"I can do this by now." Bruce commented as Natasha bandaged his feet.

"Ok. Yeah. Sure," she wiped her hands on her pants and sat back on her heels, looking at Bruce. He was looking back at her now—she didn't know if it was better or worse than when he refused to look at all. His expression was so cold. In three days it hadn't softened a bit. The silence had though. He was never the silent type. Nat should have remembered that.

"So," he faltered. "How is everybody?"

It was the first time he had tried to make conversation with her. She tried not to smile before replying.

"Clint and Laura had their third. Nathaniel Pietro Barton."

"Pietro as in the fast one?"

"Yeah."

"I thought Clint hated that guy."

"He did. Right up until he ran in front of some machine gun fire for him."

"So he. . .?"

"Yeah. Wanda was a mess for a while."

"I can imagine. Going through all that to avenge the death of their parents and then she loses her brother too." Of course he'd be able to empathize with Wanda, even after Johannesburg. He could forgive almost anything. Almost.

"Avenging has a funny way of doing that to people," Natasha half-smiled.

"What about Cap? Tony?"

"Tony's mostly in Malibu. Him and Pepper are getting serious—he listens to her a solid fifty percent of the time now."

Bruce whistled through his teeth. Was that a half smile she saw?

"Steve is at HQ. SHIELD sends over their recruits for training on fighting the enhanced, and he works with Wanda and Rhodes and Sam. Vision too."

"So, more fighting." Bruce stood up and grimaced. He hobbled to the balcony and leaned on the railing to admire the view. Natasha came up from behind and he slid over slightly, giving her room to look out as well. The view was gorgeous: crystal-clear blue water, islands off in the distance with big, fluffy white clouds in the sky. The breeze blowing through cooled the air just enough to be comfortable, and it smelled of something sweet and floral.

"Always more fighting," Bruce muttered.

"It's what we're trained to do," Natasha replied.

"And if we weren't? If we weren't there, would half of this, this… this shit even happen?"

"What if it did? And we weren't there?"

"It wouldn't be our problem I suppose."

"Exactly. And that's the problem. Whose would it be? Who on Earth could hope to protect us? Our planet?" Natasha caught herself—she was getting too frantic, too emphatic. This was what she told herself to convince herself it was good, it was ok what she was doing. Bruce didn't need that, not right now. "I'm sorry," she faltered.

"Don't apologize."

"No, I didn't mean to go all hero complex on you."

"It's fine. Wouldn't be an Avenger without one."

"Ouch."

He just shrugged. It was true, wasn't it? Natasha took a second to collect herself. Hero complex was harsh. That was so Cap, so Stark, so Thor-like. She never pictured herself as a hero. She knew Bruce didn't either.

"You didn't ask about Thor," she finally spoke.

"Huh?"

"He's off looking into these stones. The tesseract was one. The crystal in Vision's head is another. Apparently they're part of a set and there's been too many on earth recently. Probably why we've had so many alien suitors coming and knocking on our door," she smiled wryly. "He's trying to figure it out and cut it off at the source. So maybe we don't have to be heroes anymore. Or pretend to be." She tried not to sound too wistful as she said it. She knew she could never really stop.

Bruce stayed silent for a while, chewing on that.

"And you?" he finally asked.

"I've been at HQ with Steve. Working with the newbies."

"Always ready for a fight." Bruce joked bitterly.

"Don't have much choice."

"You always have a choice." The intensity in Bruce's voice shook her.

"Not quite. I don't do fieldwork anymore."

"Finally threw in the towel?"

"Hard to be a spy when there are action figures of you in every Toys R' Us."

"Action figures?"

"Yeah. Controversial, but good sellers. Hulk is a favorite."

Bruce grimaced. "Controversial?" he asked.

"Not everybody approves of the Avengers."

"Ah yes. The famous conundrum of 'they kill aliens, but they also level cities'. My heart goes out to them," Bruce remarked.

"Not everybody can see the big picture."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"We save people."

"We kill people too."

"Never on purpose."

"Here, let us come save you, but we're going to bring this giant green monster along that might turn on you guys when the fight's done and he doesn't feel like stopping yet."

"Bruce—"

"Save it Natasha. I remember Johannesburg. Or rather, the aftermath."

"Wanda did that, not you."

"I was a very effective tool for Wanda that day, wasn't I?"

"We couldn't have known. You stayed back when we all went in the tanker, you were doing everything right."

"And look at how many lives that saved."

"We couldn't have known." Natasha turned and looked at his grim expression. "And you know that. Why are you bringing this up?"

"Why are you here, Natasha?" He finally turned and looked at her. "To take me back, right? Fury sent you on one final trip? You say no fieldwork yet here you are. I'm sure nine months was enough time for them to whip up some sort of lab-prison I can work in; all the top-notch equipment that drops out through the floor the second I go green. Veronica marks two, three, and four waiting in the wings, right? Retrieve the brains, they deal with the brawn. I get it. Sending you was smart."

Natasha forced her face back to impassivity and looked back out at the water. That would have made sense, actually. It was the kind of thing Fury would do—or Tony. They would say it was for the best. Before Ultron, they would have informed her ahead of time too. She must have made her allegiance clear. Would they have told her if they were working on something like that? Did they know she was looking for him? Were they keeping tabs right now? She shook her head to clear the thought. She couldn't think like that—not anymore.

