Author's Note: Here's some more fun for you guys. For new people and those who forgot, MrsPanda said Bruce/Nat seem a bit closer and more open than AoU depicted, and yes that's true, and they'll get closer still. It was voted back in Chapter 5 for that to happen rather than sticking strictly cannon. However, I will go into AoU at the end of this story and show how those scenes can still work exactly as they did in the movie by writing them out ;) Also, I may add one or two additional scenes, since there's plenty of time that was never accounted for in between scenes of the movie.

Chapter 17:

It happened again, and again, and again. Three more nights, the same nightmare, only a few varying differences and details; such as location and the way that the Other Guy killed Natasha. He crushed her into dust with his hands in the first, he repeatedly slammed her against walls in the second, and in the third one he quite literally ripped her in half. That was the one that had him reeling the most because she lived for minutes afterwards and screamed the entire time, it's a scream that matched the one he heard from her on Tony's jet on their previous return from India.

"Jarvis...where's Natasha?"

"Miss Romanoff is currently in the training center, should I put in a request for her to come up?"

Bruce paused and actually debated saying yes to that, but he decided it was probably better to get dressed and give himself the walk to the training center to get a better grip on reality. Really, he just needed to see that she wasn't ripped in half and dead on the floor, "No, that's alright..." He rubbed at his eyes and took a few deep breaths before he swung his legs over the side of the bed and grounded himself on his feet. He tossed the sweatpants and t-shirt into the hamper, changed into black slacks and a brownish-red button down shirt and finally left the safety of his own mini-apartment.

He made the trip as slowly as possible and although he was certain that Jarvis would have mentioned Natasha being dead in the gym, he still couldn't leave the uneasy feeling at bay until he saw for sure that she wasn't. He wasted about ten minutes in a walk and elevator trip that probably should have taken maybe a third of that and when the elevator doors opened he realized she was obviously working out quite a few issues of her own.

As soon as he was inside he saw the flash of red hair as she darted around to Steve Rogers' left side, hit the wall at a jumping angle and used it to propel herself into the air, over top of him and onto his shoulders. It seemed Steve was caught at least a bit off guard by the maneuver because he went a little off balance and had to take a few steps backwards to try and ground himself.

Bruce walked a little further inside and leaned against one of the training dummies, watching as Natasha was forced to get a bit more creative to take the supersoldier off his feet. She slipped down so that she was practically sitting on his chest, got her ankles around his neck and then grabbed hold of Steve's legs and proceeded to pull his feet out from under him. He really wasn't sure, but from the look on the good Captain's face, he was somewhere between stunned and flustered by the awkward situation as he toppled over and landed with Natasha on his chest. Bruce actually chuckled a little when she folded her legs on him like a pretzel and then turned her head and gave Steve a wink.

"Told you I could take you down."

"Never doubted you for a second..." Steve grumbled and Bruce smiled and shook his head as the all too good mannered man did his best not to look at the perfectly shaped rear-end just inches from his face. "You always make this is weird as possible for me."

The throaty and teasing little laugh was one Bruce hadn't heard from her yet, but he supposed she had been friends with Steve longer, "Well, not all your enemies will be strapping, chiseled and male," she informed him as she slipped off the supersoldier and got to her feet. "Maybe strapping and chiseled...occasionally females have that quality," she explained as she held out a hand and pulled the still slightly embarrassed Steve to his feet, "And occasionally it's a good look for them, I know I can dig it. Like that girl working the front desk in the tower, she's nice, a little butch perhaps, but it's a good look for her. If you're into that, I can get you her number."

"Yeah... I'm busy. Plus she's got that ring thing in her nose," and Bruce decided that Steve obviously dealt with this from Natasha on more than one occasion, because he didn't look all that bothered by her suggesting potential dates for him.

"It's called a septum piercing, it's all the rage these days," Natasha informed him with a nonchalant shrug, "And you'd only notice that if you checked her out, Rogers, so were you checking her out?"

Steve, to his credit, tried his best not to react.

Then Natasha's eyebrow quirked up and this coy little smile took hold on her lips, "Besides, these days women are piercing weirder body parts than their nose."

"Like their tongues," Steve mentioned, scrunching up his nose.

She gave him the tiniest elbow to the gut, "Go lower."

"Uh... yeah, the belly button thing."

"Higher and lower," she informed him.

