I apologize for the delay in updating. These past couple of weeks have been a bit hectic for me, but luckily I managed to get around to finishing this up for you guys. So I hope I haven't disappointed anyone too much, but nevertheless, enjoy! And also, I hope you're all having a wonderful holiday season. :)

"Alright, run through: what's our plan once we land in Kolkata?" Before Natasha stepped into the passenger side of the bird she and the other two were flying, she looked expectantly at the two men.

"You take the south side of the city, Cap takes the west, then I take the east side and the slums," Clint responded confidently, hoisting himself up into the pilot's seat. "We keep in touch in case anyone finds anything."

"Then take the quickest means of transport to get there," Steve added, quite obviously.

Natasha nodded satisfactorily. "Exactly. And the biggest thing: if you run into danger, don't take it on alone. We all know who we're dealing with here."

"Yeah, Tasha," Clint replied lowly. "We know."

She shot a brief glance in the archer's direction, giving a single nod of her head before climbing in the passenger seat of one of S.H.I.E.L.D'S planes. It was only a moment before Clint hoisted himself into the pilot's seat and Steve took his place in the back, each drenched in a sheet of heavy silence.

Finally, after some brief preparations, they set off. This time, Clint pushed the plane over its normal speed limit, his face set in an apprehensive grimace.

# #

Only shortly after he'd finished speaking, Loki had exited the room, leaving Bruce in solitude. Closing with a rather loud thud, the door sealed Bruce in with the after-effects of Loki's words, but for some reason unknown, anger was the one emotion least present. In fact, it felt as if there wasn't any room left for him to feel angry.

Bruce clenched his jaw, leaning his forehead against the cool cement of the wall.

He'd come all this way for nothing, hadn't he?

Maybe Tony hadn't had a choice in Loki's doings, and maybe it was all an act of some sick possession scheme, but that was a scenario that Bruce just failed to believe. Tony wasn't there anymore. There was something else inside his body, something that had replaced whatever was there before, whether or not that was the love they claimed to share.

It was draining, honestly, and not a drop of the usual blazing rage flooded through Bruce's veins when he clenched his fist against the wall.

"Well don't you just look awful." The door slid open with a screech, and Tony's silhouette was visible in the doorway.

Bruce reluctantly dignified the comment with a brief glance in Tony's direction, catching the unusually blazing light of the arc reactor in the corner of his eye. He opened his mouth to say something but not a single word was formed.

"Look, Banner," Tony sighed in that familiar, exasperated tone. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way."

Pausing, Bruce took a moment to clear his throat. "And what ways are those?" he inquired, his voice a low, gravelly tone.

"The easy way is that you cooperate with us and don't be a nuisance," Tony began, "and that you don't try and push that dumb hero complex thing."

Bruce tightened his jaw in response to the latter half of Tony's reply. "...and the hard way?"

"You don't cooperate and we partake in actions that will certainly not be enjoyable on your part," Tony spat.

"Keep in mind that we're prepared for both."

Bruce turned to fully face Tony, his arms limp at his sides. He met the cold gaze that was set on him, giving a brief shake if his head. "What happened to you?" he asked softly, struggling to keep his voice from breaking.

At first, Tony's answer was nothing but a bout of eerie silence. But then, rather confidently, he said, "I realized."

"Realized what?" Bruce felt as though his voice was one of pleading, as much as he loathed to admit it. "What could you have possibly realized that made you... made you act like this?"

"Realized that I don't need that team," Tony sneered, the response almost immediate. "That I don't need you."

Bruce almost winced at the comment. That stung.

And of course now, at this terribly and utterly inconvenient moment, it was Bruce who was realizing - realizing that Loki had been right before about his pathetic notion of false love, and that now Tony too was right.

Unneeded.

A feeling only too familiar, and one that crept through Bruce's veins as Tony's fingers locked around the collar of his shirt, forcibly dragging him along to some other area in the dilapidated building.

# #

As soon as the plane landed in India, the three remaining team members split in their respective directions. Each were equipped with a wireless communication system lest they run into any sort of danger or, hopefully, they found a lead.

Natasha was the first to reach her general destination, disguising herself as bet she could in order to pass unnoticed in the city. The whole trip sent an odd sense of déjà-vu through her, and she tried to push it away as she walked through the crowded streets.

A rather long while had passed between their departure and where she stood now, and all throughout the time span, not a word had been uttered between the three. Natasha assumed that Clint and Steve were just as frustrated as she was, if not even more so, and she decided to take a breather and pause beside one of the many rather ruinous buildings.

"You guys found anything?" she murmured, clicking on her earpiece.

"Nothing worthwhile on my end," came Steve's delayed reply. "If he was here, he didn't leave any tracks. Barton?"

"Not so sure." Clint sounded rather distant. "It looks like he's passed through the slum areas - which is kind of a given, I mean, this is Banner we're talking about here - but there's nothing definitive. I think our best bet is probably the city. Easier to be discreet there."

"Yeah," Natasha scoffed. "Tell me about it." With a shake of her head, Natasha turned to observe the building behind her. The door looked as if it had been forced open, which wasn't particularly unusual for this area, but for some unknown reason it seemed just a hair suspicious. Gently, she pushed it the rest of the way open, taking a cautious step into what seemed like an empty facility.

