Fic: The Monsters Inside (Natasha, Bruce, PG-13)
Title: The Monsters Inside
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Natasha, Bruce
Summary: Natasha is at the wrong place at the wrong time, and her entire life shatters. (A Natasha-as-Hulk AU.)
Word Count: 6347
Author's Notes: This is slightly edited from the version I submitted to avengersfest, thanks to some con-crit I received after the fic was posted there. Hopefully it's somewhat clearer now!
I. May 19, 2008, 2:32 PM
The last thing Natasha remembers before sinking into a green haze of rage is thinking, almost idly, I thought the phrase was "seeing red."
II. May 19, 2008, 2:17 PM
Dr. Natalie Rushman is a genius, as any glance at her transcript will affirm. She got her BS from Culver University, went on to grad school at UC Bryant, and was the top candidate for this internship, studying the possible genome-altering effects of gamma radiation. She is crisp, intelligent, and wears clothes just shy of too tight. Dr. Elizabeth Ross doesn't trust her, though this opinion isn't shared by her male coworkers.
Dr. Elizabeth Ross has good instincts.
Natasha tucks a lock of red hair behind her ear, surreptitiously fiddling with the comm device in her ear canal. On the other end sits a trio of scientists, a group second only to the one in this room when it comes to nuclear physics; she's smart and an excellent actress, but even she is incapable of digesting over half a decade of top-rate education in a science she knows next to nothing about within a handful of months. Now, with the device on and the scientists ready, she can keep up with Ross and the others well enough to fool them, and in a few more days, she can leave with her target intact. Unless, of course, Dr. Igor Drenkov, an old friend from the days when she was Natalia Romanova, gets there first. Natasha doesn't plan on letting that happen.
Right now, though, there is little time to reminisce; they are mere minutes away from the first trial of the gamma bomb, a device that when finished is meant to deliver the same effects on a mass scale to U.S. soldiers as Erskine's super-soldier serum did for the long-lost Captain America, and if Natasha knows Drenkov, this is when he'll make his move. It's foolish, stealing the unfinished, untested formula and running back to Russia with it - no matter how clever Drenkov thinks he is, his intelligence will never compare to Bruce Banner's, and Natasha sincerely doubts he'll be able to complete Banner's work. She would wait until at least the second or third trial to take the information and send it to her employers. If she still worked for those employers. Luckily, Natasha slipped their noose a few years ago, and now she's simply a contract spy protecting a possible asset from interference, rather than a Cold War relic.
"Initiating countdown," Banner announces, and Natasha jolts back to the present, the only sign of her inattention being a particularly hard blink. Sloppy. She's better than that. "Fifty-nine, fifty-eight…"
A small display flashes red; Natasha frowns at it and blinks twice, activating the video contacts she's wearing. In her ears, the scientists suddenly burst into chatter, just as Ross notices the same thing.
"Bruce," she says, gesturing him over. "Look at this. The gamma monitor is malfunctioning."
Banner swears, and runs his hand through his messy hair.
"Of course it is," he says disgustedly. "Igor, pause the countdown while I go fix it."
"Dr. Banner, I can go instead," Natasha interjects sweetly in Natalie's crisp accent. She's fairly sure her scientists friends can help her cobble the thing back together. He only waves his hand at her, an awkward dismissal.
"No, no, you stay here, Dr. Rushman," he says. "Igor, is - "
"Countdown paused," Drenkov says. Natasha double-checks; the numbers have indeed paused, but there's a tilt to Drenkov's smile she doesn't care for. She narrows her eyes, fading into the background as she's been trained to do, and observes.
The countdown is paused. Ross is drumming her fingers on the reinforced plastic window, watching Banner work. Drenkov is as well, though his gaze is intent, anticipatory; it sets Natasha on edge. What else? The computers are humming, prepared to collect any and all data; inside the testing chamber, Banner is nearly finished with his work. Natasha fixes her eyes on Igor again, and to her surprise, he turns his head to meet her gaze, giving her a bland look, the hint of a smirk tugging on his lips. She returns his gaze with her most neutral expression. Does he know who she is, or is he so pleased with himself that he can't hide that smug smile? Natasha suspects the latter. He leans against the large reactor nonchalantly, as if nothing could possibly be bothering him, then jerks away with the slightest grimace. And with that, Natasha knows - the reactor is running. It's overheating, in fact, revving up the gamma bomb, and Banner - Banner's still inside.
Damn.
"Code red," Natasha says clearly, and as Ross turns to her in puzzlement and Drenkov stiffens in realization and belated recognition, in her ear a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent says, "Code red acknowledged. Go."
Natasha goes.
She shoves past Ross and taps the passcode into the testing chamber's door, pushing Natalie Rushman into the farthest corner of her brain and allowing all her training to take over. Thirty seconds, give or take; that's all she has until the bomb explodes. She strides into the room, grabbing Banner by the shoulder.
"It's time to go," she says, and tries to steer him away. He elbows her with surprising force for such an unfit man, and twists out of her grip.
"I'm almost done, Dr. Rushman," he snaps. "And I don't know what you think you're doing - "
"This isn't optional, Banner," she snaps right back. "This is an order. Don't make me hurt you. Now move."
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Elizabeth Ross slump to the ground, no doubt a victim of Drenkov's fists, and Drenkov himself, waggling his fingers in a smug little wave. Then very many things happen in a very short amount of time.
She hears the rumble of the gamma bomb as it activates, and sees Banner's look of pure shock at the sound -
She thinks, Protect the target at all costs -
She seizes Banner and throws him to the ground, covering him with her body as best she can -
And the bomb goes off.
It is silent, but the pressure is deafening. She feels her eardrums burst, and grits her teeth hard as she's buffeted by wave after wave of gamma radiation, something she knows she should not be feeling, something that is impossible according to the laws of physics (unless there's something different going on, something wrong). Beneath her, Banner lies still, either behaving sensibly or terrified into immobility. Natasha doesn't really care; she clings to him, bruising his arms where she grips them, and waits out the storm with the dogged patience of a deep-cover spy.
After what the cold, precise part of her mind tells her is fifteen seconds, the bomb shuts down, and she loosens her grip on Banner. He twists out from under her, and she lets him, sitting back and touching the blood dripping from her ear canals. Banner gestures angrily at her, and she reads his lips: "What the hell are you doing?"
"Just stay calm, Dr. Banner," she soothes, carefully modulating her voice until it approximates her natural volume. "I'll explain - "
His eyes flicker over her shoulder, and Natasha turns, seeing exactly what she expected to: Drenkov, followed by Ross, with a knife tucked up his sleeve and danger in his eyes. In one smooth motion, Natasha pulls out her gun and fires at his kneecap, drops into a roll, and pistol-whips him across the head as he falls. Drenkov goes out like a light, and Natasha thinks wryly, At least the gun fired.
She stands up and faces Banner and Ross, trembling. That's unusual; Natasha is a professional, and this mission shouldn't shake her, but she's anxious, her blood pounding like a bass drum in her head, her vision far too sharp, like the sight of a sniper rifle.
"He was a spy," she tells them calmly. "I'm sorry for the interruption of your research."
"He was a spy?" Ross shouts. Natasha watches her lips. "What does that make you?"
"I'm an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.," she replies. "I was assigned here to make sure this research doesn't get out of government hands."
Banner says something, but she doesn't catch it.
"I can't hear you," she says, and he repeats himself, straining as if yelling as loud as he can.
"This is a private project. The government isn't meant to be involved!"
"Tell that to Colonel Ross," she snaps, and thinks with shock, That information is classified, Natasha, what are you doing? In her peripheral vision, she sees Elizabeth Ross jump, but Natasha doesn't take her eyes off Banner.
"You lied to me!"
Something inside her cracks further; Natasha says, fighting to keep cool, "Yes, I did. It was necessary."
"No," he snarls, "no, what isn't necessary is the government interfering in my research. What isn't necessary is sending someone to take my research and use it to make weapons."
