19. Bedside Manners

The Hulk had a habit of running off when a fight was winding down. He ran surprisingly fast, too, for such a big guy, and covered a lot of ground. Luckily, he was easy to track; all Natasha had to do was follow the runaway's trail of rage crumbs through the woods. Like Hansel and Gretel. She'd read it to Coop and Lila once, and been surprised when they were too scared to sleep.

Natasha could move quickly, too, agile as the Red Room made her. Normally. Today she stumbled over roots and fallen branches, the debris of the fight with Hydra. She was favoring her right leg, she noticed. The back of her knee stung, and she reached back to touch it gingerly. She looked at her gloved hand, saw the dark shimmer of blood on the fingertips.

A shiver rippled over her, and she lurched into motion again. It wasn't exactly a balmy day in Transylvania, and as the shadows of the nagged and gnarled branches lengthened across the forest floor the chill set in rapidly, the sweat beneath the clinging fabric of her suit becoming her own personal air conditioner. Good thing she'd grabbed a sweater for Bruce to pull on after he changed back, though she wanted to huddle into its warmth herself. She fumbled again as it snagged on a reaching shrub.

Drawn by the Hulk's telltale stomping and snarling,Natasha came out into a clearing, a circle of dead ground ringed by the weird curling trees. According to local legend, the Hoia-Baciu Forest was cursed, a frequent site of paranormal phenomena. Which was about what you'd expect from home of the Dracula legends, but turned out there really were strange things at work here, thanks to the Hydra lab hidden away from the curious eyes of UFO chasers and ghost hunters, and from the spiritualists who came to channel the forest's mystical powers. Some of them actually had gained special abilities here, though less mysticism was involved than mad science. Like Hansel and Gretel, they would've been better off keeping out of the woods.

Natasha was ready to get out of here, too.

"Hey, Big Guy."

Her voice didn't carry far, the three short syllables difficult to get out when she was winded by her run. The Hulk didn't turn around, but the momentary rigidness of his broad shoulders, a twitch of his ear, told her he'd heard her despite her low volume. He ignored her-a child determined not to let the grownup put a stop to playtime. She bent to catch her breath, hands on her knees, wincing as this added weight to the right leg. It started to buckle, but she managed to stay upright, even as the forest seemed to sway around her. At her grunt, he turned his head, eyes narrowed to wary slits, watching her over his shoulder as though she were trying to trick him. Which she was.

"Sun's gettin' real low…" Even the forest clearing seemed darker than it had only a second ago. "I don't know about you, Big Guy, but…I'm a little tired."

She sank to the ground, felt the tremor of his weight as he bounded toward her. Her vision was hazy, but she blinked to clear it and saw that though his features remained set in harsh lines, he looked more afraid now than angry. She reached out to him, hand pawing the air blindly for his arm to touch him in that way that always reassured him. The tips of her fingers brushed one of his, and he flinched away from her. He held his hand in front of his face, and he squinted at it in such a Bruce-like way that she half-expected to see him reach into his lab coat pocket and take out his glasses. At the image of the Big Guy in a lab coat and glasses-Dr. Hulk-she laughed, or tried to laugh, but only got out a huff of breath that made her chest seize. As she leaned forward against the pain, she noticed red glistening on the tip of the green skin. Blood.

"Doc," she said in an exhale. "Think I…need medical attention."

His eyes flashed brown, but he roared and tried to run off again. Too late, though; the change had already begun and he crashed to the ground, hands clawing at the edge of the circle as if that would help the Hulk hang on to himself. But his hands had shrunk, the green receding from the tips of his fingers like a wave sliding away from the shore.

For a moment he lay in the dirt, making Natasha think of a shipwreck victim dragged in by the tide. She felt herself begin to recede from him, blackness closing in as she gasped for breath, or to say his name. The muscles flickered across his back and his arms flexed to push himself up, then his head turned to look at her over his shoulder, hair tumbling over his forehead? At once his eyes widened.

"Tasha!" He scrambled to her, barely getting to his feet before he flung himself onto the ground again. "Oh nononono-"

She followed his eyes downward to the darkening pool beneath her right leg. That was a lot of blood, she registered, before looking up again, curling her fingers around his wrist.

"Wasn't you."

The sound of ripping fabric. Through the haze she saw him tearing up the shirt she'd brought him.

