7. Behind Bars

Bruce jumped at her touch.

It had only been the lightest of touches on his shoulder, to let him know she was there with him in his study-slash-lab, but nevertheless made him jolt and tighten his shoulders.

"Sorry," Natasha said, taking a step back as he pulled off his headphones and swiveled away from his computer monitors, blinking up at her blearily behind the lenses of his glasses. "I wasn't trying to sneak up on you. I did knock and try to get your attention."

"Guess I had the volume up too loud."

She hmmed her agreement, hearing the muffled soprano warble. It was always opera when Bruce he was most stressed-or when he was coming down from a Hulkout-and their first home visit from their social worker, Bonita Juarez, had definitely been that. He glanced down at the headphones in his hands, then turned back to his computer to pause the music. Natasha made a conscious effort not to look at the files open on his screens, focusing instead on the shelf mounted on the wall above it; their faces grinned down at her from a photo, dressed in matching Captain America t-shirts on the Fourth of July. It had been one of the first times he'd mentioned his childhood to her, even if it was only an oblique reference to watching fireworks in the park with his aunts and cousin, an inferred desire for a normal, loving family.

Despite his reaction to her previous touch, she took the chance it was only that she'd caught him unawares, not that it wasn't welcome, and placed her hands on his shoulders, massaging her thumbs deep into the base of his neck as he hunched over his desk. He didn't tense-not any more than he already was-but he didn't relax, either.

"You want to think about dinner soon?" she asked.

"Hungry?"

"I could eat."

Beneath her fingers, Bruce's neck muscles flickered as he turned his head half toward her. "There's leftover Chinese."

"Only enough for one of us."

"You can have it if you want."

Natasha's hands went still at his implication: he wasn't going to eat with her. Not wanting her disappointment to show, she made herself resume the massage, although her fingers felt unusually weak against the knots.

"You sure?"

"I'm not especially hungry. I want to try and get some more work done."

Bruce had been holed up in his basement work space ever since the home visit. As he returned his attention to the dual monitors, Natasha's curiosity won out over her respect for his. Her own appetite diminished as her heart sank even deeper into her belly.

"Writing lectures?"

Bruce nodded. The screen reflected a twist of his lips that was more grimace than grin. "Trying to get organized before the semester starts."

"Good idea, with everything else we have going on."

She let that dangle for a moment as she battled with herself about whether to keep walking on eggshells.

Fuck it, Bruce was the Hulk. There was a time and a place for smashing, they'd proved time and time again. This was one of those times.

"I got started on my autobiography," she said.

That made Bruce's shoulders tense, so it came as something of a surprise to Natasha when he actually picked up the conversation thread.

"How's it going?"

Natasha released her breath, dug her fingers deep into the tissue along his shoulder blades. "Not bad. Made it through the first section. Easy to answer all those questions about how you were raised when you weren't."

More than once she'd been tempted to write N/A-brainwashed by former Soviets for the glory of Mother Russia.

"If you want my help with yours," she went on, "you know I'm-"

"Natasha, why are we doing this to ourselves?"

At first she wasn't sure she'd heard him correctly. She replayed his voice over in her head until the words registered, then withdrew her hands from him as he brought his own up to take off his glasses, pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Family history questions aside," he said, fingering the corner of the home study packet that lay on his desk, serving as a coaster, "what about that one Bonita left us with?"

"Why do we want to adopt?"

"Why do two superheroes want to adopt." Bruce punched the buttons to shut off his computer monitors and pushed back in his chair, the wheels grinding against the plastic floor protector pad, to stand. He faced her, leaning back against the edge of his desk. "It just feels like a set-up to me. A trap."

Bruce and his fear of cages, though it had been years since anyone had threatened to put him in one, or even on a most-wanted list. If only he could see that he was holding himself captive.

"Obviously she intends for us to realize we see adoption as another form of saving the world," he said. "Or of redeeming our own pasts, or something like that."

"But that's not why," Natasha protested.

Or was it?

The question gnawed at her as she left him, as she rewarmed the leftover Chinese and ate it from the cartons, standing in front of the sink and staring out at the snowy back yard bordered by the silhouettes of barren trees. Such a wonderful back yard for children, the realtor had said when the toured the place, and they'd indulged fantasies of looking out at snowmen they built.

Maybe she'd asked too much of Bruce. Maybe she'd pushed him into it. Or maybe he'd simply not realized the depth of his own issues until the process forced him to dig in.

