I was having a little bit of writer's block up until I started writing in Steve's POV. I guess it was just time to hear more from him.
As much as Steve wanted an explanation, he couldn't justify pushing on the subject anymore when thinking about Shostakov was clearly making her this upset. He spoke to her from the kitchen, looking over their week's schedule. She was talking about their last training session, mentioning the still lingering mistakes she was catching on the team. There was one large problem coming to mind for her during the simulation tests and she couldn't help but voice her thoughts to Steve before deciding what to do about it.
Keeping score on paper, Natasha had realized when it came to helping each other and covering each other, the men on the team tended to cover Wanda more than they would each other. "I have nothing against chivalry but it's affecting her training."
"I can see your point. Her biggest problem is watching her back. With everyone stepping in to take the punch for her, I don't think she's seeing the problem."
"Yeah, I get that they're all stepping in because she's a kid but she has to take a few punches to see her instincts need to sharpen up. Otherwise, she can't grow and that won't be fair to her. Everyone else has learned after a bad day or two, we need to at least allow her her turn. Who knows? She could surprise us."
"So what do we do?"
"I don't know, that's why I'm asking you." Natasha was watching the training footage on her monitor, watching the class she had missed while interrogating Alexei.
Once again, Steve wanted to speak up and ask about that but force his mouth shut. A few minutes later, he found a simulation in their selection that would fix their problem for at least a few training sessions. As he moved to show her, he walked to the other side of the couch only to find Natasha lying there with the tablet still playing the violent images of the training session, fast asleep. He wondered briefly how the sound of combat was able to lull her to sleep when she didn't seem so tired before.
"This speaks volumes about you, Romanoff," he joked to himself under his breath, taking the tablet out of her hands carefully so it wouldn't weigh her down. He figured the stress finally got to her when she crashed. Shutting off the video, he put the tablet down on the coffee table and made a note to wake her up before the team got back in. She would never forgive him for leaving her there.
Silently, he tried to make himself some coffee and moved to leave for his room when he spotted Tony entering. Just as the man was about to open his mouth, Steve gestured for him to stay silent. Nodding, Tony followed Steve out to through the other door of the kitchen to the balcony. From outside, he could make out Natasha asleep on the couch.
"Just an update, I think I've found Banner. If I'm right, he's on his way to New York. He'll be able to contact Dr. Cho. Maybe she can check what's wrong with Natasha."
"You brought Banner into this?" Steve asked, raising his voice a little.
"Look, I felt bad about interrupting his time off but this is important." Rolling his eyes, Steve knew he should have expected this kind of thing. Maybe Tony and Bruce were close in the lab - they seemed to be the only ones who could understand their incomprehensible language while they were working - but Tony didn't seem to have a clue about Bruce as a person. Especially if he didn't realize the serious conflict of interest. He was never one for paying attention. "I don't know why you're not thanking me right now."
"Tony, have you ever noticed anything going on between Natasha and Bruce? Anything at all in the last few months?" The 'genius' was silent for a long time before his eyes widened.
"That went right over my head. Wait, they were-...No, I did not see that coming. Are you joking?"
"So you can see why bringing Banner in on a project regarding Natasha's private information - which we're essentially stealing by the way - is possibly the worst idea you've had since Ultron?"
"Could you not? I've apologiz-"
"Focus, Tony."
"I tracked a dead man down, damn it. I'm not just going to tell him to go back into hiding because of a messy breakup."
"You wanna talk dead men, Tony? Today, Natasha spoke to her husband for the first time in ten years. Ten years ago, when he died. This is a really, really bad time."
Tony blinked at him. "I don't even need to ask you to explain anymore. This is how twisted we've gotten! Talking about people coming back from the dead is like talking about the weather. What do we do now? We need Banner to talk to Helen. She's still too shaken over Seoul to talk to me and her lab is still rebuilding."
"We'll talk to Hill, maybe she'll know what to do."
"Why haven't we told her?"
"Natasha wanted it to stay a secret and I can see why."
