So this is chapter 23.

Remember guys, I would really love some support in this story, so if you could take the time out of your lives to give me a small review about how I'm doing, I'll be really thankful!

Now, on to business. This chapter is what happened after the rest of the avengers (minus Bruce) fought the remaining Hulk creatures. They had gone to sleep and now it is morning!

Have fun!

Tony

My chest hurt. A lot. Sometimes during the last night, I had drifted off to a fitful sleep. A sharp pain in my chest woke me up the next morning.

The sky above me looked like it was becoming brighter by the second. The others weren't awake yet, so I sat on the ground, trying not to move because if I did, a sharp pain would travel through my body almost making me black out.

I rubbed a hand across my chest. I was sure I had at least one fractured rib. There was a continuous pound through my head as well like someone was jumping up and down inside of it.

All in all, I felt horrible.

I tried sitting up but immediately found out that I couldn't. Every time I tried, I felt pain shoo up my body and seem to burn my arc reactor.

So I lay where I was, on the uncomfortable ground, drowning in my thoughts.

I thought about Bruce and why he had done what he did. Why did he run away? Did he think that the Hulk was going to murder us? He probably did. He was floating in his own self hate and suicidal thoughts. And he wouldn't let anyone help him. It was killing him from the inside and he knew it. I could see it in his eyes.

Whenever he smiled, it never ever reached his eyes. Everyday he would act nice and polite and happy but he was never truly at peace.

I looked up at the sky again and saw the sun peak in from the horizon through the gap in the trees. The sky was an odd red, orange colour. It was oddly calming. I never was one to stare at sunrises, of all things. I thought that it was an incredibly stupid thing to do and a total waste of time. I always had more important things to do.

Running Stark Industries for example.

But I could spare time today.

I watched as the sun became barely visible in the far east. It wasn't long before the others started to stir from their sleep.

I tried to push myself up with my hands and actually managed to about halfway until black spots started filling my vision and I had to lower myself back to the ground.

I hated this. I hated showing vulnerability. It made me feel weak, like I wasn't capable of doing anything myself and that I was a stupid lowlife. I hated those feelings.

I saw Rogers stir from his sleep across from me. I grimaced. I especially hated being vulnerable in front of Mr. "I'm so perfect" Rogers. He reminded me of everything that I hadn't been to my father. He was always the perfect son. My dad cared about only him. Never me. He never cared about me.

"Oh, You're graduating from MIT? Amazing! I'm going to have to miss your graduation ceremony because I have to go find Captain America!"

He never did come in the end. No matter how much I begged and pleaded. He never came.

I pushed the thought to the back of my head as I saw the Cap's eyes open. He pushed himself into a sitting position and turned to face me once he realized that I was awake.

"Tony?" he croaked.

"Hello Captain." I said cooly.

He frowned at me. I let out a breath of air from my nose. As if I needed his approval. He was studying me, looking at my face like he was trying to read my mind.

"Why do you do this to me?" he asked finally.

"Do what?" I grunted.

"Always pick fights with me, give me the cold shoulder…you know very well what I'm talking about!"

I scrunched my eyebrows. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Rogers let out an exasperated sigh. "Why do you hate me so much?"

Damn the perfect soldier for being so perspective.

"You were always dear old dad's favourite." I muttered quietly so he wouldn't be able to hear.

"What do you mean 'dad's favourite'?"

Damn the perfect soldier and his enhanced hearing. Why does he have to be so perfect? What's so good about him? What did I not do right?

Why did my father hate me so much?

I felt sadness and hate well up inside of me like an overflowing river against a dam that was just about to burst.

"Tony what's wrong? Let me help!"

I scrunched my eyes shut. He could do nothing to help. I pushed myself up into a sitting position using my anger to power me. I sat up and propped myself against a tree next to me. It worked and my chest didn't hurt as much as it would've. But I could still feel the pounding in my head.

"You can't help me."

"What?"

"I said you can't help me!" I hissed. "you were always the perfect one. My dad always only cared about you!"

Rogers looked confused. "Wha-? But I was in the ice!"

"Yeah and guess where he was when I was graduating? Looking for you of course. And all the time he wasn't looking for you, he would drink"

The Captain's eyes widened. "Tony, I-I didn't know."

"Yeah you didn't know! You didn't know jack shit! You ruined my damn life and you didn't even know."

A pained look crossed Rogers face. "How could I have known, Tony? I was barely alive!"

