Author's Note: HuggaHulk is giving everyone a big and warm HuggaHulkHello. Who wants a 'The Adventures of HuggaHulk' story? LOL.

This chapter will be a split-perspective. Part one, Natasha. Part two, Bruce. Part three, Natasha. Though, I'm sure you would have figured it out without me telling you, they will be separated by a line break :) Also, time to delve a bit more into Bruce.

This one is for Ninja0404 for giving me the best delirious sleep-deprived laugh last night.

Chapter 9:

"Hey, Doc?" Natasha called out as she stepped into the lab. She ruffled her brow a bit as she glanced around, but she didn't see him anywhere. It was eerily silent inside and she wandered further in, "Bruce, you in here?" A snarl sounded out and she shifted her eyes into the direction of the containment cell to take a good look at the Hulk inside. It was unusual for the raging beast to be so quiet, though she knew for a fact he could be stealthy and silent, regardless of his size. "Hey, Big Guy," she offered in greeting as she took a few steps towards the safety glass.

He didn't move from where he was in the center of the cell, but he did look in her direction. She hadn't seen Bruce in nearly three days, not since the HuggaHulk showing in the theater room. It was mostly her fault, she knew that for a fact, because she had blamed him for what happened to her when she was lost in a haze of drugs and vivid memories of the past. In one sense, she had meant it, but in another, she knew it was never really his fault. Her choices were her own, and it wasn't as though Bruce Banner had any effect over her decision making skills. Right?

Regardless of it being a week and a half since she had been back in the tower, she still looked like a wreck. Her back still felt like the needles were inside it and she always woke up with a fear that maybe she never made it out. Being knifed three times in as many weeks was equally as unsettling as the rest of it and her leg hadn't adjusted quite so well yet, though she blamed that on lack of exercise and training. Natasha needed a session in the gym, just to let off steam. She realized after a moment that he was the easiest one for her to talk to, not that he would actually listen, so she supposed it was more like 'talk at'. The Hulk wouldn't lecture, or care, or look at her with pity. "I didn't get to thank you," she added softly as she put her hand up to the glass.

He was regarding her with a sour look and all he did was continue to release heavy breaths and stare at her. "You saved me," she reminded him as she dropped her hand down to her side and sat down with her legs folded under her. "You could—you know—growl, if my talking pisses you off."

The Hulk didn't make a noise.

"You're mad at me," she realized as she ran her hand through her hair. She watched him snort and look away, "Because I blamed Bruce."

Now he scowled at her.

"I'm mad at me, too," and that just seemed to confuse him, but at least it was something besides ignorance and anger. "Is Bruce mad?"

This time he snarled, and there was an imperceptible shake of his angry face.

"So... not mad, but I did upset him..."

The noise he made now was a little more hostile.

"Right—only Bruce wouldn't be mad..." She thought his next noise was a snort of amusement, but with the Big Guy it was a little hard to decipher. "It wasn't his fault," she admitted with a sigh. "It was mine, I just thought it was easier to blame him."

He was silent again.

"There a reason you aren't throwing things around and stomping like Godzilla, Big Guy?" and she flinched when he tossed one of the bricks inside the containment cell into the safety glass right in front of her. "Guess I deserve that," and this time he actually looked like he agreed with her. Why the hell does Tony think it's a good idea to give him things to throw? She rolled her shoulders with a slight wince and tried to adjust for the dozens of needle pricks that still caused her discomfort. They were gone, they hadn't been in her back for a week and a half, but she still felt them. Not that she told anyone that, or showed them.

She had sent Clint back off to the farm yesterday with a promise to visit sooner rather than later, apparently Laura had news she needed to share with him and she didn't want to Skype it. Much as Natasha was reluctant to admit it, she missed him already, and she knew now that her statement a week ago had been right. She really had built her life around him and his family, and it really wasn't fair to intrude on them as much as she had. "You ever feel like you were meant to be alone, Big Guy?" she asked softly, though he didn't answer, The Hulk never did. "Every time I try to do the right thing, it always seems to be the wrong thing," she admitted with her eyes staring across the cell. She didn't actually look at him, instead she simply looked to the side of him.

Be the best, that was the wrong decision. Join SHIELD, another wrong decision, given they weren't actually the good guys. Put SHIELD, or HYDRA, files onto the internet for the world to see; she wasn't sure on that one, but she imagined it was on the line of right and wrong. Right, because the world knew the evil that existed. Wrong, because she was certain it led to the deaths of many innocent agents who were in the field.

