Disclaimer: Avengers and Hunger Games belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story

Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.

A Man Like No Other

When Natasha came into his office, Steve supposed that he should have expected it; Snow might be arrogant, but he had to be aware that the Victors would have been the Avengers' first priority, and the President had already known that Natasha was one of the Avengers that had been brought into the future.

Not mentioning it at the time had been a calculated gamble based on the fact that he hadn't been able to create a good opportunity to talk to Natasha on her own before the mission; it was a risk, but it had been a calculated one based on prioritising what was likely to be an issue.

The fact that her expression made it clear that it had become an issue was worrying, but this was no time to criticise himself over things he couldn't control…

"Natasha," he said, looking back at her with a casual smile. "How are you doing?"

"When were you going to tell me about my relationship with Bruce?" the assassin asked, ignoring the question.

"Before you had to face Snow in battle," Steve replied, looking back at her as he accepted her evident desire to address this issue. "I wanted to keep you focused on the task at hand, and bringing it up when you arrived here wasn't practical for several reasons-"

"Including the fact that he was there?" Natasha interrupted. "I could understand you not bringing it up when we were both there, but surely you could have told me after he was captured-"

"At which point we had to focus on the immediate priority of preparing for our next major assault and getting the Victors to safety," Steve interjected. "You knowing about your future relationship with Bruce could have been a crucial distraction; I needed to keep you focused on the task at hand."

"Ah," Natasha said, staring at Steve for a moment before she offered the closest thing to an apology she'd ever give him. "I'm starting to realise why Stark found it annoying when he learned who I was."

"Always a shock when it's on the other foot, isn't it?" Steve said, smiling slightly at her before his expression became more solemn. "Besides, considering the finer details of the relationship, I thought it wouldn't be a good idea to bring it up when Bruce was already dealing with so much…"

"Us being together would have been that much of a shock?" Natasha asked.

"Considering that it started after Betty Ross was murdered, I thought it best to be on the safe side" Steve clarified.

"His ex?" Natasha said, taking only a moment to recognise the name; she'd naturally done her research on Bruce before going to meet him, but Doctor Ross hadn't been really been part of his life since Harlem, and she'd had no reason to think about the woman since that last refresher course, considering the effort Bruce had put into staying away from her. "How did it happen?"

"Blonsky broke out and killed her before we could intercept him; his way of getting revenge on Bruce and General Ross for turning him into the Abomination and then locking him up," Steve explained, his expression grim at the memory. "When Bruce saw what Blonsky had done to her… well, once we finally managed to track Blonsky down and subdue him, if you hadn't stepped in between the Hulk and Blonsky at the right moment, it would probably have made even the Maestro's later actions look tame."

"I put myself between them?" Natasha repeated, staring at him in surprise, her usual self-control forgotten in the face of this unexpected revelation.

"You yelled at him to think about what Betty would have wanted… and he stopped," Steve said, smiling slightly at her, clearly enjoying the memory of the good times he'd had with his team before things went wrong. "Don't get me wrong, you didn't calm him down immediately, but the fact that the Hulk actually stopped trying to attack when he saw that you were in danger and brought up Betty… well, it had a powerful effect on him."

"And we started… dating… after that?" Natasha asked (The term 'dating' felt strange when she thought about it with her as one of the parties involved, but she couldn't think of a more appropriate phrase to use).

"Not immediately, of course- Bruce needed some time to grieve and you needed some time to learn how to let him in- but as time went on, you each came to recognise that the other offered what you needed," Steve explained.

"What we needed?" Natasha repeated, confused but intrigued despite herself; it was hard to imagine she and Bruce having enough in common to build an actual relationship on, even if she appreciated him as a friend. "What do you mean?"

