Sorry for my hiatus everyone, it was very unexpected but I haven't given up on the story and I'm pleased to say I'm back in action. I thought I would have been much earlier this month, but it took ages for them to reconnect my internet. Ugh. As per usual, thanks to Black' Victor Cachat for the continuous input into the story, and the tiny PoV of the guard in the beginning is done on their request, as is the third.

Warning: Increased violence after the first line break of this chapter.

Chapter 9:

"There's a hunger, a longing to escape,
From the life I live when I'm awake."

It was fascinating, truly it was. She was supposed to be deadly and yet a handful of words had put the tiny redhead right to sleep. He carried her with ease to the lab, unable to help thinking just how pathetic she really was. This was the infamous Black Widow? The woman who had killed a dozen men today alone, killed men that he knew, that he was friends with? She couldn't have weighed more than a hundred and twenty pounds and she probably only stood at five and a half feet.

Yet she was the killer. A beautiful, stunning, tiny and meek woman was the one who murdered all those men single-handedly.

Not to mention that he could hear 'mom and dad' fighting down the hall.

"Let me get this straight...you let that murderess kill almost two dozen men when you could have dropped her with a couple of words?" came Ross' question.

"I was saving it for a special occasion," Stasia informed the American general nonchalantly.

He shook his head as he stepped inside the lab and placed the redhead down on the metal table.

"They want the steel cuffs over her wrists and ankles," the doctor in the lab told him, "no surprises or breakouts this time like she did with those handcuffs in her room."

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbled out, "don't see why it matters right now. They said she won't wake up unless they wake her up anyways."

The doctor just shrugged, "Not our call. I just do what I'm told. You work for Balshovich long enough and you learn you don't ask questions, you just do what you're told."

"So Doc, which do you think is scarier, Balshovich or Romanoff?" he asked the other man.

The doctor chuckled, "Romanoff terrifies me."

He prodded the redhead with his knuckles. "I dunno, she's not so scary right nah—" he grunted the second that slender hand wrapped around his throat. It happened faster than he could comprehend and he watched as those green eyes opened, the fury in them clear to see as she sat up. That idiot doctor had his back turned to them and was absolutely clueless as Romanoff silently shifted off the metal table and clenched her fingers tighter around his throat.

Breathing became impossible as she quietly lowered him to the ground before darkness fully enveloped him and breath escaped him completely.

Natasha shifted her eyes towards the doctor that still had his back turned to her, none the wiser to what transpired behind him. She slipped the slick black and metal baton from the dead guard's waist and then she took his pistol into her other hand. She crept up behind the doctor only for a blaring alarm, likely to alert everyone to her armed semi-escape, to ruin her element of surprise. Cameras were a bitch just for that reason and she cracked the baton over his skull with ease before she turned towards the door and quickly ran towards it.

She once again slammed the baton over another head, the head of the first guard to run into the lab, and then she shot the next two who tried to enter after him. She was quick to take the gun of the second guard and drop the baton. More guards rushed in and she took shot after shot, mowing down five more by dual wielding without a single one of them getting into the lab with her.

It sickened Natasha to no end that every single shot that killed a man made her feel alive—feel overwhelmingly ecstatic. It was like a high. Adrenaline combined with murder, and her programming was enjoying every single second, hanging on every last moment of it like a lifeline.

As much as she hated being trapped within her own body, just this once, she was glad to have her programming take over.

HYDRA deserved this.

Red Room deserved this.

Ross deserved this.

And Madame B, Stasia Balshovich, she deserved this.

So Natasha relaxed, she let the red in, she let that hatred settle deeper and she curled her lips into a smile without fighting it as she took down another four men with bullets. It was when she tossed the guns with their empty clips to the floor and replaced them again with the two batons that a few of them squeezed into the lab. She stepped back, chuckling as they tried to circle around her like vultures. The fact that they weren't going for their guns made it clear that they obviously were still under orders to detain and not kill. That meant this would be a lot less fun.

Her programming's twisted joy for the fight was seeping into her own mind and she let it happen. She let it because they deserved all of this, for everything done to her, and certainly for everything that was done to Bruce.

