Author's Note: So, I suppose I didn't actually need my mind-reading cap. As it turns out, you guys practically all want the same thing. Option B has been chosen with an end score of 1-11. You romantic bunch of saps :P

I'll shout this chapter out to SweetChi for such amazing comments to keep me going forward! It's truly appreciated! And try not to be offended that my most dark and twisty chapter yet is dedicated to you, as I do dark and twisty a lot better than I do fluffy and happy, it just means I like you. xD

Chapter 6:

Being back in Russia was a reason not to be a fan of her current position. The city of Samara itself was actually quite beautiful, having spent so long untouched by the outside as a closed city. Travel and even residency to the city had been restricted when Natasha was a child, requiring authorization to enter and leave it. Now she was back in the motherland for the infiltration of the HYDRA compound she offered to check out for Tony, to see if she could pull any information from it on the location of Loki's scepter. The trickster's weapon left a foul taste in her mouth when she remembered so vividly how in just seconds it had been used to turn the most trustworthy person she knew into a shell of his former self. Forcing a power so raw into his mind that he had been unmade, his mind renovated to bend to Loki's will; A will that had been molded to force him to kill her in a way Clint himself would never, even in his former nightmares, invoke upon her.

Natasha still had horrifying nightmares where he actually did it, and though she never once admitted that to him, she had a feeling he knew. His wife, Laura, once told her that he had nightmares where he did it, too. Her best friend hadn't slept well for months, afraid to see his partner's cold and bloody corpse, murdered by his own crimson painted hands.

Those dreams were the nights she woke up unable to breathe and unable to comprehend reality, the nights she felt a sting in her eyes from tears she refused to let fall.

She never admitted to anyone that the ones that plagued her most, that poisoned her to the very fine edges of her darkened soul, were the ones where she couldn't get Clint back; the nightmare where she killed him without a blink of hesitation. In the nightmares where he sent her black soul to the hell she thought she deserved, she always begged him not to. In the ones where she unmade him for eternity, she would smile as she dragged a knife over his throat, agonizingly slow. She would watch that lively glaze leave his grayish eyes and she would feel the sweet release of freedom from a debt she owed as she watched the blood flow like a fountain; as the pages of her ledger poured red like never before.

Those were nights Natasha woke up screaming. The nights she feared what she knew was the reality of who she used to be before the archer rescued her from the pits of her nefarious abyss, the reality of what she would have become had he not given her that single chance to right her wrongs. Those were the nights she wished he hadn't. This was why Bruce had been so angry with her, so enraged when she confronted The Hulk in his containment cell. She was his nightmare and she had caused it.

It took effort to shake those thoughts from her head, to stop reliving them again when she was awake. That wasn't suppose to happen, she wasn't supposed to see them when she was awake, at least, not so vividly. It left her with an unsettling feeling as she slowly inched her way toward the building, pulling off a vent on the side and sliding in. It was too late to turn back because she had a 'bad feeling', so she shook it off as she lithely crawled her way through Clint's favored method of trespass. Air ducts were such a simple approach that she hardly ever used them, but there was something about the place that gave her a foreboding feeling. When she glanced through grates she passed by, she never once saw a single person. That in itself told her something wasn't quite right.

She continued through them for several minutes before she paused, stopping as she stared through the grate below her. From the intel that she had, this was supposed to be the room with the central mainframe. This was supposed to be the room where she would hack their system and get any and all information pertaining to HYDRA and the scepter. Instead, she saw only a wooden chair. Her breath hitched slightly, the memory grazing it's way through her mind.

All the screaming beyond the walls, all the crying that was heard echoing from the minuscule air vents of the empty and colorless bedroom. The bed rested in the corner of her room, a small, twin-sized and thin mattress resting only on a black metal frame. The blanket was a drab and muted gray, the color inside the room was only ever gray. Even the floors were concrete, leaving her bare feet frozen each and every time she was forced to step on it. On the two metal posts at the head of the bed, a set of handcuffs were attached to each side. In the night, those cuffs remained tightly locked around your wrists until Madame B. came to release you from your bonds in the morning.

