Bruce was in a state of relief when his item request sheet came back with Fury's stamp of approval on it. Tasha never mentioned anything about it to him and he never said anything about his personal research telling her about his other projects whenever she asked. Things between him and Natasha were steadily improving and by the time his dangerous package arrived almost a week later they were pretty much back to where they had been before he had left. Bruce was busy flipping through resumes for lab techs and project leaders when the young man who worked the front desk of the research level called through into his office. "Uhhh, Dr. Banner..." The kid said sounding scared out of his pants, "Package for you."
By the kid's tone Bruce figured they hadn't been as conspicuous as he had hoped in transporting the snake, "Have JARVIS lead the transport back to my private lab please" Bruce instructed activating the doors to let the transport into his lab. The kid squeaked in conformation and it was only moments later that Dr. Banner understood the heart-stopping terror that the kid was feeling.
The Black Widow in her full kevlar cat suit, dark makeup and bright red lips stood in the doorway to Bruce's lab her zipper a little farther down on her bust then normal with a seven foot long dusky green snake wrapped around her arms and shoulders it's inky black mouth open and hissing its threat.
"Natasha" Bruce said cautiously holding both of his hands up in front of him and backing away from her slowly until his desk blocked his way.
"What Bruce?" The Black Widow asked pouting at him and stalked towards him cornering him against his desk. "I thought you wanted to play with danger." She purred stoking the back of her hand against the lithe snake, hide. She licked her lips seductively and purred, "I want to experiment too Doctor."
"Natasha, put the snake down." Bruce choked out swallowing hard and leaning away from the woman who was sandwiching herself between his thigh.
Natasha sighed her Black Widow persona melting away as she walked calmly over the the enclosure he had set up for the black mamba and lowered the giant specimen in. Closing the lid of the enclosure and turning to lean against the tank Natasha said, "Relax Doc he's sweet. You know as well as I he is hand bred and fed for easier handling."
"That doesn't mean he's not dangerous Natasha." Bruce argued angered at the risk she had put herself at.
"Exactly." Natasha said glaring him down, "Care to explain or should I wait for Fury to do that to?"
"So he told you hu?" Bruce said avoiding eye contact and rubbing the back of his neck.
"Bruce Banner I am debatably the second best spy of the century second only to Nick Fury himself and somehow you thought you were going to keep your little private research lab a secret from me?" Natasha asked sarcastically, "Fury called me from training the minute Eric closed the door to his office."
"You knew for a week and you never said anything?" Bruce asked a little surprised.
Natasha shrugged, "This is a better expression of my emotions on the matter then asking you about it quietly over dinner. You're scaring the shit out of me Banner and I don't scare easy."
"I'm scaring you? I have the Other Guy. That thing could have killed you." Bruce argued standing up straight and confronting her.
"Like it would take you more than 10 minutes to make me an anti-venom. You would never let me dye from something as stupid as a snake bite." Natasha scoffed.
Bruce's anger was put out like a match in water by her obvious trust in him; trust that he hadn't shown her. "I just wanted to experiment with being able to hold off the transformation for a little bit. Black mamba venom blocks nerves and slows down the heart rate. I was hoping it would at least give me a little time." Bruce admitted avoiding her gaze.
Stepping up to him Natasha cupped his face in her hands forcing him to look at her and asked, "Time for what Bruce?"
Bruce looked down at the young, beautiful woman in front of him and his expression became both sad and determined as he leaned down and kissed her. He kissed her as sweetly and as passionately as he dared cradling her face in his hands as her soft lips responded to his and her body melted closer to his.
Natasha was the one who broke the kiss softly keeping his face between her hands so she could inspect his large brown eyes behind his slightly ascu glasses. "Bruce, I spent half my life using my body to get information and kill people, but I can't remember a time when I actually wanted to be kissed... until you. I don't need all that. I used all of that the wrong way so many times that I could be perfectly happy never going there again. What I want now is to be a child; to be in love. To have someone to care for and some one there to care for me. That's all I need Bruce, and that doesn't mean we can't be physically compassionate as well, for one I'd very much like another one of those kisses, but we don't have to push it. If one day we get there great, but if we do it's going to be because you and he have come into balance not because you injected yourself with five hundred times the lethal dose of black mamba venom." She said stoking his cheeks with her fingers softly as she spoke to him her green eyes glued to his brown.
"It would probably need to be something along the lines of 600 times the LD50, but with beta receptor blockers in there to give me some more..." Bruce explained, but was cut off by Natasha's lips.
"Dork" She said pulling back to smile at him before claiming his lips again.
Whens she finally decided to leave him to his other, non-Hulk related work some time later she stepped back over to the tank and said, "Since you're not going to use him in your research can we keep him upstairs with us? He's beautiful."
Bruce smiled at her but shook his head, "Approval voucher specifically says he has to stay in this room. Besides I was thinking I might still study him and do some experiments with his venom for purely human medical purposes. He is an endemic in Africa." Bruce said sheepishly.
Natasha eyed him suspiciously and warned, "World's second best spy..." pointing to herself.
Bruce just chuckled and said, "I'm sure Clint is hurt to the core. Come here." He said waiving him over to the computer banks as he began entering a complicated series of security protocol passwords and overrides.
"Clint's the world's best assassin, he doesn't get both." she said defensively, "Lucky for me Fury is getting old." she said with a wink.
Bruce chuckled and stepped back to show the various DNA scan displays the computers had pulled up. "Go on." He said gesturing for her to let the computers scan her eye, hand, face and take a strand of her hair. Natasha stepped forward cautiously allowing the computers to store her information before turning to give Bruce a confused look. "Now it doesn't matter whether you're the world's best spy or the world's worst you can get in any time you want whether I'm here or not." Bruce informed her with a small trusting smile adding, "But I am making a batch of anti-venom to keep in here."
Natasha laughed and kissed him knowing how much it meant to be given open access to Bruce's lab.
"Oh and by the way," She said stoping on her way out his door to poke her head back in and say, "Someone probably needs to get that kid in the front a new pair of pants. A week bladder is one thing, but he's starting to make the whole place smell." Bruce gave her a knowing grin as she left his sight.