20. Not Just For Children

Barton joked about Hydra taking time off for the holidays, but a few weeks into December, Maria Hill had yet to pass along new intelligence to the Avengers.

"My source has everything well in hand," was all she said when Cap pressed her on the subject.

It went without saying that Steve didn't find this answer satisfying. Bruce, on the other hand, was more than content to let Maria's source handle things for the foreseeable. Even Natasha, who never could sit by totally idle, didn't seem too anxious to get back in the field when her digging turned up some reports from Puerto Rico that didn't quite add up. She wasn't cleared for it yet, anyway, so while she channeled her increased energy into her recovery, Bruce concentrated on locating the scepter from the comfort of his lab. He even had time to resume his own research, which had been stagnating.

Or at least he would have, if Tony hadn't hijacked his brain and the lab to start the groundwork on one of his projects which would, in his words, "make the spirit of Christmas last all year long."

"What the hell does that even mean?" Natasha asked as he brought her a mug of hot chocolate to sip while they watched Holiday Inn. "Stark's branching out into the greeting card business?"

Bruce nearly snorted hot chocolate out his nose, which probably would have been quite painful. Possibly enough to bring the Other Guy out.

"I think he means more along the lines of peace on earth, in which case it's really just business as usual for Tony. Actually…" He seated himself down the sectional from her stretched-out legs. "I think this is partly inspired by you."

Natasha's eyebrows went up as she lowered the mug. "Me?"

Bruce scuffed his hand over his chin, feeling the prickle of the day's growth of stubble-Or had he remembered to shave since yesterday?-as he mulled over an explanation. He should have thought before he spoke.

After a moment, he settled on a shrug and, "You know Tony. Always wise-cracking to hide the fact that he has a gooey center. You were the first one of us to get injured on a mission. He's been talking ever since about how we're just six people doing the job of a massive government agency, one of whom only has…" He cleared his throat. "…puny arrows."

Now it was Natasha's turn to snort. "Sounds more like he's worried about Barton. As well he should be."

Underneath the smirk, Bruce recognized the insecurity, like he was looking in a mirror. He knew how important trust was to Natasha, how she'd felt she didn't have Stark's long before her SHIELD files leaked, and he combed through his brain for a way to tell her Tony really did care about her. Problem was, he'd phrased it in terms of Bruce being codependent on her, which he doubted would go over well.

"Sweet of Tony, though," she went on, dryly, "to think about the mere mortals on the team. As if he isn't one out of the suit."

"That's the root of it," Bruce said, growing serious as he studied the contents of his mug. "It's been just about a year since the whole Mandarin thing, and I think the holidays are triggering his PTSD. God, I hope he doesn't expect me to play therapist again."

He didn't need to worry about that. Pepper had better control over Tony than Maria Hill's source likely had over SHIELD; when he holed up, obsessing over security more than she felt was healthy for him-or productive for Bruce-she made plans to get him out of the Tower.

Not that Tony was going to go quietly when found out the destination was Lincoln Center for the New York City Ballet.

"The Nutcracker, really Pep? If you're going to make me sit through Christmas dancing, why can't it at least be the Rockettes?"

"Because Stark Industries isn't a generous donor of the Rockettes-"

"That's a problem we need to address, like, yesterday."

"-and because you owe me for the giant stuffed rabbit."

That shut him up.

He was also slightly ameliorated by the fact that he wouldn't be subjected to the torture alone, Pepper having gotten tickets for Bruce and Natasha, Steve and Maria, too-until Bruce let him down by revealing he wouldn't find a night at The Nutcracker torturous at all. In fact he was excited, once he'd gotten over his initial panic that Pepper meant it to be a triple date. There was nothing going on between Cap and Hill, so far as he knew, though maybe this was one of Natasha's attempts to set up Steve.

"I've never been to the ballet," he said, "unless my cousin's ballet recitals count, and I don't think they do because she was only in preschool, maybe kindergarten."

Bruce couldn't help but grin at the memory of Jennifer in her pink tights and tutu, but the smile Natasha gave back seemed mechanical, as if her brain had told her lips to curve upward but emotion had been bypassed.

