Tony cursed under his breath as Hulk cradled him closer. Tony couldn't feel his left foot and there was a burning pain in his left side in general so he figured when he got out of this he was going to have to see about strengthening his suit against everything.

Hulk bounded again and Tony scrunched his eyes closed against the pain.

Steve pushed back his cowl as he approached the cave Hulk had retreated to with Tony. "Hulk?"

Hulk turned his head and snorted. "Starman."

Smiling at the nickname, Steve stopped when Hulk tensed up. "You're protecting Iron Man, right?"

With a blink, Hulk shifted so he filled the cave's mouth more completely.

Steve nodded. "Yeah. Hulk...we need to get Tony to a doctor."

Hulk blew out a huff of air. "Wait for puny Bruce."

Frowning, Steve took a step forward and stopped when Hulk growled. "I know you want to help, but Tony probably can't wait for Bruce." Steve edged a little closer. "Not this time."

Hulk grunted and stood up. "Starman need Metalhead?"

"Uhm." Steve rubbed his fingers through his hair. "Yes."

A helicopter flew over and Hulk roared up at it. He backed further into the mouth of the cave and glared at Steve.

"Damn it." Steve turned partway away from the cave. "Whoever the idiot flying that copter is they'd better stand down. Now!"

The helicopter settled into the clearing below the cave's slope.

Steve held his hands out towards the Hulk. "It is alright. No one is going to attack you."

Hulk curled his hands into fists. "Hulk smash."

Coulson slowly climbed up the slope. "I would prefer that you don't drag injured teammates into the wilderness, Mr. Hulk."

Hulk huffed and held out a small rock towards Coulson. "Hulk protect."

Coulson took the rock and pocketed it without looking at it. "Thank you for the rock, Mr. Hulk."

Steve eased up beside Coulson. "Hulk, could we check on Tony?"

Hulk frowned. "No."

Tony wiggled his way out of his armor and stared at his left foot. Looked fine, didn't feel that way though. He poked at it with his fingers. "Weird."

He looked around himself at the crystals and rock protruding from the cave walls. "Awesome." He pulled his phone from his pocket and stared at the no signal status. "Right. Cave with signal scrambling built in." He pocketed the phone.

Tony tried to stand and grimaced as his left leg refused to hold his weight. Settling himself on a piece of his armor, Tony started checking over his leg. He could hear the Hulk around the corner in the cave, but it sounded like he wasn't too happy, so Tony wasn't going to yell for him right now. He could wait. Maybe.

Coulson fingered the rock in his pocket as he looked up at the Hulk. "Is there a reason you don't want us near Mr. Stark?"

Hulk knuckled the ground. "Hulk protect."

Steve nodded. "We know and that's good, Hulk. We want to protect Tony too."

Hulk sighed and shuffled on his feet. "No."

Coulson frowned and pulled the rock from his pocket. He turned it over in his hand and found a smear of blood on the back side. "Mr. Hulk, something is wrong with Mr. Stark?"

Hulk smiled at them.

Coulson resisted the urge to rub the bridge of his nose.

Steve sat staring at the Hulk as he stared back. They were waiting for Coulson to get back with the results from the blood sample. "I wouldn't hurt Tony."

Hulk rumbled and moved at Steve fast enough he couldn't get out of the way. They landed with him under the Hulk, who was bracing his weight to either side of Steve. "Like Metalhead?"

Steve nodded. "Yes. I like Tony. He's my friend."

Hulk huffed in Steve's face and leaned in to stare into Steve's eyes. "Friend."

Steve swallowed, but stayed where he was. He nodded as he kept his eyes on the Hulk. "Yes."

Hulk grinned and straightened up. "Starman not puny."

Steve sat up. "Uhm, okay?"

With a quick lunge, Hulk grabbed up Steve in his massive hands.

Steve forced himself to stay limp as the Hulk didn't try to smash him. Hulk turned and took them into the cave.

Tony checked over his armor as he fought the feeling he needed to lay down. The Hulk had gone quieter, but it was too much of pain to drag himself out there when his foot refused to communicate with the rest of him.

Tony rubbed at the back of his neck. Something else was off, but he couldn't focus well enough to tell what it was.

The ground rumbled and Tony blinked as the Hulk appeared from around the corner with Steve caught up in the Hulk's massive arms.

"Steve!" Tony grinned and tried to stand, but his left side was hurting more now so he just sat where he landed. "Steve."

