Chapter Text
Chapter 1
"Tony, can you hear me?" Bruce asked in his calm, and soothing voice. Hoping that this time Tony would somehow here him and wake up. The entire Avengers team had gathered around the hospital bedside waiting for Tony to wake up. It had been a week since he had fallen into his coma after being knocked out from fighting some particularly nasty Doombots.
Bruce was hopefully that he would wake up within the next few days if not hours. His condition was improving slowly but surely and Bruce was optimistic there would be no lasting damage. The entire team had spent most of the week rotating between sitting with him and working their frustrations out in their own distinct way. Even though Tony could be the world’s biggest fucking pain in the ass, he was still their pain in the ass.
Pepper came by everyday and stayed for a few minutes making sure that her friend was healing and was taken well care of. Her and Tony had decided to just be friends and were much happier that way. She kept waiting for him to ambush one of her meetings and make an ass of himself. She had to keep reminding herself that he was receiving the best care in the world and would wake up anytime. Luckily Happy was there with her through everything and helped keep her from breaking down.
Bruce had taken to meditating almost 24/7 when he wasn't looking after Tony. It surprised him how much he missed Tony's snide and snarky remarks, and how much of a calming effect being around Tony's madness was to him. He found himself almost to the state of turning the other day because Darcy had accidentally ate his last cream puff; luckily Darcy isn’t easy to scare and helped calm him down and promised to make him some more. To say he was disappointed in himself would be a complete understatement; he and Tony had been working for months on his control and he felt like with his friend gone it was slipping away like dust in the wind.
Surprisingly Clint had found a somewhat friend and prank buddy with Tony. He and Tony had bonded after finding out that they both loved watching Impractical Jokers. He had always had Nat to keep him company but it was nice to shoot the breeze with one of the guys. Now however, Clint spent all his time watching Tony and his room from the ceiling vents and would spend hours firing nerf arrow after nerf arrow at nurses he thought looked at Tony the wrong way, which basically meant every nurse that walked by. It became so bad that Natasha had to climb into the vents and drag Clint to his bed.
Steve and Bucky or Starbucks as Tony would call them spent the majority of their time sparring with each other until neither could stand. Steve blamed himself for letting one of his teammates take a hit when he felt like it should have been him instead. He and Tony might not see eye to eye on everything but they had been doing better ever since Bucky had joined the Avengers. Bucky enjoyed Tony's lack of a filter and appreciated that he didn't act like Bucky was made of glass when dealing with him. In fact the first time he met Tony, Tony stuck an Iron Man magnet on his metal arm.
The oddest one of them dealing with their grief was Thor; he would make countless concoctions in the kitchen with the help of Darcy. Darcy had introduced him to the Cake Boss and Thor felt like he was more than up to the challenge. He made twenty cakes the first day Tony was out. Of course almost all of them were inedible except the two Darcy had saved from Thor's overzealous hand; Thor tended to be a bit heavy handed with the salt. He claimed it calmed him but the raging thunderstorms outside seemed to prove differently.
Natasha on the other hand was an entirely different matter. She kept her emotions in check and did not seem to deviate from her regular routine except to visit Tony in the hospital wing when it was her turn to watch over him. She spent no more time with him than was necessary. Her and Tony always had a strained relationship and before his fall she had nearly come to blows with Stark. She had been deadly close to killing him for the comments he had made and only Clint's reassurance that she would regret it made her withdraw.
Back in the Tower's hospital room, Natasha was the first to notice the lightning quick flickering of Tony's eyelids, and immediately motioned for Bruce to check what was happening. When Bruce moved in closer to check she stepped back to give him room and because she was scared of what might happen if Stark did wake up and the first thing he saw was her. She stealthily made her way to the back of the room, closest to the exit and watched from there.
Everyone else had decided to crowd around Tony to see if they could see any other movement while Bruce checked his vitals. After several tense minutes with Tony's eyes slowly began to creep open. Natasha could see even from the back of the room that his eyes were unfocused and very glassy.
Thor's thunderous laugh broke the tense silence that had fallen over the room. "Ah, brother of Iron I knew you could not be defeated by a mere machine," Thor roared and immediately went down and swooped Tony in for a hug.
Panic was clear in Tony's eyes at the thought of a bone-squeezing hug from Thor. Luckily Steve was able to intercept before the gentle giant could do too much damage. Once Tony was lying back down he motioned for water and after what Natasha swore was the slowest sip in the history of the world, probably another one of Stark’s attempts to antagonize them, he cleared his throat and spoke the first words they had heard from him in a week.
"Where's Tasha?" He rasped looking around at the faces around him.
Natasha froze in her spot scared that if she moved Tony would see her hiding in the back. She could feel Clint's eyes bore into her but she ignored them as she focused on the problem. Why had he called her Tasha? The only people she allowed to call her that was Darcy, Clint, and Phil. Her and Stark were on a last name basis and that was mostly if they weren't hurling insults at each other.
Bruce was the first to break the awkward silence when he realized no one else was going to do it for him. "Tony, why do you want to see Natasha?" He gently inquired.
All heads turned to see Tony's respond waiting to see what he could possible want from Natasha and why he would call her a name so few are allowed to call her.
Tony grinned and replied, "Why wouldn't I want to see my fiancée? Seriously, where is she? Are you guys trying to prank me because I swear I will bring a world of pain on you if you are! Not to mention what Tasha would do to you if she found out you kept her from me." He finished with a look on his face Natasha had never seen before.
She shot her eyes to Clint who immediately understood what she wanted and when she snuck out the door he made sure all eyes were on him so no one would notice her absence. She fled to an empty room and slid down to the floor trying to hold it together but losing the battle. She started shaking and couldn't make herself stop. This wasn't like her, she needed to pull herself together and then get some answers. Before anyone could come and find her she made her way to the floor the housed the gym and decided to do some yoga to try and get herself more in control.
Clint found her an hour later drenched in sweat and in better control of herself and her emotions. "Bruce wants to talk to you about something." He told her but his eyes kept moving away from hers and his hands were twitching, obviously he wasn't telling her everything.
In a move faster than Clint could track she had him pinned between her thighs unable to move. "You always were shit at hiding things from me so don't think now is going to be any different." She stared him down until with a long-suffering sigh he taped out and gave in.
"Tony has some sort of amnesia. He believes that you and he have been dating for two years and you're getting married this summer. Bruce thinks that it would be incredibly damaging if we broke the illusion so..." He trailed off letting her draw her own conclusions.
Natasha processed what he had said and realized with increasing dread what she would have to do in order to keep things from messing up. "Fuck." She softy whispered more to herself than to anyone else. Without another word she got up and left the room to go find Bruce. She realized she would have to view this as a mission and nothing else to be the Black Widow that the Red Room had taught her so well to be.