"I've been to a few operas," he rambled on. "My Aunt Susan's a music teacher, so she used to take me to university productions back in Ohio. But this will be my first ballet. I mean, I've listened to ballet music, but...What about you?"

"Have I ever been to the ballet?"

It had been a long time since she'd seemed tense around him, but he thought she did now.

"That was probably a dumb question." He rubbed the back of his neck, the hair curling over his collar tickling the backs of his fingers; he'd need a trim before the ballet. "You've probably seen the greatest dancers in the world...the Mariinsky...Ballet Russes...?"

"The Bolshoi."

"You've seen to the Bolshoi? Wow."

"Mmm."

He guessed wow hadn't been the appropriate response. "Not a fan?"

"You could say that," Natasha replied.

Bruce didn't say that, or anything else on the subject, and the barrier that briefly came between them dropped again. That didn't stop him from feeling like an ass for whatever he'd said to make her erect it in the first place.

The night of the ballet he feared making an even bigger jackass of himself for an entirely different reason. Following her up the staircase in the theater, he couldn't keep his eyes off the exposed V of milky skin between jade silk where her evening gown dipped low. He gripped the handrail tightly, shoved his other fisted hand deep into his trouser pocket, and tried to distract himself from the question of whether her skin was as smooth and soft as it looked by listening to Tony's continued complaints.

"You guys can't tell me I'm the only one who isn't excited about this?"

"I grew up poor in Brooklyn," said Steve. "Attending the New York City Ballet in Lincoln Center wasn't something I ever imagined for myself."

"Especially since the New York City Ballet didn't exist at the time. Maria?"

"What woman doesn't love an excuse to get dressed up?"

"Who did your dress?" Pepper asked-an innocuous enough question, and not directed at Bruce, but nevertheless sending him into a spiral of panic as the women's conversation inevitably brought Natasha's dress to the forefront of his thoughts.

"This sounds to me like a case of the Tony doth protest too much," Steve's voice drew him back. "If you really wanted to get out of this, you would've bought out the performance and whisked all the ballerinas off on your yacht."

"I think Steve's accusing you of losing your edge as an eccentric billionaire," said Pepper, looking positively gleeful about it.

"I liked you so much better when you were culturally illiterate." Tony scowled over his shoulder at Steve. "Why can't you just watch old black and white movies like Bruce?"

"You just gonna let that go, Doc?"

He found himself no longer staring at a green dress but into eyes the same shade as Natasha paused at the top of the stairs to face him.

"Oh, um…I was concentrating on not imitating Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby and stepping on your dress."

"Probably wise, since you don't have a top hat to cover me with if you tear it. Shame. I think you could carry off 1930s menswear."

He let out a puff of a laugh and ducked his head, realizing belatedly as he brought his eyes up to hers again that he looked like he was giving her an exaggerated once-over. Judging from the way her full berry-colored lips pressed together in that lopsided little smile of hers, she didn't mind. His heart sped up. Once upon a time, that would have had him running for the nearest exit and available yoga space, but tonight it just made him content to stay right here on this step.

"No, the Stepped Straight Out of Old Hollywood Prize goes to you. I, um, mean that as a compliment. Your dress is vintage, right?"

Her eyebrows twitched upward. "You have a good eye."

"The guy wearing the Christmas tie?" said Tony, hurrying back down the stairs.

"It's not a Christmas tie, it's just red!" Bruce protested, not for the first time.

Tony hmmed dismissively, resentful that Bruce hadn't taken his suggestion of a black skinny tie. "Are you two going to stand there pretending to flirt all night, or is one of you going to come have a vodka martini with me?"

"Tony!" hissed Pepper, leaning over the railing above. "You are not going to get drunk so you can endure The Nutcracker."

"Of course not, dear. I'm going to drink to Tchaikovsky."

Neither of them joined him, although Natasha did watch Tony retreat into the crowd around the lobby bar with a look like she was second-guessing her decision. She didn't resume their banter as they climbed the rest of the stairs to join the others. In the theater, she quietly perused her program until the house lights dimmed and the curtain rose. Bruce didn't think anything more of her change in demeanor as he was caught up in the bewitching score and the joy that played out so gracefully on stage, but when he turned to Natasha to offer his opera glasses, he found her sitting with rigid posture, jaw tensed as she stared straight ahead.

