Steve and Natasha arrived at the lake about forty-five minutes later. They could see the faint outline of trees on the opposite shoreline of the lake, but it stretched out as far as they could see to the right and left. They began following the shoreline, looking for the place where the creek met the lake.

It wasn't long before they found it.

"Wow," Natasha said simply as they gazed into the creek. It was much deeper and more agitated than it had been before when they crossed it.

"Still think we can find a place to cross?" Steve asked.

"We'll see," Natasha said. Her eyes followed the creek upstream. "I just hope—"

She broke off suddenly. Steve followed her gaze up the creek and caught sight of two figures near the bank of the creek, walking in their direction.

Natasha stared at them for a moment, then began walking towards them at a brisk pace. Steve followed.

"Hey, guys," Natasha said, coming to a stop in front of Clint and Bruce.

"Hey," Clint said, beaming at her. She tried to look as though she was only mildly pleased to see him.

Steve came up behind her. "Where are Thor and Tony?"

Clint looked at him. "Wow, what happened to you?"

"You first," said Steve.

Clint explained about Tony's arc reactor, and how Thor had taken him to the hospital. Steve and Natasha looked grave.

"So you have no idea what caused the reactor to malfunction?" asked Steve.

"No idea," Clint confirmed. At the same moment, Bruce said, "A few ideas." The others looked at him and he blushed. "Based on the circumstances," he said. "But that takes too long to explain. What have you two been up to?"

"Yeah," said Clint. He gestured towards Steve's injuries. "What'd you do that made Natasha mad?"

Natasha hurled a knife in his direction. Steve thought she was angry, but then he saw she was returning his knife to him. Clint caught the knife out of the air.

"Used that to extend our lifespan a little," said Natasha. "Let's see, what else – oh! I climbed a fifty-foot tree, Steve took on a wildcat barehanded, and we discussed ending it all by eating poisonous plants. So, all in all, pretty normal day for us."

Clint and Bruce just gaped at her.

"She is exaggerating," Steve said quickly.

"But you did fight a wildcat? That's how you got hurt?" said Bruce.

"Well I was trying to protect Natasha. I'm starting to wish I had just let the thing attack her, though. If you think the wildcat chewed on me pretty bad, you should have seen what she did to me when it was finished," Steve joked. "Anyway, after all that, we came down here to look for a place to cross the creek."

"That's what we've been doing," said Bruce. "We've covered several miles of the creek, but it's just too full from the storm last night."

Clint said, "Speaking of which, Thor swears he saw Loki hanging around in the woods last night during the storm. I don't know how he could have got here, but it seems like a bad thing."

"You think?" Natasha said dryly.

Clint looked at her. "What, did you guys run into him or something?"

"You could say that," Natasha said. "Ran after him, more like."

Steve said, "If you thought we took the packs with us, you've probably noticed by now that we don't have them."

"It crossed my mind, yeah," said Clint. "Where are they?"

"I took them," said a voice from the opposite side of the creek. They whirled around to look across the creek and saw Loki standing there, still holding Natasha's pack.

It took the joint efforts of Steve and Clint to restrain Natasha from jumping into the creek and swimming across; all the while shouting at Loki in Russian. Bruce didn't speak Russian, but he thought it was a safe bet that much of what she was saying, if translated, would have to be censored.

"You mortals are always getting yourselves into trouble," Loki said scornfully.

"Please help us, Loki," Bruce spoke up. "We need to get back to our camp."

"You no longer have a camp," Loki informed him. "I collected what little of it remained after the storm."

Natasha gave a muffled exclamation and renewed her efforts to escape Steve and Clint, but they held her tightly.

"Loki, please," Bruce continued. "You're our only chance. Look, Steve needs a doctor or he's going to bleed to death. Please help us."

Loki's eyes flashed. "You are pathetic, human, groveling before me and asking me for favors," he said. "Give me a reason why I should help you."

Bruce thought for a moment. "Thor helped Loki," he said at last.

