Bruce woke fully several hours later in the room that he had cleaned up in when he first arrived. He sat up and pulled on his glasses before getting up and putting on a proper shirt and a pair of undamaged pants before running his fingers through his unruly hair. There was a knock at his door, but before he could give the person on the other side permission to enter Natasha was standing in his open doorway. Bruce raised an eyebrow at her timely arrival and she smiled at him saying, "I had JARVIS tell me when you woke up."
"So you were spying on me?" Bruce teased good-naturedly.
"Bruce Banner if I were spying on you I would be interested in much more then what time you woke up and you would never even know it." Natasha said in the sultry voice she used when she was flirting with him.
Bruce turned a little pink around the edges, but just laughed her comment off saying, "So what were you interested in at... three twenty seven in the morning?"
"I just wanted to check in on you."
He looked Natasha up and down and noticed she was wrapped in a think black robe that stopped mid thigh and showed enough of her figure to get his blood-pressure a little up, "That's all you wanted hu?" he asked raising an eyebrow.
Natasha smiled at him and slowly came into the room shutting the door behind her before making her way over to Bruce with a little more hip movement then was strictly necessary. She was almost on top of his frozen form when she said, "I found it's better to cover up when I got out of my room at night. Keeps all those young boys from getting nosebleeds and forgetting their jobs." She reached down for the lapels of her robe and Bruce's eyes followed her hands down as she played with the edge of the robe before swiftly pulling the open edges together to better hide her exposed bust and turning away from him, traipsed over and took a seat on the edge of the bed saying, "Wouldn't you agree Doctor?"
Bruce swallowed hard still frozen in his place half way around the room and said, "Well if one of them ever does get a nose bleed from staring at you too hard just send them to me. You know, since I'm a doctor and all." He joked finally relaxed enough to move.
"My hero" she joked batting her eyelashes at him and earning herself a bright smile and huff of amusement from the older man, "But seriously," she continued, "How are you?"
"Me?" Bruce scoffed, "How are you?" he asked coming to sit on the chair turning it to face the bed so that he was looking at her.
He watched as several emotions passed across her usually stony face, but finally she said, "Ive been better, but I've also been much much worse."
"Anything I can do?" Bruce asked.
Natasha scoffed, "You mean apart from give up your life to stay with me in a place you don't want to be so that I don't go crazy? No I think you've covered it Doc."
"Tasha," Bruce said his tone so sincere she had no choice but to look him in the eyes, "You are giving me a life not taking it away. I was living on a deserted island eating anything that didn't move of its own accord that I could get my hands on and boiling salt water to get drinking water. I didn't have a life anymore so I chose not to live one. Here I have my research, a place to live around people who don't hate me, but most importantly I have you. I know that the Other Guy isn't as much of a danger because I know that he listens to you and I know that even if all of this falls to shit just like shield did I'd still have someone to run away with. You're no more crazy than I am; I ran away physically and you ran away mentally. At least you tried." He said head falling to look at his knees.
Natasha rose from the bed walking over and hugging Bruce's downcast head to her stomach laying her own head on top of his. Bruce's hands found her hips as he held her to him and she said, "Neither one of us handled it well, but we both did the best we knew how. Now it's time to learn a new way of handling things." Bruce nodded into her stomach hugging her to him.
Kissing the top of his head Natasha took a step back and said softly, "Goodnight Bruce." before leaving him to his evening. "Oh and Bruce," She said looking back at him from his doorway, "You aren't old until I say you can be." She said with a smile and a wink before shutting the door behind her leaving a chuckling Bruce sitting beside his desk.
Five am came earlier then Natasha would have liked, but she was up and in the training room waiting for the recruits even before Steve. Steve gave her a welcoming smile and stood by her as they waited for the recruits. By 05:30 they were all collected in front of them even Wanda although she still looked a little pale and she winced when she moved her head to suddenly as if it was paining her. "Good morning Recruits. Now that the Hulk has managed to put me back in my right mind, it's time to get to work." Natasha pointing to the boxing ring for hand to hand combat fighting training.
"Not even a thank you" Sam grumbled.
"Sam, you're up first." Natasha commanded and Sam climbed into the ring sulkily.
"Who am I fighting?" He asked looking around at the other recruits curiously.
"Me." Natasha's said and Sam's eyes bulged.