Steve was wiggling out of the Hulk's hold even as the Hulk sat him down. "Tony, what happened to you?"

Tony knocked on the armor's thigh plate. "I don't know."

Hulk backed up a step and sat down with a large thud. "Smell wrong."

Steve took a deep breath through his nose. "Oh. Tony..." Steve frowned and moved around Tony until he was on Tony's left. "Why are you glowing green?"

Tony frowned down at himself. "I'm not glowing." He fingered the arc reactor through his shirt. "Well, any more than normal."

Steve cocked his head and reached out to touch Tony's left side. "I see a green glow. Hulk, do you see this?"

Hulk grunted and turned away from them as Steve touched Tony's side.

Coulson breathed hard as he hurried up the slope to the cave. Captain Rogers and the Hulk were nowhere to be seen. Phil stopped just inside the mouth of the cave so he could slow his breathing.

Hulk was just around the corner and he moved towards Phil, causing him to back away until they were back at the mouth of the cave.

"Mr. Hulk, we really need to get Tony medical attention." Phil frowned at the Hulk's stubborn chin lift. "Please?"

Hulk blinked. "Metalhead needs mate."

Phil needed a translation book for this. Between Thor's and Clint's influence on the Hulk's vocabulary, Phil was never certain quite what Hulk meant sometimes. "Mate?"

With a smile, the Hulk leaned back against the side of the cave's mouth. "Metalhead like Starman."

"Yes." Phil was quite aware of Tony's crush on Rogers. "Captain Rogers likes Metalhead as well."

Hulk beamed at him. "Yes."

Phil settled down on a flat rock near the Hulk. "Okay. You think the unknown drug in Tony's system will make Captain Rogers and Stark mates?"

With a shrug, Hulk rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. "Smell better." Then the Hulk went to sleep.

Steve pushed his gloved hand against the green glow in the left side of Tony's chest. "What do you mean you can't see it?"

Tony blinked and leaned into Steve as he studied the glow. "Nope. Just the light from me." Tony laid his own hand overtop of Steve's hand.

There was a jolt and then Steve was lost in a sea of numbers, equations, plans, and failures parading before his eyes. He listened to Tony go quiet and then they were staring at each other with their hands on Tony's ribs.

Steve looked down at their hands. "The glow is gone."

Tony blinked and slowly pulled his hand out away. "You really think like that?"

"What?" Steve rubbed at his ear.

"All trajectories and contingencies." Tony frowned as his left foot started to hurt more. "I don't feel good."

Steve hauled Tony to his feet and held him up as Tony struggled to get his legs under himself. "Come on. We need to get you medical attention."

Coulson helped Dr. Banner to his feet. "Do you have any idea what the Hulk means when he uses 'mate' in reference to Stark and Captain Rogers?"

Bruce rubbed at his hair. "Uhm, no?" He looked around. "What happened? I thought we were in a town."

Rogers appeared from around the corner of the cave half-carrying Stark. "I've been exposed to whatever is affecting Tony."

Coulson frowned as he gave them a once over on the way down the slope to the waiting transport. Stark's left side was obviously stiffer than the other side. He was favoring his foot. What worried Coulson the most was that he wasn't complaining or giving them shit for not collecting the armor straight away. "Stark?"

Stark turned his head and smiled a happy open smile at Coulson. "Hey, Agent. My favorite one, you know. I need to remember to give you..." He frowned and snapped his fingers as he almost tripped over his own feet. "Something. JARVIS? JARVIS!"

Rogers winced as Stark bellowed close to his ear. "Tony!" He shifted his hold on Stark. "Tony, JARVIS is busy right now, okay? Just walk."

Bruce caught up to them and put himself under Tony's free arm. "Tony, do you feel drunk?"

Coulson trailed along behind as he typed out a coded request for the quintjet to come in for the armor as soon as the helicopter he'd commandeered was off the ground.

Tony felt weird. He normally didn't like this much touching, but Steve's manhandling him out of the cave and into the helicopter wasn't bothersome. Tony wiggled his left foot and giggled as Bruce frowned at him. "See? Works."

Bruce held onto Tony's ankle and kept him from kicking. "Yes, I see that. I was asking you about what you felt like overall, Tony."

"Oh." Tony tried to think about it, but he was busy with all the normal things he thought and an onslaught of things he'd picked up from Steve that he was trying to sort through. "Uhm...What was the question?"

