boysofeden | Choose your poison

Choose your poison

01. I DON'T LOVE YOU ANYMORE Unfortunately, you can't keep lying to your partner/friend/family anymore. You just don't feel the same for them anymore.
02. I WOULD KILL YOU The person who means so much to you has done something completely unforgivable and now it's time to make sure they know where they stand. You would kill them if you ever got the chance.
03. I LOVE YOU, BUT... A bittersweet love confession. You know you love this person more than anything, but you're not sure you can give them what they need.
04. I DON'T TRUST YOU No matter how you feel about this person, you really can't trust them anymore.
05. SACRIFICE You're going to sacrifice yourself, for the person you're talking with or for the good of all humanity. You want them to know the reasons and that there's no stopping you.
06. TROUBLE You're in trouble and you might not make it through. You need to let at least one person know how you feel before it's too late though.
07. BETRAYAL You've betrayed this person and you have to tell them the truth, no more running from it
08. CHEATED You've been unfaithful and it's time to tell your lover.
09. BROKEN That's it. You've had it. You are entirely broken and tired of everything.
10. AFRAID Something has you deathly afraid and you need to talk about it.
11. HELP ME You need someone to help you, bad. You can't do it alone anymore, you've tried.
12. I'M SORRY You said something or did something horrible and now it's time to ask for forgiveness.
13. YOU WERE A MISTAKE Sorry, but whoever you're talking to was the biggest mistake of your life or maybe it was just something you did together.
14. LET'S RUN AWAY You want to just get out, leave everything behind and be with this one person for the rest of your life.
15. ASHAMED Either you're ashamed of something they have done or something you did, either way you need to bring it up.
16. CAN'T REMEMBER The person standing in front of you looks so happy to see you, so relieved, but how do you tell them you can't remember a thing about them?
17. YOUR CHOICE Either choose an option from above, mix and match, or make up your own idea.

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She didn't want apologies. Not for this. Natasha narrowed her eyes, anger tugging at the corner of her mouth. A moment later she moved to stand, arms crossed beneath her breasts. She had half a mind to just walk away from him.

"Get up. You need someone to look you over."

Bruce struggled to get up. When he finally managed it, he hesitantly placed a hand on her shoulder.

"You're still angry with me. But I can't read your mind, Natasha. Maybe Barton can, but I'm new around here. At least tell me why."

He placed his hand on her shoulder and she almost flipped him onto his back, stiffening the moment she sensed him getting near. Natasha exhaled slowly, turning her head to look at him, and she couldn't honestly explain why she was so angry.

"Maybe you shouldn't be around here after all."

But he didn't move. He just frowned, putting all the pieces together. Solving the equation, so to speak.

"Oh," he said, feeling a bit stupid. It wasn't just the fact that he hadn't told her that was upsetting her. And it wasn't the fact that he hadn't died like he thought he might. "I thought you were afraid of me. That you would be relieved, if I wasn't a problem anymore."

"You were never a problem."

Natasha slipped away from his hand, running her hand through her hair as she paced away from him, fighting for her composure back. She wasn't afraid of a great many things -- or rather, she wouldn't acknowledge the fear -- but the Hulk was different. She made no real secret of that, even if she never said it aloud. Her body just wouldn't let her. Her fear of losing Bruce, on the other hand, was far more low-key, and not something she ever wanted to acknowledge.

It had taken her years to get to that point with Clint and Phil. She wasn't sure if she was ready to add another to that circle.

"Unfortunately, I'm sort of a package deal. You can't get rid of the Other Guy without getting rid of me...I've tried that, too," he confessed. Though she probably already knew, just from look at his files, that he'd tried to find a cure.

"All I can do now is try to control him. To work with him. And I think...I think I'm getting better at it." He'd certainly accomplished the task he'd set out to do, at least.

She went still, back to him, as he spoke. "By blowing yourself up?" She refused to face him, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, focused on breathing slow and steady so she didn't walk back over and hit him. "You didn't know what would happen when you swallowed that. You might have never come back."

Bruce might not have. Not so much the package deal.

"Yes. I knew I might never come back. I wasn't planning on it," he repeated, quietly. "But at the time...I wasn't sure that would really matter to anyone."

Bruce paused for a moment. "Now I know I was wrong."

The silence passed between them longer than was comfortable, Natasha standing perfectly still a dozen paces from where Bruce stood. Her fingers flexed compulsively at her sides as she just breathed, staring up into the sky.

