Body & Soul: The Endgame Fix
Part 4: Ongoing Relationship
Summary: Finally, Bruce and Natasha have some alone time in the Hummer HX. They have a lot to discuss and feelings to work through.
“What is this exactly?” Natasha asked as Bruce helped her into the front passenger seat of his very large dark gray vehicle.
“Tony called it ‘Hummerstein’ but it’s a custom extension build on a prototype HX for which I probably paid too much. That was before we switched out the gas engine for a modified arc reactor.” He sighed contemplatively. It still felt odd to think of his Science Bro and good friend in the past tense.
Bruce got in on his side and settled behind the wheel, buckled up, and pushed the ignition button on the dash with his right thumb. It took a little effort, but he was managing to shift smoothly with his right arm again. Helen had given him the okay to drive a few days ago since the Vibranium-enhanced grafts were bonding so well. He supposed he could have just jumped about twenty times and made the commute under his own power, but it generally messed up his civilian clothes and did a little damage to the landscape. Besides, he enjoyed driving, so why not?
The introduction to “Body and Soul” by Anita Baker began to play over the impressive sound system. Nat simply raised a questioning eyebrow at him. Bruce looked a little embarrassed, but only switched the volume down a bit. “I like this one too much to torture you with my singing,” he said. They both sat and listened for minute.
What have you done to me?
I can’t eat, I cannot sleep,
And I’m not the same anymore, no, no.
I don’t know what to do
‘Cause all of me wants all of you.
Do I stand alone at the shore now?
Once I could turn away
From everything I feel today,
But now I wanna walk through your door.
But I’ve got to know, oh, body and soul,
That you’ve got no doubt, inside and out
We are whole, ho, body and soul.
Don’t leave me out in the cold
Just love me body and soul
Do you hear me, baby?
Bruce finally turned to Natasha, “I want you to be honest with me, okay? If anything makes you uncomfortable for whatever reason, please tell me, and I will back off. The last thing I want you to do is feel pressured or . . .” Natasha unbuckled her seatbelt, and he fell silent, looking as if the world had dropped out from under him, but she didn’t unlock her car door. Instead, she closed the distance between them and ducked under his right arm, so she was sitting in his lap, facing him with her back mostly to the wheel.
He sighed with relief and Natasha took off his glasses and laid them on the dashboard. She reached out for him and took Bruce’s face in both her hands and pressed her forehead to his. They slowly rubbed their faces together and touched, silently reintroducing themselves. She’d always had this lovely citrus and floral smell like no one else, and he thought back to the last morning they’d spent together, before the alarm clock had gone off and he’d had to leave for Virginia and his sessions with Lee Samson.
Just a few days before, they’d had a small birthday/apartment-warming party for Steve at his new place in Brooklyn. He’d lived with Sharon off and on while he and Sam had been in hiding and on the run, but this was the first time he’d had a place completely on his own because she’d been snapped. Now, since the population was halved, he finally had a place back in the old neighborhood once again. It was all rather bittersweet.
Several people were leaving the Avengers Compound, and Bruce had met with the Bridgewater Town Council the previous week to discuss redeveloping the Old Textile Mill Property along the Hendrix River at the town’s edge. It would be an easy commute to the Compound, but it felt like it was a world away. He planned to show it to Natasha and get her opinion the next week. Bruce hoped she’d like it as much as he did and want to live with him there, at least part of the time. The attached house and grounds had real potential to become a home, something they’d both agreed they wanted.
She’d playfully rolled him over on his back at about 5:00am and kissed him awake, starting with his stomach and nipples and working her way up. They’d slept in the same bed long enough for this to have become a pattern. What nature hadn’t already done for him, Natasha’s fingers and mouth quickly inspired. He’d reached for a condom, and she’d quickly sat up and plucked it out of his hand. He’d learned she liked to do that, too. “In a hurry, are we?” Bruce asked as he stretched his arms over his head and arched his back as she worked on him.