The innocent look on his face just fuelled my rage. How could he just sit there and act like he hadn't ruined my life? My dad was never, ever proud of me and it was all his fault. Something like that could do a toll to a kid.

"My dad was never proud of me because of you."

I hesitated a moment before finally saying what has been on my mind for my entire life. The old me before all of this happened would never have even thought of saying this straight to Captain America's face, but something about this place changed me.

"You were my hero when I was a kid. My dad would tell me war stories about you. I used to think they were awesome. That all changed when I got older and I was slammed in the face with reality."

I looked at Rogers with fury and hurt glimmering in my eyes. My facial expression stayed indifferent. I didn't want to give everything of myself away. He looked back at me with a mixture of sorrow and pity. I didn't need any of his damn pity. I just told him the facts. I didn't want the whole damn sorrow train.

"Tony, I'm sorry. I didn't know-" he started, but I cut him off.

"Look, I don't need you're pity party Rogers. I just told you some things about me, and that's it. Nothing more. So keep the crap to yourself."

"But-"

This time, it wasn't me who shut him up, but Clint.

"Shut the hell up!" He muttered at us. "Some of us are trying to sleep, ya know!"

And then our "conversation" came to an end. I stopped talking and Rogers followed my lead. I was really thankful. I was not in the mood to talk to him about my feelings.

A few minutes later, Clint got up off the floor and walked over to one of our backpacks to get a sip of water.

"Thanks for waking me up." He sneered at Rogers as I ignored him.

After Clint woke up, the others followed suit. One by one, they all awoke and not soon after, we were all awake. We decided that we had to keep moving. We couldn't stay in one place for too long. Clint had to help me up since I couldn't get up by myself.

He draped an arm around my arm and another around my back. That way he helped me walk. I hated being the one slowing the team down. My armour was being carried by Thor.

"You are never to speak of this again!" I mumbled menacingly.

"Whatever you say Stark. Whatever you say." He muttered back.

Then we started to walk away from our camp site.

This time, since I couldn't just blast away the trees in front of us, Fury and Natasha had to hack away the branches from the front.

And that was how we walked, slowly but surely.

But not so surely for me. Every step of mine hurt. My head was throbbing even more profoundly and it made the pain in my chest seem almost double. It was actually getting harder to see clearly. I was seeing double of everything.

Finally, I knew I couldn't keep going.

"Guys, can we stop for a few seconds?" I asked, with a barely muffled groan. Clint helped lower me to the ground where I placed my head in my hands.

A few seconds later, I heard Natasha say, "Stark, you don't look so good."

I lifted my head slightly. "And I always try to look the best for you, Romanoff."

"If only Banner were here. He would know what to do." Clint mumbled.

"But he decided to fucking drop out." Fury stated.

That made a new wave of sadness roll over me. I hated feeling like this. I couldn't feel like this.

So I looked up at Clint, let out a breath and said, "Come one Clint. Help me up."

"But-"

I gritted my teeth. "Do it."

He raised an eyebrow then said, "Whatever you say."

He placed an arm around my back and helped get me up. I scrunched my eyes shut as another dose of pain shot through me. I steeled myself against it and forced myself not to cry out. When I was finally up, we started walking once again. The others slowed down a bit just so that I could keep up with them. Again that horrible feeling rolled over me.

Clint supported most of my weight so that I wouldn't fall face first into the ground. We were at the very back of the small group. As we were walking, we collected some berries that didn't look poisonous but what Natasha pointed out. We snacked on those berries a while ago and I knew that we had to find real food soon or we would starve to death.

It got boring really fast after that. I ran out of snarky comments to bring up the groups mood and that was it. We walked in silence.

It wasn't soon, though, until we arrived at something…different.

"What is that my friends?" Thor asked from where he was, at the front of the group. He strayed away from the trail and walked over to a tree. He knelt down and picked up something from the ground.

We all crowded around him to find that he was holding two tiny glass vials. They were glass bottles about the size of my palm, filled with a murky green liquid. Both looked exactly the same as the other.

I hobbled up to Thor with Clint's help. The vials seemed to glint in the sunlight. I scrunched my eyes at the liquid. They didn't look like any liquid I have ever seen before. It looked…strange. In fact, I couldn't recognize it at all.

"What the hell?" I said. "I have no idea what this is."

"Well that's a first." I heard Natasha mutter. I ignored her and instead snatched away both the bottles from Thor and started to rotate them over and over in the palm of my hand. I shook, prodded, poked it and even tried to open them. But of course, I did know better as much as people tended to think the opposite. I didn't know if it could be poisonous or not.

