Chapter Summary: In which Bruce gets sick, Natasha reminisces, and Tony doesn't know what the fuck is going on.
A/N: Okay this note is actually important (crazy, right?), because it has to do with the way I wrote this chapter. Basically, none of the characters completely know what's going on, but if they'd fucking communicate they would know. So to show the confusion, I switch POVs a shit ton. The other reason I do that is to show the fact that the three of them have all of the components (Tasha's info; Tony's intelligence; Bruce's symptoms) but again, they fucking suck at communicating.
"Bruce?" Natasha asks, all anger far away from her words. She sounds like she's speaking in a lullaby, and it reminds the scientist of the people in Alaska.
Tony turns around to look at his friend and greets, "Good morning, Brucie,"
Natasha talks before Bruce can respond. "Bruce is here? Why?" Tony wants to slap that accusatory tone out of her, but he knows that slapping one Natalia Romanova is a death sentence.
"Why don't you ask him yourself? He's still capable of answering questions, as far as I know," Tony mutters.
The spy glares athe Tony, but then goes back to her sweet, soft voice and asks, "Bruce, why are you here?" Despite the harsh question, it still feels like the nicest person on the planet asked it.
The biologist's eyes flicker between the three people in the room and tries to push his anxiety down when he answers, "Tony offered me a place to stay,"
"Why'd you decide to come back?" Natasha asks, sensing that the last answer was a lie.
Bruce starts picking at the cuffs of the suit jacket, trying to figure out the best way to answer her question. He knows that Natasha will be able to evaluate his lies and truths, but hopefully he can spin her in circles first.
When he doesn't answer Romanov sweetly coaxes, "Bruce?"
The scientist still doesn't answer though, because now he recognizes the tone of her voice. It feels like the familiarity of a long lost memory.
Or in his case, exactly how the flashes of being the Hulk is like.
She's using the same voice she uses to calm the Hulk down. The thought sickens him, and he feels the need to sit down, or bolt out of the room.
He chooses the latter.
After Bruce quickly exits back into the elevator, Natasha turns back to Tony and crosses her arms, as if it was his fault that the scientist left. "What happened to him?" She presses.
"I know you're not used to anyone saying this," Tony starts, not bothering to hide his snarkiness, "But it's none of your goddamn business."
"It's my business because I care about him," Natasha snaps back, arms now uncrossed, but still itching to punch.
Before Tony can refute (and undoubtedly make things worse), Rhodes physically steps in between the two rivals and notes, "Alright, both of you, shut the hell up for a second. Bruce is his own person, and he'll decide what he wants to do and who he wants to deal with. 'Kay?"
But Natasha, never one to back down from a challenge, just replies, "Something must be wrong, because he'd never come here on his own accord-"
"Stop fucking saying that word-" Tony cuts her off, biting his lip, but she continues anyway.
"So just let me talk to him."
Tony gives her an incredulous look and exclaims, "Jesus Christ, who died and made you Queen? Since when do you get the fucking authority to go around my tower and question the people inside of it?"
"I'm concerned about his well being, Stark,"
"Yeah, no fucking shit, so am I. Except I know how to deal with people without using my manipulative Red Room training,"
Natasha takes a threatening step forward, and Rhodes pushes them both apart, "Both you need to calm the fuck down, and leave each other alone-"
Tony knows he'll feel bad about interrupting his best friend later, but right now he doesn't care. "No, no, we need to do this now. Maybe you'll give me a reason to why you decided to let Steve leave?"
"Tones-" Rhodes starts, knowing that this is going to escalate into a fight soon enough.
"Leave, Rhodey." Tony plainly states, wanting this to be between him and Natasha.
"Ton-"
"Leave!" The engineer all but shouts, standing inches from his friend's face.
After a grueling four seconds, the Colonel steps away from the two heroes and steps into the elevator, disappointment etched onto his face.
The two left in the room stare off at each other, both waiting for the other to throw the first punch.
