"C'mon Nat. Even super spies need their nap time," Milena pushed Natasha into her room. She practically had to drag her down the hallway after Tony's comment had made her face redder than her hair. Something had just set her off and turned on her raging side. It almost made Milena jump out of her skin. She had to admit that the spy was intimidating with her piercing green eyes and crossed arms, but she had never lurched herself at anyone in an attack as long as Milena had known her. Natasha always seemed like she was under control: calm, cool, and collected with stone hard armor that was impossible to impenetrate. Apparently, it only took iron and a little bit of cruel sarcasm to cut through that skin and unleash the widow's wild bite upon her victims. Honest to God, the sudden change in personality had almost poked Milena in the wrong place. As Natasha's muscles flexed and it was clear her aim was set to target Tony, Milena had felt a strange vibration-like rumbling in her throat. It took all of her self-control she had been practicing with Bruce to keep in a animalistic growl from escaping.

Natasha shook her head as her breathing raced. The shorter brunette could barely push against the taller redhead's shoulders to keep her back, but Natasha's focus was on the open door and the empty hallway she could quickly dash down. "Let me kill him for you," Milena heard her swear in Russian and she muttered something about shoving one of her guns up somewhere and shooting over and over. Milena could tell she couldn't be held down much longer, and before she knew it she had taken the redhead's flustered pink cheeks into her own hands.

"пожалуйста сядьте. Please sit down," she begged as her thumb rubbed over her cheekbone. Her face was softer than she had expected. In a split second all of her thoughts were replaced by new ones. Milena had planned to go into a whole speech to try and calm Natasha down with words or at least soothe her. So many panicked thoughts had plagued her mind about what would happen if Natasha had gotten her hands on Tony. Seeing her in so much pain, for whatever reason, and angry enough to make her violent had made Milena desperate. She couldn't bear to see Natasha so struck with uncontrollable emotion after what Tony said. Sure, she was more than capable of tearing off his head and possibly destroying a whole village full of people at the time, but underneath all of it Milena could almost smell it. It was a scent very familiar to her: fear.

Natasha was very much vulnerable and Milena could tell it scared her. It was like she was trying to defend herself by attacking people; that was a familiar feeling to the little brunette. When she had first woken up the fear was so intense it almost forced her body to throw itself against the door so she could get out. She understood. And she never wanted to see Natasha feel that sort of pain was like watching herself be stuck with needles while there was nothing she could do to resist. In that moment she would have done anything to relieve Natasha of the emotional burden she had carried on her back for God knows how long. It was going to eat her alive eventually.

But then suddenly, she felt her cool skin under her fingers. The nerves at her fingertips sparked with what felt like buds bursting all along her hands up and down. Suddenly she couldn't keep focused on the thoughts that had just been so clear. Her nose clung to the scent of lavender with a pinch of vanilla and cinnamon and the faint smell of dripping blood. She only got one good whiff of it, as then she found herself unable to breathe; her mouth was caught half open and she couldn't tear her hand away.

Natasha's eyes had widened at her with her focus turning from the open door towards Milena. She hadn't even noticed that she was only a few inches in front of her. Their body heat seemed to be conjoined they were so close. And her small hands on her cheeks felt like she was being enveloped in a sheet of silk all around her. She could feel her pulse running from her own skin into the younger one's palms back and forth like they shared the same body. Her yellow eyes never left her own, and she could even feel electricity forming between their gaze. Natasha was definitely on the edge and about to fall for this girl. And she was going to let herself do just that.

"I-" Milena's hand finally began to release its tender pressure on her cheek. She took her hand away like it was almost painful for her though. "I- I"m sorry." Milena seemed to croak out and she turned away to rip that unfamiliar feeling of happiness straight from the redhead, leaving her empty and yearning for more.

"No, no, it's ok," Natasha stood there awkwardly hoping to call her back. She knew if she let herself act on impulse she would grab her face in return and possibly scare her. "You can speak Russian?" she half asked half stated to change the subject, although that /did/ interest her. Languages hadn't even ever been brought up between the two, so this was the first time Natasha even knew she spoke a different language, let alone Russian out of all of them!

Milena nodded as she looked over her shoulder. Natasha's heart could've broken right then and there. "Please, look at me," she begged silently for those yellow eyes to open up to her own again.

"Some of the hikers I encountered in the woods when I was in Ukraine," Milena explained. "Some of the people I... mauled... they spoke Russian. I don't know, I guess... I guess I'm a quick learner." She laughed nervously. It was like their eyes were both two of the same kinds of magnet- never attracting each other and only pushing the other away. Natasha couldn't get this girl to look at her and it seemed like she was pretty set on that.

"I'm glad you do." Natasha whispered quietly, hoping that she would at least listen to her. Her words sounded broken, like little whimpers lost in the wind.

"Really?" Milena asked curiously, but she still only looked out of the corner of her eyes.

