An update at last! Just one more chapter after this one...

As always, let me know if you enjoy!

WARNING: Fluff ahoy.

Part IV: Appearances

The sun was rising when Natasha woke the next morning. She knew immediately what had wakened her; Bruce's attempts to be quiet when he woke up first were sweet, but always ineffective. Of course, it was difficult to be stealthy when sleeping next to a lifelong spy. She rolled towards the rustling of clothes to find Bruce buttoning his shirt. It was the pale yellow one that looked awfully good on him. He hadn't combed his hair yet, so it was still a pile of sleep-mussed curls. He was also sporting a scruffy jaw, so wherever he was headed, it was in a hurry. Bruce finally caught her eye.

"Sorry," he whispered. "Did I wake you?"

She didn't want to lie or make him feel guilty so she sidestepped the question altogether. "Where are you going?" she asked instead.

"Got an early text from the clinic. They're referring someone who needs a house call not too far from here…apparently they can't make it to the city to see a doctor. They asked for a volunteer." He shrugged, as though his waking up at the crack of dawn to help a patient in the middle of nowhere for probably no pay was the obvious choice. She felt something warm swell in her chest as she stared at him. Sometimes she thought the man would have a decent shot at a sainthood if he was Catholic.

"C'mere," she said quietly. Bruce finished his last button and sat on the edge of the bed beside her. She tugged him down into a kiss. He groaned in the back of his throat.

"You're making it hard to leave…" he murmured, but immediately kissed her again, more insistently this time. She smiled against his lips and finally pulled back enough to look him in the eye.

"Go be a hero," she whispered, and gave him one last, chaste kiss. Bruce smiled his genuine smile and grabbed his medical bag as he stood up.

"Dinner later?" he asked as he headed for the door. "I made reservations in the city. Wouldn't want to make a bad impression on my date."

"Date?" she asked with a smirk. "Who said I was going out with you?"

"You did. No take-backs."

"Fine," she sighed. "I'm expecting the time of my life."

Bruce grinned. "I'll text you the address," he called over his shoulder.

"Hey, Bruce," she called to him. He paused in the doorway. "I love you." He ducked his head reflexively (embarrassment came as easily as breathing to a great big dork like him), but his smile was as luminous as the sunlight pouring through the window.

"Also, you might want to comb your hair before you go," she added after a moment. Bruce smiled sheepishly and reached for the comb.

Natasha found her way to an extremely exclusive restaurant in the center of the city. It was the sort of place where even the air smelled expensive, and she was faintly impressed by the fact that Bruce had gone to the trouble of finding such a nice place. He didn't generally have expensive tastes.

She was escorted to a table for two immediately, and the candle in what looked like a handblown glass holder was already burning. Golden ambient light flowed from all around and was filtered through a stencil from above to produce a flowery design on the glossy table. Decorative herb gardens lined the walls at distant intervals and every few moments a white-clad member of the kitchen staff would appear with tiny scissors to supply the chefs. The distant bar was stocked with every imaginable size and shape of liquor bottle and the golden ambience from all directions lit the shelves of colored glass with a warm glow like Christmas lights. Natasha raised an eyebrow. This wasn't Bruce's style at all.

As if summoned by her puzzled thoughts, Bruce appeared a moment later. "You made it," he said, slightly out of breath. "I drove by a couple of times before I finally figured out where this place was…" She stood up to kiss him and he trailed off and stared at her dress. Natasha suppressed a smirk.

She had realized earlier in the day that Bruce had only rarely seen her in anything resembling evening wear and had subsequently blown a hole in her latest paycheck at the nearest boutique. It was a simple low-cut black dress that was more elegance than show, but if his expression was any indication, it got the job done. "Um…" he said after a moment. "You look great."

"Thanks. You're not so bad yourself." And it was true. On the all-too-rare occasions when Bruce donned a suit and tie, she had always thought it was a great look for him.

Their waiter swooped down on them the instant they were both seated and Natasha had a full wine glass in her hand a moment later. Bruce contemplated his elaborately decorated goblet in mute appreciation.

"You going to stare at it or drink it?" she prodded after a moment.

"Sorry," he laughed, raising his glass in a toast. "Here's looking at you, kid."

Natasha shook her head at him and took a sip. "You're such…"

"…a great date?" Bruce interjected.

"…a loser," Natasha finished flatly. "But I love you anyway." She smiled as she stood up and moved to stand behind him, sliding an arm around his shoulders. "Be right back." She pressed a kiss to his cheek and went in search of the ladies' room.

She returned to find Bruce studying the menu with a faint look of confusion. "Oh thank goodness," he said when she sat down. "I can't understand half the stuff on this menu. I guess we should add more food to my vocabulary list." He paused and glanced at her curiously. "Did you have to use the ladies' room or is there some secret intrigue that I don't know about?"