You already ruined one shirt today, she wanted to joke as he gently lay her back, lifted her leg to press the makeshift bandage to the back of her knee, but she couldn't make her voice form the words. She couldn't even laugh at the thought, her attempt turning into a cough.

"Cap, I need some help out here."

"What's the problem?"

Steve's voice, close in her ear. Where was he? Oh, right, the comms.

"Natasha's down."

"Down?" Clint's voice. "How?"

"I don't know, exactly. Laceration of some sort, on the back of the knee. Might be the popliteal artery…She's losing blood fast…"

"JARVIS, send the quinjet to Dr. Banner's location. Hey, Bruce, does this mean you're the naked nurse?"

"Not the time, Tony."

Natasha grinned as her gaze trailed down from Bruce's chest. "Hey, the Broga pants work," she murmured.

And blacked out.

She came to on the quinjet, roused by a high blip….blip…blip… She was lying down, on her stomach. Not a bed in the jet. The exam table. The beep was the heart monitor.

Her eyes opened halfway and hazily on Clint, watching her from his position at her side.

"Bruce," Natasha rasped through a throat that felt like she'd swallowed broken glass.

"You hit your head out there too? It's me, Clint."

She would've made a face at him if she could, but she didn't have the energy to move her facial muscles. She managed to croak out, "Never mistook you for a genius."

"Congratulations, Doc, you've obviously saved her," Clint deadpanned.

"Not out of the woods yet."

Bruce's soft, stiff voice came from her other side, further down the table, near her legs. Summoning what little energy remained, she turned her head and could just see him over her shoulder. He'd put on a shirt, and his glasses slipped down his nose as he bent over to suture the back of her knee. That shouldn't be comfortable, but she didn't feel a thing. Local anesthesia, she guessed, or she was just beyond pain at this point.

She blinked to clear her blurred vision and made out the trickle of sweat on his furrowed brow. His face was pale. Stopping a teammate from bleeding out wasn't his preferred way to recover from a Hulkout. The image of his terror when he changed back and saw her injured wouldn't leave her any time soon.

"It wasn't you," she said, again.

Bruce's eyes didn't flicker from his work, although his jaw muscle flexed. Natasha felt her own concentration, and consciousness, slipping again, dimly aware of Steve's voice, sounding far away, talking about the enhanced people we fought.

"No disrespect, Cap," Clint cut him off, "but we can debrief later. Nat needs to rest."

His fingers stroked her hair, as she'd seen him soothe Cooper and Lila, as he'd soothed her during countless injuries at SHIELD, and her eyelids drooped over the image of Bruce's hands drawing the suturing needle back and forth until she drifted away.

Blip…blip…blip…

The heart monitor invaded Natasha's sleep again. At first she assumed that meant she was still on the quinjet, but as she lay with her eyes shut, trying to ignore it and fall back asleep, she noticed the absence of engine noise, the low rumble of the others' voices. Her eyelids fluttered open, and she squinted against fluorescent lights. Bruce's lab. The med bay.

She darted her gaze around until it fell on Bruce himself, seated at her bedside. At some point he'd traded the stretchy pants and sweatshirt for his typical button-down, slacks, and lab coat, though the silvery shine of stubble along his jaw made it a safe bet he hadn't left her side for longer than to change, possibly to shower. His glasses perched at the end of his nose as his head bent, presumably to read the tablet in his lap, but his only movement was the steady rise and fall of his shoulders.

Part of her wanted to let him go on sleeping, and let herself go on watching, but he was probably sitting there because he wanted to watch her sleep.

"What's up, Doc?"

He sat up, lifting his head with a sharp intake of breath. He blinked, once, then pushed up his glasses.

"Tasha," he breathed. "You're awake."

He said it as if he'd been worried she wouldn't. The lines that of his face seemed to fade, almost as if they'd been drawn on and erased. His obvious relief made Natasha's throat tighten.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Thirsty."

"I'll get you some water."

At once Bruce stood, the tablet he'd forgotten sliding off his lap to the floor. A smile tugged at the corner of Natasha's dry lips as she watched him stoop to pick it up and check the screen for damages before setting it on the desk. He bumped it with his elbow when he turned, nearly knocking it off again, and he overfilled the glass of water at the tap.

As he returned to her bedside, she tried to sit up.

