Unexpected

V

Dr. Cho had checked on Clint, and apparenrly, he was fine.

"You sure he's going to be okay?" Natasha asked Dr. Cho. "Pretending to need this guy really brings the team together," she joked.

"There's no possibility of deterioration," Dr. Cho told her. "The nano-molecular functionality is instantaneous. His cells don't know they're bonding with simulacrum." Steve blinked and looked completely confused.

"It's working because his body thinks the plastic is him," Nina explained in fewer, less complicated words. Steve nodded.

Suddenly, one of the machines made a small beeping noise.

"Oh, no, he's flatlining," Tony said sarcastically. "Call it. Time?"

"Oh no, I'm gonna live forever," Clint said, sipping from his juice. "I'll be made out of plastic."

"You'll be made of you, Mr. Barton," Dr. Cho told him. "Your own girlfriend won't be able to tell the difference."

"I don't have a girlfriend," Clint answered almost immediatly. Nina and Natasha shared a look, both of them trying to keep a straight face at the married man - with two children and another one on the way - trying to make the other believe he was single.

"That I can't fix," she smirked. "This is the next thing, Tony. Your clunky metal suits are going to be left in the dust," she said, gesturing to the tissue regeneration she had just completed.

"Well, that is exactly the plan," Tony said. For some reason, Nina got the feeling he was hiding something, but she didn't act on instinct. "And Helen, I expect to see you at the party on Saturday."

"There's a party?" Nina asked them. "What for?" Only then the team realised Nina hadn't been around, and she didn't really know what was happening.

"Well, we've been raiding Hydra facilities, hence how we found you," Banner explained to her.

"Well we weren't exactly looking for you, since we didn't know that's where you were," Tony told her. "We were looking for your ex's crazy scepter, and now that we've found it, it's time to party," he said with a smirk. That's what he was hiding, Nina realised. "How is he, by the way?"

"Dead," Nina said bluntly, silencing everyone in the room.

"I'm sorry," Steve told her. Nina shrughed.

"He kinda deserved it, didn't he?" She agreed with what was going through everyone's mind. "Or maybe not. Thor thinks something was controlling him, but it doesn't really matter." Nina said. She knew something had been controlling him, but decided it was best not to discuss it with the people that fought him off the first time.

The people around her were still looking at her with an apologetic look. 

"It's alright, really," she reassured them. "Has anyone seen Thor?"

"Ah, no," Tony told her, the atmosphere becoming less tense by the second. "He usually just kind of runs away. He'll be there on Sunday, Hellen. Are you sure you don't want to come?"