Facing your own demons (MarvelDC contest entry)

Or fall (unedited)

ALRIGHTY! This is the finale!...I think. 

Take a seat because this will probably be a long one.

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"How's it looking?" Asked Natasha, as she watched the strange, clear liquid spin inside the centrifuge machine.

"Right now? Like pretty much nothing. We haven't even begun to scratch the surface with this stuff and we only have two days left," Banner fret, miserably.  Natasha leaned back against the wall.

"We'll get it done, Doc. That's still a good 48 hours time to iron this thing out." Bruce eyed her wearily. She seemed to have so much confidence in him. Why? He had done nothing but manage to pull her into the very center of danger and trouble. He was a nightmare for anyone that got too close to him and now she was putting her life in his hands. Which, more the likely, would slip through his fingers.

Bruce continued to work as quickly and hard as he could. He let Natasha sleep in the cot in the far corner for a few hours. When Natasha awoke and went to check on Banner and the current project, she found the once clear liquid was now a dark, almost unappealing, shade of brown. Bruce explained to her that the liquid was right now extremely hot and had to be cooled to the precise temperature. The physicist continued to ramble on. He would slur and mess up words easily. Natasha volunteered to watch their little concoction while Bruce took a much needed nap.

To Natasha, the stuff looked absolutely vile. Although to her it did look like the sort of thing that already ran through Strucker's vein's. Cold, vile and generally revolting. Seemed just right to her. The chemical's cooled quicker than Natasha expected, or would have liked them to really. She had to wake Banner up with in only three hours. The scientist groggily pulled himself out of the cot and forced himself back to work.

Natasha, not sure what else to do, kept up a lasting conversation to help keep Bruce awake and more coherent while he was working. They talked about nothing of real importance. Shared a few stories, talked about the team, Bruce even told her a story about when he was still with Betty. That of course brought up the horribly daunting subject of the past.    

After Bruce had finished his little story, Natasha had gone silent. He figured the thing's about her past troubled her a lot. He decided not to push it. And maybe that was why Natasha decided to speak.

"I grew up here, ya know." Banner set the phial back into it's stand and looked back at her. Natasha knew what she was getting into. This story was by no means a joyful or pleasant one, but it was her story.

"Not all of it, but most of it. I used to live in Moscow, but I guess that's more the ancient history now," she said with a shrug,  trying to hide the pain in her voice that was already threatening to seep in. "One night when I was maybe 7, there was a terrorist bombing in my neighborhood. The men heading it hit my house. I remembered hiding in the my basement, barely able to move from all the debris surrounding me." Natasha found she was barely able to continue. Bruce said nothing, he just stood there calmly, waiting to see if she would continue. Against her better judgment, she did.

"I was dug out about 5 hours later. I was brought to a man named, at the time, General Strucker. He took me aside and he gave me 2 option's. 1: Come away with him, learn how to work as a mercenary, a rightly justified one, or so he put it. Or 2: I could sit in the rubble and ashes of my desolated house, wait and chance it and hope that I would get lucky." There was no need for her to continued, Bruce knew what she chose. And to be honest, he's not sure if he entirely blamed her. If someone approached him when he was young, offered him a way out of the system, he would have most likely taken it.