Bruce...

That made her anger seer further and she was glad when they all came at her at once. She shoved her bare foot into the gut of one man to knock him back, the baton colliding over the head of the next one closest to her and hitting a third attacker with the second baton. She quickly slammed her elbow back into the fourth guy coming up behind her and avoided the fifth guy as he swung his own baton at her by ducking under it. She came back up, reaming the hilt of the baton into the chin of the man who almost took her head off and he dropped in an instant.

If he wasn't dead, that sickening crack certainly said that his jaw was broken or dislocated. The sixth guy actually managed to get his hand on her arm and she only just raised the baton in her free hand to block the blow of his own incoming attack. She kicked her foot up between his legs, cracked him over the head with the metallic baton, and then hit him again...and again...and again.

The red wasn't just clouding her vision, it was real, painting her arms and clothes a beautiful crimson. She just kept hitting him with the baton over and over, again and again, feeling more alive with each swing she took that was beyond overkill.

Somebody tried to stop her and she swung back, cracking the baton over his head and pouncing atop him like a predator who had just gotten its prey. And the sick cycle began all over again.

"Do something! Anything!" she heard one of those men yell out.

"I'm not going near her! She's insane!"

"Fine!"

She heard a noise, the strangest noise, and she only stopped hitting the second guy when she saw the strange metal tube, that had made some electronic hissing noise, pressed against the skin of the back of her shoulder blade. It wasn't a weapon or anything of that sort, and she realized next that there were two little prongs in her skin and his thumb was on the plunger. He injected her with something. With what she couldn't be sure, but she didn't feel woozy or tired and he looked hilariously frightened as she smiled pleasantly at him.

"That was a really bad idea," she informed him with a chuckle.

It wasn't long before the alarms blared everywhere, even in the room that Betty was currently locked into with Bruce, and she glanced over at him in concern as he looked up. He had been sitting quietly on the floor, feet curled beneath him, and despite the fact she knew he was a bundle of nerves and anger, he looked remarkably calm. Since he wasn't reacting to the alarms, Betty figured she should at least attempt to do the same, but they were loud and unnerving so she knew she had to be fidgeting at least a little.

Bruce had changed over the years and while he still looked like the same man she loved back then, he wasn't, not anymore. Whatever happened to him since joining the Avengers, it had been good for him, it had helped him on at least some level. She could see it in the way he could hide what he was feeling, the way he could control himself. Bruce had never had the sort of control before, he had never really had any control before, not when she knew him.

He had been quiet, funny and sad, all of which had been so incredibly charming; but back then she could see those things about him, she could understand him. She was sure that he was still all of those things, probably even more than just those in particular, but while he was still Bruce Banner...he was a new version of him.

And if he could have looked at her even half of the way he looked at Natasha Romanoff when she had been in here with them earlier, then Betty would have sworn that she was the luckiest woman in the world. He didn't just love Natasha; he was in love with her, completely and hopelessly in love, and her father was using that against the two of them. Her father took something that should have been beautiful and turned it into something horrible, and Betty was honestly afraid that they wouldn't come out of this quite as in love as they entered the situation. She knew what too much danger combined with love could do to a relationship, she knew just how fragile something could be when everything seemed to be fighting against it.

What her father was doing would either make or break the two of them in the end.

The continued alarms finally seemed to garner a bit more attention from Bruce and she watched as he finally looked up and stared into the hallway. Then she saw the smallest smile was perched on his face and she felt the confusion bubble its way to the surface in the form of her voice, "Why are you smiling?"

"An alarm for that long probably means one of two things," Bruce told her and at her raised eyebrows he expanded on his answer, "either somebody has broken in or—or somebody is breaking out."

He sounded a bit more amused by the second half of that explanation and she understood what he was saying. Option one, the Avengers were here. Option two, Natasha was on the loose.

"Doctor Banner."

Betty looked up as Stasia appeared in the hallway and she glanced over at Bruce as he stared the woman down. She supposed they were about to find out what those alarms were truly entailing and she found herself looking between them, back and forth.

