Chapter Three:
She hit the mall for clothes and the grocery store for beer and then hit the road. She was pulling in at the farm just as the sun set.
The kids were wild to see their Auntie Nat and while Clint pretended to be just as wild about the beer he hugged her tight and wouldn't let go for a while.
The hellos over she started signing to him about what had gone down in DC, switching into ASL as they usually did when the kids were around. Clint hadn't needed hearing aids since SHIELD medical had stepped in many years ago, but they found signing helpful in the field and it was already a comfortable way for them to communicate when they didn't want to be understood. Their own kind of signing wasn't traditional, it relied much less on body language and more on context and having known each other for 100 years.
The kids never seemed to notice. Unlike when they spoke in other languages which drew immediate questions, they seemed to not interpret the signing as talking and therefore ignored it as a weird adult thing, but she's hadn't gotten any further than "You wouldn't believe the shit-" when Clint cut her off sharply in Russian.
"Hold it right there! Brat A seems to be picking up the signing lately. I warned Lor they were too smart and we should trade them in for dumber ones, but she was already attached."
"Well, she's sentimental like that."
"He seems to have learned all the swear words first so I think that nixes about half of what you were about to say."
"Well, fuck." Nat slipped him a slight smile and he laughed outright.
"We'll talk later," he promised her, switching back into English, just in time as Brats A and B were already asking what they were talking about and demanding to be part of the conversation.
Nat carefully pushed it all from her mind and focusing on just enjoying herself. Laura was out doing an errand and Clint was trying to child wrangle and get dinner started at the same time. Natasha took over with the kids to his relief. Lila wanted to show her all the toys she got for her recent birthday and Cooper was proudly building a cat house for the kittens in the barn.
"He tried to convince me it should be a dog house, but we're still arguing on that one," Laura said, appearing behind Nat and Coop in the barn.
"Auntie Nat, you should convince Mom we should have a dog." Cooper looked up at her seriously.
"Oh, you know your mom doesn't listen to me. She's my boss, not the other way around," she said, turning back to Laura to give her a hug. Laura Barton had this way of looking at Nat like all she wanted to do was take care of her and it made her feel warm and fuzzy. In a world entirely composed of soldiers and almost entirely composed of men, Laura gave Nat a taste of safe, homey, civilian life. Once they had become close friends she could see why Clint loved her so desperately. She was an amazing woman.
They left Cooper to his build and Clint to dinner prep and grabbed a beer on the porch.
"So Clint told me SHIELD was destroyed, that you and Steve Rogers took it down."
"Yeah, it was infected with HYDRA agents, we didn't really have a choice."
"You did the right thing." She knew it was true, but hearing Laura say that still felt nice. "So I guess you two are unemployed now," Laura said, smiling. "Maybe that means you'll actually sit still for a while."
"Heh, not likely. At least not Clint. He'll be knocking down half the house if you're not careful."
"Oh, yeah, I subtly reminded him how shabby the hardwood in the bedrooms has gotten. Hopefully that'll be next on the list."
Natasha laughed and took another swig of her beer. The night was just cool enough, and even the buzz of the mosquitoes was welcome after the buzz of the cities for so long.
"What are you going to do?"
"Not afraid to ask the tough questions, are you?" She tried to smile, but it came out more of a grimace.
"Sweetie, you know you're welcome here as long as you like."
"Thanks." She sighed and looked out across the empty fields. "I don't really know. All my covers were blown and SHIELD is gone so I have nothing left to hide behind. I left DC thinking I'd travel, build some new aliases or something. Maybe find some freelance work the old-fashioned way, but now that I'm here that doesn't really sound that great."
"You two should work together again." Laura tipped her head back towards the kitchen where they could hear Clint's tuneless humming. "He misses seeing you every day."
Nat let a smile play with her lips. She missed him too. "But for what? And as who?"
"Well, maybe you're ready to stop hiding. You could just say screw it and be Natasha for now. It doesn't have to be a cover, it can just be you. And what about the Avengers? You guys seemed to do a lot of good together."
"Maybe...I guess I don't really know who I am."
"It's okay, you're just having a mid-life crisis, we've all been there," Clint joked, coming out of the kitchen wearing a sauce splattered, yellow apron.
"Gah, I hope I'm not that old yet." Natasha put her head in her hands and Clint patted her gently on the back.
"Well, you've probably got a couple of good years left in ya." He reached out and ruffled her hair mock-condescendingly.
"I'm so glad you joined this conversation," she said, smacking his hand away.
"I could tell you ladies were missing me. Dinner's ready by the way."
They kept conversation light at the dinner table, but once the kids were in bed Laura tactfully stepped out to do some laundry, leaving Clint and Natasha alone.
"You know you're going be alright, Babe." Clint came to sit next to her on the couch.
"Hmmm." She poked aimlessly at a pile of lego bricks on the coffee table.
"So where'd the Cap end up anyway?"
She explained about Bucky. "You know, being on the run with Steve was actually kinda nice. He's a good guy. Sam too."
"You could go help them, I'm sure they'd appreciate it."
"Maybe I will. I told him I needed some time, but now that I have it, I'm not sure what to do with it."
"What about Banner?"
She squirmed uncomfortably. "What about him?"
Clint seemed a little surprised. "I thought you two were all besties now. Don't you want to go back to the tower? I seem to recall a phone call where one night without your scientist pal and you were forced to resort to Cheetos."
Nat sighed and knocked over the bricks she'd been stacking. "Nah, it was just a silly couple of months. We were so bored we gave each other Stockholm Syndrome. Fury doesn't give me orders anymore, the job is over," she said a little too fiercely, then she softened. "He's fine now, Stark is with him at the tower. I'm sure the two of them don't want me barging in and knocking over their beakers."
"Alright." Clint backed off.
