Tremendously sorry for the delay, I got stuck with this and that and so on. Hopefully this chapter made up for it!

Many many thanks to: mjkstujsfthswrtjdykfukf, Souzou the Insane, rowsdowersavesus, livingintheshire, WinterGarden, Radwoman, Ginshi-chan, Shara Raizel, Zozo890, DarkKittehKat! You're the reasons I keep on writing :) Please keep telling me what you think!

Enjoy, R&R!

Eleven: Stay Together

"I'm going back."

"Steve…"

"You can't stop me, Barton."

"You're only torturing yourself. It's pointless."

"Well, then it's my burden to bear. I'm not leaving them behind."

"It'll take you forever before you've dig through all that rubble. And even if you'd find them.."

"How do you know? Maybe they've found a cover somewhere. Or maybe the armor protected him. We'll never know unless we go back and search for them."

"If they would've survived, wouldn't they've found a way out of there themselves?"

"Maybe they're stuck.."

"Then they can't breathe and would've suffocated by now."

"Maybe they didn't."

"It's just a lot of maybes, Steve."

"Maybe should be enough for all of us."

"It's too dangerous, everything is ready to collapse."

"I can manage."

Sigh.

Barton hung his head in defeat. He really didn't want to lose another friend after all they've been through. Going back to that temple…

Clint looked up towards the place where the temple once stood. Parts of it were still standing but only barely. The most damage was done to the middle, not coincidentally the place where Stark and Banner were standing before. It would be impossible to find them, and besides that..

Barton desperately looked from Natasha to Thor, but neither one responded to his questioning look. The people from the temple had long been gone, after the crash of the temple they had left immediately, probably already searching for a place to rebuild their place for the holy spirits.

Rebuilding, like nothing ever happened. At least they had the opportunity to start fresh. Barton was sure, the four of them would never be the same. And he had the feeling they all felt that way.

"Natasha? Thor?" No response came. Clint again looked at the defeated faces of his best friend and the demi-god, and suddenly became angry at their seemingly careless behavior. He finally let his emotions run free.

He pushed himself up from the kneeling position he had been sitting in for the last 10 minutes, and lurched himself towards the demi-god. His fist connected with Thor's right forearm and Barton got his attention all right.

Thor turned around in a second and moved his left hand forward, hitting Clint square in the face. Hawkeye immediately grabbed his nose with both hands, the sickening crack still lingering in his ears.

Rogers was taken aback by the sudden change of events but remained at his spot, some feet away from the others. He had started moving towards the leftovers of the temple before Barton tried to stop him. Why the agent had suddenly changed his attention towards Thor was yet a complete mystery to the Captain, but the other agent seem to understand it.

Natasha was brought back out of her miserable train of thoughts by the loud crack of bone breaking. She just caught sight of Clint moving his hands towards his nose when she saw Thor again moving in, ready to attack another time. She pushed herself upwards and jumped before the demi-god and his already raised arm, holding both her hands up in defeat.

"Thor, stop!"

"He started hitting me with no reason at all, I at least want to take my revenge!" He angrily moved closer towards Barton but again was held back by the female agent.

"Don't do this." She tried to give him her most determined stern face and she sighed in relief when the muscular man in front of her began to relax again. Clint wasn't quite yet finished though.

"O yeah, sure, why don't you start doing absolutely nothing again huh! Just stand back and wait, just like you did with Loki. You let him escape because you were too weak to punish him like he should've been. This", Barton strengthened his speech by pointing towards the temple, "is all your fault! You let them die, just like you let him come here the first time. It's your fault!" Tears were now welling up in both Barton and Romanoff's eyes. Lost in the moment, they were both caught off guard when Thor suddenly came crushing down on the male agent. Clint had no time to prepare nor defend himself and therefore, his head smashed into the floor with a loud bang and the agent yelped out in pain.

Blinded with rage and sorrow, Thor didn't see who he was dealing with anymore and starting using Barton as a boxing ball while the agent lay pinned down on the floor. Natasha tried to get him off of him but the demi-god didn't respond anymore and he proved to be too strong to push him off with her strength. Her headache exploded once again and she felt herself becoming dizzy, grabbing her head.

Until now, Steve hadn't interfered. He had been standing at the sideline, still at the same spot, like he was a bystander and this fight wasn't his'. Natasha's scream helped him out of that dream though.

"Darn it, Steve, do something!" The Captain took in the sight of an unstable Natasha Romanoff who was about to fall to the ground, and one of his friend beating the crap out of his other friend. His mind wandered back towards one of his happy memories, just after they had won the first battle against Loki.