Steve actually looked horrified and that was the moment where Bruce actually laughed regardless of the fact he was still horrified by his night. Only Steve and Natasha would spar not just with their bodies but with their words at five-thirty in the morning. While the resident supersolider, which Bruce wasn't even sure when the man had arrived back in the tower, gave him this 'I've just been rescued' look, Natasha simply settled him with an easy yet knowing smile. She seemed to know he had come in here looking for her, and she seemed to know exactly why without even needing to ask.

"All yours, Doctor Banner," Steve told him and Bruce chuckled a little as he came towards him, "Appreciate the save."

He cleared his throat a little since saving Steve hadn't actually been an intended thing, but he gave him a weary smile anyways, "Uh... sure thing, Captain." Bruce watched as he left the room and he glanced over at Natasha and made his way over towards her, "So... you're into strapping and chiseled young people?"

It was a new one for him to try and tease her, and he knew it was a mistake when Natasha gave him a sly little grin and he felt his face burn a little when her eyes looked him up and down, "Awkwardly dorkish ranks right up there with them."

Oh, God...He pretty much begged for that one and he knew it, "Right... well..."

Natasha's hand settled on his shoulder and he almost jumped a little. "Rough night?" came her suddenly softer tone. He didn't have to say anything, she continued for him, "Same thing as last time judging by your face." Her fingers wrapped around his wrist next and she led him over to a bench and before he really knew what was happening, she was wrapping tape around his hands.

"Uh... what are you doing?"

"Sometimes you gotta work things out the old fashioned way, Bruce," she informed him.

That was disconcerting to say the least, "Yeah—no, not a chance." His attempt to pull his hands away was in vain, because delicate and dainty as Natasha's hands were, they were strong.

She glanced up with her face just two or three inches from his own and he found himself a little lost in eyes of not just green, but many shades of green, almost never-ending if you looked into them long enough. Her eyes always stood out in the contrast between them and her vibrantly red hair, but this was different, like many other things had been since she came back from wherever she had been with Clint. It was the first time he really took notice of qualities in her that didn't involve the fact she was deadly, that her entire body was a weapon, but she reminded him of it in this moment, "Sometimes, you can't always avoid the fight," Natasha informed him. "Given that you want to avoid the Big Guy as much as you can, maybe it's time to learn an alternative method to dealing with stress," came her suggestion.

"Somehow I don't think you're suggesting yoga..."

"No," she agreed with a smile. She ripped the end off the tape on one hand with her teeth, much to his dismay, then swirled the tape around his other hand. "Relax, you won't hurt me," she added with a knowing little smile.

Bruce frowned a little at that, "Thought never crossed my mind...and you don't think this is even close to being a terrible idea?"

"Not at all," she stated. Once again, she ripped the tape off with her teeth and patted it down, "So, you can punch it out, or face the fear."

"Face the fear?" he questioned, and he sincerely hoped that she wasn't suggesting what he thought she was.

Natasha was, in fact, suggesting it. "We could go try a 'lullaby' as Tony started calling it in the lab the other morning, prove your nightmare wrong." Bruce was making a face of discomfort and he knew it just by her next comment, "Punching it out it is, then. We can try the fear facing later."

Bruce sighed at that as she pulled him to his feet, "What am I hitting?"

"Me," she said, and her voice indicated that should have been obvious. Again, he must have made a rather odd face because she chuckled, "Not hit me, hit me," she assured him. "I'll put the training gloves on, you'll be hitting those."

"Oh..." Bruce wasn't entirely sure that was a better option.

"I promise not to hit you back, at least not this time," she tacked on with a smirk.

That actually made him laugh a little and he watched as she stood up and opened a locker a few feet away. It was near impossible to see what she was doing and he was left somewhere between disbelief and attempting not to laugh when she turned around with a pair of green training gloves on that he figured he was supposed to punch. She wore a rather innocent smile and he couldn't help his next words, "Really, Natasha?"

"There's a pair of green boxing gloves, too," she piped up as she tossed them his way. He fumbled them for a second before he got a good grip on them and he had to admit, it was refreshing to have someone besides Tony make light of his other half. "Embrace your true colors, Big Guy," came her next comment and Bruce couldn't help but laugh a little harder.

"You've you just been waiting to bring those out, haven't you?" his voice feigned annoyance but it was impossible to get away with it given that he was still wearing a smile.

"Hey, I didn't buy them, I just found them. Blame your science bro. Besides, you walked in and I just couldn't resist."

Bruce chuckled a little at that, "You're a terrible friend."

