Hello, and welcome to "Cause and Effect," the not-so-long awaited sequel to "Just a Tool."

Warnings: language, mention of self-injury, general jerkiness on the part of several different individuals.

Thanks to my beta, irite, for assuring me that this was not terrible, despite my 69% certainty that it was.

It might be worth mentioning that I do not intend this story to contain romance of any variety. It's really not my thing.

I do not own the Avengers.

No one would ever describe Tony Stark as "patient."

In general, he did not take waiting well.

And he knew when he had started this whole thing with SHIELD (although, in his opinion, they had made the first move) that it was going to take time. Maybe even a lot of time. The federal government never really hurried with anything, and when it came to investigating an agency that they were reluctant to admit existed, they were going to drag their feet even more than normal.

Tony knew that when he went public with his accusations that SHIELD was engaging in some pretty shady business. He knew, before he stepped forward, that it would be awhile before he could put all of this behind him. He had accepted it, really he had.

He just hadn't imagined it would take this long.

It had been just over nine months since the story had dropped. And Tony could say, with almost complete certainty, that it had been the worst nine months of his life. Because it had been nine months of waiting. And watching. Both things that he hated.

The first night, after he'd managed to break away from the press, Tony had slipped up to his penthouse and poured himself a glass of scotch. It had been a miserably long day, full of interviews, depositions, hearings, and sworn statements. He was exhausted and pissed off and ready to drink himself into oblivion, except he had to be up at 5:00 AM to do the whole miserably long day over again. He'd been slumped over in a chair, considering the pros and cons of slaughtering his brain cells en masse despite his early morning commitments, when his phone rang.

It was Fury, of course.

"Stark. Do you really want to do this?"

Well, of course he didn't. This was guaranteed to be a shit show, one that was going to last for months (though he didn't know that, yet), one that would change his life massively and irrevocably (though he didn't know that, either). He didn't want to do this. But he didn't have a choice.

Because SHIELD and the World Security Council had stepped way over the line.

Almost a month before, SHIELD had called upon the Avengers to prevent an alien invasion. The Svartálfar, a race of something akin to dwarves, had been seeking an object that Loki had sent to Earth prior to his attempt at world domination. The object, which simply looked like a glowing sphere, allowed someone capable of using magic to basically do whatever he or she wanted, regardless of the natural laws governing what should be possible. It was an immensely desirable trinket, and an immensely dangerous one. Because of an error in its construction, it had been rendered unstable, and anyone attempting to use it risked ripping reality into shreds.

Loki had helped them plan for their defense against the invasion, had helped them figure out how to disable the sphere. Ultimately, though, he had betrayed them and made off with the object at the last minute.

Which would have been bad enough, except before going, he set in motion a truly unfortunate chain of events involving Dr. Bruce Banner.

Bruce hadn't even wanted to be involved with the whole scenario. He wasn't comfortable with his place as an 'Avenger.' He viewed his tendency to turn into an uncontrollable rage monster to be more of a hazard than a superpower, and felt that the potential for something to go wrong, the potential for him to hurt someone unintentionally while in that form, was too high. In fact, he was so desperate to avoid that transformation altogether that he had turned to some truly unhealthy methods of dealing with it. Tony had inadvertently discovered that Bruce had been injuring himself to release endorphins—the body's natural painkillers. Doing so could stop the transformation in its tracks.

As troubling as that was, it was only a symptom of something more insidious. Bruce had, apparently, lost all sense of self-worth, had become mired in a self-loathing so complete that he hadn't even been aware of it until Tony had pointed it out to him. And that self-loathing held him hostage, unable to act for his own benefit, to care for his own well being, in any way.

That was how Bruce had ended up agreeing to help SHIELD, despite having voiced his concerns, despite his entirely logical reservations. He had, with Tony's support, declared that it would be the last time he did so, though, having fully intended to step away from doing something that he hated.

It had been definite progress.

But then Loki had come along and fucked everything up.

Bruce (well, really, the Other Guy) had been assigned to guard the God of Mischief during a crucial part of the plan to disarm the magical trinket. Loki had taken advantage of that, leading the Hulk on a chase through the forest, drawing him straight towards a regiment of the United States Army that had been called up to deal with the alien issue. The Hulk, as it turned out, was not overly fond of the military, and after a tense standoff, things went south.

But it could have gone a lot worse. SHIELD had been developing, for some time, a new tranquilizer aimed at subduing the Hulk. They had moved it into the field testing phase with no hesitation. And it worked. As awful as being tranquilized was, even Tony had to concede that it was better than going on a rampage and killing 3000 soldiers. He knew Bruce would have agreed with that as well.

It should have ended there. Except the colonel in charge of the regiment had taken issue with the Hulk's reaction to the military presence, and had put in a complaint about Fury's methods. One thing led to another, and the World Security Council got involved. Their inquiry into the matter turned up some pretty damning information regarding Bruce's recent behavior and mental state, and they had decided that he was too much of a risk to be allowed to remain free.