Each day was the same. You woke up and waited for her. When she released you, you followed. You never spoke unless you were spoken to. You never scream, you never cry, you never react. The ones who cry never last long. The ones who scream are gone even faster. Their ghosts haunt the halls, they haunt Natalia's dreams, because one of those ghosts were created from her ten-year-old hands. A twelve-year-old named Kseniya Lubovich.

She used to be in the the overflow room with all the other girls, until she killed Kseniya in training four days prior. All of their beds were lined up in the room, all of them slept together in one giant pit of bodies. Kseniya had always been in the bed right next to her and Natalia easily learned that she could put the older girl at ease. On that morning of her death, she had shared her hidden food with her the second the handcuffs were removed in the morning. She shared because she knew that acting like a friend, acting like she was nice, was one of the best advantages you could hold over the other girls.

It wasn't supposed to be to the death. It never was, not unless one of the girls showed weakness, something that Kseniya had done. A simple sparring session had their kicks greeting each other with equal fervor, punches ringing true on each of their faces. But she had gotten the upper hand on the older girl, getting her arm around her neck and choking her. Kseniya had tapped on her hands, effectively giving up. You didn't give up, especially not in front of Madam. When Natalia had looked to Madam, the older woman had a stern look and had given her a slight nod of the head.

She had snapped the other child's neck within seconds of receiving the order.

Only the best got moved to their own rooms and Natalia had become the best; she remained determined to stay the best, to stay better than the best. The screams seemed much louder from her room by herself, but the truth was, she preferred the solidarity. If someone came into her room, she knew that meant it was her turn. There was no more wondering as they paced up and down through the small aisles between the beds. No more racing of your heart as you hoped that the next screams wouldn't be yours.

It was Red Room's favored choice for conditioning the perfect killing machine. Torture in ways that a child's mind would have never fathomed. The worst was the chair, it was always the chair. Simple and wooden, but the arms of the chair had little metal plates attached atop them and were laden with blood. The back of it also held a vertical and thin metal plate that was constantly lathered and painted in crimson. Sometimes it was dry and other times it was still fresh when you were brought into the room; Natalia hated it most when it was fresh.

It took a moment to calm herself again before she reached her fingertips through the grate. Within a moment she seamlessly and silently pulled the grate up into the vent. Settling it aside, she angled her feet through it as she slipped downward and landed with the smallest tap of her feet on the concrete below. Natasha knew that she should have stepped away. She should have turned back when the room wasn't what it was supposed to be. But she was never one to back down from something, even when it seemed wrong.

She sidestepped the chair sitting front and center in the room as she made her way to the door. Just as she reached out for the knob, it twisted on it's own and the door swung out of its own accord. It was instinct that had her stepping backwards as the men before her all stepped into the room, one among them standing out. She recognized him instantly as Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. The close-shaven sandy blonde hair was nearly nonexistent, his dark eyes leering at her. The stubble along his face only enhanced the crooked grin that formed as he looked at her.

"Hello, Natalia," the German accent flooded her senses, the words coming out in a low and harrowing baritone. That same foreboding feeling was back with a vengeance and all her senses were on alert. "Natalia Alianovna Romanova," Strucker snapped his fingers and the men instantly charged her.

She grabbed the arm of the first man to reach her, using it as leverage to twist herself around behind him and driving the prongs of her Widow's Bite cuff's into his neck, dropping him in convulsions from the discharge of electroshock he received through them. When the next two men came towards her, she threw her arms out and watched the two hidden knives sail from underneath her cuffs and into the neck of each man.

Running forward, she put a hand on each of their shoulder's as they dropped, using them to vault herself into the air and grabbing hold of the fourth and fifth assailants around their necks as she drove them to the floor from the velocity of her movement. She could hear the snap of their necks as they twisted at an unruly angle during the landing.

Natasha wasted no time as she moved smoothly and gracefully, launching up to her feet and jamming her elbow into Strucker's neck as she shoved him against the wall. She had to breathe through the rage and adrenaline coursing through her for a moment before she forced her words out in a dangerous tone, "You knew I would be here! How?"

All Strucker did was choke out a laugh. "Ahhh... the confidence," came the amused words. "Perhaps you have been astray too long. You are losing your touch."