Loki frowned. "What?"

"I would never have thought that you or Thor would deign to help humans," Bruce explained, "but when Tony got hurt, Thor flew him to a hospital. So I just hoped that you could find it in yourself to help us."

Loki was silent for a long time. The Avengers held their breath.

Loki opened up Natasha's pack and pulled out a long coil of rope. He tossed it across the creek, and Bruce caught it.

Loki pointed off into the distance. "That is the way to the road," he said. Then he turned and began to walk away.

"Loki!" Bruce called after him. Loki turned around.

"Thank you," Bruce said sincerely.

Something flickered behind Loki's eyes – empathy? Compassion? They couldn't sure. Then he turned again and vanished into the trees.

"Give me the rope," Natasha said. Steve and Clint checked to make sure Loki was out of sight before releasing her arms. Then Bruce passed her the rope.

She tied it around her waist and found a tree which had branches that stuck out over the creek. She climbed the tree and slid out onto one of the branches.

She removed the rope from her waist and fastened it tightly to the branch. Then, she slid back closer to the trunk again, held the end of the rope tightly, and jumped off the tree.

At first she headed towards the ground; then the rope lifted her and she swung out over the creek. When she was at the highest point in the rope's arc, she let go of the rope and sailed across the creek. She landed hard on the other side.

"Come on!" Natasha beckoned to the others to join her. "Let's get moving! We have a hospital to visit!"

The farmer who drove the four hitchhikers to the hospital that day did not recognize them. Well, he thought the nerdy-looking guy who sat in the passenger seat looked slightly familiar, but he couldn't be sure. They told him a crazy story about having been on a camping trip and one of the guys getting attacked by a wildcat, but he was very skeptical of this. About themselves they told almost nothing, leaving him to speculate about them: All of them looked very muscular; perhaps they were bodybuilders. The man who sat in the front with him seemed to be very smart. The woman was obviously the girlfriend of the guy who sat on her left. They all looked very hungry and tired; looked like they could use a break. Other than that, he couldn't tell much about them. It was none of his business, anyway. He dropped them in front of the hospital, refused their offers of payment, and drove home to tell his wife the story.

"So how long are you gonna have to stay in here?" Steve asked Tony.

After hitching a ride to the hospital with Clint, Bruce, and Natasha; Steve had gotten bandaged up and pronounced safe from infection; then he'd joined the other Avengers and Pepper in Tony's hospital room.

"One night," said Tony. "After that they're setting me loose."

"Did they find out what's wrong with you?" Clint asked.

Tony nodded. "Apparently the reaction was caused by protracted exposure to unelutriated dihydrogen oxide."

"Ohh," said Bruce understandingly. The others just stared blankly at him.

"Too much contact with unpurified water," Tony explained. "I mean I've definitely been in unpurified water since I got my reactor, but the relapse was caused by buildup of bacteria overtime. It was probably because I slept out in the rain last night."

"How are you gonna keep it from happening again?" Natasha wanted to know.

Tony repositioned himself in the hospital bed. "Actually, I've been giving that some thought," he said, "and I think the best thing to do would be to augment the density of the reactor's cornea."

"Yeah, that would work," Bruce agreed. "Did you think of occluding the interstices of the reactor with a deliquesced perduring constituent such as silicon dioxide?"

Tony looked thoughtful. "Ohh," he said. "No I didn't. I'll have to give that a try." In response to the others' looks of confusion, he said, "Basically, we're well on our way to having it figured out. Just give me and Bruce a couple days, and we'll have it all set for next time."

There was a stunned silence. Then Steve cleared his throat.

"Did" he faltered. "Did you just say next time?"

THE END


Be sure to review and tell me what you thought of this fanfic!

Thanks again to MarvelLuver for the help! This story would have been a lot different without your creative influence.

P.S. If you liked this fanfic, feel free to check out my next big one, "Happy Birthday, Bruce" in which the Avengers try to throw a surprise party for Bruce. :)