Special Needs: A Bruce and Natasha FanFic

Chapter 44: Dream a Little Dream of Me

Summary: Not the Cincinnati chapter you were looking for . . .   First, back to Natasha whose sleep on Thursday night did not go undisturbed--but in a good way!

Notes: Yes, you should go listen to Moma Cass sing "Dream a Little of Me" before and/or after reading this. Many thanks to Autumn_Froste for beta duties and listening to my worrying about characters.

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Natasha had been so tired, she'd barely gotten her teeth brushed before she staggered off to bed. She'd left Bruce's sweatshirt on and lay in his spot with his pillow. How was it possible to be so happy, yet so slightly miserable at the same time? She missed him to the point she physically ached. As she drifted off to sleep, she imagined Bruce holding her. Natasha thought about his breath on the back of her neck and his lips gently kissing her. She was sure he'd want to pull her close and stroke her stomach as they thought of their child growing there. Just 58 hours . . .

Natasha had wanted to carry those thoughts with her into her dreams, but it didn't quite go as she'd hoped. Tonight it was the cell in Sokovia, but it could just as easily have been the hospital blazing or the apartment building collapsing or the list went on and on. Tonight Ultron had a Darth Vader rasp to its voice as it backed her into a cell and slammed the door. She hunted through old junked equipment that included children's toys and fresh produce until she found a red-haired fashion doll in one of her cocktail dresses that said, "Hi, there. I'm Natasha, and I'm scared shitless by Tony's vibrainium id." She tossed that one to the back of the cell on a pile of green bananas. "I think what you want is over in the corner," said a Jiminy Cricket voice. She looked up and saw the voice came from a green ragdoll with long ears and a shock of yarn hair like a Mohawk or a horse's mane. She pointed and gave it a questioning look, "Over here?" It nodded its head. Sure enough, there were the radio components stacked in the corner next to the oranges and mangos.

"Thanks," she said to the ragdoll. "Have you got a name?"

"Big G," it said. "I'm not sure what it stands for. Are you okay? The robots are rather scary. I've counted over 200 of them."

"I'll be okay. I'm going to have my friends bust me out," she explained. "First, I need to contact them and tell them our location."

"I hope you have a lot of friends," it said.

"Enough to get this job done and stop the robots," she said as she started tapping out Morse Code. Clint answered her back. She was to sit tight and wait for them. Observe what Ultron's minions were doing, but don't engage them on her own. Well, duh! "Okay, they'll be coming. Do you want to leave with us, too, Big G?" There was no answer. She looked for it, but the doll seemed to have disappeared. Then she heard Bruce's voice calling her name. She replied, but he seemed to be going in the wrong direction or his voice was echoing strangely off the curved stone walls. She thought she heard footsteps, but they didn't belong to an adult. She pressed against the bars, trying to see who it could be just around the corner. She was surprised to see a child climbing down the pile of rubble beyond the end of her cell. "Hey, there. Where did you come from?" she asked.

The child cleared the debris and looked up. He had dark curls and grinned at her in recognition, "'Tasha!" He was preschool or kindergarten age at the most, and he ran to meet her at the bars. "For you," he said as he held out a large iron key.

"Thank you very much. That's exactly what I needed. How did you get here, Mister?" she asked him, but the child just stood back and grinned, so excited and pleased with himself that he jumped up and down. She fitted the key to the lock and let herself out. He immediately ran to her and she scooped him up in her arms. "Where are your parents? I bet they're missing you, my big handsome rescuer." All he did was giggle in response then he reached up to touch her hair. She noticed he had the most beautiful green eyes, several shades darker than her own, but otherwise he looked so much like . . . "Hey, you know my name. What's your name, Mister?"