One Love, A Thousand Lifetimes

Chapter 38

TW: Mention of blood.

After their nearly sleepless night filled with nightmares, Bruce wakes up to Natasha's alarm. Her head is still on his chest, until she gets up to turn it off then flops back on the bed.

"Did you get any sleep," she asks.

"Maybe an hour."

Later that morning while Bruce is standing in the kitchen cutting fruit for a small breakfast, Natasha comes in and hugs him from behind.

Normally her hugging him from behind didn't distract him while he was cooking, but this was one of the rare times it did, and he cut his hand with the knife. He hisses in pain and quickly wraps his hand with a towel.

Natasha's quick to take action and steps away from him, then cleans the blood off of the counter. When she's done, she looks at him as if asking what to do with it.

"I'll burn it in the lab later," he says.

Natasha walks up to him and by the time she takes a look at the wound it had already healed. An advantage to having gamma in his body was that he heals quicker than the average human, but the downside was being cautious about making sure his blood never got anywhere else. It could kill someone or turn them into a Hulk type creature too and Bruce wouldn't wish that on anyone.

He took great care to make sure his blood never fell into the wrong hands, especially after what happened with Samuel Sterns. The man wanted to use his blood for something he didn't want, then Sterns became infected last Bruce heard. 

After the battle of New York, he made a deal with Fury to make sure any of his blood left on the battlefield was destroyed. Bruce told Fury that if he didn't do the one thing he asked, he'd quit the team. So far all of his blood samples have been returned to him.

Bruce is still hesitant to let Natasha near him when he bleeds. The first time he bled it front of her he jumped back so far that he was certain he scared her. Over time he began to at least let her look him over, but only if she didn't have any open wounds on as well. He told her the dangers of his blood getting into anyone's system years ago and she had understood.

"I'm sorry," she says, the guilt evident in her voice. "I should have known better than to distract you like that."

"It's not your fault," he reassures her and lifts up his healed hand that's slightly bloodstained. "I'm fine. See?"

He never wanted her to feel or take the blame every time he got hurt in his human form while she was around, but as she looks down, he can tell she's mentally kicking herself.

"Hey," he gently lifts her chin with his finger to look her in the eyes. "I promise it's okay. It's nothing compared to the time my blood was used to create the Abomination."

He kisses her forehead, trying to reassure her that he wasn't mad or upset. He was testy about his blood, but a common kitchen accident was nothing, especially when it was their apartment, he had control over what to burn and his wife knew the protocol if something happened.

Natasha's still silent so he hugs her to him and peppers kisses across her face, making her chuckle.

"There's a smile," he says with his own smile plastered across his face. She buries her face in his chest while wrapping he arms around him, and he continues to hug her to him.

He would do anything to make her smile when she was feeling down. He hated seeing her upset.

After burning everything with his blood on it and washing his hands, he enters the kitchen to see Natasha is on her laptop while drinking coffee at the table. He sees that she had finished making his fruit salad, put it in a bowel for him and left it on the sink.

A few minutes later while he's finishing his food, he hears Natasha say, "Bruce, you need to see this."

He walks toward her after putting his bowl in the sink. When they're both sitting in chairs at the table, she opens the video in her email and pushes play.

The date at the bottom was labeled December 16, 1991. They pair watches in silence as the Winter Soldier kills Howard and Maria Stark.

Bruce looks at Natasha who's taking a minute to breathe. They were told her former boss and his best friend's parents had died in a car crash.

When Natasha composes herself, she looks at him. "We need to stop him, Bruce."

"We will."

He watches her open another email from Fury telling them not to tell Tony. He doesn't like it, but he understands. If Tony finds out, then everyone except Thor and Steve has a motive to kill Barnes, and Tony would be the first to kill him on the spot.

"Do you think Steve knows about this," Bruce asks.

"Yeah."

Bruce sighs and rubs his hand over his face.

Another new message pops up on her email. Natasha opens it and the see it's from Laura with the subject: TARGET DETECTED, with the location and photo evidence.

Laura really was an expert.

"We've got to go," Natasha exclaims as she gets up from her chair, while he follows suit.

"I'll grab the bags, you call Fury," he tells her.

They had prepared for this knowing it would be any day now with Laura on board. They were already in street clothes, their bags packed and ready to leave.

He grabs their duffels that were under the bed, and they're out the door in seconds.

When they arrive downstairs, Fury and Hill were standing in-between Clint. Tony was standing next to Hill, and Thor. Rhodey, Sam and Steve were behind them.

When they reached the group Clint speaks up and looks at Natasha, "Be careful, alright. Both of you."

"Be careful buddy and just remember this isn't like the last time," Tony says then points to Natasha, "You be careful too."

Natasha smirks then Bruce looks at Fury, who nods. Steve's being held in place by Sam, who has his hand on Steve's shoulder. It wouldn't hold the super soldier, but it would remind him that this wasn't his fight.

"Steve, we'll bring him back safe," Bruce promises.

The man nods then looks away, clearly upset that he wasn't chosen to find his friend. But even Bruce knew that Steve wouldn't react the way Fury would need him to. Natasha told him that when Sam found Steve in DC, he was bruised and bloody. Steve ended up in the hospital, while Barnes was nowhere to be found.

Bruce understood where Steve was coming from, but he knew if the super soldier joined them, he would try to rationalize with Barnes. But just because James remembered Steve didn't mean he wouldn't kill him on the spot, and what's worse Steve might let him.

Despite his history with James, Bruce didn't want to kill him. He just wanted to find him and help Bucky. He might have to fight him in order to do it, but this time it wouldn't be petty, it would be because he was trying to save someone.

Note: Slightly upset about "Secret Invasion" episode five, so I wanted to fix it.