So, you guys are pretty much amazing. The response to the last chapter was incredible. Eighteen reviews on one chapter? Fucking awesome.

Warnings: language, drug use.

My beta, irite, has been especially amazing lately.

I do not own The Avengers.


Clint thought that there was really nothing more fucking boring than watching someone else working.

And so his current situation was non-ideal. It was made more so by the fact that he had recently become incapable of handling tedium with any kind of level-headed patience.

The drive back to the Tower, though, that had been exciting. Or maybe it had been terrifyingly dangerous. He found it a little hard, currently, to tell the difference between the two.

He wondered about Tony, that the man seemed to always find it a little hard to make that distinction.

Clint honestly didn't know what was more disturbing, though. That, or Tony's genuine enthusiasm about running diagnostics on his security software. Clint felt that kind of excitement really should be reserved for something that was actually fun.

Before Tony had settled in for his 'fun', though, he'd made sure that Clint was all set to go on the meds front. As irresponsible as Tony sometimes tended to be, he took that particular duty very seriously. Clint was surprised (though he shouldn't have been, really, not after knowing Tony for so long) that Tony had retained every word of the inserts that the pharmacy had sent along with his new medications.

So Tony had gotten him squared away, and then spirited the pill bottles away with an apologetic, "Sorry, Barton. Romanoff's orders. It's not that she doesn't trust you-"

"It's fine. She shouldn't," Clint interrupted, trying his best to win a staring contest with the floor.

Tony had shot him a concerned look-that Clint did not see-and said with an attempt at nonchalance, "I need to do some work in the lab. Wanna head down now?"

Clint pretended that he had been offered another option (He can't make you do anything, Barton, you know that, but it would be funny as hell to see him try). Clint gritted his teeth, forcing that thought away. "No, that sounds fine. I'll be...fine."

And Tony, bless his work-obsessed soul, had bounded off towards his lab, checking only briefly over his shoulder to make sure Clint was behind him.

He was. Begrudgingly.

Clint was trying really hard not to resent being treated like a toddler. He knew that they were all just trying to help. And he knew that they were right not to trust him too much, because he didn't even trust himself not to do something stupid at this point. When a headache was eating its way back through to his occipital lobe, or when he was in the throes of a panic attack, or when the cravings were so bad that he would sell his soul to the first person who would give him his pills...when those things happened, he didn't trust himself at all.

So, he'd been sitting in Tony's lab for most of the afternoon, alternating between pacing the length of the room from end to end and sitting sulkily in a chair, staring furiously at the back of Tony's head. This uselessness chafed, and he was nursing a growing resentment towards, well, just about everything at this point. Yeah, benching me was a great fucking idea. Now instead of doing something useful I can just sit here. And think. Just what I needed.

Lacking any and all distractions, by 6:00 he was pissed off, and starving, and in the middle of the worst craving that he had experienced yet. And he was far, far too resentful to give voice to any of this. Because what the fuck good would that do?

He'd had the cravings before, at least he thought he had, for the last few days. Now, he realized that those hadn't been cravings. That had been his physical dependence, his body protesting the new regime. This was different. He didn't know if it was the stress from his miserable day, or if it was because his last dose had been late, but all he could think about was his pills, and his obsession grew with every boring moment of watching Tony work.

The obsession turned to frustration, and the frustration to rage. His agitated pacing kicked up a notch, and soon he practically stalking through the lab, struggling not to break the first thing that moved.

Tony, absorbed in his work, remained completely oblivious to Clint's activities. At least, until he turned around, saying, "This is so fucking strange, I'm not finding any evidence of a breach. Bruce was the only person who accessed this..." The words had died on his tongue when he saw the look Clint was shooting him.

It was alarmingly close to "blind hatred," and Tony wondered what he had done to deserve that kind of emotion. He'd just been working, damn it!

"Barton?"

"What?"

That tone wasn't especially comforting either. "Er. Nothing." Tony looked at his watch, then doubled checked it against the clock on the wall. "Shit, Barton. I was supposed to feed you. Any preferences for dinner? I make a mean bowl of Lucky Charms."

"I want Fruit Loops." Clint could barely hear himself speak over the duet of his frayed nerves and his throbbing resentment, but was nevertheless aware that he sounded petulant, like the toddler he so resented being treated as. That realization just made everything worse, and he gritted his teeth against the sudden intensification of the pain in his head and of the burning desire that had overtaken every nearly every thought in his mind.

Tony thought of about 2,000 jokes he could have made right there, but apparently decided that now was not the time for any of them. "Sure. Fine. Let's go."

So they'd left the lab. Tony, now more tuned in to Clint, could sense the anger-or something like anger-rolling off of him in waves. And he was so tense, more so than he had been at any point since this whole mess had started.