There was only one way to know for certain.

She dropped the takeout containers in the trashcan under the sink, pulled her phone out of her back pocket, and dialed Susan Banner.

"This isn't your first time visiting a prison, is it?" Susan asked as the Lima State Hospital loomed at the end of the country road, a sprawling facility from the beginning of the previous century which, if only it were on an island, would have made the perfect setting for an asylum horror movie. Although the contrast of the red brick against the low iron grey clouds and the frosty farmland in which it stood lent enough of a Gothic appeal.

Relaxing her grip on the steering wheel, Natasha glanced at Bruce's aunt in the passenger seat.

"I mean," Susan went on, "I just assumed, in your…line of work…"

"Which line of work is that?"

As Susan spluttered, Natasha gave in to a slight grin.

"Just giving you a hard time," she said.

Relief washed over Susan's features at not having to say the word assassin. A little shock went through Natasha's chest. Although a number of people knew what her past life had entailed, few of them were comfortable actually putting a name to it.

"And to answer your question, no." She fixed her eyes on their destination, the black spiral of razor wire just visible at the top of the electrified chain link fence as they came nearer. "It's not the first time I've visited a prison."

"Oh good. So you know what to expect."

The whole point of this, in fact, was that Natasha didn't know what to expect, but she understood what Susan meant, and nodded.

For a moment they drove on in silence, then Susan asked, "Have you ever…been in prison? I mean…as an inmate?" Immediately, without giving Natasha a chance to answer, she laughed nervously, reaching up to ruffle her hair in back in a gesture she'd seen from Bruce a million times, "I'm sorry, that's incrediblynosy…I don't know what possessed me to even ask-"

"My whole life story's on the Internet."

"Well, I only know how to use Amazon," Susan replied with a smile. "But really, dear, I don't mean to pry."

"You're not prying," Natasha said. "I don't mind."

She wasn't just being polite; she truly didn't mind Susan asked her questions in the most genuinely curious way. It was endearing. And the openness made a nice change from how closed-off Bruce was being. The one thing she hadn't asked any questions about was Natasha's phone call saying she wanted to come with her on the next visiting day. Not, Bruce isn't coming with you? or Does Bruce know you're going to do this? or Are you planning to tell him?

"Excluding going under deep cover," Natasha replied, "I've thankfully never been in prison."

Not for any of her own crimes. Hell, she'd never even been arrested for any of them, unless you counted being brought in by Clint and under Fury's watch till she proved herself reformed and loyal to SHIELD.

"Was it one of those plea bargains? You worked for SHIELD and they dropped the prison term?"

"Something like that." If you substituted automatic death sentence for prison term.

She hadn't thought she'd be meditating on her sins as they drove through the gates to enter the prison complex. Brian Banner had killed one person. What was the Black Widow's body count?

No...it wasn't her first time visiting a prison, but as she stored her handbag and coat in a locker and held her arms out for a guard to sweep over her with a metal detector, her stomach twisted more nauseatingly than it ever had back then. Susan's familiarity with the facility and its personality didn't help matters as they filed down a hallway with the other visitors, fluorescent bulbs flickering and buzzing overhead, walls painted half sickly green, half dirty cream, linoleum that had once been white now hopelessly yellowed, the typical institutional style of these plays, neither fully a prison nor hospital. In fact it made it all worse that Susan pointed out a common room which seemed better suited to a nursing home, where she conducted the music therapy session with the patients, because it made it all seem normal.

This could have been her life. Natasha would rather have been executed by whatever means than live out her days in a peeling cell with no way to atone for her sins.

Why do we want to adopt? Are we trying to redeem our pasts? She shoved Bruce's voice to the back of her mind as they came to the visitation booths. She definitely wouldn't have been able to bear talking to visitors behind panes of glass. It had been hard enough to face her own reflection in the mirror. Not that there had been anyone who would have visited her.

They seated themselves on metal stools bolted to the floor. "They're always so cold," Susan murmured.

A muffled buzz from the other side of the glass signaled the door from the cell block unlocking, then a guard strode through, followed by shuffling inmates in baggy orange. Susan waved, and a tall man with buzzed grey hair nodded in acknowledgment, unable to gesture because of the cuffs on his wrists. Dark eyes narrowed on Natasha.

She leaned toward Susan and asked quietly, "Is that one of your music therapy patients?"

"Dear, that's Brian," Susan replied. She went on as Natasha tried not to show her astonishment as Bruce's father continued to stare at her in suspicion, "I suppose you didn't expect someone so tall."

