Chapter 4

Cold Climate

"So where exactly is here?" Natasha questioned as they got out of the truck. Bruce was talking with Rick as Natasha looked at the rather large house in front of her.

"Walter Langkowski's home," Bruce replied eventually looking at it, "He was my roommate in college, nice guy, very big and harry now."

Natasha looked at Bruce slightly confused, "You mean the guy who calls himself the Sasquatch?" She remembered seeing a file on him in passing but paid no mind to him, didn't really need to pay attention to the Canadians super heroes often.

"That's the one," Bruce nodded, "Very smart. He has a lab under his house. He should have what we need to finish these." He held up the small devices he had been working on before.

"Wait you didn't tell him we were coming right? You know S.I.E.L.D. tracking and all of that?" Natasha commented.

"Course not, you're going to break in," Bruce smirked and didn't stop even as Natasha glared at him, "He won't mind, he'll understand if I leave a note. Now come on you need to get us inside."

"What happened to the Dr. Banner I knew who cringed at the thought of taking a pen from a hotel room?" Natasha questioned.

"He met you and Clint. Enough stalling get with the breaking in," Bruce replied with the same smirk.

"Right you two, good luck with this," Rick nodded getting back into his truck. There was no point in questioning where he was going. Bruce had probably talked him into leaving them. "You need anything you know how to reach me."

Natasha watched the young man drive away, "So what's the plan on getting out of here now that our ride is gone?"

"I've gotten us this far, I'm fairly sure you can trust that I have a plan," Bruce shrugged walking up to the front door. He was waiting for Natasha to break in with an arrogant smile on his face.

"Your plans are starting to make me very worried," Natasha grumbled as she looked at the door. Looking at the locks and then looking for signs of an alarm system.

"You asked for my help so you don't get to grumble about my plans," Bruce commented as he watched, "It's Canada, their alarm systems suck to be honest I'm surprised the door is locked."

"It's a high end scientist, you telling me he's not going to have an alarm?" Natasha questioned.

"Not on the front door, probably on his lab," Bruce shrugged, "Who in their right mind would try to rob a Sasquatch?"

"The people who keep trying to robe you? Us?" Natasha started to pick the lock on the door carefully not really looking forward to opening it.

"Ha, funny," Bruce replied, "Less joking more lock picking."

"Would you just go cut the power," Natasha replied, "I'll have it unlocked after. I don't want to take a chance on an alarm. If there is one it probably has batteries in case the power gets cut but it's worth a shot." She heard the soft click of the door unlocking and smirked. Though the smirk vanished when Bruce just opened the door and let the alarm blast. She was prepared to punch him out even if he did Hulk out when he simply walked inside calmly and over to the box, entering the code to deactivate it. "You knew the code?"

"Yeah I just wanted to be a jerk," Bruce shrugged, "Also had a key this entire time, just wanted to make you work a bit. Now come on the lab's downstairs." Bruce led the way through the house knowing its layout well quickly heading to the basement he started to shuffle through Walter's stuff.

Natasha was debating on if she could hit Bruce hard enough in the crotch could she get enough distance between herself and his eventually Hulk state to keep herself safe. More than likely she could but she decided against it for not, "What exactly are we looking for?"

"A power cell for these, they'll stop S.H.I.E.L.D.'s tracking in just about every way possible," Bruce replied, "Including when the gamma radiation I give off spikes. We will basically disappear, which in my experience you're fairly good at, I'm just offering a way to make it easier."

Natasha shot a glare at Bruce again, "Can we put that to the side until we get Clint out? Let's just focus on what we need to do."

"Unlikely," Bruce replied, "I was finally having fewer and fewer nightmares about what happened. Then wouldn't you know it, you show up again to remind me, looking for my help of all things. Hence I'm not going to let it go for as long as we're working together."

Natasha remained silent for a while as Bruce continued to search the lab, "Then if you're not going to let this go can we finally talk about it?"

"It would be unwise but I can't stop you," Bruce replied as he moved some boxes around eventually finding some equipment he needed he sat down to work on his devices.

"You left," Natasha commented trying to put everything she wanted to say together, "you didn't give us a chance to explain or even a slight chance to try to make it right."

"You can't exactly make all of what happened right," Bruce stated emotionless to the entire thing as he worked.

