Okay so the general consensus is that you all want to murder me. Lmfao. At least I didn't make you wait very long, right? I'm not that cruel.

Chapter 13:

"I was down, I was out and I had lost it all
I was scared, I was torn and I took to the night
I'd given in to the fight as I slipped further down
and I felt like I had drowned..."

"How much further? We should have been there by now," Tony questioned aloud, "plus I think Spangles here ate one too many of those All-American apple pies."

"Yeah because somehow this is any more comfortable for me, Stark," Tony heard Steve mumble the words under his breath and he smirked behind his helmet as he had his arms hooked under Steve's arms and flew the man to their destination.

"If they're fighting they could be in a completely different place then where we last saw," Sam piped up.

Before any of the rest of them could comment, Friday came through all of their headsets, "Boss, the satellite has sent more thermal imaging and has them just ten minutes East of your current location. It also appears that one of the Hulks has de-Hulked."

"Good thing we all know that the original is always the best," Tony offered up with a uneasy chuckle.

Wanda's words ruined his efforts of nonchalance, "I don't think that this is a good thing..."

He turned his head to where Vision was carrying the witch and he was almost afraid to ask, "...why not?"

"It's Natasha, I can feel her..." Wanda answered, "we need to go faster!"

Tony swore his heart just dropped to his stomach at her words as they all swerved to go East.

Every single second ticked by in her head like a clock directly next to her ear. Every beat of her heart made her feel like she was being hollowed out and bled dry. Yet having the gun to her head and holding her own life in her hands for the first time felt almost like a reprieve from having been caged for so long, almost like a breath of fresh air in the smog that had been filtered through her mind, the pollution that she was forced to believe to be her life.

It tasted a lot like freedom.

But her life was her only bargaining chip now so she continued the stare down with Niko's monstrosity for only a moment longer before she spoke, "I'm what you're after."

Natasha could see him sneer at her as he squeezed the scientist tighter between his hands and she was afraid Bruce might just break in half if it kept up for much longer.

"She needs me," she reminded him.

Niko didn't particularly seem to care what Stasia wanted or needed, at least not this half of him, though on some level she imagined that Niko himself also didn't.

She needed a new tactic and she realized with her words, I'm what you're after, that her life wasn't the bargaining chip; not the part of it where she lived or died at least. She only had the one weapon in her arsenal that she always had.

A weapon she had used so many times in the past.

"You remember when we were kids, Nikolao?" she questioned softly through the rain. His eyes narrowed again but he didn't move and he didn't snap Bruce like a twig so she assumed he was listening to her. "There was a time you used to love me..." she stated cautiously, "before she took it from you."

That got his attention.

Niko's beast threw Bruce aside far too roughly for her liking and he came stalking towards her. Her original thought in that moment was that Stasia hadn't been wrong, that maybe the serum was the connection between herself and Bruce, and that it was now also about to work between herself and Niko. It was believable enough that she removed her finger from the trigger as he came towards her.

With Bruce she needed to seem nonthreatening and it stood to reason that Niko would need to see her in the same light. She dreaded giving up the one thing that made her feel in control in this moment but Bruce's life was worth it. She tucked the gun back into the holster as he came towards her.

"There was a time I believed you would never hurt me," Natasha reminded him of the conversation they had when they were children before he had broken the news to her that 'he would hurt her, that she would hurt him', and that 'it was what they did'.

It was who they were. It was who they were made to be. Intricately designed to inflict pain and suffering to everyone they came across both physically and emotionally.

But it didn't change the fact that he did love her...right up until Stasia and Red Room killed every single thing about him that was human.

And she had never understood then just what he felt for her, not that she was sure that she could have felt the same for him even back at the young age. She had never been taught how, never had a role model to look to as an example of what it should be like, not until she saw Clint and Laura.

And until Bruce she had never understood just what those feelings could make a person do. He had given up his freedom just to save her life and freedom was something he valued more than anything. It was something she valued too but she found herself willing to do the exact same thing for Bruce in this very moment.

Maybe that was love.