She was lying again already and she hated it. She was afraid to see Bruce again, to talk to him. The last they'd seen each other it was the middle of the night and they'd been caught up in nightmares and comfort. She'd started to feel attached to him and after her years of espionage if there was one thing she'd learned it was that anything you were attached to could be used as a weapon against you. She honestly didn't know how Clint was brave enough to have all this, Fury's protection or no.
Natasha leaned back and pulled a quilt around her shoulders. "I'll stay here for a bit and then go find Steve and Sam," she said with finality, leaning her head on his shoulder. He put a comforting arm around her neck, pulling her towards him and kissing the top of her head.
They sat up for a while longer, sometimes chatting, sometimes awash in comfortable silence. She had needed this, to feel still for a while.
They went to bed late, but Natasha still found herself up with the sun. She watched out of the window of the guest room as Laura piled the kids in the car and headed off to their school. She wandered downstairs, listening to the chorus of birds outside and the hiss of Clint's shower upstairs.
She was just pouring herself some coffee from the pot Laura had started when her wrist started buzzing.
For a second she just stared at the watch, too stunned to move, and then it hit her: Bruce had pushed the panic button. The other agent was gone. He needed her.
She dropped the mug and flew upstairs to Clint's room, wrenching open the door. He was standing in a towel, dripping on the floor while he dug through his closet.
"Geez, Nat, don't you knock?" he joked, his relaxed expression instantly changing to fear when he saw her face. "What's wrong?"
"It's Bruce." She held up her wrist to show the GPS flashing. "He pushed his button."
"He's at the tower?" She nodded. "We'll take the Quinjet. Grab your stuff."
She nodded again and ran to her room, throwing a few things in a bag. Clint wrote a quick note to Laura, still pulling on clothes as they flew out of the house. The made great time in the Quinjet but Nat couldn't sit still, pacing and fiddling with anything she could get her hands on.
She felt like such as ass, letting herself get petty about her relationship with Bruce. It wasn't about their awkward tentative friendship – she had promised to protect him and she'd let him down. Whatever trust she'd earned at the tower was shot now. He'd probably been wondering why she hadn't contacted him since the Helicarrier crash.
It's your home too, he had said. What if he'd been waiting for her to come home? He told her the other agent had bailed when SHIELD came down and it had never crossed her mind that after six plus months of having a bodyguard, he might get nervous without one. She'd felt like such a burden on him when she was there, but he never treated her like one. She'd taken his radio silence to mean he was fine without her; after spending so much time with Steve she'd forgotten not everyone is as blunt and open as Captain America.
When they finally touched down she flew out of the jet, leaving Clint to get it put away.
"JARVIS, I need an elevator!"
"Certainly, Miss Romanoff." By the time she reached the elevators, one was already waiting for her with open doors.
"Take me to Bruce." They binged shut and began taking her down to Tony's lab. Not sure what she was going to find, she pulled her gun and pressed her back against the button array, hiding herself from view.
The doors opened and for a second all was quiet, then she heard Tony's voice. "Hey, JARVIS, are you playing tag with the elevators again?'
She shook her head and lowered her gun, stepping around the wall and into the room. Tony was standing in the middle of the lab surrounded by broken glass. Several tables were tipped over and there were spills and broken equipment lying around. Tony seemed oddly relaxed, but she'd come to realize that didn't mean much. The more relaxed he seemed, the more likely something was on fire. Natasha walked up to him, taking in the destruction.
"Agent Romanoff!" he said, in surprise, when he saw her. "Fancy meeting you here."
"Where is he?" she interrupted, looking around.
Tony started to say "Where's who?" but then a familiar voice called out from behind her.
"Natasha?"
She spun around to see Bruce walking out of the bathroom, wiping grease off his hands with a towel.
"Oh," said Tony, raising an eyebrow and going back to digging through the mess. Natasha ignored him, walking around an overturned lab table to stand in front of Bruce.
"You're okay," she breathed.
"Yeah, I'm fine – I just. You came." He looked stunned. "How did you get here so fast...?"
"Quinjet. Of course I came. You pushed your button."
"Oh, yeah I guess I did. I didn't even know if it was still working, but I guess the instinct to push it is still there. When I panic."
"Why was there panic? What happened here?" She looked him over more closely. "Are you sure you're okay?"
He just stared at her for a second as if wondering if she were real, but Tony stepped in. "Looks like a fly-by shooting. I thought security was tighter than this, but these were not normal bullets. They took out a good portion of the wall and did a hell of a number on my workshop."
She finally noticed that two of the large windows were blown out and the wall opposite was littered with disturbingly large bullet holes. Bruce was covered in grease and drywall dust.
"You were here when this happened? You didn't turn green?" she asked Bruce.
"Yes, I was. And no, I didn't." He seemed surprised, but pleased. "I kinda thought I would, but then..." He coughed nervously and twisted the towel around "-then it was okay. I guess I'm getting used to being shot at." His eyebrows creased at the thought. "I don't know if that's a good thing..." he said quietly, more to himself than anyone else.
Natasha took two deep breaths and sat down in one of the only chairs that remained upright. "Geez, Doc, give a girl a heart attack."
"I'm sorry." He looked mortified.
"I'm kidding, Bruce. I'm just glad you're the right colour." She smiled up at him, realizing just how glad she really was. Ever since seeing Steve awake again in the hospital she had felt smiles coming more easily to her all the time. Bruce looked a little stunned and still a fair amount of confused, which just made her smile more.
Clint arrived and got the same run down. Bruce went up to shower while the two helped Tony pick through the rubble – looking for clues and anything worth saving.
Tony ran through a few security protocols and did a lot of brow creasing and muttering to himself. With a sudden concerned look he marched over to a blank wall and typed a long code into what looked like a thermostat.
The panel beeped and blinked and then the whole wall starting to shift open, collapsing against itself as it moved, to slide seamlessly behind the now open doorway. Inside was a long hallway lined on either side by large open cupboards, lit softly with red lights. In each cupboard stood an Ironman suit.
