Just a random little story. In my story 'Fireworks' someone suggested that I write a story where instead of Bruce 'rescuing' Natasha from the flirtations of someone at a party, Natasha should instead 'rescue' Bruce. Well here you go!

The Moon and the Stars:

"You can be the moon and
still be jealous of the stars."

Jealousy.

It was an awkward emotion, one that Natasha never imagined she might feel herself, and certainly not an emotion she fathomed she could feel over one odd and dorky scientist named Bruce Banner. She squelched it down each and every time she saw a woman talk to Bruce at Tony's ridiculous parties, although it wasn't so hard when Bruce seemed completely oblivious to the fact that women were hitting on him. And yet the feeling was always there in the background. Lingering.

Just as she did with Steve on numerous occasions, she would tease Bruce over his obliviousness, but whereas Steve knew and would turn beet red, floundering most times; Bruce would just smile and tell her she was mistaken because apparently he didn't quite believe a woman would actually flirt with the man who could turned into a giant green rage monster.

Natasha proved him wrong on more than one occasion. Sitting just a little too close to him, smiling or laughing even when his jokes were terrible—of which most times they were—and making off-handed remarks when she thought a particular shirt of a particularly deep purple color suited him best. He never took her seriously, though to be frank she had only ever been playing around. She hadn't even taken herself seriously the last few months.

It wasn't until Bruce acknowledged the flirtations of a woman at one of Tony's parties that she was given pause. He smiled at the woman who was pulling Natasha's own move of sitting just a little too close, a move she had taught Bruce to be more aware of, and she felt her brow wrinkle slightly in distaste at bearing witness to it.

Jealousy and envy were hideous, treacherous and trivial little emotions that she had made other women feel on many occasions but had never once had the displeasure of feeling herself. Bruce wasn't just acknowledging the woman beside him, he was laughing with her, holding a conversation for several minutes when she noticed Tony's footsteps come to a stop beside her.

Even if his loud and sloppy footwork hadn't given him away, his big mouth certainly did stand-up job of that all by its lonesome just a moment later, "Jealousy looks terrible on you, Red, yet you've continued to wear it for about ten minutes now."

Natasha didn't say anything, she didn't even shift her eyes in his direction as she sipped at her drink and kept her gaze looking in Bruce's general direction.

"You know, you created this little storm," Tony informed her next, "it's a little pathetic to get mad when it starts to rain on your parade."

She responded with only the slightest roll of her eyes, something she found herself doing often when he spoke to her, and then stirred her drink with the little umbrella straw as she ignored the billionaire.

"You could just go interrupt them," Tony suggested with a chuckle.

She still didn't dignify him with a response but when she sipped her drink she found the glass was dry. Unfortunately getting another would mean going over by Bruce and his current companion, something she had no interest in doing.

"Ouch, raw deal," Tony told her as he poked her empty glass. "I don't get it. I mean I get that you're jealous of the way she's flirting with Bruce, although your poker face is totally top notch and if I hadn't known you as long as I have then I'd have never figured it out, but why are you jealous?" came his question of curiosity.

Why was she jealous? That question had the most simple answer in the world, one that her brain didn't think twice about before it answered the question silently. She was jealous because that woman, the woman Bruce smiled at in a way he didn't quite look at Natasha herself, was everything that she could never be. Lacking the baggage of a killer. That woman was simple. She was normal. And sure, Natasha could act the part, play the role of simple and normal, but she could never just be normal. Any sense of that word had been meticulously stripped from her genetic code at youth. Shredded and then abandoned inside of some dark abyss in the universe that she couldn't have found if it hit her square in the face. Normal, much like jealousy, went against her very nature.

Still, going to the bar with Bruce and his floozy would be less bothersome than listening to Tony yammer so that was what she did. "You know, Stark. Sometimes I look at you and wonder..." she commented without much care in her voice as she stood up, took her empty glass, and left Tony high and dry with her only words to him for the night to show just how much she loved him as she looked at him over her shoulder, "why has nobody hit you with a brick?"

"That's just rude, Romanoff," Tony called back to her, but she could hear the laughter in his voice. It was their usual repartee of wits. He bugged her for a few minutes knowing he was egging her on and she would leave him with a snarky and offensive comment that he never took to heart. It was just their thing, and to be honest Natasha wouldn't have it any other way.

And apparently neither would Tony given that he continued their daily banter each and every time. She had a feeling he would miss it if she ever left.

Hell...she might miss it too. Though she would be damned if she ever told him that.

She didn't bother with the formality of letting a bartender make her drink when she got across the party, she simply lifted the bar top and went to the opposite side, mixing her own concoction. She could feel Bruce's eyes on her. She could also sense his amusement with her actions but she didn't look over in his direction, determined not to interrupt him during the one time he actually dared to converse with someone who wasn't one of the Avengers.

Or at least Natasha tried to keep from interrupting them. That plan went out the window when she realized the woman beside Bruce was actually calling to her.

"Hello?"

She blinked several times before she shifted her gaze towards the brunette beside Bruce. He had his hand covering his face in his unique expression of exasperation and she quirked an eyebrow up at the woman.

"Yeah, hi, can you c'mere?"

Natasha sauntered over until she was standing in front of them on the opposite side of the counter.

The woman looked rather annoyed and for the life of her Natasha couldn't figure out what she could have possibly done to irk her. Her question came out just as annoyed as her face looked, "Is that the drink I asked for like..." she glanced at her watch, "ten minutes ago?"

Natasha thought it was a joke at first but when she noticed Bruce's shoulders shaking with silent laughter while he kept his face covered, she realized the woman was serious. She gave the brunette a slanted little smile before she slid the martini glass in front of her, "It is now."