There was still unwavering silence from the beast and she wasn't sure what to make of it, but just like the first time she had talked to him, he did seem to be listening. "Barton always tries to make it sound like I've never had a choice to be what I am," she tacked on. "But there was, I didn't have to become this—" she paused in thought, "...Murderer." That had been Bruce's word for what she did and who she was, at any rate, and she figured it was appropriate. "I could have made a different choice, chosen not to be the best," she shrugged again, then scrunched up her nose to hide another grimace at the discomfort. "I could have just withered away in that hellhole when I was eight, it would have saved a lot of people a lot of grief," she rubbed at her eyes now. "At least back then I had the excuse of just being a child, or as close to one as I could have been. Don't know what my excuse is these days, whatever it is, it probably sucks though."

The Hulk's eyes still stared right at her and she finally let her gaze settle on him when she watched him heave out a breath before he stomped his way toward her. "Guess you're the only one whose never really had a choice," she mentioned wistfully. "You didn't ask for this, you didn't ask to be so angry...you didn't ask to be feared," she added with a frown. There was a thump as the floor rattled a little under her and she quirked an eyebrow up in surprise as the Big Guy dropped backwards onto his rear in an attempt to match her position. "People are afraid of you because you're the monster they can see," she explained with a delicate tone, "But they should be more afraid of the ones they can't see, the ones like me."

It felt like she was being dissected by him for a moment. He just stared with his eternally enraged face and tried to discern whatever meaning was supposed to be held within her words. "Personally, I don't think you're a monster," she informed him with a small smile. "Monsters don't go around saving the damsel in distress, do they?" Unless it's that damned Shrek movie Lila and Cooper like so much. Natasha knew better then that, there were no such thing as happy endings. "You saved me..." her words echoed through the silent lab, "You and Bruce and—and I didn't deserve to be saved, I never did..."

She knitted her eyebrows a little when the Big Guy pushed his hand against the glass before she pressed hers against the opposite side. She watched his head turn, and she angled her gaze to follow as he looked at the button on Tony's computers, the button that would open the cell. She shifted her teal eyes back to land on him and she gave him a sad smile, "I think you and I know that would piss off Bruce."

Again, it was hard to decipher, but he seemed to snort in amusement.

Of course, the brief moment of clarity and understanding ended the moment Tony came through the doors of the lab. The Big Guy snarled, scowled, sent the billionaire a seething glare and then rolled to his feet, followed by a roaring tyrade through the cell; and then another brick hit the safety glass in front of her.

"Oh good, and here I thought it was just me he threw bricks at," and she supposed that meant Tony hadn't just seen the Big Guy sitting there calm and collected(mostly).

"Shut up, Stark," she mumbled out as she stood and left.

She heard Tony's amused tone talk to The Hulk as she left, "Yeesh, what crab crawled up her ass today?"

"He's not normal, Rebecca!"

"Brian, stop. There's nothing wrong with Bruce, you're making something out of nothing!"

Bruce sat behind his bedroom door, knees hugged to his chest, as he listened to the usual squabbling of his parents that always with him at the center of it.

"Nothing? His IQ is borderline genius, he's six! He's a mutant! A genetic freak."

"Stop it! He can hear you!"

"Stop defending the sniveling little brat, Rebecca. He's a monster!"

"You need to stop drinking, you need to stop this!"

There it was. Bruce heard the resounding noise where his father's open hand met his mother's face and he winced as his body visibly shook. Then the loud footsteps were getting closer.

"Brian! Brian, no!"

"Get out of the way!"

The thud against the wall nearby echoed and Bruce scurried quickly away from the door. He never made it fully under the bed when his door crashed open and the hand gripped his foot and dragged him back out across the floor. "No! Dad, no!"

"Brian, let him go!"

He watched in wide-eyed terror when his father shoved her to the floor and then Bruce felt fingers grip his hair tightly and pull him on his feet. Always a savior though, Rebecca was back up on her feet and shoving Brian, a useless endeavor to get his father to release him.

It worked, but only because Brian was shifting his attention to his wife again.

"I've had enough from you!"

Bruce couldn't do anything when his father dragged her by her hair out of the room. He was left to bang his hands uselessly against the door because Brian had put the lock on the outside of the bedroom to keep him in the room. "Stop it! Dad! Stop it!" Useless. It was always useless. He could only bang on the door and scream and yell for so long before he gave up and sat against it again, his hands pressed tightly over his ears. One day he was going to be bigger; one day he could protect her like she protected him.