"Wow." Clint stepped up behind Tony. "It's like a walk-in closet for armoured suits. What does Pepper keep in hers?"
"An unholy number of shoes. Her collection is probably worth more than mine." Tony began checking over each suit. "Everything in here looks fine."
"I thought you stopped making so many suits after they all got destroyed last year." Natasha started walking down the hall, examining the suits. Each one was vastly different from the others, some looked sleek, others bulky. Some had bracelets, belts or headsets they connected to. One was just a briefcase.
"There are twenty slots, and twenty suits now. No more, no less. One gets broken, I fix it or remake it, but this is it. They each serve a function. I promised Pepper I would stop creating them obsessively, but a man's still got to protect himself, right?" Tony held his hands out imploringly, then hastened over to stop Clint from picking up the briefcase. "Please don't touch the suit case, it's a little, ahh, twitchy still."
Clint's hand retreated from the handle, eyeing it cautiously.
They picked their way through the mess, looking for anything that might lead to an explanation. Clint was able to dig a few bullets out of the wall and Tony tucked them in his pocket to examine later.
Feeling a little shaken from her sudden return to the tower, Natasha left the boys to clean up and went upstairs to her old room. Everything was disturbingly untouched and it reinforced the idea that they had expected her to return. Instead of making her feel better, that just made her feel more guilty.
Tipping backwards on to the bed she lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling. Maybe she didn't need a plan after all, there always seemed to be something popping up somewhere. Stark and Banner could use her help here, so maybe she should stay. If Steve and Sam needed help at some point, half of the Avengers would already be gathered here in New York
Nat found herself hanging around the kitchen at dinner time, hoping Bruce would show and she wouldn't have to go hunt him down. She didn't have to wait long.
"Hey!" He always sounded like he was pleasantly surprised to see her, even back when they were the only two people in the tower.
"Hey, Doc." His hair was all wet and there was a spot of grease on his neck that the shower had missed. Natasha got up and grabbed a paper towel. Standing close in front of him she reached up and wiped the grease away, giving him a cheeky half smile. "How'd you ever get by without me?" she teased.
He swallowed, looking a bit deer-in-headlights. "I really have no idea."
They just stood there for a moment. "Hungry?" Natasha asked, finally.
"What?" He looked around blinking like he'd forgotten where he was.
"Do you...wanna eat?" She gestured at the fridge awkwardly. She was worried they wouldn't be able to recover the easy comfort they'd had only a short time ago.
Luckily he nodded and they fell back into an easy rhythm of getting food ready. Part way through pulling the seeds out of a pomegranate Natasha stopped and turned to Bruce.
"I'm sorry I didn't call you after the Helicarrier crash. I knew Steve had talked to Tony so I figured he'd passed everything on to you."
"It's okay. He did."
"But yeah, I'm still sorry."
"I figured you probably had a lot to take care of. I heard there was a hearing..."
"It was nothing. A bunch of scared politicians with sticks up their asses."
"So everything's okay now? What are you going to do?"
"I don't know...maybe I'll just hang out here for a while?" she suggested, trying to make it sound casual. "I could help figure out why you're getting shot at."
"Oh yeah, that would be...-" he paused glancing over at her, "-good..."
"Okay, good." She resumed her pomegranate dissection.
"So, um, now that SHIELD is gone..." She glanced over at him when he trailed off. He had his panic button fob in his hand and was turning it around and around between two fingers. Finally he held it out to her. "I guess I should give this back to you."
She reached out her hand but instead of taking the fob she pushed his hand back. "Keep it. You're not my assignment anymore, but you have a knack for getting yourself in trouble despite never leaving home." She smiled and he looked instantly relieved. She wondered how long he'd been working up the nerve to give it back to her.
"So if I push it...?"
"I'll still come. SHIELD or no SHIELD."
"Thank you."
If she was going to try new things she might as well jump in whole hog. "What are friends for?" That finally got a genuine smile out of him.
"For keeping you from turning into a giant, green rage monster and destroying your home city?" he joked.
"Yup." They went back to cooking.
"You know, that's how I kept from changing this morning, at the shooting."
"What do you mean?"
"It was you- I mean, I just remembered the-" His sentence careened around wildly as he tried to figure out what to say, a wicked blush blooming up his neck. "When it started I panicked first, and I pushed the button, but then I thought it probably wasn't active anymore, but it reminded me of that day, with the beaker?" Natasha nodded, as if she would ever forget that. "Well, I thought about how you had come in and calmed me down. It reminded me that it is possible not to change. And I didn't."
"Wow." She was genuinely amazed. "That's incredible."
"Yeah I was pretty..." He waved his hands around wildly, not able to find a word for how he had felt. Natasha laughed gently and they slipped back into silence.
After a long period of quiet, Bruce spoke up suddenly, looking much more relaxed now. "I thought your hair was naturally curly."
"What?"
"It was curly last time I saw you. Now it's straight."
"Oh yeah. I guess I left my curling iron here while I was gone. I didn't even notice." She stretched up onto her toes to look at her reflection in the microwave door. "Which is better?"
"Umm, they're both good." He blushed again.
"C'mon," she pressed. "If you had to pick." She pulled it back with her hands and turned her head side to side.
"I guess...curly? I mean it's probably a lot of work, but it looks nice. Straight's good too though."
She smiled at his diplomatic approach to everything. "I like curly too."
She reached up for a bowl in the cupboard above her and couldn't resist sucking in a sharp breath when her barely-healed bullet wound twinged.
Bruce took a step towards her automatically. "What's wrong?"
For a second she was distracted by his movement, thinking back to just a few months ago when he would have stepped away instead. His early instinct to put space between them didn't seem to have returned despite her absence.