"The jet isn't far away." Her voice was quiet, but firm when she finally spoke, though still she wouldn't turn to look at him. "I'll call it in and have the doctors ready to examine you when we touch down."

Bruce shook his head. "I don't think anything's actually damaged...nothing I can feel, anyway. It just...hurts, from the force of the blast. Like I've been beaten up on the inside."

He didn't push anymore about what she was feeling; he knew what he needed to know.

"I don't care; you still need your evals." She sighed and turned toward him. "S.H.I.E.L.D. policy. You're going to need to get used to it."

Bruce smiled again; less wry, and more genuine. "There are a lot of things about S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm going to have to get used to, I think." Because she wanted him to stay, despite everything. Because she thought he was important.

It was a start. To soothing her anger, to moving on, to accepting that Bruce was here and that he mattered enough for that to be important in the first place. Her expression softened, just the faintest bit, and she nodded, starting toward the jet in the distance.

"Is it worth it?"

"Yes," Bruce replied, after considering it for a moment. He had just saved the world, and that felt pretty good. He knew not every assignment would be like that, but it was nice to know he could still help people.

And then there was Natasha. It was worth it for her, too.

Bruce started to follow her toward the jet (after picking up the piece of metal he'd coughed up, since he was pretty sure Fury would want it), and stumbled a bit, his body protesting the idea of any more movement.

His response gave her a smile -- just a tug at the corner of her lips. Natasha brushed at her hair, turning back to answer, and stopped when Bruce stumbled. The idiot, he wasn't well enough yet. Why didn't he just say so?

She was beside him a moment later, bracing him against her shoulder. "Can you make it?"

Bruce nodded, catching his breath for a moment while he leaned against her. It was a bit awkward because...well, he was still very naked. But it wasn't anything she hadn't seen before.

"I think so. I just need to go a little slower." He focused all of his concentration on walking, as Natasha supported him. It was exhausting, and he was already worn out, but he made it to the jet without falling.

The moment they were inside, Natasha grabbed a blanket to wrap around his waist before telling the pilot to head back to HQ. She also told him not to interrupt them until they'd landed as she headed back to where Bruce was waiting, taking a seat beside him.

"I have some rations, if you need them."

Bruce relaxed a little when Natasha found him a blanket to cover himself with, and leaned back against the wall, just closing his eyes for a moment.

"Water? I don't think I can eat anything right now."

She got up to retrieve him a drink, bringing it back a moment later, setting the glass down beside him and resting her hands between her knees. There was a comfortable silence between them, at least from Natasha's perspective, and she took the time to mull things over, to work out what had happened -- what was happening. It occurred to her no one even knew where she'd gone, at least not officially.

If nothing else, it gave them a little breathing room.

"They won't be happy with you when they learn what you did," she said, glancing at him. "You know that, don't you?"

Bruce appreciated the silence, too. He focused on his water, coughing a bit before draining the glass, slowly and carefully.

He didn't have to ask who she meant by they. "You weren't exactly a ray of sunshine about it either," he pointed out, lightly. "I'll explain myself to the others when I have to."

The last time Natasha could be described as a "ray of sunshine" she'd been undercover as a particularly bubbly linguist in a banking establishment. She didn't relish returning to that sort of sentiment.

"They'll be at the base," she noted. "You can't expect them to have just waited at Stark Tower with a note that said I'm sorry."

Edited 2012-06-21 05:39 (UTC)

"I know," he replied, running a hand through his hair. "But I'll tell them everything. Even if it only makes them angrier." He just hoped none of them would actually physically kick his ass. Verbal abuse he could take. And he deserved it.

"Why?" She frowned, watching him intently. "Why tell them everything? You're with S.H.I.E.L.D. now. You're allowed your secrets, Bruce."

"Remember what happened the last time S.H.I.E.L.D. tried to keep information from Iron Man and Captain America?" Bruce pointed out. He'd been on the other end of that too, and hadn't enjoyed it at all.

"But they deserve to know, anyway. If they really want to know."

She didn't buy it, crossing her arms and giving him a look that said as much. "I'm not a computer; Stark can't just download what I saw."

As to their deserving the knowledge, that was debatable. But Natasha was used to a life where the only people who ever deserved anything were those she still withheld information from -- and from whom she had information withheld.

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