THIS IS THE LAST CHAPTER AND IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO WRITE.

LIFE.

Anyway, caps lock aside I hope you enjoy the thrilling(?) conclusion to Dream Quarantine, thank you very very much for everyone who stuck with it and favourite and reviewed and made me happy with your messages of love ^_^

If I could ask, one more time, please review :)

See you in the New Year! :D

Tony was in the kitchen when Natasha walked in early the next morning in search of coffee.

He was sat at the kitchen island cradling a mug of the hot dark liquid in one hand and flicking through that morning's news on his tablet with the other.

'Morning,' he said, still sounding half asleep.

Natasha grunted in reply, never very articulate first thing in the morning. She was a lot like Tony in that way, if she hadn't had her coffee, don't say anything to her, just hand her a mug and leave the room until she was more awake. Clint had learnt this lesson the hard way.

Once Natasha had drained her cup and Tony had started his second, or third, she'd lost count, she took a seat at his elbow in order to watch the news headlines as they flashed across the screen.

'Anything exciting?' she asked.

Tony shook his head. 'Not particularly,' he replied. 'Senator Stern still wants our blood over the Loki Incident, the president really needs to train that dog, and everyone still believes that Steve and I are madly in love. I mean, seriously.'

Natasha chuckled and the two of them fell into a very in-depth conversation about how exactly a master assassin and a genius MIT graduate would go about training a dog. Bruce walked in during a discussion about whether Tony could actually create a collar that gave the dog the power of speech like the one in Up, and immediately walked out again, deciding it was far too early for this nonsense.

They'd lulled into comfortable silence at this point, Tony playing Tetris on his tablet and Natasha drinking her coffee and gazing out the window. But there was an elephant in the room; it doesn't take a genius and a master assassin to work that one out.

'I have claustrophobia,' Natasha says after a while. Tony's been expecting her to say something so he immediately looks up at her, eyebrow raised inquisitively.

'You have aquaphobia, I have claustrophobia,' Natasha clarifies, referring to his water torture at the hands of the Ten Rings.

If Tony's surprised she's talking about her past he hides it well. He isn't sure if he should say anything, but he can read in Natasha's body language that she wants him to say something, so he does.

'What happened?' he asked, turning the tablet off and giving his teammate his full attention.

Natasha gives him a look, sees that he's paying attention to her, and starts talking.

'I was on a mission with Clint in Egypt,' she said. 'It was a simple extraction. A few days previously a group of SHIELD agents had gone missing out there and the one that made it back told us they were being tortured for information, so Fury sent Clint and I out to get them back. We made it to the house they were being held in, and after disposing of the guards Clint went down to get the agents out and I went upstairs to find the man responsible, except…' she trailed off and looked out the window at the city for a few seconds, then back at Tony, who was watching her carefully. 'I wasn't fast enough,' she said quietly. 'He hit me over the head with something, knocked me out. When I came too, I was lying in a container or something with my hands and feet bound and a gag over my mouth. He'd locked one of the dead guards in there with me and I…' Natasha swallowed and looked Tony dead in the eye. 'I was in there for days with no food or drink,' she said. 'Waiting for someone to find me. And that guard's body started to decompose and he started to rot and it was the single most frightening moment of my entire life. I don't remember being in that fire, I was too young, but being locked in that cramped hole with that corpse… I can remember everything.'

She'd gone very pale and Tony took her hand, squeezing it reassuringly. 'It's okay,' he said quietly. 'You don't have to tell me.'

Natasha smiled weakly at him. 'When Clint found me I was delirious and nearly dead,' she finished. 'He refused to give up on me. I was found in one of the men's safehouses locked in an empty rusting old freezer. Clint took me back to base and nursed me back to life, the SHIELD medics didn't think I'd make it but he was determined I proved him wrong.' She smiled softly. 'He seems to think he owes me something when really… he owes me nothing, I owe him my life.'

