Together We're an Ocean
PenPatronus
Chapter 10
Together We're a Time Bomb

Steve Rogers sat on the bed beside Tony. Using the cleanest towel they had and what little soap they had left, he gently scrubbed the dry blood out of Tony's hair and scalp, careful to clean the head wound without agitating it. Footsteps pounded on the porch. The door opened and Clint Barton hopped in behind a sweating Bruce Banner. Careful not to wake the sleeping Stark, Clint shut the door with his knee and Bruce deposited a long bundle of junk on the floor. Steve counted two plastic snow shovels, a pair of wooden snow skis, an aluminum rake, three handsaws, a hammer, and a six-foot-long ladder. Bruce gulped down some water, checked Tony's pulse and breathing and, with a quick wave at Steve, dashed back outside.

"Did my best but he's going to shoot himself in the foot with that shotgun," grunted Clint as he sat down on the floor with his back against the wall. "How can such a smart guy be such a lousy shot?"

"Compared to you, we're all lousy shots," said Steve.

"Didn't even need superhero serum." Clint cracked his knuckles and grinned. "We set up a perimeter and rigged some boobytraps." Barton sorted through the pile until he found a small saw. Balancing the ladder across his lap, he began to cut through the center of each rung.

"Can I ask you a question?" Steve asked. He tossed his teammate a half-empty box of crackers that expired in 2005.

Clint downed a handful. "You'll get an honest answer," he warned.

A smile twitched in the corner of Steve's lips. "Say you knew a secret… A big secret, like—like you saw your best friend's dame out with another guy—"

"Natasha told me about what you saw in that HYDRA bunker."

Steve sat up straight and stared at Barton. "She did?"

"Mmm hmm," Clint hummed.

Rogers glanced back down at Tony and confirmed that he was still in the same deep sleep he'd been in since the seizure. "She told you about Howard Stark and the Winter Soldier?"

"Yeah." Clint kept sawing.

"Are you going to tell Tony?"

Clint's eyes met Steve's. "Are you?"

"Are you?"

Clint cleared his throat. He finished sawing through the rungs and spread the two halves of the ladder beside his legs. "Stand up," he said.

"Why?" Steve asked.

Barton got up on his one foot. "I eyeballed the measurements. Want to see if I got them right."

"Measurements for what?"

Clint flapped his palm, impatient. By the time Steve situated his splinted leg and stood on his unbroken one, Barton had hopped over with the halved ladder. Steve let him slide one half under his left armpit and the other under his right. Then, Clint braced Steve's hands against a lower pair of rungs. "Test drive," he encouraged.

It took Steve an extra second to realize what Clint had turned the ladder into. Carefully, he relaxed his weight onto the makeshift crutches. He inched forward. He was quick and comfortable by the time he finished a lap around the cabin. "Wow," he said. "Not bad."

"I'll rubber band fabric around the top. Maybe find some duct tape for the bottoms so they don't slip."

"Good thinking. Thanks, Clint."

"I'm useful for more than firing arrows." Barton shrugged. "I also juggle."

"I'm grateful." Steve sat back down beside Tony. He put the crutches beside the mattress where he could easily grab them. "What about you? We need you mobile, too."

"Figure I can whittle armpit holes into those skis. In the meantime, I'll use a barstool." Barton pulled a stool away from the small table and leaned both hands against the oval-shaped top. "It's like a walker. Actually, old man, we should probably trade."

"Clint…"

Barton shuffled to the corner of the mattress and gently jumped up onto the stool. "I know, I know, I'm avoiding the question. Look, Cap, the only thing I know for sure is that if anyone's going to tell Stark that secret, it should be you."

Steve sighed. "Because Bucky is my responsibility…"

"No."

Cap looked at the archer, half-expecting him to continue speaking. "Because… Because Howard and I were friends…?"

Clint busied himself wrapping a leather belt around a hunting knife and testing each pocket in his jeans to figure out which would work best for a sheath. "No."

"Because he'll probably shoot the messenger, and of the three of us I'm less likely to die?"

"Bingo," Clint chuckled. He hesitated briefly, then rested his elbows on his knees and stared at Tony the way a farmer stares at a field desperate for rain. "I can't tell you what to do, Cap. Wouldn't try to. But, and don't take this the wrong way… Maybe you're asking the wrong question."

"The wrong question?"

"You're wondering how Tony will react when he hears the news. Maybe what you should be thinking about is how you'll feel if you do or do not tell him."

Steve's nose wrinkled. "Sounds selfish. This isn't about me."

"In a way, it is." Clint rolled his eyes high. "I could hear through that hospital ceiling vent, Steve. You lectured Stark about how the most selfish thing anyone on this team can do is not take care of themselves. Being an Avenger means that we watch each other's backs, and it means we don't do anything that could get ourselves hurt. So, ask yourself, will it or will it not hurt you to tell Tony the bad news?"

