"One Thing After Another"-Avengers, M&F, Tony & Natasha, colds

[The Kneezle]

Amazing! I love this. Always up for more avengers, and Natasha in particular. This is excellent, and I'm really enjoying the plot!

[AngelEyes]

Fantastic. My reaction at the end of both of the last 2 updates, "Oh Crap!"

[SleepingPhlox]

@SneezyHolmes @ohlala8, @The Kneezle, @AngelEyes  Thank you so much.  I really like stories with a lot of plot and also sneezing but I'm always worried about posting stuff like that here, that people will go "Where is all the sneezing?  Take this to fanfiction.net or wherever!" so it means a lot to me when people read them!    I really, really, really appreciate it.

@Arc Reactor I have an outline for where the story is going to go when I start writing so I don't usually take requests mid story but I will say that by sheer luck two out of those three things are going to happen so I hope you will not be disappointed.

Also if anyone's been hoping for it, this is the last solely M-sneezing chapter.  Oops, spoiler alert!!!

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Part 6

“Okay...okay...lets do this,” Natasha said, taking in deep breaths and bracing herself physically and mentally to dip into her reserves of strength and roll what had to be several tons of inert Iron Man armour over.  Her previous estimate was surely wrong.  It didn’t weigh as much as a small car.  It had to match a bus at least.  And not just a bus.  One of those double decker buses.

“Hey.  Hey, wait a second.  No.  You don’t just get to casually say ‘Oh, I’ve heard of it but I’ve never been’ like it’s some quaint cafe on East 52nd Street and not Dinosaur Beach, okay?  I need to-”  The end of his sentence was cut off as his face was plopped unceremoniously into the sand when, with one final heave, Natasha finally managed to roll him over.

He had obviously hit a manual release of some sort, she observed, because the suit, all at once, seemed to split open at the centre, but it did not retract as fully as she had seen it capable of doing, and he set about wriggling himself free, pulling his arms out first, then using them to push himself free from the main part of the suit.  Though the exertion did take much of his concentration and breath, he just couldn’t seem to help himself from snarling:

“What the hell was that for?  Talk about rude!  I was in the middle of saying something.”

“You’re always in the middle of saying something,” Natasha retorted, folding her arms.  She had been considering trying to help him in his efforts to extricate himself from the dead suit, but now it seemed just as well to leave him to his rather superb impression of a freakish creature being birthed from a weird metal egg.  She waited, unable to keep the slight smirk from her face, as Tony growled and grunted and muttered his displeasure until he had freed his upper body, and from there it was a much easier matter to try and liberate his legs.  Or it should have been, in theory.

“That’s some bad design,”  Natasha mused as she suppressed a smile watching the farce unfold.  Yes, they were in mortal danger, but if the last thing she ever saw was the high and mighty Tony Stark sitting on the ground struggling to get himself out of, essentially, a metal pair of pants, well she wouldn’t mind ending her life on that note.    And she just couldn’t resist needling him a bit.  “What would you have done if I weren’t here to help?  A thank you would be appreciated, you know,” she said, a lilt of teasing evident in her voice.  She knew perfectly well what effect her words would have - of all the many insults that could provoke Tony by rubbing his ego the wrong way, trashing his design work on anything was a foolproof way of getting him upset -  and it was completely intentional.  And, right on cue, Tony huffed and rolled his eyes and said something under his breath that sounded not unlike “Yeah, and what would you know about design?  I dare you to even try to do anything I can do. And then we’ll see who can criticise who.”  Despite his irritation at having his mistakes pointed out to him, he did not disagree with the point, and he had already devoted part of his vast brainpower to brainstorming possible solutions to the issue to try when he got back to his lab.

If he got back to his lab, was a thought that crept into the back of his mind, that he tried desperately to ignore.

“Yeah, well, I dare you to complete a stealth mission.  Without getting impatient and brash and screwing everything up.  Now here.  I’ve seen a crop of rocks off in that direction and I think heading there is our best bet.”  She held her hand out to help him up as a sort of peace offering.  “We need to get out of the open.  I’ve oof!” She yelped in surprise as the full weight of Tony bearing down on her arm reminded her shoulders how sore they were.  She had been trained to ignore pain, but she felt every bit of this.  Then again, she had been trained to leave comrades for dead if they were going to be a liability for the mission...her training didn’t always translate well to the superhero business.