"Glad to see that you're still good at running away your friends, Stark," Natasha states, fully knowing that it's the lowest blow, and glances back at the closed doors.
Tony ignores the painful question and goes right to the chase. "I need you to tell me the fucking truth this time," He starts, a bite in his voice he hasn't heard for years. "Why are you here?"
The spy cocks her head to the side as if pondering the question. Eventually she looks straight at the other man and declares, "Curiosity."
"So my life's a soap opera to you?"
"It's more interesting than anything else, at the moment,"
"Captain Righteous finally too much for you to handle?"
Natasha shrugs in response. But then she leans in close to the other man, and Stark has to stop himself from reflexively flinching. Natasha then leans near the other man's ear and quietly murmurs, "How secure are your cameras, Stark?"
Equally as quietly Tony replies, "Better than the world," Just to make sure, he sends a dirty look to one of the cameras. "Who's watching?"
Natasha takes a step back and with a raised voice she says, "This is ridiculous, Stark, just let me see Banner!" She then moves in and raises her hand as if to slap him, disguising her whispers of, "SHIELD. Hydra. The Government. Not sure yet."
"Fine!" Tony shouts back. "He's in my lab, go fucking bully him if you want." In reality, Tony has no clue where his friend ran off to, he can only hope that it isn't the lab.
They step into the elevator and the engineer absentmindedly taps his leg. Except that it's not absentmindedly. In morse code, he taps out 'Camera in elevator'. He knows that Natasha's smart enough to figure that one out.
He stops the elevator the floor above the once brilliant lab, and thanks himself for not fixing any of it up. Including the cameras.
The engineer drops down from the hole in the floor and lands in a pile of dull scrap metal. Natasha follows suit after he moves away.
"There aren't any cameras in here anymore, I can assure you," Tony says, kicking a piece of metal to the side so he can reach a surprisingly intact chair.
The spy nods, but then asked, "What happened in here? One of your experiments finally gone wrong?"
"The Hulk." Tony plainly answers, and swivels the chair so he faces her. "Alright, I'm pretty sure this is a double, double, double, cross, but what the fuck is happening?"
Bruce quickly goes back to the dark confines of his room, mind singing a chorus of intrusive thoughts.
Why is Natasha here?"
The scientist can't really breathe, but he chalks it up to anxiety and paces around the room, fingers picking at the threads of his clothes. Bruce doesn't know how much time has passed when Friday calls, "Doctor Banner, if I may,"
Natasha's here to take me away.
"Friday?" He dumbly asks to the wall.
She's always been working for SHIELD, she's probably going to send me back to the empty room. The empty room, with nothing bite white walls, and white gloves, and white pajamas, and white bed, and white pillow, and white rice, and white-
"Yes, now, if I may, it would be in your best intentions to breathe deeper breaths, or take a minute to sit down."
Or maybe she got a better deal, and is sending me back to Ross.
The scientist comes to his senses and sits on the corner of his bed, trying to take slower breaths. He watches the seconds spin around the clock and tries to match each breath with four of them. Somehow, it ends up helping a bit.
Ross's room with nothing that's white. The blades that aren't sterile, the fluids that aren't clear, the tables with his old blood on them.
But even after minutes have passed, something doesn't feel right.
The men with grenades and guns, ready to kill and torture him.
Perhaps if the good doctor wasn't caught up in thinking of an old friend he'd be able to pinpoint the strange feeling.
He's going to get captured, just like last time.
"Alright, I'm pretty sure this is a double, double, double, cross, but what the fuck is happening?" The scientist questions.
"Someone's after the Avengers," Natasha says, conspicuously looking around at the carnage of the lab.
Tony smirks, "The 'Avengers' doesn't exist, Natasha. I thought the goddam war between us pretty much showed that."
"Don't be coy, Stark. Someone is after the people who aren't completely human." The spy easily states, temper running short around the man.
Tony gives her a glare and then asks, "So you've come here… Why?"
"I thought you were supposed to be some sort of genius, Stark."
"As well as playboy, philanthropist, billionaire, honestly, it just goes on and on."