He stared at the old and faded picture in his hands, studied the brown eyes of his mother that looked back at him.

"She's pretty." Bruce's breath caught in his throat for a moment as he turned to look at Natasha behind him, but she ignored his surprise and spoke again, "You look a lot alike." Then the redhead gave him a tightlipped smile as she looked to the picture and then at him again, "I think it's the eyes, you've got her eyes."

"Her eyes?"

Natasha gave a slight inclination of her head in affirmation. "They're kind, like yours," she mentioned offhandedly, and if she had noticed the faint red tinge that crossed his face, she ignored it.

"Thanks..." he muttered before he folded the old picture up and put it back in his pocket.

"You okay?" her neutral tone extinguished itself when she asked and he frowned a little at that, because it meant that he must have appeared rather transparent after having gotten lost in the past. Bruce realized he was silent for too long after her question because she came around to sit on the couch with him, though she did leave an abundance of space between them, which was something he appreciated. Her voice came out a little softer and uncertain now, "I still owe you an apology..."

He hadn't seen her since her outburst in the hall, though he knew she had come to look for him, because he remembered the entirety of her conversation with his other half. That never happened and it had left him dumbstruck when he had come back from the transformation. It also left him unsettled and unsure of what to say to her, not to mention, that had been two days ago and she hadn't sought him out since. Natasha was hard to understand and hard to talk to, especially when her voice and her face hid everything she didn't want others to see and hear.

It wasn't to say he hadn't seen a bit of who she was and how she became this way over the last few weeks, but he was certain this didn't even dent the things that had been done to her through her life. Regardless, it seemed impossible that someone could hide away again so fast, especially not after what he had seen from her, not after what he had pulled her out of.

When he saw Natasha in that chair, saw her body convulse from shocks as she tried to deny the serum it's grasp on her mind, it was almost as horrifying as the day he watched his mother die; agonizing and horrifying and for no good reason except that there were horrible people in the world; like his father, like Strucker, like Nikolao Constantin, like Red Room. Stealing innocence and twisting it into despair, twisting it into the woman sitting on the couch with him.

She thought she was a monster, that she deserved to get tortured in that chair, and it made him nauseous to think that she believed any of her life had been her fault.

"Bruce?" Her voice had gained a more worrisome tone to it and he realized quickly that he had been staring at her without saying a single word.

He took his glasses off and put them in his pocket before he looked at her again, "You don't owe me anything." He watched those teal eyes as they tried to decipher some hidden agenda behind his words.

Apparently, she didn't believe him, and her words proved it, "I do." Her gaze shifted away from him to study the wall, "An apology, a thank you—" and she paused again in thought, "I should probably let you flip me over your shoulder and throw me against a wall too, just to be sure were even."

"That's not funny, Natasha." It really wasn't, but nothing on her face or in her voice had actually said she was joking.

"It wasn't supposed to be," her tone was flat and even again.

Sometimes just a five minute conversation with her exhausted him beyond belief and he rubbed his eyes tiredly, "You weren't yourself."

"Mmm... so everybody keeps saying," she hummed out in response. "It doesn't change the fact that I hurt you—"

"You didn't hurt me," he assured her. Bruce hunched over with a haggard sigh, "You were the one in pain, you're still in pain—"

"I'm fine," she cut in quickly.

He gave Natasha a look of sheer disbelief, "Fine? You're not fine, no one in their right mind would be."

Her eyes narrowed a little in response before her teal eyes settled him with a cold look, and this wasn't really how he imagined this conversation would go. "That's the point though, right, Doc? I'm not in my right mind, or at least, you seem to think I shouldn't be."

Why did she find it so easy to spill her secrets and her pain to the Other Guy, and then easier still, to turn around to be flippant with him?

"You want to know my secret, Bruce?" He did, but at the same time, he didn't. "You're right," she admitted. It left him speechless and she spoke again with a more hollow voice, "I'm not fine, and I never will be. But that's not the point, because fine is who I am, and it's who I have to pretend to be."

His brow ruffled in response to that, "Why?"

Natasha's teal eyes looked a little haunted for a moment before she slipped it back behind the mask. "If I don't shove it down, I may never come back from it," she admitted quietly. "I said I can't break, that I can't fail—but the truth is..." she shook her head, "On the inside I'm already ripped apart."

