- T&B -

'What is it doing to her?'

Tony saw her. Actually saw her, this time. How much a single organism had affected her when they were in the know all this time. They knew what it was, how all of this could have been avoided and cursed their ridiculous ignorance. He felt his insides tighten when she screamed again, for the tenth time in a minute and her call changing from it's the typical pitch to something too eerie. Too inhuman. 

'I'm trying to restrain her pain,' the red-haired woman delivered silently. Her eyes glowed scarlet with the use of her psionic abilities on Laura, her breaths relatively lowering. 'The organism is getting to her head.'

Wanda Maximoff was the first one he'd contacted after they'd given up their efforts in trying to extract the extraterrestrial from Laura's body. The young witch pitied Laura's state when Tony elaborated on the situation, willing to lend a helping hand and looking past the indifference. She was positive her Captain would be disappointed but she was in this to save a life. Wanda continued to implement her powers on the struggling woman's mind, trying to bring her pain to rest.

He felt his insides tighten when she sharply screeched again, looking away instantly. The transparent fiberglass was to contain the organism from escaping rather than contain the host. They were clueless as to how to remove the alien from her system, Banner pressing his fingers to his feeble eyes with every scream of help she gave out. They'd strapped down the insanely strengthened woman to the bed with cuffs, the formerly blackened smudge across her chest spreading to her neck in a span of hours. And with every ascension of the organism's tendril up her body, she spasmed into shock.

'It's killing her, Tony.'

'Aren't you the prophet,' he said drily. 'Yet, here we are doing nothing.'

'We tried high-frequency overdrive like in the papers,' Banner rebuked. 'We tried MRI noises and even morphine that could paralyze an elephant. It's only growing faster.'

He groaned out mildly. 'What's our T-minus?'

'Forty-eight hours at the least. I told Brock as you asked.'

'Then we're steady.'

They had two days to eliminate this pain in the ass. A measly amount of time for most for them, it was ample. Tony had already had few views he wanted to share, so he started off with the most relevant and which Banner could acknowledge.

'I have an outlandish notion,' Tony pointed out. ' What if - er, it's taking over the body? Rather than attaching with the host, it's . . . puppeteering her?'

The doctor followed his instructions, pushing his glasses up and observing closely. The once innocent smear had started to develop a strong exterior resembling their fellow acquaintance's suit that he used to prevent crime. The coalition of tendrils that they had theorized to be underneath the skin had risen and started to construct its own body over Laura's.

 'It's lobotomizing her,' Banner realized, nodding his head to Tony's theory. 'It's using her body as a skeleton for its own.'

Before anyone could respond to Banner's astonishing discovery, they heard another voice speak up. Tony went into defense mode, his hands reaching to the tablet on his hands to contact JARVIS. He stopped his motion when he recognized who it was.

'It was masterminded to remain bound to the host.'

The trio on the case snapped their gazes to the man who had entered the compound without anyone's knowledge. His eyes weren't focused on anyone else's except for the scene behind the glass, walking forward and flanking Tony's side. He could feel Eddie's sullen demeanor as he dug his fists deeper into his pockets and gulping all of his emotions down.

'Brock,' Tony greeted in a low voice, sucking in a deep breath.

'Keith and Drake engineered Sin to achieve symbiosis with any host,' Eddie said lowly after nodding at Bruce and Tony, 'and made it immune to everything that a symbiote isn't. That is Sin's genetically modified offspring.'

And all at once, everything fell into place. Banner felt something click in his mind, moving ahead of Tony and facing Eddie with a shred of hope in his eyes. His mind rolled with the possibilities of ejecting the symbiote, trying to fit pieces into the new solution that they could reinstate. 

'Her former symbiote reproduced inside her, asexually?' Banner reframed his sentences. 'So, it is a symbiote too?'

Eddie didn't respond, his eyes set on Laura's withered condition. Tony saw this and grappled the eager doctor's shoulder, eyeing him secretively to leave him alone. The trio moved away from the silent journalist's stance, murmuring amongst themselves at the corner of the room.

'If it's a symbiote too, it has a mind like us. It thinks,' Banner said. 'What if we can access it from the outside?'

'That's her forte,' Tony jerked his head to the scarlet witch. 'But, I don't think it applies for exotic bions. What do you expect we do?'