Body & Soul: The Endgame Fix
Part 3: Resurrections
Summary: We start on Monday morning of October 30, 2023, the day before Halloween. Bruce plans Natasha's memorial while visiting the wreckage at the Avengers Compound, and he thinks back to what led up to losing her.
On the thirteenth day since he’d learned Natasha was gone, Bruce stood on the spit of lakeshore high ground that was left between the crater where the Avengers Compound had stood and the partially drained lake. The salvage efforts were almost complete, and the rebuilding would start soon. It was so-called “Mischief Night” and Halloween was tomorrow, but he wasn’t particularly feeling it. He looked to his left at the mist over the diminished lake and couldn’t stop remembering what was gone. The dock that he’d ripped the bench from and tossed to the other shore was washed away. It was probably somewhere in the muddy pit with all the high-tech rubble from the buildings. The spot where he’d held up the pancaked concrete layers of the wrecked main building on his left shoulder while he, Rocket, and Rhodey waited those tense minutes for Scott to save the day was now under thirty feet of muddy water.
Tony’s estate wouldn’t be through probate for several months, but he, Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey had been meeting to rough out plans for the new and (as always) improved facility. He imagined it would be done before the legal will was read. Tony had left them a ton of ideas to go through, but they obviously had a jump on the demolition Bruce thought with a little bitterness.
The excavation and recovery effort had started immediately after the funeral, but with Scott’s help, Bruce had been the one to find most of Natasha’s things that were salvageable. To be honest, he was really just looking for some mementoes, something of hers to bury since they didn’t have a body. The ballet toe shoes and her third favorite sidearm seemed appropriate. Old Stanislaus, the maintenance worker who’d returned to duty the day after the battle, had offered to make a box for them. Bruce had brought him the bench he’d pitched since it was one of them Nat and he liked to sit on together when he first arrived back on Earth before he moved to his place in Bridgewater about forty minutes to the north.
His rural property was a quiet place, but it had a lot of old small-town charm and was within walking distance of anything he needed day to day. He’d also wanted to be part of a community and not a hermit. Happily, he’d found a home there in Bridgewater. Bruce had initially picked it because of the extensive grounds and the lack of zoning, so he was able to add cutting-edge lab spaces into the older gutted buildings yet still keep the overall appeal of the Arts and Crafts and Victorian exteriors. After his metamorphosis, he’d redone the interiors to a larger scale to match his increased size and height. Everything was off the grid and sustainable, so he was rather proud of that. At some point, he began to think of it as his permanent home.
Tony had even worked with him on modifying his Hummer HX and switching it over to run on a modified Arc Reactor. Bruce was really glad they’d been able to talk as they worked because they’d both felt like they were trying to get over breakups of a sort, yet really feeling guilty deep down for enjoying themselves and finding some normalcy and even joy after the Decimation. Little Morgan had never known him as anyone other than big, green Uncle Bruce, so she didn’t judge. Thankfully, Pepper hadn’t either. She and Tony both saw that he was finally comfortable as himself. No tip-toeing. No overwhelming fear of destroying those he loved. No debilitating pain from the transformations or from holding his larger form. In many ways, Bruce was at peace. With one huge exception, he was happy, too.
He never could get Natasha away from her station at the Avengers Compound, not even to see the gardens he’d added so naively three and four years ago for her. Rhodey had even offered to step in for her to take the helm at the Compound, so she and Bruce could spend some time together. That proposition had really brought things to a head, and Nat and he had quarreled . . . loudly, over her fixation with saving what was left of the universe and what it was costing her psychologically and physically. He had begged her to come with him, just for the weekend, for a day or two, no pressure, separate bedrooms, and she’d scornfully told him he was selfish. He only cared about himself and his desires.
Bruce had finally had enough. “They used to be your desires, too, Nat.” During the first three weeks after they’d killed Thanos, the two of them had started making plans, but the day he’d returned from his trip to Willowdale, Virginia, to see Leonard Samson and start therapy, she’d ignored and avoided him, acted like he was a complete stranger and then a leper. Not three days before that, he’d poured his heart out to her about needing to find a compromise between both halves. He’d explained that might require serious changes, a lot of digging down deep to find the root of their anger, if he was ever going be whole. She’d said she understood and would be his . . . their partner in this journey. She sincerely wanted this for him . . . for both of them, and by extension their own relationship.