While Bruce was still sedated, someone from the Council stole him away, taking him to SHIELD's secure medical facility and, as Tony had later discovered, cuffing him to a bed and drugging him out of his mind.

Tony didn't know what they did to Bruce for the three days he was in their custody, but by the time Tony had put together a rescue mission, Bruce was so fucked in the head that he had decided that being drugged and restrained was exactly what he deserved. He demanded that the Avengers leave him there, since SHIELD and the Council were just 'doing their job.' Under heavy fire from SHIELD's security forces, they hadn't had much of a choice.

So Tony did leave him there. And he hated himself for it.

But he had promised Bruce that he would get him out. And so he would. He had considered a number of different options. In the end, taking SHIELD down was the only one that he knew, for sure, would work. Because SHIELD had fucked with him so badly, Bruce wasn't going to leave until they said he could. And how fucked up was that?

After all of that, 'this' was something Tony had to do.

"Well, director, I wouldn't say that I want to do this. But I can't deny that I'm finding it really fucking satisfying."

"Sure, Stark. Whatever. You know, we don't want you as our enemy—"

"You should have thought of that before now, Fury. I mean, come on. Really?" With that, Tony hung up the phone and finished his drink in one swallow. He couldn't deal with this shit. Not right now.

That was the last time he'd heard from SHIELD directly.

The next morning, his lawyers had called to tell him that SHIELD was filing charges against him, claiming that he'd hacked their servers.

So much for not wanting me as an enemy, he'd thought.

They were right, of course. He had hacked their servers, and it hadn't even been hard.

It took what he assumed was some really clever work on the part of his lawyers (honestly, he hadn't even really bothered to pay attention), but within a week those charges had disappeared. Tony couldn't help but feel a little smug.

His satisfaction at that initial victory was short-lived. Because the next several weeks went by with no real progress in the investigation. In fact, it took almost three months for the next big break.

The investigation had uncovered how many people SHIELD was currently keeping in their custody without trials. When the public heard the exact number, there was a huge outcry. The call for their immediate release was deafening. But SHIELD objected, pointing out that they only held those people who were, for one reason or another, too dangerous for a general prison population, or people who needed to be kept locked away for the public's safety. Monsters, mostly, and who wanted them on the street?

The committee running the investigation waffled about on the issue for a couple of weeks (because a surefire way to ensure you're never elected again is to appear soft on crime) but in the end they came up with a compromise. All of the SHIELD detainees would be given something approximating hearings. Because so many of the cases were bizarre and unorthodox, the hearings would bear little resemblance to normal legal proceedings, and would instead be aimed at determining what actions would best serve the public, the state, and the illegally detained, putting them last on the priority list, of course.

Going through all of the detainees took months. The hearings took place behind closed doors. Because they were taking up so many resources, the rest of the investigation ground to a halt in the meantime.

A few other changes did take place in the interim, though.

A number of programs were removed from SHIELD's jurisdiction, including The Avengers Initiative. It was placed under the Secretary of Defense, who immediately relegated all responsibilities to Captain Steve Rogers, whose character and judgment were above reproach.

Tony was maybe 85% joking when he asked why he hadn't been put in charge instead.

A couple of days after that, Natasha and Clint had showed up at the Tower. Between the two of them, they drank a whole bottle of vodka while explaining how they had been dismissed from their positions with SHIELD.

"Can't be an 'Avenger' and work for SHIELD," Natasha explained. "Not anymore. Had to pick one."

"At least they fired us," Clint added, downing another shot, "and didn't fire at us."

Tony thought it was a good point.

He renovated their rooms and had them move into the Tower full time.

For several months, they all worked on adapting to the new dynamic. Steve called most of the shots, they received very little oversight from the government, and things seemed to be looking up.

Except the investigation into SHIELD had also thrown light on everything associated with them, and that included the activities of the Avengers. Eventually some of their methods were called into question as well.

"What do you mean we can't kill anything?" Tony had asked, dumbfounded, when Steve had brought up the public's concerns at a meeting. "If something is trying to fucking kill me, I'm going to fucking kill it first, Rogers."

Thor had a similar opinion. "He is correct. Why should we endanger ourselves to protect those who would do us harm?"

Looking pained, Steve agreed. "I know, guys, it's stupid. But people are saying that we're too violent, that we need to be more careful...we're not vigilantes, we're a part of the government, technically, and..."

Clint apparently found that offensive. "Bullshit. Fuck that, that's fucking stupid."

Natasha nodded her agreement.

But Steve tried one more time. "Look. If it's aliens or robots or something, I don't think people are going to mind. But if it's another person...just, try to be less...lethal?"

