Chapter 10

"Jenny, a package arrived for you via private courier," Mallory said later that afternoon when Jenny returned to the office from a deposition. "And don't forget drinks and dancing tomorrow night. I'll be cross if you back out at the last minute."

"Tomorrow night just isn't a good time for me. I have a backlog of cases, and there's a pile of research waiting for me. Can I take a rain…" Her comment trailed off when Mallory gave her the stink eye. "Drinks and dancing it is."

Receiving packages from private couriers wasn't so unusual in the law business that she took note, so she accepted the small box along with a stack of mail and a list of calls before heading into her office. Grace nearly deserted her upon wobbling on the snakeskin heels She-Hulk had abandoned in the middle of her bathroom floor, but she saved herself from another spill across her carpet by flailing her arms. In the end, the package was deposited on her desk, and she promptly blocked out the world in favor of diving into a wealth of case histories in search of something to prop up a thin defense for a member of the Silvermane family. Because staying on the right side of the law was just too much trouble for some people.

Completely engrossed, she didn't realize the passage of time until pausing to press her fingers against her tired eyes and noticing long shadows stretching across her office. The sun sank below the city skyline and muted the vibrant green rug in the center of the room. Her head jerked back as though just seeing it. When had that gotten there? Fuzzy memories were recalled of She-Hulk-no, no this was definitely a "she" moment in that she had dragged the rug into her office regardless of her skin color at that particular time: trying to remain separate from She-Hulk was becoming increasingly difficult-dragging it into their office last night while giggling about cheering herself up when forced to return to being drab little Jenny.

Voices from her assistant's office outside drifted through the open door, dragging Jenny from her thoughts and lighting up a bright smile. Having kicked off her heels long ago, she was barefoot when she jumped from her chair and dashed over to fling herself into Bruce's embrace when her cousin padded inside unannounced. He'd been out of town for so long following the Chitauri attack she'd despaired of ever seeing him again.

"Bruce, why didn't you call and say you were in town?" she exclaimed while squeezing him as tightly as she could manage.

His tone was warm when he pulled her in for a bear-hug. "I wanted to surprise you."

"You succeeded beyond your wildest dreams!" She stepped back to give him a good once over, but her cousin looked whole and healthy. Bruce and his tweed jackets and purple shirts. A fond smile as she remembered threatening to burn his collection of purple button-downs and she stepped into his embrace again. "Where've you been? How have you been? Stark said you stopped by his place briefly to elicit his help during an Ebola crisis in Africa."

"After the attack on New York and," there was a brief pause, and his tone softened before he continued, "the other guy was unleashed, I needed time to sort out how I felt. But yes, I've been in Africa. They desperately need all the medical intervention they can get."

"Oh Bruce, your relationship with Hulk doesn't have to be so difficult. The transition doesn't have to be so profound. We were…" Jenny paused and then corrected herself. "She-Hulk was savage too the first few weeks after the transfusion, but the more I accept her, the calmer we become, the more in control we become. If you could make peace with that part of yourself, you wouldn't be so afraid."

Her cousin paused, brow tightening until all the fine winkles were emphasized around his eyes. She didn't doubt for a moment he was remembering how She-Hulk had come about, his part in, as Bruce would say, "consigning her to a life of misery."

"Stop," she said emphatically while clasping hold of his hand. "You saved my life. Not for one millisecond would I rather have died than to share my life with She-Hulk. I wish with all my heart I could make you believe that."

"Saved it? Jenny, I've damned you to a life of having no control over yourself and your own anger. I may have begun the process of making peace with the other guy, but my biggest regret will always be what I've done to you."

"Done to me?" Irritation and frustration flared sharply in her expression, and she mock-slapped his arm. "Bruce, you are so infuriating sometimes! And stubborn too. The only thing you've done to me was give me the opportunity to really live."

His hands were held up in the universal sign of surrender, and he stepped back momentarily. "I didn't come to argue." And then he abruptly changed the subject when he said, "Natasha and Clint are good people. They don't deserve to be painted otherwise."

Anger made her breathing shallow, and she was forced to retreat to the opposite side of her desk, tone much more forbidding. "Oh, I see how this works. See, you should have told me you were here on business when you first arrived, and we could have skipped that whole pesky emotional thing we just went through. You've come to talk me into dropping the suit against Romanoff and Barton."

"Don't take me the wrong way. Of course I wanted to see you. I just don't think you have the whole story regarding your client. He's bad news. After what he did to Miss Potts…" Green encircled his pupils. "She's still not fully recovered her sense of security with the world."

"This isn't about Miss Potts. If she'd like to file her own suit against him, I will gladly recommend a qualified attorney and secretly cheer that she nails his backside to a wall. This is about SHIELD agents thumbing their noses at the constitution. That is unacceptable."

Absently, she grabbed up the small box delivered that afternoon and upended it, letting it slide through her fingers to knock against her opposite palm, and then turned it again to repeat said process. Somehow the action was soothing."

"Maybe their methods weren't completely legal, but we both know they dispensed justice and saved an innocent woman from something terrible. Sometimes bad people worm themselves through loopholes simply because they have money."

"You're starting to sound like Director Fury."

"Not normally a compliment, but in this case, we agree. Jenny, he tried to rape her. If I'd gotten there before Clint and Natasha," her cousin began, forced to take a breath before continuing. "You'd be prosecuting me for murder. Think about that and then tell me this case doesn't belong in some gray area of the law."

"If you'd been responsible for dealing with Christian Grey in the moment, I would recuse myself from the case, and we wouldn't be having this discussion." She allowed the weight of the box to flip it between her fingers and slide down against her palm again out of some pathological need to fidget in order to keep her blood pressure stable.