"Wait, let me help." Bruce moved to adjust the back of the table into a more upright position. She reached for the glass, but to her dismay the movement winded her. He supported the glass as she drank. "Take it slow…Make sure you can keep it down…"

She swallowed, the water deliciously cool and an instant relief to her parched throat. His eyes met hers.

"You look like hell, Bruce."

He let out a puff of a laugh as he lifted his chin and rubbed his fingers across the growth of beard. Natasha heard the rasp of it, the lab silent except for the steady blip of the heart monitor and the hum of the computers. "I don't have to lose nearly thirty percent of my blood volume to achieve that."

That much? She let her head rest back against the pillow. "I don't want to know how I look."

"You've looked better," he said, offering the glass again.

"Your bedside manner sucks."

"I was going to say your worst is still better than most people's best."

Bruce glanced away, intent on his thumb wiping the condensation from the glass. His lower lip caught between his teeth in that self-conscious expression Natasha knew so well-now she knew why.

To her surprise, he lifted his gaze to meet hers again and said, "Your eyes open was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen."

Blip-blip-blip. The tempo of the heart monitor increased, and he broke their eye contact to look at it. Natasha reached for the glass and of water and took a long drink, inhaling and exhaling slowly until her heart resumed its usual rhythm.

"Did I need a transfusion?"

"Not so far," Bruce answered, returning to her bedside, "but you still could. Dr. Cho's on her way from Seoul right now."

"Is that necessary? You obviously stopped the bleeding, or we wouldn't be having this conversation now."

He shook his head, one corner of his mouth curving in that self-effacing half-smile. "Battlefield medicine isn't my area of expertise. You were on the ground…"

His sentence trailed off, the slight smile fading with the words as his eyes darkened with a distant expression. She could see him reliving the scene in the Transylvanian woods.

"The risk of infection alone is…And if I didn't suture your artery just right, you could develop circulatory problems…If it's between being overly cautious and you losing your leg…" He finished with a shrug.

"If I do, I'll sue you for malpractice," Natasha teased, hating that he felt that weight of responsibility on top of everything else.

"I don't even have a medical license." The joke came out brittle.

With effort, Natasha reached out and touched his face. "Have you slept at all since your transformation?"

"Cat naps," Bruce admitted.

She scuffed his cheekbone with her thumb, felt the soft prickle of his stubble against her palm as he leaned into her touch.

"Sun's getting' real low…"

"I think that only works on the Other Guy."

Was it her imagination, or did his face get warmer? He moved away, as if he'd suddenly become aware of how close they were.

"Worth a shot," Natasha said. He was admitting that her technique worked on the Big Guy, so…progress. "You need to sleep. When Dr. Cho gets here, promise me you will."

"Or what?"

"I'll kick your ass." She winced a little at a throb of pain from her injured leg. "As soon as I can kick."

The next morning, satisfied that Natasha still didn't need a blood transfusion or seem in danger of developing an infection or circulatory problems or any of the plethora of complications Bruce worried about, Dr. Cho released her to continue recovery in her room.

"You'll want to be comfortable as possible, because it'll be a slow process," she said in her brusque way. "Your body must replenish its blood volume. Don't be surprised if you feel weak for a month to six weeks. A trip to the bathroom might be exhausting. Certainly you won't be up to any missions for some time."

"Let's hope Hydra decides to take some time off for the holidays," Clint quipped as he helped her to her quarters; Bruce had stayed in the lab to consult further with Dr. Cho, with Natasha's admonishments to go to his own room to rest, lest she delegate the ass-kicking to one of the able-bodied superheroes in the building. "I guess this means you won't make it for Thanksgiving this year, huh? Kids'll be bummed."

"Maybe I could-"

"Think about what you're saying, Nat. Being anemic at the funny farm? You'd get no rest."

She couldn't speak for a moment, an unexpected lump rising into her throat. She didn't consider herself a sentimental person, but she'd never missed a Thanksgiving with the Bartons unless she'd been on mission. Somehow, not a lot of assignments had coincided with the holiday. But as Clint helped her settle on the couch in the seating area of her room, her limbs sinking into the cushions like dead weight, she had to admit he was right. And Laura had enough people to take care of between the two actual children, the one on the way, and Clint with his never ending home improvement projects, without adding an invalid to the mix.

"Hey." He squeezed her shoulder. "That's what video chats are for. I'll get them to make you get well soon hand turkeys."

"They do say hand turkeys are the best medicine."