That was something he could understand, "I get that..."

"Do you?"

Bruce had a feeling she was playing him again, that she had only opened this can of worms to get him to speak, and this time he decided he would let it work, "When I was eight, I watched my father kill my mother."

Anything she might have been about to say seemed to have died on her parted lips. It was the first time he saw her truly speechless and her mask had disappeared with such velocity that he wasn't even sure Google could find it.

"It was always about me," he told her quietly. "He thought there was something wrong with me—too smart, he always said. It wasn't right, I wasn't right. I was a genetic freak—a monster," he gave a sad chuckle at that. "You can imagine the irony of that now..."

She was quiet for a moment and he imagined she was trying to decide the best method to even respond to such a sensitive topic. Instead she echoed the words she had spoken to his other half, "I don't think you're a monster..."

"You'd be the first."

He had seen a whirlwind of emotions of the normally stoic woman next to him, but this one now was something he couldn't begin to comprehend. A mixture of sad and angry and uncertainty was warped together over her expression as she looked at him and then she edged a little closer to him. Bruce couldn't help but shift awkwardly when she was too close in his personal space and then her words came out in such a cheerless tone, "Bruce—I already know what you're thinking, that you're like him..." She wasn't wrong. "You would never hurt someone like that."

"You don't really know me," he informed her curtly.

She angled her head to the side slightly but she didn't disagree, "I suppose not." Natasha's teal eyes glanced away for a moment as she leaned her elbow on the back of the couch near his head. A moment later she rested her cheek on that same hand and finally looked back at him, "But I don't need to know you very well to know that even when someone hurts you—" She glanced away again, "Physically or emotionally..." she tacked on without daring to look back again, "You don't fault them for it, or try to hurt them back..." she let out a small breath before her voice trudged on, "You forgive them—that's not what monsters do."

It took him a moment to actually meet her eyes but he didn't see anything other than sincerity in them, not that he was sure he should take that with more than a grain of salt; Natasha did lie for a living.

Then she shrugged and gave him the barest of smiles before she tapped his cheek playfully with her free hand, "Maybe you need to look at yourself through someone else's eyes. Take it from someone else who finds it impossible to see anything else when they look in the mirror."

Bruce released a chuckle of disbelief at that, "So—look at myself how you see me?"

"Mhmm."

"And how is that?"

There it was, her signature quirk of the eyebrow and then her lips curled into coy smile. Uh-oh. Natasha's hand disappeared behind her back and then HuggaHulk was in his face. Where the hell did she even hide that? Yet another instance where he assumed he would have face-palmed if people actually did such a thing. "Maybe Pepper gave him to the wrong person." Oh boy...

"Yeah... I'm not taking that."

She smirked at his comment and put it back wherever the hell she had pulled it from to begin with, "That's fine, I sleep with him anyways." His face turned redder than before and he had a feeling she did that on purpose when her voice took on a note of amusement, "Platonically, of course."

"Of course..." and she just had to make it worse.

Then she shrugged again, "So... you said a while back that there was something that helped you get through—childhood struggles."

"Uh..." he frowned when he recalled that particular conversation having taken a bad turn.

"What was it?"

Bruce took a second to think about that, "Already showed it to you."

Natasha's eyebrows knitted together at that before she seemed to come to the conclusion, "Ah... the movies." And she smiled a little once again, "Just the classics, right?"

"Er...yeah."

"I was hoping that was it," she added with a new smile he hadn't seen on her before. This smile was so different from the ones she purposely planted on her face for different moments and he imagined this one was her real smile; one that didn't show unless she wasn't hiding behind her many masks and personas. The redhead stood up abruptly, and he was still at a loss for where the abomination that was 'HuggaHulk' was being hidden on her person, then she held out a pair of tickets. "Saw that there was this mini-marathon of classic movies going on down on 10th," she mentioned offhandedly, and then she shrugged, "Seemed like a good apology, not that I know what either movie is."

"Which ones?" He couldn't believe he was actually considering this.

Natasha pulled the tickets closer to her face for a moment, "Dr. Strangelove and Roman Holiday."

She had him at the first one and the second was just icing on the cake, but even so, he still wasn't sure, "I don't really do—public—well."

