“Bruce, are you-”
“Don’t.”
The scientist holds up a single hand, palm rigid as his spine.
“I just-”
“I’m fine.”
The words are measured, carefully poured and weighed and calculated to fit neatly into the little equation Bruce is writing in his head.
Clint pauses, eyes taking in the way Bruce manages to hunch over on himself even with a painfully-straight spine, the way the doctor can look small after he’s just swallowed up a Hulk.
It’s been weeks since he’s heard the scientist talk, and he just wanted to check in. Apparently, Bruce didn’t want that, though.
“What’s the problem here?”
Steve comes up behind Clint, making the archer relax marginally as he feels the soldier’s strong hand clasp his shoulder. He didn’t realize how tense he was.
“Nothing, Cap. It’s all good,” Bruce smiles, voice low and unassuming. Clint doesn’t want to think about how the man got so good at lying, but after fighting with him for years, he knows how to tell the difference now.
So does Cap, apparently.
“Are you alright?”
And there, no matter Bruce’s feelings for Clint, this is Captain America asking if he is alright. The boy scout charm and unveiled concern, not pity, in his voice ought to do the trick.
Bruce grits his teeth, hands clenching into fists, and Clint gets to watch one of the rare episodes where Bruce is angry without hulking out. It’s mesmerizing, really, to see the typically mild-mannered physicist show a range of emotion typically reserved for his green side. It reminds the archer that the guy is still human, mostly.
“I’m. Fine.”
With that, the scientist wanders away, hands worrying the hem of his ripped pants as he makes his way back to the jet.
“What was that about?” Clint huffs.
Steve just shrugs, gives Clint’s shoulder another squeeze, and follows Bruce into the jet without another word. The Captain’s eyes never leave the man, but Bruce never looks up from the floor to notice. The ride back is tense, with even Tony and Natasha not bothering to try and break the heavy silence.
When they get back to the tower, Bruce is the first one off. Somehow even beating the assassin in stealth, as no one notices he got up until they hear the roof door slam.
Steve sighs, then looks at the worried gazes of the team.
“Give him some time to cool off, he’s probably just tired.”
They all know how tired Bruce acts, and this isn’t it. But no one argues.
Clint waits for everyone else to vacate the jet, busying himself with sliding his arrows individually back into the quill, organizing them meticulously into the armory on the jet. When he sees the door swing shut behind Steve, he stows his bow and makes his escape.
Clint never was very good at following directions.
He finds Bruce in his secondary lab, the one where he goes to hide from everyone, including Tony. The place is small, barely used. It’s not often the science bros need space from one another .
He’s huddled over a notebook filled with equations, violently writing down symbols in languages Clint doesn’t even recognize. But he does recognize the way his hands shake, and the fury written in the line of his shoulders.
“Did you just come down to-”
Whatever he’s about to say is cut short by Clint slapping a hand down over the equations the man can’t be bothered to look up from. He doesn’t flinch, surprisingly, but only because he is already braced. And Clint can’t decide what’s sadder, that he’s never seen Bruce not be braced for anything, or the fact that he feels nothing but disgust at this thought. For the scientist. Because damn it, after years of living together and crowding each other’s space and bleeding and fighting together, Bruce shouldn’t be this fucking tense in a tower full of friends.
“You’re an asshole, you know that?”
It falls out of his lips before he can stop it, but he doesn’t really regret it. Bruce doesn’t have the market on anger issues monopolized, Clint’s allowed to be annoyed. He’s not really surprised by the fact that he once again spoke without a filter. It’s kind of a hobby of his.
He is surprised by the fact that Bruce smiles, a real smile, not his fake one, and leans back against the counter, opening the line of his body to Clint as if to say, “Continue.”
“You didn’t have to be such a dick to Cap and me back there, it’s not our fault you can’t handle the fact that people care about you. Hate yourself on your own time, but don’t take it out on us.”
The archer stiffens, waiting for the inevitable storm his words will bring. He’s used to fucking up, he knows how this goes.
But Bruce just laughs, a horrible, half-swallowed sound that makes Clint wished he’d yelled instead.
“Is that what you think this is about?”
Clint shrugs, biting back his confusion. Scientists are long-winded, he’ll get to his point eventually.
“Clint, I don’t care about whether or not you care about me,” Bruce starts, then stops to look at the ground, safer territory, Clint guesses.
“I’m happy you guys care about me, it’s weird and I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it, but it’s nice, having that. Having you. I just don’t like people asking me if I’m okay.”
His eyes meet Clint’s again, just for a moment, searching, before he looks away again and smiles wryly.
“Why not?”
Bruce looks back up, confusion lining his features, and the archer repeats himself.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not.”
“So, talk about it,” Clint growls, patience gone, because wasn’t this guy supposed to be a fucking genius or something?
“That’s not how it works,” Bruce says softly, and Clint has reached the end of his line. He shoves himself away from the counter with a huff and stalks back towards the door.
“It is if you’d just fucking trust someone, Bruce!”
He slams the door behind him, and tries not to feel too much satisfaction when he hears something fall off the wall on the other side.