"You knew she had her programming active," Stasia accused, "you knew she could go on a rampage at any moment." Betty looked to Bruce in confusion but he wasn't answering her, he just shrugged rather indifferently to the accusation and it was both baffling and amazing at the same time. "She doesn't respond to the deactivation, did you know that?" the woman questioned next. Betty saw the flicker of amusement cross Bruce's face and Stasia actually looked at least somewhat annoyed by it even if her voice didn't air the same frustration when she gave him an order, "Stop her right now."

And Bruce actually snorted out a laugh before he finally voiced a rather sardonic response, "And just how do you suggest I do that, use a lullaby?" Betty almost couldn't believe it and she stared at him, stunned by his audacity. This was most definitely a new Bruce, or rather he was a new Bruce to her at the very least.

Stasia was clearly frustrated because the anger showed openly on her face, "If you don't agree to stop her then I will gas that room you're in and kill Elizabeth. You'll live, Doctor Banner, but she won't."

"Honestly I'm a little tired of your threats," Bruce informed her, "and I'm extremely tired of you trying to control me."

Betty watched him in fascination and with just a little bit of worry. She wasn't sure if maybe he was finally just unhinged, losing it after all that he watched them do to Natasha and all that they did to try and keep him in line, or maybe he really was just a lot more brazen than he used to be. She also couldn't blame him, not after all of this, not after seeing how dehumanizing they all were.

"Let me tell you how that would ultimately turn out if you decided to proceed with that threat," Bruce stated. Betty watched him stand up and move towards Stasia until he stood directly in front of her with only that sheet of safety glass standing between them. "You could gas the room, you could kill Betty, and you know what happens after that? I'll tell you. What happens after that is that you'll have two monsters running rampant and we won't ever stop," he assured her.

Betty stared with her mouth slightly agape.

New Bruce was a force to be reckoned with.

"You're bluffing," Stasia insisted with a chuckle, and Betty swore she heard a twinge of nervousness within that small laugh, "you wouldn't just let me kill her."

To be frank, Betty wasn't at all sure that she agreed with Stasia right now given that Bruce seemed to be in a rather daring and carefree mood. Still, she again couldn't blame him for it. She understood his need to defy the woman, hell...she sort of admired it.

"And you're not as in control of all of this as you believed you were," Bruce told her with a smirk. "Just in case you've forgotten, I'll remind you that Natasha is the only survivor of Red Room. She's survived this long without you in her life, so what precedent could you possibly still have for her? Natasha outgrew you. You just assumed that whatever methods you put into play when you had her would still work," Bruce explained to her with a knowing little smile, "and you were wrong."

"And you think Red Room were the only ones to mess with her mind, Doctor?" Stasia retorted, "you don't think that Nick Fury and SHIELD played with her mind too? She was loyal, she was proud of who she was, and then suddenly she's a traitor to her country? That sort of thing doesn't just happen on a whim."

Bruce shook his head and released a tiny little sigh of disappointment, "Actually, no. I don't think they did," he told her. "You're just in denial because she's not just one of your little toys that you can jerk around anymore and she's proving it, so you might want to worry a little more about what she's going to do to you rather than trying to convince yourself that you're still in control," he threatened, "because there are no strings on her."

"I am in control and you're going to regret this decision, Doctor Banner," Stasia assured him. "There was a time where she had no weakness, but that time is long gone," she told him next. "You are her weakness. You, Barton, and even Stark and the other Avengers. Because of you, she'll always have strings," she stated before she walked away.

Betty stood in awe as Bruce turned to look at her, but he couldn't quite look her in the eyes. She moved towards him slowly and placed her hand carefully on his upper arm before she spoke, "Bruce, it's okay. I get it."

Gunshots came from down the hallway and both of them whipped their heads in that general direction. The silence ensued between them even as several more gunshots came, and Betty counted seven of them in total now.

The question left her lips before she could stop it, "They need her, so—so they won't shoot her, right?"

"Right..." and Betty really wished that Bruce sounded more certain of that right now.

"Betty, Banner."

