The Irony of it All

47

The phone beeped as he hung up. Bruce exhaled deeply and closed his eyes. This wasn't the first time one of them had been injured. Tony had nearly died in Afghanistan with all that shrapnel inside of him. Natasha had been shot back when SHIELD had gone up in flames. They'd lost Pietro in the war against Ultron. They'd all had cuts and bruises, a few broken bones. Heck, Clint had been in cardiac arrest just before he disappeared and apparently went to Russia. Thor had been stabbed by Loki...many times in the past, since childhood, but it never seemed to phase him. No, the teammate that was in the infirmary most was Rogers.

Bullet holes, stab wounds, crushed by buildings, half drowned, blown up, ect. The man didn't seem to have the self preservation instinct found in most people. He was always taking hits. His overly self sacrificing personality had always gotten on Natasha's nerves ever since the Avengers had been put together. Bruce could recall a few times when Steve had gotten hit, and then Natasha, in turn, would hit him. Nothing overkill, just a swat to the back of his head, or a punch to his shoulder. She showed concern for everyone, but her concern for Clint and Steve, and every once in a while, Tony, seemed to turn violent.

The point was: Steve was always getting injured some way or another. But unlike Tony, or Nat, or Clint, he hadn't really feared Cap sustaining any serious injuries. Obviously he knew their team leader was still only a mortal, but Bruce didn't ever think he'd get a call telling him that Captain America's heart of gold was in litteral pieces.

He shook his head and breathed in deeply. He had work to do.

"We're needed in a jet over the Black Sea," he said as he came into the commons where Tony and the entire group was stuffing down a couple, large, New York pizzas.

"Tell them to wait," Tony said through a mouthful. "I've spent two months trying to save a life only to spend another fifty hours searching for the guy we just saved. After this pizza, I'm taking a nap."

"Unfortunately," Bruce sighed, "We have another life to save, and a ton less time to do it."

"They find Red?"

"I don't know." Tony took another bite of pizza. His face showed genuine concern but his stomach was still in control. "Um." Bruce cleared his throat. "Do you think you could build something that's not a heart replacement, but can temporarily pump blood through the entire body, including the non-working heart?"

Tony swallowed. "You want me to build a robotic non-heart?"

"Something like that, yeah."

His brow furrowed. "How long does it need to pump blood for?"

"Until we grow a new heart?"

Surprisingly, his brow managed to furrow even deeper. "You're being really cryptic. If somebody loses their heart, they're brain dead before I can build anything like that. Who's missing one?"

"Cap."

Tony's jaw stopped chewing as he stared Bruce down. A loud, angry sounding groan escaped the goateed man as he threw his pizza slice down, got up, and walked out of the room, making as much noise as he possibly could. Without seeming excessive of course.

"Who called you?" He called over his shoulder as Bruce ran behind him.

"Barton."

"Call him back."

He pulled out his phone and hit the last number he'd been in contact through. It rang in his ear two times.

"Hello?"

"Barton? It's Bruce, I'm here with Tony."

"Put him on speaker!" Tony shouted as they entered the lab. "I need to speak to the surgeon!"

"Hold on," Came the response. Back on the jet, Clint was holding his hand over the speaker as he turned to Coulson. "I need to be in that operating room right now." Coulson nodded and led the way. He had to put on scrubs, a cap, gloves, and a mask before entering with Fitz. He automatically recoiled at the sight.

Simmons had blood spattered and smeared all over her scrubs. The patient, otherwise known as Steve, was set up with oxygen and a heart monitor but he was still flatlining. Well he hadn't ever stopped really. Clint gagged behind his mask as he looked down and saw his friend's skin, muscle and rib cage splayed apart. His sternum had been sawed apart, and his ribs opened and held open with steel clamps.

Clint had seen plenty of dead bodies. Many of them were dead because of him, but besides basic medical training for the field, he'd never been interested in the art of surgery, if you could even call it that.

"Alright, she's here," he spoke into the phone. "Her name's Jemma Simmons."

Jemma looked up at him, confused. "Doctor Banner and Tony Stark," he clarified.

"Look, I've tried everything. I've racked my brain. There's nothing I can do," she said.

"Doctor Simmons," Came the voice through the phone, "Tony Stark here. I need you to describe to Banner and I every detail so we can try and build something to help you out."

"Alright. It seems like the bullet entered the left ventricle at an 180° angle and then ricocheted off his shoulder blade, through his right lung and liver. I got the bullet out. It's a 9mm parabellum. But it was shot right against his chest and entered his heart at an explosive speed."

"What's left?" Tony asked.

"His four pulmonary arteries are mostly intact."

Clint looked down at the bloody and mangled mess. "I don't see anything," he whispered. He knew what a heart looked like. There had to be something, even a little thing that he recognized.

"That's because there isn't anything!" Jemma brokenly exclaimed.

"That's it?" Bruce asked. "All you have are the arteries."

"Well technically, I've got the whole heart here...it's just in chunks."

"Ah, gross!" Fitz and Clint said at the same time.

"How much of the descending aorta are you missing?" Bruce asked.

"About a sixteenth of an inch."

"How long has he been brain dead?"

Jemma looked at the time. "There's no way to tell, I'm not familiar with the Erskine serum. But he hasn't had a pulse for twenty-seven minutes."

"You need to get the room as cold as possible! Below freezing," Bruce told her. "And his lungs and liver need to be operated on and stitched before we get there!"

"I can do that."

Bruce looked to Tony who was already putting together calculations. "What's our ETA?"

"Twelve hours, we can build on the plane."

"Twelve hours?!" Jemma exclaimed, her pulse racing.

"Drop the room temperature now!" And then the line went dead.