'I'd give you my opinion but I don't think you'd agree with me,' Tony said, and Natasha knows exactly what he means.

'You've been around Pepper too much,' she said, smiling.

'She is a bad influence on me,' Tony said sighing and finishing off his coffee.

Natasha went back to staring out the window and Tony drummed his fingers on the table, and then spoke up.

'The first time I was in the shower after Afghanistan I screamed so loudly Pepper came running,' he said.

Natasha looked over at him with a raised eyebrow so he continues.

'I didn't know about the aquaphobia,' he said. 'I didn't know the effect being submerged in water would have on me. Anyway, Pepper finds me curled up in the shower buck naked, shivering, and crying. I don't really remember any of this but Pepper wouldn't lie,' he said. 'I woke up in bed with Rhodey giving me a funny look and Pepper looking terrified in the doorway.'

'I'm assuming you're okay in the shower now?' Natasha asks.

'As long as I'm not stood directly under it I'm fine,' Tony said. 'But I think Pepper was afraid to let me go back in the shower after that.'

'She deserves a raise,' Natasha said.

'I gave her my company,' Tony said, eyebrow raised at her.

'Point taken.'

And the two of them fall back into a relaxed, comfortable silence.

At about 8am, Tony stood up and turned the coffee machine back on, finding some bacon in the fridge and dumping the lot into a frying pan. Natasha was about to berate him over the amount of coffee he drank, but he handed it to a well-rested looking Pepper Potts when she came in a couple of minutes later, joining her fellow red-head at the island and putting each other's arms round one another when Steve and Clint walked in, drawn by the smell of bacon.

Thor and Jane appeared about five minutes later both smiling about something and Bruce came in a few seconds after that, deciding it was safe to reappear now Iron Man and Black Widow had ceased their dog collar conversation.

'Where's Betty?' Pepper asked, piling a mound of bread rolls into a basket and setting it on the table, then hunting in the fridge for the Tomato Ketchup.

'She had to get back to the lab,' Bruce said. 'She's doing a presentation on the structure of gamma cells when exposed to high quantities of radiation.'

'Sounds good,' Tony said. Coming from anyone else, this would have sounded sarcastic, but when Tony said it he seemed genuinely annoyed that he was missing it.

'Someone's tapping it,' Bruce said to reassure his ScienceBro.

The bacon was piled high onto a plate and Tony and Pepper joined their comrades at the table, chowing down on the bacon rolls. Despite using three packets of bacon, none was left and Thor even asked for more.

XxXxXxX

'Are you sure you're up to this?' Pepper asked, arranging her hair neatly on top of her head when she and Tony were back in their room, getting ready for a board meeting.

Tony nodded; doing up his tie. 'We're the power couple behind Stark Industries aren't we?' he said, a glint in his eye. 'I won't let those bozos try anything funny. Our stocks have never been higher and they know it, especially after the Loki incident, our medical department trumped all the others stock market wise.'

'That's very true,' Pepper said, smiling as she undid Tony's tie and redid it more neatly. 'How did your discussion with Natashalie go this morning?'

'We were talking about putting collars on dogs.'

'Oh sweetie,' Pepper said teasingly, patting his cheek gently. 'I'm afraid that's been done before.'

'Ha ha,' Tony replied sarcastically, catching her hand and entwining their fingers together. 'We were thinking more like the dog in Up.'

Pepper grinned then frowned. 'At first I thought that would be an amazing idea,' she said. 'But then I thought about how creepy it would be hearing about how great another dog's butt smelt.'

Tony chuckled and bent down to kiss her. 'That's what we decided,' he said. 'It's still on the backburner though, just in case the company gets really desperate.'

Pepper smiled and finished her perfect Windsor knot, tucking her boyfriend's tie back into his jacket.

'Come on then Iron Man,' she said. 'Let's go show the board why Wall Street refers to us as the new Dynamic Duo.'

'Do they really call us that?' Tony said, grinning.

'That and the Pepperony Power Presidents of Stark Industries, but that sucks.'