Again both of them turned their heads towards the opposite side of the room, to the safety glass with the second entrance, and Betty was surprised to see her father there.

"Romanoff is a loose cannon, she's out of control," her father informed them.

"So we've heard," Bruce answered, "your partner already threatened to kill Betty to try and get me to get Natasha under control."

Betty watched her father's brow wrinkle at the comment and if she was honest, he looked quite a bit concerned about everything going on. "What do you want?" she dared to ask.

"I'm offering to get you both out of there, I'm offering to help you both before Romanoff finds her way here," he answered, "I'm trying to do the right thing because she's insane and she's already killed a dozen men in the last few minutes, probably more..."

Bruce only shook his head, "You're not trying to help me."

"I'm trying to keep my daughter alive!" her father hissed out, "Romanoff will kill her! She'll try to kill you and unleash The Hulk. Is that what you want? You want Betty trapped with two monsters?!"

Betty was about to comment with something unkind but she stopped, she stopped because Bruce chuckled, then slowly that chuckle grew until her former flame released a full on laugh that had him shaking at his shoulders. Now she was slightly concerned that maybe, just maybe, Bruce was losing his mind.

Even her father looked slightly unnerved by the laughter. "Wh—why the hell are you laughing?!" he growled out, "this is serious Banner!" And though Bruce's full bout of laughter did end, he was in fact still snickering. Ross looked a little more weary this time, "...why are you laughing?"

"Because you think she'll try to kill me," Bruce informed him with a bemused shake of his head. "You really have no idea just how smart Natasha is, even her programming is brilliant. She knows she can't and she won't even bother to try. She's definitely not stupid enough to try and go through me to get to Betty."

Betty could only shrug at her father as she crossed her arms over her chest, "I'm not going with you, dad. Natasha was right. You call her and Bruce the monsters but...have you stopped and looked in the mirror lately? You hunted her down for days, you almost killed her, and then you kidnapped her and tortured her... You're working with people who don't even consider her a human being, so—so no, no...I don't want to go anywhere with you. I don't even want to look at you."

"Betty—"

"No."

"Betty, listen to me," he tried again, "I only have one thing they want, one thing..." She narrowed her eyes slightly and he expanded on the comment, "If I lose that—if they have no reason to keep you alive, to keep me alive—"

Bruce asked the question before she could, "And whose fault would that be?"

"This is a mistake..."

Betty was getting used to hearing that and Bruce voiced that opinion too, "Funny, your lady friend just said almost the exact same thing five minutes ago."

"I'm trying to protect my daughter!"

"This is your mistake, dad, not mine or Bruce's," Betty informed him with a shake of her head, "because that woman wasn't lying, was she? You made him into what he is. You made Natasha what she is. Her life, that was supposed to be mine, wasn't it? Every terrible thing that happened to her, that's still happening to her; you're responsible! And you're protecting me, you did protect me...but dad, you did that at the cost of a child's life! That woman said she was four...too young to even remember what life was supposed to be like and that's your fault!"

A thud against the glass behind them stopped her yelling and had herself and Bruce turning around yet again. Betty released a small gasp, inadvertently bumping into Bruce when she jumped back. Natasha stood there looking like an extra from the prom scene in Carrie, one corner of her lip curled into the tiniest smirk, and a guard's bloodied face slowly slid down the glass and left a red smear as it did so. Natasha's smile contradicted the emptiness that resided within her eyes and now Betty understood what they were all talking about.

This wasn't the same woman who she saw before. This wasn't the woman who protected her. This was Red Room's weapon. The weapon that they hid within the woman and it had a mind of its own now.

Betty followed the body down, staring at the face of the guard that didn't even look like a face any longer.

And all it did was serve as a terrifying reminder that this, that what Natasha did, it could have been Betty herself.

Or maybe she would have been one of those twenty-seven dead girls. When she glanced back her father was already gone, though it wasn't him being gone that bothered her, but where he might be going.

Betty hadn't noticed that Bruce had edged his way to be somewhat between herself and Natasha, not until the redhead finally spoke, "Adorable. Are you two enjoying the nostalgia of your lost love being rekindled?"