Tony's first reaction was, of course, to poke at him, to gain some more information to integrate with his observations, which would help him figure out what was going on. But a vague ache under his eye acted as enough of a warning. He remained silent, wondering briefly where this newfound common sense had come from.

Three steps off the elevator, Tony's phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket. "Sorry, Barton, it's your girlfriend. Gotta take this. And I need to grab something upstairs. Why don't you grab some food and I'll be down in a few?" Without waiting for an answer, he ducked back into the elevator, answering his phone with, "Hello darling. Where the fuck are you?" and leaving Clint alone in the entryway.

Alone.

Really?

Sure, it wasn't the first time he'd been alone since this whole thing had started But Nat wasn't sitting outside the bathroom, and Rogers wasn't sitting outside of his bedroom. He was actually alone.

Perfect. But he didn't have much time.

He made a beeline for Natasha's room.

Underneath the craving that was currently behind the wheel in his mind, he was aware of some part of him screaming that this was a bad idea, the worst possible choice he could make. That this wasn't even him choosing, this was him reacting, and if he ever wanted to feel in control of his life again, he was going to have to learn the difference. But that was easy to ignore, laughably easy, because this was what he needed and fuck anyone trying to get in his way.

Finding the pills that Natasha had stashed in her desk drawer was also laughably easy. He felt momentarily sick, knowing that she hadn't done a better job of hiding them because she had trusted him not to do exactly this. She had trusted him to put up at least a little bit of resistance, not to cave in at the first hint of a craving. But this wasn't a hint of a craving, this was the real goddamn thing and Oh my God I need this now.

That tiny shred of trust had been misplaced. Clint knew that he didn't deserve even that much.

Well, she would know that, too, soon enough, and she wouldn't make that mistake again. So he shook out the whole contents of the bottle into his hand. There weren't many left. He dry-swallowed four and pocketed the rest.

The relief was immediate, and that pissed him off, because he knew that was just his mind playing tricks on him.

Tricks or not, the relief washing over him turned his legs to jelly, rendered him incapable of moving. He fell to his knees, the empty pill bottle falling from his hand and bouncing away.

After a few minutes, he could hear Tony calling his name, but he didn't yell back, didn't give away his position. He just closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, pushing back against the emotions that had been nearly overwhelming him a few moments before.

And when Tony walked up behind him 30 seconds later, it didn't take him long to put together what had happened. Tony Stark was a genius, after all, and the evidence was pretty fucking unequivocal. The empty bottle on the floor next to Clint, for example, was very telling.

Tony didn't quite get it right, though, and that was somewhat comforting. Genius or not, he still made mistakes. This mistake, Clint thought, was perfectly understandable, though; the billionaire had seen the empty bottle and apparently jumped to the worst possible conclusion. The way things had been going lately, that was a pretty reasonable course of action.

Tony crossed the room in two steps and picked up the bottle. "Oh Jesus, fuck, Barton, what the fuck?"

Both the panicked look on his face and his colorful language were pretty funny, Clint reflected, and he burst into laughter.

He quieted abruptly, though, when Tony grabbed him by the back of his shirt and started to literally drag him towards Nat's bathroom. Clint would give it to him-Tony was pretty strong. But as fun as this was, he didn't think he'd like where this was going. "The fuck are you doing, Stark?"

Tony managed to get him into the bathroom, and sliding Clint across the tile was significantly easier than moving him across the carpet. A few more steps, and Tony deposited Clint unceremoniously in front of the toilet. "The fuck do you think I'm doing, Barton? You're not dying on my watch, not right now. We've got a fucking problem."

Clint thought about pointing out that he wasn't actually in danger of dying, had not, in fact, been trying to kill himself, but he was more curious about the second part of Tony's statement. "Problem? What kind of problem?"

"Barf first, questions after, Barton."

The look that Clint shot Tony was pained, but the billionaire was unrelenting. So Clint rolled his eyes and stuck a couple of fingers down his throat. He hadn't eaten anything substantial since breakfast, and that hadn't lasted past 9:00 AM, so the only thing that came up was stomach acid and most of the four pills he'd taken a few minutes before.

Looking mildly disgusted, Tony had examined the contents of the bowl. "That's it? What the hell?"

Clint spat one last time, and stood to rinse out his mouth. He tried very hard to keep his emotions under control as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the rest of the pills he'd squirreled away. That endeavor became more of a challenge when he handed them to Tony, and he nearly flipped his lid when Tony tossed them indifferently into the toilet and flushed everything away.

He had to fight down an almost unbearable urge to dive after them, but he was stronger than that, damn it.

The fuck you are.