'Agreed.'

XxXxXxX

Steve was sat in their main living room channel surfing. He'd considered going out for a run or doing some art work, but laziness had won over both and he decided that today was going to be a sofa day.

Tony and Pepper had left for their very important board meeting, Clint and Natasha were beating each other up in the gym and Jane and Thor had gone shopping, leaving him and Bruce alone in the tower.

The latter appeared about half an hour into Dodgeball clasping a plate laden with chocolate cakes and biscuits and two mugs of coffee, handing one to Steve without saying anything.

Steve gladly took the proffered mug with a murmured 'thanks' and the two of them sat down to watch.

They then decided that it would be a good idea to distract Tony and Pepper by texting them quotes repeatedly.

'If you can dodge a wrench you can dodge a ball!'

'Cram in up your cram-hole, LeFleur!'

'Steeeeeeeve the pirate.'

'Take care of your balls and they'll take care of you!'

'Fucking Chuck Norris!'

Once the film was over and they'd run out of quotes a conversation was struck up about how exactly the Hulk had come into being. Steve knew the basics, but he desperately wanted to at least be able to understand something when Tony and Bruce were in ScienceMode and no-one else could understand what on earth they were talking about.

'Does it still feel the same?' Steve asked. 'Every time you transform does it still feel the same as the first time it happened? All that pain and rage?' Steve knew Bruce wouldn't mind talking about it. The doctor was very open when it came to talking about the Hulk, he didn't want his teammates to feel like they couldn't talk about it with him. Plus, the more they knew about the 'Other Guy', the better it was for them, right? That's the way Bruce saw it anyway.

'It feels about the same,' Bruce replied. 'It still hurts, it always hurts, but it's the disorientation that comes after it that I hate the most. Not knowing where I am, whether I've hurt anyone…' he shrugged. 'Hulk knows it though, and while I still don't think we're the best of buds, despite what Tony says, he is making sure I'm near a landmark or a person when I come back, unless that's a coincidence.'

Bruce sighed and looked down at his hands, the very hands that had typed out the equation into the computer, loaded up the gamma molecules into the machine, given the thumbs up to Betty Ross to press the big button… the hands that had nearly cost her her life.

'It hurt when I was given the serum,' Steve said. 'Not as much as becoming the Hulk I'm sure, but I was locked in that metal container and I could feel my muscles stretching and my organs becoming stronger and it hurt. And I could hear Howard and Dr Erskine outside controlling the whole thing but I felt so alone, locked in a cage full of pain. Is that what being inside the Hulk feels like?'

Bruce considers the question for a second, and then shakes his head. 'No,' he says. 'It's more like being in a cage of confusion, not knowing what's happening, not having control of your own body or even really your mind, relying on someone else to keep you alive… it's a strange sensation, I can't really put it into words.'

'We're good, aren't we?' Steve said, smiling and holding his hand out.

'Yeah,' Bruce said, shaking it. 'We're good.' There was a pause for a second as the two men contemplated the weirdness of existence then Bruce pulled his laptop forward. 'Now pay attention,' he told the super soldier. 'Tony and I were thinking about a new fuel for cars so you'll probably hear us talking about it this evening, if you can make an input it will a) confuse the hell of out Tony and b) make you understand global warming a bit better, so…'

XxXxXxX

Clint and Natasha appeared while Bruce and Steve were watching Diamonds Are Forever, they were saving the Lord of the Rings marathon for when everyone was there but for now Bruce had decided that not knowing who James Bond was was criminal. Clint was sporting a black eye and a bleeding nose and Natasha's hair was flying out all over the place. She did however look untouched and was looking very pleased with herself.

That evening, when Bruce and Tony started talking about ideas for a cleaner, non-Carbon Monoxide producing fuel for cars, Steve was pleased to find that he was actually able to join in the conversation and the look of Tony's face was priceless.