Well, no, she hadn't. The slightly hunched posture from the shackles made it hard to tell, but he must have been over six feet tall. There was a resemblance to Bruce, in the bone structure and the fullness of the lips, the salt and pepper hair that would have been curly if it weren't close cropped, the brown eyes behind the lenses of the dark plastic framed glasses. But it was the utter lack of warmth in Brian Banner's eyes that differentiated him the most from his son, not his height, the hatred in them. Natasha had seen a lot of hateful eyes.

Alarmingly, she remembered the Hulk's eyes when he'd chased her on the helicarrier.

She didn't allow herself to look away from the gaze he kept trained on her. Although the guard released Brian's wrists from the chain around his waist, the cuffs were left on, causing him to move awkwardly to seat himself on the metal stool on his side of the glass and pick up the telephone receiver.

"Who's this, Susie?" a smoky baritone crackled in her ear.

"Brian, this is…" Susan hesitated, casting a sidelong glance at Natasha, unsure of how to introduce her.

"I'm Natasha Romanoff," she introduced herself.

Brian scuffed the thumb of the hand not holding the phone over the silvery stubble on his chin. "Romanoff. There's something familiar about you. Where have I see you, Ms. Romanoff? Couldn't have been when I was outside. You're too young." A puff of static might have been a laugh, though there was no amusement in his eyes. "You're too young to have even been born when I was out."

"Natasha is Bruce's partner," said Susan.

"Bruce's partner…"

The way he growled Bruce's name had roughly the same effect on Natasha as nails on a blackboard. She sat rigid on the stool, refusing to allow the shudder to ripple down her spine.

"Partner," Brian repeated. "In business? In crime?" His lips stretched apart, baring his teeth in the mockery of a grin.

"We have worked together," Natasha said, "but Susan's referring to a domestic partnership."

"In my day we called that shacking up. You know Susie won't even tell me where my son lives now?" Brian's eyes swung toward his sister, heavy-lidded and accusatory. The thumb continued to rasp over his beard. "Says that's his story to tell. The problem is, he hasn't told it. Never visits. Never even writes."

"Is that why you stopped writing to him?" Natasha asked, impulsively.

For a moment, Brian continued to stare at Susan, brows knitting together in confusion, only to draw apart again as he turned his head slowly back toward Natasha.

"I did send him letters at that Avengers Tower. That's where I know you from." His wrist twisted against the cuff as he pointed his index finger at her. "You're an Avenger. Which one are you?"

"The Black Widow."

"And what's your special ability, my dear?"

That she could think of at least a dozen ways to murder him right now, glass and guards be damned, and escape, without breaking a sweat.

Apparently not really caring for an answer, or already knowing it, Brian said, "With a name like that, I guess I should worry for my boy's premature demise. Though from what I understand, he's damned near impossible to kill. Pretty hard to believe, if you knew what a pathetic little pussy he was."

"Brian!"

He ignored his sister's outburst, leaned over the table in front of him toward the glass, as though daring Natasha to react the same way. Locked up forty years, and he was still the bully, the abuser, using his body language to intimidate even though he was shackled and separated from them by shatterproof glass. She stared back, drawing slow, deep breaths, refusing even to blink.

Abruptly, he sat back, cuffs clinking as he shifted the phone to the other ear. "Then again, I always knew there was something wrong with Bruce. That the world would see him someday for the freak he is. Didn't I, Susie?"

In the fluorescent light, tear streaks shone on her cheeks. "For God's sake, he's your son. And a good man."

"The Harlem Terror…Johannesburg…Asgard…They call me a monster, and I only killed one person."

"Your own wife," Natasha said. "Bruce's mother."

Brian's eyes locked with hers. "Yes."

"Do you regret it?"

Again, that look of confusion, the furrow above the bridge of his nose that made her think of the Hulk. He cradled the telephone receiver in the crook of his neck, freeing up his hands to awkwardly remove his glasses.

"I admit it," he said. "I accept my punishment for it."

"Those aren't the same things."

"My genius son loves you for your mind, eh?"

Brian made a show of sweeping his eyes considerably downward from her face, and Susan made a sound of disgust as he leered. Natasha's gaze, however, was on his hand, watching the tendons flex across his white knuckles as his fist tightened around his glasses until they snapped like a twig. Although they were already broken, he continued to squeeze them as he went on, a vein bulging in his temple.