The headache was already coming back.

"Is that it?"

Clint nodded.

There were several beats of silence, then Tony said, "Turn out your pockets, Barton."

Humiliating. But he complied. He'd earned this, after all. He'd just consider this a lesson in exactly how the fuck not to act in the future.

Satisfied that Clint had really handed over all the pills (and feeling like an ass for doubting him, but what else could he do?), Tony turned to leave, beckoning for Clint to follow. "Come on. I need to run a GPS trace. And then we've got a demigod heading our way."

As they walked, Tony told Clint what was going on. He knew Fury wouldn't like it-the director thought putting Barton on leave was a good idea. But Tony felt pretty strongly, now, that leaving Barton with nothing to do was a bad fucking idea, if what he'd just stopped was any indication. The man needed a distraction more than he needed time to quietly reflect. And this was going to be a pretty damn big distraction.

The problems that might come from involving Clint in this sort of thing in his current state were mostly lost on Tony, whose impulsiveness generally precluded that kind of consideration.

Clint followed Tony back down to the lab, listening to his explanation with growing concern, the craving receding somewhat in light of actually having something to focus on.

He did remember to stop for his Fruit Loops on the way, at least.


Natasha had sent a text message to Steve and Bruce at 4:15, telling them that it was time to go.

Steve had responded almost immediately, and had made it to the rendezvous point in under ten minutes.

Bruce, though, did not respond.

That wasn't so strange. Natasha figured he was busy doing...whatever it was that he did. He was pretty terrible about answering text messages in general. If he was working, his response rate crept down towards 0. So she wasn't worried, just a little annoyed, and when Bruce didn't answer her second message, either, she called him.

The call went to voicemail.

And that was a little strange, because he was usually good about answering his phone. But, the science labs were underground. Even though they all had phones designed by Tony Stark himself that were practically guaranteed to have a signal anywhere on the planet, she thought that maybe the call wasn't going through.

So she called the biochemistry lab directly. That was when things started to go badly.

An intern, Jessica Starnes, had answered the phone.

"I'd like to speak with Dr. Banner, please," Natasha had said.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Banner's not here. He left almost an hour ago."

Natasha had not expected that. "What?"

"Dr. Banner left a little bit after 3:00. He hasn't been back. Did you try his cell?"

"Yes. Did he say where he was going? Or if he'd be back?"

"Um...I'm not sure. He did say something about heading to offsite storage, I think. I didn't even know we had that..."

Natasha expected that was because they didn't. She was beginning to have a really bad feeling about this. "Thanks. If you see him, let him know that Agent Romanoff is looking for him."

But Natasha already knew that Bruce wasn't going to be showing up in the lab again today. Gut instinct or pessimism, it was tough to say, but she was pretty damn sure.

She hung up the phone and looked at Steve. "I think we have a problem." She explained her phone conversation with the intern.

Steve thought she was overreacting. "It's only a missed phone call, Natasha. I'm sure he's fine, probably just distracted wherever he ended up, and can't hear his phone ringing."

Natasha might have believed that, except for two things. "Dr. Banner doesn't go anywhere in this building alone. People keep calling security on him. So he wouldn't have just left. Also-"

"Unless he wasn't alone."

That was a good point. Natasha pulled out her phone again. "Ms. Starnes. Did Dr. Banner leave with anyone? He did. Who? Great. Thanks." She ended the call. "Banner's with one of the biochemists. Dr. John Lucas. But it's still not like him to leave without telling anyone where he was going."

"Maybe he told Fury?"

It was unlikely; Bruce went out of his way to avoid talking to the director. But it was worth a shot. She pulled out her phone. Fury answered on the first ring. "Romanoff. Good timing. Get up here."

That threw her off. "Sir?"

"And bring Banner. Rogers, too, if you can find him." And Fury hung up.

Natasha looked at the phone in her hand, a bit bewildered. "Well, I'm gonna say he doesn't know where Dr. Banner is. But he wants to see us."

So they had gone back up to his office.

For some reason, Natasha wasn't at all surprised to see Thor sitting in one of the chairs in front of Fury's desk. Today had already gone pretty much as far sideways as it could. Adding in a demigod didn't seem like it would make that much of a difference.

"My friends!" Thor greeted them warmly. Natasha let him hug her with as much good grace as she could manage, and experienced a fair amount of satisfaction from watching how awkwardly Steve took his hug.

Fury, for his part, looked like he was in the middle of an epic migraine. "Thor was just telling me a really great fucking story. Thor, why don't you start at the beginning? And where the hell is Banner, Romanoff?"

"I can't find him, director, I think-"

"Damn, I really wanted him to hear this. You'll have to fill him in later. Thor?"

