Issue #1: The Longest Night Characters: Bruce, Natasha. Subject: Baby, I'm sorry... Location: Natasha's Avengers Tower Apartment. Date: Saturday, December 19th, 2015. Rating: PG+. Open To Others?: NO STAY OUT. Tagged/Dated? Yes, mom.
Her door was open. It was just... ajar. No one (seemed to be) around. Bruce glanced both ways down the short hallway and then lowered the basket in his arms to rest on one hip. He leaned forward, but the foyer was mostly dark. The geneticist pursed his lips with selfloathing as he realized he wasn't in a trap, but that she was so upset that she didn't want to greet him. Yeah. He got it. He steeled himself, regardless, because a punch in the jaw wasn't off the menu, and let out a quick sigh on his way over the threshold.
"Natasha?" Bruce called. There was a dim light around a corner, and he saw the city lights twinkling at the edge of a large set of windows as he took it. His arms loosened and the basket shifted automatically to be dangling from his left hand, and he let it thud lightly on the floor as he took in his first look at the Black Widow since the spring when she'd kissed him and pushed him down a hole. He was a world class dirt bag. All of his rationalizations fell short, suddenly; his excuses and reasons for leaving and staying gone. His lips parted, but he kept his teeth together, trying to piece something comforting together to say to her... her red ringlets hanging forward and barely covering her teary eyes. She was sitting alone in her apartment on her couch, phone in one hand, tissue in the other.
Dr. Banner clenched his jaw and blinked back some extra moisture of his own before he moved to kneel a few feet away from her. It'd been a while for the scientist, but he wanted to put all he had into a great big bear hug and never let go of someone. But he couldn't; even with her vulnerable and hurting. Not until he knew she wanted him to. Natasha wasn't a standard, well, anything... she didn't need a big strong guy to come in and pat her on the back and tell her he was sorry. Everything between the two of them always took time. He had no doubt this wouldn't be different. So, he'd start slow.
Bruce raised his hand up from where it'd rested on the floor by his calf and turned it palm-up, then slowly extended it to Natasha. She looked like she could use a lullaby.