Natasha just grinned at that as she shoved him towards the boxing ring, "Well, beat the terrible out of me then."

He still couldn't quite make himself comfortable with this idea, even when he was in the ring and pushing the center rope down for her to get in. Her method of getting through the ropes was done in one of the most provocative manners he had ever witnessed. Bruce blew out of breath and forced himself to look anywhere but at Natasha bent over in front of him. He supposed if he just told her that she needed to stop doing things like that, she likely would, but it was starting to turn into a new way to keep his heart rate in check.

Apparently, one didn't need yoga or other calming methods because with a woman like Natasha around, he was sort of learning on the fly how to breathe through it all. This was one of those lesser moments where he counted a rapid thump, thump, thump of his heart and he took quite a few more breaths than usually necessary. He could see the quirk of her eyebrow as she stood in the ring and waited for him to stop leaning on the ropes and join her, "You alright?"

"Sure, yeah..." Definitely not... Bruce couldn't help but think he was awkwardly out of place in a boxing ring and he watched Natasha put down the training gloves. A second later she was helping him get his own gloves on, "I still don't think this is the greatest idea..."

She just smiled, "You can't knock it until you've tried it." Once she had them adjusted the way she saw fit on his hands, she picked the stranger and rounded training gloves up and slipped them on, holding them up in the air, "And if you get uncomfortable with it, we stop. Simple as that."

"I'm uncomfortable now..."

Natasha smirked a little, "Just get over here and throw a punch, Bruce."

He supposed she wasn't likely to give up on the idea until he actually gave it a shot, so he stepped a little closer and glanced at his hands and then hers. Even he had to admit when he swung his right fist into one of her gloved hands that it was weak and pathetic, but Natasha made no mention of it, so he took a breath, released it, and swung the left next.

Bruce did it a few times in the same way, right, then left, right then left, before Natasha interrupted, "You can't always use the same pattern." He blinked at her a few times and she just shrugged, "Just saying, mix it up a little." He figured from a scientific standpoint, she was right. So he hit twice on the right, once on the left, once on the right, then twice on the left before her voice rung out again, "Now how about you actually put a little force behind it?"

This was the point where he actually couldn't help but mess with her a little, so he gave her his most defeated expression he could manage before he spoke, "I was using a little force..."

Apparently it was effective because Natasha blinked a multitude of times in the span of seconds as she lowered the training gloves and stared at him.

He couldn't hold the straight face for very long, but they had the stare down for sixty-seven seconds before he finally broke out into a sheepish smile, "I'm just kidding."

"Well that's good," she muttered out before she smirked, "I was about to count you out as a lost cause." Bruce couldn't resist chuckling at her comment and then she started up again, "Now lay one on me."

And of course she had to word it like that, Steve said it best earlier, Natasha was a professional at making things weird for the men around her. The worst part about that was that he knew it wasn't entirely her fault. Given the title she earned with Red Room and the KGB, flaunting what she had was pretty much second nature to her and Bruce could only assume that it wasn't something she even thought twice about doing, even ten years after being out of their control.

So he gave the next punch a little more force and watched Natasha smile, "See? There you go." Bruce managed a microscopic smile when she grounded her feet for better form, "Keep throwin' 'em, Rocky."

Admittedly, it did sort of work to relieve some stress, but he wasn't going to admit that to her.

Natasha sat up in bed and rubbed at her temples. She wasn't sure exactly what nightmare had plagued her tonight, she just remembered fragments and scraps of it. Blood and bodies and herself doing the dance of death through the crimson puddles painting the stage of Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. That was enough to put her feet on the floor and she snatched her phone from the nightstand as she made her way into the hall, still barefoot, then onto the elevator and into the lounge after that. She wasn't entirely sure why finding Tony there at one-thirty in the morning surprised her but she sidled herself onto a seat at the bar beside him nonetheless.

She watched as he glanced over and looked her up and down, though she supposed she couldn't quite blame the flummoxed look on his face, she was barefoot in his lounge wearing black shorts and a navy blue tank top. He wasn't much better in plaid pajama bottoms, socks and a white t-shirt.

"Okay...women aren't supposed to be more attractive when they first roll out of bed," Tony commented as he pulled a bottle of vodka over top of the bar and passed it over to her, "Your hair isn't even messed up, that's not even humanly possible." He was giving her the stink-eye and she had a feeling he was already about as drunk as it got, "I knew it. You're an android."

