A/N: As usual, I can't thank my readers enough for your response to this fic. Your thoughtful comments on the previous chapter blew me away, despite there not being much Bruce in it. This one's entirely Bruce and Natasha, so hopefully that'll wipe some of the red off my ledger. ;)

6. Powers of Persuasion

The TV, paused too long in the middle of Bringing Up Baby, went dark. Bruce caught his reflection in the screen: one arm folded across his stomach, the elbow of the other resting on it, chin propped on his fist as he paced. He saw Natasha, too, sitting motionless on the sectional sofa as she watched him take all this in, waited for him to respond. For a moment, he thought he'd somehow slipped back in time, to that shack where she'd cornered him in Calcutta. Then he blinked and took in the pristine luxury of Avengers Tower.

He stopped pacing, lowered his arms and clasped his hands together as he faced her.

"I don't think this is a good idea."

"Someone trustworthy finding out what potentially dangerous extra-terrestrial objects, most of which could be weaponized, have fallen into the hands of HYDRA or are in the US arsenal? You don't think that's a good idea?"

When she put it like that, with barely the slightest twitch of an eyebrow, without altering the inflection of her voice…

"Okay," Bruce acquiesced. "Maybe that part's not such a bad idea. But you and me breaking into a secure, military-controlled containment facility?" He shook his head.

As Natasha had explained, SHIELD had a facility for objects and people confiscated and captured and deemed too dangerous for regular Federal containment units. They called it the Fridge, and after the agency fell, HYDRA raided it. Fortunately-or not, depending on how you felt about the US government-the Air Force swooped in before HYDRA cleaned the entire place out. But, not being accustomed to dealing with the stuff SHIELD did, they had no idea what they'd gotten their hands on.

"We wouldn't be breaking in," she argued, still maintaining her cool composure. "It's not fake retinal scans and dangling from wires and triggering alarms with a single drop of sweat."

"Oh, well, if it's not Mission: Impossible, then I'm all in."

As Bruce resumed pacing, he caught Natasha's slight smile at his sarcasm.

"Are you going to finish this?" She'd slid to the edge of the leather sofa and was eying his partially eaten bowl of biryani on the coffee table.

He shook his head; it seemed that talk of taking part in a spy mission was a sure way to make him lose his appetite.

"Mind if I…?"

Passing by the sofa, Bruce pulled the bowl from her hands. Her mouth fell open in surprise as she looked up at him.

"It would be unconscionable of me to let you eat it cold," he muttered.

Natasha followed him through the open-concept common area of the Tower to the kitchen, where he opened the stainless steel refrigerator and took out the glass dish of leftovers. He started to add some to his own bowl, then decided he was still hungry, after all. He got out a second one for her and filled it with the remainder of the biryani.

"As I was saying..." Natasha began when he'd started the microwave, which required Bruce to turn around. He found her perched on the granite countertop, feet dangling a good eighteen inches above the tile floor. "We'd walk right through the doors, in disguise, of course, with official covers as former SHIELD agents hoping to get jobs in the science and technology branch of the FBI-"

"How X Files. Or Fringe, if you're too young for the first reference."

"I've seen re-runs." She regarded him tolerantly.

Bruce opened the microwave, gave the food a stir, and resumed heating it.

"Anyway," Natasha said, "government jobs in exchange for assisting with the Air Force's damage assessment at the Fridge. It'd all be very legit."

"Except for that part where we use fake names and credentials, and one of us could very literally blow our cover?" Bruce pulled off his glasses and rubbed his forehead then, pocketing them, faced Natasha once again. "Look, it's not that I think the whole idea is completely horrible. Just the part that includes me."

"Gee, thanks."

"Mostly just the part that includes me."

"Who else could it be? Steve's chasing the Winter Soldier, Thor's in Asgard, Tony is…"

She trailed off, as if at a loss for words, or simply trying to be tactful.

"Tony," Bruce prompted, and Natasha's little smile appeared again.

The microwave beeped, and he took out the steaming bowl, hissing as he burned the tips of his fingers.

"What about Barton?" he asked, handing it to her with a hot pad. "Undercover is both your thing."

Natasha hopped down from the counter to open the silverware drawer her legs had been blocking. "Clint's building a tool shed."

"I assume that's code for something."

At that, her laugh rang out in the kitchen. Bruce realized it wasn't a sound he'd heard before, or at least not that he recalled. It would've been a nice sound, if he'd known why he was hearing it. In the present context, the laugh only served to make heat prickle up from his collar and along his cheekbones, and to affirm how not cut out for this he was. He slammed the microwave door and punched the buttons to start the timer.

"So there it is: I'm your last choice."

"I thought we already established that Stark's my last choice," Natasha replied around a bite. She swallowed, then said, all amusement gone from her tone, "As a matter of fact, you're first choice. The most qualified. Clint can do undercover, but one of us needs to be an actual scientist."

First choice. The words took Bruce back to playground days and choosing teams for sports. He'd never been anyone's first choice. While he suspected Natasha Romanoff wasn't the kind of woman who doled out compliments like candy on Halloween, some things weren't easy to accept.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but I just don't think I-"

"Are you an Avenger, Bruce?"