Her shrug of indifference actually made him feel a little better, "These days neither do I, so let's go." Bruce supposed he couldn't argue with that, especially when she held her hand out to help him off the couch, then proceeded to wiggle her fingers around in an effort to get him to take it, "C'mon, Doctor. Don't let a girl down."

He couldn't resist the chuckle he let out when she said it in a husky voice that reeked of classic noir, so he let her pull him up off the couch.

Her smile was contagious, especially when she hit him with an infamous Casablanca quote, "Bruce, I think this is beginning of a beautiful friendship."

And he honestly couldn't help but laugh at that, so he retorted in kind with another Casablanca quote, "Here's looking at you, kid."

Natasha's face was caught between a mixture of stunned and impressed, so he supposed he caught her off guard when he decided to quote the movie back to her.

And then she grinned, "Well played, Doctor Dork. Let's go."

He wasn't sure exactly how to handle the more 'playful' Natasha Romanoff.

"See? That wasn't so bad," Natasha pointed out to him as she tugged him out of the movie theater by his arm. She could see his slight discomfort with the physical contact, but she was determined to ignore it. She had to assume nobody had noticed who they were for the moment, given that thus far, nobody had stared or attempted pictures or videos.

Other than his discomfort with her need to drag him around by the arm, he didn't seem overtly bothered by the outing and he seemed to have enjoyed the movies, though he wasn't always the easiest person to read. "They're doing it again next week," and she quirked an eyebrow up as she turned her face to look at him. Bruce seemed vehement about keeping his eyes on anything and everything except for her after his comment and his next words forced a chuckle from her mouth before she could stop it, "I mean... if you want to."

"Hrm..." she hummed out as she watched his eyes drift over to her with uncertainty. Suddenly it just felt a little mean to tease him when he was so obviously uncomfortable out in the world. "Why not?" she finally conceded. She didn't dwell on the relieved chuckle that huffed from his lips, "Beats Disney movies with Barton, anyhow."

Natasha could swear there was a sudden impish glimmer in his brown eyes now and he proved his intentions when he spoke, "Since you brought it up..." his tone smelled of false innocence.

She quirked an eyebrow up almost immediately and narrowed her eyes as she stared at him. "Brought what up?" she dared to ask.

"I mean—you and Barton. There has to be a story for how you two got together," he mentioned with a shrug.

Now both her eyebrows quirked up in response, "Uh—well, he offered me a choice of die or defect," she stated with a shrug. "I chose the latter, for what little good that's done the world."

She watched Bruce's brow wrinkle as he tried to read into that and then he spoke again, "Yeah—that's not really what I meant."

It took another second before the 'got together' part actually made sense in her head and then she snickered, "Doctor Banner, are you asking if I'm sleeping with Barton?"

His face turned an intense shade of red that she hadn't ever fathomed possible from somebody other than the prudish Steve Rogers. "Uh—I was..." he stumbled all over the words and she hid her amusement as much as she could muster up in this moment. "That's not really—what I meant..." he added quickly. "I just—you know... uh..."

Natasha just let him struggle on with an impassive face as she continued down the sidewalk with his arm hooked in hers.

"Well uh—how long have the two of you been—you know... in love?"

Now she actually stopped walking which, in effect, yanked him to a sudden halt as well. If the people of New York cared, they didn't show it as they simply waded and parted around them. "Well... that's a new one," she mumbled as she dragged him forward once more. "Gotta say, Doc... you're the first one with the balls to even ask about me and Barton, let alone, dare to say the word love."

"Sorry...that was probably a little too personal?"

She shrugged a little at that, "It's fine. Wasn't the whole relationship part of the question that really threw me off, just the whole 'love' part of it." He must not have remembered her retort to Loki about love being for children.

"Oh." She watched as Bruce's brow ruffled again in thought, clearly unsure about what to say next, but he drudged forward nonetheless, "So—you don't love him? Does he know that?"

"Of course he knows that," she answered. Natasha couldn't help but give him a strange look before she chuckled again, "You think he's in love with me?"

"Ah... well—yeah."

She actually laughed now, "Bruce... that's just not how things are between him and me," she finally admitted. "He's a friend," admittedly, not the truth, he was much more than that. "Besides, I think that's an emotion I'm not even capable of."

There was a profound look of sadness on Bruce's face and she wasn't quite sure what to make of it, even when he asked his next question, "So you've never been in love? Had someone love you?"

"Love is for children, remember?" she reminded him, "I was never a child."

