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Budapest is chapter seven. Avengers events from chapter ten to fourteen.

Summary:The table slid him out to a waiting Bruce and Natasha. She held out a hand to help him sit up, but he didn’t take it. He did take the hoodie she offered him though, zipping it up as Bruce ordered JARVIS to bring up the scan pictures. He flipped through the full body pictures, before narrowing in on Clint’s head. The blood vessels had a faint blue tinge to them, he felt like he was going to throw up.

“Is that—?”

“Highlighted to show the radiation, the coloration means it’s like we hypothesized, it’s the same as the Tesseract.”

“Fucking wonderful,” Clint moaned. He walked away, he needed to hit something.

“What can we do about it? Loki can’t possibly be in control, can he?”

“If it isn’t Charlotte and Tweety Bird,” Tony mused as the elevator doors opened.

“Cram it, Stark,” Clint responded. He was tired, he didn’t want to be here, and normally he wouldn’t mind Tony’s humor, but right now he wanted to punch him in his smug, expertly shaved face.

“Tony, why don’t you go to your lab?” Bruce appeared, putting a hand on the billionaire back. “Ms. Romanoff and Mr. Barton and I have some private business to take care of.” Natasha reminded herself to thank him for not letting the secret slip with “mrs.”

“Whatever you say, big guy. But you’re going to make it up to me later, right?” He grinned wolfishly and winked.

Bruce smirked a little,“Yes, Tony. Now go.”

Tony looked at Natasha fiercely, “Don’t accidently assassinate anyone while I’m gone.” He added a charming smile and left.

Natasha raised an eyebrow, “Pepper left?”

“Yeah, things kind of…exploded. She ran off with Happy.”

“Yikes,” Clint commented, looking around at the newly rebuilt floor, entirely Bruces.

“So you two—?”

“Yeah. It just…”

“You don’t have to explain it to us, as long as your happy,” Natasha smiled and patted the scientist’s shoulder.

“I am, thank you,” he smiled back.

“So can we get to this shit already, I need a nap,” Clint grumbled as he examined an iron tea pot on the counter.

Bruce led them to his personal lab. He and Tony had a shared lab that took up an entire floor, but they also both had personal labs on their own floors.  Natasha let out and impressed whistle.

“I lied, S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t have all the toys, you do.”

“Pretty neat, huh?”

He led Clint to what looked like a normal MRI machine.

“I had an MRI and a CT scan during debriefing.”

“I know, I had Tony get me the files,” he proceeded to pull them up in midair, he smiled as he did it, still finding Tony’s tech incredibly cool. “This isn’t a normal scanner, it’s modified to look for radiation signatures in soft tissue. Distinct stuff, like—“

“Gamma radiation?” Natasha asked.

“Yeah, I’ve been working on some serums to control the other guy a little better, as well as just some medical tech in my spare time. But if Loki was using the same power as the Tesseract to control Clint, if any trace of it is still there, we’ll find it.”

Clint changed into sweats, and both Natasha and Bruce admired the sight of the shirtless archer. He laid on the table and gave his wife a feeble smile of reassurance. She kissed his forehead. “What about Bruce?”

“He knows.”

“How come I can’t tell Coulson, but you can tell Bruce?”

“Now we both have a confidant. Now shut up and lay still.”

She went back to the array of computers where Bruce stood typing in commands. Clint slid back into the large tube and it whirred to life. He hated loud noises and tensed up as the machinery pounded around him. He was used to MRI’s and the like, but he could never really relax during them. He was always afraid they’d reveal some career ending injury. He didn’t know what he’d do if he couldn’t shoot, or didn’t pass S.H.I.E.L.D.’s requirements. He couldn’t go back to working for the underground, not after he’d put half of them in prison and killed scores of them. He didn’t want to become a bitter, drunken man like his father had become, just sitting around waiting for his liver to fail. He didn’t know what to do. What he could do.

“Just hold tight, Clint. We’re almost done,” Bruce’s smooth voice came on through the headset, above the noise.

                He closed his eyes and thought of Natasha. He missed her. He didn’t want to stay away from her. He just didn’t want to hurt her. He felt like he hadn’t touched her in weeks. He thought about it, he really hadn’t, not since they’d gotten back from sending Loki back. She’d come out of the shower this morning, he was sitting on the bed tying his shoes. She walked up to him, he could smell the hot water and the scent of her body wash. She dropped the towel, standing mere inches from him. She’d asked him to touch her, reached for his hand to bring it to her naked hip, but he pulled it away, “I can’t.” she sighed and swore under her breath as she got dressed.

The table slid him out to a waiting Bruce and Natasha. She held out a hand to help him sit up, but he didn’t take it. He did take the hoodie she offered him though, zipping it up as Bruce ordered JARVIS to bring up the scan pictures. He flipped through the full body pictures, before narrowing in on Clint’s head. The blood vessels had a faint blue tinge to them, he felt like he was going to throw up.

“Is that—?”

“Highlighted to show the radiation, the coloration means it’s like we hypothesized, it’s the same as the Tesseract.”

“Fucking wonderful,” Clint moaned. He walked away, he needed to hit something.

“What can we do about it? Loki can’t possibly be in control, can he?”

“We can call Thor and ask, but I doubt even Loki’s powers could extend this far. JARVIS, please call Thor Odinson.”

“When did he get back?”

Behind them something smashed as Clint finally decided to hit something. Natasha shot Bruce an apologetic look but didn’t stop him.

“Don’t worry about it. About a two weeks ago he—“

“Hello Doctor Banner!” the voice boomed.

“Hey Thor. I’ve got a question about Loki’s mind control, I’m trying to help Barton.”

“Ahh, the noble archer! How is he fairing?”

As if on cue, something else crashed behind them.

