Chapter 3
It was quiet, save for the hum and rumble of the Quinjet as it coasted over deep green ocean. At some point during the flight, he must have drifted off. Tony too, as he was still out cold and drooling on Bruce’s shoulder.
“Hey,” a quiet voice said as Bruce tried to extricate himself out from under Sleeping Beauty. He made a ‘stay’ motion over the top of Tony’s head with both hands once he got them both sorted out. Satisfied Tony wasn’t going to move, Bruce looked up.
“Hi,” he said. Natasha was standing in front him, both arms stretched over her head. She was holding onto a strap bolted in somewhere above him for balance.
“Oh, just a…” he made a show of picking up and folding an imaginary jacket from the empty seat to his right, and setting it on his lap. He scratched at the side of his face and offered a hesitant ‘just a second’ sign with his index finger. Then he stowed an imaginary bag under the seat. When he finished with that, he gestured grandly at the now empty seat with both his arms.
“Dork,” she muttered as she passed down two bottles of water and a sleeve of crackers from an overhead compartment. He wordlessly accepted them as she sat down.
“They’re pretty good,” he said appreciatively through a mouthful of dry, salty crackers.
Natasha reached over to brush some crumbs caught on some stubble. He didn’t mean to flinch back when she reached out toward him, and muttered a quiet, “sorry” once he realized he did. She seemed unfazed by his hesitance and tried again, letting her fingers graze over his rough, sandpapered chin a little too long. “You’ve been on a desert island too long if you think stale saltines are good eatin’, Banner,” she said fondly. He tried not to let her see the sharp sense of loss he felt when she pulled her hand away. He wanted to reach out, touch her the same way she did just then; caress her face, run his fingers gently through her hair. He hated that he wanted things to be that simple, and he hated her a little for it. He looked down at his folded hands resting on his knee.
“Natasha,” he said, his voice sticking a little in his throat. He shook his head and forced himself to look at her. “How can I trust you, after what happened last time?” He wasn’t entirely surprised she had betrayed him the way she did when she forced him into the fight back in Sokovia, he just didn’t know if he would be willing to put himself in that sort of position again.
“Maybe you shouldn’t,” she said. She was completely unreadable.
Next to him, Tony stirred.
“We’ll talk later,” she said. She rose from her seat and placed a small chaste kiss on his forehead.
Tony’s head was back on Bruce’s shoulder, with Tony looking up at him with wide, puppy dog eyes. He wasn’t buying the cutesy, eyelash fluttering act for a single second. As if making his point for him, Tony craned his neck over Bruce’s torso and very obviously watched Natasha take her seat at the front of the plane. Then he pointedly looked over at Bruce. He smiled and patted Tony on the head.
“You know,” he said, as he watched her settle into her seat and work the controls in front of her, “I actually have no idea where we’re going.” Bruce looked at Tony for a long moment, “You?” he asked. “I’m not sure why I didn’t think of asking when I had the chance,” he said, mostly to himself.
“I’ve got a pretty good guess,” Tony said dismissively. Inwardly Bruce cringed. He was positive Tony wasn’t answering the first part of his question.
“Speaking of White Nights up there,” Tony said, a little too loudly.
“I don’t think you should--” Bruce said at the same time Natasha flipped Tony the bird.
“She beat me to it,” he said, though Bruce thought maybe Natasha should take the comparison as a compliment, though he guessed it might be better to button his lip. Thinking about it some more, he wondered, “Would that make me Gregory Hines in this scenario? I mean, I don’t exactly know how to tap dance.”
“You’re doing a pretty good job of it right now,” the smug bastard said.
Bruce groaned. Thankfully Tony dropped the third degree and brought Bruce up to speed about the ‘New’ Avengers, its facility, and roster. Tony neglected to mention how he fit in with the new line-up, which he found… interesting. Bruce didn’t press the issue. Whatever Tony wasn’t telling him was bound to come up at some point. “And then,” Tony said grandly, “You get to see the new place I got for me and Pep. Bruce, it’s beautiful. Overlooks Central Park with all that artsy-fartsy stuff she likes. And! Wait ‘til you see the workshop once it’s done. You thought it was sexy before…”
Bruce nodded absently. Tony stopped to give him a long, puzzled look. Bruce wasn’t sure how to interpret it. Tony sighed and said all in a rush, “Basically I want you to come back to work with me once this is all done. Deal?”
“Okay Tony,” he said, cringing a little. Truth was he wanted to get a better lay of the land before agreeing to anything, especially given what happened last time. He’d go along with at least seeing the place, to say hello to Pepper, but Bruce would have to be careful; Tony had roping him into things down to a science.
“Not that you don’t trust me, right.”
“Tony.”
“Nah, that’s fair. I get it.”
“One thing at a time,” Bruce said. He tried to keep the strain out of his voice, but he suspected Tony knew him better than that.
Tony opened his mouth to speak, but Natasha’s voice from the cockpit interrupted whatever he was about to say. “We’re almost there. Ten minutes, if that.”
They both muttered their acknowledgements, and Bruce moved to fish out some more crackers.
“Got any more of those,” Tony said. Bruce passed him the rest of the sleeve.