Natasha ignore the last comment and states, "Stark, someone is going after inhuman people-"
"That's a double negative-"
"And the easiest place to find a bunch of people with powers is the Avengers. I would only come to you if it was necessary." She finishes, biting her tongue so she doesn't say anything that she'll regret in a second.
The two heroes look at each other without blinking for a full ten second before Tony mutters, "So you've come to me, to get me to protect the people that tried to kill me."
"Stop being so melodramatic, Stark, you weren't almost killed-"
Tony interrupts her by scoffing. "You know, if there was anyone who would know what happened, I thought it'd be you."
"Tempting me, Stark?"
The billionaire opens his mouth to respond, but is cut off by his AI.
"Boss, Doctor Banner is in need of assistance."
Tony feels his heart stutter a bit, and quickly tells Natasha, "I'll believe you for now, about someone after us, but you're going to have to tell me a just a bit more. This destroyed lab is the only place without cameras in the tower, but believe me, if someone hacked in, I'd know about it. There's probably no reason to have super secret conversations down here." He adds, already climbing out of the hole in the ceiling.
He leaves the Russian spy by herself in the old lab, who sighs at Stark's abruptness.
"Friday, what's wrong with Brucie?"
"It seems that Doctor Banner is unable to take a full breath containing all of the necessary gasses in the air. I've been monitoring him-"
"Why didn't you tell me this before?" Tony growls out, willing his elevator to move faster.
"His breathing had not gotten worse until the nanosecond before I alerted you."
The answers doesn't calm Tony down. "'Gotten worse'? What happened before?"
"I believe that Miss Romanov's presence startled Doctor Banner."
"Of course it did," Tony murmurs to himself, wishing he could go back in time, if only to punch Natasha.
A few more seconds pass, and the elevator doors open to Bruce's floor.
Tony didn't really know what he was expecting, but it definitely wasn't his friend sitting peacefully on the edge of the bed, hands awkwardly fiddling.
The genius makes sure to take loud footsteps so Bruce knows he's there, and walks over so that he is standing in front of the other man. "Bruce?"
The other man pops his fingers and replies, "Hey, Tony."
"Friday said you were having trouble breathing?" The billionaire asks, talking softly and slowly, just be safe.
"'S not that bad," Bruce mumbles, but takes a big gulp of air afterward, completely contradicting his last statement. "I've had worse."
Tony forces out a chuckle and replies, "Given our line of work, that's not the most comforting, Brucie,"
Not trusting himself to verbal response, Bruce just shrugs his shoulders response.
"You gotta tell me what's happenin', Green Bean," Tony says, trying to internally catalogue all of his friend's visible symptoms.
"'S not just anxiety," Bruce squeezes out between breaths, and pulls a particularly large piece of skin off of his ring finger near the nail. "It's worse,"
Tony notices it and grabs his friend's hand to prevent anymore picking. "Okay, good, good start, but I'm gonna need more than that. Is it like asthma, or something similar maybe? Does it hurt?"
Bruce shakes his head at the last question, but otherwise doesn't give Tony anything else to go on.
"Okay, so is it like one of the scenarios where you can't breathe, or you can breathe but you aren't getting enough oxygen, or a combination of the both?" Tony can tell that he's jabbering, but he's worried and can't seem to stop it.
Bruce starts to take in breaths using his mouth now, and Tony can tell from his eyes that he's panicking.
The engineer squeezes his hand a bit and apologizes, "Right, right, yes or no questions work better for the time being." He then tells himself to talk slower, because panicking right now is most definitely not going to help Bruce. "Okay, can you breathe, as in, are your lungs are expanding?"
Bruce nods.
"Does it hurt to breathe?"
A shake.
"Wait, so is it like you're not getting enough oxygen?"
The doctor nods harsha a few times, and then takes a few gulps of air in.
"Okay, that's good, now we have something to work with. My guess is that you don't want me to call a doctor?"
"Don't," Bruce chokes out, and then continues to try and breathe.