She could actually see Bruce's shoulder's droop a little. He was clearly bothered by Natasha's words and Betty frowned, the defense immediately leaving her lips, "That's not what—"

"Don't bother," Bruce interrupted, "it's what she does when she can't kill you. She finds a different way to hurt you because she's not Natasha. She's a program inside of her head that only knows how to hurt and kill."

"And protect your pathetic ass," Natasha added on as she stepped up to the door and began prying the panel off the keypad, "but that's a brand new addition to my already dazzling personality."

Betty watched as Bruce's eyes narrowed while he tried to understand, and hell, while she tried to understand what Natasha meant.

But Bruce finally put words to his confusion, "What are you talking about?"

"I didn't know before because you weren't around," Natasha answered. Now Betty could understand the difference between Natasha and her programming. She could hear the difference between the two. Natasha's air of nonchalance was just a carefully placed facade, something she couldn't see behind earlier, and her programming's was true indifference. The program didn't care, not even a little bit.

"It would seem that not being able to kill Stark or Barton isn't the only alteration to me," Natasha answered as she snapped off the metal plate and threw it aside. And now Natasha looked pissed off as she shifted her eyes towards them, "Because all she was thinking about when she put me back in her head was you. Because the only thing she wanted me for was to protect you. So that's what I'm doing. I'm doing what I'm programmed to do. I'm getting you out so you can go home. Wherever you decide that is this time."

Betty felt her breath catch in her throat and she saw Bruce's eyes, the stunned look shaping them as that revelation hit him completely, and the way he stared at the redhead with his lips parted to show how speechless he was.

It was several seconds of silence with Betty watching the redhead rewire the keypad with no real care in the world about the blood covering her or the dead body at her feet.

And then Natasha stopped, just stopped and dropped the gun in her other hand, resting that hand on the glass as her breathing came out unevenly.

"Natasha?" Bruce's concern was immediate and Betty watched him step right up to the glass and press his hand against it where Natasha's was resting. "Natasha, what is it?" he asked her quickly.

Betty frowned and watched as the redhead shook her head, took a deep breath, then moved both of her hands to the keypad and went back to work.

"Nat, get out, just go," Bruce told her in an instant, "go!"

"I can't," she answered without looking at him.

"But—"

"Bruce, she's not saying she won't," Betty pointed out as she interrupted him, "I think that she means...she means she really can't."

"Your girlfriend is right," Natasha stated. Betty forgot to breathe for a moment when the redhead looked at her, directly at her, and her eyes just looked empty and dead. "I'm not a person, remember? That's what Stark said once, that's what you said once. In fact, it seems to be a general consensus. And you know what I feel?" she questioned, "anger. Nothing but anger."

And then Betty saw Bruce watching Natasha, studying her more intently. "But you're not—you're not just the program, not this time..." he mumbled out with his eyes a little wider, "holy crap...you're both."

Betty watched that intense gaze shift off of herself and move to Bruce now before the redhead responded, and this time the emotion was there, the hostility mixed within a lifetime of torment and agony that had Betty's heart clenching, "Madame B thinks she owns me. Nobody owns me. She took everything from me and I'm all she has left of everything she worked for. So now I'm returning the favor." Natasha took an unsteady breath, then she seemed to calm down, and she went back to working on the keypad. A few more shaky breaths and her face completely relaxed. Betty got it now, she understood what Bruce meant when Natasha's next words came out cool and calm, calculated and eerie, "I'm going to take everything that bitch has left and I'm going to tear it to pieces until there isn't a single thing left."

"Natasha...how did you do this? How did you—"

Betty saw the shaking of Natasha's fingertips, the way they were fumbling with the wires, then she noticed the sweat beading from her face.

"They deserve this."

Bruce looked uncertain for a moment before his eyes softened a little, "You're not fighting the programming. That's how you're both at the same time...you and the program. You aren't fighting."

Betty wasn't entirely sure she understood how that worked. The two seemed to have an understanding of one another that nobody else could ever have for each other though and that, Betty supposed, was what had drawn them together in the first place. Bruce might have had a monster that people could see but Natasha also had a monster inside her, one that nobody could see. They were entirely different from each other yet still the same.