Dr. Banner made his way down to the seventh floor on Director Furry's orders and started looking around. The entire floor was one floor after another some of which were so new they didn't even have projects yet. Hill was waiting for him in the middle of the hallway and he came to join her. "There are 28 labs down here. Eric has control of five of them right now and Jane has another two. That leaves 21 labs open. This," she said gesturing into a decent sized empty lab, "Is your private lab." Flipping a switch on the inside of the wall they glass turned a dark reflective black and Hill said, "It's Vibranium infused glass. You can do just about anything in here without effecting anyone else. It been tested for full nuclear shielding as well so have at it. The other labs aren't so well protected, but the shielding is military grade and the windows can go dark in all of them. Anything yo need we can get from Stark or have specially made by our scientific engineering department. Anything you need run off of electricity will pull from a bank of reactors; it's pretty much endless. Just take a list of anything you need to Eric he will have it made and delivered. In addition there isn't anyone currently allowed to open this room but you me and Dr. Furry, nor is anyone else connected to the cameras and coms in here, but add who you like and you can have constant contact with them if you need to... even over mission coms." She said and Bruce nodded grateful for the opportunity to watch over Natasha from his own private safe room when she was on missions.
"So what about the other rooms?" Bruce asked.
"Well like I said just tell Eric what you need; equipment, supplies, staff, it' all at your command. There are plenty of labs left, open as many projects as you need." Maria said with a shrug.
Bruce bowed his head in thought over what projects needed to be done and what it would take to start another group working on finishing them and looked up to find Maria gone.
By the time Bruce made it to Eric's lab with his list it was late and the older man was cleaning up to leave. Bruce knocked on the open door sheepishly.
"Oh Dr. Banner welcome, welcome. I was so glad to hear you came back to help out the Avengers here in the labs." Eric said beaming at him.
Bruce smiled and said, "Yes it was... unexpected. Hill said I should bring anything I need to you." Bruce said with a shy smile.
"Of course. That is part of my job as the research director here. What do you have for me?"
"A list of things I'm going to need for my personal lab and a proposal for three more labs, although I'd like to wait to meet my staff before I order the equipment for those, but the research details are here." Bruce said holding out a handful of papers.
Eric took them and adjusted his glasses before looking at the first one saying, "Let's see... Micro-biomechanical repair bots..." Eric screwed up his eyes trying to decipher the drawings farther down.
"They're basically tiny robotic disks that we can put in the suits to help repair damaged tissue. They would be able to travel small distances and use the new medical technology that we already have to grow new tissue. They may still require medical attention when they return, but it would keep them from bleeding out. The aren't all pumped up with super serum or Vibranium." Bruce explained.
Eric smiled at him and said, "Nor are they all demi-gods. You're right." Flipping to the next page he began nodding knowingly, "This is about what Thor said with there being other stones. It will use emission readings from Vision's stone to create a tracking device of sorts for the other stones."
"Exactly. I think it's putting off particles we haven't yet classified and that's what the next project is about. Of course both of those would take Vision's participation in some part so it will be up to him in the end." Bruce explained.
Eric nodded, "I'll work on that. Where is the schematic for your private lab?"
"I was hoping to keep the research in my private lab... well private." Bruce said sheepishly.
Eric looked at him knowingly, but didn't question him saying, "Well I can get you most of these materials by the end of the week and I should be able to push through the paperwork on these other labs in a couple of days, but some of these biological specimen are very rare and dangerous. They will take more time..." Eric put the pages on the desk beside him and looked at Bruce with a look of reproach and pity. "Bruce," he said "a black mamba? That's known to be one of the most dangerous snakes on the face of the earth." Bruce rubbed the back of his neck. "It's venom deadens the nerves and can stop an man's heart. I know better then to think you're making biochemical weapons Bruce, you don't know what something like this would make the Other Guy do." Eric said almost chastising the bigger man.
Bruce shook his head refusing to look at Eric, "Hopefully I'll have a good 30-45 minutes before I have to find out."
"Maybe if you inject it into your left arm and let it creep up to your hear." Eric said incredulously, "That would keep your heart slow for a little while before it stopped it entirely and what's to stop the Other Guy from coming out before then and burning it off in a heartbeat?"
"Mutual desire. Can I get the list?" Bruce asked ending the debate.
Eric hesitated but nodded, "Im going to have to go through Captain, Natasha, and Fury to get the snakes in though." Eric warned him.
"Can we skip the first two and just go to Fury?" Bruce asked.
Eric paused, but nodded again and said, "We can, but I can't promise he won't go to them himself. He doesn't run this place, they do."
Bruce nodded and thanked the older doctor hoping that Fury would understand why he didn't want Tasha to know what he was trying to do.