Bruce took the more traditional approach, and brought flowers when he came to check on her: an autumnal arrangement of butterscotch daisies, peach roses, and red button carnations.

"Finally, one of you lugs knows how to treat a lady," she said in her Katharine Hepburn voice, in an attempt to sound too excited-though of course the lack of energy made that more or less impossible.

"Huh? Oh." He looked down at the bouquet as if he'd forgotten he was clutching it in his hand. "I was grocery shopping…"

Spontaneous grocery store flowers.

"…and these reminded me of you."

"Orange?" she teased.

He flushed, and she relented.

"They're lovely," she said, and though he looked pleased, she also thought his face might have gone a shade redder. "Thank you. They go with my art."

"And your hair."

"I don't have a vase…"

"I can go find something." Bruce jerked his thumb toward the door. "I'm sure Tony's got one around here. Probably a priceless work of art."

"I think you mean a vahz." Natasha smirked at the thought of the supermarket bouquet filling one of Pepper's collector's pieces. "Later. For now, sit. You still look dead on your feet."

"I napped before I went grocery shopping."

He looked around in befuddlement for a moment before deciding the bouquet would be all right laid on the coffee table, then seated himself in the armchair adjacent to the couch.

"You didn't need to do that," Natasha said.

"We didn't have that much in the kitchen, and you need iron-rich foods to get your strength back." His eyes went to the flowers again. "I'll find something to put these in when I go check on the stew."

"You made stew?"

If getting up wouldn't take so much effort, she'd do it, then march right over to his chair, bend down, and kiss him. Maybe it was just as well she couldn't.

"I didn't think to ask if you like stew," Bruce said, worry lining his brow. "It just seemed like it would be a good thing for you."

"If you made it, I'm sure it will be," Natasha reassured him, "but rest would be good thing for you."

"Don't worry about me. I'll have plenty of time for that. Cap says as long as you're grounded, I am, too."

"That should make you happy."

She meant to be flippant, but Bruce wore a rueful smile.

"You're right. I'm not a fighter-or I'd rather not be…But you are, and I respect that. If it takes you getting hurt to get me off the hook, then I'd rather be out in the field fighting with you."

"Bruce, that…" …was one of the more touching things anyone had said to her, so much so that she found it difficult to reply. Before she could think how, he continued:

"That's the irony, isn't it? I've spent all this time worrying that the Other Guy would hurt you…"

"But I got hurt anyway," she finished he thought for him, thinking he'd come around to her perspective at last, that the Big Guy, at least now that he knew she was on his side, was the least of her worries. "Hazard of the job."

He didn't seem to hear her. "Then your life was in my hands, and I had the potential to do just as much damage as him."

So much for a breakthrough.

"Bruce, I think he let you come back because he knew I needed you to help me. Or you fought to come back because you knew you could."

He didn't reply to that, and his expression turned inward. Natasha couldn't tell if that meant he was thinking about her words, or if he just didn't buy them.

"Of all the things that are still around from my day," said Steve, coming into the TV room and pausing at the end of the couch where Natasha curled up, "I wouldn't have picked the Macy's Parade."

"I thought you were going to say Thanksgiving." She swirled the tip of her fork through the blob of whipped cream on top of her pumpkin pie and sliced off a bite. "You know, because you were there for the first one."

She didn't have to turn her head from the big screen to know what his reaction was, but she did anyway because it was always so rewarding to see him fighting a smile as he shook his head.

"You're obviously on the road to recovery."

"I have a good doctor."

Currently, the doctor was in the kitchen, getting a start on Thanksgiving dinner while she watched the parade from the next room. She'd rather be in there with Bruce, if not helping him cook, then watching him and sneaking tastes from mixing bowls when his back was turned like she had the day before when he decided to get a head start on the pies. But two weeks post-injury, she still didn't last long on her feet, and she hadn't had it in her to protest this morning when he got her settled on the comfy sectional with a slice of pie and cup of coffee and turned the parade on. They couldn't miss the Stark Industries float.

"And pie for breakfast, is that Dr. Banner's orders?" Steve asked, sitting down beside her.

Natasha nodded as she chewed. It had been one of Bruce's rare moments of opening up about his past; he'd told her how his Aunt Susan-who'd sent him her Thanksgiving recipes through snail mail on actual handwritten recipe cards (Sounds like you'd get along, Rogers. Want me to fix you up?)-was a bit of a health nut, but every year on Thanksgiving she indulged him with pie for breakfast. "It made up for the green bean casserole she made me eat at dinner."