Natasha would be damned if she knew for certain but she did remember hers and Niko's words to each other in Samara a year ago when Niko and Strucker strapped her to that chair and tried to rip away who she had become.

"And what do you get out of this, Nikolao? Because either way this happens you must get something. So what is it? Money? Freedom?"

"You."

Even when he had put her in that chair, when Strucker was about to pull away her memories, Niko had looked almost regretful that he was doing it when she had tried to convince him not to.

Even if she had been right when she told Tony that the man who loved her had died, because she knew that Red Room had killed any part of that Nikolao that was human, there was still a part of him that desired her. That had always desired her.

That was the card she needed to play now.

It was the only card she had left to play even if it left a bitter aftertaste in her mouth.

After all...

This was what she was made for.

A giant hand pushed against her and she lost her ability to breathe when her back hit the tree behind her and his hand remained to keep her trapped against it.

But at least she had his undivided attention.

Natasha forced herself to remember how to breathe before she spoke. "I'm what you wanted this whole time, right?" she asked him softly, "this was never about doing what Madame B wanted...this was about what you wanted."

He snarled as his face came closer to hers and she could tell it was his way of studying her further. He couldn't seem to decide if she was a threat or not and quite frankly she couldn't blame him. Niko knew her. He had always known her.

"I kept waiting for you to tell me," she had almost forgotten just how easy it was to lie to people who held no real significance to her. She had gotten for too used to not having to lie to the point where she typically didn't bother to do it any longer. Sure, she neglected to inform people of certain things but she didn't straight out lie about them anymore. She had tried to lie to Bruce in India before they were attacked, tried to make him believe that she hated him rather than tell him she was dying but she just couldn't make it last. With Niko the lies flowed out smoothly, "I kept waiting...but you never did."

Those fingers squeezed just slightly but only for a moment, is if in warning not to test him, and then they loosened again. She was still trapped but he was listening. It was too bad that she wasn't sure just how much more pressure her ribs could possibly take before one really snapped. Everything hurt.

"I can be yours," she offered up, ignoring the foul taste it left in her mouth as she did so, "but you never needed Madame B to get me, Nikolao, you just needed to tell me..."

For a moment she saw his head swivel to look at Bruce before he looked back at her, angry and clearly not quite believing of what she said as he sneered. It was harder and harder to squelch the fear building up inside that he wouldn't believe her lies. Finally she came to the conclusion that she really would go with him...but only under a few circumstances.

"I can be yours," she repeated truthfully, "but only if you don't kill him—only if you won't take me to her."

Malice filled eyes stared at her before glancing back to Bruce's form again, then back to her, and again she felt her body squeezed.

"Just you and I..." Natasha promised him.

His breath was hot on her face as he breathed deeply and she didn't dare look away. Finally he did the last thing she expected and he released his hold on her, grayish-green facial features twisting in some strange combination of anger and fascination before he snarled one word out, "Mine."

"Yours..." she repeated.

Natasha felt her back hit the tree when she instinctively moved herself back the instant a blur of green rammed full force into Niko in front of her and sent the beast sailing aside. She sucked in a disbelieving breath and released it when she realized that it was Bruce.

Sort of.

It wasn't quite Bruce but it wasn't quite The Hulk either. His skin was tinged green, his body was in the somewhat larger stages, yet it was as though he didn't have it in him to fully Hulk out.

But he must have awakened to hear her conversation with Niko and that tore at her in ways she hadn't expected.

"Bruce!" she called his name quickly when he all but collapsed again and she grabbed hold of him as he paled. She went down with him in an instant, mud splattering around them.

Niko was understandably mad when he stalked towards them howling out in rage and she grasped the barely aware Bruce more tightly to her. He was trying to protect her and she knew that, trying not to let her do something that she would have to live with for the rest of her life, but she could live with it; she could do that for him. She had to force herself to stop from screaming out when Niko yanked Bruce from her clutches.

He looked like he might tear the scientist limb from limb and she had to scramble to her feet as fast as possible. "No!" her voice came out with a certain level of desperation that she never knew she could feel and it was almost strangled as she got the next words out, "If you kill him I—I will never be yours..."

