Unexpected

Bad, Worse, and Worst News

Panting and coated in sweat, I stepped off the over-heating treadmill. Today Stark, Banner, and I had really been pushing the limits. To my surprise we had actually gone along with Tony's suggestion from yesterday to hook me up to a car battery. Under the influence I had been able to not only flip the poor Ford Focus, but, after getting a good grip on its undercarriage, I'd managed to pick the thing up over my head. It had been like lifting a bulky cardboard box of heavy dictionaries. That is to say that it was difficult, strenuous, but not impossible. That had put some strain on my body, and I'd had to take a break as the pair of geniuses went on about the results, but once I'd caught my second wind we had tried something even crazier. With a few twinges to a machine that S.H.I.E.L.D. already owned, the pair had created a lightning machine. I'd stood in the experimental room and they shocked me with a bolt of fake lightening. This, of course, turned out to be a bad idea.

I had yelped at the sudden, burning flash of energy, my body working double time to absorb and conform the energy before it could hurt me, and when the flash died away it left me over-heated and dazed. My hair had stuck out like porcupine quills, but I was alive and revved up. Once they'd run a diagnostic to make sure there was no internal damage, Tony and Bruce had set me on the treadmill so that I could run my excess energy off. I'd hit forty miles per hour and I managed to keep that pace for ten minutes before I slowed to thirty, then to twenty where I kept a solid rhythm until I had been running for just over a half hour.

"Water." I demanded as I pulled my sweaty hair out of its messy ponytail before tying it up neater again.

Tony handed me the bottle quickly, "Okay, final results, lightning, not good, but not lethal?"

I nodded, guzzling the bottle down between my panting breaths, "It was not pleasant. It hurt too much like being stung by flaming bees all over and inside my body. It's too much energy at once, no time for buildup, more like the shock from the Tesseract than anything we've tried yet."

"But you still took it without any major problem, sure it hurt, but your body could still handle more energy." Bruce said, doing a calculation, before sighing and handing his tablet to Tony who furrowed his eyebrows at the data in concentration.

"I don't think it matters how much energy I can take in, the danger is more that I don't overdo myself while on the energy high. If I over use my energy like I did during the invasion, I leave myself with hardly enough strength to continue living."

Banner nodded, "If only we had more time. After tomorrow Tony and I need to leave."

"Leave?" This was new information to me, "Where are you going?"

"We have a previous engagement." Tony said handing the tablet back to Banner, "Clean, self-sustaining energy. I may not be CEO of Stark Industries anymore, but I am involved at times. I have to help finish off a new prototype and Bruce here said he'd give me a hand, then I'm taking some time off. I'd like to focus on my suits for a while."

There was something about his tone, less playful than usual that made me wonder how Stark was doing. He was glib and quick-witted and arrogant as ever, or so Natasha and Banner had told me, but there was something else in him that poked through at times, something tired, worried, anxious. I decided not to poke at him though, if anyone seemed to catch these moments, he'd go a bit over board with a suggestive remark or he'd start talking about a crazier experiment.

"I think we'd all like a break." Came the familiar sarcastic tones of Hawkeye as he entered through the sliding laboratory door. "Mind if I stow away in your suitcase? Hey, Banner."

"Hello." Banner said distractedly as he handed me another water bottle.

"Legolas." Tony grinned, "That's the perks of being crazy rich, you can take a vacation whenever you please, and anyways, that tan makes me think you just came back from a nice getaway."