"Oh, you know, places to go, people to assassinate," she replied with a shrug. Bruce stared.

"Kidding, Bruce. I didn't have a chance to scope out the restaurant as thoroughly as I wanted the first time through, so I decided that a bathroom trip slash recon run was in order. We're both on a lot of hit lists…." She noticed his incredulous look and trailed off. "What?"

"You're…"

"… a great date?" she echoed with a smirk.

"…scary," he corrected. "But I love you anyway."

Maybe it was the dim lights or Bruce's suit-and-tie combo or his ridiculous remarks (or all of the above), but Natasha had the immediate urge to initiate a make out session. The waiter appeared to inquire about whether they were ready to order, and Natasha shook off her flustered feeling to ask for a few more minutes, inwardly cursing the rules of PDA all the while. She and Bruce were just barely able to swing a night out on the town without coming onto somebody's radar; she couldn't risk attracting unwanted attention by such a blatant public display of affection. People noticed stuff like that, and even worse, they remembered it. And she and Bruce needed to be forgettable in a crowd. After all the times she had used PDA to her advantage for distraction purposes, she might've known that it would come back to bite her one day—karma and all that. Frowning at her menu in frustration, she channeled her energy into translating the menu for Bruce.

In the back of her mind, she could almost hear Steve Rogers laughing at her.

Bruce suggested a walk on the beach after dinner and Natasha wondered how he could make something so disgustingly sentimental sound so appealing. The nearest beach was a small strip of sand uncomfortably sandwiched between a manmade ridge and the sea with a two-way street trailing down from the city and cramping the beach even further. Normally the sand would be infested with tourists, but the hour was late, the air was cool, and the beach was nearly deserted. Natasha held her shoes in one hand and Bruce reached for the other.

"So," she said after a few moments of listening to the waves wash over the sand. "Why all…" She gestured around them. "…this?"

Bruce shrugged and Natasha raised an eyebrow at him. He had a way of being annoyingly opaque sometimes. Of course, even such a determinedly closed book could be opened, and Bruce had opened up more and more in the past months. Natasha listened to the waves, breathed in the clean, salty scent of the sea air, and waited.

"I just wanted to do something special for you after the way you've been helping me with, well, everything. And for…" He trailed off and stared at the sand for a long moment. "For being here," he said, finally. "I was alone for so long and I got used to it. I even thought it wasn't so bad, but now…" He gripped her hand a little tighter. "Now I can't remember how I did it. I can't imagine you not being here."

Natasha felt the once-foreign rush of warmth that Bruce so often inspired in her and she stepped closer to him. "Hey," she said quietly, waiting for him to meet her gaze. "I want to be here."

"I know," he answered in a whisper. "But…thank you." She was glad for the cover of night because it meant she could be a little reckless. She dropped her shoes, slid her hand to his face, and kissed him deeply. "Yeah," Bruce breathed when she pulled back, "I really don't remember how I did it."

"This," he nodded at the beach and glanced toward the faint glow of the city lights behind them, "Here, with you…I never thought life would be like this, after the Other Guy. Happy, I mean."

"So you're happy?" she asked, distantly confused by the sudden tightness in her chest. Was she worried about his answer? He spoke before she had a chance to untangle the feeling.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "I am." His earnest expression shifted into something a little more playful and he smiled at her. "I didn't think happiness would look like Natasha Romanoff."

"It's not going to look like much of anything if you keep dropping my real name in public," she said flatly. But the beach was empty and she didn't even try to prevent her answering smile. "If it makes you feel any better, I didn't think that happiness would look like you either," she said with a wry twist of her lips. "It's too bad Fury didn't send me after you sooner." They turned to follow their trail of footprints back through the moonlit sand towards the car.

"It's probably a good thing I didn't meet you earlier," Bruce commented thoughtfully as they walked. "I would have thought you were way out of my league."

"Aim for the stars, Bruce," she retorted. "Anyway, I would have thought you were out of my league, too."

Bruce glanced over at her in shock. "Really?"

She pretended to consider. "Well, below my league…"

Bruce grinned. "Ouch. True, though."

His self-deprecation made its grand entrance at last. Natasha was starting to consider his attitude towards himself as her arch-nemesis.

"I would have been wrong," she said firmly. Bruce squeezed her hand and smiled.

They walked hand in hand on the beach and Natasha thought distantly that it was all as terribly clichéd as she had feared with the sand and the waves and the moonlight…but she found that she didn't mind.

She glanced over at Bruce, and he was staring up at the stars. His eyes were gilded with silver by the light and she halted their progress so he could look. She studied his face in silence and decided that happiness did look like Bruce Banner, whether she had expected that or not.