Natasha quieted. Whatever Thor had to say had apparently gotten Fury pretty damn upset, and that never turned out well.

"I would like to reiterate that my brother has done nothing."

"Thanks, got that part. But it's still his fucking fault, so move on."

Thor looked annoyed at Fury's tone, but nevertheless continued, "It is very difficult to tell when my brother is telling the truth, or when he is spinning lies for his own amusement. This particular tale I had believed a lie for a long while."

"Those creatures that comprised my brother's army...the Chitauri...are different from any creature that I have ever known. They are completely unknown to Asgard and, I believe, to Midgard?"

Fury nodded, and Thor continued, "My brother has spoken of them at length, since his imprisonment, and since I could not understand why he would tell me of them, I assumed that his words were false. Why would he reveal genuine information willingly? To what end?"

Natasha thought that was a legitimate point. Loki was a liar. He wouldn't tell the truth unless he had a damn good reason.

Thor went on, "One thing that has come up often was the unique properties of the Chitauri's blood. He had it examined while he was on Midgard, and had it collected and stored in great quantities at strategic locations. Apparently, if it is consumed, it grants one unimaginable powers of destruction. The description my brother gave was entirely fantastical, and of course I did not believe him..."

Natasha was putting the pieces together. Maybe not as fast as Tony or Bruce would have, but pretty damn fast nonetheless. "Let me guess. Lots of fire, explosions, that sort of thing?"

Thor nodded gravely. "It is as you say. How did you know?"

Steve looked at Fury. "The missing barrels...?"

Fury said, "Yeah, I think so."

Natasha turned to Thor, who was looking progressively more confused. "So, what gives? Why did you start to believe him? Why are you here now?"

"My brother has maintained adamantly that the Chitauri blood is immensely dangerous, too dangerous for humans. He believes that it will be used to cause great harm, and has given me instructions for its disposal. He has, just today, staked his freedom on his claim that what he says is true."

Fury blinked a few times. "...Please tell me that doesn't mean what I think it means."

"If his claim is true, and this substance does what he says it does, then he will be heralded as a hero and he will be pardoned. If it is an elaborate lie, he will be cast to the darkest, deepest prison in creation until the end of time. My father's patience for Loki's tricks has run out. He sent me here as soon as the bargain was struck."

After several seconds of silence, Steve shook his head. "Well, I hate to break it to you, but it looks like your brother's going to walk." At Thor's puzzled look, Steve clarified, "He's going to be freed."

"How can you know this?"

And Fury explained what they had been doing for the last several days. He finished with, "Now the two barrels are missing."

"So's Dr. Banner," Natasha added. Fury whipped around to look at her. "I was trying to tell you that when we got here. We can't find him. He's not answering his phone or his texts. The intern said he'd been heading to an offsite storage location, but we don't have any of those."

Fury apparently thought that was as concerning as Natasha had. "When was the last time you heard from him?"

"Around 2:00. The intern in the biochem lab said he left after 3:00, with one of the other biochemists. Dr. Lucas."

"Do you think Banner's disappearance has anything to do with the missing barrels?"

"I...don't know. It's too early to tell. But it seems kind of strange, all the same."

Fury nodded. It was just after 6:00 now. "Call Stark. See if he can trace Banner's location. Then bring Thor over there; Stark needs to hear what's going on. I'll see what I can find on Lucas. We'll figure out our next steps once we've got a read on Banner's location. Fuck, if those two just wandered off to Starbucks for 3 hours, I am going to be pissed."

Despite his words, though, Fury looked more concerned than anything else.


When Tony ran the GPS trace, he found Bruce's location pretty quickly.

It was in a lake. In the middle of the forest. Miles away from civilization.

Tony really hoped that didn't mean that Bruce himself was in the lake as well.

Can the Other Guy even drown...?


Bruce thought that he had learned a valuable lesson today. Actually, several valuable lessons. He really hoped that the rest of his day turned out in such a manner that he would get the opportunity to apply these lessons in the future.

The lessons were as follows:

1. If someone says they need to show you something at an offsite storage location, make sure that offsite storage location actually exists before getting into a car with them.
2. If you think that you have traveled an unreasonable distance to reach said offsite storage facility, you probably have.
3. Even if you sometimes turn into a green rage monster, the power balance in an interaction always seems to tilt towards the person holding a gun to your head.
4. Check to make sure you are not being kidnapped before leaving well-populated areas and heading deep into the forest.

Bruce really wished he would have thought of number four, at least, sooner than he had.

Because it was too late now.


As it turns out, Thursdays are just going to be unrelentingly stupid this semester. But posting makes me feel better.

You know what else makes me feel better? Reviews. Yup.