"This is my fault, Natasha," Bruce tried next when the redhead was ignoring him. "I left," he added with a shake of his head, "I let you down."

It seemed to garner Natasha's attention at least because emerald colored eyes shifted to Bruce once more, eyes that looked remarkably tired, not at all like the ones from minutes ago. Natasha. Natasha and not the program. Yet Natasha's fingers continued to work as the emptiness returned to her eyes and she looked back to the panel.

Betty could see the moment Bruce's worry over the redhead seaped in because now it wasn't just her fingers shaking, her entire body was. "What did they do to you?" she dared to ask Natasha, "you don't look okay."

"There was a syringe, I don't know what was in it," came the answer.

"A syringe?" Betty questioned, "what kind? What did it look like, Natasha?"

The redhead looked mildly perturbed by the questions as Betty found herself being given a rather weary and frustrated glance. "Does that really seem important at the moment?" was the only reply Betty received and frustration was clearly giving way to the younger woman as her fingers continued shaking and her eyes narrowed.

She saw Bruce's eyes flicker to the side of the hall, to Natasha, then quickly move back to the hall.

"Natasha!"

Natasha dropped the wires and turned just in time and Betty watched as Nikolao Constantin came seemingly out of nowhere. Betty cringed as the man slammed Natasha against the wall between them and herself and Bruce. She could actually see the way Bruce immediately got tense, his eyes searching for some means of escape that wasn't there.

While Betty didn't like the man at all just from brief run-ins, Natasha and Bruce appeared to like him much less and that was something she could only hazard a guess at. Betty watched the other woman drive her knee into Niko's gut to get him off of her but either the blow was lacking enough drive or that man was made of steel because the redhead was yanked forward and then slammed against the wall dividing them again.

She released her own shaky breath in worry before the redhead tried a different tactic. She slammed her foot up between Niko's legs and that made him release her.

"Natasha, take him out and run," Bruce yelled to her and Betty watched as he hit the wall between them, "get out!"

Natasha glanced back at him and Betty watched the conflict in those green eyes. There was the smallest shake of her head and then she continued the fight, pulling out two metal batons and swinging them at Niko. It was almost like watching something out of some sort of action flick. He was using his arms, bare skin, to block the blows Natasha rained down on him. It was different now, putting the younger woman in brighter light, a better perspective of what she was now that Betty could see exactly what she was capable of.

Every attack was precise, every defense tactically thought out, every movement she made with grace and ease. This was what they made her? What Betty herself could have become? She couldn't even fathom it as a possibility. If this is what they made her, then what would that little girl have become without Red Room?

"Somethings wrong..." she heard Bruce mumble.

Betty glanced over at him and then back to Natasha's fight with Niko. "What do you mean? She's kicking his ass..." she mumbled.

"I know..." Bruce admitted, but she could see he still seemed uncertain, "but she shouldn't be. She's moving slower...she's shaking. They're evenly matched when she's at one hundred percent, I've seen it...and she's not right now."

Betty frowned slightly. This wasn't a hundred percent? "I don't understand..." she admitted.

"He's like a lion playing with his food," Bruce finally explained quietly. Betty shifted her gaze back to the fight between the two and then back to Bruce as he rubbed desparagingly at his eyes. "She should have run..." he mumbled.

Even as Betty watched more closely she couldn't find any fault or sluggishness in Natasha's movements. It was the sweat beading rippled lines across a blood spattered face that proved it more and more to be true though. Something was definitely wrong. Betty jumped and released the tiniest gasp of breath when Natasha was slammed into that glass barrier between them, clearly struggling now to push the weight of Niko off as he held her against it. This time she was facing them and Bruce had a look of utter helplessness on his face.

Betty watched the redhead meet his eyes for a moment and it didn't seem to be the cold and calcuting look of what Bruce called her programming, she looked almost apologetic, though Betty couldn't fathom exactly what for. Then she slammed her elbow back into Niko's gut and Betty was certain her own face looked just as surprised as Niko when Natasha slipped downward, slid between the man's legs and yanked them out from under him as she did so.