The road home was dark when the city lights faded behind them. The long miles away from any street lights made driving at night a precarious business on the unmarked and only occasionally paved roads. Bruce kept the headlights at their brightest setting and slowed down as the darkness increased. Natasha smiled; she could always count on him to be cautious.

"Dinner was good," she commented as they bounced along the rough road. "I should date you more often."

Bruce glanced over at her with a smile. "You didn't know you were missing out all those years you weren't my girlfriend, did you?"

"Intelligence indicated that you were a loser at the time," she replied flatly. "And a fugitive," she added. "I was trying to go straight back then, and I didn't need a bad influence." Bruce laughed.

"Maybe we could do lunch this weekend," he said thoughtfully. "I don't have clinic duty, but I might go into the city to get a haircut—what?" He interrupted himself when Natasha stiffened.

"You're getting a haircut?" she asked carefully.

"Yeah. Why?" Bruce divided his attention between her and the road, casting bewildered glances at both.

"I like your hair."

"It's getting really long—"

"I like it."

"But—"

"It's cute."

"Oh. Um…so no haircut?" he asked, and the beginnings of a smug smile showed on his face.

"Let's just say that if you cut your hair, I'll be the one who needs a lullaby."

"Yikes," Bruce commented.

"You won't like me when I'm angry, Bruce." He sighed dramatically and Natasha smirked.

"Is no one ever going to let that go?" he asked with the air of a martyr. "I said that one time."

Natasha snorted. "Ha. More like five."

"For what it's worth, I'd still like you when you were angry…"

"Don't change the subject," she reprimanded. Bruce gave one of his most ingratiating smiles and Natasha was tempted to let him change the subject to something less embarrassing, but she hadn't quite decided…

Bruce opened his mouth to speak…

She never found out what he was going to say.

Suddenly Natasha couldn't see. Her vision blinked out as the sound of crunching metal screeched in her ears. Gravity upended and she felt like she was flying or falling but she couldn't tell which…her vision and the pull of gravity returned to her all at once, and she found herself staring at her hands and hair hanging around her face. Blood rushed in her ears and she felt pressure building in her head as she realized that she was hanging upside down with only the seatbelt holding her in place. She squinted through the cracked windshield; at the edge of the headlights' glare, she saw the gravel road disappear underneath the fallen trunk of a tree.

Aside from a few bruises that ached adamantly, Natasha could tell that she was fine. No broken bones, no head trauma. "Bruce?" she asked immediately, turning her head toward him with difficulty.

His eyes were screwed shut and his hands were balled into fists that he pressed tightly against his skull.

Oh no.

"Okay," she said in what she hoped was a calm voice. "Hang on, Bruce. I'm going to get you out…" She reached for the knife she always kept in a thigh sheath, and managed after a moment's difficulty to slide it free. Slicing through the seatbelt was the work of a moment; she fell onto the roof of the car with a bruising thud and hissed as a few shards of glass ground into her palms and knees. She shook off the rush of dizziness and reached for Bruce, laying a hand on his tightly coiled arm.

"Hey," she whispered, rubbing at his arm as she tried to decide on the best way to cut him down. "Stay with me, Bruce…" He groaned and opened his eyes just slightly.

They were a vibrant, glowing green.

Not good.

"Okay," she murmured, positioning the knife near the buckle. "It's okay. We're okay. I'm going to get you down now—brace yourself." She wasn't sure he could hear her; he didn't move.

She broke his fall as best she could, and slid her arm around his shoulder to help him out of the car. He twisted away instantly, and his arm collided with the closed door. It bent, buckled, and burst free of the hinges and locks holding it in place. He scrambled out of the car and flung out his hand, palm facing her when she moved to follow. She could see him convulsing, and her heart clenched. The transformation has begun; he might just have to ride this out until she could talk him down. At least they were out here, away from the city—it wasn't a disaster. She hated for him to be so distressed, but they would be okay…

She heard the distant engine just before the flash of another pair of headlights bled over and under the fallen tree that had caused their accident. Her heart rate spiked until she could feel the pounding of her pulse.

Really, really not good.

She crawled free of the wreck and settled on her knees in front of Bruce's huddled form. "Bruce, look at me," she whispered. "Look at me!"

He raised his head, and the green eyes were filled with dread.

"Natasha…" he groaned in a voice brimming with pain and panic. They were stuck out here with hapless civilians that the Big Guy didn't know (and even if they weren't hurt all it would take would be one witness and their life here would be over) and she herself hadn't seen the Big Guy in months, hadn't tried the lullaby in months—and what if the process got rusty with disuse?—and none of this was ideal, but they had no options. She set her jaw.