"I don't understand how you can be so calm about this. Steve, she thinks she's dying and she's not calling these people herself. She hasn't told the new team or the old one, she won't even tell Clint. She's in denial, Cap, and letting her stay that way isn't going to help her get any better." Looking through the glass at Nat sleeping there peacefully, he wondered if Tony was right. She never was one to ask for help. He'd seen her close to passing out enough times this week to know she resisted looking like she'd ever need. Maybe that's what this was all about. She acted like it was nothing because she didn't want to think she needed help. He sighed out, knowing they'd have to move forward with a plan.
"Come, I know something that can help us," he said, leading Tony to the elevators and up to the doctors' floor.
They walked in just in time to catch Simmons on her laptop and Fitz on a tablet reading test results.
"So all signs point to today's trial working?" Fitz asked, putting a cup of tea to his lips and waiting for an answer.
"Every simulation we've run has worked. We're missing a few factors but this might shortcut the process. If we're lucky, that is." She looked up from her laptop at the pair that had just entered the room. "Fitz."
"What? I'm listening-" he said, still typing a note into his tablet when he finally bothered to look up. Steve could only hope he wouldn't drop the tablet or the coffee. Tony wasn't helping by staying silent.
"I just wanted to introduce you two to a friend of mine, Dr. Fitz, Dr. Simmons, this is -" They both nodded with wide eyes, clearly very aware of who they were talking about. This was probably the introduction they were least ready for. Putting down the coffee, Fitz offered a handshake which Tony took and it was clear to Steve they weren't prepared for this with how shaken Fitz looked. Simmons was a little slower to her feet. As soon as she shook hands with Tony, the two of them went into tangents about Tony's best work.
"-Oh, and the suit's great too. Very awesome," Fitz concluded. They were both so flustered Tony immediately got the same impression as Natasha and Steve, warmed especially since he could speak the same language as they did. While they spoke animatedly, Tony took in the tech set up of the floor, searching for the wires of the room to see where he could find a weak spot to hack their network.
Before they could actually try to interrogate the doctors as Steve had planned, there was the sound of a door somewhere.
"Hey Simmons," Steve knew that voice anywhere, Natasha must have woken up soon after they left. Tony met his eyes and they both worked to find an excuse. Her voice was still far but it continued speaking as it got closer. "I totally forgot to ask you. This week, the boys are going out for some boy's night and Wanda and I were hoping to invite you to-"
Natasha stared at the two Avengers in the room, a bit startled to see them there. "Is there a reason you boys are here giving my friends a heart attack or is this just sport?" She wasn't going to call them her doctors in front of Tony, and she didn't think it was too soon to call them friends. She'd started talking to them on her off-time. They were the only people who knew her secrets, so she felt like they were a comfort to talk to.
"I just wanted to introduce him to FitzSimmons. With Fitz's new simulations making his look so outdated, I thought the competition might be good for Tony to know he's not the best at everything," Steve said. He hoped Tony knew the jab was his revenge for the Banner idea. Natasha seemed to accept the lie, and he could only be grateful he was becoming a better liar. They were about to move out when Simmons spoke up.
"I hate to ask, but is there any word about Banner yet?" Tony looked at Steve like he was stuck in a trap and needed help. He knew he had to pick between lying about Banner and causing rumors or distracting Natasha from her own worries by admitting the truth when Steve had warned him against it. Steve had to make the choice for himself and he could only hope he made the right one.
"Yeah, he's alive. He's coming back to work in the Avengers tower," he said. The doctors cheered on the news and the two men could only force smiles. Steve kept his eyes mostly on Natasha and he could tell he'd made the wrong choice. Her face was a frozen neutral, her eyes like hard steel. She looked like she was actively working to keep her eyes ahead.
"Nice to know he's not dead," she said simply, and there was this small forced smile on her lips that made Steve regret telling the truth and picking that over protecting her. She was going through enough. "You guys ready for the trial?" she asked the doctors suddenly. The two nodded and said their goodbyes to the other two Avengers, waiting for them to go. Fitz followed them to the elevator and when the doors closed they could hear them locking the floor so that the elevator wouldn't let anyone back.
