Chapter Text
Cuts and Bruises
Sticks and stones may break my bones,
but words can also hurt me.
Stones and sticks break only skin,
while words are ghosts that haunt me.
Slant and curved the word-swords fall
to pierce and stick inside me.
Bats and bricks may ache through bones,
but words can mortify me.
Pain from words has left its scar
On mind and heart that’s tender.
Cuts and bruises now have healed;
it’s words that I remember.
By Barrie Wade
1
They are all tired as they head back from the training exercise. Personally, Clint would have preferred to have showered and changed out of his heavy combat gear at HQ, but it wasn’t like that was an option for Stark, not unless he wanted to leave his armour there which is about as likely as Nat opening a nail parlour, and Steve is attached to his shield like a toddler with a blankie, so somehow they had ended up walking back in full gear. He and Stark are bringing up the rear, grumbling complaints at one another. Clint about the ease of sorting this all out at HQ instead of traipsing back in the hot sun and attracting any number of weird looks like they’re the four most dedicated cos-players ever, and Stark about he should have called a limo to take them all back.
Steve and Nat are out ahead. Ignoring them. Because they don’t get tired, or hot, or annoyed with camera phones clicking at them. Clint mutters something very uncomplimentary and kicks a rock. Stark looks like he might be about to smile and then swallows it down, shooting an uneasy look at Steve’s back, like he might have been caught about to say something not exactly nice, and at once the happy endorphin buzz that Clint is currently riding, the one making even the complaints funny, and the walk irritating instead of torturous on sore muscles and twitchy nerves twanging with this much attention, fades away. They’re not exactly the perfect team America thinks they are.
It’s obvious in the little things, the utter blankness behind Stark’s eyes for one as he tosses off complaints and insults out of reflex with no heart behind them, a mere imitation of his ever sarcastic self. “So,” Clint says in a conspiratorial whisper, leaning slightly closer to Stark and trying, again, to draw him in, “who do you think has the better ass, Tash or the Cap?” He knows Natasha hears him because she flicks her hair like she’s dislodging a particularly annoying fly and shimmies her hips. He gives Stark an easy smile as he waits for a response.
Stark looks for a second like he’s under attack. His eyes flick down to the helmet he’s carrying like he wishes he were wearing it and Clint immediately realises that he’s an idiot. Stark has no reason to believe that any answer he could give to this question will go well for him, but before he can open his mouth to take it back, Stark is smirking and pulling out a little in front of Clint himself. “Please, like either of them can compete with me. My ass is the best in this little group.”
Clint has to admire his abilities at deflection. He knows what Stark is doing and he still can’t stop himself from saying, “Oh yeah. Says who?”
“People magazine,” Stark smirks. “They love me.”
“You’re a jackass Stark,” he replies, but his words are as empty as Stark’s own now, smile slightly too fixed as he wishes, not for the first time, that he could unsay everything that he previously said to the man and go back to the beginning.
As he has every time he has been directly insulted, Stark falters slightly, subtly checking him for sincerity. He’s good at it, practiced, but obvious to Clint’s experienced eye and he curses himself again. This isn’t new behaviour. He must have been doing this before. That he didn’t notice is possibly more disturbing than the blue tinged memories he has from his time as Loki’s thrall, at least those actions aren’t his fault.
Natasha, clearly sensing his utter ineptitude turns, and Clint can’t help the bright was of relief. She’s so much better with people, and has at least never been actively cruel to Stark. But, as they approach the tower, Stark’s gaze has already slid past her, locking un-erringly on to something else. Like any well trained soldier, Clint’s own gaze follows Stark’s. He’s used to taking non-verbal cues from other people in a unit, and anything that can render Stark so still and focussed has the potential to be a threat.
It’s a figure. Too broad and muscular to be Loki despite the dark hair and, after only a second, Clint is able to make out Doctor Banner’s small, welcoming smile and uncertain stance.
Stark is beaming unrestrainedly, but he doesn’t bounce out front. Clint hopes that’s because he’s too tired and nothing more sinister.