"I was just doing my job - "
"Yeah? Your job is illegal, you know that?"
"Don't interrupt me - "
Her bruised and battered temper finally, inexplicably snaps, and Natasha is lost to the green.
III. Transformation
This is what it's like:
Pain. Unending pain, the tear of muscles stretching and snapping, the slow and steady grind of bones shifting, lengthening, fracturing, her teeth breaking and rearranging, her skin stretching past its logical limits to encompass the entirety of her bulk; pain. Natasha knows pain. Natasha can take pain. This is so much more.
Natasha drowns. There is a vague awareness of another, a something else that is nothing but cold, vicious anger and bloodlust, break kill tear bleed make them pay hurt them HURT THEM and Natasha cannot control it, cannot restrain it, cannot take it back or tell it to heel, and she would take a thousand times that pain if only the something else inside would stop.
It doesn't. She screams and beats the tiny cage she's trapped in, and feels only scorn directed at her. She weeps - the Black Widow weeps, drenched in impotent fury, and the something else roars, and
Natasha drowns.
IV. May 24, 2008, 9:19 AM
Natasha watches the footage with a blank face and cold heart. There is a monster rampaging across the screen, thick and green-skinned and mindless, a creature made of unbridled rage fueled by frustration and fear. That monster is her. She doesn't remember a thing.
"What were the damages?" she asks eventually. Director Fury sighs.
"The lab is shot to hell," he says. "Ross is alive. Banner - him too." Natasha notes that slight hesitation. What does it mean? "Drenkov, not so much."
"I'm sorry, sir," she says, and at his look she elaborates: "We could have used the intel."
"Yeah, well, maybe if that thing stops to apologize, I'll listen," Fury replies dryly. "Look, we know that the gamma bomb isn't in a useable stage yet, which is exactly what we sent you in to find out. We know that Banner isn't gonna cooperate, and we know that no one, Russians or Chinese or some damn Martians, have the formula for what was going on in that lab. It could be worse."
Oh, really?
"Yes, sir," Natasha says instead. "Am I dismissed?"
Fury glares at her, then sighs.
"Go," he says. "And Romanoff?"
Halfway to the door, Natasha pauses. "Sir?"
He is silent for a moment, weighing his words.
"Watch yourself," he says finally. Natasha takes this in, and nods.
Free of S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, she meanders around the city, ending up poking through the lingerie section of a department store. Once she's reasonably confident that she hasn't been followed, she taps a fellow shopper on the shoulder and asks cheerfully to borrow a phone. Natasha is good at making herself likable; in minutes, she's dialing a number she knows by heart. When the man on the other end picks up, tension Natasha wasn't aware she was carrying slides away.
"Barton," Clint says, gruff as he usually is; he's never been a fan of phones.
"Hey," Natasha says, drawing it out in an exaggerated imitation of a sorority girl. "It's Lauren. Just thought I'd check in."
"Hey, cuz," Clint says without missing a beat. "What's up?"
"Not much," Natasha tells him. "It's stormy, and getting worse. I think I'm going to go to Mom's until it's over."
"Good idea," he says lightly. "Need a ride?"
"No, I've got it." She's had an escape plan ready for a long time now; if there's one thing she's learned, it's to trust no one, even those who claim to be on your side. Especially them. "Thanks, though. Hey, give all my love to your bro, okay? I haven't talked to him in ages."
"Will do," he agrees. "Talk to you later. Hope that storm doesn't last."
"Me too," she says. More quietly, she adds, "Goodbye, Clint."
"Bye," he says softly, and Natasha hangs up. The woman who owns the phone is looking at her in puzzlement.
"There isn't a cloud in the sky," she says, confused. Natasha shrugs.
"It's an old joke," she says. "Thanks for letting me use your phone."
Handing it back, she makes her way out of the store. Telling Clint what happened is out of the question; it's too much of a risk for them both. She'll miss him, it's true, but Natasha knows how organizations like S.H.I.E.L.D. work. They wouldn't let someone as potentially valuable as her go, not without mining her genome and putting her through tests like a mouse in a maze, and Natasha refuses to be a lab rat for the warmongers in the U.S. government. Loneliness is nothing new to her; like pain, she can take it.
V. 2009-2012, Russia
It's easy to forget things here. Russia, the motherland, home as she's never had it since she left. Though she hasn't spoken it for years, the language comes to her lips easily, her mother tongue, and quickly Agent Romanoff fades, allowing Natalia to come to the forefront again.
There was a place she had stayed for a year after she'd escaped the Red Room, a small farm in the vast expanses of the Russian countryside. She goes there now, knowing it to be abandoned. It's just an hour's drive from the nearest town, but she thinks that's distance enough to act as a buffer between the civilians and herself (and the something else, the monster, the other one inside her). She settles down there, on her tiny little farm, and learns how to cope.
. . .
Those first months are the worst. She spends nearly a year in a constant state of flux, veering madly between rage to acceptance to utter, unabashed horror at the wreck of a human she's become. She screams. She cries and she throws things, the infamous Black Widow, once so poised and heartless, now ground down to a bundle of raw nerves and the unbridled fury of a child with a nuclear weapon. The something else feels it, too, and tears up the earth, uprooting trees, carving deep gashes into the ground with her impossible strength. Nothing but destruction, and Natasha, always so precise in her work, can only watch and scream at the unfairness of the world.
"A child," she snarls to her reflection. "You're acting like a child. This has happened to you. You can't make it go away. Accept it and move on."
The something else roars in response, and once again, Natasha breaks.
. . .
On the news, she sees Bruce Banner rampaging through Harlem.
Natasha doesn't keep much in the way of nonessential technology: an old clunker with an astonishingly reliable engine, her current identity's cell phone, another cell phone tucked deep in a drawer, untouched, and one television. Though she doesn't spend much time watching it, she's glad she owns a TV now. The sickening truth hits her like a gunshot to the chest: if she doesn't learn how to control herself, doesn't learn how to live in peace with the something else, this is how she'll end up. This is what she will be: not simply a murderer - she has made her peace with that - but a walking catastrophe, a natural disaster seconds away from explosion. She can't live like this anymore. She can't.
She shuts off the TV, and sits in the silence for a long time.
Accept it and move on.
Maybe she needs to take that to heart.
. . .
With grim patience, Natasha meditates.
It's not an easy thing for her to do; even at rest, her mind is working, cataloguing, always alert for any danger. Fighting her instincts is more difficult than she expected, having relied upon them for so long. But she persists, with little success, drawing upon the scant knowledge she has of the meditation techniques of Buddhist monks and other ascetics. Finally, she gives in and goes to the town, picking through the library and finding books on Zen practices, among others. In a burst of black humor, she picks up a book on anger management, too.
Slowly, she learns to sink into that blankness, the simple quiet of a mind at rest. Regulating her breathing is key; she finds that when she's walking through the furrowed fields surrounding her farm, she can tame the surges of the something else with deep, slow breaths, taking careful note of her twisting moods and learning the pressure points that speed relaxation. She feels vaguely silly at first, but when her tricks show results, she becomes a believer.
Clint would laugh at her if he knew, call it New Agey bullshit. Maybe she'll be able to share the joke with him one day.
. . .
The presence in her mind. The something else. It waits and it watches her; Natasha can feels its curiosity.
Hello?
A grudging recognition, more than she'd expected.
I'm Natasha, she tries. I'm your other half.
Tiny one. The voice is dismissive, female, and definitely not Natasha's imagination. This sends her reeling for a moment; she knew it all along, but having it confirmed is truly surreal.
Why is tiny one here?
I wanted to talk to you. This is a gamble, but Natasha goes for it. I wanted to see if we could work something out.
Reluctant interest greets her. What?
We're stuck with each other, for better or worse. Anger flares at that, and Natasha hastily changes tack. Neither of us are happy like this, right?
Tiny one leave!