Tony nods, but doesn't look happy about it. "Alright, I won't, but if it gets worse I'm going to." Bruce nods at that, relieving a bit of Tony's anxiety. He then wracks his brain for anything and everything he's learned regarding lungs and the respiratory system. But when he looks up at his friend and sees the pale pallor of his face, he realizes that he doesn't have the time to delve into his memories.
"How about some oxygen? There's some in the med bay. You know what, don't answer that, we don't have a choice. It won't even be that bad, I won't put you on that much oxygen anyway," Tony pauses to calm himself down again. He then lets go of Bruce's hand and stands up. "Okay, to the elevator we go,"
Bruce nods and stands up, but after a few steps it's clear that the trip down a couple of floors is going to be rough. He stumbles on the next step, and Tony inquires, "Bruce?"
"Dizzy," He chokes out, and latches onto Tony's shoulders so he doesn't collapse.
"Shit, shit, this is getting worse fast. Here, just lean on me." He adds the last bit so Bruce doesn't feel guilty, because the other man is already putting most of his weight on the engineer.
By the time the two stumble into the elevator Bruce is wheezing, desperate to get oxygen into his lungs. Tony quickly finds the eyes of his friend with his own. "Hey, hey, Brucie, can you look at me? Yeah, good. Okay, I know it doesn't feel like it, but taking slower breaths is going to help you. Just, just try and match my breathing, okay?"
The biologist tries to match Tony's breathing, but his body is still telling him that he's being starved of oxygen. Asphyxiation is not something he wants to relive, but he may not have a choice. He tries not to dwell on it,
By the time the elevator opens back up, revealing the familiar floor that's the med bay, both of the scientists are panicking.
Tony quickly deposits Bruce on a bed, to which he nearly collapses, clutching on to the blanket layed neatly on top, as if his life depended on it. A second later the engineer comes back carrying an oxygen mask in one hand and a tank in another.
He straps the mask on without a struggle from the other man and mutters, "Okay, I'm not gonna start off with too much oxygen, so you don't have to worry about that. Besides, pure oxygen would probably kill you at this point-" he cuts himself off, "Anyway, just breathe normally and tell me if it gets worse or something."
Bruce nods, and a second later he tastes the slightly difference in air.
"Better?" Tony asks, worry seeping into the word.
"Mmhm." Brue confirms. He then glances up to his friend and mutters through the fogged up mask, "I think I'm going to faint now."
Through a field of foam, Bruce feels Tony gently pushing him into a laying positing, and the worried command, "Shit, shit, Friday, display vitals and-"
Everything fades to black.
When Bruce wakes, Tony has several computers and tablets set up in the room, and the lights are off to display a few holograms. He has a chair pulled next to him, but the engineer hasn't sat down since Natasha showed her face.
The Russian spy is also in the room, standing next to Bruce's bed, occasionally leaning over to see what Tony is doing, but her eyes always flicker back to Bruce. .
"'Tasha?" Bruce asks, and then makes a weak attempt to pull the oxygen mask off.
Tony finds his way over to Bruce so fast that if they were in a cartoon Bruce is sure that there would be clouds of dust behind his heels. He gently pulls the scientist's hand off of the mask and grimaces, "Hey, no, none of that. That piece of plastic is helping you breathe."
"'M Fine now," Bruce mutters, but doesn't make any act to remove that mask again.
Tony gives him a look of disbelief and snorts, "Yeah, when I see it I'll believe it. I've seen sheets of paper that have more color than you,"
The doctor cracks a smile and says, "I thought I was getting a nice tan,"
Tony smiles back and agrees, "Maybe in India, but not since you've moved in here,"
"I don't know, I've spent a few evenings on the balcony,"
"Sure, in the middle of winter," Tony chuckles.
Natasha makes a sigh much too loud and says, "As much as I'd like to listen to you guys flirt for the next hour, we actually have things to do,"
Tony sends her a dirty look and Bruce turns a few shades red, before he gets back to business and asks, "Do we know what happened to me?"