As she advanced further into the building, Natasha felt as though her suspicions were being proved correct. With each step she took, she felt as if she was an inch closer to what she was looking for, and it wasn't long until she spotted what looked like a jacket crumpled in the corner of one of the many rooms, looking as if it'd been forcefully shed and tossed aside in a hustle.

Curiously, she moved towards the article of clothing and gently ran her hand over the worn, much broken-in tweed. It wasn't a garment that was common in an area like this, and when she thought 'tweed jacket', she thought of only one person - undoubtedly, this was Bruce's.

He was here. Or if he wasn't still, he clearly had been, and if anything, that gave her at least a small bit of a lead.

Draping the jacket over her arm, Natasha continued throughout the dim corridors. As she walked, she kept her ears perked, and was near one hundred percent sure she heard the faint sound of a voice from somewhere to her left.

"I don't know what you're asking me to do." As Natasha got closer, the voices magnified. "You just - you keep saying cooperate, but nothing about what I'm cooperating with."

"You'll get your answers soon enough," another voice snapped, and it sounded awfully similar to that of Tony Stark. The tone of the reply silenced the other - which Natasha safely assumed was Bruce - and the footsteps faded towards their destination.

Hastily, Natasha followed expertly behind the two, silently clicking on her earpiece once more. "Barton, Rogers - south side of the city, there's a large, empty building with a kicked in door, approximately three stories high. Get down here as soon as possible," she whispered.

"Found something?" Clint asked.

"Yeah," Natasha replied, "Stark and Banner both."

# #

Soon enough, Tony had reached his destination, and he and Bruce stood in front of Loki yet again. The god wore a faint expression of smug amusement on his face as he watched Tony loosen his grip and leave Bruce standing in the middle of the room.

"Hmm." Loki's first words were somewhere between a purr and a chuckle. "Seems just like love, doesn't it?" That remark sparked a tiny bit of rage within Bruce's core, but it quickly dissipated.

"You just don't learn, do you?" Bruce said, forcing himself to sound more confident than he actually felt.

"Oh, I've learned." Loki shot a brief glance at Tony by his side. "I've learned more than enough."

A humorless smile appeared on Bruce's face, and he shook his head with a sad form of defiance. "You think you know," he replied. "You think you know, but you don't. You don't know what he's capable of."

"Oh?" Loki's eyebrows rose questioningly. "In who's favor?"

To that, Bruce had no reply. He would have liked to think that Tony's capabilities were in his favor, and in the favor of the rest of the Avengers, but at this point, he wasn't so sure. Honestly, at this point, he was just tired more than anything, and the whole scene felt hazy. Watching Tony was like a burning blur and Loki's words felt almost chaotic, and more than anything he just wanted to be back home in the tower, sleeping soundly until he was sure he'd comfortably wake beside his partner.

But in harsh reality, that wasn't the case, and the sight of Loki's triumphant expression just enforced the notion.

Loki advanced forward a few steps, and had opened his mouth to speak, but the only words that floated into the room were not from the god's silver tongue, but from a familiar female voice behind the three.

"I thought we'd taken care of you." Natasha's voice came as somewhat of a relief. "I'd think that you'd have learned from your previous... misfortunes."

"You're correct," Loki replied, the grin never leaving his face. "It's something I've derived from your own race - learn from your mistakes, yes? It's quite a simple notion."

"There's also two sides to that judgment." Natasha's arms were straight by her sides as she stepped forward to stand beside Bruce in the center.

"You see, Miss Romanoff, I don't play those games." Insidiously, Loki grasped his scepter with a chokehold and lifted it from his side, the sharp-ended tip aimed at the two across from him. It all happened very fast then - a wide blaze of electric blue tore through the air, but both Natasha and Bruce managed to roll out of its path in a matter of seconds. The blazes continued to soar from the end of the scepter and parts of the walls fell crumbling mercilessly at the impact. Bruce didn't quite see everything that was happening around him - the whole scene was almost like some sick daze - but then he managed to make out a flash of Natasha's fiery hair as she expertly tackled Loki from behind.

It was only a matter of time (seconds, minutes, hours? He didn't know) before the blurred forms of Clint and Steve burst into the room, and Bruce took a second to breathe a sigh of timid relief. Good, he's outnumbered now.

But to his dismay, the chaos only escalated. However helpful or necessary, the addition of the other two only increased the violence, the electric blue flares now coupled with an onslaught of arrows and whatever else was flying around the area in a hurricane of catastrophe. Dazedly, Bruce tried to make sense of the whole thing, and internally debated on how to initiate his own role - was now really the time to...

A moment later, his thoughts were cut short when he caught sight of Tony lifting a gun.

Bruce halted, his eyes staring down the barrel from a distance. His body ceased all movement, and he found himself oblivious to the rest of the commotion. What the hell was this? Tony never used guns - but then he remembered that Tony wasn't the same, not anymore; he'd changed, been fiercely and forcibly altered, and was now the type of man to pull a gun on the one he claimed to cherish only a short while before.

Slowly, cautiously, Bruce pulled himself to a standing position, keeping his eyes locked on the weapon. He couldn't quite comprehend the emotion coursing through his head; it wasn't fear, because he knew the consequences of his quarrels with guns all too well, and oddly, it wasn't relief either - and finally he settled on the fact that it had to be... betrayal.

Then Tony pulled the trigger.