"What is that?" he asked while dropping his eyes to the package.

His question made her aware of her actions. "Just something that was delivered this afternoon. I forgot it was here." Since she was thinking about it, she tore open the brown paper wrapping and opened the lid. Inside, she discovered a car key. The Audi logo was emblazoned upon the base of the key. A note accompanied it. "I will be unto you as Alec is unto Tess. G"

"Something's wrong?" Bruce asked.

"Someone sent me a car key." She held up the key and continued, "and said person has apparently never read Tess of the d'Ubervilles before. Alec seduced Tess, impregnated her, talked her into being his mistress, and then she killed him. Not the kind of romantic sentiment you want to convey when sending someone a car."

"Stuff a sock in it. I'll be there in ten," Natasha said into her cell phone while barreling down the hallway from one of the numerous labs in Avengers Tower. She was in such a rush she wasn't watching where she was going and almost face-planted against Bucky's chest when he turned a corner and was suddenly in front of her. Decades of training saved her from becoming a proverbial bug on a windshield, but she was so off kilter from slamming on the brakes Bucky's intervention was required.

"Eyes on the road, Nat," he said while clasping hold of her upper arm to prevent her from losing her balance during the recoil.

For one breathless moment, Natasha's glance dropped to his lips. Desire she'd long thought dead sparked to life upon remembering how passionate their affair had been so many decades ago, but her expression hardened again. A twist of her arm extricated herself from his grip. "Sorry. Pepper's had me so occupied with wedding stuff I lost track of the time."

His grip immediately released, and he put distance between them with a hasty step back. "Funny how someone as open and welcoming as Pepper doesn't seem to have many friends able or willing to help her with the girly parts of a wedding."

"She spends most of her time working and doesn't have opportunities for social interactions." A brief pause interrupted her comment before she continued, "Look, I don't have time to stay and chat right now, but we need to talk."

"Talk?" he repeated flatly. "I only have one question that needs clarification. How long was it between you leaving me in Russia and hooking up with Barton? Did you wait a whole week, or was it one of those love at first sight deals where you rode off into the sunset with him while your lover was being cryogenically frozen?"

"You're not the Dread Pirate Roberts."

Confusion tightened his expression. "What?"

"Sorry, you missed that movie and can't understand the cultural reference. Your comment isn't fair. I had a way out, so I took it. Leaving you behind was the hardest thing I've ever done, but it was either leave you and come back when I could or get us both killed," she said, voice barely audible.

Bucky's lips hardened, eyes blazing for a few heartbeats before his features relaxed as he worked something out in his head. "Do be certain to warn Barnes what he's in for ahead of time. They don't call you the Black Widow for no reason."

There was no hiding the sting his comment caused. "Yeah? Because you've been nominated for sainthood. Look, I have to go. Something of an emergency came up that needs to be dealt with immediately. We'll talk about this when I get back."

"A situation can't be 'something of an emergency.' It either is an emergency or isn't. But whatever. There's nothing to talk about now that you're with the canary. Anything we had was strangled, shot, and buried back in Russia."

"It wasn't like that, and you know it." Her ringtone, a short clip of Flogging Molly's Drunken Lullabies, blasted in the brief silence. "I have to go, but we need to settle this."

"Go. Wouldn't want to keep Hummingbird waiting."

"Bucky…" Her comment was interrupted when the ringtone repeated. "You're angry, and I get that, but…" She was interrupted again. "I'll be back tomorrow morning."

"You don't live here in the tower?"

"No. Leastwise not yet." Tasha stepped aboard the elevator, and by the time she selected the private parking garage, her expression was flat when she gave him a final once-over.

Leaving him standing in the hallway so obviously upset was difficult, but she didn't have a choice. Bruce had called Barton and her babbling something about his cousin having received a cryptic message referencing Tess of the D'ubervilles. Looked like Grey was turning into a serial stalker, and Thomas Hardy had been selected as his calling card. Because obviously she'd woken up that morning and decided to star in the next Criminal Minds episode. May she die a thousand deaths and be cursed to spend the afterlife wearing a lime green tutu for not having killed Creepy McAbuser when she had the chance.

Like a bad train wreck that kept playing over and over, her mind returned to Bucky. Knowing some of what he was going through; the confusion, anger, and uncertainty while trying to readjust to life outside of the Winter Soldier program; meant she wanted to do everything in her power to ease him into his new life with SHIELD. Bucky would always be a part of her. They had helped each other through numerous rough patches, but she hadn't expected to experience the jolt of longing upon seeing him again. She was with Clint now. He didn't deserve to be tied up in her emotional baggage with a former lover.

When the doors slid open granting her access to the private parking garage and workshop where Tony's newest collection of cars was taking shape, she darted from the lift and over to the SHIELD issue sedan Clint was standing beside. He was rhythmically twirling keys around his finger and arched a brow upon her approach.

"Sorry," she said. "I got held up."

"Pepper need help picking out lace for the tablecloths and little pink frilly things to wear in your hair?" he asked with a decided smirk.

"One time," she groaned. "You caught me helping her sort sparkly things one time, and you're never going to let me live it down."

"Tash, you had glittery heart stickers on your face and bubblegum pink gems glued to your knuckles."

"It was Pepper's fault!"

"Convenient excuse." He paused, glance narrowing as he looked at her. "You okay?"

"Of course. Let's just get this over with."

A/N: Thanks for all the suggestions and pointers about She-Hulk. Trying to get into her head has been way more difficult than Pepper. I hope everyone continues to enjoy this.

Next Chapter: Christian McStalker earns his nickname, and Bruce reminds Clintasha he's not a pregnant woman, and they're not his Lamaze coaches.