Tony grunted as he bent down to gather up the lifeless hunk of metal lying on the sand.  He seemed in pain as he did so, and she couldn’t help but notice he winced and held a hand to his temple.  She was going to need to keep an eye on him with that.

“Well, whatever you know about Dinosaur Beach, it’s more than I do, so go ahead and lead the wa-hhhhh...hehhh...ehhhktccchhh!...hehhpTCHHH!...hiiihhhsssshh!...ugh...the way.”

As he muttered and rubbed at his nose with the back of his hand, she began to head toward the direction she intended to lead them in.  But the exhaustion in her legs got the better of her and she stumbled, managing to catch on to a nearby tree to hold herself up.  And then suddenly Tony was there by her side, looking at her with concern shining in his brown eyes, offering her his arm to steady herself with.

“Hey...hey, careful!  *sniff*  Are you sure you can stand?”

Wow.  Those eyes.  That voice! Despite herself her heart seemed to stop in her chest and her breath caught in her throat. He could sound very easy on the ears when he wasn’t actively trying to be a pain in the ass.  Even with the heavy congestion and the sniffling and speaking in a lower register, it was the aural equivalent of chocolate syrup in a hot cup of strong coffee and oh god did she really just think that?  That didn’t even make any sense and maybe she had a concussion too to be comparing a voice to completely unrelated food products and getting all flustered like this over Stark of all people! And he was still looking at her with those deep and caring eyes and she really needed to say something and...

“Um...yeah...yeah, I’ll be fine...” she managed to stammer, averting her eyes and pushing a stray strand of wet hair out of her face.

“Good,” he said, abruptly withdrawing his arm.  “Because I’ve got to carry this,” he nodded toward his suit.  “And if you need me to carry you too you’re gonna be shit outta luck.”

What the..?  What the hell was he playing at?  The absolute goddamned asshole!  She curled her lip and shot him a look of disgust, using her hand to push herself away from the tree and march on ahead.  Her fatigue and physical agony were nothing compared to her need to make a point to that complete and utter prick at this moment in time.

“I said I didn’t need your help, didn’t I?” she called over her shoulder, needing to make sure that he knew that he didn’t just let her down or get her hopes up and then crush them or anything stupid like that.  He didn’t reply and she didn’t bother turning around to look if he was still there.  She could kill him.  She could kill him right here and right now and nobody would be any the wiser.  Dinosaur got him, she would tell everyone.  Funny story, I told him he had to stay put but he thought he knew best as always and walked off and the dinosaur just ate him right up.  Guess he should have listened to me.

“You know what?” she said, just in case he was still following her and hadn’t been eaten right up just yet.  “For a while you actually started to look like you were turning into a decent person.  What happened to that?  What happened to all that personal growth, the whole learning to work as part of a team and care about people?  Can you please go back to being that version of you?  Because that was the only version of you that didn’t suck.”

He didn’t reply.  Not only did that last jibe cut a little close to the bone but...what was he supposed to say?  He didn’t feel very good and that was making him cranky and he didn’t have the self control not to let it affect how he acted?  Or would he explain that even with the suit, getting slammed into things repeatedly was taking its toll on his body, he suffered severe problems with his back, which hitting the ocean’s surface at speed had exacerbated and he could barely carry the suit as it was, really he could barely walk as it was?  No, of course he would not say those things because those things were damn well not anyone else’s business and...okay, maybe he was a little embarrassed.  Just a little.  Not that he ever really got embarrassed, of course.  It was more a...strategic withholding of information that other people might use against him.  

She wouldn’t admit it, or stoop to turning around to check on him, but the fact that she didn’t hear him was worrying her.  She began to wish he’d sneeze or something just so she’d know he was still there.  She didn’t really want him to die.  Even if she did fantasize in detail about how she would snap his neck.  She just wanted to make a point.

