"The nausea would pass if you ate something."
"No."
His face was ashen. After a several hour long nap, he had woken and lain there, stubbornly refusing to let her help him walk to the forest to relieve himself, or to lift his head and drink any water, or to do anything to alleviate his symptoms.
"I'll sit here and watch you suffer if that's what you really want, but it's not the best revenge in the world. I've seen worse."
That was a lie. Nat had seen all sorts of bad, but this was its own category. Gamma radiation monster induced indigestion? That was a new one. He held out for five more minutes.
"Fine," he relented.
She was impressed with how long he had lasted. He must be really mad at her. Fifteen minutes later and she was lowering him back into the bed, his teeth gritted with the pain of putting weight on his feet.
"You know you could just stay in the jet," Nat pointed out.
"Rather not," he muttered, turning away again.
She left and made him a soft gruel in the jet, a mix of some boiled grain from the market with a bit of mashed mango, stirred with water into a thin liquid. She hoped it would be easy on his stomach after the last twenty four hours. She carried it back into the cabana in a wooden bowl she had bought from the market as well.
"This isn't going to be anything you're used to, but try a spoonful and see if you can keep it down."
She knelt in front of him and held out a spoonful of the orange colored gruel. He just looked at her, his gaze dripping sarcastic disapproval. Even she had to admit it was a bit much, spoon feeding. She shrugged and put the spoon back in the bowl, proffering it to him. He took it gingerly and sniffed at the contents. He set the bowl down and covered his mouth for a moment.
"Don't think too much. One mouthful, swallow without tasting. Just see if your stomach can handle it."
"I already know it can't."
"Won't know til you try," she teased.
He glared at her before picking the bowl up once more, spooning some into his mouth, and swallowing with great effort. He immediately set the bowl down again, covering his mouth and closing his eyes. Nat sat back on her heels next to the bed, ready to assist if he needed to vomit again.
Twenty minutes later and half the bowl was gone. Nat took it as a promising sign. She decided to push her luck a bit more.
"Do you remember anything?" she asked. It was the first time she had tried talking with him about anything other than his recovery.
"Like you pushing me off a cliff? I remember that."
"Anything after. Since then."
Bruce took a moment to actually consider. He had a vague recollection of a metal playground, newspapers blowing around his feet—still green. Red—her hair. He always remembered her hair. He remembered sunlight, hot. He remembered a heavy sensation, like being underwater, but he didn't need air.
"Not much."
"But some? That's improvement," Natasha began excitedly. The connection between Bruce's and Hulk's memories had been something they were zeroing in on before Ultron happened.
"No." Bruce replied emphatically. "There's no improvement now, not anymore. Not ever."
"Bruce, look—"
"Please stop. This conversation is moot."
"Can I just—"
"Natasha. No. Can you even—do you have any idea what this feels like?"
"Well, I've never vomited up a fish skeleton before, so. . ." her eyes sparkled. She was trying so hard.
"You say it's been nine months. Months. Gone. Sokovia doesn't feel like yesterday, but it doesn't feel like nine freaking months. I could have done anything in that time, I could have killed. . ." he trailed off, closing his eyes, leaning back against the wall of the cabana.
"You didn't."
"What?"
"Kill anybody. I was checking."
"Checking on me? Oh great. Great."
"No, not checking on you, I—"
"What, Natasha? What—what were you doing for nine months?"
Nat paused. She didn't want to answer that yet. She didn't want him to think she had sat passively by. She didn't want him to know she'd been searching—obsessing—either. She didn't know what she wanted him to believe yet. Or what she believed herself.
He scoffed. Of course she would stay silent. So typical.
"How do you think you got the sores?" she eventually asked.
Bruce looked at his arms, his stomach, his bandaged feet. The shirt hurt too much on his skin, sticking to the open sores, so he was without it. He didn't answer.
"I saw you—or him, I guess—go in the water. When he came out he scratched at his skin where sand stuck. It seemed painful—he was kind of howling while he did it, but he couldn't seem to stop. Do you think that could be it?"
"Makes sense," Bruce forgot his anger, caught up in the curiosity of it. Figuring out the Hulk had been his full-time job for years—old habits die hard. "Only thing strong enough to really hurt him is himself. Sand and saltwater would help that process along."
"Why though? Why wouldn't he stop? Those sores are so deep—it couldn't have just been the one time that he scratched like that."
"I don't think executive function is very high on his list of priorities," Bruce remarked dryly.
"Right."
He ate a few more spoonfuls before shoving the bowl away.
"Let me just re-apply the antibiotic cream once more on your back before you sleep again. Maybe there's enough clean skin now to get some gauze on there."
Bruce leaned away from the wall while Natasha applied the cream. There wasn't enough skin, not yet, but the sores were calming down, the redness already starting to fade. As she got around to his side, Bruce leaned away from her.
"I can get that spot," he held his hand out for the tube.
"You can do your chest, but if you reach that far around you'll split the skin on your back." She held the tube just out of reach, allowing him to stretch for it if he so desired. If he did, however, he'd prove her right, and they both knew it. He righted himself and held his arm up grudgingly, allowing her to continue. He flinched when she touched his ribs.
"Ticklish, are we?" She jibed. He didn't reply. She bit her lip, continuing in silence. She deserved this.
