The Ultimate Fix-It Fic

3| Downfall

Natasha took the phone from Bruce and skimmed the short article from the Times.

The few paragraphs made him out to be a sort of a mad scientist, with no regard of others' safety or the consequences of his actions.

Nat steadily grew angrier as she finished reading, throwing the phone onto her bed in frustration. They came so far just to get torn down by a random selfie in an airport. Natasha knew they should've landed the Quinjet in the Tower, but she wanted to leave from an airport ground, and there was her downfall.

"Peter?" she called the boy into her room.

He came in quickly. "Yes, Miss Romanoff?"

Nat took a small breath and sighed. "Peter, I need you to go back to your apartment and tell your aunt that Bruce and I are leaving in a couple minutes. Can I borrow your phone, first?"

Peter handed the spy his phone and waited patiently as she thumbed in a number.

"Pepper?" she said as soon as the caller picked up. "Can you transfer me to Tony really quickly, please?"

"Sure." Pepper must have heard the urgency in Nat's voice, because less than two seconds later, she was on the line with Tony.

"Natty! What's up?"

"You haven't heard?" Nat cursed mentally. "The Times did an article. They know Bruce is alive and they're coming after him."

"What?" Tony sounded alarmed. "Wait, are you calling from a burner? I don't recognize the number."

"Might as well be. But Tony, can you pick us up from my apartment with three new phones that have stealth built-in and the Quinjet ready in ten minutes?"

"Of course." Nat heard Tony calling out several things to several people; he was probably in his workshop, and he was probably talking to his non-sentient bots. "See you in ten."

He hung up, and Natasha handed the phone back to Peter.

"You should upload everything you need from there," she told him. "I shouldn't have even called Tony from your phone but it's the only one here not registered by the government."

"It's fine," Peter replied, staring at the dark screen of his phone. "I'll just... run away and become a fugitive if I ever get contacted by the FBI. All good."

Natasha sighed at the boy, but then she looked to Bruce, who had been silent the whole time. "Bruce?" she said softly, sinking into the duvet next to him.

Peter tactfully left the room.

The scientist was staring at nothing, and then he looked at her. He looked like he aged ten years in the span of a minute.

"What are we going to do, Nat?" he whispered. "I– I can leave, but– do you think Mexico is compromised?"

"It can't be." Natasha thought back. She knew only Tony, Pepper, Steve, Clint, and Laura knew about Isle d'Avenger, as Tony so delightfully named it, and she knew none of them would snitch to the government about it because they all have committed treason at some point in their lives. "Who could've known?"

Bruce shrugged. "Maybe someone just realized that a house sprouted up when they updated Google Maps," he said tiredly. "I don't know anymore. Everything's gone to shit."

Nat brushed his hand with her thumb comfortingly. "We can get through this," she said quietly.

"Can we?" Bruce stood up, turning to face her. "The government's looking for me, and you're free. I'm a fugitive, and right now, you don't have to be. I'd rather not see you in a prison."

"I'd rather not see you in a prison, Bruce," Nat retorted. "We got through Ultron. We can get through this."

Bruce chuckled grimly. "Oh, that's, uh, not the best example. See, when we were fighting Ultron, we killed five people. I was a perpetrator in three of them. I wrecked an innocent city in a blind rage and that's why I'm being arrested, Nat." He sat back down, head in his hands. "This is a shit situation."

Natasha brought his chin up and kissed him softly. "Yeah, but it's a shit situation we can work through." "I'm sorry for making you come here."

"I'm not. I got to see the kid, I got to spend time with you–" he glanced at her with a small smile– "and before that, we had a nice flight."

They sat in a silence for a while, before Peter knocked on the door and said, "Uh, Dr. Banner? Miss Romanoff? There's a guy named Happy outside and he has a briefcase."

Natasha got up. "That was surprisingly quick."

She and Bruce walked out into the living room, where Happy was sitting restlessly on the couch.

"Here's your stuff," he said shortly.

Nat opened the briefcase to see three Stark stealth phones, one a dark glass green, one metallic red, and one black.

Bruce grabbed the black one and left Peter with the green one, which made the boy more than happy because he had only seen this kind of Stark tech at the conventions.

"Woah, is this a stealth phone?" Peter asked, turning it on excitedly and seeing the welcome window where he had to sign in. He frowned. "I don't have a Stark account."

Natasha took it from him and thumbed in the credentials she made him when she found out that he was powered. She smiled slightly when she got access. "Here." She turned on her own and logged in.

She had all the information from her old phone already set up and she made sure Peter had her in her contacts before putting on her jacket.

Bruce got up from the couch and he and Happy quietly went to the car.

"Peter, be good," Nat asked the boy. "Please don't get into unnecessary trouble. You can text me or Bruce if you have any questions, but hopefully, Rebecca can take care of it for you. Please don't go swinging around New York before testing everything to make sure it's safe."

"Sure." Peter fidgeted with his new phone. "Am I going to see you guys again? Ever?" he asked.

Natasha sighed. "I don't know," she admitted. "Hopefully. But right now, we have a problem to solve. So please be careful."

"Yes, Miss Romanoff."

She smiled briefly before reaching over to grab the door. She was pleasantly surprised by a hug from the boy. She patted his shoulder quickly and left down the staircase, not knowing when she'll see the spider-powered boy again, or if she'll even be alive the next time he sees her.