Natasha smirked at that as she slid the cap off the vodka and took a swig, "I've seen weirder shit, I suppose."

Tony inclined his head a little to the side and she supposed he had seen the same 'weird shit' she had. Hell, she supposed that was probably one of the many reasons he drank so much. All the terrors that happened to him in Afghanistan, falling from giant wormholes in the sky, the Mandarin... he had enough demons plaguing him at night to coerce the drinking.

"Terrorists, aliens or...?" she let the question trail off there and took another swig.

Tony merely nodded and sipped from his glass, "Aliens today. And you?"

"Ballet."

He looked like he wanted to question that but he seemed to think better of it and instead he shrugged, "Never was a fan of that."

She smiled a little at that, "It's an acquired taste."

"Of that I have no doubt."

Natasha studied him for a moment as he swallowed the remnants of the drink in his glass and then refilled it with scotch, "If you're going to get wasted, you could at least do it on more than just one type of alcohol."

"You're trying to give me a lesson on drinking? I've been doing it longer."

She chuckled at that.

"Fine, get on the other side barkeep. Show me how it's done," he told her.

It probably wasn't the best idea to enable him but she understood the need to drink the nightmares away until you were far enough gone that they couldn't find you. It wasn't a method that worked so well for her, but maybe it did for Tony, so she slid across the top of the bar to the other side. "You talk about them?" she questioned as she pulled out several different bottles.

"With Pepper sometimes, Bruce other times," he answered.

She supposed that was better than nothing and she filled a large glass with ice. She began pouring a concoction of different alcohols meticulously and ignored Tony's eyes as they followed the movements of her hands.

"Were you a bartender in a previous life?"

Natasha gave him a little smile, "Not much I haven't learned to do, but you've read my file, so I'm sure you already know all about that."

Tony sipped at the scotch and nodded, "It's a good reminder that my life isn't so utterly sucky."

"You've taken your hits just like the rest of us," she reminded him as she put the two bottles down and mixed in another two at the same time as each other.

"What the hell are you making?"

"It's best not to ask, but it'll get you where you want to be."

"Fair enough," he conceded. Natasha topped off the four alcohols with a spritz of soda, stirred it with a straw, and slid it across to him. She watched him take a sip, give the beverage a dirty look, then give her one as well, "This tastes like horseshit."

She smirked, "Call it the Widow's Bite."

"Ouch... I can feel my hangover brewing just at the name," he quipped with a smirk, "You come up with this poison?" he questioned as he drank some more of it.

"No," she answered with a shrug, "Dead man did."

Tony snickered a little at that, "Suppose he deserved it, anyone who would create this swill clearly had a death wish."

Natasha gave him the barest of smiles at that, "He was one of the few that didn't deserve it."

"You kill him?"

"No."

His eyes were practically burning a hole in her at the answer she supplied him with and she took a sip from the vodka bottle as she waited for another question about it. It finally arrived after he sipped at his drink two more times, "So why's he dead?"

It was a stupid question, but she supposed he was drunk enough that there was no point in mentioning that, "Contrary to popular belief, not all the murders in the world were committed by me."

"Man names a drink after a woman, usually means there's something more between them," came his rather insightful comment. Natasha didn't disagree but she also didn't reply. "You loved him?" and she gave him a rather incredulous look, "That's a no. But he loved you?" He took a sip of the drink, studied her blank expression scrupulously and then shrugged, "And that's a yes. Unrequited love is a bitch." Drunk Tony was a bit too perceptive.

"Any love at all is a bitch," she informed him, "That's why I've never bothered."

Tony smirked at that, "Couple years ago, I would've agreed with you."

She raised the bottle of vodka up, "Well, here's to you being all grown up, Stark."

He grinned at that and clinked the vile drink concoction against her bottle, "Don't worry, another ten years and you can grow up, too."

"I'll pass," she told him with a roll of her eyes. They each took a sip of their respective drinks and she glanced down at her phone on the counter of the bar when it buzzed.

"Booty call?"

She snickered a little at that and picked it up, sliding her finger across the screen. Bruce's name came across with one word attached.

'Awake?'

Natasha replied with a little zigzag of her finger on the screen.

'Yes.'

She flicked her gaze over to Tony and put the cap back on the vodka bottle, then took his empty glass from him, "Go to bed."

Tony gave her a rather unhappy look.

"The bartender is cutting you off, Tony. Go to sleep, unless you'd like to talk about the problem?" she offered.

"Yeah—no."

