When Bruce made it back to the helicarrier, Natasha was leaning against the cool metal in the cockpit, legs strewn over the arms of the seat. She was doing the best she could to mask her suspicions about the one they had managed to capture.
"What was going on?" She asked quietly. "I couldn't tell much from the comms chatter. And I wasn't listening that hard if I'm being honest."
"Well, Clint went treetop to survey the hour and we spotted the compound, which is mostly underground. Tony used infrared scanners to find out where the people were and there were 11 shapes mulling around toward the center of the compound and one near the door, darting back and forth between the others and the door itself. So we drew him out with a little bit of firing, but he's quick and pretty clearly well-trained. There were weapons capabilities form the compound, though, so Tony didn't want me to enter. It sounds like they got him with one of Clint's paralytic arrows and they're sending a bigger team to infiltrate the compound since we have the target."
"Did you get a look at him?"
"No, but they described him on comms, did that sound like him?" His tone was back to being clinical and doctoral.
"I don't remember," she lied.
"That's okay," he accepted her lie so easily. "Sometimes your mind represses traumatic events or details of them."
She wished, more than anything, that her mind would repress any fo her memories of the Red Room. There were footsteps approaching outside of the plane and she began the preflight routine to get them headed out, signaling for Bruce to leave.
"Hey Nat," he said as he entered the cockpit and took over his part of the preflight.
"You got him pretty easily." She notes, careful to keep an even tone.
"Yeah. I don't think you should go back there, just in case, though."
"I can't avoid it forever, Clint. And I'm not a coward. Eventually, they'll bring him in and I'll probably have to do some of the questionings, I'm the only one who knows anything anyway."
"I just don't think it's a good idea in your condition."
"You got to go out there and take him down and you have burns! Those take much longer to heal than my cuts."
"And when was the last time you physically ate a full meal? Not IV fluids?"
"I don't see how that's relevant."
"Because you keep passing out, Nat! You're…" he sucks in a deep breath. "You're wasting away in front of us and I don't want to lose you."
"I'm sure they would find you another suitable partner, it's not like I'm the only one SHIELD has for you…" Her eyes never leave the instruments in front of her and she flicks switches and turns dials.
"Tasha, look at me."
She peels her eyes away from the dashboard, not turning her body and still focused on the flight.
"I don't want someone else. I want you. I want you to be my partner and I want you to be the one I fall asleep next to every night and wake up next to every morning. I want to see you get healthy because I care about you and I… I think I'm falling in love with you."
"You're not falling in love with me, Clint. You don't want the baggage I have, I promise."
"I do, though. I've been there since the very first day, Nat. I was the one who got you out of there and I will be there for every single day after. Every nightmare and cut and memory and every other thing you think is too much for me. And I'll be there every time you push me away, every time you push everyone away. And every time you tell yourself you don't deserve everything you have now, I want to be there to tell you that you do. Because I have seen how you have grown and it seems like nothing to you, but I've seen how you trust people more now, how you only look over your shoulder once an hour instead of five times in safe situations. And I want to be here for all of the other amazing things you're capable of."
"I don't know if this is a good idea. You're going to get hurt."
"I trust you. You would never hurt me."
"I don't know if I trust you, yet. Sometimes…" she quietly turned her head back to her lap and twisted a strand of her hair anxiously. "Sometimes my brain still gets a bit confused about you."
"We'll work on that together, too."
"This isn't going to magically fix everything you think is wrong with me."
"I don't think you need to be fixed, Nat. You need some help healing, that's all."
"I can't promise that this will work."
"Neither can I. But I would like to try if that's alright with you."
"It's not like we can go on dates right now, what would this even look like?"
"I would like your permission to be your boyfriend. Whatever that looks like, I'm in. One hundred percent."
"I don't know what it looks like, though."
"How about we go on a date in the compound. A picnic, on the roof. Just the two of us for the night, away from everyone else."
"You won't pressure me to eat?"
"Not more than you would at a normal dinner with the team. But we can spend some time getting to know each other outside of the team and our issues."
"That sounds… nice." She smiled at him. "Now, let's get this thing flying home."