On The Run

Bruce

Bruce found Natasha on a hot day in the very last week of June. When he did, she wasn't sure whether she should kiss him, kill him, or flat out walk away.

It was an extremely hot day-hands down one of the hottest in the season-and she was reading a crime thriller on a park bench beside a beautiful fountain, moving around as necessary to ensure she was always sitting in the shade. She'd chanced to let her guard down; the plaza was almost deserted because of the heat and the few people who were there were mostly dog walkers or mothers with small children-in general, people who were too preoccupied by other things to worry about a woman who may or may not be a rogue Avenger.

"Natasha."

At first she thought she was hallucinating and considered going back inside for some water-until she looked up and he took a seat on the wooden bench next to her. He looked healthy-a little gaunt, perhaps, with new stubble around his mouth and unkempt hair but nearly exactly the way he'd been the last time she'd seen him back in Sokovia when he'd asked her if she wanted to run away with him. He wore a simple shirt and pants, lightweight in the summer heat. "Bruce?" The idea that he was here, in Paris, was so unbelievable she was convinced he wasn't real. He'd gone into stealth mode; she'd taken that to mean she'd never see him again.

He nodded, glancing at her almost nervously as though worried about how she would react. To be honest, she was too. "Guilty as charged."

"I thought you were in Fiji."

He laughed, "I was, for a while-but I just can't seem to get a tan. Must be something to do with the Other Guy."

"Why are you here?"

"When I heard you'd disappeared after Leipzig...I kind of figured you might go here. It's taken me a couple of weeks to find you-I'm sure the hotel owner thinks I'm a madman, leaving at first light and staggering in hours after the sun goes down, and I've nearly depleted my resources but...I knew that if you were looking for a place to hide, where's better than hiding in plain sight?"

"Like finding a needle in a haystack."

"Exactly," He still looked worried she would straight up murder him . "So...how've you been?"

She shrugged, "Paris is nice this time of year." Her tone was deceptively indifferent; she'd decided she wasn't going to kill him but that didn't mean she needed to pretend like he hadn't left her just when they'd been coming to terms with their feelings about each other.

He sighed, "Look Natasha, I'm sorry. I know I've been a dick and I regret not talking to you for all of this time...but I don't regret what I did. When you...can do what I can do, it's hard to start a stable relationship. I wasn't scared of what I was feeling...but I was scared of hurting you."

"You shouldn't. I can take care of myself."

"Yes, I know...but what if one day something went wrong or I changed at an inopportune moment? If something happened to you because of me, I'd never be able to forgive myself."

"You could have called."

"I know. Like I said, I was a dick, and I'm extremely sorry," He shrugged sadly. "Maybe you can forgive me, maybe you can't...but I heard about what happened in Leipzig. Nasty stuff. It almost makes me wish I would've been there."

She laughed mirthlessly, "Yes, because a Hulk running around isn't absolutely the last thing we needed in that situation. Did you hear about what Scott Lang did? He started growing instead of shrinking. In a way, it kind of reminded me of you-just less angry." She didn't say anything about the ideology behind it and how there was a good chance they wouldn't even have been on the same side anyway. "Besides, I guess the government has better things to do than look for you."