“Uh, he’s alright. We found some radiation that matches the signature of the Tesseract in his system. Not a whole lot, but he’s been having nightmares and is convinced Loki still could have power over him.”

“You wish to know if that is possible?”

“Yeah, could Loki’s power reach this far?”

“No, only my father, Odin’s power is enough to breach the realms without actually entering them. Loki has been locked away in a place where no magic, save that of Odin’s can breach. He is powerless during his punishment.”

“Do you know of any reason why there could be traces of power left in him?”

“I suppose it is similar to a sickness. It does not leave all at once, the power of the Tesseract. Like a human virus, it lingers. So in a way though Loki is not present or controlling him, echoes of his power are still there.”

“Is there any way we can speed up the recovery or flush it out, or is it there forever?” Natasha asked.

“Is that Lady Romanoff? Greetings upon you! My lady Jane is much impressed by your heroics. As is my friend in arms, Sif. Both would like court with you!”

“Tell Jane and Sif I said thank you and it would be my pleasure once I take care of everything with Clint.”

“I shall relay the message! And only something similar to the Tesseract’s power could, as you say, flush it out. There is no telling how long it could last. Tesseract sickness has been afflicting users of the power since it was forged, but some it passes by quickly, others it drives to their graves.”

“fucking great,” came from the direction of another crashing sound.

“We’ll figure something out, Thank’s Thor!”

“Goodbye Doctor, Goodbye Lady Romanoff!”

Thor hung up and Natasha and Bruce sat musing for a couple minutes as Clint continued to pace and break things.

“Sorry about him.”

“I don’t really blame him.”

“Got any ideas, doc?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“There are never any good options, just options that are slightly less horrible than the others.”

He nodded in reluctant understanding. “The only thing that has similar power to the Tesseract is another type of radiation, similar to Gamma. Similar to the stuff used to make Cap. And…The Other Guy.”

She looked at Clint. Bruce could see the nervousness, the fatigue, the frustration in her blue eyes. He’d hug her if she’d been the hugging type, but even though she liked him, he surly risked a broken nose for it. “What are the side effects?”

“Well, I can’t give him straight Gamma, it would kill him. We’d have to give him a high dose of Beta radiation. A very high dose.”

“Spit it out.”

The elevator dinged and Tony stepped off, “It means he’ll have advanced radiation sickness.”

“Were you fucking listening?” She wanted to throw something at him, luckily Clint did for her. A stress ball hit him perfectly in the side of the head, knocking him off balance and making him spill his coffee.

“HEY! WHAT THE FUCK, MAN!” the billionaire rubbed the side of his head and frowned. Natasha smirked, Clint paced, and Bruce hid a smile.

“Tony this is private.”

“But I can help!”

“That doesn’t give you a right to put your nose where it doesn’t belong,” Bruce said.

Tony’s face grew red, “Fine then!” he turned on his heel to leave.

“Stop whining, Stark and tell us what you came down here for. You’re just going to do it anyways,” Natasha said, her arms crossed, still more than a little cross at the man.

“You know me so well.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Luckily with Brucey-kin’s experimenting here, I’ve figured out a pretty damn good radiation scrubbing system. Beats out SHIELD’s. Fury let me compare,” he said proudly.

“What’s the catch?”

“He’s still going to get sicker than hell.”

“But?”

“But it wont kill him. He’ll get burns similar to bad sunburn, and probably lose his hair, also he’ll incur some organ damage.”

“Sounds like a fucking blast,” Clint commented from the back of the room before punching a water cooler off its stand. A robot had been following around cleaning up his mess, it seemed to sigh at this and called for another robot which appeared seemingly from nowhere.

“Will this all work? Will it push out the Tesseract power?”

“We wont know for sure until we try, Natasha.”

“It’s not like it can get much worse,” Tony smiled. She shot him a death glare. “It’ll be okay.  We’ll look after him. He can stay in the medical wing. I did build you both your own floors, but I guess you might want to share?” He winked.

“Oh great, you know?”

“Oh come on, it’s not like the whole fucking world can’t tell you two aren’t carrying the torch for each other. You might as well just get married.”

Bruce let out a small laugh, Natasha turned her glare to him.

“Its personal business and it’s private, Tony. I would prefer to keep it that way. We’ll keep our own separate floors, but could you put a stair well in between them.”

“Can I put a fireman’s pole too?”

“Yes, but if you ever ask either of us to strip on it, I will literally kill you.”

“Fair enough. Off to work!”

He scrambled off, already mapping things out with JARVIS.

“I’ll get to work making treatment preparations,” Bruce said before walking off, giving Natasha a reassuring clasp on the shoulder.

She walked over to Clint who was staring out of the large glass wall. She leaned beside him back on the glass, leaning over oblivion. He wouldn’t look at her.

“So you know the plan?”

“Poison me to get rid of the poison. Sound’s real effective.”

“Better than nothing.”

“You could just kill me.”

“I’m not going to kill you.”

“You promised.”

“I said if there was no other way.”

“So if this doesn’t work?”

“We’ll try something else.”

“Why wont you just kill me?”

“You know why,” she searched his face. His eyes were hard and sad. He looked as if the whole weight of the world had settled into the lines on his face. Like each whisker on his stubbled chin weighed a thousand pounds.

He looked at her; she could have drowned in the sadness his gaze bestowed upon her, “I’m sorry.”

She reached out to hold his limp hand, his fingers laced through hers like it was a lifeline, “Save your sorrow, it’ll be okay.”

He looked back out the window, “Will you go get me some stuff from home? I want to…Get settled in or something.”

He probably meant go down to the gym and punch something till he passed out, but never the less. “Sure.” She kissed his cheek and she was gone.

He stared out the window. The blue sky looked like the blue on the scans. He resented the lovely day.