"Well?" Fury prompted.

"It…I don't know what this is." I said, finally defeated.

Just as I said that, I heard a steady beeping coming from somewhere out in front of us.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

It sounded oddly like Bruce's watch. I couldn't help but widen my eyes a little at the hope of it being him. It all deflated though when I couldn't spot any sign of him. Instead, I saw a small, tray parachute floating toward us. Attached to the parachute was a small grey ball. We all watched as it gently floated and settled down on the ground next to Rogers.

He knelt and picked up the strange thing. There was a soft click and hiss as the grey ball opened up. Rogers peered inside and took out a wall piece of very old paper. He carefully unfolded it and read it out loud.

"What you see here are two vials. One of them has a poison that will paralyze you for at least a day. The other has the power to teleport you where you are needed the most and heal anyone who is hurt. If you would like to gain from this, two people from your group must drink one of the vials."

There was a silence as Rogers stopped reading. I broke it.

"Well that was enlightening."

Fury glared at me as he grabbed the piece of paper from Rogers. He read it over again and finally said, "I think I should drink one."

"But-" Natasha started to protest.

"No buts. I'm the person who made this all happen. I should drink one."

No one dared argue with him. But I was actually surprised. I never saw Fury as the "sacrifice himself for the greater good" type.

But then again, I never thought that about myself either.

I could be wrong twice.

"I'll drink one too." I stated finally, determination laced through my voice.

"But Stark, you can barely walk!" Rogers exclaimed.

I sighed, exasperated. The damn soldier didn't think that I wouldn't sacrifice myself for the others? Well he was wrong.

"And that's exactly why I should be doing this. I'm just dragging you guys down." I had to think fast for an excuse for wanting to do this. I didn't want them to know that the cap was getting to me.

I needed to prove to the team that I was something more than just a self-centred bastard. After all, it was all just a façade that I had built for so many years. My experiences had forced me to become like this. And I could do nothing about it.

But despite all that, I had sacrificed myself to save New York and everyone I cared about. I could do it again in a split second if I needed to though.

Anyways…it's not like I would die right? The worst that could happen is I end up paralyzed. I could deal with that.

Right?

The others were looking at me with a mixture of uncertainty and surprise. Of course they're surprised. They didn't know that what I did everyday was just a façade.

Bruce wouldn't be surprised.

I quickly grabbed one of the vials from fury. He kept the other.

"But friend Stark, think this through-!" Thor exclaimed.

I raised a hand to silence him and looked away from the others. This had to happen. It was the only way.

In the background, I could still feel my head pounding away. Same as the sharp shooting pain in my chest. But the others couldn't stop me. I had to prove Rogers wrong.

Fury looked just as determined as I felt. He uncorked the small glass bottle and held it out in front of him. I did the same. I sniffed it and recoiled. It smelled like shit. I wrinkled my noise at the horrible smell and held it a little farther away from myself.

It seemed that either Fury had a nose of steel or didn't give a donkey's ass about the small, as he had a look of indifference on his face.

The others crowded around us as we got ready to drink the liquid.

Fury nodded at me as he held it a little closer to his mouth. I nodded back at him and finally lifted my vial to my mouth.

Here goes nothing.

I tipped the glass into my mouth and the foul liquid went in. Fury did the same.

I felt the liquid slither down my throat. I recoiled once again at the taste. It tasted as bad as it smelled. Probably worse.

I swallowed crazily as I tried to stop myself from vomiting it back out.

"Ah!" I exclaimed as I almost fell over. Someone steadied me as my vision swam. I couldn't see Fury in front of me. Hell, I couldn't see anything. Sharp bouts of pain shot through my head worse than before.

I clutched at my head with my hands, trying to make the pain become less intense. Of course, it didn't work.

Then…just as soon as it started, it stopped. All the feeling in me disappeared. It was like I was numb, floating on a cloud, not feeling anything. That was when my vision started to clear. In front of me, Fury came into focus, looking horrible and swaying on his feet.

And that was when it happened.

I don't know what exactly happened, but all I felt was a horrible lurching in my stomach as I was jerked forward violently. Everything around me span and all I could see was a blur of colours and shapes. Seconds later, I landed on something…hard. My knees buckled and I fell to the hard ground.

That was when I passed out.