Again he threw Bruce down and her heart was racing a million beats a minute.

Bruce's body couldn't take anymore and yet he got up again looking ragged and weary, like he might just fall apart and she tried her damnedest to make him stop, just stop and give up. "Bruce, Bruce no!" she could feel her voice break as she tried to move to get between them but Niko merely shoved her back into the mud before he swatted the scientist like a bug.

Natasha tried to run to where Bruce landed again but Niko turned and grabbed hold of her throwing her aside like a rag doll. She had thought everything hurt before but now—now pain radiated through every fiber of her being; it practically reverberated in her chest like violent drum beats and she choked on the very air she was breathing as she tried to crawl to her feet. This time the strangled cry came from her own lips as he reached for Bruce to start the onslaught again, "No!"

It stopped Niko in his tracks and he turned to her instantaneously. Given the enraged look in his eyes, something told her he no longer believed any of the things that she said and then he proved it. He stalked towards her again and plucked her right off the ground. She was face to face with him again when his words came out seething, "Never mine!"

He wasn't wrong, she knew that the moment Bruce had kept getting up—only this time he wasn't, this time she could see him unmoving, not so much as a twitch; she wasn't even sure if his chest was rising and falling and that was when she fully comprehended that Niko was right. She could pretend to be his for as long as she had to but she could never really be his, something that both of them understood in this moment.

Her only card to play, the only thing she had keeping all three of them alive...

It was gone in an instant.

He dropped her on the ground with no warning and reeled his hand back, a moment she recognized as being equal to that moment on the Helicarrier with the Hulk. Despite the rain her mouth was completely dry from the panic she felt. There was nowhere to go when she pushed backward through the mud and a tree impeded her rather pathetic attempt at escape.

That arm swung forward and she raised her hands as though not seeing it might somehow stop it from happening. Her heart raced faster and faster, yet before she could comprehend what happened, Natasha heard something metal impact his chest while feet sloshed into the mud nearby.

The air was sucked out of her lungs in an instant but she would recognize that red and gold armor anywhere as she was snatched from where she stood by Tony Stark himself, clad in his Iron Man armor, while Steve and his shield distracted Niko. The shock on her face must have been apparent because as he landed a decent distance away while carrying her in those metal arms, the face mask released and showed his real face. "Did you miss me?" was Tony's immediate question.

Natasha would be damned but she did and she could have kissed the man in that moment. She couldn't even get a word out as she turned to look and she watched as Wanda used her powers to levitate down before she swung the largest red beam of energy at Niko that sent him careening through the jungle. Even as Niko skidded himself to a stop, remaining on his feet, he was thoroughly distracted by Sam flying circles around him only to end up getting knocked over by Steve's shield and Steve right behind it with one hell of a punch.

"They made a Hulk?" Tony asked her as she found herself back on wobbly feet. At her nod his frown made an immediate appearance as he got his arm back around her to keep her steady, "Where's our Hulk?"

The truth was that she was too afraid to look.

"Natasha?" came her name again. Metal fingers clamped down on her shoulders and she looked back at Tony again as he spoke, "Where's Bruce?"

Her mouth opened, closed, the repeated the same motions before she finally just looked in the direction that she had seen Bruce. Now that she was staring at the motionless body of the scientist she couldn't drag her eyes away, she couldn't force a word from her mouth, and she couldn't quite remember how to force her legs to move. She knew Tony had followed her eyes with his own when his hands dropped off her shoulders in an instant.

"Stark, a little help would be nice."

"Go check on him," she heard Tony order her next, "and we'll take care of that—that thing." She was still staring in silence when Tony broke her from it with his hands on her shoulders and a rather rough shake, "Natasha, snap out of it."

That was the moment she realized she had yet to speak a single word to him since he snatched her from the brink of death and she turned back to look at him.

He looked more concerned than he did annoyed with her lack of response to him and his words proved the thought to be valid, "I don't know what happened to you...but I'm just asking you to pull it together for a little bit longer, Nat."