"It's fine, I got shot in DC. It's still healing." She pulled her collar down to poke at the wound and check for bleeding. She tugged the back down and tried to see it in the microwave, but couldn't get the right angle. "Is it bleeding?" she asked, turning her back to Bruce and looking at him over her shoulder. He'd turned white as a sheet, which she knew wasn't a problem with blood. "What?"
"You get shot a lot, don't you?" His voice was oddly flat.
She shrugged, turning back to face him. "It happens," she answered quietly.
"You're really not afraid of anything, are you?" He sounded both awed and terrified.
"Waste of time." She gave him a flirty smile, trying to break the tension, but he was giving her such a piercing look she felt a little odd.
"It's not bleeding." He turned suddenly back to his cooking. "It's healing nicely actually."
"Thanks," she said, not sure what had just happened. A few minutes later he made a joke about the sweet peppers and everything was back to normal. It was a strange time for Bruce to get weird about her job considering he had fought an alien invasion with her, but having no idea what was going through his mind she shook it off and slid swiftly back into their easy, comfortable dinnertime ritual.
Clint and Tony bounced in only a few minutes later and they all ate together, Nat taking the opportunity to catch the two lab rats up on what went down in DC.
XXX
The next morning Natasha found herself reaching for the curling iron with a smile.
When she came down to breakfast she was surprised to find Steve already there, sitting with Tony and Bruce and in the middle of discussing the shooting.
"Hey, Natasha. So much for a long time, right?" Steve smiled at her warmly and she couldn't help but smile back.
"Hey, Cap. I guess you and I just couldn't resist the pull of Stark Tower," she drawled. "Sam with you?"
"Nah, he's in Africa right now...following up on a lead." He looked back down at his papers and she decided to leave it at that. She'd told Clint about Steve's search for Bucky, but she wasn't sure if Steve wanted the whole team in on it.
Tony clapped his hands together, happily. "Looks like we've assembled the Avengers. All we need now is Weather Boy and we'll be back to fighting crime and taking names."
"I thought Thor couldn't come back to Earth?" Bruce said and Tony shook his head.
"Just heard from Jane last night. Apparently she has been to Asgard – what I wouldn't give to get my hands on some of their technology – anyway, it seems the bifrost is repaired and Thor was able to get to Earth pretty easily. And, get this, Loki is dead."
"Well, I can't say I'm upset about that." Clint's voice came from behind her.
"Looks like Thor's going to be spending a little more time down here and a little less time hanging out with his crazy god friends in space." Tony continued. "Something about abdicating the throne, disappointing his family, being in love with Earth, or Jane, or Twinkies. I'm not sure, Darcy took over halfway through and she wouldn't shut up about her boyfriend. Hank."
"Ian." Steve corrected, without looking up from the Tower security footage.
"That's what I said. Anyway, they're all in London for a while, Jane's got some cool research going on with interdimentional portals and gravimetric spikes. Thor said if we need him, all we have to do is call."
Steve finally looked up from the tablet screen, eyebrows creased. "Tony, why does the footage cut in and out right before the shooting?"
"Noticed that too, huh? It's only for a second, but when it comes back on something is screwy. I think they found a way to shut down the security system, or confuse JARVIS temporarily. He's kinda fuzzy on what happened. He keeps insisting there was no security breach despite the large, gaping hole in my tower."
Bruce clicked his pen nervously. "Sorry I don't remember more. I was kinda...occupied."
"No worries, buddy." Tony gave him a clap on the back, making Bruce flinch. "Better you focus on not tearing my lab apart. The Hulk may have saved my life once, but he's got a brute-force approach that doesn't do well in glass houses."
Bruce ducked his head, a cross between a grimace and a smile taking up confused residence on his face. Natasha sat down gracefully at the end of the table, next to Bruce, and lightly touched her fingers to his arm before grabbing a muffin from the box in the middle of the table. Bruce's expression slipped a little closer to a smile and he leaned back more comfortably.
Once Clint sat down with his coffee, Steve stood up and looked at them. "Since we're all here now, I have something to tell you." Everyone quieted down and looked up at him. "While Sam and I were, uh, looking into the Winter Soldier that attacked us in DC we came across some worrying information. Natasha, Sam and I thought that when we took down SHIELD we took down HYDRA too. Pierce was dead, the Zola AI was destroyed and Insight had been stopped. Unfortunately it looks like that might not be the case. HYDRA had their fingers in more than one pie and there are trails of theirs spreading much farther than the Triskelion, farther that the US even. We found some intel that suggests there might be a base in operation right now in northern Canada. HYDRA may have infected SHIELD, but they weren't the only host. They're without organization or direction, but it seems they live on."
"Cut off one head, two shall take its place," Tony muttered, an ironic edge to his voice.
"Even worse, Loki's scepter wasn't recovered after the Triskelion went down and there are some murmurings that a few of the higher-ups at SHIELD took off with artifacts. I know we weren't sure if we were going to team up again, but if anything deserves our time, it's this. They're just going to keep growing if we don't shut them down now. DC must have been a big hit, we need to give them another one. I've been talking to Maria Hill and she's willing to help us out."
There was a pause while everyone considered what was ahead of them.
"I'm in." Tony spoke with a hard finality Natasha wasn't sure she'd heard from him before. She wondered if Steve had told him that Zola had admitted to HYDRA being the cause of Tony's parents' deaths.
Natasha looked up at Steve and nodded. "Wouldn't want to waste all our hard work, Cap. Job's not finished. I'm in."
Clint nodded too.
Bruce fiddled more determinedly with his pen cap when he noticed everyone was looking at him. "Well, I mean, I'm all for it. We should definitely try to eradicate HYDRA. I can, um, I can do research, medical... I, uh..I don't think-"
"It's okay, Banner, that's great, we'd really appreciate your help here, there's a lot of data to go over, things I don't understand." Steve spoke confidently.
Bruce gave him a little nod.