"Is that what you want?" she finally asked.

"What?"

"To be locked up?"

"I mean. . ." Bruce's brow crinkled as he thought. "I wanted to get off Earth. I just—there's nowhere. Nowhere I can go that I'm not a threat. You know this, I, I've told you this before."

"You've been here for nine months without a single casualty. That seems pretty safe to me."

Bruce ruminated for a moment before speaking.

"The jet's not here," he said.

"Huh?" Natasha furrowed her brow, the change of topic too sudden for her to follow.

"The jet that he—I—took. Have you seen it? I haven't."

Natasha thought back to when she was cruising over the island, approaching to land. She hadn't seen anything—her instruments hadn't picked up anything either. There hadn't been a crash-site in the jungle.

"You think he can swim." As she spoke, she was taken back to her bare-bones office at HQ, zooming in on a monstrous green shape breaking the surface of the water near a boat full of tourists, just days ago. Fury would have a hissy if he knew.

"Not swim, no. Walk. Underwater. I don't think he floats. Or needs air. Or at least, not as often as we do. I remember. . ." he faded out, looking back to the water. Natasha waited, but he didn't finish the thought. She didn't pry.

"So you walked here," she said. "Big deal. You didn't leave."

"But I could have."

"But you didn't." The fib rolled off her tongue with too much ease. He hadn't gone to land, hadn't sought out any humans. That was the same thing, right?

"But I could. That's the point Natasha. There's nowhere I'm safe."

"So you do want to be locked up?"

"No!" he threw up his hands and hobbled backwards, back into the cabana. He did his best to storm out, down the ramp to the beach. Nat paced behind him, giving him his space.

"Obviously I don't want to be locked up! You all seem to think the Hulk is some sort of tool, some sort of useful, semi-unpredictable weapon to be pulled out when you need a boost. Well he's not!" Bruce was getting more animated now. Natasha eyed the jet nearby warily. If he went green right now it wouldn't be good.

"You see what he does, when he gets into the bloodbath and something makes him mad. You've seen—you've seen the aftermath. You guys just yank me around and make it seem like it's life or death every single time, like the Hulk is the only one who can come in and save the day. Like every mission is a code green as soon as you start sweating. You have what, ten enhanceds now? Tony's whipping out more contraptions every day? You can do without a Hulk."

Bruce flopped down on the sand, staring out at the ocean. He hugged his knees to his chest. Natasha approached slowly and sat next to him.

"Bruce," she began.

"Give me a minute," he replied. His tone was suddenly controlled, a tense calm rather than his fury from before. He took a deep breath in and Nat watched him silently count as he released it. 4-7-8 breathing. She had taught him that.

She stood up and retreated to the jet, retrieving the Walkman she had bought at the market in Papua.

"Got you something. A gift." Nat sat down next to him again and held it out. He looked up from his breathing—was that the hint of a smile? He didn't take it, so she set it down on her lap—she didn't want to get it all sandy.

He kept breathing. Nat watched the waves. Fish jumped out occasionally. Birds would dive too. Mostly the waves just rolled into the shore, bubbling up towards their feet before sliding back away.

"You shouldn't have come." Bruce finally said. "You shouldn't have come at all. It was—Jesus Christ, it was like Schrodinger's cat before. Will he destroy everything or will he keep his cool? Let's leave him on a deserted island and then we'll never have to know."

"The plan was never to leave you. We just didn't know where you were."

"Well congratulations. You found me. Now what?"

Natasha looked down at the sand in front of her. A tiny crab zipped in front of her into a pin sized hole.

"You're right. About the Avengers. They don't always make the best choices with their assets." She covered the hole with sand.

"They?"

"We." Natasha corrected herself. "People are noticing that now. More and more. It's why I'm not in the field, actually."

"Huh?"

"People didn't like seeing an Avenger out doing dirty work like that. Where I went, there were comments. Conversations—how the Avengers need to be regulated. Controlled."

"And you decided that I was the best choice to go retrieve? Me, who clearly is the exemplar of perfect self-control," Bruce's disbelieving voice belied his sarcasm.

"It's just that things aren't all rosy for the Avengers right now, that's all."

"A Hulk won't help that."

"Maybe not Hulk, but Dr. Banner could."

"No. Nuh-uh. No way. You're kidding, right?"

"Only mostly," Nat had to smile. It was worth a shot. "We're all laying low. Taking some time to let the world cool down. The plan is to be equipped when we come back."

"For what?"

"I don't know. I hope I never have to." Nat replied, digging her toes into the sand. She didn't like where this line of questioning was going. Sooner or later he'd notice that she hadn't really answered his question. She lifted her toes, bringing piles of the moist sand up on top of them, then shook it off, jumping to her feet. "Want some starfruit? I have to eat it within the next day or two or it's going to go bad. And—oh, have you tried Guava? Like the real stuff? Not the bullshit you get back in Queens at those fruit stands—hold on, let me grab some."

She dropped the Walkman in his lap and flitted off to the jet, leaving Bruce sitting there on the beach, just breathing, over and over again. He picked up the Walkman and held it for a moment, looking between it and the jet. Then he stood and followed Nat.