What happened to her?

What happened was that she thought she may have finally snapped when she put that gun to her own head, that she had sincerely considered putting a bullet in her brain and that she still wished that she had, that she had offered herself up to a real monster because the thought that Bruce might die was too much to bare. What happened was that the woman who did all of this, who took everything from her and somehow still continued to take everything, was her own mother.

She took a breath, tried to swallow it all and shove it into that box she always kept in the back of her mind, but the truth was that she couldn't do it anymore. Nonetheless she agreed without telling Tony that, her voice coming out almost monotonous, "Okay."

"Okay..." and she was pretty sure he didn't believe her any more than she believed herself.

Her feet moved themselves in Bruce's direction and she only paused when she stopped to drag Betty's arm around her neck. She lifted her as best she could as she half-walked Betty and half-dragged her along in her wavering path to Bruce.

And she only paused when she heard the conversation being yelled.

"Where's Veronica?!" her brain told her that was Steve's voice carrying through the wind and rain, "and where's Rhodey?!"

Natasha cringed as Tony was grabbed by Niko and repeatedly slammed into the ground...

But no giant suit of armor ever appeared.

It was a lot like watching failure after failure because this might be a crazed beast much like when The Hulk fought, but while Bruce himself was all science, Niko was a killer; trained to fight and murder for just as long as herself.

Tony was sent soaring into Vision who had been about to attack and both tinmen went dragging through the mud together. Only a moment later Sam met the exact same fate as he was thrown into Steve and suddenly the only line of defense in that exact moment was Wanda, though Niko seemed to care less about that because Natasha saw him coming running for herself and Betty. He was running full force without care when both Tony and Vision tried to hit him with repulsors to try and stray him from his target.

It was another moment where she felt her heart begin to race and just when she thought he was going to achieve his goal of smashing her to the high heavens, Wanda was standing in front of her.

The large wave of red energy the young girl manipulated with her hands looked like it took far more energy than anything that Wanda had ever done before. The red wave completely enveloped Niko entirely, lifting him from the ground and setting him off kilter as the beast snarled, clawed and roared in hatred and loathing. She saw Wanda look back at her and she could see it in the young girl's eyes.

Wanda knew.

She knew everything that Natasha had been feeling and Natasha wondered for just how long she had felt it, from how far away and at what point had Wanda known and felt all that she herself felt? Did it include her confused thoughts about whether or not what she felt for Bruce was considered love? Or did Wanda only notice the fear and pain?

If she was honest with herself, she almost hoped Wanda knew it all so that maybe someone could tell her what it was she was feeling.

Natasha grimaced when she realized Wanda wouldn't be able to contain the beast for very long, especially not if the weary and exhausted look on her face was any indication. Nothing that Steve, Tony, Sam or Vision threw at him seemed to have any affect other than to make him more and more angry; and they were all hitting him now.

The only thought racing through her mind at that exact moment in time was that she would be the reason now that not only Bruce was dead, and Betty was dead...but the reason that the entire Avenger's initiative died.

"Don't do that."

Natasha locked eyes with Wanda in an instant and saw the younger girl looking back at her, all while holding the energy around Niko to keep him contained.

"Whatever happens, this is not your fault," Wanda told her in one of the most reassuring voices she had ever heard, "and this—this is not where you die—where we die."

Natasha almost believed her. Almost.

She heard Tony the second his disbelieving comment came out, "What the hell? Is that Veronica?"

"Tony, we really gotta work on that satellite's retrofitting for this suit because I do not know how to use this thing!" came Rhodey's obviously unhappy voice.

She stared in shock as the giant suit of armor not so gallantly flew into Niko and both of them went rolling through the mud.

"It's like the suit you're already wearing but—you know—bigger. Jeez Rhodey, make him go to sleep! He's gotta be close to being out of juice!"

Given the way the Veronica suit was taking punches to the helmet over and over she didn't blame Rhodey's next comment given that he was the one who accidentally wound up wearing it, "Somebody forgot to tell him that!"