Natasha watched as he slipped off the bar stool and wobbled his way towards the elevator and she sighed as she slid back over top of the counter and snatched his arm to help him along. Her phone buzzed again.

'Busy?'

She one-handed her next reply.

'Won't be in a minute.'

Her eye twitched a little when Tony leaned down and rested his cheek on her shoulder but she remained stoically silent as they rode the elevator to his floor. She supposed he could have been worse than a cuddly drunk person, though that ranked pretty high on her 'most annoying type of drunk' list.

"Miss Potts is awaiting your arrival on the floor, Miss Romanoff."

Natasha chuckled at Jarvis' words, "Guess you informed her?"

"Indeed."

"Appreciate it."

"Of course, Miss Romanoff."

Sure enough, Pepper was standing there when the elevator doors opened and she was never more grateful because Tony, not-so-gracefully, stumbled over and gave the other woman a hug and a big slobbery kiss on the cheek, "Missed you."

It was all Natasha could do not to roll her eyes, but Pepper seemed to lack her willpower in that department. "Thanks for bringing him up, Natasha," came her grateful comment.

She waved that off and gave a meager shrug, "Not a problem. Besides, I might have given him the drink that sent him into Starkuddle mode, so—you know, sorry about that."

Pepper gave a small laugh at that, "It's alright. He would have gotten there by himself, I'm sure."

"You can grow up too, Red," Tony reminded her with a waggling finger in her direction.

She saw Pepper's odd face and couldn't resist the little smile at his childish antics, "Yeah, I'll keep that in mind, Shellhead."

Tony hooted out a laugh as the elevator doors closed.

"Jarvis, where's Bruce?"

"Doctor Banner is in his room."

She nodded a little at that and leaned against the back of the elevator as she waited to get to their floor. Once she arrived, she stepped off and went left towards his room instead of hers. She didn't have to knock and she assumed Bruce must have been tipped off by the AI because he opened the door as she stepped up to it.

"Hey."

He looked like crap, much like he had in the training center the previous morning, "Hey yourself... rough night?"

"The usual."

Natasha nodded her head a little at that before she stepped passed him and into the living room, snatching his arm as she did so, "C'mon."

She heard him swing the door closed and his question followed right behind it, "What are you doing?"

"I just dealt with Tony in the lounge, now I'm going to sleep."

She supposed she stunned him into silence for several seconds before he seemed to get over it, but his voice came out a little uncertain and weary, "Here?"

"You want me to leave you alone?" she questioned as she pulled him into the bedroom.

"Um..."

Natasha gave him the smallest smile.

"I guess you could use the bed, I'll go in the other roo—"

She cut that off quickly, "Bruce, are you an adult?" She watched him give an sheepish nod and pull a weird face at her question, "Well, I can share a bed without being handsy, and I'm sure you're a gentleman." His rather immediate gulp was easily noticed and she chuckled, "I'll stay on my side of the bed, scout's honor."

Bruce looked a little mortified by the thought but it seemed he was easily manipulated once more because he nodded along in the embarrassed manner that continually made her smile. He glanced back and forth between the left and right side, "Uh... do you have—you know—a preferred side?"

"I don't typically share," she informed him with a shrug, "I usually just sprawl in the middle, so it doesn't really matter."

She watched him nod again and climb in on the left side, so she lifted the covers of the right side and slipped in. Natasha turned so her back was facing Bruce and it was awkwardly quiet for several minutes before he spoke, "Natasha?"

"Hm?"

"Thanks."

"Sure thing," she replied with a yawn, "Sometimes it's easier to sleep with someone else around." She couldn't see it but she could feel him nod into the pillow. She didn't speak for a while but she waited quietly until she heard his breathing even out before she allowed herself to do the same.

Her eyes shot open at four-thirty in the morning when she felt an arm drape over her and a hand press against her stomach. Natasha was completely rigid and had to remind herself not to try and kill him when she remembered exactly where she was. Another few seconds and Bruce's chest pressed against her back and she felt his breath tickle her neck, it took a lot of willpower not to make the most daring escape in that exact moment. She learned a long time ago how to escape from positions like this, it was just the first time where she wasn't sure if she wanted to or not.

The no nightmare thing was sort of nice.

The arm around her sort of was too.

That was the moment she made the choice. It took little to no effort after years of doing so, and she carefully extracted herself from his arm and his bed as she covertly and expertly left his quarters for her own. This wasn't good, it wasn't good at all.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter :) more to come soon.