Bruce can tell that the depictions told of her live up to the legend. From the moment that she walks into the bar, she has an air of death about her, a born sense of intimidation and manipulation. She's young and unbelievably beautiful. Far too exquisite to appear in a place like Kiev's, a dirty tavern where the lowest of low lives gather to hang out, she stands out enough to turn patrons' heads, ignoring the potential danger of rape in the dark alleyway behind the bar.

If Bruce had a choice, he wouldn't come to a place like Kiev's either, but when Ivan has no use for him, it's the only place that a guy who isn't looking to be seen can find other types of 'Off the Books' work that Bruce could live on and actually thrive… the kind of jobs that pay in cash only and don't require him to speak or say his name as well.

The other thing that Bruce notices about her is the fact that she's staring at him, intensely and with purpose. He has a feeling that Ivan has sent her to collect him for a job and she confirms this when she slinks over to him and says in Russian, "Ivan sent me," her voice cold and professional.

He tries to keep from frowning as he struggles to make sure he understands her; he's horrible at Russian. He raises his eyebrow, "W-w-what do you want?" His voice stutters from frequent disuse and his Russian is so horrendous that she actually rolls her eyes at him.

"Your Russian is terrible," she sneers in his native language, but he can tell that she doesn't speak English often because her accent is so heavy that he still has trouble understanding her.

"What do you want?" He repeats in English, taking the insult for what it is—truth.

"Ivan needs you for a job," she says in response, seizing him up with a peering look. It's as though she is trying to read his body language, read into his soul. He figures that she's trying to find out what Ivan sees in him, why he trusts him. He's nothing special, he knows, and she's probably wondering what there is about such an ordinary, lanky boy that would provoke a personal summons from such a powerful man that he would send the infamous Black Widow to fetch him… and if his judgment is well placed.

Bruce just shrugs nonchalantly, trying to hide the fact that her intense gaze makes him deeply uncomfortable, and begins walking out of the bar, not waiting for her to follow.

She raises her eyebrow at his dismissive gesture, but follows him anyway.


Bruce soon finds out that working with the Black Widow is like being let in on a secret that only a very few know about. The Black Widow is far more deadly than legend has led him to believe. She's quick… killing with lightning speed, a flick of her hand, and a flashing glance from her beautiful, green eyes.

Six men are already lying in a pool of their own blood not even five minutes within infiltrating the warehouse, and all he can hope for is that he doesn't get caught in the crossfire of her murderous path.


Not all the men die instantly. They need a few of them alive to get the information that Ivan is seeking from the brutes guarding the warehouse… and once the Widow is done with them, Bruce is left with handling the few who are unfortunate enough to still be breathing after her brand of interrogation and torture.

The men with broken necks are immobile and suffering; others have half their large and small intestines spilling all over the floor. Both stink of the blood all over their bodies and muddying their clothes. He kills them quickly, one bullet through the brain or the heart. He figures they deserve some kind of peace in their death.

But there's one stubborn man… one who stares down the infamous Black Widow's torture with hard, steel eyes. He never screams or begs for her to stop like the others had… and he never gives the Widow what she wants. He just stares and stares…

And Bruce is pushed back into the past by the man's stare. He's nine-years-old all over again, and he's staring right at his father's lifeless face—his mother's blood staining the walls, the couch, and his face—while his father is staring back at his horrorstricken face with that same cold, bored look in his eyes and… Bruce feels himself quivering to the bone with repressed memories. He wants to wipe that smug look off his face, punch him hard in the face to the point he breaks bone, and make him wish he was never born.

He wants to kill this man, who isn't his father… because he looks too much like him… but he can't, because he doesn't know this man. He's never done anything to warrant such a reaction from him. He isn't the one he wants to kill. He simply isn't his father.

So Bruce becomes rigid with his unchecked rage, telling himself to rein in his emotions and be professional. He's a reasonable, logical kind of man, and there's just no reasonable, logical explanation for wanting to slit this man's throat wide open and watch as the man bleeds to death. So he simply doesn't act on this swirl of emotions for that reason alone.

And when the stupidly brave man finally gives the Widow what she wants, after half-an-hour of nonstop torture, Bruce isn't exactly as forgiving as he was with the others when he puts a bullet through the man's carotid artery and watches him bleed out all alone on the warehouse floor through his peripheral vision. He completes the mission with the man's blood slicked against his loafers and a strange sense of calm order about him.


