Chapter 4
"This is bad," Banner said finally, rubbing his face as he sat down in defeat at his desk. "You think?" Stark snapped, throwing his hands up in exasperation and in one sweeping motion, knocked all of his papers down from his desk.
"Am I interrupting something here, Stark?" Fury's deep voice echoed in the lab. The two men looked up as the towering form of Nick Fury entered, alone, instead of being flanked by agents like he usually was. "Well?"
Tony walked over to him, though he was a couple of heads shorter, he made it clear he was on top at the moment.
He paced around the lab, tapping his pen in the air. He pointed it at Fury. "Your guy, yeah, he's messed up. There's a lot more to him than meets the eye. We've been running tests, me and the big guy here, and somethings not right."
"Explain. I don't have time for this," Fury almost growled. "With all due respect sir," Stark continued, "You will make time for this because I can guarantee you're not gonna like it."
Dr. Banner pulled up their charts onto a screen on one wall of the lab. "He appears healthy, for all intents and purposes. At least I thought so as I conducted the physical. Medical history also normal - nothing so much as the flu when he was younger. The problem, sir, lies in his blood work."
Fury narrowed his eye. "Rogers said he looked like he was going through withdrawal. Which makes sense considering he's a dealer. Probably sampled his own product."
Stark shook his head. "True, our boy's been shooting up, but not those kind of drugs."
He pulled up some more charts onto the screen. "And what the fuck am I supposed to be looking at exactly?" Fury asked.
"That, my friend, is snake venom. A mixture to be exact. From the blood of your little informant," Stark said matter-of-factly.
Banner frowned. "We believe that they may be working on building up an immunity to the venom, or making testing to see if it could be sold as a drug."
Fury sighed. "Well Buddy Howell seems to be having some withdrawal symptoms. I'll have Barnes and Rogers go at him some more since he's been cleared by you two. Keep me posted."
He left, leaving the two men to work in comfortable silence.