And then, as if on cue:  “Hehhkssshhh!...hehhh...ehh’hissshu!...haaaptcchh!”  This was followed by dramatic and wet snuffling and snorting, the sound of someone who had not been able to blow his runny nose for far too long, and she never thought that sound would be music to her ears but it was, because it meant he was still there, still following her, hadn’t collapsed on the sand or gotten annoyed and decided to go it solo.

The rocks were very close to the water’s edge, but in the formation there were small caves that should be suitable overnight, depending on how the tides worked around here.  She made her way around the edge of the rocks, looking for the best spot that could fit the two of them, plus that stupid armour he insisting on dragging with him for whatever reasons he had in his head. She noted that he was still wearing the tank top and light sweatpants he had been curled up in back at the boat and she had no idea what the nights were like here but she was going to need to make sure he was able to stay warm.  She also rarely saw his bare arms, and had a tendency to forget how toned and strong they were and...

Yeah, she definitely must have hit her head.  She willed herself to focus back on the task at hand.

“We’ll try this one,” she said.  “No matter what, it’s going to be damp so close to the water, which isn’t going to be great for your cold but...I’ll get a fire going so we can dry our clothes and maybe cook something.  We may need to find a way to boil the salt out of the sea water to stay hydrated.   Do you mind staying here while I go look for wood and stuff?”

“Sure thing, Ginger.  I’ll get to work making us a radio out of some coconuts and seashells.”

She stared at him blankly.

“Oh come on!  You can’t be mad at that!  Ginger was the hot one.  It’s a compliment!”

She cocked her head quizzically to the side.

“Gilligan’s Island?”

She shook her head.

“Oh, well, trust me, if you got the reference you would have thought that was hilarious.”

She shook her head and turned around.  Evidently he’d decided to have another change of mood.  And he’d probably be pissy again by the time she came back.   She looked around, assessing the terrain and deciding where the best place to gather resources would be.  Even with her survival skills, this place was entirely new territory.  She only had stories about this place to rely on, she had no idea what was here, and what the local wildlife was capable of.    And if she got herself killed, that idiot Stark would have nobody to look after him.

She heard him sneezing in the cave and then having a brief coughing fit.  Yeah, he was going to need a lot of looking after...

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To be continued...

 

Edited August 6, 2017 by SleepingPhlox

[Arc Reactor]

Can't wait to see what happens next! I love this so much 

[sickprincess]

I love this!! They aren't even my favorite characters at all but this is just so well written.  

[SleepingPhlox]

@Arc Reactor and @sickprincess thank you so very much for your kind comments.  Arc Reactor, I can guess from your username and signature that you're a fellow Tony Stark fan? 

August was the month from Hell at work and I was too busy and exhausted to think about writing but I had this in the back of my head waiting for me to be able to sit down and get back to it again.  And finally Natasha gets to join in on the action! 

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Part 7

Having every sense in a constant state of overdrive was draining to say the least, Natasha found.  She must be slipping, or going soft, because she was certain that once upon a time in her life she would have been able to endure much more than this.  Then again, the constant worry over maybe being found by a dinosaur brought with it a certain kind of adrenaline rush unlike anything she had ever felt before.

She shook her head at her own thoughts.  What was the possibility of a dinosaur or two when she had faced hundreds of flying sky aliens, when she had looked them right in the face before punching them in it.  This was nothing and any reason she could come up with for finding it difficult to deal with were pure excuses.  There was nothing for it but to resolve to work herself harder, get herself back to her former glory once she got back to the tower.   And no “if she got back” bullshit, either.  That was loser talk.  She was going to get back to the tower, take a nice warm bath - seriously, did it have to be so cold down here by the water? - and then kick her ass into gear.  No coddling herself with movie nights with Clint instead of working out, no more drinking competitions with Stark (how many times could the man lose and still delight in demanding rematches?), no more helping Thor discover the joy of Midgardian desserts...there would just be training, training, and more training.  She’d force Steve to spar with her.  None of his wishy-washy “Well I don’t know how I feel about hitting a girl” nonsense.  She needed his help.  He was the only one who could keep up with her.

