Title: Symbiotic
Author: SLynn

Summary: As SHIELD decides to work with someone new, the Avengers are learning just how well they really work together.

Notes: Thanks for the reviews and favorites! This one is kind of short. I'll make up for that later. Enjoy!

"You really don't care?"

Tony tilted his head to the side in an effort to get a clearer view at the machinery he was currently working on. Adjusting his lens, he welded the final piece in place before setting down his gear and giving Natasha his full attention.

"No," he answered indifferently. "I don't."

Natasha sighed heavily but it made no difference to Tony's demeanor.

"What about transparency?" she asked, attacking from a new angle as Tony set to work on something entirely new.

"What about it?"

"There is obviously something we're not being told."

"And you asked Phil already?" Tony returned, focused mainly on his work but his eyes occasionally darting up to meet her own. "Clint?"

"Yes."

"Have you asked Carol?"

"Phil and Clint are sticking to their story," Natasha said, deflecting the issue.

"Which means exactly what in spy talk?" Tony asked with a smirk. "That you don't think you'll get anything new out of her? You don't know her well enough to read her tells?" he continued to persist. "Are you losing your touch?"

Natasha didn't dignify his accusations with an answer. At least not a verbal one. If looks could kill, Tony knew he'd be dead.

"I just think it's odd," Natasha said plainly. "We've all seen what she can do."

"Up close, unfortunately," Tony added absentmindedly rubbing his chest, Carol had cracked one of his ribs pushing him into a wall.

"And you still don't think it's strange that with all that power she never managed to escape? That she never even tried? Not once, in four years?"

"That place was locked down tight."

"I'm not buying it," Natasha said with a simple shake of her head.

"I'm not selling it," Tony returned almost reflexively.

"Clint tried to escape," Natasha continued to press. "He took every opportunity available to get out of there."

"I'm not so sure that speaks well of your boyfriend's intelligence," he answered with a smile. "That place was a fortress built on nightmares."

"Phil even tried once."

"After Clint showed up," Tony pointed out. "I have asked, Natasha. I know the story."

As Phil told it, until he'd seen Clint, he had assumed the worst about Loki's Chautari led invasion. Using Carol as an intermediary, Clint and Phil had managed to get through the basics of that fight, but not much more. It was actually Clint's determined efforts to escape that drove Phil into action.

At least that was how he told it.

"You admit you think it's a story."

"I'm not admitting anything," Tony sighed, realizing this fight was a long time coming. The tension had been steadily growing, stemming from Natasha's dissatisfaction with the sequence of events as they'd been told to her and everyone else. "Listen, there was no way out. Pure and simple. Clint told you so himself. He only kept at it because he knew no one was looking for them. He saw Phil and knew everyone would assume he was dead, too. Phil and Carol didn't know that. They had no reason to think there wasn't a rescue in the works somewhere down the line."

Natasha got to her feet and stood over him, glowering down at Tony while he worked.

"I'm not saying there aren't holes," Tony finally did admit, leaning back in his chair to look her square in the eyes. "What do you want me to do about it?" he asked, stretching into a yawn.

"You've been elected leader, Tony. Lead."

"I think you're confusing leader with chief inquisitor. Or is that the same thing in Russian?"

"Why aren't you taking this seriously?"

"Because I'm probably in on it," Tony said with a laugh.

"Tony."

"Seriously, Tasha. Look at everything on my plate," he said, pushing his chair back and wheeling towards his main workstation. "Look at all this. I've got new equipment to field. Old equipment to fix. Upgrades for my suit, the team comms, the jet. I've got security features to test. Skrulls. Kree. SHIELD. Avengers. Not to mention my own projects that keep all of this afloat. I don't have time to worry about why my friends don't want to talk about their time in torture town. Okay?"

"You think they were tortured?"

"I know they were."

"Medical showed no signs -"

"Physically. No signs, physically," Tony interrupted as he got to his feet and walked around Natasha to a completely different workstation. "I hear what you're saying. I'm aware, okay? Things aren't exactly right and your instincts are not something I am willing to just ignore. Without you we'd all probably have been replaced with doppelgangers and sitting in our own glass cells wondering what the hell happened."

Natasha didn't say anything. Just continued to look at him as if disappointed.

Tony cast about the room for a moment, foolishly hoping an answer would somehow appear. He knew from experience that things didn't work that way. Productivity yielded results.

He had to do something.

"I'll talk to Phil," he relented. "Will that make you happy?"

"No."

"Will anything I do make you happy?"

"It's doubtful," she said with a small shrug of her shoulders, "but it's a start."

"Well, I am at your service. Apparently," he tacked on sarcastically. "I'll talk to Phil and Clint. Carol if I need to. This is all probably nothing."

"I hope so."