She swallowed and reached for her coffee. "You know what they say. A slice of pie a day keeps the doctor away."

"And here I was under the impression that was the opposite of what the doctor wanted."

Natasha sipped her coffee and pretended to be interested in the massive dance team comprised of teenagers from across the country currently performing in front of the department store. When they finished their routine to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and the network went to a Macy's Black Friday ad, she glanced up at Steve.

She hadn't spoken about what was happening between her and Bruce to anyone. Hell, it was only very recently that she'd begun to think about it in concrete terms to herself. She'd had lots of time and little else to think about during her recovery.

"You noticed that, huh?"

"If it makes you feel any better, you're a little harder to get a read on than Banner."

"God I hope so, or I've failed as a super spy."

"So it is mutual."

Draining her coffee, Natasha traded her empty mug for the pie plate. "If I say yes, are you going to give me a Captain-America-wants-YOU-to-stop-dating-your-co-workers speech?"

Because even if they hadn't given it a name, or talked about it, what they were doing was more like dating than anything she'd done in her life-even without the physical component. They were as squeaky clean as a 1930s romance, which was something for a Black Widow. Steve really ought to give them a seal of approval.

"I'll admit," he said, "I'm a little concerned at how a relationship might affect the team dynamics. As long as the scepter's still in Hydra hands, it's more important than ever for us to all have each other's backs. There was already that one thing with Barton. Hulk's feelings and Bruce's are all mixed together, aren't they?"

She nodded.

"For what it's worth, you two have a nice way with each other. Obviously, or you wouldn't have been able to achieve what you have with the Hulk. It's easy to see how you could develop strong feelings for each other in an intimate situation like that."

The muscles between Natasha's shoulder blades tightened. "You don't think it's real?"

She didn't know which idea chafed more: that Bruce's feelings might have developed out of a sense of gratitude toward her for helping him get control of the Hulk, or that hers weren't to be trusted.

"That's the opposite of what I think," said Steve, eyebrows drawing together above his honest eyes.

Natasha relaxed, let out a breathy chuckle. "Believe it or not, this is all really new to me."

"And yet you dole out relationship advice to me like a love expert." He shook his head in mock-disapproval.

"Since when does pointing out cute girls qualify as advice?" Natasha let her gaze wander back to the TV, where the Superman balloon was coming down 34th Street. "I've been attracted to people before, but this is the first time a friendship's grown into something more."

It had happened so gradually, in fact, that she hadn't even noticed what was happening until it was too late to stop it. Just like it was too late to stop the smile from forming on her lips. But when she looked at Steve again, she saw a similar one on his face.

"You know, of everyone on the team, I wouldn't have put you two together-"

"I thought you weren't putting us together," Natasha said, though she did see his point. Didn't disagree with it, either. It helped that she'd already determined that moving forward with Bruce was going to require more time and patience than recovering from a nicked popliteal artery.

"Right now? I'm not encouraging it. After the job's done? I'll happily pay back all your attempts at setting me up by harassing you to ask Banner out. I think you two could have a foundation for something really good."

The conversation came to an end when Bruce rushed into the room, oven mitts still on his hands, as the Stark Industries float came onscreen. Tony had wanted to have all the Avengers on it, but all of the Avengers flatly refused, and as CEO, Pepper vetoed the idea. She thought the company needed to promote its actual work in clean energy rather than on Tony bankrolling yet another defense project-even if the Avengers were generally viewed favorably at the moment. Tony complied, and the parade commentators oohed and aahed over the sleek float that promoted an energy-efficient holiday season-not just Christmas. A surprising show of inclusivity for him.

Until Iron Man flew over Santa's sleigh at parade's end.

"What was that you were saying about relics from your day?" Natasha asked Steve.

"The holiday season hasn't begun till a Stark upstages Santa."

A/N: Just one chapter to go! Alas, I'm going to be out of town next weekend and won't be able to update. When I realized how the timing would work out, I couldn't believe it. Hopefully the length and shippiness of this chapter will make up for the wait. Thanks so much for all your feedback on the previous chapter; I hope you'll let me know what you think of this one! As always, I can't thank Malintzin enough for her beta work, especially when she's busy with her own RL projects, and special thanks this week to Katla for the inspiration about Tony at the Macy's Parade. ;)