When Nat woke up in the morning, Bruce had already gotten to work on a meal for them. Fresh mango was sliced into cubes and set out on a plate, a coconut was halved, its juice poured into a wooden cup next to it. A sweet potato was sliced and steaming next to a rasher of bacon.

Bruce was sitting on the sand with the food on an upturned crate next to him. He had put a shirt on and was savoring a sliver of coconut, looking at the water.

Nat sat up slowly, tucking her hair behind her ears and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She never slept later than him—this was unusual. And how had he not woken her? The sand would muffle his movements, but the sound of all this prep should definitely have roused her. Where the fuck was her training? She scanned the spread before her and couldn't help but smile.

"Since when did you go and get all domestic on me?" she teased.

"Thought it was about time I started doing my fair share around here."

"Well, it smells delightful," she stood and stretched.

"Come dig in," Bruce offered, shaving off a sliver of coconut with a knife. They ate in companionable silence for a while.

"You seem better," Natasha finally began. She didn't want to set him off again, but even the peaceful respite was starting to give in to the tension of two days prior.

"I am." Bruce replied.

He didn't offer more. It was unlike him. Natasha didn't push. She'd be doing enough pushing later. They ate in silence once more.

"So, what did you really do this past year?" Bruce asked. "You couldn't have just been training day in day out. You'd go crazy."

Nat took a sip of the coconut juice and smiled.

"You're not wrong. I kind of did."

"Oh?"

"I had weekends at Clint and Laura's, occasionally. That was nice."

"Nice?" he guffawed.

"Oh, shut up! It was nice. Not mine, but nice." She bit a piece of mango. "I really did spend most of that time training. And searching for you."

"Really?" He still somehow seemed surprised.

"Yeah. You're a pretty tough nut to crack when you're green, ya know."

"Not my issue," Bruce shrugged.

"How about you? You said you remembered some things, but you never shared anything."

"It doesn't really work like memory. I mean, it doesn't feel like I'm missing time or anything. The last thing I remember will feel like it happened right before I woke up, but it'll also be strangely distant, sort of like a dream you can't really remember. I don't know if that makes sense."

"No, it does."

"I remember the crash, I think. I think it was in water. Walking felt really heavy. And I think I remember finding the cabana. It kind of jolted him—he wasn't expecting humanity. He thought he had escaped it. I don't know if that's what he was going for, but the cabana seemed out of place to him. Like a human might turn the corner and start shooting at him at any second."

"Wow. You got all that?"

"Kind of."

"Can you feel him right now?"

"I always feel him."

That quieted her. Bruce took a slice of mango and bit into it, chewing contemplatively. Natasha watched him, her food forgotten.

"Bruce, you weren't. . . whatever happened after Sokovia, you weren't going to try anything, were you?" Natasha hesitated, afraid of offending him. She had to know.

"What—me? Like. . . hurting myself?" He shook his head. "No. I don't think—I mean, he wouldn't like that. I honestly don't know if I could. Seems kind of pointless."

"What were you hoping for then? Really?"

Bruce looked down at his feet, lifting sand with his toes over and over again. It was his first day without the bandages.

"I really did want to get off planet. I don't know. Work with him. Know him. It's hard because I never trust, I never willingly let go. I thought, if I removed the innocent lives from the equation, maybe I'd have some time without all the pressure. No Hydra, no battles, no rage. Just me and him. It clearly didn't go that well though," Bruce chuckled. "He didn't want to share."

"Can you blame him?"

"Not really."

Natasha smiled. "He's not that bad a guy."

Bruce snorted. "I wouldn't know. Only times he and I see each other, shit tends to be hitting the fan."

"And if it weren't, you think you'd get along?"

"I mean, history says no."

"But you think you can change that," Natasha pushed. Bruce turned and looked at her.

"I'm not coming back." he said flatly.

"Even if you knew him? Trusted him?"

"I don't think that's possible, Natasha. I just don't."

"I do."

"Well that's great for you, but he's my monster and it's my decision. I don't have a hero complex like you."

"I'm not a hero."

"You act like one."

"No, I don't." The cold fury in her voice stopped Bruce in his tracks. He dropped his feigned nonchalance and looked at her.

"You're not your past, Natasha."

"Neither are you."

"I'm not having this conversation again."