No! No, that's not possible. Not just anger now, but disappointment. Unexpected. But we could share.
Share?
Yes. I was thinking that if you promise to lay low and let me live my life - A roar. Natasha flinches. Wait, keep listening! If you let me live my life, then I'll let you live yours. We can spend equal time at the wheel.
A pause. Sounds nice.
Yeah. Just as long as you don't come out when there's people around, I'll take you places where you can run and do whatever you want. Equal time, equal consideration. Sound good?
A very long pause. Natasha waits in silence. Then, rumbling, an answer comes:
Good.
. . .
After a while, Natasha starts calling the something else the Other Woman. It starts as a joke, then turns into something else entirely.
I can't keep calling you "something else," she reasons. Isn't this better?
Not thing, the Other Woman sulks. Person.
Exactly. You're a woman, I'm a woman, so from my point of view, you're the other woman. Do you like that?
A grunt, echoing in her mind, unheard by her ears.
Tiny one makes me laugh!
That works well enough for Natasha.
. . .
She finds herself growing bored. With her self-control tentatively re-established, her alter ego relatively well-behaved, she has nothing to do, nothing to work on. Natasha doesn't take well to laziness.
She starts to farm. It's a logical step; not like there's anything else to do around here. The Other Woman plows the fields, and Natasha sows them. It's work, exhausting work. She develops new callouses in new places, and goes to bed at sundown, body limp and tired. When harvest comes, the Other Woman helps when Natasha's comparatively frail frame gives up, her big hands surprisingly delicate. It's a strange coexistence they've established, but Natasha finds it peaceful.
Part of her knows, though, that it won't last. Truthfully, she doesn't want it to, and neither does the Other Woman.
Smash? she asks hopefully, whenever they're outside with nothing to do.
Later, Natasha promises. Later, you can smash.
. . .
The phone rings.
Groaning, Natasha pulls herself out of sleep, cursing the post-shift hangover that dulls her reflexes and makes her slow and lazy. She's halfway to her cellphone when she realizes the ringtone is wrong. This isn't her cell; this is her burner phone, Agent Romanoff's phone, the one only one person knows about. Natasha hesitates. If she picks up, her quiet life here will be ruined, her peaceful coexistence with the Other Woman shattered. If she picks up, she'll be the Black Widow again.
Natasha answers the phone, of course, and rolls her eyes at her moment of weakness.
"What is it?" she asks, her words slightly quicker than she'd like them to be.
"We need you to come in," Coulson says. At the sound of his voice, Natasha shuts her eyes; she'd missed him, something she hadn't expected to feel. Then he says, "Barton's been compromised."
Natasha's eyes snap open. "What happened?"
"We don't know."
"But he's alive." The most important question; Natasha holds herself very still.
"As far as we know, yes. I'll brief you later. Are you in?"
She's in.
"Okay. We'll send a plane to pick you up - "
"You know where I am?"
Coulson pauses, then says reluctantly, "We have for two years."
Damn. The knowledge that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been watching her all this time grates on her, makes her feel vulnerable, a spider without a web. She lets her silence do the talking, and after a moment, Coulson continues.
"But before you come here, we need you to do one thing."
"And that is?"
"Talk to the big guy."
Natasha snorts. "Are you kidding?"
"If he doesn't take it well, you're the only one who can stand up to him."
Natasha can't dispute that logic. She squeezes her eyes shut again, then sighs.
"I'll need more information than this," she says at last. "Who's going to meet me on the plane?"
"Agent Polk - you don't know him. He'll tell you what you need to know, and once you've secured the target - " Natasha finds this inordinately amusing. Securing Bruce Banner had gone so well for her last time. " - we'll meet you on the helicarrier."
"Understood," Natasha says, and Coulson hangs up. People in their line of work never bother with goodbyes. She drops the cell phone to the ground and steps on it, obliterating any information stored inside it, and spends the next hour packing what few belongings she has and locking up her place. She hears the plane coming closer, a small one, probably just a courier bird, and smiles to herself.
Natasha's back in the game.
VI. May 2012
Kolkata is meltingly hot and sticky, even at night, and Natasha can taste the smog in the air on the back of her tongue. Banner has holed up in the slums, playing doctor for his neighbors, and doing a damn good job of it, too. Natasha is impressed. Less impressive is his soft heart, for while she recognizes that that too can be a strength, it means he'll play neatly into her trap; he's lucky she got to him instead of other, less savory prospects. She recruits a little girl, managing to tell her in halting Bengali to find the American doctor and bring him to Natasha's chosen den, a shack on the edges of the city. She flashes her billfold of rupees, promising a quarter now and the rest later. The girl runs off with her share of money, but Natasha is reasonably certain she'll come through. A spy needs to be a good judge of people.
When the girl shows up again, panting from her sprint through the city, Natasha puts a finger to her lips, shows her the wallet, and tosses it out the window. All the money's in there, of course, and she hopes in a distant way that the girl will use it well.
Banner follows just seconds after Natasha melts into the shadows. She studies him in the near-dark, hidden and silent as her little assistant flees through the window, leaving him alone and rolling his eyes.
"Should've got paid up front, Banner," he mutters. He is thinner than he was before, greyer and smaller, with a tightness of expression that she knows well from the mirror.
"You know, for a man who's supposed to be avoiding stress, you picked a hell of a place to settle," she says as she steps into the light, words she'd scripted on the flight over. They taste hollow in her mouth. Inside, the Other Woman is rumbling with curiosity; she recognizes Banner, recognizes the Hulk inside him, and wants to see for herself. Natasha gently tells her no, and she subsides with a few growls.
Banner stares at her hard for a few seconds, and for a moment she thinks he doesn't remember her; then his face twists in an stiff smile and he says, "Avoiding stress isn't the answer. Natalie, right?"
"Natasha, actually," she says, encouraged, and takes a step closer, halting when she sees him tense. "Natasha Romanoff. What is it, then? Yoga?"
"It helps." He pauses, then laughs, at himself or at her, she's not sure. "Agent Romanoff, are you here to kill me? Again?"
"I wasn't trying to kill you last time," she says, surprised by how his words sting. "Trust me, you'd be dead if I were."
"That's reassuring," Banner says. "Because trust me, trying to kill me isn't going to work out great for everyone."
"I know," she says, holding his gaze. "Better than you think."
"Got the whole place surrounded, then?"
Natasha purses her lips, shakes her head. "Just you and me." It's not strictly a lie. Just her, Banner, and their own personal Hydes.
"I don't trust you." Truth in his words, naked distrust on his face. Natasha has to handle this carefully.
"I know you have no reason to trust me," she begins. "I know I wasn't honest with you before, but it's just us, and no one's going to try to - "
"Stop lying to me!"
Natasha's hand flashes to her hip and grabs her gun before she can breathe, the Other Woman roaring in her head. Maybe, Natasha tells her, maybe, just wait a minute… The Other Woman doesn't appreciate this.
Banner holds up his hands and smiles. This time it's a real one.
"I'm sorry, that was mean," he says. Natasha lowers her gun, and nearly laughs in relief as the Other Woman huffs. The idea of the Other Woman and the Hulk rampaging through Kolkata is so horrible it verges on hilarious. "Let's do this the easy way. Who are you working for?"
She takes out her cell phone and pulls up a picture of the gleaming blue Tessaract, setting it on the table before her. "I'm here on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D., Dr. Banner. This is the Tesseract. We want you to find it."
Banner leans over, interest lighting up his eyes and taking years off his face, and Natasha knows she has him.
. . .
Unfortunately, the Other Woman doesn't settle down. Her encounter with Banner - more to the point, with the shadow of the Hulk in Banner's eyes - has her riled up, and Natasha's own stress isn't helping. Thoughts of Clint, thoughts of what Loki might be doing to him, what Loki might be planning, the insane power he has at his command in the Tesseract, and the constant, underlying uncertainty of her own self-control flit around her brain like stinging insects, driving her crazy and putting her on edge. The helicarrier is not a good place for the Other Woman to be; Banner said something like that himself. For the first time in years, Natasha feels that hot, roiling anger inside, the frustration and fury of not entirely owning her body, and she grits her teeth, counting to ten.
