pennysheets | New Avengers Tower

The press meeting takes way too long. Then they're all taken to a hospital, because most of them are injured in some way. Then Mel takes them back to that stupid tower. Avengers Tower. Watchtower. New Avengers Tower. Nobody knows what they're calling it.

They get a tour, even though they're exhausted and grouchy, and even though half the tower is clearly in some state of construction and clearly not ready to be shown off. The labs are complete, hastily so, but none of them are going to be going anywhere near those. The rooftop bar is still in shambles, and none of them want to linger there. The kitchen and restaurant-like eating areas spiraled out around it seem intact, and well-stocked, at least.

They each have their own floor. Stark had originally made a whole floor for each of his superhero buddies, which hadn't really been renovated at all even in the multiple years the Avengers had been toast, so now they're the cleanest and least disturbed of the whole tower.

Bucky gets Steve's, Walker gets Thor's, Ava gets Clint's.

Yelena gets the one meant for Natasha. Of course.

And Bob gets Banner's, with its combination of calming decor and Hulk-proof walls.

Then they're left alone to "rest" with the promise that Mel and Valentina will be in touch over the next few days, which sounds more like a threat than anything else.

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Learning that Valentina was in some kind of trouble, trying to scramble some kind of plan together, does fill in a few holes in his own understanding. Why she'd blindsided the rest of the team with the New Avengers thing. Why the tower doesn't look finished.

It might be reassuring, her little touch and her belief that he might have something good inside him, if not for the tangle of dread in the pit of his stomach. Valentina made him a superhero. And then he did something terrible with whatever power she gave him. Something that caused the absolute mess that is the city outside. That's why everyone acts afraid of him, except for Yelena-- and the other New Avengers, really. Had they stopped him? Is that why? They're confident that they can take him out of he does something else terrible?

He doesn't want to know. Knowing will make everything worse. But she's going to tell him whether he wants to know, or not. So he stares at her toe against his ankle and asks reluctantly, "What did I do?"

"Completely wiped the floor with us, for starters," Yelena says, a little bit wryly. "You argued with Valentina, after we retreated. I don't know what about, because there wasn't any audio along with the footage, but she apparently decided she didn't have as much control as she thought she would. One of the things the O.X.E scientists did was implant something in your head that would let them take you down if the trials did work - and if you can stomach being in the labs long enough to run some scans, we should really check to make sure it was a one-use thing and didn't have any redundancies before you get in the same room with her or any of her people."

She pauses a moment, weighing whether or not to try to catch his gaze, and opts to let him keep that little bit of distance. "Do you remember what happened in the vault, when you touched my hand?"

Okay, all of that is a little alarming. He doesn't want to wipe the floor with Yelena. (Maybe Walker, but... no, he's been better so far. Maybe that was why. He discovered Bob could... somehow... beat him.) Being "taken down" sounds horrifying, and the worry that it might happen again is... well, it's there, but not as terrible as it could be.

Except that apparently being "taken down" didn't kill him, because here he is. A hail of bullets didn't take him down. Crashing into the ground from a mile or two high didn't take him down. Maybe he can't be taken down at all.

A painting on the wall rattles on its nail, this time, and he glances over at it warily, and it stops, but he keeps staring at it, like he's afraid it'll do it again. "It happened with Walker, too. When he grabbed my hand to pull me out of the elevator shaft." So it was real, then.

Yelena watches the painting out of the corner of her eye for a moment, but nods slightly at his response.

"When you got back up again, it was like that, but amplified. Not just sharing memories, not just by touch. A spreading void that pulled people physically in." She glances out towards the window, and the city beyond. "That's what happened out there - some of Val's mercenaries tried to shoot you down from a helicopter. The helicopter didn't vanish with them."

She scrubs a hand through her hair, and refocuses her attention on him. "We found you in there, and convinced you to escape with us."

A spreading void. The void. The one they talked about in the vault, except-- outside him.

He can imagine it. He doesn't know if that's because some part of him remembers, or because it's just such a vividly easy thing to imagine. Shadows on the walls, on the ground, darkness growing everywhere. Everything quiet and empty, like it should be. His gaze goes unfocused, his grip on the pillow tighter. Nothing rattles, this time, except him, a little bit. He's definitely trembling.

"How many people," he asks shakily, not really registering the "escape" part just yet. His brain is way too stuck on the mental image of emptiness taking over everything to even parse that there might be a "him" locked away in a memory, too. "How many did I...."

"Most of Manhattan was affected."

It should be a relief that nothing's rattling like it might come loose and start flying around the room. It isn't. That trembling, the faltering question - it's worse, somehow. She shifts a little closer to him, reaching out to lay a hand on his arm, not restraining, but solid enough for the warmth of her skin to seep through the baggy clothing he seems to prefer.

"Bob? Look at me."

Was affected. He somehow affected most of Manhattan. By pulling them physically into the void.

Are they all dead? Are they all lost in some weird alternate memory dimension of torment? Is he a mass murderer or just some kind of psychic sorcerer? It doesn't occur to him that he didn't see any void or shadows or anything outside in the city, that no one has him locked up until he lets the rest of the city go, and so it's likely that everything turned out fine. He's too busy spiralling.

He does look up, through some dangling curls, when she tells him to, but it's clear he's panicking, in a quiet fashion.

She lifts her other hand to lay on his other arm, grip gentle, like she can anchor him in the present - or at least convey that she trusts him not to snap and drag her back into the depression dimension.

Not that distance would help, if she's wrong.

"We stopped it," she says. "Okay? You, me, the rest of the team. We stopped it. It's over, everyone's back. I promise."

This time, at least, she's not wrong. He sits and shivers for a long minute, full of conflicting desires, but finally he twists one wrist around in her grasp and turns it back to catch around her forearm, back, careful to keep his hand on nothing but her long sleeve. Probably a good sign? No awful memories drop, anyway, and he's not gripping so tight that it hurts, at least not yet.

"Everyone's okay? I didn't-- leave anyone in there?" He doesn't even know why that idea haunts him so much. He doesn't even remember being-- in there. If he was pulling people into it, was he really in there or was it really just him shoving people into their worst memories, on purpose, to make them share his-- his void?

She breathes a quiet sigh of relief when he breaks that shuddering stillness. He's not all right, clearly, but at least he's responding. She may need to tread carefully, but she can work with that.

"Everyone's okay," she confirms. "No one was left behind. It was all over pretty quickly, in real world time."

He can't even explain the deep certainty that someone must have been left behind, beyond the knowledge that he always messes things up, and that can't be the sole exception to the rule. But because he doesn't remember it, he can't give any reasoning to her, or really do anything but hope that she's right.

He sniffs, then ducks his head a little so that his face is mostly hidden between hair and pillow, but he doesn't let go of her arm, either, or shake off the grip she still has one his other one. The shivering isn't entirely subsided, but it's not constant, either, little waves going through him.

"Okay," is what comes out. He might need a minute before he can bring himself to ask anything else.

New Avengers Tower

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