When Pepper finished work for the day and had changed into a soft, worn pair of jeans and Tony's MIT sweater, letting her hair down loose around her shoulders, she found the superhero team in the living room with The Fellowship of the Ring on pause. She was greeted with a round of 'PEPPER!' by everyone in the room and draped herself across Tony (once upon a time they had enough seats for everyone but Steve and Thor were just so big), making herself comfortable with her feet curled up in his lap and using his chest as a pillow. Tony draped an arm around her shoulders and she tucked her head under his chin, one ear pressed against his chest listening to the steady beat of his heart as the film started to roll.

XxXxXxX

Fury himself turned up the next morning along with Dr Penlock when the six of them (Jane, Pepper and Betty had gone shopping) were all gathered around the kitchen island arguing over who deserved the last slice of bacon.

Penlock took all of their vital signs and made Tony do a systems check on the Arc even though Tony knew it was fine because if it wasn't he'd be dead and told them all to take painkillers if necessary and avoid strenuous exercise.

He gave Tony a pointed look when he said this.

'I refute it thus!' Tony exclaimed, kicking the table.

No-one but Bruce understood this reference and Tony didn't mention that he'd already been participating in strenuous exercise with his wonderful amazing girlfriend and screw you you're not the boss of me.

Natasha and Clint were giving each other guilty looks and oh boy did everyone notice.

'What about Sergot?' Clint asked, asking the question they'd all been wondering about.

'He'll be brought before the Council later today,' Fury said. 'In the meantime, listen to Dr Penlock (again another pointed glare at Tony) and don't do anything stupid or I'll have all your asses on lock down on the Helicarrier, understood?'

The six of them made a non-committal noise that could or could not be viewed as being an agreement and decided that, since they weren't allowed to do strenuous exercise, they would spend their day lying on the sofa eating ice cream and watching films, not that no strenuous exercise had hurt them before but this was just one of those days.

They also noticed that Fury had pinched the last piece of bacon when he left.

Bastard.

Their sofa plan also turned into Steve drawing all of them, Thor singing some Asgardian drinking songs, Clint and Natasha having a wrestling match on the sofa and Tony painting Natasha's toe-nails for her. When the three girls came in later that evening and found Tony and Bruce singing The Element Song very loudly with Clint playing piano they headed straight for the Ben and Jerry's before using their other half's as cushions and continuing their Lord of the Rings marathon.

'You do realise that this,' Pepper whispered to Tony gesturing around them. 'Is the closest thing to "normal" that we are ever going to get?'

'You'd get bored if it was anything else,' Tony whispered back, nuzzling her neck.

'I'm not disputing that.'

'Guys! Shut up and watch the film!' Clint announced.

Normal? Tony thought to himself. Normal my ass.

And so concludes the story! Thank you so so much for sticking with me you are literally the best people :D

Everyone seems to like the sequel idea so I've been playing around with a few things. It'll be called 'Welcome To The New Age' (inspired by the Imagine Dragons song 'Radioactive') and here is a little bit of a preview for you :) Let me know what you think!

The sky above him was a burnt red and as far as he could see were black trees and burnt grass, moving gently in the breeze which carried along the distinct smell of smoke. The moan had come from Clint, who was lying on his side and was blinking at him in confusion.

'Did we go out drinking again last night?' he rasped.

Tony shook his head, he distinctly remembered joining Bruce in the lab where they'd been brainstorming ideas for new arrowheads for Clint, then he remembered a voice, Pepper's voice, bright light, and the sensation of being thrown backwards.

'I think something may have exploded,' Clint said frowning and pushing himself into a sitting position, gazing about him at their surroundings. 'I don't think we're in Kansas anymore,' he quipped, making Tony chuckle.

The two men pulled themselves to their feet and stood on the grass with the burnt wind breezing past them and that smell of ozone making them wrinkle their noses.

Suddenly, a noise came from behind them and they spun round to face the newcomer who turned out to be…

A dog.

A fucking massive dog.

XxXxXxX

And on that bombshell...

please review! :D