She heard the footsteps behind her and she shoved Strucker aside as she turned toward them, but nobody was there and a frown found its way to her face. When she turned back to where Strucker should lay, he was gone as well. She moved her feet immediately to lead her out into the hallway, watching as Strucker ran like the rat he was, while he made the turn around the corner down the hall. Her legs led her forward before her mind could register that it was a horrible idea.

When she reached the corner and made the turn, a rough and callused hand gripped her throat and her back hit the wall with enough force to send the air right from her lungs. Natasha had to drag the oxygen in through his grasp, her feet completely off the ground as she hung against the wall. She caught a look at the man now, his chocolate eyes and reddish-brown hair, she knew him. Nikolao 'Niko' Constantin, known as The Wolf Spider. He was the first and only man trained by Red Room. The KGB considered him their biggest failure. The man was a killing machine, efficient at murder but unable to be handled, unable to take orders.

She lifted her arms, slamming the sides of both of her hands into the side of his neck and it just barely loosened his grip enough for her to fall through his grasp. Almost immediately she rammed her shoulder into his gut, trying to force him back into the wall opposite of her. His feet dragged back a mere centimeter before his elbow slammed into her midsection. It was all she could do to stay on her feet, to breathe through it, and she dug her Widow's Bite into his shoulder blades, letting the current of shocks course through him.

For a moment she thought that was it when he dropped to the ground. Instead, his hand moved with unbelievable speed, and a knife she didn't even know he had, lodged itself into her thigh. The gasp left her lips before she could contain it and she stumbled a few steps away. Within a few more seconds Niko was on his feet. The only thing she could do to stop his sudden plan to use his body as a battering ram was to yank the knife from her leg, burying it into his shoulder just as he slammed into her.

The force careened her into the corner of the wall and the edges of her vision blackened. Niko was groaning and growling and it was a noise that was nearly as feral and unnerving as The Hulk. She couldn't catch her breath and get her vision to align correctly before he was standing over her with the knife still sticking out from his bloodied shoulder. His hand reached down and crushed her neck in another vice grip as he pulled her back up to her feet. Before she could react he was moving down the hall and it was all she could do to keep her feet moving as she was hauled backwards down the hall by the neck.

Her attempt to get her gun only led her to an empty holster and she couldn't remember losing it, though at some point it seemed to have disappeared. The movement didn't go unnoticed because he lifted her in the air and proceeded to, once again, slam her back into the wall. Natasha's next move came as a surprise to herself and to him. She didn't understand exactly why she did it until her fingertips gripped the neckline of his uniform and she forced his mouth to meet her lips almost feverishly. The images of her younger self flowed fluidly in that moment.

When you became the best, Natalia learned that you also trained with the best. She had never been aware before Kseniya's death that there was anyone training here who wasn't female. Niko Constantin was only a year older than herself and she met him when she was eleven years old. It turned out that she and him were equally matched, neither of them ever failing their training. It also meant that they were allowed to interact with one another for the sake of 'sharing experience and strategy'. Most times, they didn't actually do so, instead talking of ways to avoid the nightmare that had become their lives.

Niko had been the one to tell her to watch the walls. He had been the one to tell her that only the walls could never hurt her. When he was twelve, he was still sweet and kind, still a little too naive to be a Red Room trainee. He had been protective, telling her all the bests ways to stay strong. "When you hear the walls scream—just remember that it means it is not you. If the walls are screaming, then everything is still okay. Just keep your eyes on the walls and you can get through anything. That is what I have learned, Talia."

"You do not hurt me, Nikolao."

"But I will, and you will hurt me. It is what we do."

He wasn't wrong. Just four years later, he was no longer sweet and kind and naive. Anger always lurked in his eyes, even if he tried to hide it near her. To his credit, he tried to stay nice around her. When she was fifteen, Madame B gave her the best advice. The woman was blonde with blue eyes, hair always pulled into a tightly wound bun atop her head. It was the first time she was going to allow Niko to spar with her, to see how she could do against someone of equal skill. "You need to be ready. You need to remember that you cannot be broken. You need to remember that you have the upper hand in this fight and not him. Being a man does not make him stronger."

"I have the upper hand?"

