalia."

"Call me that again, and I'll cut you." Her eyes never left Bruce's.

"I have no doubt." I like calling you Natasha best, anyway."

"Good, because that's my name."

Even Tony knew better than to say anything else on the matter, "Well, it's nice to see you in one piece—wait where's Barton? I thought you guys were an item. One doesn't go without the other. That kind of stuff."

It was a good question. Natasha's eyes darkened for a moment before she rose, dumping the broken remains of the tablet in the wastebasket, "We're not always a unit, Mr. Stark."

"Please, call me Tony, We can be on first name terms. We saved the world together. And you pretended to be my PA."

"And that was horrible. Worst job I ever had." She grinned glancing at Bruce. For some reason he felt a little warm, like he was in on a joke. He was used to being in the corner, silently wanting to join the conversation. It was easy when it was just him and Tony, but adding a third party always messed the dynamic up.

Bruce was about to say something clever, but Tony beat him with his usual sociopathic comedic timing, "Worse than that Siberian whatever job?"

"Yes."

"Wait, you prefer getting tortured for two weeks over being my PA? Talk about priorities, man."

Bruce started at that comment, "Wait, you were tortured for two weeks?"

"Yeah. Job went a little bad."

"A little?" Bruce felt incredulous.

Natasha smiled, cocking her head at him. There was something strange and unspoken about her. She didn't seem afraid or disgusted. In fact, she seemed amused by him. Tony didn't like being sidelined to whatever was occurring so he slid in next to Natasha and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She glared ahead.

"Well, what's our favorite super spy going to do now, now that everyone in the world knows her face?"

"Glad you asked, Tony." She squeezed a part of his hand. Bruce laughed when Tony sprang back and found that his fingers couldn't move.

"Hey!"

"I'm making SHIELD go public."

"And an ex spy assassin cloak and dagger sort of girl is going to be the figurehead for it?"

"Well no, but you've got to admit that I look almost as great on camera as I do in person." Tony was still trying to smack feeling into his arm, flailing dramatically.

"Relax, it'll wear off soon."

"What did you do?! This defies science!"

"Nothing defies science, Stark. That is until it does." Natasha leaned up against Bruce's lab table and drew uncomfortably close, almost resting her chin on Bruce's shoulder.

"Sorry about the guy time intrusion, but I really have nowhere else to go until everything's sorted out."

It was then that Bruce realized how shaken up she was. He hadn't heard about her in ages and then suddenly her face was everywhere. People were chatting about her files on forums and even when he tried to avoid it (for some reason, he wanted her to have some semblance of privacy) he saw key words like Red Room and "Russian KGB." It probably wasn't a field day for her so the least of her worries was standing next to the one guy that almost killed her and didn't mean to. He at least had that going for him.

Not that he wanted anything going for him.

She smelled nice.

Bruce wanted to shake away the thought as quickly as it came but the more he tried, the more he noticed things like her hair being clipped short, the way it was when she met him, and her hands. He blinked and shook his head, this time where Natasha could see him. She grinned.

"I missed you, Banner."

"What? But—"

"Water under the bridge. Anyway, I should get going. I have a meeting with Maria. I really just wanted to check up on all of you."

Tony flexed his hand experimentally, happy that it was finally working properly, "Next time, you could just say hi, you know. No finger breaking."

"I didn't break your fingers, Stark." Natasha rolled her eyes at Bruce as she was walking to the door, "I don't know how you can stand working with him, he's so dramatic."

Bruce looked at the clock. 1:56 PM.

He couldn't even process everything that just occurred in the span of five minutes.

Me owning Avengers would be the most terrifying thing on the planet so everyone be happy that it doesn't belong to me and I'm just playing with their wonderful characters for my amusement. Then again, the movies are arguably glorified fanfiction of the comic books so I'm not too worried about upsetting anyone. But oh dear, if you want to write a fanfiction for Outlander, you're a sick and disgusting plagiarist.

People confuse me sometimes.