"The only thing I regret is that I didn't kill that little freak, too, while there was still a chance. Then they'd all be calling me an Avenger. Saving the world from monsters, isn't that right?"

Blood squeezed between his fingers, a droplet falling onto the stainless steel table as suddenly he unfolded like a six-foot jackknife and lunged. Susan cried out as she and Natasha reflexively leapt back from the telephone receiver he swung at the partition, even though they both knew it was unbreakable and two guards dragged him back before he could strike twice. Wrestling the makeshift weapon from him proved more of a challenge as he curled his big frame around and bellowed into it, voice audible through the two receivers the women had dropped, swinging by their cords.

"Get away from him while you have the chance, Black Widow! Monsters are the Banner family's only legacy!"

A distant groan, buckling metal underscored by the brief grind of a motor, reached Bruce's ears as he lay in bed. The garage door opening. He turned his head on the pillow, squinting to read the dim green glow of the digital clock without his glasses. 12:36, and Natasha was finally home.

He didn't get up, just lay there, breathing into the pillow, listening.

Car tires squeaked on the cement floor. The engine rumbled, then it died. A door thumped, then another, followed by the garage door gain, shutting with a resonant boom. They needed to have someone out to look at that.

"JEEVES, remind me in the morning to call a garage door person," he spoke into the dark.

"Would you like me to compile a list of recommendations, Dr. Banner?" intoned the AI. "I could rank them based on customer reviews."

"Sure. Thanks."

"And I've informed Ms. Romanoff you retired to bed. "

"Great."

Bruce still didn't move to get up. He watched the blur of the alarm clock shift as the minutes passed without Natasha coming to their room. He pictured her taking her boots off in the mudroom, hanging up her coat and scarf, padding virtually silently through the kitchen in her sock feet to glance at the mail on the bar, fill a glass of water for her bedside table. In case she woke up in the night with the urge to make a huge mess, she'd joked ever since she read it in an Onion headline that had tears of laughter streaming down both their faces.

They hadn't shared much laughter the past few days. They hadn't shared much of anything at all, even meals, as Bruce made excuses to be out of the house, mostly that he needed to use the university library and labs. Natasha hadn't told him about plans to be out today, but her car wasn't in the garage when he got home earlier that evening. He'd made himself a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup, watched TV and tried not to think about the fact that she hadn't left a note or texted about her whereabouts, but his stomach had tied itself into such a knot that things had come to this between them that he hadn't been able to eat more than a few bites.

It was still there now, or maybe it was hunger. He'd almost talked himself into getting out of bed, going to the kitchen to make them both tea and cinnamon toast and to talk things out, when the door handle turned, followed by the creak of hinges as Natasha opened it just far enough to step through, then pushed it closed behind her.

Bruce didn't move, didn't breathe, not pretending to be asleep, but listening for signs of her coming further into the room. The clock emanated just enough of a glow that he could make out her silhouette standing there while her eyes adjusted to the dark.

"You're home," he said.

His voice put her into motion, a quiet clicking sound indicating she'd brought her cup of water, ice rattling against the glass. He tracked her form around the foot of the bed to the bathroom on the opposite side of the room. "I was getting worried."

"You never called."

There was a faint echo as she stepped into the bathroom, but what got Bruce was the pinched quality of her voice in addition to the usual rasp. Not accusatory, exactly, though it did put him on the defensive. She hadn't called, either. If she was waiting for him to make the first move…

He rubbed his palms over his face, rubbing his eyes before he raked his fingers through his hair, tugging hard at the roots as the pain in his scalp relieved the pressure. Natasha didn't play games.

"I figured if you left without saying anything it was for a reason," he replied. "You needed some space."

Natasha said nothing. He heard a drawer open, and then the buzz of her electric toothbrush for the next two minutes. She left the light off the entire time she brushed her teeth and washed her face.

When she emerged from the bathroom, she stood at the foot of the bed and said, "I looked a man in the eyes today and wanted to kill him in cold blood."

Jesus. Heart racing as if it had just been defibrillated out of arrest, Bruce sat up and flicked on the bedside lamp. Blinking against the brightness, he was slightly relieved to see Natasha was not wearing her Black Widow uniform, though she was all in black-a leather blazer over black jeans. In one hand she held her water glass.

Nevertheless, he said, "I heard about some energy weapon in Chicago. Some of the team were involved. You weren't…?"

Hollows appeared beneath her cheekbones as she pressed her lips together. "Of course not. We retired so we can live a normal life and start a family."

