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Excerpt from the Second In-Between, Chapter 8.

BNAU #3

Nat is injuried while she and Bruce are taking a trip. Nat sinks into a coma from her intensive injuries, and Bruce finds out that the attackers only attacked her because they couldn't hurt him.

So he's in the Waiting Room, contemplating something, when a doctor comes out and tells Bruce about Nat's condition. At the end, the doctor asks Bruce, "Should we be expecting you?"

Bruce: "What do you mean?"

And the doctor smiles sadly, "You're an Avenger. It's in the name. Besides, I have the feeling she's someone you love and when someone you love gets injured like that..." and the two of them fall silent.

So Bruce finds Yelena, tells her about Nat, and she agrees to help him. Two weeks later, no change in Nat but Bruce looks like a new man.

He systematically finds and takes down the people that attacked them, and then the organization that sent them. He left a trail behind him but he didn't really care.

The criminal underworld called him a psychopath. Others called him a vigilante. Even others just didn't say anything at all, fearing he'd hear.

In the end, when the organization was gone and they were buried, Bruce came back. Nat was awake, he had been told, and had been asking for him. He returns and she asks him, "What have you been doing?"

And Bruce just breaks. His armour, the one that had shielded him from the actuality of killing had broken and he just poured it out. Every hunt, every chase, every conclusion.

He doesn't know if she'd forgive him , or if she was angry, if she felt anything at all.

And then he feels her running her fingers through his hair and her, just her, right beside him, and he knows.

This can't ever be the same. They can't ever go back to the way it was before. He has made a name for himself, and others will come for him. It was a decision he made, he knew the price, and he was willing to pay it.

When Nat falls alseep, he writes her a note: I love you’s and I'm sorry's peppered the page until he signed his name. He places it on the bedstand, kisses her forehead and smiles, meloncholy in the lamplight.

And then he leaves.

He runs, and he runs without her.

"It is for the best.”

He says that, repeats it every time he doubts.

It is not. But it is done.