“They’re good,” Tony said, a little more enthusiastically than stale saltines generally warranted. A few crumbs got stuck in his facial hair, but Bruce looked away to focus on finishing his own snack. They would be landing in ten minutes.
*
Steve was there greet them. “It’s good to see you,” he had said once they were all on solid ground. Bruce firmly believed his sincerity. It was Steve, after all.
“It’s good to see you too,” Bruce said, and was surprised to find that he meant it, too. Then Fury pulled Steve aside to speak privately.
From behind him, Tony clapped Bruce firmly on the shoulder, and didn’t so much as give Steve a second glace before making himself scarce. Bruce threw Natasha a quick, confused look but she just very subtly shook her head no. He’d be away too long. He wasn’t sure if there really was a new sense of awkwardness that had settled over the team since he’d been away, or if he was imagining it. Time would tell.
Fury moved away from his little confab with Steve to offer Bruce some rote words of thanks for agreeing to come back with them. Honestly, Bruce wished he hadn’t. He’d seen that show before, and hoped he wasn’t in for a repeat performance. Steve told him to go see the rest of the facility, and then get settled in. Natasha would be his tour guide.
“Debrief at oh five hundred,” he said. He paused, and then said a bit more fondly, “I mean 5 a.m.” Bruce nodded and they said their goodbyes.
“That is way too early,” Bruce muttered as he watched Steve go. Bruce looked around. Turned out he and Natasha were the only ones left standing on the windy tarmac.
“You should see Rogers when it isn’t his day off,” she teased. Bruce pretended to look horrified. She started walking the same direction Steve had just a few moments before, and Bruce had to do a little jog-walk to keep up. He felt like a small puppy, trailing a half a step behind her.
“I don’t bite,” she said. Then before he even had a chance to respond, she said, “You don’t either, so don’t even try.”
He put his hands up in defeat, which earned him a crooked smile.
“I’ll show you around,” she said. She said it like she was asking him to follow her anywhere, to hell and back if need be. He swallowed, because he was afraid he would. He wanted to be angry with her. He wanted to blame her, but he knew he couldn’t. He was in limbo here, trapped between where he was going and where he’d been. He didn’t know what he wanted, so it was pointless to blame anyone other than himself.
The facility was a lot bigger than he’d expected, and a lot busier, too. He realized with a start that a big part of Tony’s moodiness might have been brought about by the realization that the Avengers had outgrown him.
Natasha laughed when he mentioned this to her. “No,” she said. “Well, maybe, but that’s not it.”
“Then what is it?”
“He quit,” she said matter-of-factly.
“I don’t know about that,” Bruce said. “He doesn’t make a distinction between himself and Iron Man.”
She shrugged. “You should to talk to him about it, not me.”
He wasn’t sure if that was a good idea, so he said, “Okay.”
She gave him a deeply skeptical look, but didn’t say anything further.
*
“Can I live here?” Bruce asked once he came across Helen Cho, Helen Cho’s team, and of course, Helen Cho’s lab. “Because I kinda want to live here.”
He had so many questions. Questions like, what are you researching and/or inventing? Who was footing the bill? (It wasn’t Stark, clearly. He hoped it wasn’t the military. Was it SHIELD? Were they still around?) The fact that he didn’t know the answers to any of those questions gave him pause, though the sheer size of the lab and its resources did put Tony’s invitation to come back to work for him into new light.
Natasha hung back as Bruce got reacquainted with Helen specifically, and science generally. He lost track of time, though, and eventually she had to pull him back up to surface for air. She tried playfully shaming him for losing himself to siren call of science, but he wasn’t biting. He almost said, “What’s the harm?” But they both knew full well what that was.
The mess hall (or was it a commissary? Bruce wasn’t up on the lingo) was just as wide and spacious as the rest of the place, especially since it seemed to be the off hours. There were only a handful of other folks seated at the densely packed cafeteria style benches, none of whom Bruce knew. Natasha vanished and a few minutes later returned with two plastic wrapped tuna sandwiches, and a couple of cans of off-brand cola.
Natasha picked at her sandwich, though Bruce was hungrier than he thought; he’d demolished the thing still hoping there’d be more. Somehow she knew that and wordlessly placed the untouched half of her sandwich in front of him, which he ate before remembering his manners.
“Thank you,” he said, rather sheepishly.
“Any time,” she said.
They stayed like that for longer than was maybe justified, sipping no-name Coke and talking. He wanted things between them to be this simple. He didn’t actually know what he wanted at all.
Eventually Natasha brought him around to where the sleeping quarters were housed. It was dark and he could see some stars twinkling overhead, and a big orange moon trying to peak through a tall line of pine trees. Somewhere nearby he heard drunken laughter and the occasional song, sung with gusto and entirely off key. He didn’t know why it made him as sad as it did.
Natasha didn’t linger in his doorway or otherwise waste his time. She showed him how to work the shower, where to find the toiletries and a change of clothes. She was brisk and professional and displayed none of the warmth and affection she had in the past; even as recently as a soggy tuna sandwich dinner.
He nodded, wished her a standard “goodnight,” and tried settling in. He found himself longing for his dilapidated tent, the roar of ocean waves, and isolation. He had to admit that the bed was comfortable, if a bit rough and utilitarian.
“This isn’t a break,” he said aloud, “just the calm before the storm.”