Frankenstein on a Gravel Road
*******
When Tony wakes up he's in the hospital. His head is numb and feels about twenty times larger than normal. Pepper is holding his hand and tells him he's alright, and that she loves him.
Those sound like good things. He goes back to sleep.
*******
They were pretty quiet for a long while after leaving the Hydra base. There wasn't much to say and too much to think about. Bruce and Clint sat together in the back, sometimes murmuring in low voices--mostly Bruce talking and Clint offering an occasional "Mmhmm" or "Yeah". Tony glanced at Steve, who was sitting in the co-pilot's seat and gazing out the window. He looked utterly dejected, reminding Tony so much of ads for animal shelters that he was tempted to have JARVIS cue up some maudlin music to complete the effect.
Instead Tony started smacking buttons and nosing the jet down.
Steve looked up in surprise. "What's going on? We can't be home yet."
"We aren't. We're making a pit stop. I want a hamburger."
"A hamburger," Steve echoed incredulously. "We're still technically on a mission and you want to land us in the middle of God-knows-where...for a hamburger."
"Exactly right; you got it." Tony grinned at Clint, who had come forward to see what was going on. "We've had a hard day, Barton, and I'm calling a time out. Wanna get a burger? If you're a very good little bird I'll even buy you a milkshake."
Clint blinked in surprise, then shook his head in reverent awe. "You really are a genius. Holy shit, wait till I tell Bruce!" He disappeared into the back of the jet and Tony grinned at the excited rise and fall of Clint's voice as he relayed the plan, at the sound of Bruce's quiet laughter.
Tony shushed Steve theatrically when he started to protest again. "My jet, my stomach, my plan."
Tony knew that Steve needed someone like him around, someone that knew that occasionally it's good to be spontaneous, to do something fun and pointless, especially when they were too often faced with the worst aspects of humanity.
*******
He put them down in a field just outside what was either a tiny Midwestern city or a large Midwestern town--Tony was sure that either way it would be big enough to have a burger joint or two.
Steve sighed disapprovingly again, but Tony could tell it was mostly for show, that the captain's resolve was wavering a bit. He could use a break as much as any of them, and was probably hungry anyway, with that souped up metabolism of his. Tony punched him lightly on the arm on their way to the back of the jet. "Come on, Steve, quit being a stick in the mud."
"Isn't that my job?" Steve asked with a smile, definitely warming up to the idea now. "Being the team's wet blanket?"
"But you're a very very cute wet blanket," Clint pointed out with a fond, teasing grin. He pulled off his tac vest, replacing it with a Mr. Bean t-shirt. Tony never ceased to marvel at the man's endless supply of horrible shirts, all of them silly or otherwise completely incongruous to his chosen line of work. "I hope you brought some other clothes along." Clint nodded toward Steve's Captain America uniform. "You don't want to hit some small town greasy spoon diner in that, do you?
Steve hadn't brought anything, and none of the extra clothes they kept on hand for Bruce would fit. Tony dug out a black SHIELD jacket someone had stuffed into a storage area that would work; Steve wouldn't stand out too much as long as he kept it zipped up. Clint locked up his bow, Steve's shield, and their other weapons with a theatrical sigh. Bruce watched them all with a mild excitement, bouncing on his heels a little.
"Keep an eye on our gear and the suit, JARVIS--we are off on a noble quest for sustenance," Tony announced. "If any locals get near the jet, self destruct immediately. Just kidding," he added hastily in response to Steve's disapproving expression. "Give them a ten second warning...then self destruct."
*******
They only had to walk a few minutes before coming to a gravel road that ran to the edge of town. Tony frowned at the tall weeds dotted with delicate yellow flowers that grew alongside, pretty sure it was ragweed, the stuff of allergy nightmares. He was just getting ready to bemoan his snot filled future when Clint made a low, disgusted sound.
"Damnit, Tony," he snapped. "Do you think you could possibly stomp any louder? Like, if you tried really hard?"
Tony snorted. "Well, excusez-moi. Not everyone pussyfoots around as silently as you do. I'm sorry that my walking--nay, that my very existence is such a bother to you."
"Not your existence, your stomping. The crunch of those rocks is reverberating in my skull. You sound like Frankenstein over there, schlepping around in cinderblock shoes."