Accept it and move on, Natasha, she tells herself. Get angry later. You have things to do.
Luckily, she's very good at moving on autopilot. It gets her through the flight back to the States, through her introduction to Captain Rogers, even through her interrogation with Loki, and the entire time she's trying to soothe the Other Woman, telling her that she'll be let out soon, that after this is over Natasha will give her free reign for days. It works. Right up until Clint - no, Loki, Loki controlling Clint - attacks the ship, and she and Banner go tumbling down, down, down.
Shit, Natasha swears as she tries to wrench her way from under the piece of pipe pinning her down. She's fairly sure her leg is fractured, but she's equally sure she can still run on it, at least until she has a chance to rest. That was something she knew how to do even before the accident.
"Okay," she whispers to herself, then louder, "Okay. We're okay." She glances around, sees Banner on the floor, and - oh, no. The Other Woman snarls, and Banner shudders as the Hulk answers.
Stop it! she thinks fiercely to the Other Woman. This is a really bad time, please don't do this.
No! Stop ordering!
"Doctor?" she says aloud, keeping her tone calm as best she can. "Bruce? You've got to fight it, okay? This is what Loki wants. I swear on my life, I'll - "
"Your life?" Banner thunders, and for the first time she sees the change up close and in person, his clothes shredding and his muscles bulging and shifting beneath his skin as the Hulk grows -
- and the Other Woman answers.
. . .
When she's prepared, Natasha can access the Other Woman's memories easily, almost as if they were her own. Not this time. The fight is a blur, and only scattered memories remain for Natasha: the Other Woman smacking Clint into a wall, tearing Chitauri apart like so much paper, tossing Captain America into the air and watching him whiz away on a Chitauri flyer - these are bright pinpoints in her mind, so sparse and vague she can't knit them together into any kind of timeline once she's herself again. It doesn't matter. Later, she'll hear the whole story; right now, with the portal closed and disaster temporarily averted, she can only be viciously pleased to see Loki squirm.
. . .
After the battle, covered in bruises and still aching with her post-shift hangover, as Tony and Thor work on Loki's cuffs and muzzle in the next room, and as Clint is shuffled along to the first of many, many psychiatrists, Natasha pays the mad god a visit in his cell. To her surprise, Bruce is there already; he slouches against the wall, staring at Loki through the clear walls of his cage with an unreadable expression, and Natasha wonders if his Hulk is snarling as loudly as hers is. The Other Woman loathes Loki, even more than Natasha does, and Loki's body language only makes her more eager to hurt him: relaxed, his spine loose, his hands casually splayed out over his knees and his head tilted back, surveying them with lazy, half-lidded eyes. Nice effect. It's all for nothing. Natasha can practically smell the terror radiating off him, and the Other Woman wants to snap him in half and jump on the pieces. A sidelong glance confirms that Bruce is having an equally difficult time restraining the Hulk, but restrain him he does.
Neither of them have noticed her. Natasha says, "Hi, Bruce," so she doesn't startle him, and lets the door bang shut behind her. Bruce jumps, but he only gives her a tired smile.
"So the other monster sees fit to pay me a visit," Loki drawls from across the room. Well, she should have expected him to find out; the Other Woman is not exactly hard to spot. "How nice. How very predictable you are."
"Yeah?" Natasha asks. She folds her arms and leans against the wall with Bruce, nearly close enough to bump shoulders. "How's that?"
"The truths I spoke to you must have struck deeper than I could have ever expected, considering what you are," he says, leaning closer with his elbows on his knees. "You think you tricked me once; now you want to do it again, to soothe your wounds and reassure yourself that no matter how monstrous you are, you will never be as base a creature as me." He gives Natasha a sharp-edged smile. "That is a lie. You should be clever enough to see it. And might I add, I find it fascinating that you never chose to tell the archer your little secret."
Natasha shrugs, forcing her face to stay blank and calm, though her eyes itch; there's more truth in his words than she cares for.
"Sometimes I lie to people about information they don't need to know," she says, and in the back of her mind she wonders if Bruce will hear her words and remember Natalie Rushman. "Barton's a useful asset, but what happened to me was above his clearance level. So he was one of them."
Loki rolls his eyes, opening his mouth to speak, but Natasha cuts him off.
"And you're wrong, by the way." She pushes herself off the wall and walks to his cell, measured steps, a predator stalking one of its own. Loki's eyes narrow, and he tenses minutely. "I came to give you a warning."
"Did you, now?" Loki goes for amused and skids into wary. She wonders if he can sense the Other Woman seething just beneath her skin.
"Yeah," she says. She gestures to Bruce, who is watching their exchange with interest. "I saw what he did to you. I know you can't fight him - even Thor couldn't beat him." The flicker of emotions across his face at that is interesting. Natasha files it away for later. "And I know you're scared of him. So think about the fact that I am just as strong, just as dangerous, and just as angry as he is, and between the two of us, we could break every bone in your body and smash you into the dirt until even you can't heal from it." Loki sits motionless; Natasha holds his eyes. "Maybe next time, you'll think twice before coming to Earth."
She steps back, smoothing her face into a professional mask again, though behind it she's laughing at Loki's face, his impotent anger as she says mockingly, "Thank you for your cooperation."
When she leaves, Bruce follows, and they stand there for a minute in the hallway. Natasha hasn't really spoken with him since the Other Woman tried to punch the Hulk through a wall, and the silence is painfully awkward. How does she talk to someone like him, someone she barely knows yet connects to so deeply, without slipping behind her masks? Natasha is comfortable there, secretive, and anyway, she rarely likes anyone enough to let them fall.
Bruce, though. She might like Bruce enough someday.
"So. Useful asset?" he says at last. Natasha glances at him from the corner of her eyes, suspicious, but he looks more wry than anything. She shrugs.
"Well, he is," she points out, allowing a smirk to tug at the corner of her mouth. She adds, "And he's not half bad at beer pong."
Bruce snorts with laughter. "I'd like to see that."
"Maybe you will sometime," she says offhandedly, hoping he can read the invitation in her words. Bruce doesn't strike her as a people person, but she thinks he'll get it.
"Yeah, I'd like that," he says with a little smile, and the Other Woman, quiescent and contrite so far, perks up in interest. Natasha raises her eyebrows, and asks her if this is going to be a thing. She sends back a feeling of fierce amusement, which Natasha takes for a yes.
Bruce is watching her, fascinated.
"You talk to her?" he asks. "And she responds?"
"Yeah," Natasha says, surprised. "You don't? You have it together otherwise."
"No." His brow furrows, and he lets out an awkward laugh. "We don't get along so great, me and the big guy."
"We didn't either, at first," she says. "But we've worked out a schedule now, so she can be out nearly as often as I am."
"Like a timeshare," Bruce offers. He looks contemplative. "I'll have to see about that."
"Yeah," Natasha says. She studies Bruce, noting the grey in his hair, the carefully concealed stress behind his eyes. Getting along with the Hulk would be good for him. "It's not easy, not at all, and I still have - problems." She nearly stutters on that last bit, unable to find the right words. "But it's worth it, to find some equilibrium. You should try it."
Bruce nods, and smiles slightly. "I think I will."
VII. Later
Mountains.
She sees them as soon as the little one fades away. Mountains, and she can smell rain and dirt. No people, just animals. They run away from her when she's angry, but she's not now. The little one kept her promise, and she has mountains, space, freedom. She can run.
Beside her, a grunt. She turns. Him, from before, the man like her who didn't break when she hit him. Now there's no reason to fight, so she bares her teeth at him, friendly. He grins back, savage.
"Hulk smash," he growls, and she throws back her head and roars to the sky.
