Chapter 6

The Incident: The Missing

"Come on boys," Natasha called out running ahead of Bruce and Clint, "this is the only chance we've got to catch this guy."

"You don't need to tell me twice," Clint was right behind her while Bruce lagged not far behind though was struggling to keep up. They had been after a criminal with the Avengers for a while, John King, generally not a big name but he'd been giving some trouble recently. No one was sure where he was getting his money or the tech he had been using. His weapons were stronger than any criminal at his rank should have. More importantly he had learned how to disappear off the grid for months at a time. By pure luck he had come up to close a deal for some new weapons and information. Thor, Iron Man, and Capt were busy holding off King's lackies and new allies while Bruce, Clint and Natasha were told to give chase. "How about we just go with Hulk power?" Clint called out getting annoyed with the chase.

"Hulk will rip him in half and we need him alive," Bruce huffed out, he had been sent along for the run just so he wouldn't be in the line of fire, in theory. Hulk had become more and more out of control with each time Bruce let him out. It had become ideal to keep him out of the fight unless they needed something completely destroyed but even then there was a good chance Hulk would turn on everyone else. There was no guaranteed way to stop Hulk when he did lose control completely and it had seemed like the times when they needed something completely destroyed were few and far between.

"Come on he can't keep this pace up forever," Natasha commented. Bruce rolled his eyes a bit considering they couldn't keep it up either, most of all him. He couldn't help but feel like him going along was beyond frustrating to everyone, perhaps most of all him.

"I can't get a clear shot at him," Clint complained as King darted around a corner as the group continued to follow.

The three started to close in on the man finally feeling like they had this but nothing was that simple. There was a strange pop recognized as the sound of as a tranquilizer gun which caused Bruce to fall to the ground his body going limp. "Bruce!" Clint skidded on the ground a bit as he turned to see what happened rushing over to Bruce. He quickly found the dart in his back and started to look around for where the shooter was. "Tash! They got Bruce!" Natasha stopped where she was looking at the two men then over her shoulder at King who was starting to get further away. Natasha was going through the options and quickly getting a hold of Fury to report in what happened.

"We need to get him out of here," Clint commented getting the dart out of Bruce and tossing it to the side. He was clearly concerned as he looked over at Natasha though it soon faded to disappointment when she shook her head.

"Fury says stay after King," Natasha replied, "he's priority. Fury has a team less than two minutes out who will come get Bruce."

"We can't just leave him," Clint muttered.

Clint could tell this was hard for even Natasha to decide after all it was hard for him to even think about. The tension between everyone as what felt like hours passed though it was only a few seconds of complete silence making it uncomfortable. "No," Natasha stated finally, "we have our orders. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team will be here soon to help him. If we lose this shot at King a lot of innocent people are going to get hurt and we might not get another shot like this. I'm sorry…" With that she started to run after King again, "Let's go Clint."

Hesitantly Clint got up after looking at Bruce, he could tell Natasha didn't really want to leave and he didn't want to leave either but she was right about King and considering how dangerous King had gotten leaving Natasha alone against him was extremely dangerous. "Fury better hurry up," Clint muttered before running after Natasha.

The two had caught up to King but they lost what he was selling and had no clue who had bought it. Clint felt like his gut was being slashed apart as he returned to see if Fury had picked Bruce up while Natasha took King in. He mentally swore at himself for leaving the other man behind. He found no trace of Bruce and called in to see if S.H.I.E.L.D. did get him. His gut turned when the response he got was that Bruce wasn't there when they showed up. He felt his anger rising quickly and he demanded the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent have Natasha contact him as soon as she got in with King. Clint had spent the time frantically looking for anything, hoping maybe that Bruce had woken up enough and dragged himself somewhere to hide or maybe he Hulked out and got out. He couldn't find anything though. It was a few minutes before Natasha called him.

"Bruce is gone," Clint wasn't sure how he kept his voice steady despite how angry he was with everything.

Natasha didn't reply for a while but eventually she stated with no emotion, "I'm on my way, we'll find him."

"There's no trace of him," Clint replied, "There's nothing here. We shouldn't have left him."

"I know Clint, I'll be there soon," Natasha replied. She had arrived a few minutes later and started to help Clint search the area looking for any trace of what happened. Whoever took Bruce had cleaned up everything at a rate that seemed impossible.

"I should have pocketed that dart," Clint muttered.

"You couldn't have seen this happen," Natasha replied.

"He was shot by a tranquilizer," Clint growled, "this should have been obvious."

"It was a stressful situation," Natasha muttered in response, "we had our orders."

"Screw orders," Clint yelled, "He was our friend."

"It happened, Clint. We all knew the risks going in, we had to get the target first and foremost and Bruce knew that," Natasha glared in response; "we need to move on and figure out what to do. Let's head back to the tower and tell the others."

"We shouldn't have brought him, we should have made him stay back," Clint growled his anger turning on Bruce and the fact he went with them, "Without Hulk he had no reason to be out here."

"I know, but you know he would have tried to come anyways." Natasha nodded putting a hand on Clint's shoulder, "He might not want to lose control and hurt everyone but he doesn't like sitting around doing nothing while we're risking our lives."

"Who cares what he likes!?" Clint yelled in response, "At least he'd be safe."

"We'll find him Clint, I promise," Natasha replied, "it's kind of hard for anyone to kidnap and hide Bruce Banner after all. Now come on, we're going to need back up if we're going to find him any time soon." The two started to walk away intending to talk to the others.

Damn it Bruce where are you? Clint ran a hand through his hair and looked at the sky.

((As per usual the characters here do not belong to me they are Marvel. Next chapter will be back in present day, however the rest of the incident will be revealed in small pieces.))