"Knock it off," Steve interjected, sounding a little put out himself. "Can't you guys get along for five minutes strung together? Christ Almighty, I feel like I'm babysitting infants on this fucking team!"
Tony was taken aback, surprised at the swearing and finding that response disproportionate to a little bickering--really nothing different the endless, but good natured, griping he and Clint always aimed at one another. But, at second glance, Clint didn't look especially good natured, any more than Steve did. His jaw was tense and his eyes flat, the way they looked when he was actually angry.
"Shut up, Rogers, you goddamned tool," Clint sneered, and it felt like a rock dropped onto Tony's chest. The looks on their faces, the way they stopped walking and started to vaguely circle one another, the way Bruce lowered his head and started breathing hard--it was familiar. Not because it was their battle stances, but because Tony had seen something similar that very morning, as those HYDRA operatives tore each other to pieces.
"Guys--" Tony started to say, but it was too late; Bruce's skin was tinged green and Steve was already snarling back.
"Pretty tough talk coming from the weakest link on the team. Anybody with a gun and an IQ over fifty could do your job."
And that did it. The toxin they were exposed to in the base had activated in their bloodstreams--Tony only spared because he'd been in his Iron Man suit--and that's what really fueled their anger, but that statement was the one that tipped Clint over the edge from verbal attack to physical. His foot connected solidly with Steve's chest, knocking him back a few steps with a gasp, but he recovered instantly, moving forward himself as Clint came at him again.
"Hey, guys--" Tony tried again, but it was all happening too fast.
Steve caught Clint's arcing fist and snapped his arm neatly, laughing as the smaller man collapsed to his knees. The Hulk was there then, Bruce Banner long gone, roaring angrily at Clint's cry of pain. He snatched Steve up and hurled him so high and far in the air that it would have been comical in any other situation.
"JARVIS, call Fury," Tony snapped into his phone. "And emergency services. And Natasha. Fuck it, call everyone!" By the time he looked up again the Hulk had vanished, just a vague form heading into the horizon. Clint had rallied and was sprinting toward Steve. Tony cursed and took off after them.
*******
Now they were in the town limits, near some sort of factory or processing plant that stank to high heaven. People milled about in the parking lot, a new shift arriving.
Clint was a damned fast runner even when not fueled by adrenaline and white hot rage, and had, from God knew where, also produced a knife. He promised to leave all his weapons in the jet like everyone else, but of course he hadn't, of course he'd lied. Usually that would be something they would roll their eyes at, to rib him gently about his unending paranoia, but now it was fucking terrifying--bringing a blade into this mix of unbridled aggression. By the time Tony reached them Steve had Clint pinned to the ground, but Clint barely seemed to notice as his hand flashed forward, brutally slicing up around and through Steve's face.
"I'm going to fucking kill you!" Steve roared, and Tony knew that he would, and that Clint would attempt the same. There was nothing, nothing, left then of the men they had been only minutes before, friends who had been walking along a gravel road in search of a hamburger.
"Yeah?" Clint kept slashing, Steve's blood dripping down on him in a torrent of red. "Well, I'm going to cut that stupid grin off and facefuck your screaming skull!"
"Oh my god," Tony moaned. "That just happened. He really just said that."
Steve growled and grabbed Clint's broken arm, snapping it again, this time up high near his shoulder. Clint howled in pain, and Tony used the distraction to snatch the knife out of his hand and toss it away. People were running over from the parking lot, drawn by the shouts and commotion.
"Steve, stop! Get off him!" Tony pulled at his shoulders but he was as heavy and immovable as a statue. "That's Clint, come on, stop and think! You'll hurt him, come on, don't do this!"
Then the last thing Tony remembered was Steve turning toward him with furious eyes, and flying through the air.
*******
When Tony wakes up again, a doctor is hovering in front of his face, frowning. "Can you tell me your name? Can you tell me who the president is?"
"I can tell you that your breath smells like you sucked down a shit milkshake through a straw made of lower intestines," Tony rasps groggily and hears Pepper laugh, feels her fingers lace through his.
"Oh, thank God. That's him," Pepper's voice says, and he turns his head carefully to focus on her. There are tears in her eyes but she's smiling. "That right there is one hundred percent Tony Stark."