"You do. You always will," came the commanding tone of Madame. "Your appearance is one of true beauty, we have made sure of that, we have worked for that your entire life here. Beauty is a weapon, Natalia. More lethal and more effective than a knife, even more so than a gun. It is a true weapon that no one will ever see coming. You must learn to wield it. Here and now, against Niko, is your chance to learn."

"Yes, Madame."

When they met for the sparring session, it wasn't what she was used to. None of the other girls were present for the fight, only the trainers were allowed to spectate. Their training clothes matched. The usual gender neutral white t-shirt with the navy blue shorts that all trainees wore. Her own and Niko's eyes were firmly settled on one another as they stood straight just ten steps from one another. She watched with feigned disinterest as he rolled his shoulders back, loosening his muscles with a few resounding cracks.

If he was getting himself ready, Natalia knew that meant she should be ready as well. She drew one foot back to settle on the ground behind her. It was the simplest of fighting stances that she had picked up, never seeing the point in showmanship unless it was with the grace and fluidity of her attacks. She left one hand balled in a fist at her side and raised her other hand out towards him, arching upward at her elbow to keep her fist elevated at the ready.

"Begin," came Madame's voice.

Niko made no move towards her and she narrowed her teal eyes. She studied him for mere moments before she lowered her raised fist and slowly stepped forward, then even more slowly, she started to stalk a circle around him. It was a feeling akin to pride when she saw the malicious glint of delight behind Madame's cold eyes. She was the predator and Niko was her prey and he seemed almost captivated as he followed her with his eyes.

He must have been expecting her to attack when she finally came around to his rear because he turned swiftly to anticipate. Unfortunately for him, she hadn't done it. She moved quickly and gracefully from his left and Natalia gripped his left wrist in her arms as her legs swung around to wrap around his neck. She wrenched his arm hard until she dragged him to the ground beneath her and kept her legs squeezed tight, his arm pulled as far as she could physically lean back into the pavement below.

Her having the upper hand only lasted a mere minute before he lifted himself off the ground and onto his feet while she was still attached to him. Within moments she was forced to roll off him and away before he could slam her onto the ground under him. The unfortunate circumstance led to her back being toward him and before she could spin around fast enough to block when she felt a foot meet her ribs. It sent the air rushing from her lungs and she couldn't retaliate when his fist met the left side of her face, then followed by his knee to her gut.

She was dropped to her knees and she barely caught his foot in time before it connected with her temple. Natalia twisted it, dragging him to the ground beside her and she swung one leg over him so that she had one on either side of his waist. In seconds she landed three punches to his face. Left, right, left—before his backhand met her cheekbone and sent her onto the ground next to him.

Suddenly the position was reversed and she could actually see the murderous gleam come to life in his face. One hand gripped her neck so tightly she couldn't breathe as the other raised up in a way that showed lethal intention. But the Madame's words were whirling through her head, 'Beauty is a weapon, more lethal than a knife and even a gun. Learn to wield it.' Only one idea come front and foremost now and she reached up with both hands, gripping her fingertips on the collar of his t-shirt as she forced his face down towards hers. His lips met hers and she waited as his grip around her neck slowly loosened until his hand came to rest at her cheek while his other hand rested carelessly on the ground to his side.

Natalia swore she could actually feel the Madame's wicked smile as she watched. Niko was too dumbfounded and lost in the heat of the moment to know how to react when she rolled lithely out from underneath him. A second later she swung a leg over his back, gripped his short brown hair in her hands, then slammed his face straight into the pavement.

The trainers said he didn't wake up for nearly five minutes. Madame B. had praised her for the very first time that day.

Apparently it was still effective fifteen years later. Though his one hand still had her throat gripped firmly, his other was now on her waist as he attempted to tug her as close against him as physically possible. She used it to her advantage, pushing further into him and forcing him to take a few steps back towards the other wall. A few more seconds and his fingers completely released her neck and instead reached up for her face. That was the moment she chose to act. She pulled back and moved quickly to the wall he had previously held her against, using it to gain momentum as she managed two quick steps up it and pushed off. He was already moving towards her again, just as she predicted, and she got her feet around his neck as she swung the rest of her body behind him. Between the momentum of her jump, the force of her weight and a little help from gravity, she used her full weight to throw him to the ground and his body violently landed against the wall.