At the intermission, she trekked with Maria and Pepper to the ladies' room, but they came back without her. They were so caught up in the age-old rant about how the women's bathrooms always had lines five times as long as the men's that they barely noticed Bruce excuse himself. Steve did, but Tony remained comatose in his seat, as he had been since the ballet began.

Making his way downstairs, sure enough he spied Natasha just reaching the front of the line at the bar. He caught her eye, and she waved him over. Hands shoved into his trouser pockets, he approached just in time to hear her order champagne.

"And one for the gentleman." She surprised him with her movie star voice.

Bruce played along. "What makes you so sure I'm a gentleman?"

"You're buying me a drink, aren't you?"

Chuckling, he took out his wallet and handed the bartender a couple of bills and struggled not to break character by balking at the price of two glasses.

"To first ballets," Natasha said in a voice a little too like glass to be strictly down to their roleplay as they clinked their champagne flutes. "Is it everything you hoped?"

"I've heard this music so many times, but seeing it is…magical."

The corner of her mouth twitched, and Bruce gulped his very expensive champagne too quickly to taste whether it was worth what he'd paid for it. "That was cheesy."

"It's Christmas."

"In that case, The Nutcracker makes me feel like a kid again."

A kid with a totally different childhood than he'd had. As he took another drink, he studied Natasha, saw that same sadness reflected in her eyes as her gaze drifted across the crowded lobby. He followed it and saw a young girl, no older than nine or ten, looking as dazzled as Clara in the ballet as she chattered to her parents about the first act.

"I'm sorry if you're not enjoying it," he said. "Or if…what I said the other night…"

"You don't need to apologize. There is something I want to tell you, though."

"Explains why you're plying me with champagne," Bruce joked lamely.

She led him outside to the plaza, where he started to protest about the cold-they'd left their coats in the cloakroom, and only a scrap of green silk covered Natasha's shoulders-but he was momentarily distracted by the lights from the theaters and concert halls that comprised Lincoln Center glittering off the fountain.

"Hey, you can see the Met Christmas tree from here."

He gestured to the arched front windows of the adjacent opera house, where the lobby gleamed gold, but Natasha had turned back toward him, looking up at the theater they'd just come out of, draped with posters for The Nutcracker, lost in her own thoughts. Her arms wrapped around herself, hands rubbing the goosebumps on her arms. Bruce shrugged his shoulders to take off his suit jacket and offer it to her, but the rasp of her voice stopped him.

"When I was a girl in the Red Room…" She paused, considered for a moment, then met his eye and went on deliberately. "They made us believe we were ballerinas training for the Bolshoi."

Bruce's brow furrowed. "Made you believe?"

"Implanted memories. Brainwashing techniques. An entire childhood's worth of memories fabricated to make us loyal to the Soviet Union and give us a veneer of identity. I never knew until I was at SHIELD that all of it was a lie. Of course I didn't believe them, until medical showed me how my body didn't exhibit any of the signs of wear and tear associated that kind of rigorous training." Her lips turned in a thin smile. "Only of training to be an assassin."

Bruce exhaled heavily, breath steaming out in the chilly night air. Rage simmered in his belly as he pictured Jennifer in her tutu and tights…the girl in the lobby with her parents…the women and children he'd just watched on stage, the epitome of grace telling a wordless story of innocence and whimsy. He saw Natasha on the battlefield, lithe and lethal, a distortion of the beautiful lie her creators spun for her and countless other little girls like her. His jaw popped as he ground his molars, fingers curled into fists with an instinct to put them through something that had nothing to do with the Other Guy.

Then her fingers with their French manicured nails curled around his wrist, stroking his pulse point beneath the cuff of his sleeve.

"It's okay," she murmured, but he shook his head.

"It's not okay, they-"

"You're right," she interrupted, still that hushed voice, soft as snowfall. "What Madame did to me in the Red Room isn't any more okay than what your father did to you. Which means you know exactly how difficult it was for me to trust anyone again after that."