He just looked a little defeated with that, "That's...sort of a depressing viewpoint."

"Yeah..." she agreed with a shrug. She was never more glad to be just twelve blocks away from the Avenger's tower. She didn't bring up his love life, she knew better than that. Elizabeth Ross was a chapter of the scientist's life that she knew he had run from and desperately tried not to look back. He hadn't meant any harm in his prying into her relationships, so she didn't deem it necessary to go and hurt him like that. Besides, she had done enough to him already through the last month. "So—what movies are they playing next week?"

Bruce seemed relieved at the mercy of a subject change and he offered another somewhat impish smile, "Just remember... you already agreed."

Crap... "Bruce... did you lie to me about what was playing?"

He grinned now and she rolled her eyes a little just before he answered, "Technically, I just said they were doing this again next week. You know—a mini-movie marathon."

She couldn't help but chuckle, "So what's playing?" But she realized he didn't need to answer, "Oh—that's low, Banner."

"Let it go, Natasha..."

She snickered at that and shook her head, "I might just hate you."

"I'm just kidding, it's classic movies," he assured her with a laugh.

She shot him an amused glare, but he was laughing, so it was hard to hold it against him. "Just this once, Bruce... you win," she offered up with a smirk and it was good to hear him laugh again since he had seemed pretty out of it earlier.

The moment didn't last long, and she didn't quite understand what happened. Suddenly she found it difficult to draw in oxygen and she was on her back on the ground and people were screaming all around them. She didn't understand why, not at first. But there was something warm and sticky on her face and when she grazed it with her fingertips and brought her hand in front of her face, she saw red. Then she saw the reason she couldn't breathe.

"Bruce..." she breathed out. He was half on top of her, unmoving. She must have hit the ground hard because her back felt the sting of pins and needles and she grunted as she lifted herself and Bruce into a sitting position. And then she saw it...the small red and bloody hole right in the center of his forehead and suddenly the air was sucked right back out from her lungs. Natasha's breaths came out shaky and uneven as she rolled him onto his back on the concrete. The blood wasn't her blood, it was Bruce's. "No...that—that can't happen..." It was sheer disbelief that had her place her hand over the tiny wound over his forehead, as though that might just fix everything.

None of it would have happened if she hadn't dragged him out of the damned tower to begin with. She dragged her eyes around the crowd gathered, searching aimlessly. It had to be from far away, she never heard a gunshot. She never heard it. But she did see something... green.

Bruce's skin had begun to turn a distinct shade of green and she knew what that meant. "Crap... crap... crap..." she muttered quickly. She looked around at all the people that were currently gathered and pointing at them, apparently, they recognized Bruce and herself now. "RUN!" she growled out at them. "Go! Go!"

It seemed to be enough, they must have realized what was about to happen, because they people screamed again and ran in every direction. She yanked her phone from her pocket and dialed.

"Romanoff, did you miss me?"

"Code green!" she growled out into the phone.

And there was no hesitation, "Where?"

"Twelve blocks north, 13th street," she informed him quickly. The problem was, she forgot one small detail during the midst of what was happening, at least until the noise beside her served as a reminder. She turned her head in time to hear the growl to see him writhe and stand and grow. And his arm swung out in every direction. Once again, she felt the air whoosh from her lungs and the pain slammed through her back as she hit the brick wall of the building nearby.

It took over a minute to get her lungs working properly again as she rolled to her hands and knees and she made a side note to never stand near Bruce mid-transformation. She didn't quite make it to her feet, instead she fell back on her rear and put her back to the wall to try and catch her breath a little further. That accidental smack was nearly as potent as the time he had smacked her into the wall on the Helicarrier, and still equally as unpleasant. Natasha wasn't quite sure what to do when he turned towards her and she had a brief expectation to see his fist rise with lethal intention.

It didn't happen, however, he did snarl and spit the bullet directly at her feet. "Whoa... okay..." she whispered with a rasp to her voice. "It's okay, Big Guy... right?"

It wasn't. He was pissed. The Hulk ripped out a fire hydrant and threw it clear through the window just next to her head. She covered her head with her arms as the shards of glass rained down along with the never ending flow of water shooting through the air. That was it though, nothing else flew at her and she dared to put her arms down and open her eyes in time to see him stomping down the street, feral growls issued to anyone in his path. Bruce would completely lose himself if this got out of hand and she couldn't think of any other way to get his attention.