His head met it with a sickening thud as the plaster cracked and Natasha felt like she could actually take a moment to catch her breath. The pain in the back of her head was nothing compared to searing fire burning through her thigh. She actually struggled back to her feet, resting her back against the wall as her teal eyes flickered down. Niko still remained immobile on the floor with an unsteady rise and fall of his chest and she let out a breath of relief.

This was it. She needed to get out before she lost the chance and he woke up. That meant there was no more time to stand around and she heaved out a breath as she placed her palm on the wall for balance. It was an effort to ignore the pain that pulsated through her leg with each step but she still quickly and efficiently made her way through the halls and towards the exit.

Natasha never heard him. Suddenly and violently her face hit the wall and her cheek was forcibly pressed against it. Niko's hand was like a vice on the back of her hair as he wrenched her arm back behind her.

"Always the cheater, Talia," his voice, heavily Russian accented, was like nails on a chalkboard in her ear and she grimaced slightly at the amused, yet enraged, tone of his voice. His childhood nickname for her only served to make her feel even more hollow inside than Red Room had already left her. The reality of it was; Natasha was just as much like him as Niko was like her.

It was true enough she supposed, at least from what little she had remembered about their sparring sessions back in Red Room. "You used to appreciate that, if I recall..." she purposely teased.

"Mmm..." came the grunt of agreement, "And now I hear you fancy yourself a hero."

She scoffed at that, "Hardly..." Natasha couldn't find an angle to get out of his grasp, not without her arm breaking from the effort. That hardly seemed like an effective escape plan against Niko and instead she taunted him with further conversation, "I heard you were dead."

"You heard wrong."

"Clearly."

He was snickering now, "I'm giving you a chance here, Talia."

Her eyes narrowed at that as she stared sideways at him. "A chance at what?" she dared to ask. Truthfully, she wasn't sure she actually wanted to hear the answer.

"A chance to avoid tortures of the past," he offered up. "You can willingly serve or we can make you."

She sucked in a breath at that and she frowned, "Serve HYDRA?"

"Mmm..."

"And what do you get out of this? Either way this happens, you must get something," she commented offhandedly. She watched the smirk that came across features, "So what is it, Nikolao? Money? Freedom?"

"You."

Natasha actually felt her blood run colder with that, "That's never going to happen."

Niko merely grinned at that, "So, Option B then?"

"I didn't trade in the KGB so I could work for HYDRA," she added with a sneer. "There's nothing you can do to make that happen."

The smile that came across his lips was unsettling, "That is why we have the chair, Natalia..."

She grunted when he launched her onto the hard concrete on her back. The pain was nearly unbearable and his hand reached down for her throat. Within seconds she was being dragged down the hall in his death grip and she couldn't breathe through it. The back of her legs trailed across the floor and no matter how much she tried, how much she kicked, she couldn't get her feet back underneath her.

It was blackened vision and choked breaths for at least two minutes when suddenly she felt her body being lifted up again. A moment later she was slammed into a sitting position and she realized too late that it was the wooden chair from the room she had entered earlier. The metal cuffs of the arms of the chair locked over her wrists just as another set of metal cuffs latched over her ankles.

Suddenly there was no escape left and the panic coursed through her like never before. Natasha watched as Strucker weaseled into the room with a sickening grin and an equally twisted laugh and she narrowed her eyes at him, tugging her hands and feet against the metal latches. It was a useless endeavor, the legs of the chair were bolted into the cement floor. "Chair doesn't work by itself, you moronic prick," the comment was enough to wipe the amusement off Strucker's face, but Niko actually looked like he was trying to conceal a laugh.

By now Jarvis would be sending help, but even so, help would still be fifteen hours away at the very least. Taunting Strucker when he was in control of her for the next fifteen or more hours probably wasn't the best decision, but it was a little late to take back her 'moronic prick' comment now.

"Unfortunately for you, Agent Romanoff, I have the serum to go along with the chair," came Strucker's twisted delight. "It would seem we require you to be a blank slate to gain your allegiance."

Her teal eyes followed Strucker as he paced circles around the room, "I hate to be a ball buster here, Strucker von Wolfie, but-"

"It is Wolfie von Strucker!" he growled out at her. "Gah! Wolfgang! Wolfgang von Strucker! You stupid little harpy!" he screamed out as his hands raved angrily in the air.