He nodded, shuddered out another breath.

The rage subsided, like a boiling pot removed from the heat.

"But you did," he said. "You trusted SHIELD."

"More than trusted. They became my family. When that fell apart…I was lost."

It seemed so long ago since that day last spring when she came to his lab, asking if she could stay, and he'd thought how desperate she must have been to take refuge with him.

"I didn't know if I'd find myself again. Or a family, but…" She pressed her lips together against a smile, ducked her head and tucked a curl behind her ear. "Now who's being cheesy?" She glanced back up to the theater. "And making you late for the second act."

"We don't have to go back if you'd rather not," Bruce said. "If it's too uncomfortable…"

"It would be kind of fun to see Tony's reaction to us playing hooky," Natasha replied.

He returned her smile, even though if he was honest he felt a twinge of disappointment at missing the rest of the ballet. Then he felt her hand in the crook of his elbow, his arm curving automatically, and she pulled him gently toward the entrance.

"I'm okay," she said, squeezing his arm lightly. "There was one part I liked a lot."

"Yeah?"

"At the end of the party scene, when Clara and her brother and his friends got into a scuffle over the Nutcracker doll, then the parents took all the tired children home to bed."

"Remind you of someone you know?" Bruce reluctantly disentangled his arm from her so he could get the door for her.

Natasha entered, then turned back as he followed. "That movement's called the Lullaby. I think that's what we should call our thing."

He smiled at her, and offered his arm again. "The sun is getting real low…But I do get to stay up for the rest of the ballet, right?"

It wasn't joke material, and he knew he wasn't being reasonable, but he felt more on board with Natasha's schemes than he had with anything in a long time. He still didn't trust himself...even less the Other Guy. But he trusted her.

In fact he couldn't think of anyone he trusted more.

Bag in hand, Natasha stood outside the lab, watching Bruce through the windows before she went in. Although he was practically looking straight at her as he worked, the screens' reflection on his glasses told her he was oblivious to everything but the data that flashed neon in front of his eyes. She could be naked out here, and he wouldn't notice, the dork.

Not that she wanted him to notice her at the moment. She liked to watch him work, his fingers alternately swiping across the screens or scratching the back of his head, snaking up through his hair, giving himself the Einstein look, whenever he paused to think. It was going to take a lot of willpower not to smooth it back into place when she went in, or simply to weave her own fingers through it. But she had orders from Cap.

Although as the Avengers' hiatus dragged on, she was starting to get impatient. How long was she going to have to wait for the job to be done? Just as well that she was headed to the farm for a few days.

With a sigh, she hitched her bag over her shoulder and stepped inside, the door opening and closing again silently on its hinges. As she stepped into the lab she shivered and noticed the sleeves of Bruce's sweatshirt were tugged down over the heels of his hands. To warm them, maybe, but he always dressed in slightly baggy clothes, as if he were trying to make himself smaller, to shrink from sight. To compensate for the Big Guy? Her gaze went to the unruly curling hair again, which gave him a boyish look despite looming middle age. Or did his wish to go unnoticed have a longer history than the accident? Standing in the middle of the lab, with its openness and reflective or clear surfaces that lent the illusion of even more space, he looked small. And alone.

And since he still hadn't noticed her entrance-which she really couldn't hold against him; after all, she was a spy-it was up to her to get his attention.

"Mr. Scrooge keeping you late tonight, Cratchit?" she said, by way of greeting.

He cocked his head to peer around the edge of his screen.

"Won't let you have another lump of coal for the fire?" she went on, approaching. "It's a meat lockerin here, and when a Russian admits to being cold..."

"Sorry," Bruce replied with an apologetic smile. "I was running a simulation and needed a lower temperature…If you can last another minute, I'll turn the thermostat back up."

"I'll just go huddle under your lab coat," she said, making her way to where it was draped over the stool at his desk. Glancing over her shoulder, she caught his grin widen before he turned back to his work, a smile forming on her own lips that he liked the thought of her wearing his clothes.

