Work Text:
Learn to Be Alone
Banner hadn’t meant to abandon them.
It had just happened. In a moment of rare clarity while encased in his green suit of armor, he had thought it would be easier. Easier to move on, easier to heal from, easier to stop, if he just stopped it now. If he ended things, he wouldn’t have to worry about hurting any of them, especially Nat.
Nat.
Bruce’s hand tightened around the worn walking stick, digging it into the soft, red mud of the mountainside. Tony had found him six times, begging him to come back. Trying to entice him with projects, funding, and soup. Tony could make a really good soup. Steve found him twice, asking him to consider coming back, for his country. Clint somehow shipped him a cellphone, the package showing up in a bakery, his name in large, red letters. It had a single text on it, “What do you think you’re doing.”
The only person still on this earth that hadn’t come after him, or attempted to contact him was Natasha.
And that was okay, he hurriedly reminded himself. She needed space. She needed safety.
Still, when the new propaganda for the Avengers hit the streets, the sight of Steve’s arm tightly curled around Nat’s waist was enough to make him skip a couple meals. He didn’t have a right to her, he knew this.
But, but her laugh. Not her lilted, gracious laugh that followed foreign dignitaries’ ears. Her real laugh. The one she gave with the people she chose to let into her life.
Not that he ever really secured that spot. Especially not after the stunt he pulled.
He looped back around the trail, reaching to his side pocket for his worn water-bottle.
He was afraid.
Putting him near Nat set him on edge, and if he wasn’t careful, there would come a time that a lullaby wouldn’t help.
Nat saw herself as an invincible monster, not a broken young woman.
Bruce didn’t want to be the force that shattered her beyond repair.