Natasha could see the heave of silent laughter that shook Niko's shoulders. She just smirked and continued the conversation, "But—if you're thinking of using that mind-drug to turn me back into the old me, you might have a problem when you get what you want."

"And why is that?" he sneered out.

"Because the old me would eat you for breakfast," she informed him in an icy voice.

"You will follow orders like a good little puppet."

She leveled her eyes with his and gave him a coy smile, "Is that so? Because I don't recall you ever being my puppet master," she replied thoughtfully. "I don't even follow orders from imbeciles now, so what exactly makes you think that the old me would?" she questioned. Natasha studied him with a smile on her face and she was glad to see his discomfort with her words.

"Ahhh, yes. You followed Nick Fury," he mentioned with a snicker. "Shame about him," he added in amusement. She had to force herself to avert her eyes with his comment which seemed to fuel him on, "And who does the great Natasha Romanoff follow now, hmm? Captain America? You don't find it foolish of him to have found himself working for the very organization he thought he died for?"

She released a haggard breath of mock-frustration, "He's no fool." She watched the anger fill his features once more, "Captain Rogers' naivety is actually his greatest strength."

"And why is that?"

"Because people like you and I underestimate him for it," she stated with a smile. "Fact is, he's not nearly as naive as everyone thinks he is." Now she grinned at him, "I think that's fairly obvious with how he trounced your plan for world domination and a global massacre a few months back."

"Enough!"

Apparently, that was going to far, even if Niko was still snickering in the doorway with his arms folded over his chest. Natasha followed Strucker's movements with her eyes until he disappeared behind her. She already knew what was coming next as his hand flicked the switch on the tiny metal compartment on the back of the chair. There was no stopping the gasp of pain that flowed from her lips when the dozens of sharp needles shot out from the vertical metal panel on the chair and pierced the skin up and down her spine. The dozen needles that slammed through the bottom of her wrists after that was almost enough to make her eyes water. It took a second to breathe through it, to force the pain into the back of her mind until she no longer felt it.

She hadn't been in the chair for over a decade and it showed. Back then, she never even reacted to this part. She always managed to stare indifferently at the wall. It seemed it even made Niko uncomfortable with memories of the past, because he quickly disappeared from the room. At least, she thought that was why he left, until he reappeared with the syringe.

The struggle was all to real now. It was all she could do to try and avoid it and squirm as he came towards her, as though she might draw some magical super strength like Steve's and break the metal latches holding her in place. It only served to cause more pain as the needles shifted and those rough and calloused hands gripped her chin roughly.

"Natalia, struggling only makes it harder on you."

Her voice was caught in the back of her throat for the moment but she didn't stop. She kept moving, kept trying to break free. "Don't do this..." it broke out from low in her throat and it arrived in the air raspy and raw.

For half a second she saw his eyes soften but it was gone as quickly as it arrived. "Stay still," he ordered. She didn't and she watched him sigh and shake his head. A moment later, Strucker's right arm came around her forehead roughly, holding her head completely still while his right hand came around, forcing one of her eyes to stay open with his thumb and index finger.

Natasha felt like she stopped breathing for the moment as the syringe got closer. A moment later the needle entered her eye and the pressure that built up as he hit the plunger was enormous. Within seconds it was over though, and she released shaky breaths as both men released her head.

"You know how this works Natalia," Niko reminded her. "The more you try to cling to what you know, the worse it will get."

She knew. She remembered the instant that the electricity flowed through all the needles from the chair.

"Just let it go."

She actually chuckled through the next bout of convulsions that rocketed through her. All she could do was think of Frozen and listening to the ridiculous song with Lila. The chuckle turned into a small laugh when she thought of the time Clint belted out the lyrics like it was the most natural thing in the world for a master assassin to do. More shocks hit her. And of course there was dorky Doctor Bruce Banner, cracking the 'Let it Go' joke just a week ago, that only made her laugh harder.

"Wonderful," Strucker muttered with a shake of his head. "She's madder than the hatter..."