She turned away, trudged to the seating area in front of the bay window, and Bruce silently cursed himself for insinuating that she'd gone behind his back. Still, she'd gone somewhere today, done something that made her sink onto the armchair as though pressed down by a physical weight on her shoulders. He ought to get up and go to her, comfort her, but he couldn't seem to make the connection between his brain and his body.

"Just…you talked about wanting to kill a man. What was I supposed to think?"

Her eyes flicked up to him, a flash of green. "That you're in love with a killer. I've assassinated men, women, children, none of whom deserved to die. I never asked questions. I just did what I was paid to do."

"What you were made to do."

Bruce rubbed his eyes again, pressing the heels of his hands into the sockets. Where was this sudden onset of guilt coming from? Had the adoption autobiography gotten to her at last? His hand fell away from his face, and he sank back against his pillow. God, this had been such a fucking horrible idea. All the progress they'd made together, undone in a few hours with a social worker. Go directly to Jail…Do not pass Go…Do not collect $200...

"You never did read my files on the web, did you?"

The pillowcase rustled as Bruce shook his head. "That's your story to tell."

When she didn't reply, he looked over and saw her hunched like The Thinker. With Herculean effort, he scooted across the bed, swung his legs over the edge, and stood in front of her chair.

"Natasha…" He wasn't sure what to say. He reached out, touched her cheek as she sat with her chin on her fist. She leaned into his palm, then tilted her face up to him.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is...If I expected you to open up about your past, I should have been more open about mine."

"You don't need to. I don't need to know all the details of what you've done."

"What if I did something that affects you?"

"Something that…? I don't follow."

Natasha pushed up from her chair, leaving Bruce with his hand still hovering where her face had been. Her body brushed against him as she sidestepped to stand in front of the window, though the curtains were drawn. She picked up her glass of water from the table, took a drink, and set it down again.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she said, "I was in Ohio today."

Bruce felt his hackles rise. "Ohio? Why'd you go...? Is Aunt Susan-?"

"Susan's fine. Upset, but…"

"Upset."

Natasha's chest rose and fell as she drew a deep breath and released it. She turned to him, looked him straight in the eye, and said, "I went with her to the prison. To visit your father."

Bruce heard the words, but didn't understand. Had she spoken in Russian? He replayed them in his mind, and this time, it translated the syllables filtered by his ears.

A laugh barked painfully from his throat.

"You went to the prison. To visit…" My father. The words stuck, unspeakable. He'd choke if he tried to utter them. "…that monster? And you didn't tell me?"

"I'm telling you now."

Her voice sounded so small-or was that because he couldn't hear her over the roar that had begun in his head?

"After the fact," he flung back at her. "Better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission, huh? Not that we have that kind of relationship."

"No. We don't."

"Then why would you…?"

Words were not coming easily to him now, neither was breath. His lungs heaved. He wanted to shout, to rage nonverbally. Betray me. Why would she betray him? He was in a freefall, flailing and confused as he had been when she kissed him, then pushed him into a cistern.

"Because I needed to know what's standing between you, between us, having a family," Natasha said. "I shouldn't have gone behind your back, I know. I know you're angry."

"Angry? Yeah. I sure as hell am angry."

That's my secret, Cap… It had been years since he'd felt that tingle between his shoulder blades, at the base of his neck, an itch. His t-shirt felt uncomfortably tight.

"Bruce…"

She reached for his hand, but he jerked away. Rather than her warm, soft skin, his knuckles connected with the cold of her water glass, sending it flying off the table, soaking his feet and the second chair as it shattered on the hardwood floor. For a moment they both stared at the mess, then Bruce lurched past her, stumbling over the ottoman as his control over his body slipped away.

"I have to go out for a bit. I can't be here right now."

A/N: I almost feel I should apologize for the extreme angst of this chapter, but I won't, because I'm an angst fiend and I've been looking forward to writing this chapter for a long time. ;) These were actually the scenes that inspired the whole fic! If you need cheering up, go eat some leftover Valentine chocolate if you've got any and read Will (MC)U Be Mine? co-authored with my faithful beta reader, vladnyrki. And if you don't hate me for the way I introduced Brian Banner, I'd love your feedback! (Even if it is just to say what a monster he is. ;)) Thanks to everyone following this fic, and as my writing schedule has settled a bit, I should be getting back to more frequent posting for the remainder of the fic. (We're over halfway there, I think!)