Their little ragtag team had a mission and Natasha was surprised by how good that felt. The vast openness of life without SHIELD suddenly looked like it might be purposeful after all. Who knew what was happening after, but for now she had a goal.
Tony dove into inventing and Steve, Bruce, Natasha and Clint dove into intel. By the end of the month they each had a set of new tech and they had a pretty good idea of where they were going and what they would find there. Tony and Bruce kept working on the security footage, trying to figure out what had gone wrong, but to no avail. They replaced the glass and soon Tony's workshop was back to normal – or at least what qualified as normal for Tony Stark. One day JARVIS' gentle voice broke Natasha out of her HYDRA research.
"Miss Romanoff?"
"Yes?"
"Mr. Stark would appreciate it if you could meet him in his workshop. He has something to show you."
"Thanks JARVIS, I'll be two minutes." Natasha dropped her laptop and made her way to the elevators. Tony was elbow deep in one of his suits, covered from head to toe in grease and ... something. His hair stuck up wildly and she heard a few bars of Black Sabbath before JARVIS turned the music off.
"The Black Widow!" He extracted himself from the suit and grabbed for a different tool. There was a strange tone to his voice that she couldn't place.
Natasha regarded him carefully. "JARVIS said you had something to show me?"
"Oh yeah, they're on the table by DUM-E. I amped up your Widow's Bites a bit and switched some things around. I'm hoping to develop a fully electrified tac suit, or maybe just partially cause that could get a bit hinky. Not sure, but it's going to be cool. Maybe it'll even light up, I get sick of being the only who glows blue." Tony stuck his head back inside the chest piece. "I put a training mode on there for sparring so you don't knock Rogers out by accident."
Nat picked up the weapons and turned them over in her hands. They were lightweight and sleek. Much more sophisticated than the last model. "Thanks." She turned to walk away.
"You know you were a lot more fun when you were pretending to be a PA with a crush on me." His muffled voice came out of the depths of the suit.
"Well, sorry it turns out I'm not as in to body shots as you thought," she drawled.
"That's not what I meant." His voice was a little harder now and she turned back to see him standing free of his work, full attention on her.
"What did you mean?"
Tony paused uncharacteristically, like he was trying to figure out how to word things. "You shouldn't feel like you have some obligation to the Initiative. If you're not happy here, you shouldn't stay. No one's making you."
"No one could." She tensed, he seemed prepared for a fight and she wasn't sure why.
"I just can't figure out why you're still here." He grabbed a cloth and wiped his hands off – uselessly as the cloth was even dirtier than he was.
"I'm here to help the team, to be an Avenger."
"Well try to look more excited about it," he drawled sarcastically.
"Not everyone can be as excited about everything as you, Stark."
"Well, at least I'm not an emotionless robot. Actually, no, that's not fair to robots. I think Butterfingers has more emotional range than you."
Tony had a tendency to get worked up about things, but she still didn't understand what he was getting at. "You're attacking me for not being emotional transparent? There's a difference between having emotions and showing them."
"So, what? You're just hiding then? You're really a teddy bear down under all that leather and sarcasm?"
"You're one to talk." She flicked her eyes at the half-dissected suit.
"Yes, yes I am. Almost incessantly and often without any kind of point, but my point here, in this case, is: I don't trust you." His words came out careful and conversational, but she heard the bite under them. "How do I know you're not playing some angle again?"
"I'm not."
"You had me convinced two years ago. You had everyone convinced."
"I saved your life."
He waved his hand dismissively. "I would have figured it out."
"We fought Loki together."
"You were just doing what SHIELD – which apparently was just HYDRA, so really you were just doing what HYDRA told you to do. I've read the stuff you released after Insight, it's patchy at best. I know there's stuff you're hiding. You're probably still working for some government agency. Why should I believe you now?"
"I really don't care if you do." She spun away, fighting to keep her cool, and marched out of his lab.
Their argument stuck with her all day and irritatingly it wasn't out of worry that Stark thought ill of her, but the thought that had wormed into her mind that maybe the others, maybe Steve, maybe even Bruce, felt the same way.
Lying in bed that night, without the distractions of life in the tower her thoughts wouldn't travel any where other than Bruce. She was cold and hard to get close to on purpose, but what if he didn't see a difference from when they first met? What if he didn't value their friendship as much as she did? If Stark didn't trust her, why would Bruce? She drifted off with an unsettling anxiety squirming through her body.
XXX
Brown eyes set into rapidly greening skin were staring into hers, full of hurt and betrayal. She'd failed him again and now she was going to die...
Natasha flew out of sleep with a gasp. The air was harsh against her raw throat and she realized she must have been panting through the nightmare. The room was too dark for morning – a quick glance at the clock confirmed it to be 2am.
She lay there for a moment, sweat-soaked and stiff, just trying to breathe and calm herself, but the panic twisted through her gut wouldn't leave. Her hand kept jerking to clutch her watch and reassure herself it wasn't buzzing.
Finally, unable to lay still, let alone fall asleep, she got up and staggered into the halls. The cool air of the hallway did a little to steady her racing heart, but in the dark she still kept seeing the Hulk rip through the wall in front of her.
Her feet carried her to Bruce's room unbidden. She just had to make sure he was still him. She hesitated for a moment, just awake enough to know it was crazy to wake him because of a nightmare. Stepping to the side she let her forehead hit the wall with a gentle thunk, her arms hanging loosely at her sides.
A second later the door slid open nearly given her a heart attack.
"Natasha?" Bruce asked.
"Oh fuck!" She leaped to the side, her heart rate rapidly peaking again.
"Sorry, sorry," he immediately apologized. His hand gently circled her wrist as he tried to calm her.
"Where the hell did you come from?" she asked, grabbing his forearm with the same hand to steady herself.
"Sorry. JARVIS told me you were out here."
"Traitor.." she muttered.