They went down only two floors before Tony called on FRIDAY to override the system and take them back up. It took him a few words to do it, and Steve made a note to address that security breach another day. It happened a little too fast to be appropriate. They quietly made their way back to the floor, approaching the operation room and being met with a closed door and a mirror rather than a glass. Tony did another override on the glass settings and made the mirror shine back on the surgery room and turn their mirror to glass so they could see inside.
They hadn't missed much. Natasha was lying on the hospital bed, still with a glassy-eyed look on her face that made Steve wonder what she was thinking about that was causing her so much pain. He still had no idea what had happened with her and Banner and curiosity never hit him so hard as it did now. Natasha's wrist was handcuffed to the bedside, and instead of pulling she grabbed the handle she was handcuffed to and held onto it tightly. Simmons set her up with music to listen to and it was clear she was letting her thoughts get away with the music as she didn't react to anything they did to her. Steve watched as they injected her a few times while Tony turned away, confessing to how much he still hated needles. The two doctors watched their monitors and put sensors on her, and already Steve wished he knew what this all pointed to.
It was a long procedure. They tried many different things and finally they gave her a dose of the final serum before watching her carefully. Immediately, Steve could see she was in pain when she was pulled out of her thoughts. She did not move and she did not grip the handle any tighter, she just waited. When it was clear the pain was too much, she gripped the handle a little tighter, clearly still resisting the pain though her body was trembling.
"Natasha, you have to tell us what you're feeling," they reminded her loudly.
They heard a quiet voice from her. "Pull the plug," she sighed out, clearly holding back a cry. "It's not working." They grabbed her arms to hold her down, making her body still and soothing her of some of her pain.
"We can't make it stop but it's almost over," they warned her, giving her more anesthetic and hoping for the best. Before long, she stopped shaking and sat up, panting over the breath she'd been holding since the serum had start its effects.
"I don't understand, Fitz, this was meant to pull out the artificial components in her and it didn't turn up anything. If we know for a fact that it's there, why didn't the serum work?" Simmons asked.
Checking the monitor, Fitz sighed out. "It's resisted completely. It's got a built-in self defense. Whatever's messing with her is smart. Her blood resists any alterations. The cure won't go through."
Pulling out her earphones carefully, Natasha looked at them both questioningly. "Just give me the bad news," she told them. Fitz was merely going to repeat himself when a new reading came up on his screen. He sighed out, clearly disappointed.
"Whatever is in there seems to have a self-destruct function. If we try harder to get rid of it, it will self-destruct and-" he stopped, hesitating.
"And? Fitz, just tell me."
"And take you with it," he finished. Tony and Steve gave each other a look. So, she was facing life or death.
"Your best chance is talking to Alexei and finding out what happened to you," Simmons said finally.
"I was afraid you'd say that," Natasha answered.
"He seems to have answers that are helping put us on the right track. He seems like a good enough guy-" Fitz's eyes flickered up at Simmons. They knew nice didn't necessarily mean trustworthy, they had learned that lesson the hard way once. "We'll have to tread carefully."
Having heard enough, Tony and Steve made their way out silently. They were just early enough that they didn't get caught. They made their way to the second floor as Tony told Steve he'd found a way to plan a hack of the doctor's files. Just as Steve was about to refuse, they found Fury waiting at the elevator doors. "I was just about to come find you, Captain. You've got homework." The director handed him a large file about two inches thick.
"What is it?"
"Alexei Shostakov, ever heard of him?"
"Just yesterday. Why?"
"We've been interrogating him and we think he might be a good recruit for your New Avengers. We'll need you and Barton to have these files looked over as soon as possible."
"Barton?"
"He's on his way now. I've trusted his call once, I'd like to think I can do it again. I expect a full report from both of you in three days." Tony stared down at the file and shook his head as Fury left them.
"That's the dead husband isn't it?"
"Yup."
"There is no such thing as a normal day around here," he observed bitterly, pressing the button on the elevator to go up to the Avengers Mansion.
I hope you liked it! Please review. Reviews are love! Special thanks to my reviewers from the last chapter.