"It wasn't a lecture," Steve protested.

A cold hand touched Steve's wrist. A breathy whisper said, "Yeah, it was."

Steve and Clint jumped as if Tony had shouted, "Boo!"

"Tony?" Steve rotated his wrist and slid his hand forward to grasp Stark's wrist. "You, uh, have you been awake… long?"

Stark kept his eyes shut. "What bad news are you not telling me?"

Clint and Steve exchanged wide-eyed looks. Both hesitated for so long that Tony tapped his fingers against Steve's skin. "What's going on?"

Barton scooted his barstool closer and propped his sprained ankle up on the mattress. "We didn't want you to know, Stark, because you're already in a lot of pain."

Tony's throat worked. "Was that an earthquake or was I struck by lightning?"

"It was a seizure, Tony," Steve said softly.

"Not epileptic…"

"Could've been because of the head wound, maybe because of the fever."

Tony's eyebrows lifted. "And your bad news is worse than that?"

Steve pressed his lips together tight. He glanced at Clint, who stared back. "Well, Cap, tell him," Barton prompted.

That earned a glare. Steve shook his head and mouthed the words Are you kidding me? Barton didn't cower under the scowl. He didn't even blink.

Stark found the strength to open his eyes. "Steve?"

"The bad news is… The bad news is that all of our coms are down and we don't know where we are," Steve blurted. "We've been trying to find a map or a newspaper or an address on a letter around here but…" Steve avoided Clint's eyes. "Hulk nabbed us and just ran. Nobody knows we're alive, let alone where we are, so no rescue anytime soon. No hospital."

Tony licked his lips. "Phone? TV? Computer?"

"None," Clint said. "Nothing electronic at all."

"Any planes flying overhead? A trail marker? Flares?"

"Signal fire as a last resort. There's a good chance HYDRA's curious about why their lab exploded, so they might be searching for us. We're not in the best shape to put up a fight."

"How about a megaphone?" Tony lifted his head and examined their new home. "Direction? Front door is pointing at…?"

"Southeast," Barton reported. "That's all we know."

"Banner's walking the area," Steve explained, "but I don't want him out of sight of the cabin but I want him within shouting distance for now."

"Mmm." Tony cleared his throat. He wiggled his fingers, rotated his wrists, and bent his arms. "Need help."

"From Bruce?" Steve leaned in closer.

"Anyone."

Steve waited—impatiently. "What do you need?"

Tony gave him an apologetic look. "I gotta pee."

Clint's hand flew up. "Not it!"

TWO DAYS LATER

Even with the tire iron, it took Banner a good 20 minutes to fight his way through the vines and pry the radio out of the old truck. A raindrop landed on his nose the moment he crawled out. Bruce slid the vintage tech under his shirt, shouldered the shotgun, and jogged back into the cabin.

Barton sat shuffling a deck of cards at the table. He ducked at the sight of the waving shotgun. "God, Banner, I told you to keep the safety on!"

Banner shut the door behind him and leaned the shotgun against it. "And I told you it slips off by itself," Bruce stated between his teeth.

Tony, who sat on the mattress with a small pile of paper in his lap, slid his short pencil behind his ear and held out both hands. "Gimme."

"You're welcome," Bruce sighed, handing him the radio.

"'63 Chevy?"

"Yeah. Maybe. I don't know, Tony. Does it matter what kind of truck it is?"

"We're in a life-or-death situation and, once again, it's up to me to save our asses." Stark folded his legs Indian-style beneath him. "So yeah, Bruce, if this is the only tech we have that could possibly communicate with the outside world then, yes, every little detail helps."

"Yep, it's all up to you," Bruce said only loud enough for Barton to hear. "Our savior…"

Steve emerged from the bathroom using the ladder-crutches. He started towards the table but when he saw Barton sitting there, he made a left turn and sat at the foot of the mattress. The force of his sudden weight caused Tony's papers to jump. Stark cursed under his breath as he gathered the sheets up and used the radio as a paperweight. "TP's gone," Rogers announced.

Clint slammed the deck of cards down on the table. "There was a quarter of a roll left! Do you do everything super? Super-strength, super-hearing, super-sh—"

"Super-annoying is what you are," Steve hissed. He yanked a piece of paper out from under the radio and Frisbee-ed it across the room. "Put that on a roll!"

"Hey!" Tony shouted. "Dammit, Rogers, I don't want to lose those sketches!"

"Sketches?" Banner picked the sheet up. He laid it flat on the table and slid into a barstool across from Barton. "Tony, what the hell? We need you working on communications, not drawing, uh…" Bruce turned the paper upside down, and then another 90 degrees. "What are you working on, anyways?"

Tony looked offended. "It's a low orbit satellite."