Which was all well and good, except being less lethal meant that fights went on longer, which meant more property damage and more potential to get injured or killed.

Tony had been gifted with eight weeks to ruminate on that fact when he had to wait for his left radius and ulna to mend after a particularly nasty encounter with a douchebag who had decided to design and then test out some kind of EMP gun. Tony decided, after the cast came off, that he really wasn't a fan of the new policy. Not at all. But there was nothing to be done about it, not with the eyes of the public fixed so firmly on them.

That had been a couple of months ago.

Now, nine months after the invasion of the Svartálfar, Tony thought something might actually be going right. Because today was finally Bruce's hearing. And from what his legal team had indicated, Bruce had a decent chance of walking free.

Tony hadn't seen Bruce since the ill-fated rescue attempt nine months ago. He'd kept up with him, as best he could, by grilling the lawyers (Lucas Ryan and Kyle Samuels, both graduates of Ivy League law schools and both cocky sons of bitches) who were handling his case. Tony had been relieved to hear that the restraints had been done away with a few weeks into Bruce's incarceration, although the sedative had been tweaked to be administered first as an injection and later by some kind of specialized delivery system. It was continued at a dose that kept Bruce, in the words of SHIELD's scientists, 'placid yet functional.' For 'good behavior,' he had been given a few privileges, and so spent a lot of time reading, a fair amount of time watching television, and seemed, according to Ryan (who had been visiting him in preparation for the hearing), 'profoundly unhappy.'

Tony's response had been a tactful, "No shit, you think?"

But even though the lawyers had kept him in the loop, Tony still wasn't prepared when Bruce walked into the courtroom that morning. Because he looked like shit.

His hair had grown out some, although it had clearly been cut at some point, at least once. He had lost a significant amount of weight, leaving him almost emaciated in appearance, and his clothes hung off of him. His complexion was pale, completely lacking any hint of color. It was clear he hadn't even been near a window, let alone outside, in nine months.

More disturbing than his appearance, though, was his demeanor. As he entered the room, he looked at no one. Although Tony was seated in the front row, directly behind Bruce's lawyers, Bruce did not acknowledge him, opting instead to stare intently at the floor. His movements were slow and dragging. As he reached an uncertain hand up to brush his hair out of his face, his sleeve rode up, and Tony could see he was wearing some kind of device on his wrist. The skin around it looked raw and inflamed.

Bruce slid into the chair the lawyer pulled out for him and settled abruptly into absolute stillness.

Tony had to fight an intense urge to leap out of his chair and shake him, if only to disturb that awful resigned lifelessness. But he knew approaching the prisoner might make people nervous. More importantly...Tony didn't quite know what he would say.

All he could think of was, "I'm sorry." But that wasn't good enough. It was woefully inadequate and insufficient. It failed completely to express the gut-wrenching guilt that he felt, and so he was left with nothing.

While he was thinking about that, the judge came in. Everyone stood and sat again. Then the lawyers began to duke it out. Tony generally found lawyering boring as hell, and even though he knew how important this was, he still found he was having some pretty serious difficulty paying attention. Mostly because he couldn't stop staring at the thin, pale, figure in front of him.

Luckily, Lucas and Samuels had explained how this was going to go beforehand. SHIELD and the government were going to lay out everything they had against Bruce. They were probably going to use the testimony of General Ross. They were going to list every crime, every dollar of property damage, every person injured and every life taken by the Other Guy. Then they were going to go into the things that the Council had uncovered during their investigation nine months ago. They were going to do everything in their power to paint Bruce as a monster, and it was going to be invasive and brutal.

At the end of all that, Bruce's lawyers were going to make a case for his release, based on two things. First, that it was not actually Bruce who had done those things, and, in fact, that Bruce was as much a victim of the Other Guy as anyone else. To establish that, they were going to be just as, if not more, invasive and brutal as the government. Every single one of Bruce's 'issues' was going to be on display, from his suicide attempt, to the self-injury, to the paralyzing self-loathing.

Once they had shown that Bruce was really not to blame, they were going to show that he wasn't dangerous. This hinged on the fact that SHIELD had spent a great deal of effort expounding on the benefits of the medication they had developed. They insisted that it was completely safe and had been proven effective in keeping Bruce's dangerous alter ego at bay. As long as Bruce continued the medication regime that SHIELD had started him on, the lawyers were going to argue, keeping him in custody was unnecessary—and more importantly, it was a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Tony hadn't been okay with that. "Absolutely not. I want him off that shit."

But, the lawyers had assured him that this really was the best course of action. "Mr. Stark, we can fight that battle later. This is the fastest way to get him out of there. Just trust us."

Tony wasn't accustomed to trusting other people with really important shit. But he didn't have enough time to get a law degree (although he put it on his list of things to do), and he had hired these people, so with great reluctance he had decided to let them do their job and had acquiesced to the plan.