"Smash!" she agrees.
They run.
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Natasha, Bruce
Summary: Natasha is at the wrong place at the wrong time, and her entire life shatters. (A Natasha-as-Hulk AU.)
Word Count: 6347
Author's Notes: This is slightly edited from the version I submitted to avengersfest, thanks to some con-crit I received after the fic was posted there. Hopefully it's somewhat clearer now!
I. May 19, 2008, 2:32 PM
The last thing Natasha remembers before sinking into a green haze of rage is thinking, almost idly, I thought the phrase was "seeing red."
II. May 19, 2008, 2:17 PM
Dr. Natalie Rushman is a genius, as any glance at her transcript will affirm. She got her BS from Culver University, went on to grad school at UC Bryant, and was the top candidate for this internship, studying the possible genome-altering effects of gamma radiation. She is crisp, intelligent, and wears clothes just shy of too tight. Dr. Elizabeth Ross doesn't trust her, though this opinion isn't shared by her male coworkers.
Dr. Elizabeth Ross has good instincts.
Natasha tucks a lock of red hair behind her ear, surreptitiously fiddling with the comm device in her ear canal. On the other end sits a trio of scientists, a group second only to the one in this room when it comes to nuclear physics; she's smart and an excellent actress, but even she is incapable of digesting over half a decade of top-rate education in a science she knows next to nothing about within a handful of months. Now, with the device on and the scientists ready, she can keep up with Ross and the others well enough to fool them, and in a few more days, she can leave with her target intact. Unless, of course, Dr. Igor Drenkov, an old friend from the days when she was Natalia Romanova, gets there first. Natasha doesn't plan on letting that happen.
Right now, though, there is little time to reminisce; they are mere minutes away from the first trial of the gamma bomb, a device that when finished is meant to deliver the same effects on a mass scale to U.S. soldiers as Erskine's super-soldier serum did for the long-lost Captain America, and if Natasha knows Drenkov, this is when he'll make his move. It's foolish, stealing the unfinished, untested formula and running back to Russia with it - no matter how clever Drenkov thinks he is, his intelligence will never compare to Bruce Banner's, and Natasha sincerely doubts he'll be able to complete Banner's work. She would wait until at least the second or third trial to take the information and send it to her employers. If she still worked for those employers. Luckily, Natasha slipped their noose a few years ago, and now she's simply a contract spy protecting a possible asset from interference, rather than a Cold War relic.
"Initiating countdown," Banner announces, and Natasha jolts back to the present, the only sign of her inattention being a particularly hard blink. Sloppy. She's better than that. "Fifty-nine, fifty-eight…"
A small display flashes red; Natasha frowns at it and blinks twice, activating the video contacts she's wearing. In her ears, the scientists suddenly burst into chatter, just as Ross notices the same thing.
"Bruce," she says, gesturing him over. "Look at this. The gamma monitor is malfunctioning."
Banner swears, and runs his hand through his messy hair.
"Of course it is," he says disgustedly. "Igor, pause the countdown while I go fix it."
"Dr. Banner, I can go instead," Natasha interjects sweetly in Natalie's crisp accent. She's fairly sure her scientists friends can help her cobble the thing back together. He only waves his hand at her, an awkward dismissal.
"No, no, you stay here, Dr. Rushman," he says. "Igor, is - "
"Countdown paused," Drenkov says. Natasha double-checks; the numbers have indeed paused, but there's a tilt to Drenkov's smile she doesn't care for. She narrows her eyes, fading into the background as she's been trained to do, and observes.
The countdown is paused. Ross is drumming her fingers on the reinforced plastic window, watching Banner work. Drenkov is as well, though his gaze is intent, anticipatory; it sets Natasha on edge. What else? The computers are humming, prepared to collect any and all data; inside the testing chamber, Banner is nearly finished with his work. Natasha fixes her eyes on Igor again, and to her surprise, he turns his head to meet her gaze, giving her a bland look, the hint of a smirk tugging on his lips. She returns his gaze with her most neutral expression. Does he know who she is, or is he so pleased with himself that he can't hide that smug smile? Natasha suspects the latter. He leans against the large reactor nonchalantly, as if nothing could possibly be bothering him, then jerks away with the slightest grimace. And with that, Natasha knows - the reactor is running. It's overheating, in fact, revving up the gamma bomb, and Banner - Banner's still inside.
Damn.
"Code red," Natasha says clearly, and as Ross turns to her in puzzlement and Drenkov stiffens in realization and belated recognition, in her ear a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent says, "Code red acknowledged. Go."
Natasha goes.
She shoves past Ross and taps the passcode into the testing chamber's door, pushing Natalie Rushman into the farthest corner of her brain and allowing all her training to take over. Thirty seconds, give or take; that's all she has until the bomb explodes. She strides into the room, grabbing Banner by the shoulder.
"It's time to go," she says, and tries to steer him away. He elbows her with surprising force for such an unfit man, and twists out of her grip.
"I'm almost done, Dr. Rushman," he snaps. "And I don't know what you think you're doing - "
"This isn't optional, Banner," she snaps right back. "This is an order. Don't make me hurt you. Now move."
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Elizabeth Ross slump to the ground, no doubt a victim of Drenkov's fists, and Drenkov himself, waggling his fingers in a smug little wave. Then very many things happen in a very short amount of time.
She hears the rumble of the gamma bomb as it activates, and sees Banner's look of pure shock at the sound -
She thinks, Protect the target at all costs -
She seizes Banner and throws him to the ground, covering him with her body as best she can -
And the bomb goes off.
It is silent, but the pressure is deafening. She feels her eardrums burst, and grits her teeth hard as she's buffeted by wave after wave of gamma radiation, something she knows she should not be feeling, something that is impossible according to the laws of physics (unless there's something different going on, something wrong). Beneath her, Banner lies still, either behaving sensibly or terrified into immobility. Natasha doesn't really care; she clings to him, bruising his arms where she grips them, and waits out the storm with the dogged patience of a deep-cover spy.
After what the cold, precise part of her mind tells her is fifteen seconds, the bomb shuts down, and she loosens her grip on Banner. He twists out from under her, and she lets him, sitting back and touching the blood dripping from her ear canals. Banner gestures angrily at her, and she reads his lips: "What the hell are you doing?"
"Just stay calm, Dr. Banner," she soothes, carefully modulating her voice until it approximates her natural volume. "I'll explain - "
His eyes flicker over her shoulder, and Natasha turns, seeing exactly what she expected to: Drenkov, followed by Ross, with a knife tucked up his sleeve and danger in his eyes. In one smooth motion, Natasha pulls out her gun and fires at his kneecap, drops into a roll, and pistol-whips him across the head as he falls. Drenkov goes out like a light, and Natasha thinks wryly, At least the gun fired.
She stands up and faces Banner and Ross, trembling. That's unusual; Natasha is a professional, and this mission shouldn't shake her, but she's anxious, her blood pounding like a bass drum in her head, her vision far too sharp, like the sight of a sniper rifle.
"He was a spy," she tells them calmly. "I'm sorry for the interruption of your research."
"He was a spy?" Ross shouts. Natasha watches her lips. "What does that make you?"
"I'm an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.," she replies. "I was assigned here to make sure this research doesn't get out of government hands."
Banner says something, but she doesn't catch it.
"I can't hear you," she says, and he repeats himself, straining as if yelling as loud as he can.
"This is a private project. The government isn't meant to be involved!"
"Tell that to Colonel Ross," she snaps, and thinks with shock, That information is classified, Natasha, what are you doing? In her peripheral vision, she sees Elizabeth Ross jump, but Natasha doesn't take her eyes off Banner.
"You lied to me!"
Something inside her cracks further; Natasha says, fighting to keep cool, "Yes, I did. It was necessary."
"No," he snarls, "no, what isn't necessary is the government interfering in my research. What isn't necessary is sending someone to take my research and use it to make weapons."