'Not her,' Banner hissed and Wanda rolled her eyes. 'Vision.'

Tony's looked taken aback. 'Vision as in JARVIS, Ultron and Mind Stone Vision?'

'Vision's very core matrix is all in consolidation with the Mind Stone,' Banner theorized. 'If that power can be harnessed into her body and exterminate the organism from inside out, I think we have a resolution.'

'Vision's powers are too exposed,' Wanda added as input. 'He could affect Laura's state.'

'Not necessarily,' Tony piqued up. 'When Loki tried using the energy on me, it was blocked out. Like alternate energy canceled it out.'

Banner snapped his fingers, pointing to the glowing electromagnet in his chest. 'Your arc reactor! Not this one, your old one.'

'I get you but I don't, does that make sense?'

'The energy from your arc reactor blocked the energy of the stone,' Banner explained. 'So if we were to hypothetically, engineer the arc reactor to filter out Vision's energy from her body, then we can part both Laura and the symbiote safely.'

'You're missing the point, Bruce,' Tony said. 'We have to blow that thing to hell not rescue it.'

'Well,' he trailed off and sent Wanda sideways look with a tweak of his lips. 'I have a solution to that in our recon mission, too.'

Wanda caught Banner's gaze. There was a determination in her eyes as she spoke surely. She could be of help too, with her term 'weird' powers, she could help Laura feel lesser pain when the symbiote was being ejected out of her. 

'I can destroy it once it is out of her.'

Tony swiped his palms together, shrugging indifferently. 'Okay, folks, so we have a plan. We're just missing the key element. Or in this case, an android.'

The gifted doctor was quick to respond. 'Wanda, where did you say Vision was again?'

'He was along the Scottish border, trying to figure out what the stone wants. I could contact Cap for his coordinates - '

'No thanks,' Tony said quickly, not willing to let Steve Rogers get involved into this. If anything, he'd like to get involved in this customarily and without any righteous speeches. 'I'll find him. Just get to work on the reactor. I guess punk Blossom here can stick with Laura.'

- ♣ -

When Wanda read minds, she managed to make out subtle emotions and perceivable meaning that lied underneath. Being mind-reader wasn't easy to work given the consequences of her uncontrollable prodding could be embarrassing and devastating. She heard stories, she heard tales and sometimes, she met new people. It was a superior connection she had with everyone she met, intricate and exciting.

The male, Brock as Stark had termed him, who was not willing to let Laura out of his sight for even a second was mixed. His mind was a mess of inconsistent jabber and she made out a second voice in the mix. A deep, guttural voice who wasn't all too accommodating about the situation. A cord struck in her mind when she collected the characteristics about symbiotes she read when Banner had approached her. They connected with the human and managed to intermix with every thought, feeling, and emotion you felt. She comprehended Brock had a symbiote, too. And that his name was Eddie.

Besides, she didn't need to read his mind to know that they were neck-deep in love. His very eyes gave it off so easily, how they surged with sorrow and pain. Then came the thoughts, Laura's smile, her tears, her tinkering laugh, and her touches - she stopped her higher abilities before she trespassed boundaries. He wanted to crack open the glass and shake her awake and it was taking too much restrainment to not perform so. And his organism was not of help.

'Done staring?'

His voice startled Wanda, her eyes snapping to his face which was still glued on Laura. She shook herself from her trance, rearranging her focused expression into politeness.

'I was observing,' she said. 'It's my thing.'

'You're a mind-reader,' he said softly as if he had her all figured out. 'You were all over the news two years ago. So tell me, what did you see?'

Wanda glided forward, crossing her arms beside him. She had her gaze set on the slumbering beauty, speaking her thoughts. The woman was as beautiful as ever even with the poisonous semi-liquid that ran through her veins. He deserved her. 

 'Why don't you tell me yourself and spare me the awkwardness?'

Eddie cracked a smile. His visage held nostalgia as he started to speak quietly. Wanda was entranced by everything he spoke about her, only making her swoon more for their love. 

'Laureline Sharipov,' he said with a sharp breath. 'That was her real name before she found out that her dad picked out the name for her.'

'Irish?' She guessed, sharing his smile. He shook his head, 'Russian.'

'I know because I got her drunk and sad on a work night,' he reminisced shaking his head. 'She doesn't remember that she told me herself. She's a tough cookie and when she's hammered, she spills the beans.'