After he arrived back at the Compound from Virginia, her sudden coolness had shocked him. What had he done? He must have done something to offend her, but she’d never say. For crying out loud, they’d shared a bed for nearly two months! Suddenly, she wouldn’t even stay in the same room with him unless he physically cornered her. After a month of that icy treatment and tension, he’d been forced to embark on his journey alone. Maybe if she’d been there with them like she’d promised, the changes might have come about differently or seemed less drastic and more of an organic progression like he’d experienced them. Even if he couldn’t convince her to engage with them, they’d been very satisfied with the “upgrades” once the physical and mental integration process was complete. In 18 months, what was done was done. No going back. He was finally whole. Maybe he’d made it permanent to burn their bridges and give her the excuse to be repelled by his size, his color, his “monstrousness”? If she was really that shallow . . . Yet, the thing that still didn’t make any sense, the issue he couldn’t reconcile, was that she’d pursued him . . . waited for him . . . said she loved him and wanted a life with him. Bruce knew she’d been sincere, that she hadn’t lied to him. He would have known.
Yet, that day in the conference room, all of that frustration boiled over as she attacked him and refused to let him help her or give their relationship one last chance. Bruce had crossed his massive forearms across his chest and asked if she was too embarrassed now to even be seen with him much less touch him like she once had. Natasha admitted she was repelled by the sight of him because he’d “mutilated” himself. He didn’t even look human to her.
Bruce had left, but not before pointing out that he’d repeatedly asked for her input before he started, and she’d ignored him and his requests. Yes, maybe he was selfish, but he was willing to put in the hard work on himself to find some peace for him and safety for others. There was no “mutilation” unless she counted her cutting his heart out. Whether or not she approved of the results, he was happier and healthier than he’d been since 2003, maybe even before that. He did not feel guilty about that one bit. He’d asked her several times to go to counselling, and she’d made every excuse to avoid it. Where had her “mission” and her unnecessary martyrdom gotten her? Try looking in the mirror. She was a wreck inside and out. When she was ready to start living again, she knew where to find him. He’d be damned if he’d stand by and watch her slowly, needlessly kill herself any longer. After that, he’d taken a page from Tony’s playbook and mostly washed his hands of anything to do with Avenging.
He hadn’t seen her face-to-face again until Steve had called and asked him to come meet with him and Scott about a new possibility to science their way out of the Decimation, so Bruce had picked a diner where he’d been often enough they had a chair made especially for him. He’d been completely surprised when she walked in with Steve and Scott. Natasha looked even more chronically fatigued than before, but she was still beautiful to him. He’d half expected her to be “with” Steve, but their body language said otherwise. Bruce did his best to be cordial, which made him feel down right manic. He was in a good place, and when she threw out the line about what he’d done for himself having seemed impossible, Bruce didn’t fight her stoking his vanity and wrapping him around her little finger one more time. Despite how she’d treated him and abandon what they’d agreed they both wanted, he’d still loved her, and he still desired what they’d almost had. She’d meant that much to him. Now, he knew he’d never really been over her at all. “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” He wasn’t so certain he agreed with Tennyson because he certainly hadn’t learned from the experience. He hadn’t moved on. Now, all he could do was mourn her, and it hurt.
Bruce took a deep breath and filled his large set of lungs with crisp morning air. Now, it was fall and the oaks and maples were finally showing their colors. Bruce walked the grassy strip with the blast crater on his right and the lake on his left. He was feeling melancholy, mostly because he was trying to plan Natasha’s memorial. He’d Skyped earlier that morning with Lee and talked to Betty for the first time since she’d been back. She’d returned to a son and daughter who’d jumped from three and five years old to eight and ten. Lee said that deep down he had held onto the hope she wasn’t lost, and it had paid off thanks to Bruce. Betty had thanked him, and Bruce was too happy for them to say anything. He was just thankful they’d had their reunion, their resurrection. She’d wanted to have a look at the arm, and he’d agreed to come down in a month or so. He’d already gone through two treatments with Helen and Shuri, which had the limb looking and functioning a lot closer to normal. Thankfully, Betty hadn’t given him any negative feedback about his looks or the “changes,” so at least he’d not had to deal with that. No doubt, Lee had given her a heads-up, but still, it was a kindness and he appreciated it.
