Tony was woken by an annoying prodding in his side. He tried to swat it away; his head felt like he had the worst hangover and his eyes were heavy with sleep, but the prodding continued so he tore his eyes open to see Thor inches from his face
"Man of Iron! You are awake!" he sounded relieved
Tony sat awkwardly, looking around at the strange place he found himself in; it was grey, just grey and nothing else; as far as he could see. But it didn't look right, it looked like smoke; like nothing was solid, despite the fact Tony knew it must be because he was sat on something...
"Where are we?" Tony asked, hoping Thor would have more of an idea than he did
"I am unsure, this place resembles none I know"
"Great" Tony deadpanned, and then the obvious hit him; "Where are the others?"
Thor's face dropped; "You are the only one I have been able to locate"
Tony closed his eyes to concentrate, but it wasn't working; Thor realised what he was attempting and answered his unspoken question;
"Decoy doesn't seem to work in this place"
"Well of course not..."
Tony stumbled to his feel and looked around, but it was just grey to each horizon
"How'd you find me?"
"It was purely by accident"
"Great, well we have some needles in haystacks to find my friend"
XxX
Pepper was pacing, and her nervous energy was rubbing off on Phil. Dr Hart was collecting pages and pages of data, so much so he and his team were swamped in it. The council had figured out what Fury wasn't telling them and were pushing him to wake Natasha in the vain hope it'd wake the others. But every minute Fury bought them was a minute that might improve her prognosis, and a minute Dr Hart's team had to fix this mess; so he kept stalling. Hill was working on recruiting other scientists and Phil had positioned himself to carefully watch his team:
He knew them better than most; he watched them closely, taking in their body language as they lay there; the slight frown on Natasha's face, the worry lines more prominent than usual on Tony's, the concern plastered all over Clint's and the rising panic on Steve's; whatever was happening wasn't anything good...
XxX
Bruce walked through the darkness for what seemed like hours; there were no landmarks or anything to judge distance or direction; he could be going round in circles for all he knew. It was quite possible no one else was even here and he was alone; that'd explain why the psychic connection seemed to have disappeared... Maybe he was dead? Maybe this was his own personal form of hell? But it was possible his teammates were here as well, and they might need him; so he couldn't give up... Not until he knew for sure.
He continued, and more than once he thought he heard his friends, but he was still alone and he was fast becoming tired; exhaustion overtook him and he needed a break. Taking a seat in the mist, he closed his eyes for what seemed like a minute but was woken suddenly when something painfully walked into him before falling over
"Bruce? Bruce!"
He tore his eyes open to see Steve on his hands and knees beside him
"Steve! Oh thank God!"
"Any sigh of the others?"
"Have you seen anyone else?"
They asked at the same time, taking the others question as their answer
"Are you okay?" Steve asked, referring to the fact he'd found Bruce curled up on the ground
"Oh; yeah. Just tired"
"You good to search for the others?"
Bruce nodded and climbed to his feet, politely ignoring Steve's offered hand to help him up
"Are we sure the others are here?"
"I'd assume so, don't you think this could be some sort of fallout from Decoy?"
"I don't see why all of a sudden we'd end up... Oh"
"What?" Steve asked, stopping walking to turn and look at the scientist
"Natasha"
"What about her?"
"The head injury, Decoy, her history; this could be some sort of side affect related to that"
"We need to find her then"
"Yeah, and fast"
XxX
"Tell me you have something?" Fury demanded when he re-entered the medical bay a few hours later. Pepper jumped up from her seat next to Tony's bed in order to follow the director into the attached science lab; he didn't dismiss her so she took it to mean it was okay for her to be there
"Erm..."
"Come on Hart; you're supposed to be the best neurologist we have"
"This is a result of Decoy, which seems to have been brought about by the treatment Agent Romanoff is receiving as a result of her brain injury. When the others went to sleep, they got dragged into whatever induced medical coma is keeping Agent Romanoff unconscious"
"So the only way out of this is to wake her?"