"We made a mistake Bruce, we tried to fix it but you didn't give us a chance," Natasha continued, "we came for you when you needed us."

"And why did I need you? Oh right because you left me in the first place," Bruce replied never looking up.

"It was a mistake…" Natasha repeated her voice growing soft, "It was poor judgement and it was my fault. You shouldn't have quit or blamed the others… You didn't have to blame Clint."

"The others weren't there and they were getting tired of me anyways," Bruce stopped working for a moment still not looking up. He rubbed his eyes in frustration then continued to work, "And Clint made a choice that day too; he chose what he did so it's just as much his fault as it yours."

"Just as much his fault? So all of it was our fault to you?" Natasha questioned quickly getting angry if he had stuck to blaming her she'd be fine but she wasn't going to let him drag Clint down, "Yeah he made a choice, but so did you Bruce. You are not blameless in all of this. You insisted on coming along when we told you not to. You knew the dangers of coming with us."

"I didn't think you'd pull a stunt like that," Bruce snapped back.

"You knew it was the job," Natasha continued on, "You should have stayed back at the tower and let us do the job."

"What and sit at home while everyone risked their lives? What if you had needed Hulk there?" Bruce stood up leaving his devices alone and glaring right at Natasha.

"We didn't need Hulk there and you knew that you just couldn't handle that there was something going on that you weren't good at," Natasha glared right back.

"I wasn't going to let everyone risk everything while I sat at the tower twiddling my thumbs being useless," Bruce yelled, "I thought being part of a team meant sticking together and being there. Of course that all just proved that I wasn't part of the team. Hulk was but he was uncontrollable when he was out so you didn't want him. In the end I was kept around because you all felt pity for me. Poor Bruce Banner, can't do anything, can't be part of the team, can't fight like the rest of us, just a nerdy little scientist. Really I guess I should be thanking you and Clint for proving that I was never an Avenger and that I should stop fooling myself. So I changed, and I left. Look where that got me, back in it again because you need my help. Small world I guess, keeps going around in a circle. Thrown to the side and forgotten when no one needs what I have and people begging for help when they're in trouble."

Natasha continued to glare at him for a moment before turning and heading upstairs. Idiot, why did you bring that up? You know he's bull headed.

It was another hour before Bruce came upstairs with the devices, he seemed to have cooled down in that time. He offered one to Natasha, "Just attach it to your belt and they won't be able to track you easily."

Natasha took the device looking at it for a moment and avoiding eye contact, "What about our ride?"

Bruce attached his own device to his belt, "We're going to use Hulk." He looked at Natasha seeing her horrified face at the thought. "What? It's the fastest way. He can find his way to New Mexico without any issues. He's always able to find his way home." Natasha still wasn't convinced, clearly. "Do you have a better idea how to get down their quickly? Because the longer we take the longer it'll take to break Clint out." It was certainly the best idea they had that was true.

"But back then…" Natasha commented softly.

"Give him a chance," Bruce replied simply, "I trust Hulk can get you there safely, it's his home after all."

Natasha swallowed hard completely terrified by the idea but with no other solution she couldn't argue with it. Bruce waved for her to follow him outside. Once outside Natasha watched Bruce's body grow and mutate which was a painful process to watch. It only took five seconds but the idea of having one's body rapidly and violently expand like that was not a pleasant thought. Hulk let out a roar once the shift was complete, one showing the amount of pain his body had just gone through. He looked at Natasha with some understanding. He couldn't remember everything but he knew he had to get to New Mexico. He could feel Bruce urging the memories forward to tell him to go there, asking him to put aside his hate and help.

"Hulk?" Natasha asked cautiously trying to hide her fear.

"Hulk," Hulk stated slowly, "go home. Hulk take N'tasha there." He had often had issues with everyone's names and him missing letters wasn't uncommon, still he did better than he had in the past so Natasha couldn't complain about that. She wanted to complain on the idea of how they were getting to New Mexico. Hulk picked Natasha up in his large arms before running and taking long and powerful jumps to cover great distances. Natasha clung to Hulk at the sudden change is speed. Safe… Right.

((Disclaimer: I do not own the characters used. The Hulk is going to be rather young in terms of how he acts in this fanfic as shown here so it will be a lot of fragments and him speaking in third person. Sorry if it's not your thing.))