"You're way too calm," Natalia says a few hours later, during the drive back to meet Ivan with the stacks upon stacks of cocaine, heroin, speed, and other various drugs that they'd taken from the warehouse storage. He had methodically placed all the drugs in alphabetical order in the trunk of the vehicle they had driven there in… with the Black Widow's deadly gaze locked on him the entire time.

The way she says it makes her sound uncertain and leery, deeply cautious of him. He can tell what conclusions she coming to; he's way too comfortable about the killing and the blood, the leaked guts that she had spilled all over the bedrock floors of the dingy warehouse, and the brain splatters that had covered his trousers and shoes.

He briefly looks at her from the corner of his eye. The blood of various faceless men is drying on the right side of her beautiful face. Then he goes back to focusing on the road ahead of him; letting the silence be his only response.


Ivan likes the work he and Natalia did with the warehouse job, beaming and smiling like a kid at Christmas, with all the stacks of illegal drugs they had collected filling up the empty corners of his office. He makes plans for them to work together more often than either of them is really comfortable with. He can tell that Natalia likes to work alone by the slight twitch of her sculpted jaw, and Bruce doesn't want to be that close to her on a more permanent basis.

He views her like the sun: long exposure is more than likely to wither him out and kill him.


Bruce dreams of his mother in bed that night. He hasn't dreamed of his mother in years; his father is a frequent visitor, countless beatings of his childhood coming along with him… but not his mother. She's too pretty for his dark and cruel mind to dream about, but he dreams of her that night all the same.

He dreams that she's alive and happy—the beautiful woman he remembers that she had once been –glowing like the sun and smelling like the green grass of earth, soft and cool against his heated cheeks. He dreams that she had escaped his dad and found a new man who treats her better, that he himself is just as happy and free about loving as she is, thinking of this unknown and faceless man as his new dad.

He gets to experience a normal childhood in his dream, seeing himself winning various science fairs and getting a full ride to some Ivy League school with his mind's eye. His mother is extremely proud of him… and the unknown man is smiling at him the same way that Ivan had that day in the stall—warm, sly, and proud.

But then he wakes up and is smacked with the realization that he's himself again… a lonely, monstrous fool and he forces himself to put his priorities back in order. He wants to scold himself over something that he really doesn't have any control over but… there just isn't any room for such wishful thinking.


Bruce quickly begins to resent working with the Black Widow; her presence in his life makes him unfocused, dazed, and off his game. She makes him dream sick dreams and makes him hope for an impossible thing: companionship. He begins to realize just how lonely he feels when she's around, and he doesn't like it.

Why? He doesn't know; maybe it bothers him so much because she doesn't seem to be affected by his presence as much as he is by hers. She rocks the ground beneath him, shaking loose things he had long ago repressed into the deepest, darkest corners of his muddled mind. He's been alone for so long that it's like second nature to him now and he doesn't like the foundation of that solitude broken down.

She shouldn't affect him as much as she does; it isn't like they're close. They don't speak to each other, not unless they need to talk to get the job done. Hell, the most they're likely to get out of each other in any other circumstance is maybe a curt 'hello'.

She doesn't speak words of wisdom to him, nor does she given him praises, like Ivan does. She doesn't radiate love, warmth, or freedom like she does in his frequent dreams. She isn't even nice to him, preferring silence and solitude over his presence. She leaves him be. She is nothing to him… and yet… she is.

Because the more Bruce is forced to work with her, the more he's able to separate and tell the difference between Natalia Romanov and the Black Widow. The Black Widow is deadly and emotionless, she wouldn't think twice about killing him if he got too close to her during her rampages or betrayed her. The Black Widow does what she's told to do, a mindless weapon that is used for the purposes and needs of violent and controlling men, who admire her prowess and beauty.

Bruce isn't blind, and he's certainly far from stupid. He knows that Ivan sometimes asks her to attend to his baser instincts that have nothing to do with anything other than his selfish needs. He knows that Ivan isn't the only or the first man to ask this deed of her…He also knows that Ivan won't be the last man either.

And while this fact doesn't bother the Black Widow… it does disturb Natalia.