She really meant to put it on, but as she dropped her bag to the floor with a soft thud, she was distracted by a picture that lay on top of a stack of papers. A Christmas card, the kind she could never receive from the Bartons, with the photo of an almost ethereally beautiful brunette woman and a husband who kind of looked like a goober holding a chubby baby in elf PJs. Season's Greetings From the Samsons! But Natasha didn't need to read that part to know who it was from. She would've known even if she'd never seen Betty Ross' picture in Bruce's SHIELD file.

Although she was curious, she didn't pick it up or turn it over to see if Betty had written a personal note to him on the back. She wasn't jealous; Bruce had told her they exchanged Christmas cards. Nevertheless, something inside her twisted.

"Does it make you sad?" she asked, sensing his gaze on her before she turned to look at him, knowing that he knew exactly what she was looking at. He'd cleared the data from his screens and stood with his hands woven together, more of the cuffs of the sleeves tugged down over them. "To see Betty with her family and wonder what might have been?"

Bruce didn't answer right away. He glanced down, hair tumbling over his forehead as he pulled off his glasses, folding the earpieces. He started to tuck them into his breast pocket, only to remember he didn't have one. She followed the flick of his eyes to where his lab coat lay, then up again, not quite meeting hers.

"JARVIS, will you raise the thermostat back to the usual settings?"

"As you wish, Dr. Banner."

"I loved her," Bruce admitted in that tight way of his, as if the emotion behind the words were too much to allow them fully past his lips. Like he had to fight to contain it as much as he did the Hulk. "I wanted to give her that life. I guess I did, in the only way I could." With a shrug, he finally met Natasha's gaze. "It used to hurt more. I'm happy she's happy."

"That's very noble of you."

"Apparently I'm a superhero."

Self-deprecating, but said with a smile. A small one, granted, but not bitter like the one he'd worn in Calcutta when he rocked the ramshackle cradle and mused on not getting what he wanted.

Maybe he wasn't only happy that Betty was happy. Maybe he was just…happy? Natasha hadn't missed that he spoke in the past tense.

"Don't you have a plane to catch?" he asked.

She nodded. "I just wanted to say goodbye and…" Again she was struck by the image of him looking alone here. She wished she could at least tell him where she was going, though thankfully he accepted that she hadn't. It felt wrong to add, "Merry Christmas."

"How are you getting to the airport?"

"Cab."

"Why don't I…?" Bruce fidgeted with his glasses. "I mean…I could drive you. If you'd rather."

She definitely would, but she fought back a smile that might have been too eager. She stepped toward him, the desk and the picture behind her.

"This is New York City, and it's snowing." Lifting an eyebrow, she teased, "You won't get road rage and Hulk out?"

He kept a straight face-mostly-but his eyes twinkled. "Not with you with me."

"You'll be driving back without me."

She stood close now, not quite toe-to-toe, but near enough that she had to look up at him to meet his eyes. To her slight surprise-but very much to her delight-he didn't back away. She could just smell his aftershave.

"Then I'll just have to think about you," he said with a grin, but immediately pressed his lips together and bent his head, self-conscious. "Anyway, the road rage isn't a huge risk. I'm used to keeping a lid on that. It's the risk of accident, and I ride with Tony on a regular basis, so…"

They took the Tesla Roadster, which was conspicuously green. Tony swore up and down it predated Bruce and therefore had nothing to do with Going Green in that sense and everything to do with being environmentally conscientious. Natasha didn't buy it for a second, and though Bruce didn't either, it was his car of choice on the rare occasions he did drive.

"It's nice to go green in a way that doesn't involve death and destruction," he said, opening the passenger door for her. "And it's festive."

On the drive to JFK they blared Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby Christmas albums and sang along badly, and they arrived much sooner than Natasha would have imagined, with New York City traffic just a few days before Christmas.

She stood on the curb, brushing the softly falling snow off the shoulders of her army green pea coat, while Bruce got her bag out of the trunk. When he brought it to her, she didn't reach out at once to take it.

"I'll be back on the first," she told him, wishing she hadn't promised the kids she'd stay for New Year's Eve to make up for Thanksgiving, when she knew Tony would throw a great party at the Tower, and she'd have an excuse to kiss Bruce at midnight, even under Steve's watchful eye.