"I was just doing my job - "
"Yeah? Your job is illegal, you know that?"
"Don't interrupt me - "
Her bruised and battered temper finally, inexplicably snaps, and Natasha is lost to the green.
III. Transformation
This is what it's like:
Pain. Unending pain, the tear of muscles stretching and snapping, the slow and steady grind of bones shifting, lengthening, fracturing, her teeth breaking and rearranging, her skin stretching past its logical limits to encompass the entirety of her bulk; pain. Natasha knows pain. Natasha can take pain. This is so much more.
Natasha drowns. There is a vague awareness of another, a something else that is nothing but cold, vicious anger and bloodlust, break kill tear bleed make them pay hurt them HURT THEM and Natasha cannot control it, cannot restrain it, cannot take it back or tell it to heel, and she would take a thousand times that pain if only the something else inside would stop.
It doesn't. She screams and beats the tiny cage she's trapped in, and feels only scorn directed at her. She weeps - the Black Widow weeps, drenched in impotent fury, and the something else roars, and
Natasha drowns.
IV. May 24, 2008, 9:19 AM
Natasha watches the footage with a blank face and cold heart. There is a monster rampaging across the screen, thick and green-skinned and mindless, a creature made of unbridled rage fueled by frustration and fear. That monster is her. She doesn't remember a thing.
"What were the damages?" she asks eventually. Director Fury sighs.
"The lab is shot to hell," he says. "Ross is alive. Banner - him too." Natasha notes that slight hesitation. What does it mean? "Drenkov, not so much."
"I'm sorry, sir," she says, and at his look she elaborates: "We could have used the intel."
"Yeah, well, maybe if that thing stops to apologize, I'll listen," Fury replies dryly. "Look, we know that the gamma bomb isn't in a useable stage yet, which is exactly what we sent you in to find out. We know that Banner isn't gonna cooperate, and we know that no one, Russians or Chinese or some damn Martians, have the formula for what was going on in that lab. It could be worse."
Oh, really?
"Yes, sir," Natasha says instead. "Am I dismissed?"
Fury glares at her, then sighs.
"Go," he says. "And Romanoff?"
Halfway to the door, Natasha pauses. "Sir?"
He is silent for a moment, weighing his words.
"Watch yourself," he says finally. Natasha takes this in, and nods.
Free of S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, she meanders around the city, ending up poking through the lingerie section of a department store. Once she's reasonably confident that she hasn't been followed, she taps a fellow shopper on the shoulder and asks cheerfully to borrow a phone. Natasha is good at making herself likable; in minutes, she's dialing a number she knows by heart. When the man on the other end picks up, tension Natasha wasn't aware she was carrying slides away.
"Barton," Clint says, gruff as he usually is; he's never been a fan of phones.
"Hey," Natasha says, drawing it out in an exaggerated imitation of a sorority girl. "It's Lauren. Just thought I'd check in."
"Hey, cuz," Clint says without missing a beat. "What's up?"
"Not much," Natasha tells him. "It's stormy, and getting worse. I think I'm going to go to Mom's until it's over."
"Good idea," he says lightly. "Need a ride?"
"No, I've got it." She's had an escape plan ready for a long time now; if there's one thing she's learned, it's to trust no one, even those who claim to be on your side. Especially them. "Thanks, though. Hey, give all my love to your bro, okay? I haven't talked to him in ages."
"Will do," he agrees. "Talk to you later. Hope that storm doesn't last."
"Me too," she says. More quietly, she adds, "Goodbye, Clint."
"Bye," he says softly, and Natasha hangs up. The woman who owns the phone is looking at her in puzzlement.
"There isn't a cloud in the sky," she says, confused. Natasha shrugs.
"It's an old joke," she says. "Thanks for letting me use your phone."
Handing it back, she makes her way out of the store. Telling Clint what happened is out of the question; it's too much of a risk for them both. She'll miss him, it's true, but Natasha knows how organizations like S.H.I.E.L.D. work. They wouldn't let someone as potentially valuable as her go, not without mining her genome and putting her through tests like a mouse in a maze, and Natasha refuses to be a lab rat for the warmongers in the U.S. government. Loneliness is nothing new to her; like pain, she can take it.
V. 2009-2012, Russia
It's easy to forget things here. Russia, the motherland, home as she's never had it since she left. Though she hasn't spoken it for years, the language comes to her lips easily, her mother tongue, and quickly Agent Romanoff fades, allowing Natalia to come to the forefront again.
There was a place she had stayed for a year after she'd escaped the Red Room, a small farm in the vast expanses of the Russian countryside. She goes there now, knowing it to be abandoned. It's just an hour's drive from the nearest town, but she thinks that's distance enough to act as a buffer between the civilians and herself (and the something else, the monster, the other one inside her). She settles down there, on her tiny little farm, and learns how to cope.
. . .
Those first months are the worst. She spends nearly a year in a constant state of flux, veering madly between rage to acceptance to utter, unabashed horror at the wreck of a human she's become. She screams. She cries and she throws things, the infamous Black Widow, once so poised and heartless, now ground down to a bundle of raw nerves and the unbridled fury of a child with a nuclear weapon. The something else feels it, too, and tears up the earth, uprooting trees, carving deep gashes into the ground with her impossible strength. Nothing but destruction, and Natasha, always so precise in her work, can only watch and scream at the unfairness of the world.
"A child," she snarls to her reflection. "You're acting like a child. This has happened to you. You can't make it go away. Accept it and move on."
The something else roars in response, and once again, Natasha breaks.
. . .
On the news, she sees Bruce Banner rampaging through Harlem.
Natasha doesn't keep much in the way of nonessential technology: an old clunker with an astonishingly reliable engine, her current identity's cell phone, another cell phone tucked deep in a drawer, untouched, and one television. Though she doesn't spend much time watching it, she's glad she owns a TV now. The sickening truth hits her like a gunshot to the chest: if she doesn't learn how to control herself, doesn't learn how to live in peace with the something else, this is how she'll end up. This is what she will be: not simply a murderer - she has made her peace with that - but a walking catastrophe, a natural disaster seconds away from explosion. She can't live like this anymore. She can't.
She shuts off the TV, and sits in the silence for a long time.
Accept it and move on.
Maybe she needs to take that to heart.
. . .
With grim patience, Natasha meditates.
It's not an easy thing for her to do; even at rest, her mind is working, cataloguing, always alert for any danger. Fighting her instincts is more difficult than she expected, having relied upon them for so long. But she persists, with little success, drawing upon the scant knowledge she has of the meditation techniques of Buddhist monks and other ascetics. Finally, she gives in and goes to the town, picking through the library and finding books on Zen practices, among others. In a burst of black humor, she picks up a book on anger management, too.
Slowly, she learns to sink into that blankness, the simple quiet of a mind at rest. Regulating her breathing is key; she finds that when she's walking through the furrowed fields surrounding her farm, she can tame the surges of the something else with deep, slow breaths, taking careful note of her twisting moods and learning the pressure points that speed relaxation. She feels vaguely silly at first, but when her tricks show results, she becomes a believer.
Clint would laugh at her if he knew, call it New Agey bullshit. Maybe she'll be able to share the joke with him one day.
. . .
The presence in her mind. The something else. It waits and it watches her; Natasha can feels its curiosity.
Hello?
A grudging recognition, more than she'd expected.
I'm Natasha, she tries. I'm your other half.
Tiny one. The voice is dismissive, female, and definitely not Natasha's imagination. This sends her reeling for a moment; she knew it all along, but having it confirmed is truly surreal.
Why is tiny one here?
I wanted to talk to you. This is a gamble, but Natasha goes for it. I wanted to see if we could work something out.
Reluctant interest greets her. What?
We're stuck with each other, for better or worse. Anger flares at that, and Natasha hastily changes tack. Neither of us are happy like this, right?
Tiny one leave!
No! No, that's not possible. Not just anger now, but disappointment. Unexpected. But we could share.