*******
"This hospital is a hillbilly hellhole," he tells her a few days later. "Why are we even still here?"
"You had brain surgery, Tony," Pepper explains again, her patience wearing a bit thin. "You can't transfer to a New York hospital just yet. Quit being such an elitist snob."
Either no one in this lousy place recognizes the name Tony Stark, or they simply do not give a damn who he is. Everyone from the doctors to the nurses to even the custodial staff seems to be completely immune to his charms--which are plentiful--and perhaps the most cheerless group of people on the planet. He'd almost respect their groupwide disdain it if weren't so personal and annoying.
Pepper seems to get a kick out of it, at least.
"Well, where the heck is everyone? No one is visiting me. I don't even have flowers," he pouts, deliberately not looking at the table full of flowers and balloons directly to his left.
"I'm visiting you," she points out. "Steve was here two days ago and Nick stopped by before that; you just don't remember it."
"Visits don't count if the person is comatose or out of their minds on drugs." Pepper sighs in exasperation and Tony blasts her with his most winning, wheedling grin until she smiles back. "But really...where is everyone? Are they okay?" She's been disturbingly tight lipped about the team's status.
"Natasha picked up Bruce out east, then they went back to SHIELD headquarters to try to determine exactly what everyone was exposed to. No one wants a repeat of your fight, or of what happened in that HYDRA facility." She frowns sympathetically. "Steve says what happened there was rather upsetting."
The man has a gift for understatement. "Almost as upsetting as watching my best friends try to murder one another. So Steve sounds like he is doing okay. What about Tweetie?"
"He's in the hospital, too."
"Here?" He sits up a little, wincing at the jolt to his equilibrium. "Clint's in Hellhole Medical Center?"
"No, he's in a psychiatric facility. Nick is trying to get him released to SHIELD's care. No one has seen him, so we don't know if he's still suffering from the toxin. He's the only regular human that was exposed; so they don't know if it would dissipate naturally or not."
Tony is horrified at the thought of Clint locked up somewhere, maybe still out of his mind, and Pepper frowns warily at the look on his face. "What about the HYDRA guys? Did any of them recover? If they did, Clint should, too."
She just shakes her head, and that's answer enough. They're all dead. And really, after the condition he'd seen them in, maybe that is a kindness. "Don't think about Clint right now," she urges. "Steve and Nick are still here in town, taking care of it. You just rest and heal, then you can worry about everyone else."
******
It's two more agonizingly long weeks of IVs and CT scans and blood pressure checks and frowning doctors before Tony is released from the hospital. He signs the discharge papers with a flourish and swears a loud oath never to return to western Missouri as long as he lives, no matter how much he wants a hamburger. The nurse narrows her eyes at him in silent agreement before snatching her pen back out of his hand.
Steve drives them to the airport in Kansas City, where Pepper has chartered a private plane to take them home. He is barely able to look at or speak to Tony, exhausted and worried and still feeling guilty.
"Oh, get off the cross, Cap," Tony snaps when they finally arrive. "We need the wood."
"I could have killed you," he says morosely, holding Pepper's bags as she helps Tony struggle gingerly into a jacket. His eyes flicker to healing incisions on Tony's head, then away. "I'll never be able to undo that."
"Bring our little Cuckoo Bird home safe and we'll call it a wash. Deal?" Tony grins and holds out a hand to Steve, who shakes it gently.
"Deal."
*******
They get Clint out of the hospital two days later, then he has to detox a few more days in SHIELD Medical. Natasha goes to pick him up as the rest of them order food and settle in the communal living room for what Tony insists on calling a "love-in". Steve has just arranged all the takeout containers somewhat artistically by size and color on the coffee table when Clint and Natasha burst through the door.
"I'm back, bitches!"
Tony jumps to his feet to embrace him, the five of them finally together again after almost a month, and thinks that if only Thor were here, it would be truly perfect. "About time! You've been gone forever." Clint hugs him back tightly, and Tony notes with alarm the vague tremor that runs through him. He sends Natasha a questioning look over Clint's shoulder, but she shakes her head quickly in warning.
"I wasn't sure Psych was going to ever let him out again, once they had him in their clutches and pre-medicated," she teases, pulling Clint away from Tony. She pushes him down onto the couch next to Bruce, who puts an arm around him and pulls him close with unabashed affection. "You must that know that half of those drugs were things they've been dying to try on you for years."
