Distressed // Steve Rogers

11 - Base

Steve felt Talia's body slump a little as he pulled from her and watched as her lips jutted into a small pout. Guilt flooded him as disappointment registered across her eyes and his fingers pressed lightly against the small lump on her neck.

"The lump?" She pulled one hand back to rest against his, removing his fingers from the small scar. "I've always had that."

He shook his head as she wrapped her fingers in his and he pulled her hand to his lips; a small token of affection that she clung to.

"No Talia, you haven't."

*

She sat rubbing the small incision left on the base of her skull, her fingers pressing into the dull ache and throb of Bruce's work, and nausea rolled through her. Her stomach churned as her mind broke down the walls of what she thought she knew. She pressed harder, feeling the heat of her healing and flinched at the sting.

"Stop touching it." Steve walked to her and pulled her into a hug, wrapping around her gently as she lay her head against his chest and let her hand drop away from the wound. "You'll end up with an infection."

She chuckled gently as he squeezed her a little tighter.

"It's not even an open wound anymore Ice-Pop. Super healing remember?"

Gently, Steve pushed her hair out of her eyes and pulled back slightly. He pulled a hairband from his pocket and tied her hair back for her as she stared questioningly at him.

"Force of habit." He shrugged. "Neither you or Nat ever take hairbands on missions so I always have one, just in case."

Talia sighed as she leant back into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his waist and closing her eyes.

"What the hell did they put in me Steve?"

Stark cleared his throat as he flipped the light switch, plunging the room into darkness as he flicked the glowing breakdown of the small device Bruce had removed from her neck not an hour ago into the air above them.

"I think I can answer that for you Mini-Romanoff." Tony smiled sympathetically as he watched her sit a little taller while Steve perched beside her, his arm firmly around her waist, holding her close.

With the flick of his wrist layers of encasements flew from the mass of wires that projected in the room, illuminating roads of red, black and blue; roads that had been buried in the back of her head for God knows how long. She moved her hand back to her neck and Steve pulled it down again, squeezing gently as he turned his attention to Tony and his high-tech toys.

"This here," he pointed, "is a complex tracking device. It's been transmitting your exact location this whole time."

"What?" Her stomach dropped and her chest tightened. "I didn't - I swear -"

"Stop panicking Little One." Tony shrugged as he turned back to her. "We trust you."

Steve's jaw might have hit the floor if he hadn't been so consumed by how her muscles tensed and the way she automatically pulled to stand and fight. If he hadn't been so wrapped in the whispered pain in her voice, or the way she held her breath for just a fraction of a second too long then he might have dropped to the ground in shock at Stark's statement.

"That's not all it's doing though," he continued.

"Wait. What?" Talia let Steve's hold on her keep her upright as she tried to process the reality of what was being said. "What else is it?"

"Banner," Tony smiled at the doctor sat with his head in his hands and a steaming cup of coffee untouched on the desk, surrounded by scribbled notes and failed equations. "You're up."