"You're sure that's all that happened?" Tony badgered her for the third time.
DJ's eye twitches and a few small pebbles tremble ominously on the ground. "Yes. Earthquake, no Bruce, spooky Emperor Palpatine guy pops out of nowhere. The end."
Steve places a calming hand on her lower back, and DJ can't decide if it's infuriating or wonderful. "Don't stress her out, Tony. You know she can't handle it right now."
"Oh really?" DJ challenges drolly. "I'll show you exactly what I can handle, Rogers."
"Please save your sexually laden banter for when you're alone," Tony wrinkles his nose in disgust. "I'm glad you're not trading glacial looks and dancing around each other anymore, but I don't need to witness the passionate reunion. The bedroom eyes are awful. It's a nightmare. No, I get it, I've fallen asleep and creepy dream puppet master is tormenting me with the horror that is the burning in your loins."
Natasha reaches out and grabs Tony by the elbow. "Shut up, Stark." He opens his mouth to retaliate but she cuts a glare to him and he stops short. "I have an idea."
"Great. Excellent. I'm up for practically anything, because all we're doing right now is wandering aimlessly through a constantly changing forest while Tony harasses me about his science boyfriend."
Tony scoffs. "Science boyfriend? Please, not all of us-"
"One of us is going to have to fall asleep," Natasha interrupts, and everyone goes deathly silent. "Bruce showed up last time, right? So one of us volunteers and we'll beat this guy at his own game. We'll meet up with Bruce in someone's dream and ask him where he is."
"That's a brilliant idea," Howard pipes up from the back of the group, feeling ridiculously ignored. Hello, genius, and yet no one's been asking his opinion this entire time. "In theory. But do the benefits outweigh the costs? I'm not saying we give up on the big guy, but we're pretty much handing over the keys to someone's worst nightmare."
Clint shrugs, shifting a step closer to Natasha as a show of solidarity. "It's worked out fine before, and this time we'll be expecting it."
"Yeah," Steve agreed a pinch too casually. "If all else fails we'll just have Daisy make out with someone. That seems to solve every other problem."
DJ scowls and shoves futilely at Steve's chest. "I think I liked it better when we weren't talking. Ass."
"I will do it," Thor offers loud and earnest. "I have few fears left."
"I don't particularly want to find out what those few fears are," DJ counters. "I'm just saying. Norse god? Probably going to take a hell of a lot to scare him."
Arching a brow Natasha levels her with a look. "None of us have had particularly danger free lives. Aliens, evil engineering masterminds, Nazis, the Ten Rings, Russia-"
"You can't just pull the Russia card like that-"
"My point is," Natasha continues unhindered. "Our fears have been relatively trivial so far. Getting scattered through time, forgetting who we are, dangling from a train with the weight of a million girly insecurities-"
"Pardon me-"
"All that's a piece of cake compared to the bullshit we put up with on the job. We can handle anything. Because we do have a Norse god. And Captain America, and an annoying, albeit genius, Iron Man, and a Hulk, and a mutant who can turn things to dust. Not to mention two very impressive master assassins."
Tony throws an arm around Natasha's shoulders and leans his full weight- armor and all- against her, making her sag under the pressure. "That was very inspirational for someone who can kill a man with her bare thighs."
"Like you know anything about her bare thighs, Stark," Clint snarks, swatting his arm away from Natasha's shoulders.
"Oh, and you do?"
"As a matter of fact-"
DJ sharply raises a hand, putting an end to the argument. "No one wants to hear about your secret agent sexcapades. So what are we gonna do? Just stand around singing Thor lullabies and twiddling our thumbs?"
Yes. More or less, that's what they do.
Thor falls asleep relatively quick despite the loud, distracting tirade spewing from Tony's mouth. Not at all surprising considering they've all been awake for about three days if the rising and setting of the sun is any indication. Given the circumstances of the changing jungle, none of them would be surprised if that was a farce, too.
As his eyes slip closed a gentle mist drifts down from the sky- powder blue and faintly glittering.
"I don't know whether or not to run away or stand here gawking," DJ breathes. "It's beautiful."
Tony nods slowly off to her side. "But most beautiful things are deadly. A concept that I find applies just as well to mysterious mists as well as women."
"So run then?"
Steve's cheeks slowly flush pink. "I can't move."
"I was hoping I was not the only one," Thor agrees from where he's sprawled out on the ground, peeling one eye open.
"Well I don't think the mist is toxic," Bruce offers poking his head out from the forest. "The big guy's protective instincts aren't making me green and growly yet."
"Banner!" Clint exclaims in surprise. "How long have you been there?"
"Five or ten minutes."
DJ turns her head as far as she can towards Bruce, looking at him from the corner of her eye. "And at no point did you think that maybe you should announce yourself? I mean, you've only gone missing in the conscious world."