"Where's he off to, do you think?" Steve glared into the half-empty beer bottle in his hand before taking a look at the rest of them. Natasha, Thor, Clint and Tony were sitting in one of the main rooms of the Stark Tower, a room that was partly blown away, on the spare sofas Stark had manage to pull out of some closet that wasn't hit by the Tesseract explosion. Natasha had been drinking sufficient enough tequilas to finally do nothing but lay lazily on the sofa staring into nothingness, a smile plastered on her face. Clint just opened his seventh beer and was happily chatting away to no one in particular, the memories of his capture stuffed safely at the far back of his mind. Thor didn't seem quite as happy, being his brother that had been the cause of all the problems, but he seemed to be content enough to momentarily forget the past and the future. Steve finally looked at Stark and deep inside, he felt pride and respect towards the billionaire, although the feeling soon disappeared when he started speaking.

"Probably the jungle closest by to blow off some steam. He fits into that environment much better anyway, with him being green and all. Sure the plants will take him in eagerly." Steve rolled his eyes but smiled nonetheless.

"Okay, but shouldn't we look for him?" Tony made a disgusted face.

"Ugh.. looking for a Hulk who's blowing off some steam? Even if we wouldn't get rampaged by him, I'm sure we'll die because of the smell coming out of his mouth. You've ever smelled his breath? Well, I sure did. It wasn't the noise that brought me back to life, you know. It was his breath. All I thought was 'Does heaven really smell like this?' and so I woke up in case it was true." This earned him a honest laugh of all of the others in the room. Stark smiled contently and gulped the rest of his whiskey down before filling her up again.

"He'll come back, I'm sure. He'll miss me the first moment he'd be Bruce again. All whom had the privilege of being close to the great Tony Stark, will never be happy again without it." Natasha suddenly seemed to come back to life and held her next tequila up high.

"To Tony Stark, the perfect, rich, handsome and arrogant bastard who saved the planet and beyond."

"To Tony." They all replied in unison, including Tony himself.

Steve laid back into the sofa, a safe feeling washing over him.

They were safe. The world was rescued and all of them were safe. Soon, Dr. Banner would return as his normal self, and all would be like nothing happened. He closed his eyes and drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

How wrong he had been about everything. They were never going to be safe, or would anything ever be peaceful again. He figured that out the moment he heard about Dr. Banner's capture, but he had been holding on to one soothing thought. A thought that could make the difference between winning and losing.

They were together.

As long as they were a team, they could have a chance against it all. They all took the best out of each other, their strength accumulating in another's presence.

Now, the team would never be the same. Not only did they leave two of their teammates, two of their friends, behind in a temple that was about to collapse on top of them, they were fighting each other, not knowing the difference between friend and foe anymore.

Everything was falling apart.

Unless…

Steve shook himself back to reality, a clear goal now settled onto his vision. They needed to find them, no matter what. It was their only hope of a normal future, even if it was only partial.

His legs almost ached when he finally moved from his standing position. He sprinted shortly and took a huge dive towards the two fighting heroes. Natasha almost got hit herself had she not jumped out of the way in time, and Steve collided hard with Thor's body. The blow was sufficient enough to let Thor tumble towards the ground, thereby freeing Barton from his grip.

Romanoff quickly stood by Clint, who was now coughing loudly, spitting up some blood of his split lip in the process. In the meantime, Rogers tried to stop the other man who tried to turn his anger towards the Captain.

"STOP IT!" His loud scream was overwhelming and reached his destiny. Thor stopped fighting just long enough so Steve could get a hold on him, the demi-god now pinned down on the sandy ground.

"STOP FIGHTING, ALL OF YOU!" The other three turned his attention towards him, Thor still lying motionless underneath him. Rogers took the opportunity to continue.

"Can't you see? This is exactly what Loki wants! He wants to drive us apart and he's succeeding with everything! We can't let him win, then we did absolutely everything for nothing. We need to show him we can survive, we can survive him, but we can only do that together. We need to stick together!"

Steve rolled himself off of the Asgardian and stood up, holding out a hand to let the demi-god do the same. When he took it, he held him up but didn't yet let go of his grip on Thor's hand.

"Look at you, all heated up because you feel offended by your own friend." He let go and turned his attention towards Barton.

"And you! How dare you blame one of our own for this? It's no one's fault except Loki's!" Barton started staring at the ground, knowing exactly what Rogers was saying.

"Instead of blaming one another, we should let out proud go in order to protect ourselves, to protect each other. We need to bundle our strength so we can find a solution. We can't just give up!" He took another step forward, now standing in the middle of the group.

"No matter in what condition they are, two of our own are stuck underneath I don't know how many pounds of rubble, and we're standing here fighting each other. We can't leave them behind. We came as a team, we go back as a team. I'm not giving up on them, because I know they wouldn't have been giving up on me. They would continue to look for me, turn every stone, until they'd found me and could bring me back home. We owe it to both of them, if only it's because they would do the same for us."