When she finished, he turned away from her to lie down facing the wall. She sat and watched him breathe. He was pretending to be asleep, but she could see the irregular rise and fall of his ribcage. He wasn't sleeping. He just didn't want to talk to her. Eventually his breathing did level out. He needed rest.
For the first time since arriving, Nat rose and went out to the jet with the intent of cleaning herself up. She had changed out of her suit after tending to him that first time, but she hadn't wanted to risk bathing or losing sight of the cabana for longer than a few minutes at a time. She didn't know if he'd need her. Or if he'd run.
The tears hit her in the tiny onboard shower.
He hated her. Truly loathed her. He had not and would not forgive her for pushing him over the edge in Sokovia.
"You're not gonna go green on me, are you?"
"I have a compelling reason to not lose my cool."
"I adore you. . . but I need the other guy."
She laughed in the stream of hot water. How cruel of a shift—from being his reason to stay calm to being his reason for rage. Fitting. A lifetime of training to destroy things, and she thought the first time she actually wanted to hold something together it would work? The hubris.
She assessed the supplies on the jet while she dried her hair. They easily had enough for a month or two, should that be needed. Would it be? She hadn't thought that far ahead when she left. Her only goal had been to find him. What now?
Her chin wobbled as she pictured him—his knobby spine, his hairy chest interrupted by the awful sores. Those horrible, gruesome looking feet. She felt responsible for all the pain he was in. It was her fault, after all. She had pushed him.
In the med kit was a pair of scissors—she wondered if he'd like a haircut. She hadn't seen his curls this long before. Since he couldn't wash them yet, he might prefer to have them out of the way. Though, the messy ringlets hanging over his face were very attractive. Natasha dropped her towel as the thought crossed her mind. What the fuck? If his cold shoulder had made anything apparent in that cabana, it was that that ship had sailed. And sunk.
Natasha grabbed her suit from the planning table in the jet where she had tossed it the night before in her haste to get changed and get back up to him. She tossed it into a small hole in the wall—the ship would clean it. Instead she pulled on a V-neck and some pants. If he was going to go green at this point, she deserved whatever was coming. She chuckled to herself self-deprecatingly. What a thought. She slipped on one of her bracelets. Just in case.
She grabbed the medkit to take back to the cabana when he woke up. She'd change the bandages on his feet. And maybe he'd want a haircut.
He grimaced as she fished in the bottom of his foot with the tweezers. He had felt something in there—an itching sensation that wouldn't go away. It had been the first thing he grudgingly said to her upon waking, right after sunset.
"Ah! There we go!" Nat pulled out the tweezers—they pinched an inch-long splinter of wood. Bruce eyed the shard with indifference.
"Wow. I can't believe that was in your foot."
"Not mine."
Natasha bit her lip and started spreading the medicated ointment into his sole. She deserved this. This and more. As she worked, she dared to look up at his face.
"Why do you think so many injuries came back with you? He normally heals so fast."
"Dunno."
The answer was like a slap in the face. Maybe earlier he had forgotten his anger at her, but now it was front and center.
Outside of his fear of the Hulk, one of Bruce's favorite conversation topics was understanding him—his physiology, biomechanics, bodily processes, everything that made his seemingly impossible existence possible. This was a huge milestone in discovering more of the connection between them, and she knew Bruce had to be dying to find out why such a toll was taken on his human body. But he wasn't curious enough to break his silence towards her. She finished wrapping his foot and stood up.
"There are some scissors in the medkit—I was wondering if you would like a haircut. You probably won't be able to shower for a while and I don't know if it's bothering you now, but it might in a week or so."
She watched him process. He looked away, rubbing at his stubble before nodding tersely. She grabbed the scissors from the kit before kneeling behind him and setting about cutting in silence.
"Do you have any idea what you're doing?" he asked after a few snips.
"Curls are easier than straight—you're shaping rather than cutting. You just take it curl by curl."
"How do you know that?"
Nat smiled. He was speaking to her willingly. "I used to cut hair in the—back in training. For the other girls."
"Of course. Another one of the many hats of Natasha Romanoff."
"Not hat, scissors," Nat joked. He didn't laugh.
She continued snipping. Curl by curl, she'd pinch, pull taut, cut, re-twirl, lay down. It was rhythmic, almost soothing.
"You lost weight," she commented.
"Is that a question?"
"I just—I didn't know that you'd lose weight while he was in control. That you could."
"Me neither."
"Could it be that the other guy wasn't eating stuff that gave you what you needed nutritionally?"
He didn't respond.
"Are you hungry?"
"I feel like my insides have been put through a blender."
"So no?"
"Not really."
"If I make something, will you try and eat it?" She kept cutting, snipping the sides shorter. She gently rolled his head over to expose the side she was working on to the moonlight.
"Nothing sweet. Something basic."
"I'll go on a hunt when we're done here."
She kept cutting in silence. She could feel the tension in his shoulders, his resentment at having her so close. Still, she didn't rush. His hair was gorgeous—thick and soft. It was also greasy and full of sand, but Nat could see through that. She gave his shoulder a gentle pat when she finished and stood up. He flinched.
"I'll go make you some food." She gathered the discarded hair and tossed it out the window into the surf.
She dug through the jet until she found a pre-prepped ration of rice and some basic protein. By the time she made it back to the cabana with the food however, he was fast asleep. She set it down next to him and retreated to the front stoop. Giving him the privacy of the cabana seemed like the least she could do after everything she'd put him through. He could eat when he woke.