Before the spy can answer, Tony responds, "Well, I've catalogued your symptoms, and it's not any usual disease or bacterial infection, or anything like that. Due to the fact that no one else in the tower has gotten symptoms - save for Vision because I don't even think it's possible for him to get sick - it's not airborne or, hell, it might not even be contagious. If we're right in the fact that you were exposed with the disease when they injected you in Alaska, then it might only affect you and your specific cells." Tony finishes, hiding the frown on his face by looking back at his holograms.
"Basically," Natasha continues, "Someone is after all of the superheros with inhuman powers. So everyone who's completely human-" Bruce internally winces at the reminder that he's not quite a person, "is safe from whatever it is they're doing. I've spent that past few hours hypothesizing why they've gone after you first and not-"
"Wait," Bruce interrupts, "How do you know someone's after us?"
The Russian gives a long sigh before delving into the story, "Well, after the war and after the Raft, Clint and I decided to do a few personal missions, rather than SHIELD ones…
...back to Budapest?"
Clint smirks at her and replies, "C'mon, Nat, you and I both know that if we show our faces in Hungary we'll be shot on site,"
"Obviously. That's what makes it fun." Natasha replies back with a straight face, but then both of the spies turn to grin at each other.
The archer quickly hides his smirk from the pedestrian traffic of the Chicago airport and agrees, "You're not wrong there. But I was thinking more of a Sri Lanka type of job, you know? Besides, Budapest wouldn't be the same without Phil."
Natasha cocks her head to the side as if weighing the options. "I suppose something like that would be good to get back into the game. And nothing's stopping us from dragging Phil along the journey."
"Nah, he's got a new team now. R.I.P. Strike Team Delta and all that. He tells me that they're good people, but I still worry," Clint solemnly answers, mourning a part of his life he'll never get back.
"Clint, you're going to worry no matter what. And yeah, I suppose he has moved on from missions with us." The two spare each other a glance before turning back to face forward on the cheap airport seats. Natasha lets a puse last a few minutes and then asks, "There's some suspicious shit going down in Norway. Want to check it out?"
Clint shrugs, "Sure. I don't see why not,"
The Russian smirks and said, "Good, because I already nicked some boarding passes." She inconspicuously slides it into Clint's pack and says, "Gate C3, Mr. Dave Lashley." She then stands up and leaves for the other side of the airport, knowing that Clint will follow her after precisely two minutes and forty-seven seconds.
When the two get to Norway, things go to shit real quick.
Some bastard with a beard recognizes Natasha as the Black Widow, and makes the connection with Clint not long after. He gives a half-assed attempt to torture them, but doesn't get even close to getting information. They easily walk away with a few cuts and bruises, and a dislocated shoulder on the archer.
The two spies listen to his monologuing before escaping, with the hopes that he gives information away. He's an ameature, so he does.
Natasha and Clint dig around the compound for a few days, easily avoiding the rest of Bearded Bastard's men, and collect more information. Sometimes they'd beat his men up to blow off some steam. Both Clint and Natasha miss this part of missions.
By the time they take the scenic route back over to the rest of Europe, they've deciphered a bit of Bearded Bastard's plan.
The two sit in someone's flat, knowing that the owner won't come back until sundown.
"They've got a solid plan," Clint points out, reading through notes. "But the real question is how they're gonna get their powers once they have everyone? Some voodoo shit?"
Natasha shrugs, "They've got brains, sure, but no go way to execute it. They'd have to hire a fuck ton of goons to get to everyone."
With a shake of his head, Clint points to a manilla folder and says, "Nope, they've got that covered too. If they subdue them before hand, it'll be like picking up a baby. I mean think about it, Wanda without her powers? She's just a teenage girl. Hell, she barely knows how to protect herself from a cockroach without using her mind."
"She's technically a young adult," Natasha mutters while skimming the contents of the folder. "Maybe they do have a chance. But gathering all of the people with powers? It's still going to be difficult."