Betty jumped when Niko landed face first into the glass and even Bruce looked surprised by the manuever. The redhead didn't just stop and run like Betty imagined Bruce was hoping, and she supposed that was why Natasha had given the apologetic look before. The woman seemed keen to not leave without him and Betty imagined that almost anyone else would have made a run for it.

No, Natasha didn't run. Betty watched her grip the back of Niko's neck and slam him face first into the glass between them multiple times. Betty lost count before Natasha dropped him down to the ground and then the redhead nudged him with her foot a few times for good measure.

"Natasha, go now!"

Betty glanced over at Bruce and then back to Natasha, watching the woman blatantly ignore him as she moved back to the keypad and immediately went back to work on it and Bruce immediately moved as closed to her as possible.

"Please," Bruce tried again, "you need to leave before they come up with something else."

"No."

"Dammit, Nat!" Bruce growled out as he hit the glass.

Betty was stunned when cold and angry green eyes turned on Bruce.

"You don't tell me what to do," Natasha snapped at him, "you don't own me."

There it was again and Betty knew it just by Bruce's haggard expression. It was Natasha mixed in with her programming again if Betty had to hazzard a guess.

"This isn't you, Natasha," Bruce tried again, but the redhead seemed keen on ignoring him as she worked. "It's not your programming either, Natasha, you need to get it out of your head," he told her, "you're losing control completely."

"I'm completely in control."

Bruce shook his head, "No you're not. You're level-headed, nearly impossible to anger, funny in a really...well, cynical sort of way." That made Betty smile a little. "But you're programming is cold, calculating and homicidal...and then she ups the ante with a severe arsenal of spiteful words," Bruce informed the redhead next. "But neither of you are in control and you're melding together Nat, it's changing you," he tried to tell her, "because neither of you would have snapped the way you just did. You can't look at me and tell me you're not losing yourself...because I know a little bit about that."

"Shut up."

"Don't lose yourself to this Natasha," Bruce told her, "don't become something that you can't come back from."

"Shut up," Natasha told him again.

"I don't need your programming, I don't need you to be anyone but you Nat, because you—not your programming, and not this combination of you both, but you are the one who can open that door," Bruce assured her, "so if you aren't going to leave, then I need you, the real you." Betty was stunned because the younger woman looked about ready to tell him to shut up again when Bruce suddenly hit the glass hard enough that Natasha looked up a little shell-shocked. Betty knew why when she saw the green in Bruce's eyes and he growled it out one more time, "Natasha, I need you!"

Betty watched the different expressions crossing the redheads face and she couldn't entirely be sure what Bruce's attempts might get them but Natasha's fingers were shaking on the panel again and the sweat was beading down her face in streams as she stared Bruce in the eye.

But without any of them noticing, something long, sleek and black came from the opposite side of Natasha and hit the redhead upside the head. Betty released a gasp at the sickening crack it made just before Natasha crumpled to the floor. Stasia stood there with stone-faced with that metal baton in hand.

"Thanks for being so distracting to her," Stasia told him before the smallest smile played on the older woman's lips.

Betty had never before seen the anger on Bruce's face that she saw now and it caused her to take quite a few steps back just on instinct. He looked ready to lose his mind.

"I swear when I get out of here I'm going to kill you..." she heard Bruce growl out in a low voice.

The more worrisome part was that as Stasia had more guards take Natasha away, Betty didn't doubt his threat, not even for a minute and he didn't leave it at that even when she was walking away.

"It won't be The Hulk, it won't be Natasha!" he yelled after her, "I'm going to kill you!"

So the Betty PoV was interesting to write. Hope you guys enjoyed it as well, whoever might have actually returned to read after that rather long hiatus lol. We're going to go back to our usual perspectives in the next chapter but if you want another Betty one in the near future, feel free to say so.

Also, be sure check out Black Victor Cachat's new community for Bruce/Natasha :) sure to be updated with new stories as they're found or written!

Think Bruce is right? Have both Natasha and her programming melded into something that neither one can completely control? Hmm.