"I'll be the first to admit that your dynamic was complicated- and I was so emotionally closed-off I'm probably a bad person to turn to if you want clarification on anything- but I think one of the reasons you worked for so long was that you not only refused to see Bruce as a monster, but challenged the feral Hulk to the point that he kind of saw you as an equal even at his most ferocious; he would assert his dominance, but you never just let him metaphorically walk all over you," Steve explained. "I can't exactly say that it was perfect, of course- I think you can guess that you or Bruce would have trouble maintaining a relationship with anyone, let alone being with each other after putting all your baggage in one place- but with your refusal to fear him, and his ability to understand your dark past without needing to make you talk about it…"

He shrugged. "You made it work because you didn't pressure each other to do it; what more can I say?"

"Not much more without breaking your rules about giving us too much future knowledge, I'm assuming?" Natasha asked, looking at him with a brief smile before she gave him a more focused stare; as fascinating as it was to hear about her actually finding someone in the future, she didn't need her natural cynicism to know that it had to have ended badly. "So, what went wrong?"

"He sustained a particularly serious blow during a mission to dispose of… well, an enemy stronghold," Steve explained, the memory of this conversation clearly a difficult one. "It didn't even particularly hurt him- you know better than most how much it would take to inflict any kind of injury on the Hulk- but a bomb basically exploded in his face and a large chunk of shrapnel was lodged in his head; as far as we could tell later, the shrapnel was left lodged in his brain even after he healed from most of the damage, preventing him from turning back into Bruce and leaving us unable to safely extract it. He tried to maintain control at first, but with the shrapnel pressing down on the part of his brain responsible for emotion, his control over the Hulk became increasing limited, until… well, he lost patience when you were trying to calm him down and he hit you directly in the chest."

"Oh," Natasha said, lost for anything else to say as she tried not to imagine what she must have looked like after sustaining a blow like that.

She knew that it would be foolish to blame Bruce for what the Hulk had done- however she looked at it, the Hulk and Bruce were not the exact same person, and their relationship still had a complicated dynamic to it even now- but to hear that he'd been responsible for her death…

It didn't completely excuse Snow's actions, but she could suddenly understand why control was so important to him; if he'd done something like that the last time he'd seriously lost control, ensuring that he would never lose it was probably a natural reaction (She wasn't even going to think about how hard it must have been to get Bruce 'trained' to the point where they could do anything more than make out without risking him Hulking out mid-coitus; she doubted that Steve would know and it would be tasteless to ask at best).

"It didn't kill you immediately, but you remained in a coma for the next few months until you passed away without regaining consciousness, and your suffered a miscarriage immediately after the attack; we hadn't even known you were pregnant until you lost the baby," Steve continued, ending Natasha's moment of reflection as she focused on him once again. "We were able to extract the shrapnel from the Hulk when he realised what he'd done to you- he pretty much forced himself to stay calm until Thor and Tony could get at his brain and tear that fragment out of his head- but Bruce pretty much lost a part of himself when he realised that he'd killed your child, and when you died…"

He sighed. "To his credit, I don't believe that Bruce knew what was coming next, but when our next major battle occurred, he waited until we were worn out dealing with Ul- the latest threat- and then… well, you've seen what he did to me, and Clint didn't fare much better; Tony only survived because he was able to get away while Hulk was focusing on Thor."

"And that was when Thor was taken back to Asgard?" Natasha asked, remembering the story Steve had told them when they arrived here.

"Precisely," Steve said. "There were other factors that turned him against the world, of course, but what happened to you was the moment that turned him against us; once we weren't a threat to him any more, he went into isolation for a few years to let things escalate before stepping in to take control for himself."

"I see," Natasha said, already thinking about how best to respond to this news-

"Don't avoid a relationship with him."

"Excuse me?" Natasha said, unable to believe what she'd just heard. "After what-?"

"Give him more time to re-affirm his control over the Hulk, then think about starting something," Steve clarified. "He admitted after her death that things between him and Betty had been over for a while before she died, but he just couldn't bring himself to move on; the two of you had your problems, but in the end, regardless of what happened in the end, I never saw either of you happier than when you were together."