Natasha let her eyes drift back to Bruce who still hadn't moved since Niko last got a hold of him. All she wanted to do was collapse and give up but she finally willed her feet to move again, surprised to see that Wanda moved with them, almost as though she were acting like a barrier should Niko get free and try again. It seemed Wanda believed the others had it well in hand because the young girl grasped Betty's other arm and pulled it over her shoulder. It was a relief to her pained ribs as some of the weight was removed by Wanda's aid.

Wanda helped her rest Betty down a good distance away from the ensuing fight as Steve, Sam and Tony would occasionally distract Niko so that Rhodey could get the advantage inside the Veronica suit. Bruce was only a few steps away now and she dreaded each and every single one.

The next sound was almost like a horror-filled nightmare of growling and Natasha looked up in an instant just as she had gotten to her knees and pulled Bruce to her.

It was Niko's beast as he swung Rhodey around, and around, and around, before that giant suit of armor slammed into all the other Avengers like bowling pins.

He turned in their direction again and Natasha tightened her hold on Bruce with one arm as she used her other hand to remove the gun from the holster, not that it was of any use against him. She narrowed her eyes slightly when she noticed the smallest of sparks come from the eye she had shot earlier. It was almost imperceptible.

She recognized that technology.

Natasha felt her mouth open just slightly and her voice came out raw, something foreign almost to her own ears, "Wanda."

The young girl was already partially in front of herself and Bruce, trying to throw energy balls at Niko to delay him, when she turned and looked back at her.

"His eye. Hit his injured eye."

Wanda's eyes narrowed before she turned to look back at him, then she seemed to understand where Natasha wanted her to aim. Natasha fired bullets as Wanda threw tiny and precise pellets of energy, the type of precision that Natasha had been teaching her before everything went to hell and back.

Sometimes bigger wasn't always better and finesse over brute force was occasionally the better tactic.

Natasha was certain that the bullets and Wanda's energy shots were hitting the target but her plan wasn't working and she had a feeling that her initial shot had short wired the device in his eye that she was trying to activate now.

He was running towards them, screaming in absolute anguish and rage, and Natasha laid Bruce back down as gently and quickly as she could. She finally stuffed it all inside, as far back as she possibly could, and focused solely on a plan. "Wanda...can you hold him?" she asked.

Wanda looked uncertain and tired but she held her hands out and enveloped the beast in red waves again.

Except he was fighting through it and she was eternally grateful when Rhodey came up in Veronica from the side and grabbed hold of Niko with both hands to plant him down in place.

"Whatever you're going to do, Natasha...now is the time," Wanda told her.

Natasha took a deep breath before she ran forward and leaped up to grip a hold of the knives still embedded in his back. Clambering up his back and onto Niko's shoulder painfully reminded her that something may very well be broken and she bit back the pain and the urge to throw up.

What she saw had better not have been a hallucination because she couldn't take anything else going wrong or she might very well lose her mind completely.

There was a moment where he looked at her and she knew that he knew. She had to remind herself that he wasn't that young boy who taught her how to survive, that if she didn't do this then she really would be the reason that they all died because he would never stop. She yanked the knife out of his back, placed her hand on that enlarged face and said the one thing she never thought that she would say, "I'm sorry."

She drove the knife into the already injured eye and he screamed out in agony and rage. She had to dig for what she was looking for, so much so that Wanda and Rhodey had such a difficult time holding him still that Natasha almost fell off of him.

It was only when each and every one of the other Avengers took hold of him that he was steady enough and she finally found it. She drove the knife straight into the trigger and the effect was instantaneous.

The eye was HYDRA design, a camera but also an internal bomb.

And it exploded in his head immediately.

The second it happened he shrunk down and each Avenger fell backwards and Natasha herself fell onto her back as he became his human counterpart once more.

One very dead Nikolao Constantin laid in the midst of them all and Natasha sat up and took a few unsteady breaths.

"Holy shit..." Tony was the first to mutter any words.