Wanda couldn't help but laugh along. 'She hates it when people lie. She found out her dad left with another woman and she changed her last name. Now, to see her like this just because of her bundle of lies . . .  it's unbelievable. She lied to me about herself, y'know? She was dying,' he said with a light growl. 'And, she didn't tell me.'

'I'm sure she didn't want to,' Wanda tried. She wasn't all too good at consolation. The emotional factor to her was crusty around the corners.

Eddie didn't buy the spot. 'You don't get it. Laura, she's,' he trailed off with a purse of his lips. 'She's my everything.'

Wanda felt the breath leave her lungs. She sensed what he was feeling; a spirit of insecurity and eventual loss. The months of endless binding and slow steps forward, one small revelation had brought it crashing down. She didn't want to hold what he held anymore, the heartbreak and the pain were too much for her to apprehend. 

'We're going to save Laura, Mr. Brock. I promise I'll try my best to make this better,' she said solemnly, giving her word to that man that couldn't lose anything more.

'Thanks, Ms. Maximoff.'

Wanda reached out to gently squeeze his shoulder. He cast it a friendly glance. 'It's Wanda to you.'

'Eddie to you,' he responded with a smile.

'You look like you could use some shut-eye. I'll look after her.'

Eddie was swift to decline the request. He found a set of benches that overlooked her glass prison, settling himself over them. 'Nah. I got this.'

Wanda shrugged, following suit and leaning forward to listen to the vivid dreams inside Laura's mind. No one was more eager to understand her better than Wanda, her eyes shutting to picture it perfectly. She'd never been in love but she was ready to understand the notion. 

- ♣ -

'Nah. I got this.'

So maybe you can't engineer a relationship from scratch. And obviously, you can't instill perfect eavesdropping skills into someone else and that's why super-intelligent personal AI systems were for. Tony was never more thankful for spending thousands on the perfect surveillance systems, boosting his deterred skillset.

Bruce was irritated at the lack of manners in his friend as he continued to piece back the forgotten chunk of metal, powering it up to see if it still worked. The personal conversation droned on in the back, making him bristle.

'How are you not ashamed to listen to this?'

'Because I'm not sober,' he answered simply, rewiring the cords around his old arc reactor. He was hit with nostalgia when he picked up the bits but dismissed it as soon as it came. Evolving, changing; he was a changed man.

'You're being unfair.'

Tony made a joking noise at the back of his throat. 'That's adorable.'

'Seriously?'

'I'm sorry, don't you know who I am?'

Banner rolled his eyes. 'You don't know either? I was thinking along the lines of wrongful and asshole.'

'Uh,' Tony feigned an injury and laid a hand over his heart. 'Hurtful.'

'You got to let all this go, Tony. She's taken and so are you.'

That brought him back to the point. If he were to reconstruct a relationship with her, he would kick the successful journalist out of the equation, add in a bit of his own 'animal magnetism' and lastly, himself beside the plus symbol that led to the woman he could never attain.

That leads him to the headlines of that day's newspaper. Sure, he'd come back to San Fran for the annual press meet ball but hot pursuit? He had paparazzi, media reporters on his tail every second of the day so it was obvious as to how they found about his advances of Laura. They weren't sexually inclined to progress as the media had interpreted - he was saving Laura's life. 

Laureline. He was so going to continue to call her that. how much ever it rung a tiny bell at the back of his mind, He had to admit, it was a lovable name. How much ever it was going to piss her off, it was his past time and he enjoyed her anger. Time to time, he'd think about the past incidents and let out a smile.

His phone began to buzz, the face of a familiar brunette lighting up. He grinned in content. 

'Hey-lo?'

'Tony,' Elle breathed out, sadness evident. Tony's heart sunk when she heard her natural English accent bleed through the speaker. 'I saw the news.'

'The hot pursuit thing?' He tried to chuckle as Banner gave him the eyes. Never had felt even worse. 'Honey, I was helping the girl. Is all.'

'I really thought that...'

'That what? Questioning my fidelity?'

Banner made the motion of slicing his neck. Tony ignored it, turning his back to the frantic scientist. 

'You know that's not true,' she said, a little hurt. 'You saved my life, Tony.'