Coulson appeared to one side. "Stark, we're letting the armor go to the Air Force."

Tony frowned. "What?"

Coulson turned to Bruce. "He's either high or being mind controlled."

Bruce looked between both of them. "You'd better hope he doesn't remember this later."

Coulson almost smiled. "He might find it funny."

Tony patted Steve's arm. "I think they are weird too."

Steve frowned. "Tony, I thought that once when they were discussing a kid's movie."

Tony shrugged. "You thought it loudly."

"What?" Bruce ducked down to stare into Tony's eyes. "Tony? What do you mean by that?"

Tony started to answer, but he passed out instead.

Steve caught Tony as he collapsed. "He was glowing green along his left side, but he said he couldn't see anything to do with the green glow."

Bruce pursed his lips. "He isn't glowing now."

Steve shook his head. "I put my hand on his side and it stopped."

Coulson turned from where he was making a call for medical to met them when they landed. "I'm sensing a but coming."

Steve grimaced. "But, well, we had something happen. I felt like I was immersed in a sea of equations, and fail...things." He helped Bruce rearranged Tony's limp body. "Tony said he hadn't thought I'd be just contingencies and trajectories just after that."

Bruce and Coulson exchanged looks.

"What do you mean by 'married' exactly?" Tony rotated his left foot at the ankle as he glared at Coulson.

"According to Thor it is supposed to be a gift."

Tony scratched his beard. "A gift?" He gestured to his foot. "It made me nuts."

"Evidently you aren't supposed to get hit by it while pulling a couple of G's and then a barrell roll right after that."

"Lovely." Tony frowned down at his hands in his lap. "How do we remove it?"

Coulson raised his eyebrows. "We don't." He held up his hands as Tony started to protest. "Thor says it is permanent and very revered. It is a great honor."

Tony snorted. "Yeah, great honor. Having the other person know all the crap..."

"Stark."

Tony looked up at Coulson. "What?"

"He likes you." Coulson sat down on the edge of Tony's hospital bed. "The Hulk himself didn't let anyone else near you. Just because Rogers seems prefect, doesn't mean that he is."

"He..." Tony shook his head. "There was obviously a mistake. We only heard things from each other's heads for a couple of seconds."

"Thor said that's not unheard of."

Tony threw up his hands. "Oh, great! We're taking advice from a guy who thinks breaking cups is a sign of appreciation."

Coulson raised an eyebrow. "What are you afraid of, the fact that you and Rogers are effectively married, or that he has seen inside your head?"

"I'm not afraid!" Tony crossed his arms over his chest. "Who said I was afraid?"

"Stark, do not make me tase you. I am not in the mood."

Tony huffed and dropped his hands to curl them into his blankets. He frowned and looked down the bed at his toes. "He hasn't come to see me."

"Ah." Coulson nodded. "I thought I had mentioned. He isn't allowed out of his own medical room until we are certain the Hulk was right when he said you smelled better. That having put you both in close proximity was all that was needed to clear the unknown substance from your blood."

Tony's eyebrows drew together. "Wait...Unknown substance? What?"

"We think that was what was causing you to display erratic behavior and effectively married you to Captain Rogers."

Tony ignored the last part of that. "Erratic? When was I errat...No. Don't answer that one."

Coulson smiled.

Steve slipped into Tony's room after midnight and found Tony asleep with a tablet beside him still glowing. Steve carefully picked up the tablet and tried to figure out if Tony's work was saved or not so Steve could turn off the tablet. He finally sat the tablet down on the bedside table.

Steve settled into a chair next to Tony's bed and rested his hands on the closer of Tony's blanket covered shins. "I, uh, lied earlier. I told the doctors that all I got from your head were equations and plans. That wasn't all." Steve stopped and patted Tony's shin softly. "You had a thread of failure running through your thoughts. That Howard would have been mad at you for this or that plan you were revising."

He sat forward and straightened the lay of the blanket over Tony's feet. "How you fight with all that running through your head I don't know." He sat back. "You should know...Howard would have been proud, Tony."

Tony kept snoring lightly and Steve nodded to himself. "He would have loved the armor. I know we weren't really prepared for being bonded, but I'll do my best to make sure you know you aren't just your ego."

Steve made a place for his head at Tony's hip and hummed to himself as he went to sleep with Tony's hand resting against the back of his head.