"Looks like a fish," commented Clint.

Bruce shifted the angle once more. "And under it is, what? A bird?"

"It's armor." Tony crawled to the edge of the mattress and made a 'come here' motion with his finger. "I have a better version around here somewhere, assuming Cap didn't use it as a napkin."

Steve's nostrils flared. "Why would I need a napkin when I haven't eaten anything in 8 hours?"

"I offered you that last can of peaches," Clint reminded him.

Stark ignored them both. "It's special armor that will be stored in a satellite, ready to deploy at any time, any place on earth."

Banner examined the scale and quickly did the math in his head. "Tony, this suit is massive! Almost Hulk-sized."

"I call it…" Tony paused for dramatic effect… "The Hulk-Buster!" Three pairs of eyes looked at him. "Technology that can, you know, bust the Hulk."

Bruce dropped the paper and massaged his forehead. "Are you kidding me…"

"Kidding you about what?" Tony shrugged at Steve, who shrugged back. "Banner, you of all people—literally, of all people—know that we need a way to subdue the Other Guy if he gets out of control again. It's not like we can just sing a lullaby!"

Barton looked back over his shoulder at the pair on the mattress. "Code Green!" he whispered. Clint got off the barstool and hopped over to the kitchen counter. Rain pounded the thick glass window above the sink and completely obscured the view of the front lawn. Clint sat on the counter with a sigh. After reaching into his jeans pocket he realized that he left the playing cards on the table but instead of going back or asking for them, he inched slightly further away. The sprained ankle rested comfortably on a white bucket.

"Will it kill us?" Bruce wondered.

"No!" Stark hesitated. "Probably not. I—I don't think it will kill him."

"Us!" Bruce hissed. "I didn't say 'him,' I said 'us.'" Tony raised his hands as if to protect his face from a gunshot. "Will it kill me?"

Tony did a darn good impression of a student who didn't understand the question.

"Tony, I don't care if every scientist, doctor, and engineer on the planet is trying to figure out a way to trap, contain, and kill the Hulk. Hell, I've spent years trying to murder us both! I feel the blood on his hands on mine. Every. Single. Day." Bruce's voice escalated quickly from a whisper to a shout. "They don't care what happens to me. I don't care what happens to me! I don't care if I die! I don't expect to be saved but I thought—I assumed…" Bruce cleared his throat. "I hoped you might be the one person capable of saving me. Or at least, as my friend, the one person who would try." Tony's eyes dropped to his lap. Dirty fingernails scratched at the bandage on the back of his skull.

"Calm down, kids," Steve ordered. "All of our blood sugars are low."

"We're going to need a lot of therapy when we get home," Clint groaned.

Tony lifted his chin in a defensive stance. "Don't go to Banner. He'll fall asleep in five minutes!" he said. "Does that fit your definition of being a friend, Bruce?"

"I told you I'm not that kind of doc—"

"I didn't need you to be my doctor!" Tony bellowed. "I needed you to be my friend!"

Bruce gripped the corner of the table with both hands. "You don't want friends. You want sidekicks, but mostly you just want an audience!"

Steve tried to intervene again. "The armor, Bruce, you know he was just trying to help."

"Shut up, Cap," Tony snapped. "I can fight my own battles."

"He's 'just trying to help,' Stark," Clint mocked from the kitchen.

Steve pivoted towards him. "The last thing I want to hear about right now is your version of helping, Barton. You had no right to put me on the spot—to force me to confront Tony before I was ready!"

"What?" asked Stark.

Clint folded his arms against his chest and stuck his chin out. "Fine. Maybe I'll tell Tony the 'bad news.' Maybe I'll also tell him who kept it from him for this long!"

Rogers turned beet-read from the neck up. "Don't even think about it, Barton."

Tony shifted his weight until he sat on the edge of the mattress with his bare feet on the wood floor. "What are you guys talking about?"

"Yes sir, Captain." Clint gave Steve a sarcastic salute. "Oh, wait, that's right, you're not even really a captain. You're not even trained in modern warfare. None of you are! All you could pull out of your cowl this mission was a bayonet charge from the Civil War? And here I am, the most experienced person in the room, taking orders from rookies! Who's really qualified to lead the Avengers?"

"Oh, please," Bruce snapped. "You're just a foot soldier, Barton. There are a thousand other guys just like you."

It was Clint's turn to go red. "You know, before I met you people, I never ended up marooned in a cabin and my best friend never got stabbed by an alien!" The bucket ricocheted off the single table leg when Clint kicked it towards Bruce, who immediately jumped to his feet. "You think I'm expendable? Try finding another assassin with my record!"

Steve stood, too. His next words made everyone flinch: "You mean your record of killing innocent people for HYDRA?"