"Yeah... It makes me... happy," Natasha forced a smile even if she wouldn't see it. "If only you knew how much /you/ make me happy," she thought to herself and wished those words could be real.

One week later

"You guys get into a fight or something?" she heard Barton's voice over her left shoulder.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Natasha was sparring one-on-five. So basically, five unfortunate agents were being used as pillow punching bags for her fists' pleasure. She had been training non-stop for the past 10 hours; she kept JARVIS busy trying to find more agents for her to dispose of after she was done with the others. Her daily routine had been similar to this for the past six days and it had immediately caught Clint's attention when he recently got back from a mission. For Clint, it was like watching his best friend fall back into a relapse for heroin addiction. All of the life that had been slowly bringing back color to her face had instantly been sucked out of her from what he could tell. There was really only one explanation to why.

"You /do/ know I'm gonna find out eventually. I may not be able to beat it out of you, but I /am/ pretty good with animals if I do say so myself."

Natasha took that opening to punch Clint's bad shoulder which she remembered had been shot on one of their previous missions. "Ow!" He clutched his shoulder and the five sparring agents shook even more.

"You're almost as bad as Stark," she insulted him with that nasty comparison before jabbing a buff, 280 lb muscular field agent up his nose and causing his cartilage to tear and blood to spill out. The spy swiftly stepped out of the way of the blood's flowing path just as he fell to the ground to clutch his red-stained face.

"So it /is/ about Milena then," Clint stepped to the side to let the second agent try to sneak up behind her. As soon as he got his arms wrapped around her neck, Natasha flipped her legs up on top of his shoulders and forced him down under her with his arms locked behind his back. He shrieked out in pain as she twisted his wrists.

"Well, isn't everything about her? She's pretty big news, Clint."

Hawkeye sighed. He wasn't getting Natasha to open up any time soon and just skipped right to the point. "You can't trap yourself in here again, Nat," he said straightforward as he was tired of being danced around.

She stiffly nodded as a response. "I'm not. I got a mission tonight. Kabul. Rogers is coming."

Clint rolled his eyes as he rolled his shoulder back into place. "Whatever you say, Nat. Whatever you say..."

Two days later

Flying back into New York was a silent trip for the super soldier and the spy. Natasha rested her forehead in her palm and focused on her breathing while she ran every detail of the mission through her head. The team suffered one casualty: Agent Polowski had been cornered and taken out by a sniper that intel hadn't suspected. It wasn't really anybody's fault, but Natasha felt like she could have at least been watching out for the guy more. He had only been recruited just a little over a year ago, and he didn't have that much experience in the field. Steve shared some of the guild with her as he put the weight of his head into his hands and elbows balanced on top of his shield. Both of them were never close personally with Polowski, but Steve had suffered through at least a dozen Captain America fan-compliments on the way over from the guy. He was a like a miniature Coulson as he had rambled on and on and WWII stories with the excitement of a hyper six-year-old on candy steroids.

Landing on top of the tower, Natasha called in to get a stretcher for Polowski's body. Cap had dragged him nearly 20 miles outside of Kabul to get him to the chopper, but then again, it wasn't in Captain America's nature to leave behind a fellow American. "I'm going to take him back home. No American deserves to rot under foreign soil thousands away from home," he had told Natasha when she had initially told him to leave his body so they wouldn't be slowed down.

"I will get that right away, Agent Romanoff," JARVIS had replied. "Agent Romanoff requires a stretcher," his voice echoed into the tower.

As Natasha began to fill out the beginning of countless records and report papers, her writing was soon interrupted by the sound of glass crashing and breaking from inside.

A few intel agents that had fetched her coffee once ran out onto the roof screaming and flailing their arms. "What's going on?" Steve poked his head outside of the chopper and the two then saw a familiar face jogging towards them.

Bruce rushed over to the chopper, pushing agents out of the way to get to his two teammates. The look on his face looked like worry more than anything else. "It's Milena," he explained looking back and forth between the two as Steve came to stand next to Nat. "She heard JARVIS say you needed a stretcher and then she saw them roll the body in. She thought it was you and-"

"Don't, Bruce. Don't," Natasha almost begged him as she shook her head. Steve balanced her with his hand on her shoulder. Both of them were dreading the confirmation they knew would come out of Bruce's mouth.

"She's transformed, I couldn't stop it, and now she's on a rampage. I tried talking to her, but she wasn't listening as soon as the first signs started to show. She thinks you're dead, Natasha, and she's really, /really/ angry about it. It kinda scares the other guy, actually."

Jerking her shoulder out from Cap's grip, she marched her way past panicking agents and into the tower.

"What are you doing?" Steve yelled after her as Banner followed shortly behind.

"She has to know I'm alive," she didn't even bother to slow down. "She has to know she's not gonna lose me... Or else I might lose her."