A Tortured Soul

Chapter 13

This story took way longer to finish than I ever intended, and for that, I apologize.
You may remember me saying that this was going to have 14 chapters, but what I had planned for the last chapter was easily fit into this one, so there was no point.

So here my friends, is the finally chapter of "A Tortured Soul"

~TH~

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Steve groaned, working his eyes open. "Will someone please turn that off?"

Ther sound continued as the Captain looked around him. No one moved. Tony had his arms on the bed, his head only slightly risen, his eyes wide as he stared open mouth. Natasha was sitting beside him, slowly stroking his hand, although the motion had now stopped and she was gripping it tightly. Bruce was sitting in a chair and looked like he was about to stand up, but had frozen mid-stance. Thor looked like he had stopped mid-pace. Clint was sitting on the top of Natasha's chair, his legs sitting on the armrests around Natasha's body.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

"Steve?" Bruce was the first to break the silence, finally rising to a standing position. 

"Can someone please turn that off? It's driving..." he stopped, realizing what was going on, "me... crazy..."

"You can hear that?"

Now it was Steve's turn to be frozen in place. "I-I can hear that." A small laugh bubbled up from the bottom of his chest. "I-I can hear that, and you, and I can see you and...." His eyes found Natasha's as he gripped her hand, "And I can feel you." 

He could have been wrong, but he thought that he saw tears in his brave assassin's eyes. 

The room erupted with noise. Thor was offering some ancient prayer of thanks, while Bruce rambled off about the possible scientific explanations. Clint let out a loud 'whoop' and wrapped his arms around Natasha's shoulder. Nat rubbed his hand softly and whispered, "Welcome back, Steve."

Tony didn't move. He seemed almost in shock. A white bandage was wrapped around the billionaire's head and he had a large cut down the side of his face. 

"Tony?" 

Everyone quieted down at that one word.

"You-you're okay." He breathed. "You're okay and you can hear and... and how?"

"The explosion." Bruce offered, "The explosion must have done something, ruptured the eardrum or caused something that made them bleed. It was chemical, right? Whatever they used?"

Steve nodded.

"The blood must have, have purged it of whatever was wrong!" 

"But you're okay." It wasn't a question. 

"I'm okay." Steve smiled. "But, what happened? Why was there an explosion?"

Tony sighed, leaning back in his chair. "I really should have seen it coming. With the way they were able to hack in and see and send videos. It made sense for them to plant something. Messed with Jarvis. Shut off his defences. It was my computer that exploded. Started a chain reaction. My workshops a mess. Everything's salvageable though. And Sigma is gone for good. I did a deep cleaning and debugging of the tower. Nothing is here that I didn't put here. Which is going to make Fury very angry." He smirked.