The speech had taken a great deal of oxygen out of Rogers, and he was breathily heavenly. It remained quiet for another while, until Natasha finally dared to look the Captain straight in the eyes, a gesture he gladly returned.

"You're right. We owe it to them to find them and bring them home where they belong. I'm in."

Thor moved closer towards the others.

"Me too."

Barton still looked at the ground but nodded firmly, meanwhile using his shirt to try to stop his nose from bleeding. He took a quick glance towards Thor and saw him staring at him intensely.

"My apologies." There was no more to be said right now and Clint knew. He again nodded and Thor took his answer for now.

"Let's go."

Steve led the others towards the first stones of the fallen temple. The pile of rubbish was huge and from up close, the structure was completely gone. They all stood there, thinking about what to do next. Natasha was the first one to come up with an answer.

"We can be sure there somewhere in the middle, right? So what about blasting the outer parts away and from there continue by hand?" The others nodded, and she took a look at Thor.

"Would you do us the honors?" The Asgardian nodded.

"Tell me when to stop." Natasha replied with a nod and Thor started smashing the stones away with his hammer. This seemed to take the edges of off the demi-god, and halfway done he actually started to enjoy it. Soon, only the stones in the middle of the temple were still there, the rest safely moved out of the way. Steve continued.

"All take a side?" They silently divided sides and started digging. Stone by stone flew over their backs while they worked. None of them spoke a word, their thoughts momentarily focused on their task at hand.

An hour and many drops of sweat later, there was still no sign of the two missing heroes. Natasha started coughing, her lungs and mouth stuffed with sand and dust. She kneeled down and rested her arms on her knees, her headache even worse than after she had woken up from her blackout earlier. Her arm and legs were hurting, many little cuts indicating she hadn't been too careful while moving the stones. Her whole body ached and fatigue was about to take over.

Just when she thought about giving up or taking a break, she didn't exactly know which one, she heard a loud scream on her right side. She looked up and saw Steve looking down between the rubble and heard him screaming again.

"HERE! I found something!" Forgetting all her pain and tiredness, she rushed herself towards the Captain and saw Clint and Thor do the same. When she arrived and saw what he was pointing at, her heart skipped a couple of beats.

Between the rubble lay a large piece of fabric and she immediately recognized it as Bruce's pants. Before she knew it, she found herself kneeling down again, her hands now removing the stones with a rapid speed. The three men followed her example and soon they were working side by side, throwing away stone after stone.

After mere seconds, Barton suddenly backed off when his hands no longer grabbed stone. They looked at his hands at the same time and took in the third hand underneath Barton's.

Stark's hand.

She now worked even harder, the fear about what was to come fastening her pulse to an immense speed.

More and more body parts became visible until they had finally freed them.

Both of them.

They all stopped breathing when they took in the sight before them.

An almost naked Bruce was lying face down on top of Stark, their heads next to each other. Banner's back was unrecognizable, deep wounds covering the whole length of his back and legs, while his arms were twisted into bizarre positions.

Steve gently but firmly turned and removed Bruce, lying him next to Stark. Iron Man seemed to be intact for the most part except the huge cut running alongside his skull and face.

The weight being lifted off of him seemed to bring back oxygen inside of him, and Stark immediately let out a huge cough. All three remained where they were, too shocked to do anything. Without knowing, they all thought the same thing.

How could he still be alive?

Thor was the first to recover from the shock and bowed himself over the billionaire. He felt his neck to somehow establish if he wasn't dreaming, but did indeed feel a strong pulse rushing through his fingers. He removed the dust from Tony's chest and saw the reactor glowing ever so brightly.

Stark coughed heavily again. Natasha now closed in on him.

"Welcome back." Finally, Tony opened his eyes with a shock. He frantically looked around and became even more scared when he didn't find what he was looking for. He managed to stumble out a word.

"Brr..u..cc..ee.." Immediately, all three of them shifted their heads.

Taken in by Stark's miraculous revival, they had completely forgotten about the doctor. The one they came for in the first place.

Bruce was now lying face up and completely still. His front almost looked worse than his back. There wasn't a single place upon his torso that was untouched, most of his skin almost completely ripped off. His right arm was now burning a furious red, all of his fingers messed up one by one. Part of his hair was torn away, a gaping wound on his skull clearly visible. Sand and dust had made their way inside the many cuts covering his face and body.

Just when they shifted their gaze towards the massive wooden stick coming out of his right abdomen, they heard Tony mumbling again.

"Brr..u..cc..ee.."

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