"Then I guess that means I should say, See you next year," Bruce replied.

"You are such a dork," Natasha said, but she reached out and caught his shoulder and drew him in for a hug.

His chuckle rumbled through their layers of wool coats and scarves and sweaters, and it and the weight of his arm circling her back-he held her bag in the other-were too much for her. The curb put her at the perfect height, and she yielded to impulse, pressing her lips to his cheek, letting her hand drift up to touch the hair curling over his collar. Bruce stood stock still at that, didn't even breathe. For a moment she lingered, smiling against his smooth cheek, watching her warm breath form steam in the glare of headlights behind them.

When she drew back, his arm remained firm around her waist, holding her so close that their noses bumped. She searched his eyes, saw them fixed on her lips; his tongue darted out to moisten his own. All at once she became aware of the hard thump of blood in her ears, felt the pounding of his.

A taxi horn blared, and they came apart as the cabby leaned out to bellow, "This ain't a Hallmark Channel movie, lovebirds, move it!"

Christmas at the farm definitely had a made-for-TV movie feel to it. Natasha's first glimpse of Cooper and Lila was of them leaping off the porch in PJs and boots and scampering through the snow toward the driveway as Clint pulled in. She'd barely climbed out of the truck before they tackle hugged her.

"Careful, you two," called Laura from the porch. "Auntie Nat's hurt, remember?"

"Was hurt," Natasha told them as they scrambled off her, their momentarily worried expressions giving way once more to their ear-to-ear snaggletoothed grins. "I'm back to normal now."

"So can we have snowball fights?" Coop asked.

"Oh, we can definitely have snowball fights," said Natasha, bending to scoop one up.

"It won't be a fair fight," said Clint, mischief in his eyes, "what with Nat being all weak and out of practice from sitting on her butt all day watching sappy old movies."

She packed her snowball tight. "Actually, I've been itching for a fight," she said, and nailed Clint right at the head before he even saw it coming. Her eyebrows went up. "Who's out of practice?"

"The only gun he's fired in weeks in a nail gun," Laura said as Natasha trudged up the shoveled sidewalk to the porch, promising the kids they'd have a real snowball fight tomorrow. "You'll have to whip him back into shape."

They hugged, and Natasha felt the slight bulge of new Barton baby.

"Showing already," she said, and Laura made a face.

"I practically was when I took the pregnancy test. It gets earlier and earlier every time. But guess what! We already found out the gender. Well, we have a pretty good idea. Come in, I'll show you the sono pic, you can tell me what you think."

Following her into the house, Natasha glanced back at Clint, who carried her bag on his shoulder and Lila piggy-back. "Little Natasha? You been holding out on me?"

"That was supposed to be your Christmas present," he replied.

"Always a cheapskate, Barton. It's like you aren't rolling in residuals from all the Avengers merchandise."

"Apparently Banner is, though," he said a little while later, after the kids convinced her to let them open their presents from her early; they'd have all the stuff from Santa and their parents on Christmas Day, they insisted, confident against his teasing about them being on the naughty list this year. "Honestly, Nat, are you trolling me?"

"What?" she asked, innocently, looking at Coop's pile of Hulk gear-a bobblehead, a backpack, and t-shirt shirt that said, I'd Flex, But I Like This Shirt. "Laura told me he was really obsessed with the Big Guy. Which is so cute. Maybe I should tell the Big Guy so he'll leave you alone about your arrows."

"I sense there's a story here my husband neglected to tell me?" Laura smiled, but the lines around her eyes and mouth revealed her underlying concern about his Avenging.

"The real story is that Nat's apparently the Hulk Whisperer now," Clint sidestepped the question. "She's got this thing she does to make him change back."

"We're calling it the Lullaby," Natasha explained, pulling Lila into her lap as she rubbed her eyes, "because the Hulk is like these two when it's bedtime."

"I don't want to go to bed yet!" Lila protested. "I'm not tired! I want to stay up with Auntie Nat!"

"Can I try out my science set?" Cooper asked, clutching the box of the final present from her. "Just one experiment, please?"