"Listen to me," she breathed, laying a hand on either side of his face and resting her forehead against his. "Stay with me," she insisted quietly, and pressed her lips against his. She felt his sudden intake of breath, his panicked muscle spasms as he kept his shaking hands far away from where they could do any harm—far away from her. She reached for his hands without breaking the kiss and slid her fingers slowly and steadily across his palms in a way they had done so many times (but never quite like this). She locked their fingers together and felt his shaking hands grow still. She broke the kiss at last and looked frantically at his eyes.

They were the usual warm brown.

Bruce stared at her in shock. "I love you," he managed in a tight, breathless voice. She finally let herself breathe and hugged him fiercely. Bruce's answering grip was like a vice.

"Uh…necesita ayuda?" came an incredulous voice from behind her. She laughed and it was a cracked sort of sound.

"Estamos bien," she replied in a firmer voice. She glanced back at Bruce who was dirty and shaken, but definitely okay. "Muy bien."

With the help of their good samaritan, who turned out to be a middle-aged man named Emilio, they managed to tow the tree trunk from the road. He offered them a ride as well, and between the ache in her legs and Bruce's shaky state, she didn't feel able to refuse. Bruce took the backseat on the passenger side, determined to keep as much distance between himself and the driver as possible. Natasha sighed and settled herself beside him, immediately tucking herself into his side.

"Good luck escaping this human contact, Bruce," she whispered. The ghost of a smile crossed his face. "I don't mind contact with you," he replied. Natasha threaded her fingers through his and kept a tight grip on his hand for the duration of the ride. She directed Emilio to the turnoff that would lead to their house. He tried to insist on taking them right up to the door, but Natasha was already uncomfortable with the fact that they had taken a stranger this far.

"Estamos bien," she repeated until he finally gave up. She kept a supportive arm around Bruce as they trudged up the gravel road under the canopy of trees. Moonlight trickled through the branches in weak and occasional streams; when Emilio pulled away, the night was almost purely black.

"I'm sorry, Natasha," Bruce said in a weary voice that she hadn't heard in a very long time. She hated that tone.

"You didn't make the tree fall, Bruce," she replied firmly.

"No, but I certainly crashed into it."

"Could've happened to anyone," she deflected immediately and hoped fervently that he would stop his mission to take all the blame in the world on himself.

"Yeah," he admitted. "But it happened to me. Things like that can't happen to me—I can't let them. What might have happened if I had lost control there? How many people would I have hurt? Or killed—"

"Stop," she said in a tone that brooked no arguments. "You can't do this to yourself every time you have a close call. You can't always control what happens—none of us can. So relax, Bruce. Besides," she added with a smile that was invisible in the dark. "You've got me."

"It's not fair to expect you to shoulder this responsibility—"

"What's not fair is for you to keep assuming that I don't know what I'm doing," she interrupted. "I knew what I was signing up for the first time I tried the lullaby. And I decided to keep doing it. And I decided to run away with you because you needed some time to trust yourself again—and that's okay. It's all okay. So for my sake, Bruce, and more importantly, for your own sake…lighten up."

They slogged through the gravel in silence for a few beats, but she could feel the steady way his muscles were loosening. "I'm still sorry for what happened," he said after a moment.

"It's okay," she shrugged back. "It might have been nice to see the Big Guy, actually. It's been a while. I miss him."

"That's a first," Bruce laughed in the curiously bitter way he sometimes did when the Other Guy was involved. "Nobody's ever said that about him before. Should I be jealous?"

"I don't think it's possible to be jealous of yourself, Bruce," she said quietly. She felt the moment her remark landed; his muscles turned to steel.

"The Other Guy isn't me," he said in a voice that was vaguely angry and infinitely tired.

"Bruce," she began gently, "you're a smart guy and I love you…but I've always thought that you were wrong about that." Bruce absorbed her remark in stiff silence. He was always difficult when it came to the Big Guy, but she noted with satisfaction that he didn't try to argue the point. Maybe one day he might be able to see what she saw—that the Big Guy wasn't so bad.

The blurred outline of their house appeared at last and Natasha steered them towards the door. She slid from under his arm to fish for her key and unlock the door; she was pleasantly surprised when Bruce reached for her hand the moment she finished. She hoped he might absorb a little of her confidence through the connection.

Notes: I really wanted them to go on a cheesy date, okay? And I wanted there to be a Hulk-out scare and a highly romantic lullaby. And most of all, I wanted a reference to Mark Ruffalo's fabulous hair which Natasha would no doubt appreciate very much. Because seriously—it's beautiful. DON'T JUDGE ME.

Me: *wants reviews*

Me: I don't every time get what I want.

Me: *pushes cradle sadly**pushes refresh button even more sadly*

Please review!