"So what did you think of today?" Natasha asked Bruce once they were back in his bedroom.
"Well it worked, but I'm glad it's over." Bruce admitted.
"What don't like watching me fight the kids?" She asked him teasingly leaning across to lay on his lap where he sat on the edge of the bed trying to take off his shoes blocking him from his task and smiling playfully at him.
"I don't like watching you fight anyone. I don't want you getting hurt." He said giving up and looking down at her his expression a little worried.
"Don't go soft on me Bruce. I've been doing this since I was nine years old and I don't plan on stopping any time soon nor do I have any need to." Natasha said seriously sitting up to look at him.
Bruce shook his head saying, "I know, I know. I would never ask you to stop fighting. Never, and I respect you as a fighter more then you will ever know, but you also can't ask me not to worry about you. I care so I worry. That's just how this works." He said taking her hands in his.
Natasha nodded and said, "I've seen how Laura gets when Clint is gone... I've seen her hold herself together for the kids the best she can, but she's not herself until he's home safe and that look on her face when he comes home... like she's so grateful her world still turns... That's something I never wanted."
Bruce wasn't really sure what to say to that, but then he remembered Steve in her doorway as she shot at him, "Like you men bulletproof hu?" Bruce said with a small smile making her break into a self deprecating grin.
"I just wish I could be bulletproof for you." She said laying her hand over his hear.
Bruce took her hand in his and smiled at her sadly, "Have you ever looked at the two of them and wondered which one is stronger?" He asked her, "I did." Natasha nodded thinking about Clint on the battlefield on one hand and Laura barefoot, pregnant and alone with a kid on each hip. "They have a different kind of strength don't they." he reflected and she nodded again.
"I have that kind of strength too Natasha. It's not fun, but neither is getting your ass handed to you by robots and aliens, but they're worth it. Both of them. You're worth it." He said taking her face in his hands and kissing her softly.
She deepened the kiss running her fingers through his curly hair as he drew her towards him. His hands were soft, but firm and confident as he broke way briefly to slowly pull her tank top up over her head throwing it on the floor beside the bed they had shared the last two nights. Natasha let him lay her back on the bed as his hands fluttered softly over her stomach and shoulders around her sports bra. She gave him a minute to explore her before pulling back from their kiss once more to strip him of his shirt.
She didn't touch him much just laying in bed kissing him and letting his gentile work calloused hands trail over her body. His breathing was controlled and he forced himself to keep calm as he marveled in how soft her skin was despite the numerous scars that littered her body.
He hooked his fingers in the top of her yoga pants peeling them off of her slowly taking in every inch of her sculpted legs as he revealed them. The pants now joining her shirt on the floor Bruce worked his way back up one leg caressing every inch of it before traveling back up her stomach laying feather light kisses there and on her collarbone and neck.
Natasha wanted desperately to kiss him, to touch him, but she knew that if she pushed him he would have to stop and that was the last thing she wanted.
Bruce spent the rest of their evening worshiping her body softly and sweetly with his hands and lips before curing her into him as they slept.
Neither was expecting the door banging open and Steve standing in the doorway panting slightly, "God damn it guys, you need to pick a room. Suit up." Steve said to the barrel of the pistol Natasha had hidden in Bruce's room the first night she stayed there. Natasha jumped out of bed throwing on her yoga pants before racing out the door in her sports bra after Steve.
Bruce quickly threw on some blue jeans and a button down before following. By the time he got there the team was assembled and dressed with a few members still stuffing weapons into various holsters. "What is it this time?" He asked Steve who was ready and waiting for his team alongside Vision.
"Suit's still a little buggy Cap." Rhodey yelled over their heads in warning.
"You can switch it out when we get there. We're headed to Stark Tower." Steve said.
"Something happened there?" Bruce asked concerned.
"I guess. All I got was an SOS from Friday before he called and told me where the party was at." Steve said as Natasha finished slipping her last weapon into place.
"Lets go." She said nodding to Steve as he lead the group out to the hanger. Looking over her shoulder at Bruce's worried face she nodded to him as well and he turned and set off towards his labs grabbing a com for himself before walking out the door.
"Are we sure this isn't just some sort of Avenger's booty-call?" Natasha asked as they flew over the seemingly quiet streets of New York city at 2:50 am.
They were coming up on the tower when all hell broke loose. "Rhodey, drop the hatch and change out the suit, Sam, Vision, Wanda start getting those things rounded up, Natasha take the controls and get us close enough for me to jump then put her down and deal with the ones on the street." Cap commanded pulling how cowl down as the back hatch opened and team members started jumping out.
"What are we seeing guys?" Bruce asked over the coms confused by the convoluted cloud surrounding Stark Tower.
"Uhhh drones?" Natasha said unsure of exactly what she was seeing.
"Not drones, Not drones, Not drones!" Tony yelled tapping into their coms as he whizzed by. "By the way, who said Rhodey could use my suit? I don't like to share my things."