Banner has seen them now too. He can hardly miss them. They look like a dirty, tired, circus troupe, and Clint would know. He walks forward to meet them himself. Steve greets him with a smile and a head nod, Nat takes a fractional step away from him which she masks with a pleasant query about his journey.
Banner’s gaze turns to him, but Stark’s restraint is apparently exhausted because he bounds forward now. “Brucie! Did you miss me?”
Banner raises an eyebrow slightly. “I missed running water.”
“Close enough. Come and live at my tower. It’s like an epic sleepover.” He side-eyes Steve. “Fury won’t mind.” It’s not a question, it’s a challenge.
Steve responds anyway, the hang dog expression Clint has become far too familiar with in his eyes as he says, “Of course not Tony. It’s your tower. You can have anyone you like there.” They all know that is actually not true, but none of them are going to begrudge Stark this. And besides, it’s already being called Avengers Tower by the public and they’ve already unspeakably hurt one Avenger. At least if they learn from their mistake it’s worth something.
“I thought Fury would want me somewhere…containable.”
It’s Clint who speaks up. “You have to see the tower Banner. It’s Hulk proof and there’s blast doors and Natasha’s the only person likely to make you angry there but you can just chuck all her girly shit in the incinerator if it pisses you off.”
Natasha scowls at him, an expression which promises revenge later and, safely shielded by Banner’s body and knowing she’s still far too wary of the Hulk to try anything, Clint beams at her.
“There’s actually no such thing as Hulk proof-”
Stark is an odd combination of disgusted and disappointed. “Please don’t say stupid things to me Brucie-bear. I rely on you to save me from the idiocy I’m usually surrounded by. Of course it’s Hulk proof. Everything will be fine.”
“I can just…I’m sure SHIELD has measures in place…”
“No,” Steve says, calm and implacable. “No, you’re one of us, you aren’t going to be locked up Doctor Banner.”
Banner sighs slightly through his nose. “Alright.” He looks at Stark and smiles a genuine, if crooked smile, “Thank you.”
Stark waves a hand. “No problem. You can help me build things in the basement. I’m thinking about making every appliance in the tower sentient, then we can get rid of Cap’s chore schedule. Though there is the possibility of a civil war because the AI I tried to install in the blender has some personality issues.”
He doesn’t check to see how the joke has been taken this time, smirking at Banner instead, and more relaxed than Clint has ever seen him since he was loose limbed and barely conscious in that shawarma joint weeks ago. He doesn’t dare look at Steve to see if he’s noticed too, and finds himself instead looking at Natasha. She’s frowning, so slightly he thinks only he would ever see it, but obviously thinking about the lessons on unintentionally excluding people hard learned too. Her shoulders are still tense with a fear she would never admit to, but her voice is clear when she says, “We were going to order take out Doctor Banner, if you’d like to join us?”
Banner favours her with the same crooked smile, intentionally or otherwise pulling back a little, giving her space, “I’d love to, and it’s Bruce.”
Her smile warns a little. “Do you like Chinese Bruce?”
Clint can’t help but see Stark’s flinch at how easily they let Bruce become one of them and he bites his lip, wishing he could find some way to make this better.
*
“JARVIS?”
“Yes Doctor Banner?”
Bruce hesitated and paced in a small circle in his room, He’s almost certain he shouldn’t ask this question, but he’s become good at reading people after all his time on the run. Understanding body language is fundamental to breaking through a language or cultural barrier and he knows something is wrong. However, he might be prying, it makes something sick and heavy twist in his gut to know something is bothering Tony. He wants to help if he can, the other man has been nothing but good to him. “I don’t want you to break any confidences JARVIS but,” he sucks on his bottom lip, considers and then presses on, “but something is wrong with Tony. He was uneasy this evening. Twitchy. And not…not…” he spreads his hands helplessly. “Can you tell me why?”
The AI’s voice darkens a little, “Sir has not classified that information. But it is not…pleasant.”