"He seemed to think you wanted to knock, but didn't want to wake me and since I was awake anyway he let me know."
Natasha turned again so her forehead was back against the wall, but their arms were still clutched together. Bruce loosened his grip and let his hand slide down until they were just holding hands.
"Are you okay?" Bruce asked gently and her pulse immediately calmed.
"I'm sorry. It's stupid. I'm fine. I just had a dream..." She let her words hang there, knowing he knew what she had dreamed about.
"Sorry." It really just sounded like sympathy and not like he was apologizing (again) for traumatizing her so she let it be.
"I didn't mean to bother you." She told him.
"I was awake already."
Silence fell and she suddenly become hyper aware of their hands looped gently together. She was just about to pull her hand back when he gave their hands a little swing and asked, "tea?"
"Yes please."
He dropped her hand when they got to the elevator, but stood with his shoulder pressed against hers. He was quiet, but just seeing him human and calm and very not green was bringing her back to reality. When the doors pinged and opened they made their way to the kitchen. Bruce started fussing with the kettle and mugs. Not trusting her hands not to shake Natasha sat down heavily on a stool and watched Bruce putter.
Bruce continued in silence until he set a steaming mug of herbal tea in front of her and had taken a sip of his own. "So what happened?"
"You know what, I had a bad dream." Her voice came out a little petulant and she carefully reeled herself back.
"You don't usually end up outside my door." He was smiling gently, but then he frowned suddenly. "Unless I just don't usually notice."
"No, I don't." She gave him a little smile and his frown evaporated. "I just...I couldn't shake it." She couldn't hold back the shiver that wriggled its way up her spine and she looked intently into her tea, not wanting to see the worry on Bruce's face.
"Natasha, I-"
She held out a hand, stopping him mid-sentence. "Don't."
"You don't even-"
"Yes, I do. You're going to apologize to me. Again."
"Well-"
"No." She finally looked up and met his gaze. "Please don't."
They paused for a long moment, the air tense between them. Natasha struggled to keep her face passive. After everything she had lost lately she couldn't stand to lose her cushy, little scientist too. She tried hard to ignore the fact that she'd started to think of him as her scientist.
"Okay." The way he said it was hesitant and Natasha heard the implied for now tacked on, but she let out a breath and took another sip of her tea. It was warm and calming and she started feeling droopy again. She was afraid if she dropped off she'd fall right back into the dream.
"Stark thinks I'm a heartless bitch. Or HYDRA." She hadn't really meant to say it, but it wriggled out anyway. Okay so maybe she'd been a little off-base when she thought that wasn't what was bothering her.
"What?" Bruce actually looked pretty pissed off.
"It's nothing, never mind."
His mouth was a grim line as he leaned forward onto the counter to look more closely at her face.
"Tell me."
"He yelled at me yesterday, Said I shouldn't stay if I don't want to."
She couldn't read the expression on Bruce's face – something hovering between confusion, disappointment, and resignation. "Well, I guess that's true. What makes him think you don't want to stay?"
"Apparently I don't look happy enough to be here." She gave a cool little laugh. "He doesn't trust me."
Bruce stepped forward and sat down at the table opposite her. He set his mug down and leaned his head on his hand, elbow resting on the table. He turned his face up to her. "Are you happy?"
She shouldn't have been, but she was surprised at the question. For some reason it was the last thing she expected anyone to ask her. No one ever had before. It just didn't matter. What was happiness when you had purpose? It didn't escape her that the sentiment sounded a little too close to one bag-of-cats-crazy godlet.
"I don't know. Who cares? I want to stay. I had a choice and I made it. Doesn't that count for something?"
"You deserve to be happy, Natasha."
Somehow the conversation seemed to have a taken a startling turn. For a moment she wanted to believe it. She just wanted to be the person he thought she was. "If you knew-" She cut herself off. If you knew what I'd done... She wanted to say.
"You deserve to be happy," he repeated.
"I just want to be on the right side this time." She rubbed her tired eyes and wiped her hand over her face. "Tell me, please tell me you are the good guys."
Bruce hesitated for a moment, but finally spoke. "We're the good guys. Or we're trying very hard to be."
"Then I'm happy." She knew she didn't really sound happy, but this was the best she could do. For Bruce.
"Then what's Tony's problem?"
"I don't know. He seems to think I have some kind of angle, something I'm hiding from him."
"Ah." Bruce leaned back in his chair and fiddled with the handle on his mug.
"What?"
"Well, Tony told me about the whole Natalie Rushman thing. You know that guy has major trust issues? He's also excellent at deflecting. He would never admit it, but he's a lonely man and his worst fear is that he'll get used to all this and it'll be snatched away. He likes to push on people as hard as he can to see who will stay and who will go. Most of them go. You've seen him arguing with Steve? He grew up with Howard's regret and loss hovering over him like a cloud. He's going to keep attacking Steve, and the rest of us, until he's sure we're not going to bail on him too."
"He doesn't even like me, why does he care if I leave?"
Bruce was silent, just giving her a careful look.
"I have lied to everyone I've ever met, near constantly, for my entire life," she continued. "I was taught that you only show emotion as a tool to make a mark think they have power over you. Clint is the only person who has been in my life for longer than five minutes and that's only because we expect to lie to each other all the time and we don't let it bother us. I don't do this frat house thing." she felt exhausted and more than a little confused. "I- I should let you go back to bed." She rose suddenly, placing her empty mug in the sink and whisking out of the kitchen. She half expected Bruce to try to stop her, but he stayed still and silent, not even turning to watch her go.
She didn't fall asleep again. Just lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling, her mind a churning, ragged mess. She really didn't know why this was so much harder after the fall of SHIELD. When this had been an assignment she'd had no trouble settling in, but nothing was the same. Bruce spent all his time with Tony. Tony hated her. Steve was stressed. Thor was absent. Clint seemed completely fine which perhaps bothered her most of all.
