The first thing Bruce noticed as he stumbled through his apartment door at 2 am was the wide-open French doors that lead out to the sprawling grounds of the facility. Granted it took him much longer than it would have if he wasn’t high on lack of sleep, he had wandered into the kitchen and was munching on a muffin staring blankly at the fluttering curtains and the moonlit patio furniture. He blinked curiously, some time ago this would have set off alarms he would have grabbed his go bag and would have been out the door and down the road in minutes, but that instinct has faded to a small buzz in the back of his head.
The second thing he noticed, well second and third thing, was the rancid smell. It was like a rabid skunk had rolled in sun boiled trash and rancid sick then took a stroll through his living room and that someone was using his garden hose. He chewed his muffin slowly, contemplative, and move to the open doors to see what the person was doing, he was hoping whomever it was hosing down that skunk.
Just Natasha in only her briefs and sports bra, white claw in one hand and hose in the other. She looked absolutely peeved, her hair dulled and tangled with muck, curious splatterings of questionably dark mire outlined the uncovered skin left from her uniform. The said uniform was a dark lump in the grass, what he had mistaken as the skunk, and she was spraying it down like it was a bed of petunias.
Bruce sank down on a lounge and blinked slowly up at her as she slurped loudly at her Claw.
“Good mission?” He finally asked.
She grunted as she finished her Claw and crushed the can.
She was silent for such a long time that Bruce fell back on the lounge heavy eyes falling closed. He dozed to the sound of water pattering against tactical cloth and grass. He breathed in the scent of water, night air, and a faint unholy stink, it made him crinkle his nose and remember what had drawn him out here in the first place.
“What smells like rotten ass?” He slurred fingers going limp around the muffin wrapper.
“That would be the sweet sweet scent of the Bucharest sewers.” She said plopping down on the corner of the lounge.
The vile smell amplified with her proximity. Bruce’s eyes popped as he gagged on the smell of Eastern European trash and waste, his exhaustion disappeared in a blink of an eye as he felt the muffin revisit the back of his throat. Desperately he propped himself up on his elbow to try and reintroduce oxygen to his system as he choked on the lightly digested muffin.
Natasha leaned over and patted his back with all the strength of a limp fish.
He finally managed to swallow his bile and sucked in a breath of air through his mouth being very careful to not breathe through his nose least this all start over again.
“Nat, I love you,” he muttered into the hand covering his nose ”but please hose yourself off before coming back inside.”
There was a beat before a wet plop and his entire face and upper chest was covered with her stinking sopping wet uniform.
”Looks like we both will, Mudak.” her arms draped around his waist as she settled down next to him.
Bruce pulled the uniform from his face and cast her an apologetic look. ”I guess you could use the shower.”
She hummed and pressed her face into his side. ”That's what I thought.”