"It was like you were held hostage again," Tony observes. "I swear, only you could manage to escape from one captivity incident and fall immediately into another. I'm honestly amazed that you didn't somehow get shot on the car ride home from the hospital. Your disaster seeking skills are just that finally honed."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Clint waves the idea away. "How's the head, Tony?"
"Sexy, just like the body below it. My skull, though, has some new accessories. I'd show you the x-ray, but everyone's eating right now."
"We just started," Steve points out, glancing uncomfortably at Clint's broken arm. "You're welcome to forage and pick or we could order more--whatever you want. What sounds good?"
"I'll take anything you have that's deep fried and dripping in trans fats," Clint says cheerfully. He still looks a little wan, probably from the drugs, which he's being forced to step down from slowly to avoid complications. "For weeks I ate mostly applesauce and oatmeal; they wouldn't give me anything that required more than a spoon."
"As if the likes of you couldn't murder someone with a spoon." Tony is offended on his behalf. "Anyway, Steve here could've taught you how to sharpen that spoon to a razor edge."
Steve huffs a long suffering sigh. "I was barely in jail a full 24 hours," he points out, smiling a bit. "Not even long enough for someone to bake and mail me a cake with a file in it."
"Well, you deserved to be in that pokey. Popping off arms and smashing in skulls--that's not how an Amercian hero rolls." Tony is joking, of course, but regrets it immediately at the unhappy look that replaces Steve's smile.
"I am so very sorry. I'll never forgive myself for what I did to you guys."
"Eh, fuck it," Clint says dismissively. "I'm sure we all learned a bunch of life lessons from this. The most important journey is the one where we find ourselves, blah blah whatever blah." He pretends to wipe away a tear, then picks through the take out containers, his eyes lighting up to discover one full of crab rangoon. He grins happily and settles back against Bruce, hugging the cardboard box to his chest.
They eat in a comfortable silence before Steve says "You know, I have to admit that I'm a little curious as to why you decided to try and cut my face off, Barton. I don't suppose you remember, do you?"
"He tried to cut your face off?" Bruce asks, both horrified and impressed. "What in the actual hell?"
"I have no clue," Clint admits around a mouthful of food. "I mean, why didn't I just slash your throat? That's what I would usually do." He looks at Natasha, who shrugs.
"Well, I might be able to answer that question," Tony says reluctantly, "but it doesn't lend much credibility to the 'Hawkeye is actually sane' team line."
"This I must hear," Natasha says seriously, and the others nod in wary agreement.
"So, Cap broke Clint's arm, and he was pretty mad about it. Madder than, you know, the original amount of mad he'd already been. Hulk flounced off and Clint came charging up toward Steve and screamed--and I quote--" Tony trails off, reconsidering. "Actually, I don't think I can repeat it. That, or any of the other things that were shouted back and forth. I think everyone's better off not knowing."
Clint and Steve exchange an uneasy glance. "Aw, Tony, quit being a tease."
"I'm not trying to be. I think it's honestly best if we just know that everyone said and did assholish things, and leave it at that. The specifics are...unnecessarily ugly."
"As unnecessarily ugly as Hulk's face?" Bruce offers in an attempt to lighten the mood . "As unnecessarily ugly as Nick Fury's methods? As unnecessarily ugly as Clint's archery stance?"
They all laugh, even Clint, but Tony warns "Better watch that kind of talk, or he'll cut you up. The way I hear it, that dude's crazy."
"Ain't that the truth," Clint says. "I can't be held responsible for my actions; I was having a psychotic episode. That's a documented fact, written down, like on official letterhead paper and stuff."
"I brutally beat two men while wearing a Halloween costume, then went to jail," Steve adds, smiling again.
"I destroyed a pristine forest and then robbed a family that was living in squalor."
"Well, I'm sure you all suffered terribly," Tony scolds, "but I really think I had it the worst. Because not only did I end up in the hospital with a hole in my head, I ended up in a teaching hospital. I'm ninety percent certain I was given more than one rectal exam while unconscious."
Bruce makes a sympathetic face. "You win. But at least you didn't sit on a testicle," he points out. "There's that, I suppose."
The other men all wince delicately, and Natasha laughs until she cries.