"Thaaaank you," the woman sung out as she picked up the glass and stood up. Natasha watched as the woman gave Bruce's bicep a flirtatious little squeeze and she looked down at the counter in amusement when the woman whispered not so subtly into his ear, "Come find me later."

She gave Bruce credit. He gave it thirty seconds after the woman walked away before he snorted and coughed out a laugh. "Sorry to interrupt," she offered up to the scientist as she pulled out two glasses and a metal shaker to mix new drinks.

"No, no, don't be sorry," Bruce assured her after he finished the laughing fit, "she was a uh...vapid, vapid woman."

Natasha inclined her head slightly, "In that case, if she comes back and tells me I made her drink wrong then I do know at least seven ways to kill her with that umbrella straw." Bruce was grinning at her comment and she quirked an eyebrow up before giving him a sideways little smile. She shook the metal shaker with both hands before she poured some into each glass. She slid one glass in front of him before lifting her own and taking a sip. "What made her so, as you so kindly put it, vapid?" she dared to ask.

"She spent ten minutes talking about watching paint dry," Bruce stated with clear distaste.

She tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes, "I hope that's a joke."

"It is but it also isn't," Bruce assured her, "I'm not sure what she was really talking about if I'm being honest, how her manicurist messed up her nails and the latest news about the Kardashians. I suppose the more valid thing to say would be that talking to her was a lot like watching paint dry, or in this case, listening to it dry."

Natasha coughed slightly when she heard him say it, choking just slightly on the sip of her beverage that she had just taken. Bruce was such a nice person that she never imagined he could say something unkind about another person, yet here he was now equating a rather beautiful woman's personality with one of the dullest activities in human history. She cleared her throat quietly for a moment before she eyed him in amusement, "I take it you don't plan to find her later then?"

Bruce's face was one of absolute horror, "Good grief, no, and if by some chance she finds me again...please save me."

"Your wish," Natasha assured him as she gave a little head bow, "my command."

The wrinkles around Bruce's eyes told her he was amused along with his laugh. If she had paid more attention earlier then she would have noticed that his laughter with the brunette hadn't been genuine, that the wrinkles of laughter hadn't been there, that his laugh was more hollow compared to usual.

She learned in that moment that jealousy was a funny little emotion. It took away your ability to perceive even the most obvious of notions.

It also came with a certain new light on the subject. That smile she saw Bruce give that woman, the smile he never used with her, was because the one he used in Natasha's own presence was real.

"So, you and Stark blowing up anything interesting later?" she questioned as she rested her arms atop the bar just across from him.

"That was a bottle rocket," Bruce reminded her with a certain light in his eyes that had been lacking earlier, "and it was one time."

"The two of you blow things up at least once a week, you're not fooling anyone, Doctor," Natasha assured him with the tiniest little smirk behind her glass. "Last week it was some new replusors he wanted for his suit, the week before that he tried use Gamma Rays on your pants to make them stretch with you when you go green and instead they spontaneously combusted. The week prior to that—"

Bruce's laugh cut her off before his words did, "Okay, okay. So we blow things up. Often." He sipped at his drink with ease, no slump or haggardness in his posture that usually existed when he was frustrated or uncomfortable, and then he talked about things that were far above her intelligence level; a feat considering she thought of herself as being remarkably clever and smart—until she met him. She let him babble for a good ten minutes, not interrupting as she sipped at her drink and he slowly sipped at his own before he seemed to catch himself, "And the ionization energy in it is astounding but this new suit just keeps breaking apart with the slightest bump—and...I'm so sorry, Natasha. Now you probably think talking to me is the equivalent of watching paint dry. You're not interested in this..."

Natasha released a tiny and sultry little laugh in response as she tapped his cheek playfully with the palm of her hand and give him a little reassurance, "If I was bored I either would have told you or I would have excused myself." She shrugged and sipped her drink again before she spoke, "Correct me if I'm wrong because I'm not an expert, but I've listened to you and Stark long enough to learn a few things. The issue you two are having with this new suit is superconductivity...that means the material has zero resistance?"

Bruce looked both intrigued, impressed, and even a little infatuated by her question, "Uh...y-yes."

"And resistance goes down with a temperature decrease?" she questioned next.

He tilted his head to the side before he answered, "Yes." A lightbulb seemed to turn on in his head, the cogs started turning, and he formed an 'O' shape with his mouth.

"So maybe your problem is with the internal coolant system in the suit. Basically, whatever it is you're using to keep the suit from overheating and frying Tony inside it like an ant under a magnifying glass," Natasha suggested before she sipped at her drink again and made a quip, "though in my opinion that part of the suit is highly overrated."

The scientist looked like he could have face palmed at the realization as he also grinned at her comment. It was an awkward look on his face with both of those together but it was just so...Bruce. "All the theories we came up with and you just pop out the simplest answer that we overlooked for two months..." he murmured out. She chuckled when he smiled, looked down and shook his head, then looked back up at her and spoke again, "Maybe you should hang around the lab more often. You know more about this stuff than you've ever let on."

Natasha scoffed, "I couldn't have even told you what superconductivity was before I knew you two dorks." She clinked her glass against his, sipped her own once more, then started heading back to the party as she called back to him, "But sure, I'll come hang around a bit more. For when you two geniuses need the more 'simple' ideas."

He was laughing. That genuine, eye crinkling, from the belly laugh she had grown so fond of.

But she didn't dare to look back.

She was getting attached to that dorky little man and that was never a good sign.

Jealousy. It was almost as irksome as the adoration Natasha was starting to feel for a certain dorky scientist with mind blowing anger management problems.

Hope you guys enjoyed this short little story!

-Kay