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There were times where quinjet rides back to the tower were loud; those moments usually happened when Thor was excitedly talking in his usual booming voice about some anecdote back on Asgard after something reminded him of it. Other rides were silent; where every one of the team members sat and swarmed in their own thoughts or healed their wounds from battle if they had any. But this one right one was different, it wasn't in complete silence or complete noise. Everyone was in their own world, careful to not disturb the other but loud enough to not make the air tense.

Bruce was the one who was mostly stuck in his own mind, since he had headphones on with classical music playing on them to calm him down after a Hulk transformation. Tony was driving the jet by his own, his expression holding more tension than it usually had. But the major focus of attention was Clint, since he was laying on a cot in the center of the jet, hooked to an IV while the others watched over him.

(Y/N) was still in her red, gold and blue suit, only now she had her aviator's jacket over it and her hair pinned back. She'd been staring at the ground for over the last minutes after moving back and forth from checking on Clint, who insisted on her sitting down. Tony had insisted on taking the flight back home, something that was odd or him.

She took a look around the jet after growing bored from staring at the floor and saw how lonely Bruce was sitting by the left side, so she decided to join him. At the sight of her approaching, he removed the headphones and focused his attention on her.

"Hey, I see the lullaby worked," she started the conversation. Now that she thought of it, she hadn't spoken less than three words to him. "Today better than before."

Bruce sighed and offered a tight smile. "Just wasn't expecting a code green."

(Y/N) couldn't help but feel guilty. She saw the painful look in his eyes every time he transformed back into himself after being the Hulk. If she knew how to handle the mission better, they wouldn't have put Bruce on the battlefield and make him go through his torment.

She tried to reassure him, since she knew he needed it. "If you hadn't been there, there would have been double the casualties. Our bird here would've been a memory by now."

Thinking they were talking about him, Clint was able to give one simple and weak wave at them before dropping his hand back down. Bruce and (Y/N) saw this and shared a chuckle along with Natasha, who was still keeping an eye out.

"You know, sometimes exactly what I want to hear isn't exactly what I want to hear," Bruce drew the attention back to himself.

"You don't trust me?"

"It's not you I don't trust."

And it was the truth. (Y/N) hadn't proved to him that she couldn't be trusted ever since he met her, and the one person he didn't trust in the room was himself.

(Y/N) pressed her lips in a thin line before speaking up. "Thor, report on the Hulk."

"The gates of Hel are filled with the screams of his victims," Thor announced and clasped his hands together in a satisfied smirk, which washed away when he saw the glare directed his way and how Bruce sighed with his head in his hands. Thor instantly jumped to defend himself. "But not the screams of the dead, of course. No, no, wounded screams. Mainly whimpering, a great deal of complaining and tales of sprained deltoids and gout."

"Hey, Banner," Tony called from the cockpit. "Dr. Cho is on her way in from Seoul. Is it okay if she sets up in your lab?"

Bruce turned back to respond. "Uh, yeah, she knows her way around."

(Y/N) stood up from where she was sitting to check on Clint once again. His eyes were closed but a coat of sweat lingered in his skin. Natasha was able to clean the wound, but because it was from a laser beam, it was burnt and saturated.

As she made her way over, rounding the cot so she could be up to Clint's eye level, she had forgotten about half of her surroundings. What (Y/N) didn't notice when she moved up was that Tony had removed himself from the cockpit at the exact same time, barely having time to react before she made her way over and bumped with him.

Embarrassed from her actions and the way her chest collided with his, she fumbled an apology. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it, Vaughn."

(Y/N) tried moving to the right and forget what happened, but Tony did the exact same thing. When she attempted in moving to the left, he did too, and it went on like that for two movements more. She was sure everyone was eyeing them strangely because of how awkward the interaction looked, but Natasha was having the time of her life.

(Y/N) took a pause and moved right, this time without having Tony copy her actions. She was free to move onto her objective while he moved onto his. She joined Natasha by Clint's cot, and the latter was even more attentive than before. The sweat was still in his forehead, but his eyes were wide in alarm and amusement.

"That was probably the most awkward interaction I've ever witnessed," Clint said from his spot.

"Careful, Barton, or I'll make your injury 10 times worse."
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The quinjet arrived in its assigned pad at the highest point of the Avengers Tower in a matter of hours, broad daylight still shining through the skyscrapers and other buildings that New York City as filled in. At the doors that led to the inside of the tower, Maria Hill and Dr. Helen Cho were waiting on them.

Once the jet landed and the engine shut down, the rear hatch opened and (Y/N) assisted Natasha in accommodating Clint in another bed that would take him into the medical wing. Dr. Cho and three of her assistants rushed over to help them too and move Clint faster, muttering in Korean their solutions to healing him.

If (Y/N) knew better she would've watched at how Dr. Cho took Clint away and hear the debriefing Hill had ready for her and Steve, but she didn't. She stayed by her friend's side as they rolled him away inside the tower and saw the whole process.

They were in the lab, locked in a smaller room with windows all around it, and Clint was now laying against a harder surface, cot long forgotten. A machine was hovering over his wound, lasers whirling and moving around the area in order to heal the side that was damaged.

"Are you sure he's gonna be okay?" Natasha questioned out loud, standing up after she'd leaned down to see the machine. "Pretending to need this guy really brings the team together."

"There's no possibility of deterioration," Dr. Cho explained calmly. "The nano-molecular functionality is instantaneous. His cells don't know they're bonding with simulacra."

"She's creating tissue," Bruce resumed, and the excitement was recognizable in his tone.

"If you brought him to my lab, the Regeneration Cradle could do this in 20 minutes," Dr. Cho shrugged, a prideful glint in her eyes.

Tony entered the room with juice cups in hand. "Oh, he's flat-lining. Call it. Time?"

(Y/N) gave him a deadpanned glance and he raised his unoccupied hand in defense. Tony reached to grab one of the juices and gave it to her, who took it with hesitance and placed the straw in her mouth.

"No, no, no. I'm gonna live forever," Clint cut in with a laugh, slurring his words out. "I'm gonna be made of plastic."

"You'll be made of you, Mr. Barton," Dr. Cho gave him a reassuring smile. "Your own girlfriend won't be able to tell the difference."

"Well, I don't have a girlfriend."

"That I can't fix."

"This is the next thing, Tony," she continued, grabbing her tablet. "Your clunky metal suits are gonna be left in the dust."

(Y/N) leaned down to whisper in Natasha's ear.
"Oh, I like her."

"That is exactly the plan," Tony agreed, and Natasha thought it was time to leave the room, not before taking a sip from her drink. "And Helen, I expect to see you at the party on Saturday."

"Unlike you, I don't have a lot of time for parties," she retorted, earning a huff of a laugh from (Y/N), who was exiting the room.

"Will Thor be there?"

i removed the brutasha scene and made it the start for bruce and y/n's friendship because that part of the movie was weird, and anyone can agree.
what would you like to see further in the book?

-see you soon, bex