"Ok. Go ahead," Natasha scoffed. "Kill and maim and ruin lives and then go run and hide from it and cry self-pitying tears for how awful life is as piss-poor pacifist Bruce Banner with the big green monster inside." Natasha spat the words out. She had never been so cruel with him before. He sat there, shocked.

"You've got no idea who I am, Bruce. You think I have some moral complex over spilling the blood of a few mob bosses? A few drug lords? I killed kids, Bruce. Families. I did it and I turned and walked away like it was nothing. I was numb to it—it meant nothing to me. I just—" she broke off. Something caught her throat and she swallowed a few times, trying to clear the lump.

"Nat, it's not. . . I didn't know."

"I know you didn't. I know. Because you are fighting the hardest battle on the face of the planet, right? Bruce Banner versus the evil Hulk, Dr. Jekyll and Monster Hyde."

Bruce looked down at the sand, abashed.

"The reason I'm ok—that I don't give in to all this shit? My past? It's the Avengers. Yeah, they're messed up. And there's drama, and they make poor choices and tell bad jokes and fight more often than they need to. But they're good. And you look at me every time I say that like it's some stupid platitude, some mantra I repeat to myself that doesn't mean anything. But it does."

She looked out to the water and began absent-mindedly tracing the scar on her left leg, following the groove it made in her muscle from the hem of her shorts down to her knee.

"I deliver care packages for the Sokovian refugees every month. Refugees that wouldn't be alive if it weren't for us. It's hard to see them, dirty, living in tents or tenements. They make murals on the sides of buildings; photos of the missing, tributes to the dead. But they're grateful when I arrive. They draw pictures of me, of you, all of us. They remember."

Bruce followed her finger with his eyes as it traced her leg.

"You can do that," Bruce countered. "I can't. Not with him still in there."

"You owe them the decency of trying." Natasha argued. "You feel so bad about Johannesburg? Get your shit together, fly in with resources and make it better. Rebuild a street, fund some scholarships, give out groceries. Write a check. Make it right."

"Get my shit together," Bruce repeated incredulously. He rubbed the back of his neck, agitated. "You say that like it's nothing."

"No, I don't. It's hard work. It's fucking brutal. You try and you try and you try for years sometimes. You go months feeling like you make no progress at all. You train and you think and you fail and you go back to the drawing board and you think and you train again. But this giving up you're doing?" She stood and looked down on him. "It's not a good look, Bruce."

She left him there, dumbstruck, and walked down to the water, wading in up to her ankles. Her heart was thrumming in her chest. She had never been so terse with him, so straightforward. It went against everything she had worked on with him back at Avengers tower—her soothing voice, lulling words, sweet and tender persona. It was Black Widow, unapologetic, hard, cunning. She hated it. She hated it and simultaneously hoped to god it would get through to him.

"Nat," he pled. He was behind her. "It's not like that. Just training—it doesn't do anything. He's there or he's not. You know that, you remember, before Ultron. . ."

"You've never once deliberately brought him out." She didn't look at him, sweeping her feet through the water.

"What if I can't get him back in?"

"Have I ever failed you?"

"I mean, yes? When you first got here? I distinctly remember—you were there, and it was nighttime, and we were in the jungle but then, when I woke up, I was on the beach, and it was daytime."

"Yes, but was that him fighting the shift, or you?" Nat looked up at him. He opened his mouth as if to respond, but stopped.

"We're past breathing exercises, Bruce. If you want to work with him, you've got to really work with him. Give and take. He's not some useless dumbbell rage machine. He has thoughts and feelings too, and if we listened to them maybe we could get him over to our side."

"Our side?"

"When I say I hate quitters, I mean myself too," Natasha stated.

Bruce gaped at her for a moment, half disbelieving, half resentful. He shook his head noiselessly, rubbing his hands down his shirt before wringing them together.

"This is crazy," he spluttered. "Absolutely insane."

"So you'll do it?" Natasha grinned, her eyes sparkling.

Bruce didn't look at her, shaking his head noiselessly.

Nat leaned over and splashed some water at him, making him jump a foot in the air, yanked from his thoughts.

"Bruce?"

"Fine. Yeah. I guess so." he shook his head, incredulous. "Why, Banner?" he muttered to himself. "Why?"

Nat smirked to herself, wading out further into the water.