She may be just as deadly as her counterpart, but she isn't emotionless and she doesn't like to be used for the needs of horny, depraved men. Her emotions on this are vague and well-hidden, but they're there… and he knows that she hates it. He knows that she's has been taught from an early age to be used however and whenever anyone wishes of her to be used, and then to be discarded when there is no more need for her.

She has no control over this ingrained part of her, the part that takes orders in whichever manner they are given to her; sexual or otherwise is of no consequence to her deep seated need to not be thrown away until it's on her own terms… and that lack of control also extends to how men choose to view her. She has no firm grip on that concept any more than he has on his unbinding rage, and it bothers her to the root of her core.

Natalia is even more of a control freak than he is, and the fact that she has no control of this aspect of her life unnerves and confuses her. It leaves her weak and vulnerable, and he knows that some days it gets to her more than others, like today.

They're forced to work another warehouse job; the goal this time, Ivan says, is a shipment load of advanced weaponry from Stark Tech that he plans to sell off to some radicals in Afghanistan.

The job won't be nearly as violent as the other job had been, Ivan reassures them, mainly because he has an inside guy this time, who is willing to sell the weapons for a modest but hefty, but reasonable, price. They all quickly decide to let Natalia make the deal due to the fact that it's already been well established that Bruce can't speak Russian worth a shit and that's the only language their contact can speak.

The deal starts off pretty smoothly. The Widow is professional and firm; she tells the dealer right off the bat that she will not pay him more then what Ivan had originally offered for the weapons, but Bruce can tell immediately that the man is greedy and thinks very lowly of women, and he isn't surprised when the man begins to try and outsmart her as he haggles for a higher price on the deal.

The man also has a disgusting leer directed right at her breasts on his equally disgusting, greasy face and it's setting Bruce's temper on edge. Disrespect to women, wither they can break a man's arm in three different places or not, is one of Bruce's deep rooted pet peeves and this man is grinding violently against it.

It gets to Bruce so much that he actually speaks up without thinking. "You'll take whatever she's offering, you prick, and you'll motherfucking like it!" He sneers without stuttering—something he can only achieve when he's mad enough to spit nails—and glares at the man, who has absolutely no fucking idea what he just said… But the Black Widow—No, Natalia, he corrects himself… he's definitely looking into the intense eyes of Natalia Romanova When she turns her head and looks at him —knows exactly what he's said and she sends him a small, genuine smile in return for his words. Her thankful smile makes him blush to the root of his toes, unnerving him deeply but it sets the dealer's paranoid nature right off and soon he starts speaking loud and violent Russian that Bruce only has a vague understanding of.

But he can tell a sexual proposition, actually more like demand, when he sees one and soon the man's trying to make her get down on her knees and give him a blow job. Bruce is strung tight with anger and about two seconds from making sure the man is completely useless to any woman ever, when she cracks the dude's skull open with her knuckles with in a swift and hard punch.

And that's when the job takes a violent turn, with the injured man cursing violently at Natalia for splitting his head wide open and her kicking him square in the ribs, breaking bone and telling him to shut the fuck up before throwing the guy's money for the deal on his bloody mess the man's head has become.

She looks at him a moment later, her dark red hair plastered to her forehead in sweat, her eyes wild and alight with the thrill of a fight won and her excitement is suddenly infectious, making him giddy and fidgety, like a livewire is being run through his veins, humming with renewed life and purpose. Her green eyes are still dancing around in satisfaction and glee when she orders him to be useful and start grabbing the weapon cases. He's so high and affected with the pleasure of her exuberant high that he just does what she asks, a slight twinge of some indefinable emotion budding in his chest, making his stomach lunge and churn with nerves.

The screaming and ranting dealer lay forgotten on the floor, for her and that beautiful, awe-aspiring glint in her clear, green eyes.


He feels like he's passed some important test of hers, given an essential part of placement in the Black Widow's and Natalia's book… something almost akin to respect and alliance when she throws the car keys at him and they rush out of the warehouse before the greedy dealer can call in back-up. She asks him to drive, giving him her trust and complete control of the situation, almost like she can sense that this is what he needs to feel useful, like he's actually protected her somehow. She even allows him to open the car door for her.


He dreams of that marvelous, wicked look in her eyes for two weeks straight afterwards.