"Not if they do it one person at a time. And because we've never had to deal with these people, they'll have the element of surprise. Or at least be able to surprise us from the fact that so far I can't tell if they're SHIELD or Hydra. Whatever the case, no one else knows that they're coming."
Natasha makes an noncommittal noise and continues to look over the files. "You make a compelling argument. We can go warn the rest of the team."
Clint grins when she agrees with him, but then questions, "How? The team is in shambles, Nat,"
She gives Clint a look, but Natasha knows that he's right. "Rogers knows where his part of the team is and Stark knows where the rest are," She points out.
"Fine,"
"'Fine'?"
"'Fine', as in I hate it when you're right." Clint mutters, but grinning all the same.
Natasha snorts, "Oh please, you love it, птичка (birdie),"
The grin coming back on his face, Clint concedes, "Whatever. But I'm not going to Stark. I'm honest to God tired of his shit,"
"Clint, he tried-"
"He's selfish, Nat. We've already been over this," Clint interrupts, slapping another folder across the cheap wood flooring.
Not wanting to get into yet another argument about this, Natasha notes, "Fine. I'll go to Stark, and you find Rogers." Clint nods. "But first," Natasha starts, "Get back to America?"
"Why?" Clint asks, feeling like he won't particularly like the answer.
"'Why', Clint? Tomorrow's your goddam anniversary-"
The archer drops the file in his hand, "Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, I totally forgot. Oh, it's gonna be horrible, Phil's going to have this whole romantic thing planned, and I didn't even remember-"
Natasha cuts him off with a fond sigh and mutters, "Just go, Clint. If you leave now you'll make it back in time."
With a nod the man agrees, "Already leaving," And stands up.
"Tell Phil I say 'Hi'!" Natasha shouts back at him as he runs through the flat door.
"So do you have the files?" Tony asks, itching for information.
"Better," Natasha starts, digging out something from her pocket. "I have this," She holds up a navy blue memory stick and Tony instantly snatches it out of her hand.
"You didn't think to show me this before? Or maybe, I don't know, when Bruce was unconscious and neither of us knew what the fuck was going on?!"
Bruce shrinks down a bit and asks, "How long was I out?"
Tony shrugs, but his nonchalance doesn't fool the other two heroes. It's obvious that he knows exactly how long it's been. "A few hours. It's somewhere between nine and ten thirty because Rhodey is gone at PT."
The spy gives him a look, "That's how you tell time?"
"Whatever works, works. Besides, it's not like it matters. I have a perfect internal clock if I needed to know the exact time."
Natasha starts to argue with Stark again, but Bruce interrupts, "Tony, I'm gonna be sick,"
Bickering forgotten, Natasha quickly grabs the bin next to the bed and Tony lifts up the mask just in time for Bruce to puke up bile.
A few moments pass, and after purging air and bile once more, Bruce collapses back onto his pillow.
"How do you feel?" Natasha asks, slipping back into her sweet voice.
Bruce brings a hand up to rub his eyes and replies, "Like shit."
Tony snorts and turns his attention back to the messy set up of computers. He slides the memory stick into the port, asks Friday to search for keywords, and Bruce laughs. "What?"
"Ross tried for years and years, over a decade at this point, to find a way to hurt me but not the Hulk." Tony and Natasha send each other alarming looks so fast that Bruce misses it. "And then whoever this is, takes one try and I'm already incapacitated."
Tony shuffles near the side of the bed and says, "I'm not gonna let this mystery person do anything worse to you, Bruce."
But the scientist just shakes his head. "Don't you understand? It doesn't matter. They've already found a way to hurt me. Whoever they are, we can't stop it."
"Bruce," Natasha starts, but she gets interrupted.
"No, no, it's fine. It's pretty exciting, honestly. I've been waiting for something like this to happen all my life anyway."
Tony turns around from the hologram and gives a concerned look to him along with the spy. "What do you mean?"
"Don't you get it? They're doing better than me! They've finally found a way to kill me."
A/N: Hey thank you for reading and please consider dropping a review they make me smile!