Okay, so he might have overreacted, but he has a right to be pissed. They’ve bared their souls to each other a million times, everyone but Bruce. He just clams right up and smiles and makes his fucking tea and meditates like he is some sort of fucking monk despite the fact that even he admits he is always angry… And wow, Clint needs to shoot something right now.
Four hours and three broken bows later, he feels better. Except for the fact that now he feels guilty.
He finds Bruce on the roof, gazing at the stars like he’s seen him do a million times. Clint likes the sky, sure, but he’d never willingly slept outside just to watch it. Bruce though, more often than not, could be found in his little bedroll on his corner of the roof, a space he has unofficially claimed.
He opens his mouth to speak, but Bruce beats him to it.
“I don’t want to hear that you’re sorry.”
Clint’s mouth snaps closed. He considers lying, saying he wasn’t about to apologize, but then he looks at Bruce again and feels himself unbristling. The scientist is laying with his arms behind his head, eyes on the sky, glasses off for some reason. There is a slight breeze rustling his hair, the arms of his shirt are rolled up, and he’s half-covered by his sleeping bag, completely relaxed.
Silently, he slides down onto the ground beside Bruce, turning his eyes skyward to try and find whatever it is the scientist loses himself in up there. Even if he can’t see it, he can’t lie and say he doesn’t enjoy this. It’s not raining, the skies are clear for once, and even with them being in Manhattan, there’s enough height on Tony’s tower to provide a good view of the heavens. It’s quiet, tranquil almost.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” Bruce says eventually.
Clint doesn’t reply, just brings his eyes back to rest on the scientist, afraid to break whatever spell has gotten Bruce talking. The scientist never takes his gaze off the sky.
“It’s just that there isn’t much to tell. It’s not something I can talk about, why I’m not okay. Not even something I could put a reason to. It’s just, how it is for me. I’m Robert Bruce Banner, holder of seven PhDs, from a crappy city in Ohio, middle-aged, a med-school dropout, and an Avenger by proxy. And I’m not okay.”
He turns now, propping himself up on his elbow to look at Clint the same way he was looking at his stars, searching for something he doesn’t actually hope to see.
“I’ve never been okay. It’s just not part of my life. Crappy childhood to mediocre young adulthood to even crappier adulthood. There’s no part of me that is well-adjusted, or even remotely alright. And it never will be, because every morning I wake up and realize it’s still all the same. And I’m happy, right now, I could say. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, but I’m not okay. Because I’m still me. I’m still a failed scientist, a criminal, a murderer, a monster, and I always will be. But I’m okay with not being okay. I’ve made peace with that. It’s a part of me like my anger, there’s no cutting it out or getting rid of it. But people keep asking me if I’m okay, as if the answer will ever change, and I hate it.”
Bruce sighs closing his eyes and then reopening them just to squint at the ground between them as if it had personally offended him. And maybe it had. Even with a sleeping bag, Clint doubts it’s all that comfortable.
“Asking me if I’m alright, how I am, it’s all pointless. It just serves to remind me that I’m not okay, that life sucks, and that it’s never going to change. I can’t leave this tower or city without worrying Ross is going to come grab me and strap me down to some dissection table again. I can’t have a cup of coffee without worrying I’ll turn green and kill someone. I can’t even get angry at the fact that I can’t do these things, or else I’ll make it all worse. I’m just a festering, rotting mess of not okay and I hate when people remind me of that. I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want people’s concern. I want them to stop looking at me like I’m going to break the moment something bad happens, as if I haven’t held the Hulk back through limbsbeing broken. I just….”
And here their eyes meet again, and Clint notices Bruce’s eyes shining with unshed tears in the lowlight and moves without thinking. His lips are on Banner’s before either one of them can react, gentle and searching and yeah, this was probably a really bad idea..
But suddenly Bruce is pulling him closer, desperately holding his jaw tenderly and achingly, lips parting and pulling apart just to crash together again, pouring all of the emotions he won’t allow himself to express into this one kiss with Clint, and it’s the most amazing kiss he’s ever had, and he never wants it to end, but he has to pull away, because he has to show Bruce that he was listening. That for once, someone was listening.
“You just need someone to laugh it off and smile with you and remind you where you are right now. You need stability, a distraction, something to hold on to and help you see what it’s all for,” he says into the kiss, breathless and giddy.
Bruce’s eyes widen, and Clint feels something wet trickling down his cheek where their faces meet and he doesn’t know if it’s him or Bruce crying, but he kisses the tear away regardless and finds his lips again to reclaim them with his own.
Clint doesn’t know how long they sit on that roof, making out like awkward teens under the stars, breaking apart to cry or laugh or both like some bad Lifetime flick. But he loves it, loves this, and realizes, wholeheartedly, that he loves this man. He loves Bruce, for all of his bull-headedness and anger issues and crappy self-coping skills, because he’s not alright either. But here, wrapped in each other’s arms under a sky full of satellites he is mistaking for stars, on the roof of a city where at least three people are getting mugged right now, he can smile and pretend that everything is alright.
And sometimes, that’s all they need.