I woke up to a bright light. I squinted my eyes, trying to adjust to the bright light. All in all, I felt horrible. Everything ached.

Slowly, I sat up and every muscle protested. I let out a breath as the worst was over. I looked around and saw Thor, Clint, Natasha and Steve. But that was it. I didn't see Fury anywhere.

A rush of memories came to hit me as I remembered what happened. The vials that we drank from…did that mean that I took the right bottle?

Oh no.

I did take the right one. But that meant that Fury was paralyzed somewhere in the forest and we had absolutely no idea where he was.

That was when I realized that I couldn't feel a pain in my chest anymore. Sure, my body ached, but that was it. It ached. In fact, I couldn't even feel the pounding in my head any more.

But then there was the question of what the hell happened.

I looked over at the other Avengers and saw that they were awake as well.

"What's going on?" I heard Natasha say in a croaky voice.

"Don't know." Clint muttered.

And that was when I noticed that we weren't where we had been before I passed out. We were someplace totally different. There was no trail here and we were surrounded by trees on all sides. It was almost like we were in a clearing. A really big one.

I slowly got to my feet and leaned on a tree. I rubbed a hand along my chest. I felt the warm and oddly cool metal of my arc reactor. I couldn't feel any pain or anything, just the reassuring comfort of my arc.

"Wait, where's Fury?" Steve finally asked what were all thinking about.

"The potion! Does that mean that warrior Fury took the wrong one?" Thor exclaimed.

They all turned their heads in unison toward me. I raised my hands in surrender.

"Look, I don't know what happened. So don't look at me like that." I was talking mostly to Rogers.

As I studied his expression, I noticed a slight change. His face, looking accusing a second before, had turned soft. His frown lines softened and he seemed almost guilty of looking at me. He turned his head away from me a fraction of a second as I frowned. What was that all about?

"Wait, so if we're here…that means that you drank the right potion." Clint said slowly, looking at me.

"No shit Sherlock." I replied.

"But then how did we get here?"

I sighed at how clueless they all looked. "The paper. It said that the person who drank the correct potion would be transported somewhere along with the rest of the team. I drank the right one and now, here we are."

Then I caught sight of my suit, along with the other Avengers' weapons there as well. Even Thor's hammer was there. Apparently they'd been transported along with us. I walked over to my suitcase and hefted the heavy thing.

"Well if we don't know where Fury is, we should start looking. But for now, I think he can handle himself." The next part I muttered under my breath. "He is Nick Motherfucking Fury."

Thor beamed and clapped me on the back as he picked up his hammer. "Let us find Fury!"

Thor's good mood was oddly contagious. I found myself smiling at his enthusiasm despite the situation.

And that was when we set off once again, this time with a purpose. We had to find Fury before something bad happened to him.

Honestly, it was kind of funny. Not to be heartless or anything, but Fury was one son of a bitch. But one with a lot of badassery. And he was never helpless. I just couldn't wrap my mind around the though of him being paralyzed, on the ground.

In fact, he had a badass vibe as much as I had an egotistical vibe. And that was saying something.

The thought quickly left me as we came across another trail that looked quite fresh. I bent low and saw the faith outlines of two pairs of footsteps.

"Hey guys." I pointed down at the footprints.

I saw Natasha kneel to get a better look at the prints. "They look fresh."

She scattered the dirt from around the footsteps. She took a pinch of the dirt and held it up to her eyes to examine it. Then she sniffed it.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked, bewildered.

"It smells familiar…"

"Dirt has a smell?" Rogers asked, looking confused.

I looked back down at the footsteps and suddenly realized that there was something familiar about them. Why did they look so familiar? That was when it hit me.

Could it be…?

No…there could be so many people in this forest. It could be anyone.

It couldn't be Bruce…right?

So I just dismissed the thought as we started walking again.

It was an hour before we finally came across something interesting. We were just walking along when we heard a shuffling through the trees in the distance. It sounded too much like walking.

I turned to the others and they nodded softly. Thor and Rogers slipped out in front and hoisted their weapons. We inched forward and heard more rustling coming from the bushes.

"Get ready." Whispered Natasha.

That was when whoever was rustling around in the bushes showed themselves and walked out into the vulnerable path.

My eyes widened as I saw who it was.

Well there you go guys.

I know, I know horrible cliffy, but you probably know who it is already.

So, if anyone, ANYONE is still out there, please leave me a review! I'll be really grateful! It helps keep me going.

Next chapter is Tony again.

-Detective DG