New York, 2012

"Bang!" Tony heard Barton cry out over the comms. "That's it, Cap, that's the last of them," he added from whatever bird nest he crawled into during the battle.

"Good," Rogers's commanding voice filled the feed. "Hawkeye and Widow, meeting point is at the square, we need to wait for S.H.I.E.L.D.'s cleaning team and assist them if necessary. Iron Man, can you…"

"Way ahead of you, Sprangles," Tony said casually, making a quick turn around the skyscraper, following the information JARVIS had brought on the interface concerning Banner's whereabouts. He quickly spotted the man just a block ahead, lying unconscious in the middle of the evacuated street. "Got the visual. I'll be bringing him in shortly."

The Hulk bailed on them a little early today, which wasn't all that surprising considering the shitton of missiles and weird energy projectiles hurled at him from all possible sides. They didn't do any lasting damage to his green hide, of course, but might have messed up the transformation process and given Banner some nasty headache for the rest of the day.

The billionaire proceeded to land then and came closer to his incapacitated friend. The "retrieval" duty usually fell on him, part of the whole "team" thing that was now, apparently, his life. He had his doubts with it actually working out for any of them in the end, but did not mind this particular routine.

"Banner?" Tony called out, getting on his knees near the scientist, only now noticing that the guy was shaking and sort of thrashing around on the concrete. "Banner? You there yet? Come on, I know it was a bad one, but you gotta come to quickly, so we can get the hell out of here…" he urged softly, helping Banner to sit. The man was still largely unresponsive in his shaking, even though it was all for his benefit, thank you very much.

Finally, the physicist has opened his eyes a little bit and stared ahead of himself in a daze, making some slight motion with his lips.

"Blood…" he muttered, barely audible, "…there's blood in my mouth…"

At that Tony has leaned in just a touch closer, bringing a hand to Banner's jaw and pressing lightly on it, opening the man's mouth (the lack of resistance on the scientist's part was not reassuring). "What? Oh yeah, fuck," he grimaced, seeing the gory mess inside it, "you've bitten your tongue during a de-hulk, shit, this is gross…" he flinched just a little at that, his gloved thumb brushing briefly against Banner's bloodied tongue, clinking lightly on his teeth. The motion was barely there, but it made the other man go rigid, as if this particular combination of stimuli set off some kind of reaction and…

and he's suddenly there. It's cold, and there's wind, and he's so tired, he just wants it all to end (why won't he let me go), and now, finally, maybe, certainly it will work, the taste of metal on his lips (bitter like blood), warm, soothing metal, surely it will work this time, it will kill me (him), kill me, kill me…

"Kill me…" Banner rasped faintly, clenching Tony's hand in a surprisingly strong grip.

"Whoa there, tiger, it's not that bad!" the engineer exclaimed, grinning nervously. "The girls will still like you."

At that Banner's released his hand, and his gaze seemed to focus at last. He blinked rapidly a several times, pressed his hand to his forehead, and then lifted his eyes to Tony with some surprise, as if just now noticing the presence of the other man.

"…Tony?" he croaked, before coughing a little to get his voice back. "Tony, why is there blood in my mouth?" he sounded worried and somewhat afraid, but completely conscious of his own words this time. Actually, he sounded just like the usual post-transformation Banner, and so Tony was replying in a confident and cheery tone he always used when the man was like this.

"Relax, I think you've bitten your tongue during a de-hulk, nothing serious."

"Did I…"

"I said relax," he reiterated. "Everything's cool."

The physicist looked a little bit more at ease at that.

"Oh? That's good," he whispered tiredly, "that's good. You know, for a moment there, I thought I was…"

"What?"

He looked at Tony, doubt bordering fear in his eyes, voice unsteady.

"There… "

And Tony got it, really, he did. He knew the place, knew how it felt (hot and dry and dark) and tasted (smoke and sand and iron), and how it sometimes just crept up on you, seemingly out of nowhere, because of some tiny, insignificant thing, and how it trapped you and drained you and choked the daylight out of you.

"Yeah, yeah, you were, buddy," he grinned again and patted Banner lightly on the shoulder, careful of the suit's increased strength. "But now you're back again. You're back again." Because that was important, that was the only thing that mattered and made sense.

And then Banner smiled his little wry smile and screwed up his eyes nearsightedly and began to stand up, clenching the tattered remains of a pair of pants, and Tony stood up with him, just a step away, to provide support if needed.

They were going to get back to the Tower now, where Banner would get some medical attention and his traditional twelve to sixteen hours of sleep, Tony would repair the damage to the armor and maybe watch some of the combat footage, Rogers would nag him about sticking to Fury's orders and following procedure and, you know, the usual.

This team thing was sort of hard on all of them, and took a lot of getting used to, but in the end... yeah, maybe it was going to work.


A/N: And that's it. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I was anxious about posting it (which is a lot). Please review if you have a minute, that would really make my day.