"That's rude," Darcy said as she slid into the seat opposite Carol. "Reading at the dinner table. It's rude." Carol held up her finger as if requesting silence for a moment longer. "That's also rude," Darcy informed her indifferently.

"Sorry," Carol said, marking her place as she set the book down in the empty chair beside her. "I have to get through it before someone spoils it for me."

"There's a TV show now," Darcy shrugged in-between bites of pasta. "You know that, right?"

"Yes," Carol said, maybe a little more seriously than the situation warranted. "I do. And I want to get through this before I start that."

"Priorities," Darcy said as if in agreement.

"I can't always tell if you're mocking me..."

"She's mocking you," Steve said, coming over and standing beside their table, plate in hand. "May I join you?"

Carol nodded, rearranging her plate and glass to make room. Darcy just laughed as she kicked out a chair for him to sit in.

For a few minutes it was awkward silence. Carol and Steve never spoke much, something he was trying to correct. He didn't know much, if anything, about her. And she didn't seem too inclined to reveal much, if anything, to him.

Darcy was quietly thrilled to be watching the attempt.

"So," Steve said after a few more bites, "what are you reading?"

"Nothing much," Carol returned, trying to shrug it off as unimportant.

"Just a dictionary," Darcy added.

"It's not..." Carol started to say, but that was clearly a lie. The book was huge.

"I haven't read much modern literature," Steve admitted, still determined to have some kind of conversation with Carol.

"Can't imagine you have a lot of spare time," Carol said without really looking up from her plate.

"Probably more than I should," he laughed. "I usually end up wasting time watching movies."

"The talkies fascinate him," Darcy said with a smirk.

"We had talking films when I grew up," Steve sighed, having clearly told Darcy the same thing many, many times before.

Again, there was silence. Awkward silence.

"I haven't seen you at the gym lately," Steve said, willing to try again to start any kind of discourse.

"I've been running at the park."

"With our new security measures -"

"I can handle myself," Carol interrupted.

Steve just nodded, pushing his food around the plate for a moment before continuing, "No one here thinks you can't. If they did, you wouldn't be here. It's just more important now that we all watch out for one another."

"If Tony wants me to check in and out of the Tower, I will," she returned, but the more she spoke the more emotionless her face became. "I understand the importance of protocol."

"It's not a rule."

"Then why bring it up?"

Steve looked like he was about to argue it with her, but instead let it slide. "Fair enough," he said, turning his eyes back to his own plate and focusing on finishing his dinner.

"This is fun," Darcy said before taking a sip of her soda. "We should do this every night."

Carol, having gone a little pink around her ears, soon after collected her things and left them with a simple, "Excuse me."

As she left, Bruce and Bobbi entered and not long after them Clint arrived, so they all sat down together with Darcy and Steve.

"So, Clint," Darcy began. "Tell us. Why does Carol hate Steve?"

Steve rolled his eyes when Clint looked at him with genuine surprise.

"She doesn't hate Steve," he answered.

"Uh-huh," Darcy said almost dismissively. "That's what I thought. We'll have to go higher and ask Phil."

"Ask Phil all you want but she doesn't," Clint countered. "Why?"

"Because she does," Darcy answered.

"She was a little..." Steve started to say, but Darcy talked over him.

"Rude."

"Terse," he provided.

"It was rude," Darcy continued to insist, "but she doesn't have manners so..."

"Why don't you think she has manners?" Bruce asked, not really sure he wanted to know the answer. Carol was always polite enough to him.

"She reads at the table."

"I read at the table," Clint said with a stony expression.

Darcy only pointed at him, as if that proved her point, and Bobbi laughed.

"I do, too," Bruce added.

"Still not helping," Darcy said with a shrug.

"She's probably having a bad night," Steve said, hoping to dismiss the topic.

"Probably," Bruce agreed.

"And Bruce's manners are passable," Bobbi said with a smile. "Barton however..."

"Wasn't a lot of opportunity for me to practice the social graces growing up," Clint said with faux-sincerity. "Sorry about that. I try and make do."

"We all have to sometimes," Bobbi agreed, with a hint of a smile. "For example, I didn't get into Emory and had to go to Georgia Tech. You've got to work with what you've got."

For a moment there was another bout of absolute silence as Clint dropped his face into his hands as if unable to stand it a moment longer.

But to everyone's surprise, he wasn't angry. He was trying not to laugh, and failing.

Once he couldn't stop himself and Clint started really laughing, they all did. Bobbi included. She obviously knew she was being ridiculous and was rather pleased with the outcome. Steve was too. They all needed a laugh. Especially after today.

"Yes, Morse," Clint said, still unable to keep a straight face. Laughter permeating his words. "That's exactly the same. Me growing up dirt poor is just like you not getting into your first choice of colleges. Exactly."