She couldn't focus on the victory because her mind instantly went back to Bruce. She moved back to him without the hesitation she had earlier, staring down at him and his paler than usual pallor. He was white as a ghost and she couldn't find the rise and fall of his chest with her eyes. For a moment she covered her mouth with her hand before she willed herself to touch her fingers to his neck.

"Bruce..." his name came out as a whisper when she felt no pulse from his neck and again everything went eerily silent around her.

Natasha's entire mouth went dry when he didn't move or respond and her breath was caught up in her throat. It was like all the pressure of everything she had ever buried suddenly steamed up to the top and something inside her shattered.

"Bruce," she tried again, her voice breaking in ways she never knew was possible for her.

This wasn't possible. Bruce and The Hulk were unkillable. They were supposed to stronger than any of the rest of them.

For the first time she knew what hyperventilating felt like because she was positive she was doing it as her vision blurred and that was even more foreign. It wasn't like that one single tear that escaped when he said he loved her and then left her in the rock formation. It was like the dam cracked as several marked their way down her face and she had no idea how to make it stop.

"Natasha—"

"No...no, no, no..." she murmured the words out as her hands shook, ignoring Tony's call of her name. "You can't do this—you can't..." she mumbled out, "you can't leave me..."

"Nat—" A hand clasped down on her shoulder and she turned, pushing Steve away from her in an instant. The look she gave him made him take a few steps back on his own and she wasn't sure if it was the emotion clearly displayed on her face or if she had actually given him a dirty and threatening look. No matter which it was, he looked almost horrified by whatever was on her facial expression as she looked at him.

She looked back down at Bruce and suddenly she didn't know if she was sad or angry. She couldn't focus on how she was supposed to feel because she didn't know how she was supposed to feel.

The anger stuck out most.

"Wake up..." Natasha tried again, shaking Bruce's shoulders to no avail. "Wake up," and she knew desperation when she heard it but she couldn't seem to make herself stop when she hit his chest with her fist, "dammit, Bruce! Get up!" She knew she had lost it completely when she hit him again and again and again, "come back...come back!"

"Natasha, Natasha stop!" it was Tony again and she fought tooth and nail when his arms hooked under hers, arms encased in metal armor.

He was pulling her away and while in some ways she wanted to shoot him, in other ways she was grateful, but her mind just couldn't comprehend the difference in those opinions. "Let go! Let go of me!" she growled out but Steve had gotten a hold of her too and she couldn't get free from the both of them. "No, no, no! It's not fair! It's not fair!" she cried out, "I didn't know...I didn't know and I didn't tell him!"

"Nat..." Tony's voice was soft—too soft—it was a tone that broke her completely and she went down to the ground in an instant with him following, metal arms still awkwardly encased around her.

"I—I—I..." and never in her life had she ever felt or lost control the way she had in this moment. He had her head resting against his shoulder with one hand around her and the other around the back of her head and she couldn't remember how to breathe. "I—I didn't tell him..." she mumbled it out again, "I didn't understand..."

He was quiet but he didn't let go for a moment and it only pushed her further in ruins.

"I love him and—" it came out so quiet she wasn't sure if he even heard and then the tears fell again, "—and I didn't—I didn't understand it..."

It felt like ages of silence ensued before she knew why Tony wasn't speaking and only then it was because she heard his breath hitch.

She turned her attention to where his eyes were locked into place and she sucked in her own breath when she saw Bruce with his eyes open. The relief she felt was such a blow to the gut that it actually hurt.

"Natasha, he's alive..."

He was alive.

And she had just told every single person how she felt about him.

The sheer exhaustion of knowing he was alive and all of the emotion having splayed out against her will made everything spin in circles and the last thing she remembered was Tony saying her name, trying to snap her back to reality, but she couldn't find her way back.

She was just so damned tired.

So, I'm taking this moment to announce...

Due to high demand this is going to become a trilogy.

There will be ONE more story following this one with a plot that has already been laid out and has been cemented by certain developments in this story. But I'm not letting you whackadoodles to convince me to write a fourth. The third story will be the last, lmao.