"Oh," Natasha said, lost for anything she could realistically say to that revelation.

She'd always thought that love was for children, but to hear that she'd actually been that happy in a relationship…

"Even with the consequences?" she asked at last. "Losing me pushed him that far once-"

"Losing you was one of a series of factors that pushed him that far; it wasn't the only one," Steve said firmly. "A person's life is made up of good things and bad things; I have faith that you can avoid the bad, but I won't let you try and accomplish that by trying to avoid the best thing that ever happened to both of you in all the time I knew you."

There was nothing that Natasha could say to a statement like that, so she simply stared in silence for a moment before she spoke again.

"That's why you brought me here, isn't it?" she said, looking pointedly at the man once known as Captain America. "You needed Clint to train Katniss, Bruce to fight Snow, and Stark to upgrade the weapons, but I'm mainly here because of my connection to him, right?"

"Your stealth skills were also an asset I thought we could use, but you're essentially correct," Steve said, nodding at her in acknowledgement; he clearly knew that she was avoiding the original topic, but he also knew that he shouldn't push his luck. "It's the same reason I gave for why I wanted to bring Bruce here in the first place; I want to make Snow see just how far he's fallen, and the fact that you hate what he's become is one of the best ways to accomplish that."

"You've changed," Natasha said after a brief silence, looking at Steve in an appraising manner; she wasn't going to judge him after everything she'd done, but there was still something strange about seeing Steve Rogers, the ultimate old-fashioned boy scout, capable of making calls like this. "You'd never be capable of this kind of manipulation back in our time."

"One of the many reasons I decided not to bring my younger self here," Steve said with a grim smile. "He's having enough trouble just trying to adapt to the way the world's changed back in your time; do you really think he's in any kind of shape to see how he'll change in the future?"

"Good point," Natasha said, smiling slightly at the memory.

The Steve Rogers of her time might be somewhat naïve in terms of how things worked back home on many levels, but his fundamental nobility was one of the reasons they had all respected him as their leader during the Chitauri assault on New York; whatever you said about the other Avengers, all Steve Rogers wanted to do was to protect people and do the right thing. His presence during this crisis might have been appreciated due to his strengths as a fighter and a tactician, but she doubted that he'd be as comfortable working with the man before them as any of the other Avengers would be; they could see their friend and ally in him, but Steve would probably only be able to focus on the differences…

"Talking of which," Steve added, looking at Natasha with a thoughtful smile, "when you get back… Get yourself assigned to him."

"Him?" Natasha said, looking probingly at Steve for a moment before she realised who he was referring to. "You mean… you want me to work with you back home? We don't exactly take the same missions-"

"Without giving too much away, let's just say that I… found myself facing a situation where I needed back-up," Steve said. "I made a few interesting allies at the time, but someone with your insight could have made it easier; stick with him, and he may have a better chance at pulling through."

Natasha thought about asking for more information, but it didn't take long for her to dismiss that thought; Steve had already made it clear that he was only going to share what items of historical information they had to know, and if he wasn't going to tell her more now, she doubted that she'd manage to get it out of him.

"We'd better get going, anyway," Steve said as he stood up. "From what I've seen Bruce recover from in the past, his injury should have recovered enough by this point for him to survive the transformation into the Hulk, but we should probably make our move soon before Snow has him moved somewhere else."

"Agreed," Natasha said, inwardly grateful at Steve's obvious decision to move on to a less awkward topic of discussion than her past/future relationship with Bruce.

Steve had given her a great deal to consider, but they had a mission to handle right now; she'd think about everything he'd brought up when she and the other Avengers had gone back to their own time and she didn't have to worry about saving the world from a corrupted version of a man she considered a friend.

Always assuming that they could stop what the Hulk had become, of course; the more she heard about President Snow, the more she felt an ever-growing tinge of fear about their chances…