Clint leapt off the counter as if it had just caught fire. "At least when I was 'assassinating for HYDRA' I had the tech and stealth to keep me alive!" Barton hissed back at Steve, but aimed at Tony. "Are we going to talk about what happened at the cave? About what went wrong with your magical machines, Stark? SHIELD would've detected 800 aliens waiting to pounce on us!"

"I scanned for heat signatures, Robin Hood!" Stark barked. "Damn cold-blooded Chitauri didn't register! Are you telling me SHIELD would've detected what I couldn't?"

"SHIELD is smart enough to spend more than 5 minutes gathering intel on a target but, unlike you, we're not self-righteous know-it-alls! We would've—"

"What's with the 'we' talk? There is no more SHIELD!" Steve declared. "Dammit, Barton, it's hard enough keeping Stark and Thor from going all lone-wolf, now I have to worry about your loyalty?"

"Loyalty?" Tony sputtered. He shuffled off the mattress and stood up on shaky feet. "I'm sorry, but while the Helicarriers were falling into the Potomac, were you fighting back or having a playdate with your old friend?"

Steve pointed a finger right at Tony's nose, and only inches away from it. "Don't start on that, Stark! Leave Bucky out of this!"

"Our fearless leader," Bruce sneered, leaning against the table. "Loyalty. Right. We all know you'd choose that brainwashed assassin over us."

Clint was thinking out loud. "Nat and I would be better off on our own. We've survived this long without fancy Stark Industries toys." He toed the bucket another foot forward.

Tony's voice dropped dangerously low and soft. "SHIELD 'toys' are better? What the hell was in that gas you tossed into the cave, Barton? It woke up a whole goddammed army!"

"The Avengers are led by a captain who isn't really a captain and equipped by an egomaniac who thinks he's invincible just because he's so damn smart," Barton said.

Tony bristled. "Smarter than you!"

"I have people who depend on me, you know? If I'm safer on my own, then that's where I'll be! I'll go right now if I have to!"

"You wanna go? Then go!" Tony yelled. "And you know what? I don't really need any of you. I could build my own army in a week. A whole Iron Legion to protect the world! A whole Hulk-busting legion!"

"None of us can save the world by ourselves!" Steve reminded them.

"Tell that to Katniss over there! Delusional idiot thinks he can make a difference with a bow and arrow? We're not hunting mammoths!"

Clint shook his head in disgust. "Look at us. We're not a team. We got lucky with Loki, but the last two missions have been a disaster."

"And whose fault is that?" Steve shouted. "Maybe we would've captured Bloom and his men if you and Romanoff hadn't gone off on your own plan!"

"Says the guy who wanted to give up on the whole mission after one hiccup!"

"And clearly we should've! If we'd extracted you when I said, you wouldn't have gotten stabbed in the chest and Stark wouldn't have been blown up!"

Bruce spoke up. "None of that would've happened if we'd kept the Quinjet close enough to fire back."

"None of that would've happened if I'd stayed in the air!" said Stark. "If you listened to me you—you…" Tony's held his stomach as if someone had just punched it. "You, uh…" He swayed. "Uh oh—"

Cap held his hands up for the bucket. "Clint!"

Barton underhanded the bucket while Bruce caught Tony under the armpits to keep from landing nose-first on the floor.

Steve caught the bucket and slid it in front of Stark.

Tony vomited not a second later.

Clint braced his arm against the door and bowed his head. "Geeze…"

Tony's stomach paused long enough for him to gasp, "God it hurts—"

Bruce reached around Stark and adjusted his sleeveless shirt so that the sick didn't splash back onto it. Then, when he was sure that Tony was depending on his own knees instead of Bruce's strength, he rested his forehead against his friend's spine and sighed.

Steve closed his eyes. His head shook slightly back and forth, back and forth. "That was flawless teamwork, Avengers."

"Hooray," Tony groaned. "Go team…" His body spasmed once, twice, three times. Everything solid came up, then everything liquid, and then Tony's stomach just kept convulsing with dry heaves.

Steve and Bruce exchanged anxious looks over Tony's shoulder. "Because of the head wound?" Cap asked.

Banner nodded. Tony started coughing, so he gently patted his back. Clint limped over and added his touch to Stark's shoulder.

The worst was over a minute later. The cabin was silent except for Tony's gasping breaths. Between those gasps he whispered, "Sorry. Sorry, guys. I'm so sorry."

"Nothing you could've done to stop that, Tony," Bruce assured him.

Stark shook his head. "No." He grasped the mattress and looked at Steve's face. "For what I said. I'm sorry."

Rogers nodded. "Me, too." He looked at Barton, and then at Banner. "For what I said to all of you."

Clint squeezed Tony's shoulder tighter and stared down at his own bare feet. "Yeah. Also me."

"And me," Bruce agreed.

To Be Continued

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