She made short quick trips to the trees, gathering up small amounts of wood before returning to deposit them in a pile by the cave entrance.  She didn’t want to be laden down with too much in the event she was ambushed.  She dropped another small armful and returned for another pass at the bounty of wood lying at the edge of the beach.  Whatever tended to pass through these trees seemed to break off a lot of branches as it went through, as broken and twisted tree limbs lay scattered at the ground or dangled from the tree held on by mere bits of bark.  She tried not to think about what sort of creature could have possibly done such damage.

She idly rubbed at her nose with the back of her hand as she quickly bent down to nimbly gather bits of wood, straightening her back and looking around after each one, even if there was another one easily within reach.  For a moment she thought she had heard rustling in the leaves to her left and she froze, training her ears in the direction of the sound.  She was met with silence, and after a moment of verifying this, she shrugged and returned to her task.  She rubbed at her nose again, and thought little of it until suddenly, and entirely without sufficent warning, she gasped.

“Hihhh...ihhptchuuu!”

She definitely heard a rustling in the leaves in response and she froze again, one hand reaching for the concealed dagger in her boot, the other hand ready to fling the wood and run.  Nothing huge came barrelling out of the bushes, so perhaps her little outburst had startled a bunny rabbit or something.  Still, she wasn’t going to take any chances, so she slowly backed away from the trees, crouching low to facilitate reaching her dagger if need be, until she was out in the relative open of the sandy, rocky beach and was therefore not quite so surrounded by cover that all sorts of creatures could be hiding in.

“Hihhh-issshew!....hmmptchhhii!”  She frowned and wiped her nose daintily with the back of her hand, muttering under her breath:  “It had better be pollen season in this damned place, or Stark is a dead man...”  Sniffling against the wetness that had suddenly appeared, she drew her sleeve under her nose to try and stem the tide.  Whatever, they were stranded on a place with dinosaurs, now was not the time to worry about being polite or hygenic!  It didn’t do much good, at any rate, as her clothes were still soaked from the sea, and had no room to absorb any further.
They were going to need a way to solve that as well.  They didn’t know how cold the nights were likely to get and Stark in particular didn’t need to be spending a freezing night in wet clothes.  She herself wasn’t crazy about the prospect either.

Hmm...

She quickly abandoned her meagre armful of wood into the pile near the cave entrance, and darted back out toward the shorter palm trees near the edge of the tree line for one last gathering mission.  This time it was long thin strands of palm leaves that she was after and fortunately they were plenty, and she did not have to venture too far to get an abundance of them.

“Hihhh...ehhptchhhi!...god damn it...hihhhesssshew!...I am, I’m going to k-...hihhhhisssshhew!...kill him if I get sick.  I am.”  

She was talking to no one, she was out of earshot of the cave and she was sure any nearby wildlife had little interest in her personal problems right now.  Her nose was so itchy and her arms were too full of fibrous palm leaves to do anything about it, so all she could do was curse the day Tony Stark was ever born, and cling to whatever shred of hope she had left that it was just her allergies acting up, even if her fatigue and slightly scratchy throat would seem to indicate otherwise.

Tony was sitting up examining the interior of his helmet when she arrived back and dumped the palm leaves on the ground.  Whatever it was he was doing, he was utterly engrossed in it, and merely grunted to acknowledge her return.  

“Yes, it is good to see that I didn’t get eaten by dinosaurs.  And yes, it’s nice of you to be so grateful to me for doing all this work,” she muttered petulantly under her breath.  Tony merely shrugged and said in response:

“Uh, I never thought you’d get eaten by dinosaurs because you can take care of yourself.  And I would have helped if I could.  Anyway, I’m doing something really important.”

“Oh yeah?  Which is..?”

He paused, before puffing his cheeks out in a pout.  “Well, mostly finding out that a lot of this is fried, including the emergency backup communications and navigation system.”

