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“Why did you do it?”
Bruce’s question came out without provocation and stopped both him and Natasha in their tracks. It was early, the sun just peeking over the horizon through the hills in the distance, and the two of them were the only ones awake. They’d ended up in the communal kitchen together after weeks of avoiding each other and the words just spilled out of him as if the close proximity opened the floodgates on two years of unanswered questions.
But now that he’d said it, he didn’t want to take it back. He poked at the eggs still frying in the pan in front of his with the spatula and watched her closely from the corner of his eyes.
The spoon she’d been using to stir sugar into her coffee no longer clinked against the sides on her mug and even from this angle, Bruce could see her tense muscles beneath her feigned casual stance. That was something he remembered well, how to read Natasha. He’d only begun to scratch the surface before Ultron came along, though he was certain that no one would ever truly be able to get the truth out of her unless she wanted them to.
“I’ve done quite a bit in my time, Bruce. You’ll have to be more specific,” she said, starting off in her usual playful tone before going flat at the end.
Bruce sucked in a steadying breath and flipped his eggs before turning off the burner.
“Why did you push me?” he asked, turning to face her fully.
Natasha didn’t move, except her knuckles that had gone white against the handle of her mug.
“We had a job to finish,” she started, still not looking at him. “We needed the Hulk.”
It was the same line she’d used back then, which, after some thought he’d come to understand, somewhat. The Hulk’s power was unmatched and with the volume of bots they were facing, he was integral to the mission. That didn’t explain what lead up to him being shoved into chasm.
“And you needed to kiss me to make that happen?” he asked, his frustration seeping into his tone.
He’d known they were hurtling toward something before everything went to shit. At first he’d resisted, kept her at a distance for fear of hurting her, but in her persistence to build a relationship with the Hulk, he’d found himself falling hard for her quiet silliness and wicked humor. He questioned all of it after waking up on an alien planet after two years of being forced out of his own mind by a monster.
“Was any of it real for you?” he prodded onward in her silence.
Natasha remained silence and anger bubbled beneath his skin. The rage he’d fought so long to keep contained lingered just below the surface these days, a side effect of the Hulk’s years long joy ride. And she stood there, posture rigid, eyes still trained downward, and still frustratingly silent. It made his blood boil. How could she stand there as if she wasn’t partly to blame for the atrocities that followed what had been his last moments on Earth.
He slammed his fist into the counter, the reverberating sting it shot through his hand and up his forearm strangely satisfying. Natasha startled visibly and finally, finally looked over at him. Her eyes scanned his face and he was helpless to do anything under her scrutinizing gaze. Some things never changed.
“I deserve an answer,” Bruce said, his voice quiet but firm.
“I did what I had to do to finish the mission,” she repeated, her eyes never wavering from his, her tone flat. “I won’t apologize for saving the planet.”
Her words hurt more than any blow, she might as well have slapped in the face.
“So you just manipulated me into trusting you,” Bruce accused his words coming out like venom. “For what? To keep the Hulk on a leash to use whenever you saw fit? Just another cage and I fell right into it.”
“I never tried to put you in his cage,” she said once he’d finished. Her stance was more relaxed and she tugged at her fingers anxiously in front of her. It had a humanizing effect, like his words had finally struck a chord within her.
“Then why the games?”
In an instant she was in his face, mere inches between them. The heat of her breath touched his skin and sent a shiver down his spine but he didn’t back down. He met her hardened glare with his eyebrows raised in challenge.
“It wasn’t a game.” Her words came out in a breathy whisper, her glare softening into something open, pleading. “And I’d hoped you’d thought more of me than to believe that I would manipulate you like that. What purpose would it have served?”
Bruce shook his head, suddenly at a loss. “I don’t know, but how can I believe you?”
Tears began to form in her eyes as she stared into his. She placed a soft hand against his chest, tentative at first like she expected him to pull away, but Bruce stood and waited for her to say something that would take away the ache just under where her warm hand rested. Something real so he could stop agonizing over whether or not the chance he’d been ready to take with had been for nothing. That the hope he still held for some sort of future away from chaos didn’t make him a fool.
“Believe this,” she whispered and looked away for a moment. “I may have pushed you to save the world, but I kissed you for me.”
“What?”
She looked up at him again. “It was selfish, but the world was ending around us and if that was the last chance I had to see your face I damn sure wasn’t going to waste it. What I felt for you went against every instinct in me but I fell any ways, and I still feel it.”
Her eyes searched his and Bruce reached up to squeeze her fingers that gripped the front of his shirt.
“I spent two years trapped in that monster while he killed in an arena for sport,” he whispered, leaning forward to rest his forehead against hers.
Tears sprang to his eyes as the hazy memories bombarded his mind. He stomach churned in disgust.
Natasha slid her hand free of his and brought both of hers up to cup his face. Her thumb slid lightly under his eye to catch the tears that had begun to fall.
“I am sorry that I had to force you to change, but I tried to bring you back.” She told him firmly, shaking him slightly until he looked at her again. “Hulk wanted to leave and he did. If you’re looking for someone to blame, blame him.”
Bruce turned out of her grasp, shaking his head. He struck out at the stove, flipping the pan that still held his eggs and sending both clanging to the floor. He slumped against the counter, still facing away from her, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.
Everything was a mess, but there she stood under all of his accusations and lashing out with her arms open and waiting. Bruce wanted so badly to feel like himself again; to be able to finally live now that the fighting was over and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want Natasha to be a part of that.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said, turning around to face her.
Natasha stepped over the pan and splattered eggs and ran a hand through the curls that had just begun to grow back.
“Me too,” she offered with one of those soft smiles that melted his heart every time.
Bruce chuckled lightly and took her hand to lightly kiss her knuckles.
“I’m not sure where to go from here,” he told her honestly. With his anger sated and everything laid out he wasn’t entirely sure what to do next.
Natasha’s smile widened. “I think now’s our chance to run with it.”
The corner of Bruce’s mouth quirked up. “Better late than never, huh?”
“I’ve always heard the best things are worth waiting for.” Her words were barely above a whisper, but Bruce felt like he could burst from the joy that sentence brought him.
“It might not be easy?” he said.
She raised an eyebrow at him and patted his chest lightly. “Has anything ever been for either of us?”
It was a fair point. Life seemed to take pleasure in kicking them in the ass, but for the first time in a long time Bruce felt optimistic about where his life could go and somehow he’d been lucky enough to have this beautiful, amazing, forgiving woman walk in to his life what felt like an eternity ago. Now that the dust had finally settled, they had a chance to actually be happy. He wasn’t foolish enough to think it would all be smooth sailing from here, but he hoped that life had had enough fun and just let them live for a while.
“I adore you,” Bruce told her, pulling her into a tight embrace. He felt her relax against him and heard her contented sigh.
“Isn’t that my line?”
Bruce grinned and held her closer, all the tension from earlier completely seeped out of his body. He glanced over her shoulder at the mess on the floor he’d have to clean up before any of the other members of their team wandered in. Clean up could wait though, he’d much rather enjoy the warm embrace he’d been craving for longer than he could remember.
“I adore you, too,” she said after several quiet moments and Bruce could have floated to the ceiling at how light it made him feel.