Share?
Yes. I was thinking that if you promise to lay low and let me live my life - A roar. Natasha flinches. Wait, keep listening! If you let me live my life, then I'll let you live yours. We can spend equal time at the wheel.
A pause. Sounds nice.
Yeah. Just as long as you don't come out when there's people around, I'll take you places where you can run and do whatever you want. Equal time, equal consideration. Sound good?
A very long pause. Natasha waits in silence. Then, rumbling, an answer comes:
Good.
. . .
After a while, Natasha starts calling the something else the Other Woman. It starts as a joke, then turns into something else entirely.
I can't keep calling you "something else," she reasons. Isn't this better?
Not thing, the Other Woman sulks. Person.
Exactly. You're a woman, I'm a woman, so from my point of view, you're the other woman. Do you like that?
A grunt, echoing in her mind, unheard by her ears.
Tiny one makes me laugh!
That works well enough for Natasha.
. . .
She finds herself growing bored. With her self-control tentatively re-established, her alter ego relatively well-behaved, she has nothing to do, nothing to work on. Natasha doesn't take well to laziness.
She starts to farm. It's a logical step; not like there's anything else to do around here. The Other Woman plows the fields, and Natasha sows them. It's work, exhausting work. She develops new callouses in new places, and goes to bed at sundown, body limp and tired. When harvest comes, the Other Woman helps when Natasha's comparatively frail frame gives up, her big hands surprisingly delicate. It's a strange coexistence they've established, but Natasha finds it peaceful.
Part of her knows, though, that it won't last. Truthfully, she doesn't want it to, and neither does the Other Woman.
Smash? she asks hopefully, whenever they're outside with nothing to do.
Later, Natasha promises. Later, you can smash.
. . .
The phone rings.
Groaning, Natasha pulls herself out of sleep, cursing the post-shift hangover that dulls her reflexes and makes her slow and lazy. She's halfway to her cellphone when she realizes the ringtone is wrong. This isn't her cell; this is her burner phone, Agent Romanoff's phone, the one only one person knows about. Natasha hesitates. If she picks up, her quiet life here will be ruined, her peaceful coexistence with the Other Woman shattered. If she picks up, she'll be the Black Widow again.
Natasha answers the phone, of course, and rolls her eyes at her moment of weakness.
"What is it?" she asks, her words slightly quicker than she'd like them to be.
"We need you to come in," Coulson says. At the sound of his voice, Natasha shuts her eyes; she'd missed him, something she hadn't expected to feel. Then he says, "Barton's been compromised."
Natasha's eyes snap open. "What happened?"
"We don't know."
"But he's alive." The most important question; Natasha holds herself very still.
"As far as we know, yes. I'll brief you later. Are you in?"
She's in.
"Okay. We'll send a plane to pick you up - "
"You know where I am?"
Coulson pauses, then says reluctantly, "We have for two years."
Damn. The knowledge that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been watching her all this time grates on her, makes her feel vulnerable, a spider without a web. She lets her silence do the talking, and after a moment, Coulson continues.
"But before you come here, we need you to do one thing."
"And that is?"
"Talk to the big guy."
Natasha snorts. "Are you kidding?"
"If he doesn't take it well, you're the only one who can stand up to him."
Natasha can't dispute that logic. She squeezes her eyes shut again, then sighs.
"I'll need more information than this," she says at last. "Who's going to meet me on the plane?"
"Agent Polk - you don't know him. He'll tell you what you need to know, and once you've secured the target - " Natasha finds this inordinately amusing. Securing Bruce Banner had gone so well for her last time. " - we'll meet you on the helicarrier."
"Understood," Natasha says, and Coulson hangs up. People in their line of work never bother with goodbyes. She drops the cell phone to the ground and steps on it, obliterating any information stored inside it, and spends the next hour packing what few belongings she has and locking up her place. She hears the plane coming closer, a small one, probably just a courier bird, and smiles to herself.
Natasha's back in the game.
VI. May 2012
Kolkata is meltingly hot and sticky, even at night, and Natasha can taste the smog in the air on the back of her tongue. Banner has holed up in the slums, playing doctor for his neighbors, and doing a damn good job of it, too. Natasha is impressed. Less impressive is his soft heart, for while she recognizes that that too can be a strength, it means he'll play neatly into her trap; he's lucky she got to him instead of other, less savory prospects. She recruits a little girl, managing to tell her in halting Bengali to find the American doctor and bring him to Natasha's chosen den, a shack on the edges of the city. She flashes her billfold of rupees, promising a quarter now and the rest later. The girl runs off with her share of money, but Natasha is reasonably certain she'll come through. A spy needs to be a good judge of people.
When the girl shows up again, panting from her sprint through the city, Natasha puts a finger to her lips, shows her the wallet, and tosses it out the window. All the money's in there, of course, and she hopes in a distant way that the girl will use it well.
Banner follows just seconds after Natasha melts into the shadows. She studies him in the near-dark, hidden and silent as her little assistant flees through the window, leaving him alone and rolling his eyes.
"Should've got paid up front, Banner," he mutters. He is thinner than he was before, greyer and smaller, with a tightness of expression that she knows well from the mirror.
"You know, for a man who's supposed to be avoiding stress, you picked a hell of a place to settle," she says as she steps into the light, words she'd scripted on the flight over. They taste hollow in her mouth. Inside, the Other Woman is rumbling with curiosity; she recognizes Banner, recognizes the Hulk inside him, and wants to see for herself. Natasha gently tells her no, and she subsides with a few growls.
Banner stares at her hard for a few seconds, and for a moment she thinks he doesn't remember her; then his face twists in an stiff smile and he says, "Avoiding stress isn't the answer. Natalie, right?"
"Natasha, actually," she says, encouraged, and takes a step closer, halting when she sees him tense. "Natasha Romanoff. What is it, then? Yoga?"
"It helps." He pauses, then laughs, at himself or at her, she's not sure. "Agent Romanoff, are you here to kill me? Again?"
"I wasn't trying to kill you last time," she says, surprised by how his words sting. "Trust me, you'd be dead if I were."
"That's reassuring," Banner says. "Because trust me, trying to kill me isn't going to work out great for everyone."
"I know," she says, holding his gaze. "Better than you think."
"Got the whole place surrounded, then?"
Natasha purses her lips, shakes her head. "Just you and me." It's not strictly a lie. Just her, Banner, and their own personal Hydes.
"I don't trust you." Truth in his words, naked distrust on his face. Natasha has to handle this carefully.
"I know you have no reason to trust me," she begins. "I know I wasn't honest with you before, but it's just us, and no one's going to try to - "
"Stop lying to me!"
Natasha's hand flashes to her hip and grabs her gun before she can breathe, the Other Woman roaring in her head. Maybe, Natasha tells her, maybe, just wait a minute… The Other Woman doesn't appreciate this.
Banner holds up his hands and smiles. This time it's a real one.
"I'm sorry, that was mean," he says. Natasha lowers her gun, and nearly laughs in relief as the Other Woman huffs. The idea of the Other Woman and the Hulk rampaging through Kolkata is so horrible it verges on hilarious. "Let's do this the easy way. Who are you working for?"
She takes out her cell phone and pulls up a picture of the gleaming blue Tessaract, setting it on the table before her. "I'm here on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D., Dr. Banner. This is the Tesseract. We want you to find it."
Banner leans over, interest lighting up his eyes and taking years off his face, and Natasha knows she has him.
. . .
Unfortunately, the Other Woman doesn't settle down. Her encounter with Banner - more to the point, with the shadow of the Hulk in Banner's eyes - has her riled up, and Natasha's own stress isn't helping. Thoughts of Clint, thoughts of what Loki might be doing to him, what Loki might be planning, the insane power he has at his command in the Tesseract, and the constant, underlying uncertainty of her own self-control flit around her brain like stinging insects, driving her crazy and putting her on edge. The helicarrier is not a good place for the Other Woman to be; Banner said something like that himself. For the first time in years, Natasha feels that hot, roiling anger inside, the frustration and fury of not entirely owning her body, and she grits her teeth, counting to ten.