Time doesn't exactly go by very quickly when anything that reminds you of something that you know forces a current of electricity through your body. The truth was, she wasn't even sure what the truth was, not anymore. Something would show up in her mind and a moment later, the shocks would force it away. Natasha couldn't even comprehend all of the noises she heard. She couldn't comprehend what was happening when a giant green beast forced a chasm in the doorway, holding a body by the head in his giant hand.

She stared as he dropped the body to the floor and those dark eyes looked around the room with a snarl before the angry gaze settled on her. Something told her she was supposed to be scared, that she should have been afraid for her life. The gasp left her lips when the shocks tore the feeling away from her and caused the big guy to huff out a grunt with wide eyes. She released shaky and short breaths as he slowly inched closer, confusion mixed in with the anger behind those giant dark eyes.

When his large green hand reached forward, she didn't squirm, she didn't move and she didn't blink. She stared vacantly at his hand as he lowered it over one of hers. It completely blanketed her hand, surprisingly gentle and for a moment she recognized the concern behind his eyes as the scientist she knew. "B—br..." she hadn't spoken since this all started and the shocks were causing a stutter in her voice, trying to force the word away from her mind. "B—Bruce..."

It only made it worse and she suffered in silence as her whole body shook. She watched as the big guy stepped back, enraged and holding his head, growling out in rage as he started to shrink and turn back to the pale scientist she thought she knew. No shirt, but his pants seemed mostly in tact, whatever that good that did.

Bruce was shaking on the ground, trying to overcome the intensity of the sudden transformation back to himself and his name left her lips again, "Br—bruce..."

It had the desired effect.

He collected himself enough to come over towards her almost thirty seconds later and she could see him fidgeting with the chair in confusion, his brain still mucked from being The Hulk just minutes before. "Natasha..." he whispered, and she felt his hands as they gently grasped either side of her face, "How do I stop it?"

"Ch—ch—chair..." she breathed out in agony. "B—back..."

It seemed to be enough for him because he released her face and scurried around the back of the chair. She was almost willing to thank God when the electricity no longer made appearances. The moment the needles withdrew from her back and wrists she couldn't stop the strangled noise that crawled out from the back of her throat. Then Bruce came back around in front of her, making 'shhh'ing effects that she supposed were probably meant to be comforting or something. It wasn't, but she appreciated the effort. His face kept going in and out of focus, his name kept getting lost on her lips.

"Oh, good. Your super pants worked—mostly. Consider them a work in progress," came the other voice behind the man before her.

"Not the time, Tony."

She watched the one in front of her move to her side as he unlatched the metal over her wrist. She couldn't focus on the strange red and gold of the metal man and she felt dizzy and sick. She frowned in confusion when the mask over his face disappeared and the man, Tony, stared at her with a look akin to horror.

"Bruce—is she..."

Natasha watched as Bruce freed her hand and waved off Tony, remnants of her blood on his hand. Bruce actually looked a little traumatized by it before he shook it off and then Tony was on her other side, simply yanking the other metal latch off with ease before he forcibly removed the ones around her ankles. There was no stopping her free fall forward but Bruce seemed to have anticipated it because she wound up with her face buried in his shoulder.

"Alright—okay..." there was no doubt about the discomfort in his voice as he awkwardly put his arms around her. She could see the further squeamish look cross his expression when his hands on her back were left wet and sticky and painted crimson. "It's okay..." she wasn't the one freaking out though, so she was pretty sure he was trying to convince himself.

Okaaay. Yeah, I went there. Hope you enjoyed my dark and twistiness!

Before I forget - I, in no way, condone any of the violence seen in this story. ;) That is all.

Um, yeah. So, I had some questions from Guest reviewers that I can't reply to. So I'll answer them here.

Q.) What were Natasha's dreams about?
A.) Well, you read them in the beginning of this chapter. Originally it was to be a part of the last chapter, but I couldn't exactly go putting Natasha's dreams in Bruce's PoV. He would need my mind-reading cap, and that's broken.

Q.) What was Bruce going to share with Natasha to make her feel better and will he get to share it with her?
A.) He already did. It just hasn't been discussed yet. His love for those classic movies :) Note that it did somewhat work. She not only enjoyed the movie, but even when she got upset afterwards she came back and watched another.