She felt her heart sink.  What she was feeling must have shown up on her face, because Tony immediately said “Hey, but don’t worry.  The suit automatically sends a signal with location information to a satellite in 15 second intervals, and that’s fed back to JARVIS.  If even one of those scheduled signals is missed, JARVIS will automatically alert everyone he can get in touch with.  They already know the suit's gone down.  They’re probably already on their way here.”

“Wow, Tony.  That’s...that was a really smart thing to...” she inhaled sharply, but forced herself to quell the tickle and push it away for now.  She wasn’t sure why, but she very much wanted to not sneeze in front of him for some reason.  Perhaps she did not want him to see her as weak.  Perhaps she needed to maintain her role as the strong one who was going to take care of everything and get them out of here.  Maybe she just didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he got her sick.  Whatever.  “...to think of,” she finished.

Tony, on the other hand, had no such qualms.  He may have wanted to hide his sneezing earlier, but he had grown far too weary to worry about such things now.  He cupped his hands over his face and let loose three harsh, wet sounding sneezes into his hands, wiping his palms on his trousers afterwards.  Natasha tried her best not to make a face at his actions.  She wasn’t really one to judge right now, was she?

He shrugged, sniffling.  “Not really smart.  Just common sense.” he said nonchalantly.  Natasha tilted her head curiously.  It wasn’t like Stark to deflect a compliment, so he either had an angle or genuinely didn’t feel that was worth complimenting.  He could be so odd sometimes.  She gave a little smile and then began arranging rocks into a circle near the entrance, piling some of the dried palm leaves in the centre and then adding wood.

“Here, Stark, you scoot over here.  I’ll build the bones of the fire and then if you can take my lighter and get it started that would be a huge help."  Hopefully her waterproof pouches had remained waterproof and her lighter had survived!  "Sorry, we have to build it here or we’ll all die of smoke inhalation.  I’m going to twist these here into a rope and then...”  She bit her lip, suddenly feeling mischeivous.  Leaning forward to she was on all fours, she dipped her back and pushed her shoulders back, accentuating every curve of her body, while she crept forward with her hands until she was close enough to whisper “And then you’re going to take your clothes off just for me”
.
And then Tony suddenly had goosebumps, but before he had a chance to think of how to respond, Natasha threw her head back and laughed.

“We’re going to dry our clothes over the fire so you don’t develop complications and, y’know, die...but good to know I can get your attention if I want to, Tiger.”

Tony scoffed, which tickled his throat slightly and he brought his hand up to his mouth to cough into.  “Yeah, you wish!  I know you want a piece of this...you don’t have to be shy, you just need to ask.  But I can resist every trick you have in your playbook.  Trust me.”

“Oh really?” she purred playfully, reaching out to run a finger along his chest.  “We should put that to the test sometime."  Then as if a switch had been flicked her demeanour changed and she was back to business.  "Just not now.  I need this fire going too.  I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a wet leather bodysuit, but it’s not pleasant.  At all.”

“Oh yeah, plus we don’t want you to develop complications and die either.  Considering how much you were sneezing your head off outside.”

Her eyes widened.  “What?  What are you talking about?  Why would you even think-?”

“Because I have ears,” Tony said simply, with forced patience.  “Come on, it’s no big deal.  It was bound to happen sooner or later."

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Natasha scowled, turning her attention to twisting the palm leaves together to form a rope.

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To be continued...

 

 

[Arc Reactor]

Oh hell yeah, I love Tony! He's my absolute favorite and he is one of the sexiest fictional characters ever.

Things I loved about this chapter: 

1. Nat trying not to sneeze in front of him which I thought was ADORABLE
2. Tony teasing her about it at the end.
3. HOLY MOTHER OF SEXUAL TENSION
4. ishipitishipitishipit 
5. Tony having absolutely no shame from sneezing anymore

Great job! I loved it, as usual

[The Kneezle]

Ahhh I love it!! Really building up now. Natasha is my fav, lol. I can't wait to see where it goes!

[sickprincess]

Omg I can't wait for the next part!!! Sick Natasha yes please

[lifelove1]

Soooo good! I'd never really been interested in the Avengers before this but you've converted me. Can't wait to see where the story goes now that Tony has so magnanimously given his cold to Natasha...