He didn't answer right away. Behind him, he heard the quiet clink of the bowl as Natasha set it on the counter, the jingle of buckles on her boots as she crossed the kitchen to him. She placed one hand on the granite, beside where his own hands rested; the other curled around his arm as she looked up at him. Awaiting his reply.

"Yes," he answered, and tried to look away. The squeeze of her fingers on his arm clearly indicated that he'd better not. "But-"

"No buts. Either you're a part of the team, or you're not. So be on the team."

The difference in their height wasn't significant, especially when she wore heels. Nevertheless, they were standing close enough together that Bruce found himself bending his head as he shifted to her directly, so that she had to tilt hers further back to maintain eye contact.

"Is it being a part of the team to do this on your own?" he demanded.

"I won't be on my own, if you're with me." A sly grin played on her lips.

"Don't be coy, Natasha. I'm not talking about having a partner, and you know it."

Her smile fell away, as did her hand from his arm. She stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest. "Then what are you talking about?"

Bruce had a thought that it was probably as foolish to go toe-to-toe with Natasha Romanoff in a verbal sparring match as it was in a physical one-at least in his current state-but it wouldn't be the first time he'd done it.

"About scheming with Maria Hill, and then trying to drag me into it." He resisted the urge to fold his own arms, mirroring her position, settled for slipping them into his pants pockets instead. The stance felt less than authoritative. "I don't work for SHIELD, Natasha."

"Neither do I."

Was it just his imagination, or was there a crack in her voice as she said it? Rubbing salt in her wound hadn't been his intention. The thought that he had, even without meaning to, made him back off.

"Maybe not officially," he said, opening the microwave; when did the timer go off? "But you have to appreciate how this looks from my vantage point. A mission for a former SHIELD agent, to a former SHIELD base…"

"The key word being former. That's exactly why we have to do this. There's no SHIELD to stop these guys, and the military has no idea how. The Avengers are the only ones who can."

She had a point. A pretty good one, at that. Bruce was also pretty sure there was a counter-point, though standing in the middle of the kitchen, holding a bowl of twice re-warmed vegetarian biryani, he didn't feel exactly equipped to make it. Maybe after he ate…Spearing a bite, he shambled toward the doorway to the darkened dining room.

"By the way," said Natasha, crossing in front of him to the counter where her food was cooling. "I didn't mention one of the potential weapons we should be particularly concerned about."

"You didn't, but I bet you will."

Natasha leaned back against the counter, bowl in one hand, fork in the other. "Loki's scepter." She took a bite.

Bruce choked. Fragmented images, as of a dream half-forgotten, flickered in his memory: cracked concrete and a battered body, and the accompanying sensation of satisfaction settling in his gut.

"You might also be interested to know who's in command of the Fridge."

He wasn't. He truly wasn't. But between coughs he spluttered out in spite of himself, "Who?"

"Colonel Glenn Talbot. General Ross' little stooge."

A growl rumbled through Bruce's mind.

"You're not the only Avenger on his shit list, you know," Natasha said.

"Yeah...Tony mentioned something about that "Looks like they're accepting anyone for membership in the club these days."

"Sorry for ruining your public enemy hipster cred. Ross was your nemesis before it was mainstream."

Bruce actually had to chuckle at that, and he heard Natasha's laugh again, mingling with his.

"You have to admit it'll be kind of fun pulling one over the old bastard," she said. "Practically on his own turf."

"I don't know if fun's exactly the word I'd use," Bruce said, but another voice in his mind indicated it was exactly the word he would use. If he were verbal, that was. "Guess we'll find out."

"I knew I could count on you."

"Yeah, well, you have kind of a good track record when it comes into talking me into going along with your schemes."

Bruce took a bite, lowering his eyes to inspect the contents of his bowl as he speared another forkful. Aware that Natasha stood very still across from him, he looked up again, chewing slowly as he found her studying him intently: head cocked, eyes narrowed slightly, lips pursed together. He'd seen that expression before. He half-expected her to argue that Calcutta had been Fury's scheme, not hers.

Instead, she said, "I didn't persuade you to grab the nearest spare clothes and motorbike and join the Battle of New York. You volunteered."

We could use a little worse.

Bruce swallowed. His collar itched, and he let his fork rest in his bowl to free up a hand to scratch it. "I volunteered the Other Guy."

"He's a part of you, whether you like it or not."

"Definitely not."

"Still, it was your choice."

That time it had been. The rest of the time it wasn't. She knew that as well as anyone. Which was why he didn't voice this thought aloud, or argue further. For some reason completely unbeknownst to him, Natasha didn't seem to think he would lose control this time and finish the work HYDRA started on a rampage through the Fridge. Or maybe this was some sort of test. For him or for her, though? He kept that question to himself, too.

Instead, he held her gaze as he pushed off the counter he'd been leaning against, closing the space between them.

"You always go looking for trouble, kid?"

One dark red eyebrow and the corner of her lips hitched upward, and she replied in her old Hollywood voice: "I guess you could say trouble has a way of finding me."

"That makes two of us."