"I wasn't worried," he shrugs. "You'll find me eventually. And I don't know where I am."
Natasha exhales in exasperation. "Well what do your surroundings look like, Bruce?"
"It's just dark," Bruce murmurs. "Pitch black. It's some sort of building. Cold. The floor's made of cement. I'm wrapped in chains. Nothing earthly, though. They stretch and hold the other guy."
The mist reaches Steve first, glitter catching in his thick lashes. He gasps from behind everyone, body heating up significantly. His skin takes on a deep blue glow, and a sharp pain shoots through his body. The dust begins to land on the others as he slips into the cover of the forest.
It settles on Clint next, making him shiver and clutch his head, falling to his knees. Tony next, who feels a flutter in his chest as the weight of the Iron Man suit drags him to the forest floor. Bruce who feels like he can breathe for the first time in years. DJ who feels a small buzz ripple through her body, a static sound turning off in her brain that she never realized was there. Natasha, muscles tense and feet suddenly clumsy.
Finally the shimmering power ghosts across Thor's body, and as he picks his body off the floor he lets out an angry bellow. He feels the weakness in his very core, and he doesn't have to reach out for Mjölnir to know that he can't pick it up. However, it doesn't stop him from trying.
"I can't see," Clint grinds out, voice rough with contained panic. "I can't see anything."
Natasha stumbles towards him graceless, slow, and weak. "I- Just don't panic. It's not real. We'll fix this."
"Then why do you sound so scared?" He huffs bitterly, unseeing eyes boring through her.
"The Hulk's gone," Bruce notes quietly, emotions unsure and on the fence. "I can't feel him anymore."
DJ jerks her head towards Tony's still body and kneels at his side, banging on the armor. "Tony? Tony wake up. Are you alright? Oh God, are you dead? Tony!"
"I'm fine, I'm fine," he croaks feebly.
"I thought maybe the arc reactor…"
Tony breathes a mirthless laugh. "Well it doesn't feel like shrapnel is slicing through my heart, so I guess not. Could you hit the emergency release? It's getting claustrophobic in here."
The armor falls away and DJ's breath catches in her throat. She presses a hand against the center of Tony's chest. Tony's smooth, unmarred chest. "It's gone," she whispers. "You're…"
"I'm a real boy." The smirk he flashes quivers and falls quickly away.
"DJ," Howard starts, but she ignores him in favor of staring at her hands.
"We're all… Fixed."
"DJ-"
Clint swivels his head towards where it sounds like DJ's coming from. "Speak for yourself. Fixed." He spits it out like it's a dirty word, scowling at empty air.
"It's…" She struggles for words. "What do we do when someone's worst nightmare is what someone else has wanted for years?"
Howard stalks forward and grabs her by the elbow. "DJ, where did Steve go?"
"Can we not keep tabs on anybody?" Natasha growls under her breath.
DJ's heart starts beating in over time, and guilt swirls in her gut like a hurricane. "Fuck! Steve!"
She tries to dart off in the most appealing direction but Howard doesn't release his grip on her arm. "You can't just go running off in this weird place when nobody's got their powers."
"I will break your nose, powers or not," she snarls. "Steve is my…"
"Fiancé," Tony readily supplies.
"I never said yes!"
"I'm, uh, I'm alright!" comes a hesitant shout from the tree shrouded darkness.
DJ releases a deep breath she didn't even notice she was holding. "Well what the hell are you thinking, Steve? Are you actually hiding?"
"I don't want you to see me," he replies in that stubborn Captain America tone of his.
"Excuse me?" DJ's jaw drops open in disbelief. "I'm your-"
"Fiancé."
"Shut the fuck up, Tony!" She tugs at the root of her hair in frustration. "Now Steve, I don't know what crazy pills you're taking, but-"
Howard gives a warning tug at her arm. "I saw him before the serum, remember. I understand how he might be a bit embarrassed, is all."
She finally tears out of his hold and levels him with a glare. "Well I've seen the pictures from before, and I don't understand."
"Seeing it in person is different," and Steve's voice is almost pleading now. It nearly breaks DJ's heart in two.
"Look, I… I can't make you come out," she shrugs helplessly. "I can't make you trust me… But I'm your maybe fiancé, aren't I? When have I ever said anything that made you think I wouldn't take you any way you are?"
She hears his sad sigh as she pads quietly forward. "Daisy…"
A smear of red on a tree catches her eye and any sensitivity she has for the situation goes out the window. "You're hurt."
Ah! Sorry this took super long to get out! My computer crashed and I lost everything, and by the time that I got a new computer finals popped up and consumed my life. Hopefully I can get back on a roll again and finish this up since I have over a month off. Reviews would help immensely with that ;] I love you guys, thanks for sticking it out.
