Frail heart

Tempting fate

Chapter eleven

The ride back from the African coast was charged with something uncomfortable, foreign, and everybody was stuck in their own heads, recalling the events that had happened only a few hours prior.

Natasha had narrowly missed her mind being warped by the female twin but seeing her team so affected had her mind reeling as well. Clint was the only one fit enough to pilot the Quinjet and he had called Maria for advice on what to do for his team.

"The news is loving you guys. Nobody else is. There's been no official call for Banner's arrest but... it's in the air."

Bruce wrapped his blanket closer to his body at Maria's words, squeezing his eyes shut as if it'd all go away if he did. Steve sat with his back against the wall, his normally optimistic disposition severely dampened, the only reassurance being Natasha's comforting presence beside him.

As for Thor, he paced around the jet, wringing his hands together in thought, his eyebrows scrunched together, and Tony sat beside Clint, unusually silent, wondering what he could have done differently.

"Stark relief foundation?", Tony questioned.

"Already on the scene. How's the team?"

Tony looks around the jet before sighing deeply, "Everyone's...we took a hit; we'll shake it off."

"Well, for now I'd stay in stealth mode, and stay away from here."

Tony turns to face Maria's face on the jet's screen, "So run and hide?"

Maria shrugs, her face full of sympathy, "Until we can find Ultron I... don't have much else to offer.

"Neither do we." Tony ends the call, leaning back in his seat with a groan, rubbing his temples.

Clint turns to him, placing a hand on his shoulder, "If you wanna get some sleep now's a good time cause there's still a few hours out."

Tony frowns, tilting his head towards him, "a few hours from... where?"

"A safehouse."

//

Clint had flown the team out to his house out in the middle of nowhere, where his family was, and Laura and his kids gladly welcomed them, offering them a place to stay of they wanted it.

Thor had left not long after, claiming that he needed answers to what he saw in Wanda's induced 'dream', and Cap had taken some time away from the group to think. To think about all he'd had seen in his own 'dream' and to think about what his next move was. He reckoned he'd come see you, not only to check up on you but to get away from everything, maybe a new setting would help him navigate his way through.

Later into the day, once everyone had settled, Tony had gone outside to help Steve chop some wood for Laura and to chat.

"Thor didn't say where he was going for answers?"

Steve grunted as he chopped a slab of wood in half, kicking it to the side and grabbing another, "No. He didn't seem too keen on telling me either."

"Just give him time, we don't know what the Maximoff showed him." Tony comforted, grabbing his own piece of wood, and placing it on the stump in the ground.

"'Earth's mightiest heroes', pulled us apart like cotton candy."

"You know Ultron's trying to tear us apart, right?"

Steve sighed, sitting down on the stump of wood, "Yeah, I figured that much."

Tony copied his actions, looking out into the fields of grass, "We can't let him. He might have read our files but that isn't us, not really. We're a team, Rogers, and just like you said; whatever happens, we'll do it together."