Tightrope

Believe

"We need to prepare for the onslaught. Black Ops has our location and they're coming," Natasha paces down the line of agents, giving her orders.

Fury steps forward, "Romanoff's idea is to use this base as bait. This means evacuating the children and preparing to face off here."

Maria pivots, "I'll start on the evacuation procedures."

"Good luck," Natasha offers to the group.

Jennifer cracks her neck, "I'll clean my suit."

Rhodes joins her and exits.

Clint lingers once Fury leaves, checking in on the redhead;

"How are we handling Petrovich?"

Natasha crosses her arms, "Ivan made his decision when he sided with the enemy. If he wants to fight dirty he can fight dirty here, on my turf, with me."

Clint widens his focus, not entirely onboard with Natasha's preposition;

"Is this really what you want?"

She truly doesn't want to hurt her father, paternal or not. But she is desperate to go home.

Natasha looks down at her cuff, now suited up and ready for her battle;

"I'm ready for this to end."

. . . . . . . . . .

Banner's walls are breaking with Ross over the past few hours as the twosome work on their radioactive green energy.

Her jokes are corny but so are his. There's an unspoken understanding and far more similarities between them. They can talk for hours.

She bites her lip, toying with the necklace that currently stops at her collarbone;

"You think I should try to get back into the teaching program? Even though I almost burnt the professor's house down?"

"Yeah I think you should. It's your dream."

She tucks a band under her chin, "Are you going to tell me about Betty?"

His eyes are on her when he catches himself smiling. She's easy to talk to, fun loving, ambitious and kind.

Bruce finds the edge of the desk in a subconscious nervous pushing and pulling when he starts with a whisper,

"Betty...the woman I...mix your name up with?"

She nods.

He pauses in his project to tug at his hair, "She uh...she was a cellular biologist too. And Betty and I, we always had something going on in the basement- one big makeshift lab honestly. We'd spend hours there because it was safe. She was a nerd too and we could, talk about anything."

Elizabeth shifts in her chair, head tilting to one side as she analyzes his response, "You miss her."

"I do,' Bruce makes eye contact and answers honestly, 'I can't look at you without- it's weird, I know it's weird."

"Is that why I catch you staring?"

"Sorry, I'm trying not to."

"No one has ever looked at me the way you do,' she rotates her head to the opposite side, 'I only mean- You two must've had something special."

He nods with a stammer, finally giving up, "...yeah."

Elizabeth refuses to look away from his eyes. There's a longing inside of them.

She pushes, "You didn't get closure?"

He scoffs coldly, clicking a nearby pen to stop tugging on his fingers and hair, "I messed up."