Guilt weighed down in his chest. 'I know. It's all bull, okay? I've only got eyes for one girl.'

She laughed. 'You better.'

The silence fell over them like a curtain. Elle was the first to break it.

'I wish I was there with you,' she murmured. 'I'm sorry that things got so awry, Tony - '

'Elle,' he said, rubbing his eyes and desperate to comfort her. None of it was really her fault. 'It's nothing. Hiccups happen, okay? We'll figure it out when I get back.'

'I uh,' she hummed in all adorableness bringing a smile on Tony's face. She was getting so coy and it was the most endearing thing in her. 'I um, uh...'

'Cough it up, Preece.'

'I miss you,' she blurted. 'Come back home, Tony.'

His face split into an elated smile. 'Really?'

'I don't want space,' she muttered honestly. 'I don't want anything that doesn't involve us. I just - I just want you.'

'Elle,' he breathed, surprised at how serious the conversation had turned. A thousand words bloated through his throat all at once. 'I was - '

'I'm sorry,' she sighed, cutting him off. 'You're busy and I was being so absurd in the moment.'

'What?' He blinked. 'No, babe, I want - '

'Sir, Vision has arrived at the compound,' he heard the familiar tone of his AI speak up randomly and continue. He looked to the smiling face of Elle on the phone and back at Banner. 'And he appears to have infringed our security measures.'

When he caught Banner's awestruck gaze, he rolled his eyes so far back he felt like he'd lost vision. Oh, the irony.

'Honey, I gotta go,' Tony murmured, rubbing the region between his eyes. Just what he wanted into the mix, more guilt and epiphanies. Elle was a soft little soul, he wouldn't dream of hurting her. 'I will - '

'Sure,' she cut him off. 'Yes, you have work. And everything.'

'I love you,' he reminded her. 'I really do.'

He could hear a smile when she replied softly, just as he loved it. The softness to her spirit contrasting the power she amassed when it came down to getting a job done. 

'I love you too, Stark.'

He placed his phone down and chuckled to Banner as he spoke to JARVIS. 'Off the hook with this bot, bud. It's like trying to pick up a turd by its clean end.'

'Impressive analogy, sir. Shall I lead him to you?'

'I think he knows that one, too.'

'You presume right. He's at the door.'

'Chivalry's dead. I'm sure he can use his intangibility to get through this one.'

'If you say so. The hourly coffee?'

'Make that three. Pass one to the duo, would you?'

'Of course, sir.'

'So,' Banner dragged out, 'you and Elle...?'

'What?' Tony blinked innocently. 'What are you on about?'

'Have some shame, please.'

He snickered. 'Okay, yes. We are going to talk things over after this.'

Banner let out a large sigh of relief, a smile sprouting on his face. 'Finally. I love the idea of you two - I mean, she's the only one who can level your ego.'

'That is true.'

'And she's so hot,' he mumbled, squinting at Tony. 'Like the subliminal ideal. How the hell do you even - '

'I know, right?' He sighed.

'But, there's just...' he breathed out, speechless. Looking into the distance with a shake of his head. Had the Bruce Banner harboured a crush? 

'Smart? Yet, reserved. Although, forward. How is that even viable?'

'Again, true,' Tony tried. 'She's Elle. She can literally say sorry after committing a murder and the jury would deem her innocent.'

'But, she's so hot.'

'Banner,' Tony warned with a cocked brow. 'I said we would straighten things out. That means she's off the market.'

'Just saying,' he grinned at him. 'Ask her to give me a call if you don't work it out.'

Tony found a screwdriver beside him, taking an aim for the back of the doctor's head. He grunted, casting Tony a glare and rubbing the sore spot.

And once the durable, sapient humanoid burst through the wall with density manipulation, he was in obvious distress. His long, gold-streaked cape flowed adjacent to his red organic and silver vibranium encrusted body with his sceptical eyes set on the man who needed his help. Tony couldn't help but play along and raised his hands in surrender.

'You got me.'

'Mr. Stark,' Vision said in his mechatronic voice. 'You commanded the stone's presence this instant?'

- ♣ -

[ w/n: Wanda and Vision! who's ready for these two to get the show on the road? and do you think the arc reactor thing will work? what was your favorite part in this chapter?let me know! oh, @I_Larb_You_Spidey you're an amazing human! lot's love and show her some in the comments! ]