Stained (N.R)

Chapter 23

"I would've joined you but... uh... It didn't seem like the right time." 

I froze in the corridor. 

Natalia's voice. 

I couldn't stop but lean towards the door, listening intently. 

"I used up all the hot water." 

Banner's voice.

My nails dug into my palms and my teeth sank into my lips. God I was lying when I said that I was happy seeing her happy. 

I was green with jealousy. 

"I should've joined you." 

Natalia only talked to people she trusted well like that. There was Yelena, Steve and I, and now Banner too.

"Missed our window."

I scoffed. What kind of guy waits for a girl to confess their emotions first? Coward.

"Did we?" 

There was a rusty iron like taste in my mouth. I ignored it. 

There was silence, footsteps, then Banner's voice again. 

"The world just saw Hulk. The real Hulk, for the first time. You know I have to leave."

"You assume I have to stay?"

Something slipped out of the corner of my eye. I touched it with the tips of my fingers in disbelief. It trailed its way into my mouth, mixing with the blood. 

It tasted salty. 

How old was I when I last cried? When I was four? Taken away by Drekov? When I was six? when they first experimented on me, cutting out the entirety of my uterus? I couldn't remember. 

Avengers, they were Natalia's family. They were... 

She loved them...

She loved Clint like a big brother, Steve like a best friend, Tony like a cousin and a light that could direct her ways as she directed his. Thor was like her little cousin, one who occasionally messed around. They were her family. One that... She wouldn't leave... Right?

But... She seemed to love Bruce, enough to leave the rest of her family for him. 

She seemed to love him as much as I loved her. 

"I had this...Um... Dream..." Her voice broke slightly towards the end. "The kind that seems normal at the time...But when you wake..."

"What did you dream?" He interrupted her. 

"That I was an Avenger." Her voice quietened, and I strained to hear. "That I was more than the assassin they made me."

"I think you are being too hard on yourself." Came the soft reply. 

If only I was there to comfort her. But she had him now. She had someone she could love. 

"Here I was hoping that was your job."

"What are you doing." Banner's voice, unsure, barely a whisper. If it wasn't for my enhanced hearing...

"I'm going with it." Natalia breathed back. "With you. And if running is the plan, for as far as you want..."

A fist clenched around my insides, squizing. Black spots seemed to be appearing in front of my eyes, my chest tightened.

"Are you out of your mind?" Banner sounded shocked, then slightly angry, panicked. 

I wanted to punch the man. 

She was my treasure, the one gem in the world that I would not even touch for fear of sullying it. This man... was smashing her to pieces.