"Not necessarily, the readings show some are closer to consciousness than the others who seem to have been pulled in deeper, they may be able to fight it and wake up on their own"
"And that wouldn't harm Natasha?" Pepper asked concerned
"Not as far as I can tell"
"No offense, but I wouldn't stake money on your hunches" Maria told him bitterly
Fury turned to the deputy director; "You get anyone?"
"I've got a few scientists coming in from England and China who reckon they may be able to help, as well as Jane Foster who's flying in tonight with her intern"
"Wait what?!" Hart piped up, he looked almost angry that others would be involved in his project
"You thought we weren't going to get more people on this Hart? That we'd leave it up to you and your team who promised us nothing like this would happen in the first place?"
"I erm- It was an unforeseen... I do not want to share my work with other scientists!"
"Well Dr Hart you don't really have a choice. This is Shield's top priority right now, we need out team back and we need them sooner rather than later so get back to work, Doctor Foster will be arriving in a few hours"
XxX
Clint stumbled through the fog trying to clear his head as he thought back to what happened; Decoy was a success, or so they had thought. Missions were going well, and then there was a fight and something bad happened... Natasha was hurt and she hadn't woken up and then he'd ended up here.
He was frustrated, his memory was patchy, his mind felt fuzzy; like someone had been messing in his head, and he was pretty sure he was going round in circles; he wasn't going to find anyone like this and they certainly couldn't find him. So he stopped, stayed still and tried to focus
Clint's head felt heavy and his limbs were clumsy so it wasn't long until he slumped back to the floor, and soon after he heard voices approaching, but he couldn't see a thing. He put it down to his mind playing tricks on him but they came back, louder and clearer and he managed to force himself to stand again
"Clint? Clint is that you?" Steve called, strolling forward quickly leaving Bruce lagging behind
"Steve?"
"Clint! Oh am I pleased to see you!"
"First time you've ever said that to me" he laughed weakly
"First and last" he told him as he reached his side, Bruce soon joined them and half the team were finally reunited
"We need to keep going, we need to find the others" Steve looked at Bruce, and then at Clint to see the two of them were suffering more than he was. He felt guilty, but they needed to find the others and figure a way out of this
XxX
"Doctor Foster, Miss Lewis; thanks for coming"
"Well, you didn't leave us much choice; you said the Avengers were in trouble?"
"Again" Darcy added, receiving an eye roll from both Jane and Agent Hill
Maria led the two women from the helipad down towards the medical bay where the Avengers were now held
"W-what? What happened?" Jane asked on seeing her boyfriend and his teammates all unconscious and strapped to various machines
"It's all in here" Maria told her, handing her and Darcy a copy of all the research
"You understand this is all strictly classified information" she told them before she released her grip on the files, she took an extra second to glare at Darcy before passing her her copy
XxX
"Tony? ... Thor? ... Natasha?" Steve called, over and over; leading the way through the never ending smoked
"Tasha!" Clint shouted, nowhere near as loud as Steve managed but he was determined, he would find her and they'd make it out of this... Whatever this was...
Tony was fed up of searching, he was tired and hungry and he was starting to think that maybe he and Thor were the only ones in this hell hole. He was about to say this to Thor when he heard Steve's voice
"Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Thor asked, pausing to listen more closely
"Natasha? ... Tony? ... Thor?" they both heard it this time
"Captain!" Thor boomed, and there was no way they could have missed that
Three forms soon came into view, and Tony was secretly relieved; glad it wasn't just the two of them trapped here
"We- we need to find Tasha" Clint panted, he was exhausted but he wouldn't give up
Steve and Thor nodded solemnly, looking over the other three
"Should we go about the search while you three rest?" Thor suggested, rightly thinking it'd be quicker if it were just the two of them
"No, you'll never find us again if we split up, we go together" Tony said, as much as he wanted to lie down and rest
Bruce and Clint nodded determinedly; Bruce slowly climbing back to his feet after taking a few seconds to sit down and regain some much needed energy
"Alright then" Steve began; "Which way?"