Friends With the Monster

The Voices In Your Head

"Nat! Nat, wait up."

The spy permits her arms to swing at her sides, pausing in her steps at Clint Barton's request. No one else would be able to distract her from the intended destination of Fury's office.

Barton has a wrinkled brow when he asks;

"What happened? You're back early-."

She smirks, "So are you."

"Where's the..?"

Natasha fills in the gaps of his trailing off, tilting her head up and over her shoulder, "In a meeting with the boss."

"What's wrong with your knee?"

She shakes her head, hiding behind a closed mouth grin.

Of course Natasha's best friend would immediately call out her black bandage over her knee;

"It's nothing."

"It's something,' he continues to pry, jacket crumpling in response to his arms crossing, 'You never go to medical."

"I didn't,' she lifts a shoulder, eyeing the floor and eager to get back to work, 'How would you feel about working with a gamma radiated, giant?"

His eyebrows lower, wrinkles forming over his face as it creases thoughtfully, "Uhh...wow. You cleared him?"

"Yeah. Mostly-."

"Mostly?"

Romanoff glances over her shoulder at their co-workers as they pass by. She shoves her hands into her pockets;

"He's emotional. But...he's got a lid on it. And he's a good guy-."

"Woah. Nat just called a guy good," he rolls his tongue against his lip.

She playfully pushes him, "Stop. You're good too."

"I'm good?! Wow-! She's full of compliments. Should I call Laura? Dub this a family holiday?!"

"-Because you need an excuse to down a beer." She glared sarcastically.

"Shush. Coulson will hear you and be mad I didn't invite him."

"The teacher's pet-."

She splits her focus when the conference room door opens to reveal Bruce Banner with his four guards; two on each side.

Natasha taps her cheek with her tongue and takes a breath;

"Hi Bruce."

He looks so mad, saluting sarcastically with a coat slung over his shoulder in a blue button down with his rolled up sleeves;

"Nina."

"Nina?" Clint questions as Natasha leaves her friend to step alongside the doctor.

"What did he want?" The spy asks as she keeps pace with the physicist.

"Who." He asks numbly, staring forward.

"Fury," she retorts back.

He glares with a grin full of suspicion and an upturned chin. His brown eyes are narrowed onto hers;

"I thought he told you everything?"

"I'm going to find out eventually-."

"He agreed to leave me alone unless it's a level 10, apocalyptic catastrophe. Even then, I think he should find somebody else."

Natasha finds his tone to be grinding...like nails on a chalkboard. So standoffish and cold. So numb.

She closes her eyes, addressing his guards, "Can you all go do something useful?!"

It's as if Natasha holds all of the power in the building when the escorts immediately stop in their tracks to check with the one in the back for further direction.

She shuts her eyes momentarily as they storm off. Even Bruce seems halfway impressed by her authority.

"I'm sorry," she forces with a muffle to her tone, standing a few feet away from the door, "I didn't think a Fury would bring you in-."

"Maybe he doesn't tell you everything."

"I didn't think he would sedate you for a meeting."

"Well..."

"Like I said,' she cuts him off, 'I'm sorry."

Natasha watches him take in every aspect of the building, practically pivoting on his heel to see the upper level and the ceiling.

"Like I said, I'm out Miss Nina. And according to your boss I'm clear enough to continue on my own so..."

She grinds her molars thoughtfully. With her arms crossed she grips a bicep a little tighter. She's replaying the last 24 hours in her mind and tapping a heel into the ground as a hand is extended in her direction.

His voice is so soft;

"I guess this is where we part ways, where you perform your, 'disappearing act', and all that jazz."

Natasha licks her lip and extends a hand with slight hesitation.

His palm feels so warm, fingers calloused and showing their wear with his healing cuts and abrasions.

"Too bad I never got to meet the monster," she slights as he takes his hand back.

His eyebrow lifts, swinging the black woolen jacket over his shoulders, "Consider yourself lucky, Miss Nina."

Her hair flows with her next nod, watching him take another step toward the door. Her neck muscles tighten as they fight against her blurting out with all of the composure she can muster;

"My name isn't Nina."

Bruce just holds his smirk, adjusting his collar as he puts on his coat. The way he looks at her feels as if his dark cocoa eyes pierce straight through. He's sincere, knowing when he replies with a hand on the door;

"Let your guard down sometime. Not everyone in the world is out to get you."

She scoffs over his parting 'wisdom'. Natasha regrets looking down, eyes back at the swinging door and no lingering signs of her friend. He covers his tracks well when he wants to, gone in the same time it took for her to exhale.

**********

A few months later, she sits in her private office with a warm coffee from Nick Fury as she watches the screens in front of her.

She's lost her appetite, with no desire to even finish her coffee as she watches the horrifying images play out in front of her.

Clint is away in New Mexico on a call with Coulson to analyze a mysterious object no one can remove from the ground.

She writes in her notepad, something about Elizabeth Ross' last known location with a circle around the name 'Samuel Sterns'.

"Agent Romanoff."

Natasha circles in her spinner chair to face the figure now standing behind her, accepting a folder from Maria Hill.

"What's the gist?" Natasha asks coldly.

The woman tucks her hands behind her back, standing tall, "The boss wants you to take a break from... the big guy for a week or so. He's got a new job for you in connection with Anthony Stark."

"Oh?"

Natasha lifts the folder, turning page by page over the new identity;

Natalie Rushman...

She liked the intelligent biologist Nina a bit better, irritated over having to attend a photo shoot for a 'model' persona.

Romanoff lifts the tab with wide eyes and half an eye roll. She skims the pages, analyzing her next mission.

Her eyes flick upward and back onto the screen, watching with just a hint of fear as the Hulk shreds his victims. She's never seen him that way, not on anything recent. To be so cold, so dark...

A part of her can relate.

Her throat tightens, with a reflection of the hulk roaring in her hazel-green irises.