So now he watched. And waited. And listened. And wondered how the fuck this could possibly end in their favor.

At the end of what felt like an eternity and a half, the judge excused himself to consider what he'd heard.

He came back less than half an hour later, and Tony knew they were fucked.

"I have seen and heard a number of disturbing things over the last several months," the judge began. "This case is one of the worst."

Or, maybe they weren't.

He went on, "I find it hard to reconcile what I have heard with what I see in front of me. But I will take your word that this man is capable of what you say he is. At the same time, I do not believe that he is responsible for his actions while he is in that other form. His clear guilt and remorse attest to that. It seems that SHIELD took advantage of that guilt and remorse in an egregious way. Yet, their subsequent actions were aimed at our protection. But their methods were unethical, and their unauthorized medical experimentation on Dr. Banner was completely out of line. That said, it yielded results that have, as I understand, prevented his extremely dangerous alter ego from emerging for nine months." He paused, before adding, "This case is extremely complex, and there are many things that bear considering."

"With that in mind, I recommend the following: Dr. Banner will be released from SHIELD's custody immediately. As I believe his lawyers have sufficiently shown, his continued incarceration is not necessary, as long as he continues with the medication that SHIELD has developed. He will submit to monthly blood tests to ensure his compliance. In the event of an 'incident,' we can reconsider our course of action, but if this substance is as effective as testimony has led me to believe, I do not think it will be necessary. Dr. Banner, you are free to go. SHIELD will be in contact regarding your medical needs. Do you have a physician they can contact?"

Bruce did not answer.

"Dr. Banner?"

More silence.

Ryan stepped in. "He does, Your Honor."

The judge nodded. "Of course...Mr. Ryan. Mr. Samuels. Please leave the relevant information with the clerk." The judge pounded his gavel, and stood.

Slowly, the courtroom emptied. In just a minute, Tony, Bruce, and the two lawyers were alone. Ryan and Samuels walked over to where Tony was sitting, shell-shocked by the sudden end of the proceedings. Tony stood and shook their hands slowly.

"Wow, guys. I know I doubted you, but wow. I mean, okay, some of this is non-ideal, but shit, this went better than I thought it could have."

Samuels shrugged. "The government wants to get rid of as many of these cases as possible. They're too strange to deal with, and too expensive."

Ryan added, "All of these 'hearings' have been half-assed like this, but we didn't want to get your hopes up so we didn't mention it."

Samuels said, "SHIELD pretty much did all of the work for us, when they went on and on about how great that medication is. We figured that once the judge heard that, he'd have no qualms about releasing Banner as long as he stayed on the drugs."

"Is there anything we can do about that?" Tony asked, lowering his voice and looking at Bruce, who had not moved since he had sat down. "This is...bad."

"Like we said earlier, give it time. We'll try again in a few months, maybe a year. I know it sucks, but...you can't win them all, right?"

"Uh, sure. Sure. Yeah." It did suck, but it was still a major victory, and Tony would take it. "I have a doctor in mind to deal with this shit, who do I contact about it?"

Ryan waved him off. "We'll take care of it, just give us the number. Oh! Probably should have mentioned this earlier. That bracelet he's wearing is the delivery system; it's good for the next 36 hours. So, make sure you get us that number soon. It shouldn't be too hard to get everything set up. I think SHIELD will be glad to see him go. At least, they'll be glad to see us go." The grin on his face was more than a little feral.

Tony nodded. "Sure. Great. Okay. Can I really just...take him home?"

"You really can, yeah. Just make sure to get us that number, or else you might find a pretty significant police force at your door in a day. And you'll be on your own; we're going on vacation after this shit."

Tony nodded. "I will. Jesus. Thank you."

The lawyers gathered their belongings and slipped out the door, leaving Tony alone with Bruce.

And he had no idea what to do.

But he was impulsive, and so he decided to let that guide him, instead of thinking too hard about how to approach the situation. So Tony swallowed his reservations, and his awkwardness, and approached the table where Bruce had been sitting in listless torpor for the better part of four hours. He gently placed one hand on Bruce's shoulder, and was shocked to feel how thin and bony it was.

He made himself ignore it, though, and managed to choke out, "Hey. You ready to go?"

Bruce stood slowly, languidly. He shrugged Tony's hand off, but did not actually look at him, focusing once again on the floor instead. He spoke only one word. "Yes."

And even though his voice was completely flat, and his body language shrieked "defeat," and even though Tony knew that this was only one small step forward, and that the investigation wasn't anywhere close to over yet...he couldn't help but feel just a little bit hopeful.

I promise that, at some point, this is going to get less dark. Really. I've actually got a plan this time.

Updates might be sporadic on account of school.

Please review. If I have to choose between writing fan fiction or writing lab reports, reviews will help me make the right choice. The 'right' choice.