So she pulled out her gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

The Hulk froze as the bullet hit his back uselessly and then he turned, slowly, and stared at her. "Oh boy..." On second thought, Bruce might be more pissed off at her for that. The noise from him wasn't just feral, it was down right guttural and terrifying. Scrambling to her feet took far more effort then it should have and she took off down the sidewalk and made her best attempts to ignore the tremors of the ground as he followed after her. Not good, not good...

It was yet another painful reminder of her trying to escape from the Winter Soldier as she waved people out of the way. It was another reminder that running usually wound up badly for her. That revelation came a moment to late and she didn't feel a tremor for about thirty seconds; until the Hulk jumped down right in front of her. The gasp the flew from her lips escaped involunarily as she fell backwards once more.

This was it, the end of the line. Natasha didn't have it in her to watch, so she closed her eyes and pathetically shielded her face with her hand.

It was unending silence for what felt like forever before she realized that nothing happened. Even so, it took her equally as long to find the courage to open her eyes. When she did, it wasn't what she expected. The Hulk just stood there, enraged eyes locked onto her hand and his own outreached towards it to mimic it. Her mouth felt dry and she couldn't get any words out, and she remembered how badly this had gone the first time she had grazed his fingertips with her own, so she didn't dare take that move again. "Hey Big Guy..." she offered up again in greeting.

He didn't seem all that pleased with her words and he snarled. She knew she flinched, she must have, because those angry eyes softened just slightly. What the hell did I say to Bruce on Stark's jet? It had calmed Bruce down when he was in agony... maybe it would work for The Hulk too. "Sun's getting' real low..." she offered out in a tentative voice, and she winced, because she remembered she had spoken it in Russian to the scientist.

It seemed to have some effect, because he stood there in silence, though his face still held a scowl for the moment. Maybe she just needed to let him make the next move...

Natasha supposed it was as bad a plan as any other she had come up with in her life, so as slowly as she could, she shifted her hand under his with her palm up. He regarded her hand with an unusual uncertainty for the usually angry beast before he glanced back at her face. She wasn't sure if he was debating between Hulk-slapping her or eating her for lunch, but he didn't look like he was in an agreeable mood either way. It felt like ages, then he seemed to come to a decision, and he rested his hand over top of hers, the top of his hand landed softly in her palm.

She barely managed not to shudder out a breath of relief and she took a deep breath instead. She left her hand where it was for a moment before she slowly moved it so that her hand rested on his wrist. Slowly and cautiously, she trailed her fingers across the giant hand until they reached his fingertips, but she never once took her eyes of the Big Guy's face. He almost looked relaxed, or about as relaxed as the beast could manage to look when he was forever trapped with having a brooding expression.

Then... not so relaxed.

The Hulk grabbed his head, stumbling backwards and groaning and growling. Now she really was breathing shakily as she watched him fight whatever the hell was going on. Words escaped her completely when he started shrinking.

She couldn't even acknowledge the fact that Tony had just slammed down on the ground beside her decked out in full Iron Man armor.

"You know—I'm realizing that you two together, you're a dangerous mix," he mentioned nonchalantly. "I'm still sleeping on the couch from the last time all three of us were in the same spot and now we're Hulking out in the streets." Then he shrugged, "Did you... wait—did you de-Hulk him?"

"I—I think so..." she mumbled out.

Natasha watched as Tony angled his head to look at her, then he looked back to the Hulk before he immediately looked back at her. "Holy shit—Natasha... you're bleeding."

She smacked his metal hand away as he reached for her head, "Not mine...or—I don't think it is," she admitted. "It's Bruce's... somebody shot him..."

"Where's the shooter?" he asked quickly.

She hated to admit that she didn't know, but she had no choice, "Never saw him—I...I never saw." She shook her head slightly as Bruce writhed on the ground, slowly losing the green tinge on his skin as he turned pale and sweaty. "He just—he was dead... right through—" she whispered and pointed her her forehead with a bloodied fingertip. "He was dead... and then he was The Hulk and—the Big Guy literally spit the bullet out..."

There was clapping.

There was cheering.

And Natasha really couldn't handle that.

"Natasha..."

Tony's worried voice was all she remembered. Then...

Darkness.

Oh boy guys. Be glad, I was gonna leave it with an actual cliffhanger where you didn't know what happened when the Hulk went to level Natasha with a Hulk-slap :P but I thought that was just TOO cruel. So... there you go.