Accept it and move on, Natasha, she tells herself. Get angry later. You have things to do.
Luckily, she's very good at moving on autopilot. It gets her through the flight back to the States, through her introduction to Captain Rogers, even through her interrogation with Loki, and the entire time she's trying to soothe the Other Woman, telling her that she'll be let out soon, that after this is over Natasha will give her free reign for days. It works. Right up until Clint - no, Loki, Loki controlling Clint - attacks the ship, and she and Banner go tumbling down, down, down.
Shit, Natasha swears as she tries to wrench her way from under the piece of pipe pinning her down. She's fairly sure her leg is fractured, but she's equally sure she can still run on it, at least until she has a chance to rest. That was something she knew how to do even before the accident.
"Okay," she whispers to herself, then louder, "Okay. We're okay." She glances around, sees Banner on the floor, and - oh, no. The Other Woman snarls, and Banner shudders as the Hulk answers.
Stop it! she thinks fiercely to the Other Woman. This is a really bad time, please don't do this.
No! Stop ordering!
"Doctor?" she says aloud, keeping her tone calm as best she can. "Bruce? You've got to fight it, okay? This is what Loki wants. I swear on my life, I'll - "
"Your life?" Banner thunders, and for the first time she sees the change up close and in person, his clothes shredding and his muscles bulging and shifting beneath his skin as the Hulk grows -
- and the Other Woman answers.
. . .
When she's prepared, Natasha can access the Other Woman's memories easily, almost as if they were her own. Not this time. The fight is a blur, and only scattered memories remain for Natasha: the Other Woman smacking Clint into a wall, tearing Chitauri apart like so much paper, tossing Captain America into the air and watching him whiz away on a Chitauri flyer - these are bright pinpoints in her mind, so sparse and vague she can't knit them together into any kind of timeline once she's herself again. It doesn't matter. Later, she'll hear the whole story; right now, with the portal closed and disaster temporarily averted, she can only be viciously pleased to see Loki squirm.
. . .
After the battle, covered in bruises and still aching with her post-shift hangover, as Tony and Thor work on Loki's cuffs and muzzle in the next room, and as Clint is shuffled along to the first of many, many psychiatrists, Natasha pays the mad god a visit in his cell. To her surprise, Bruce is there already; he slouches against the wall, staring at Loki through the clear walls of his cage with an unreadable expression, and Natasha wonders if his Hulk is snarling as loudly as hers is. The Other Woman loathes Loki, even more than Natasha does, and Loki's body language only makes her more eager to hurt him: relaxed, his spine loose, his hands casually splayed out over his knees and his head tilted back, surveying them with lazy, half-lidded eyes. Nice effect. It's all for nothing. Natasha can practically smell the terror radiating off him, and the Other Woman wants to snap him in half and jump on the pieces. A sidelong glance confirms that Bruce is having an equally difficult time restraining the Hulk, but restrain him he does.
Neither of them have noticed her. Natasha says, "Hi, Bruce," so she doesn't startle him, and lets the door bang shut behind her. Bruce jumps, but he only gives her a tired smile.
"So the other monster sees fit to pay me a visit," Loki drawls from across the room. Well, she should have expected him to find out; the Other Woman is not exactly hard to spot. "How nice. How very predictable you are."
"Yeah?" Natasha asks. She folds her arms and leans against the wall with Bruce, nearly close enough to bump shoulders. "How's that?"
"The truths I spoke to you must have struck deeper than I could have ever expected, considering what you are," he says, leaning closer with his elbows on his knees. "You think you tricked me once; now you want to do it again, to soothe your wounds and reassure yourself that no matter how monstrous you are, you will never be as base a creature as me." He gives Natasha a sharp-edged smile. "That is a lie. You should be clever enough to see it. And might I add, I find it fascinating that you never chose to tell the archer your little secret."
Natasha shrugs, forcing her face to stay blank and calm, though her eyes itch; there's more truth in his words than she cares for.
"Sometimes I lie to people about information they don't need to know," she says, and in the back of her mind she wonders if Bruce will hear her words and remember Natalie Rushman. "Barton's a useful asset, but what happened to me was above his clearance level. So he was one of them."
Loki rolls his eyes, opening his mouth to speak, but Natasha cuts him off.
"And you're wrong, by the way." She pushes herself off the wall and walks to his cell, measured steps, a predator stalking one of its own. Loki's eyes narrow, and he tenses minutely. "I came to give you a warning."
"Did you, now?" Loki goes for amused and skids into wary. She wonders if he can sense the Other Woman seething just beneath her skin.
"Yeah," she says. She gestures to Bruce, who is watching their exchange with interest. "I saw what he did to you. I know you can't fight him - even Thor couldn't beat him." The flicker of emotions across his face at that is interesting. Natasha files it away for later. "And I know you're scared of him. So think about the fact that I am just as strong, just as dangerous, and just as angry as he is, and between the two of us, we could break every bone in your body and smash you into the dirt until even you can't heal from it." Loki sits motionless; Natasha holds his eyes. "Maybe next time, you'll think twice before coming to Earth."
She steps back, smoothing her face into a professional mask again, though behind it she's laughing at Loki's face, his impotent anger as she says mockingly, "Thank you for your cooperation."
When she leaves, Bruce follows, and they stand there for a minute in the hallway. Natasha hasn't really spoken with him since the Other Woman tried to punch the Hulk through a wall, and the silence is painfully awkward. How does she talk to someone like him, someone she barely knows yet connects to so deeply, without slipping behind her masks? Natasha is comfortable there, secretive, and anyway, she rarely likes anyone enough to let them fall.
Bruce, though. She might like Bruce enough someday.
"So. Useful asset?" he says at last. Natasha glances at him from the corner of her eyes, suspicious, but he looks more wry than anything. She shrugs.
"Well, he is," she points out, allowing a smirk to tug at the corner of her mouth. She adds, "And he's not half bad at beer pong."
Bruce snorts with laughter. "I'd like to see that."
"Maybe you will sometime," she says offhandedly, hoping he can read the invitation in her words. Bruce doesn't strike her as a people person, but she thinks he'll get it.
"Yeah, I'd like that," he says with a little smile, and the Other Woman, quiescent and contrite so far, perks up in interest. Natasha raises her eyebrows, and asks her if this is going to be a thing. She sends back a feeling of fierce amusement, which Natasha takes for a yes.
Bruce is watching her, fascinated.
"You talk to her?" he asks. "And she responds?"
"Yeah," Natasha says, surprised. "You don't? You have it together otherwise."
"No." His brow furrows, and he lets out an awkward laugh. "We don't get along so great, me and the big guy."
"We didn't either, at first," she says. "But we've worked out a schedule now, so she can be out nearly as often as I am."
"Like a timeshare," Bruce offers. He looks contemplative. "I'll have to see about that."
"Yeah," Natasha says. She studies Bruce, noting the grey in his hair, the carefully concealed stress behind his eyes. Getting along with the Hulk would be good for him. "It's not easy, not at all, and I still have - problems." She nearly stutters on that last bit, unable to find the right words. "But it's worth it, to find some equilibrium. You should try it."
Bruce nods, and smiles slightly. "I think I will."
VII. Later
Mountains.
She sees them as soon as the little one fades away. Mountains, and she can smell rain and dirt. No people, just animals. They run away from her when she's angry, but she's not now. The little one kept her promise, and she has mountains, space, freedom. She can run.
Beside her, a grunt. She turns. Him, from before, the man like her who didn't break when she hit him. Now there's no reason to fight, so she bares her teeth at him, friendly. He grins back, savage.
"Hulk smash," he growls, and she throws back her head and roars to the sky.
"Smash!" she agrees.
They run.