Laura still looked worried, but she said, "Well that's it-Auntie Nat's in charge of bedtime while she's here!"

That in itself wasn't all that different from most of the time she was at the farm. Neither was staying up with Clint and Laura for a beer after the kids were in bed, or any of the next day's Christmas Eve traditions of baking cookies for Santa, going sledding and building snowmen, playing board games and then snuggling up with hot chocolate in front of the fire to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol before bed.

Something was different, though: her. Natasha had always been grateful to Clint not only for saving her life, but for giving her a life. He and Laura both made her as much a part of the Barton family as if she were actually his sister, and after the way she'd been raised, she didn't think she'd ever need more of a family than this. Now, though, after her months of living at the Tower, covers blown, her real identity yet to discover, she understood just why it was so important to Clint that he had this. For the first time, she wondered if maybe she could, too. Not the farm or the kids, obviously, but a home, a life of her own beyond fighting.

They went to bed not long after the kids, knowing Christmas morning would come early; they'd have to beat the excited kids out of bed to stage Santa's visit. Natasha sat up, computer in her lap, scrolling through months of deleted emails, until she found a forward from Maria via Tony.

If our mutual friend, the Itsy Bitsy Spy-der, comes looking for a job, tell her she's grossly overqualified for the available positions in any of these departments, but the division heads will nevertheless be happy to let her waste their time with interviews.

IT Consulting

Systems Analyst

Customer Relations-Overseas Division

Security Management

Personal Assistant ;)

Although she still thought her job options were as dire as she had then, this time the face she made was a smile. She clicked out of her email program and pulled up her video chat. Half a minute later, Bruce's voice crackled through the speaker.

"Tasha. Hi."

Her grin widened at the surprise in his voice. "Your video's not working."

"It's not? Hang on."

She almost told him not to bother, because she could easily visualize his expressions and mannerisms, but then he appeared on her screen in all his disheveledness.

"I'm surprised you're not in the lab," she said, noting the backdrop of the lounge behind him. She leaned back into the lumpy couch cushions behind her, wishing she were in her usual spot on the sectional.

"It's Christmas Eve," Bruce replied. "Closed up shop early."

"Where's Steve?"

"Candlelight service. I'd ask where you are, but that's probably classified..."

Actually it was.

"…so instead I'll ask if you need anything."

All this time, and he still thought she only came to him because she needed something.

"Actually, yeah," she said, shifting the laptop so she could adjust the knitted afghan over her legs. "I need someone to watch a movie with me."

Even over video chat, he glanced away, caught his lower lip between his teeth. "It's a Wonderful Life is about to come on."

"Perfect," said Natasha.

"Hey," she said, crouching in front of Bruce's seat on the quinjet.

He pulled off his headphones, the muffled strains of an opera aria drifting out, and his eyes, shadowed with fatigue, sought hers.

"The Lullaby worked better than ever," she told him, and he smiled weakly, not nearly as excited as he should be that the scepter had been found, the job was done. "How long before you trust me?"

"It's not you I don't trust."

It should have made her sad-it did make her sad-but it also made her heartbeat quicken. She looked across the bay and caught Steve watching her with a smile.

Tony piloted the plane west, toward the setting sun. To Natasha, it looked like the break of dawn.

The End

A/N: It feels very strange to see those words at the end of this chapter. I was just typing along and suddenly that was it, the story I began in May, right after I saw Age of Ultron, was all told. Writing this fic has been one of the best fandom experiences I've had. For one, I've just loved this story about these characters. For another, I've loved sharing that with all you Bruce and Natasha fans, receiving such wonderful feedback about the story and my writing, and making new friends in the fandom. I can't thank you enough for sticking with me these past twenty weeks, but the biggest thanks of all go to Malinzin, without whom I never would have started writing MCU fic, and who served as much more than a beta reader.

I do hope I brought the story to a satisfying conclusion, and that if you thought so you'll let me know, one more time. And if you're sad that it's over, as I am, know that unlike Bruce, I will not be flying off in stealth mode now that the job's done. I have a whole Word doc full of Bruce x Natasha fic ideas just waiting to be written!