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It wasn't always going to be perfect, or easy. There was going to be a time when the victory came at a cost. Bruce thought he was prepared for that, but seeing Clint lying in the bed, surrounded by machines and tubes brought it home in a way he wasn't ready for. He looked so fragile, so...human.
"You should have protected him, where were you?"
Bruce wasn't talking to the air, he was talking to him. The Other Guy. It wasn't something he did very often, but this was worth an exception. He was frustrated because he couldn't remember what happened, where it went wrong. There was nothing for him to agonize over. It was just the aftermath he had to deal with. It wasn't fair. But he knew he wasn't the only one that was suffering, Bruce could feel it. Bubbling inside of him.
"Don't ignore me." Bruce hissed. "What happened?"
The flashes of memory came hard and fast, and almost knocked Bruce off his chair. What made it worse is that he could not close his eyes, he was forced to watch. When it was over he felt spent, his body ached all over, and tears burned the corners of his eyes.
"You tell him. You tell him before you can't"
"I can't. If I do, then everything changes."
"YOU TELL HIM."
The bubbling inside of him turned into a boil, and Bruce jumped out of the chair. It flew across the room with a clatter, and Bruce dug his palms into his eyes. After a few breaths the boil became a simmer, and the Other Guy went silent.
"Banner?"
The voice was so soft, Bruce almost didn't hear it over the sound of his pounding heart. Lowering his hands, he saw that Clint's eyes were open.
"Hey, I was just stopping in to make sure you were okay."
Clint answered with a short nod, realizing more words were just not going to happen right now. Bruce went to retrieve the chair that had flown across the room, and took up his vigil beside the bed again. There was a long breath of silence between them, and Bruce swallowed a few times. He was trying to wrap his brain around how to start all of this.
"Clint, listen there is something..."
The door to the room opened, and behind him Bruce could hear Tony, Steve and Natasha fighting over how the stuffed bear was a stupid idea, and how they should have brought him real food instead.
It was going to have to wait, just a little while longer.