And now she'd probably managed to piss even Bruce off.
She lay in bed and thought and thought and by the time the sun peaked over the horizon she had decided she'd better start with Tony Stark.
Tony was in his workshop. Possibly he had never left. He had something disassembled on one of his work tables that looked like an enormous Ironman boot. DUM-E and U were helping him and he was muttering a constant stream of instructions and thoughts as he worked. Natasha gave a little knock and then typed in her code. It let her in which she took as a good sign. She knew Tony wasn't above having JARVIS lock someone out when he was pissed at them.
He glanced briefly at her and then turned back to his work. "Agent Romanoff."
"Natasha. And I'm not an agent any more." She came in and sat down on a stool, watching his clever fingers flit over his work. He raised his eyebrows, but didn't look at her.
"What can I help you with, Natasha." DUM-E swung his arm too close to Tony's hand and he smacked it away with frustration. Looking as dejected as a robot arm can, DUM-E rolled over towards Natasha and poked her gently. She reached up and poked him back, much to his delight. She looked up and saw Tony had stopped working and was watching her intently. "I never should have given them genuine people personalities. Bruce is always complaining about Sirius Cybernetics and I'm starting to see why."
"I never have any idea what you two are talking about."
"That's exactly why we talk in code. No girls allowed." He was quiet for a moment, watching her play with DUM-E. "Why are you here?" His voice was cautious, not as harsh as the last time they spoke. She wondered if Bruce had already talked to him. She wasn't really sure how things stood with Bruce anyway.
"I wanted to apologize."
"For what? For tricking me into thinking you were a beautiful, slightly slutty PA who speaks Latin and not a deadly, trained assassin who could kill me with her pinky finger? Who also speaks Latin."
"No. I'm not going to apologize for that. I was doing my job."
"Oh, okay, well then, for what?" He looked somewhat amused, at least.
"For embarrassing your bodyguard in the boxing ring," she replied, solemnly. "I don't think Happy's ever really forgiven me for that and I always worried that maybe it made you doubt his ability to protect you and I feel. Just. Terrible." She flicked her eyes up at him under her eyelashes and let the corners of her mouth drift up.
Her stared at her for a long moment, amused, but also trying to figure her out. Finally he broke out in laughter. "You are insane and I think my track record makes it clear that I like that. I guess you can stick around. Besides, Happy belongs to Pepper now, I have my own bodyguard." He waved his hand towards the Iron Man suit that stood blankly at attention in the corner then turned back to his work and started tinkering.
"Good. Because I want to." She took a deep breath and leaned back against a work table. "I also wanted to tell you something."
"Shoot." He turned back to his work.
"The eval you saw after the whole Stark Expo thing was doctored."
The armour made a ping noise as Tony's hand twitched and a screw flew in a graceful arc across the room. DUM-E went zooming after it. "What?"
"Fury changed my report before he gave it to you."
"Hmmm." Tony spun around, twizzling the screwdriver between his hands and gave her a calculating look. DUM-E returned with the screw and Tony stared at it in complete bewilderment. "What is – I don't, why would you bring me this?" He flicked the screw across the workshop and DUM-E hummed after it again. "What did he change?"
"I did recommend you for the Avengers."
"Well, you recommended Iron Man cause, you know, he plays well with others, apparently, but, uhh, Tony, on the other hand-"
Natasha cut him off before he could get a really good ramble going. "I recommended both of you."
"Okay...and why would you do that? You were right about, actually about pretty much all of it, my only defense being that I was kind of dying at the time. It's true, I do not play well with others."
"Neither do most of us, that wasn't a factor in my decision."
DUM-E returned with the screw again and Tony pushed his arm out of the way, stalking towards Natasha with his eyes narrowed. She held her ground. "Sooooo, I think you can, you know, probably guess where I'm going with this, but I just have to ask, why oh why did Fury change that? Does he hate me so much he'd do anything to keep me off the team, and- and, if so, why bother having me evaluated at all? He could have just told me he had a spy trailing me for months and typed up a random report himself and I would have believed him. Aren't you, like, seriously pissed about all your wasted time?"
"There was also more to the report," she said calmly, ignoring his question. Tony gave her a questioning look and unconsciously mimicked her stance, crossing his arms and leaning back against the table opposite her. "I added an addendum beyond the usual report structure. I discussed what I dubbed your 'suicidal heroism'."
"Excuse me, 'suicidal heroism'?" There was a faint quirk to the corner of his mouth and Natasha resisted the urge to smile.
"Yes. I felt you had such little regard for your own life and such an intense need to prove yourself that if you became a member of the Avengers Initiative, you would be dead within six months. Almost certainly due to an act of extremely insubordinate self-sacrifice. SHIELD would give you access to intel you would never have come across on your own and before long you would decide to act on something that upset you. I thought you would be an invaluable member of the team, if a short-lived one."
DUM-E chirped excitedly and there was a sound from the table like air being slowly let out of a tank. Tony started and spun around to see the bot trying to put the screw back into the boot himself. A jet of steam was hissing out of a crack between two metal plates.
"Oh for christ's sa- geez, DUM-E, get a brain why don't you. You don't – no, stop it." He grabbed at the screw, but DUM-E seemed reluctant to give it back now that he had figured out where it went. Tony gripped the table, leaning forward until his shoulder popped, and let out an exasperated sigh. Suddenly he straightened back up, smiling at the bot like a slightly insane, and very hungry, shark. He brandished a screwdriver and spoke deceptively softly through clenched teeth. "Give me the fucking screw DUM-E, or so help me god I will upload your AI into a toaster and make you watch while I disassemble your frame one strut at a time. I will then re-assemble you into the robot at the Skittles factory that takes the bags of candy from the conveyor belt and puts them in a box. All. Damn. Day. Long."
