The Ultimate Fix-It Fic

8| Dreams *

When Natasha woke up again, it was still fairly dark. This time, she inexplicably found herself curled up into Bruce's embrace and sighed, a little annoyed at herself. One of her hands was tangled up in his hair and the other was still in his hold.

His other hand was under her neck, being a nice little cushion for her head.

She was about to start extracting herself from his arms when she heard him mumble, "Stop."

Nat froze.

"No–" he mumbled, still not moving. "Don't– don't hurt her–"

Natasha watched him cautiously, wondering what was happening in his head.

"No–" Bruce's voice sounded agitated, his brow furrowed. "Don't hurt Nat– no– no!"

The last bit was louder, startling her out of the quiet. Natasha untangled her fingers from his hair quickly to try and soothe him. "Bruce, Bruce, doc, I'm right here," she whispered, smoothing back the hair that stuck to his forehead. "Adorado, Bruce, I'm okay. I'm right here, I'm next to you, I'm okay. Bruce. Listen to me, listen to my voice. I'm okay, doc, I am."

"You... are?" Bruce breathed. "Tash?"

Natasha gripped the hand that he kept in his hold. "I'm okay, doc."

Bruce sighed a little, relief clear in his voice.

Nat brushed a stray strand of fallen hair from her eyes slowly, only to have Bruce wake at that tiny movement.

"Hey, doc," she said, trying to suppress whatever emotion her face was trying to show. "Good morning."

Bruce studied her eyes sleepily and narrowed his own. "I had a nightmare that you had to deal with, didn't I?"

Natasha hesitated before nodding.

The scientist sighed and sat up, disentangling himself from her and running a hand through his hair and Nat felt the sudden emptiness of the space between them.

"How bad?"

She shook her head. "You were only mumbling about someone not hurting me." Nat reached out to him, but he shied away.

"Did I hurt you?"

"No!" Natasha put a hand on Bruce's shoulder and he flinched. She withdrew her hand like she was touching hot metal. "No," she repeated softly. "You weren't moving at all. But– Bruce–" Nat shuffled her way over to sit in front of him. "What happened?"

He sighed again, hand halfway up to muss up his hair before he changed his mind. "You were... being tortured..." his face was stony. "And there was nothing I could do about it."

Natasha couldn't think of a thing to say, so she reached for the scientist's hand again. This time, he let her take it.

They sat in a silence for a while, until Nat's phone pinged and she gritted her teeth before grabbing it to check who texted her. She let out a breath. "Stark says meeting in 10. And that he knows we're sleeping together."

Bruce paused. "We're– oh." He chuckled a little, nervously.

Nat cracked a smile before replying to Tony. She looked back up at Bruce, her smile becoming brighter. "Well, Bruce, since you had such a crappy dream, how about I tell you mine?"

Bruce blinked. "Sure?" he looked nervous.

Natasha settled into a dip in the blankets. "So," she started, "I had a dream that I was on a beach somewhere off the coast of Mexico, with my own private villa where I could sleep for days and not do anything and not make any money and not be hunted by the government." She shrugged. "You know, regular life. And then," she continued, grinning at him, "you were there, and we were hiding from Ross and his goons, and we were living the life. Tony and Clint came over to visit and then our bar blew up because of them, but the rest was pretty nice." Nat studied him with thoughtful eyes. "What do you think, doc? Seem like a fun idea?"

Bruce chuckled. "The part where Tony and Clint are blowing up our bar?"

"The part about the private island off the Mexican coast, Bruce." Nat waited on his answer, careful not to show any attachment to a particular answer.

The scientist sighed. "Seems like a dream." He leaned back onto the headboard. "I'd love to go." Bruce glanced over at her, smiling softly.

Nat scrunched up her nose playfully. "Too bad you made our little Ultron problem, then," she teased. "Come on, doc, or else we're going to be late."

-

Despite walking slowly and chatting more about the villa in Mexico, Natasha and Bruce arrived at the conference room before anyone else.

Nat sat down at the computer and started sifting through the media and the reports Maria sent her way, while Bruce started sketching something at the long table behind her.

A few minutes later, Tony came in, holding a tablet and muttering things. She noticed from the corner of her eye how Bruce glanced at her before grabbing Tony and leaving the room with him. She heard them talking in hushed voices, too quiet to discern the words and Bruce had made them turn their backs on her for the time being.

Natasha did some more searching before Thor stormed in and Steve and Maria came up the staircase, Clint trailing from behind them, staring at his phone.

She tapped him as he passed her desk. "How's 19 going?" she asked him quietly.

"Doing fine," he muttered. "Shush."

Steve handed Thor his tablet and the demigod read it.

"What's this?" Tony asked, coming back from his Bruce conversation. He got whapped in the chest with the tablet.

"A message," Steve replied. "Ultron killed Strucker."

Tony inspected the image. "And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us."

Nat glanced at the photo. "This is a smoke screen," she said. "Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"

"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss." Steve glanced at the others, and Natasha got an idea.

She typed something up on the computer. "Yeah, I bet he– yeah." She sighed. "Everything we had on Strucker's been erased."

"Not everything," Tony interjected.

A couple minutes later, they had boxes upon boxes full of files.

"Baron Strucker had a lot of friends," Steve noted.

"Well, these people are all horrible," Bruce said.

"Wait." Tony went over to Bruce's pile. "I know that guy." He grabbed the file. "From back in the day. He operates off the African coast. Black market arms."

Steve furrowed his brows and Tony rolled his eyes.

"There are conventions. All right? You meet people." Tony scoffed. "I didn't sell him anything." He suddenly looked thoughtful. "He was talking about finding something new, a game-changer. It was all very... Ahab."

Thor pointed to something in a photo. "This?"

Tony peered over. "It's a tattoo, I don't think he had it."

Thor shook his head. He pointed at some other photos. "Those are tattoos. This is a brand."

Bruce typed something up on the computer. "Yeah. It's a word in an African dialect meaning 'thief', in a much less friendly way."

Nat went over and looked at his screen.

"What dialect?" Steve asked.

Bruce squinted at the screen. "Wakanada– Wakanda," he corrected himself.

Tony turned to Steve, his face serious. "If this guy got out of Wakanda with some of their trade goods–"

"I thought your father said he got the last of it," Steve said.

Bruce came over. "I don't follow. What comes out of Wakanda?"

Tony and Steve glanced at each other and then at the shield behind them, gleaming red, white, and blue.

Tony sighed. "The strongest metal on Earth."

Nat pressed her hands to her temple. "Where is this guy now?"