Hey guys!

I am so fucking sorry for the long delay, and not least this chapter. But I feel like I owe my readers an explanation.

Short story: My hands suck balls, and I can't promise when I'll be able to update regularly.

Long story for the sake of whining:

My hands were getting progressively better (I even tried to write a Christmas calendar with my friend) until I entered the exam-period before Christmas...At which point they completely died on me..

And then were thoroughly and utterly destroyed during the nice examination in january which basically consisted of "write nine coherent pages in seven hours – GO".. Needless to say I underarchieved quite brilliantly on that test. But I passed and am still in the game, so yay me.

Now, amongst other subjects, I'm doing a course on neuroscience where I'm expected to make two essays of three pages a week. Which just means that right now writing to me is agony/frustration/slow-as-fuck and not really something I feel like doing in my freetime.

So I'm so sorry, but I can't see myself updating until I've at least finished the course on neuroscience (which is thankfully an intensive one that ends at the end of march)

I know where I'm going with this and it's super frustrating to leave it hanging :c :c I hope at least some of you will bear with me and still be here when I come back.

Thank you for all the support and comments.. You are all amazing..:)

Now, super short chapter for the sake of it! I have a plan for the actual chapters, and how much should be included, so this is yet another extra chapter with special insight into some of the periphery characters..:) I apologize for the lazy recounting kind of writing style, and refer to the above comment^^"

…...

Chapter Five and a Half

…...

Bruce was a man of many talents, perhaps more so than any of the other avengers really knew. And while he didn't always know how to act towards them, he had a pretty good understanding of the people who surrounded him. Reading the air had been a survival skill for as long as he could remember, and had continued to be one to this day.

Most types of "bad air" were easy to deal with, using his usual strategy of avoidance. But there were some cases where the lines got blurred and he wasn't quite sure what his role was anymore.

The recent quarrel between Steve and Tony was one of those times.

While Bruce had a great deal of respect for the Captain, perhaps more than he did for Tony, the former wepaons-designer was ironically the one he'd consider to be his closest friend out of the two. Perhaps even out of the whole world, but that was a sad thought, really. Tony wasn't someone you became "close with" in a classical sense.

(In a way Tony was already close with everybody, but somehow that made him not really close with anyone at all. Bruce didn't pretend to understand.)

But in any case, Bruce had taken a certain pride in the fact that from the very beginning, he was the one Tony came to when he wanted to rant about the Captain. Through their period of comical cat-dog like fights, the confused lovestruck phase, the honeymoon-phase, the commitment issues and insecurities – Tony had always come to him.

Bruce hadn't really said much. Half the time he pretended like he wasn't even listening. It seemed as if Tony was content to be talking himself through it.

Still, it pleased him that someone would feel more calm in his company than without it. And he truly was glad to be of help. Though he wasn't really the sharing type, it nevertheless felt good to know that Tony would probably have the integrity to repay him the favor if it ever came to it.

But this time Tony never showed up, carrying on about some scientific excuse for needing Bruce's brain. He never offered Bruce a beer, knowing it would be declined, just so he could have two to himself. At no point did Bruce have the chance to stare him down and ask him what was really on his mind.

Because Tony never showed up.

And Bruce was an adult man, he wasn't butthurt by the rejection, but it did hurt him somewhere deep down. And even more so he worried for his friend – No, his friends. Bruce hated to see Steve moping around the way he did.

It still left Bruce with a dilemma of what to do. Avoid the situation.. Or go straight into the lion's den?

He didn't usually go to Tony's lab, it was most often the other way around. Eventually he had gone, reasoning that a grown man should not fear rejection. When Jarvis informed him that Tony didn't take visitors, he felt no stab of pain. Just a deep-seated worry that upset him more than was perhaps smart.

He had never expected not to be let in. He had thought Tony would open the door and act like nothing was the matter, glossing over everything, not giving Bruce a chance to intervene. That was the kind of emotional rejection he'd come expecting.

But this.. This wasn't a rejection. This was a plea for help.

But Bruce didn't even know how to help himself – How was he to save his best friend?

End note:

Uhhhh that may seem a bit sad and all XD Hope you enjoyed anyway even though it wasn't the update you were hoping for :(

Again, I'm so sorry :(