Distressed // Steve Rogers

26 - Melt Away

Tony leant against the desk, his elbows propping him up and the heels of his palms rubbing against his eyes. It had been a long few days. The bitter scent of day old coffee clung to the air in his office and dust motes span and danced through the hints of early morning light streaming through the small window overhead. He flinched as the door opened, his nerves fried after a night of sifting through early police reports.

"Tony?" Bruce was soft and soothing as he spoke, slowly pushing into the room when he saw Tony bent over the files.

Tony swivelled his chair to face him, plastering on a smile as he did so, and dumped the cold cup of coffee in the trash can.

"What's up Green Bean? Any updates on our mean machine and double agent?"

Bruce sighed as he shook his head. Tony's nicknames were strange at best and cruel at worst. Double Agent frustrated him. Even now, when Bruce knew Tony had spent sleepless nights trawling CCTV and listening in to police scanners to find her, it made him bristle and freeze to his core. The problem wasn't the name per se, but rather way he knew Talia would respond. Unlike the rest of the team she wasn't used to Tony's humour and it would hurt her; cause her to doubt herself.

"Talia," he stressed her name, making Tony roll his eyes in a lazy display of arrogance, "is fine. She needed some stitches on her abdomen again and she has some nasty contusions and lacerations on her back from the blast but mostly its dehydration and exhaustion."

Tony nodded, pursing his lips as he listened intently. "Good. And Metallica?"

"Honestly it was touch and go for a while," Bruce slumped onto the couch in the back corner of the room and leant his head back. "He's okay now. It took us a while to locate the internal bleed but we managed to stop it and she's with him now. She's been with him since she woke up."

"She eaten anything?" Tony turned away, glancing back down to the file open on his desk; the file that highlighted every dark detail of Matthieu's past. His eyes lingered on the leaflet clipping at the front of the file.

Jane Doe Found Beaten On Rue de Marseille - Police are seeking information on the attack. Victim remains unidentified.

He closed the file after taking one last look at the image of the bloody and bruised girl, barely recognisable, wrapped in bandages and ventilated in a hospital bed, and bile rose in his throat.

"I got her to pick at some toast about an hour ago." Bruce smiled to himself at Tony's concern before closing his eyes and letting the exhaustion of a six hour surgery pull him into a dreamless sleep.

*

She listened to his breathing, steady and deep, as she sat curled in a ball in the chair beside his bed. Her body ached, protesting against the stillness she had endured for hours now, but she made no effort to move. Behind the heavy lids of her eyes were images she could not escape, images that taunted and tortured her: Matthieu's eyes as he pulled her towards him, Bucky's hand smashing through the wall, his face as he rolled off of her clutching at his side, burning rubble, Zemo. It played on repeat as she remained silent and still. Listening to his breathing. Focusing on the fact she was in the compound. Telling herself he was safe now.

Her chest ached as she tried to match her breathing with his. A piece of her was missing and she longed for it to return. Throughout the night everyone had checked on them. Everyone except Steve and it was killing her to be apart from him. She tried to focus on the reunions she had had as loneliness kicked in.

*

"You sure gave us a scare Mini-Romanoff," Sam scoffed as he threw himself on the end of her hospital bed. "Nat was insane man. Never thought I'd see Black Widow cry so thank you for that." He smirked as Talia gave a tired smile. "You know Cap wasn't great either. He's pretty close to Nat so I'd assume that had something to do with it, and obviously Bucky and him have a lot of history, but the man really did not rest."