Bruce had been having fun over the past week or so discovering what Shuri had packed into the Kimoyo Bead she’d given him. He was not wearing the glove or the prosthetic sleeve that morning because everything was healing so well. He used his scared right hand to roll the Bead on his left wrist to see what the new campus would look like via his glasses. The main building and visitor’s center would have Tony’s name on it, but the committee had agreed the Natasha Romanoff Training Facility would be the next biggest structure along with the new practice grounds. There would be a rose garden and a columbarium for remains, too. Later, they would probably add statues to keep Hap appeased, but Pepper, Rhodey, and he wanted to keep things simple here. Clint and Steve would probably agree with the majority. Thor had told him to be his proxy. There were already enough heroic statues planned elsewhere around the world.
Bruce wasn’t quite sure why he scanned back toward the left to the half-empty lake with its dissipating mists, but he was thinking of sitting on the dock with her, placing his arm around her shoulders and Nat leaning her head against the crook of his neck. They’d had plans. Maybe they’d have been able to patch things up once all the damn guilt-soaked red ink had been washed out of her ledger a hundred billion times over. Something set the Kimoyo Bead blinking and then it vibrated, so Bruce swung his attention back around and looked at the water left in the middle of the lake. It was a deep-water lake, so there was still well over a hundred feet of water in the middle beyond the 25-30 yards of sloping mudflats, gravel beds, and brush left exposed. He’d estimated it might take as long as a year for the lake to fill up naturally now that the shoreline had been mostly repaired.
Bruce tapped his earpiece to access the mobile interface in his glasses. “Friday, use the Bead’s sensors to analyze what set it off. I want to know what’s left in the center of the lake.”
“Aye, Dr. Banner, aside from rocks and detritus, it appears to be a metallic object about 25 x 20 meters. It may be a craft. Make and type, unknown. Possibly a type of . . . spacecraft,” the Interface informed him as it continued to gather data and analyze it. “That would be my best guess as to what it is, Sar. It seems to have been in place for an extended period of time, but has just recently ‘decloaked,’ for the lack of a better description.”
“Then it’s not Tony’s?”
If the Interface could have cleared its throat, it would have. “I think I’d recognize Mr. Stark’s work.”
“Sorry, Friday, I had to ask. Are you sure it’s not a Chitauri craft or something else left over from Thanos’ attack?”
“No, Doctor, it’s much smaller, too lightly armored: it’s only about eighteen tons and not at all like what previously did battle here. The sediment would indicate it’s been in place for a number of years.”
“Any idea what it’s doing here? Is there anyone in it?”
“Nothing conclusive yet, Dr. Banner. The metal makes scanning a challenge. Wait, an affirmative: there is one humanoid aboard. No detectable mechanical activity aside from life support though. Shall I try and establish contact?”
“Yes, and alert Colonel Rhodes and whomever else is closest . . . Get Fury if he’s available.”
A few tense moments passed as Bruce considered what to do. He wasn’t back up to fighting form yet, but he could summon the Hulk-Buster armor and a couple of others from storage at his place for backup if needed—Tony had those and more than a few other projects stored there in various stages of completion. He hoped Morgan or Peter or Harley would finish them with him.
Friday’s lilting voice finally reported back: “I’ve not been able to reach Colonel Rhodes because he’s on assignment, but I successfully contacted Fury. Ms. Maximov is on her way from New York City. Fury advises you to sit tight and wait till they arrive. He has contacted Carol Danvers as well.”
Great. The big gun. “All right, Friday. Is the mystery ship still just sitting there? No response?”
“No response to my . . . wait. I’m getting audio. I’ll patch it through . . .”