DUM-E made a nervous whirring sound and very slowly swung his arm around, placing the screw in Tony's hand and then backed away, very, very quietly. Tony silently tucked the screw into it's housing and tightened it with the screwdriver. He pushed a button and the hissing steam stopped. Placing the tool carefully back onto the bench he turned back to Natasha whose thirty years of training was barely enough to keep her blank expression from cracking. He took up his spot again, letting out a tense breath as he crossed his arms and looked up at her again.
"I was right, you know," she said, looking him in the eye. "We were together for about five minutes before you took it upon yourself to do something stupidly heroic."
"Ah, but I survived."
"Barely. Besides neither Hulk nor Thor were part of my original calculation." She could see the "but why" forming on Tony's lips so she charged on. "Fury thought the best way to keep you safe was to have you be part of the team without actually letting you know you were part of the team. It kind of all went to hell on the Helicarrier, but so do most plans. For the record, I disagreed. If you wanted to kill yourself saving the world, that's your business."
He let out a little huff of laughter, his eyes drifting down to the ground. "Why are you telling me this now?"
"Three reasons. One, I thought you should know in case it was bothering you. I don't want you thinking I never wanted you on the team. Two, I'm no longer with SHIELD and Fury is no longer my boss so I don't have to keep his secrets anymore. Three, I'm trying out this new thing where I make friends and Rogers assures me that honesty is an important part of that. I hear you're shit at making friends too so I thought we could practice on each other without accidentally breaking one of the team members that actually has feelings."
Tony did laugh properly at that. "Oh I don't doubt that you have feelings Romanoff, I'm just pretty sure all the positive ones revolve around knives and electrocuting people."
She gave him her scary grin. "Aww, you already know me so well, we're like besties!"
Tony gave an exaggerated shudder. "That is definitely the scariest thing you've ever said to me." He turned back to his armour, giving it a poke and causing the steam to start hissing out again. His shoulders slumped and he glared across the room at DUM-E who was on his charger with his camera pointed carefully away from his master, examining a spot on the wall with deep interest.
Natasha finally allowed herself a small smile. She turned to walk away, leaving Tony absorbed in his work, but his voice called out after her. "So, Natasha, we good then?"
Looking back over her shoulder she gave him a big, genuine smile. "Placet."
As she made her way to the elevator she heard him yelling after her. "I don't even- I don't know what that means. I'm looking that up! If you just called me something nasty I'm going to switch your bites around so they shock you instead of the – U what in god's name are you doing with that? Put –"
The door slipped shut.
One down.
Two turned out to be harder than she thought since Bruce wasn't in the lab, the gym, or the kitchen. She was just heading for his room when two familiar arms wrapped around her waist from behind and squeezed, pulling her off balance and against the body behind her.
"You're lucky I don't stab you in the face for that, Barton." She settled back against him as he hugged her, feeling him smile against the top of her head.
"Yeah, well I get reckless when I get lonely. I've barely seen you since we bolted the farm."
"Lor okay?" Natasha turned around to face him and he released his grip on her, keeping one arm slung loosely around her waist.
"Yeah, she's fine. I'm going to head over for a few days though. Seems like we could be busy for a while here. I'd like to get some Daddy time in before we get too caught up."
"Yeah..." Nat's mind was already wandering back to her storming out on Bruce last night, wondering where he'd slinked off to.
"Also I gave birth to a baby pterodactyl and I'm pretty sure it's yours," he whispered. Nat just rolled her eyes and gave him a shove.
"Shut up, I was listening."
"I'm going to name him Fred and I will be expecting child support."
"Clint..." Natasha tried not to laugh.
He tightened his grip and started dragging her down the hall with him. "You can have him on half the holidays and every other weekend. Except Steve gets him on the fourth of July because that just seems right somehow."
Now she was really laughing. Clint dragged her into the living room and tossed her on the couch. A moment of digging around later a Playstation controller landed in her lap, followed closely by Clint's feet as he collapsed on the couch next to her.
"Geez, Birdbrain, keep your smelly feet to yourself." He just wiggled them more comfortably in her lap.
"Make me." He flipped on a fighting game and they battled vigorously through several rounds.
"Are you kids going to just sit around playing video games all day? You know, there's a whole world out there." Bruce sounded amused and Natasha tipped her head back to see him leaning over the couch and smiling softly at the dueling pair.
"There you are," she said, more pleasure leaking into her voice than she'd intended. "I was looking for you."
"Sorry, I was napping. Late night." She tensed slightly at his words, not enough for Bruce to notice, but enough for Clint to bring his eyes to her face. He subtly brought his hand down towards his knee in the sign for "stay" and raised his eyebrows at her questioningly.
"It's fine, you go," she murmured at him in German, avoiding their usual Russian. Bruce could understand just enough of it that it made her nervous. Clint hauled himself up off the couch, calling out that he was grabbing a drink from the kitchen, and leaving them alone.
"I'm sorry," she said, as soon as he disappeared around the corner, not wanting to give herself time to chicken out.
He looked up sharply at her words. "You don't have anything to be sorry for."
"I stormed out on you last night."
"That's okay, you were upset." He looked so honestly concerned with her well-being she felt her heart pressing in her chest.
"Yeah, I guess I panicked a little." She smiled up at him.
"Well, I have a good solution for that, but I'm not giving it up, I need it too much." He patted the fob clipped to his pocket and his admitting to relying on her so much doubled the pressure on her ribs and shook her perfect calm.
She was feeling kind of desperate to change the subject. "I talked to Tony. I think we're okay now."
Bruce gave her a genuine smile. "Good."
They hovered there awkwardly for a moment and then Bruce turned towards the door. "Well, I should, uhh-"
"Nah, stay. I'm terrible at this game, we can 2-against-1 and maybe have a hope of wiping that grin off Barton's face."
She saw Bruce hesitate for a moment, but soon came around the couch and settled into a chair. Natasha tossed him a controller and they took Clint to school.