"Tony this is not the time." Cap said jumping out the hatch as Natasha swung by on the way down tot he ground to deal with the threat from there, "What the hell are these things?"
"Biomechanical sub-humanoid remote controlled flying shit." Tony said flying by as Natasha landed and powered down the jet.
"Thanks Tony." Natasha said sarcastically.
"No, no I got it." Bruce said, "Focus on using energy and electric it will fry some of the circuits but it should also do some serious damage to the biologics where they connect with the biological parts. As far as I can tell these are some sort of early prototype of Vision that they are probably trying to use to steal the technology used to make him. They don't have the Vibranium though so the biomechanics are choppy at best." Bruce explained.
"Easy there Doc, middle of a battle here. I'll take my science lessons later." Natasha quipped as she trust her electric rods at various enemies in the swarm.
"There's too many of them to hit one at a time." Tony yelled into the coms.
"My power is only knocking them back." Wanda yelled fighting to throw them away from her, but failing even at that attempt due to their sheer number.
"Stark they've drilled through the glass we need someone on the inside to hold them off." Steve said just as a reactor beam garrisoned through the opening frying a couple dozen assailants to reveal Pepper Pots with a suit hand on each of her own and a com piece in her ear.
"Oh good dear you're back from Japan. I didn't see you come in." Tony quipped flying in to help her as she held off the enemies.
"I barley knew I was home flying into all this crap." She rallied back shooting down more bio-droids.
"Hey Cap, if Wand floats you into the middle of that mess and Vision and Rhodey give you some pretty beams of light do you think you could spread the love while Sam and I herd them in?" Natasha asked half a second before one of the bio-drones trying to drown her knocked the com out of her ear.
Bruce heard her com hit the ground and cussed out loud with his com off before flipping it on and saying, "We've lost Natasha on coms" in between Steve's orders to take her suggestion.
Hearing and seeing what was going on outside the tower Pepper and Tony also aimed their reactor beams at Captain's shield as Wanda levitated him in the air and he angled the shield crisping the enemies out of the air. All Natasha could do was protect her face as chunks of metal, machinery and biological matter rained down from the skies above her burring her more than ten feet down with no coms.
Bruce watched in growing horror at the screen before him as Natasha was buried alive by frying sparking bits of metal and charing flesh. "Guys get Natasha." He all but yelled before getting up and pacing the room trying to control his green tinged skin and eyes.
"We're on it Bruce, just stay calm and we'll have her out soon." Cap promised over the coms.
"Steve? Shut up." Bruce said knowing he would regret his harshness later, but right now he didn't want to be told to be calm; he wanted to turn into giant green monster and dig her out of there one handful at a time.
"Hey Bruce, it's Pepper can you hear me?" She asked over the coms, but Bruce didn't answer. "They're pulling all the robots off her now. I can see them. I'm standing on the twenty third floor of the tower and I can see them. Tony and Rhodey are blasting them off, Wanda is levitating so many of them Vision is having to hold her up in the air because she doesn't have any power left over to hold herself up. Captain is digging a tunnel through with his shield. They'll have her out in a second Bruce. The parts are so lose and scattered she has plenty of room to breath and this one here with me only weighs about five pounds. With them so spread out I all over the place she can't have more than a couple hundred pounds on her. She's doing fine Bruce. I'm starting to see pavement now and Sam is directing Steve where to go to get her. He can see her now from the air. He's got her Bruce. Steve has her. He's carrying her out of there and she's moving. She's ok Bruce. Look he's giving her a com now. She's ok Bruce." Pepper said talking him through everything going on as he squeezed his head between his hands in some attempt to control the monster.
"Natasha?" Bruce all but begged over the com.
"Oww" She groaned in a rough hoarse voice.
"Natasha talk to me." Bruce said.
"I'm flipping her to Com link three Banner. You can talk in private." Steve informed him and Bruce quickly flipped his link as well.
"Talk to me Natasha." He demanded again and heard a rough dry cough.
"I'll make it. Just make sure I still have a home to come back to ok big guy?" she said in a dry raspy voice.
"What hurts Natasha?" He demanded of her.
"Everything." She said with a pained rye chuckle that quickly devolved into another coughing fit. "Some minor singes and burns, but" more coughing, "Mostly it's my lungs. I breathed" another coughing fit, "too much of their vaporized crap."
"Ok Natasha stop talking. I'm going to switch over and talk to Cap for just a second then I'll be right back ok?" When she didn't respond right away Bruce switched to team coms anyway. "Get her on oxygen and try to keep her from talking. She probably has some decent scaring in her lungs. Get her back as quick as you can. She's probably gunna need a little time in the Cradle when she gets here." Bruce explained to Steve who agreed and told him they were taking off.
Bruce switched the coms back and talked to Natasha the whole way home even though she wasn't allowed to talk herself. She smiled distantly as the medics worked around her and nearly broke the wrist of the girl who tried to pull the com out of her ear.