“Tell me,” Bruce insists instantly, “I need to know if I’m going to help and if it’s not a secret…”
He sits on the edge of his bed as JARVIS begins to talk.
*
He knows his eyes glow green when Steve walks into the kitchen where he’s brewing a cup of tea by the way the super soldier checks himself in the doorway, coming to an uncertain stop. “Doctor?”
Bruce gives a smile that has a few too many teeth. He’s far from losing control, but usually he likes to project a calmer aura than this because just the reminder that he could lose control makes people uneasy around him in a way that he doesn’t like. “Steve,” he greets calmly. “How’re things? How did you all get on while I was in India?” He knows his tone does nothing to hide the direct challenge.
Steve, for his part, looks a bit like he’s facing a firing squad and is quite frankly relieved about it. He spreads his hands wide in the universal gesture of I’m-not-going-to-attack-you. To his credit, Bruce grudgingly acknowledges, he doesn’t feign ignorance or attempt denials or excuses. “I don’t have any excuses Bruce and I know he’s your friend. If someone had treated Clint like that I’d…” he trails off. His obvious relief at finally being offered his deserved punishment has vanished now and he just looks like a shamefaced little boy. It strikes Bruce abruptly how very young he is.
Still, that realisation does little to quell the rage that he’s banked back by years of experience. He doesn’t want to hurt Steve, not really. He just wants the other man to know that he could, that, unlike Tony, he can – and will – fight back. The Other Guy is a lumbering creature, and Bruce is clumsy and uncertain, but when he’s simmering like this, the Other Guy desperate to come out and instead held back, he moves with the graceful ease of a predator. He stands and moves towards Steve who doesn’t back up, instead he tilts his head very slightly, exposing his jugular like an offering. Bruce feels a sub-vocal growl rumble in his chest, but his voice is completely calm, and completely human, as he says, “What I don’t understand, is why you would accept me when by SHIELD’s standards and the army’s standards, I’m a monster. And yet, my abilities as a scientist were the only thing you ever cared about and you never gave me a reason to doubt it was true. The negative parts of my personality are hell of a lot more obvious, and hell of a lot more dangerous, than Tony’s and still…we never had a problem. He allows his voice to roughen, the Other Guy coming a little closer. He’s still in complete control, but he sounds far more vicious as he asks, “So what was wrong with him?”
Steve doesn’t even flinch, and there is no challenge in his eyes as he explains, “I made a mistake. I heard a couple of negative things about him and saw things I thought confirmed what I had heard and never looked any deeper. Everything Tony did for us, everything he tried to do…I threw it back in his face, deliberately, because I thought he was something he wasn’t.”
Bruce pushes the Other Guy back a little, his voice and eyes becoming normal again, though he knows he still looks dangerous and he can feel the Other Guy, wary and watchful beneath his skin, ready at a moment’s notice. He is simply testing what JARVIS had told him when he asks, “And Clint’s excuse?”
Instantly, Steve changes. The acceptance that had so characterised him before hardens, becoming instead willingness to fight. “I’m the leader of this team. It was my call and my responsibility.”
“That isn’t what I asked.” Bruce’s heart is pounding beneath his ribs, the last time he pushed someone for information like this, he was screaming at Natasha, just to see what response his anger would provoke.
Steve’s lips tighten. “He wasn’t…It was my call. I should have been keeping a tighter watch on him, I knew he was struggling to reacclimatise after Loki. It was my fault.”
“You let a highly trained soldier with,” he almost says PTSD but catches himself at the last minute and changes his words to something he knows Steve will understand instead of muddying the waters because this is not about Clint, “shellshock beat a civilian.”
That’s something Steve can take the blame for, a shamed flush tinges his cheekbones pink and he quietly admits, “Yes,” in a low voice.
Bruce barely acknowledges the admission, “Or did you just think Clint deserved your protection more than Tony did?”
“I didn’t…I didn’t realise that Tony needed…I was stupid.”
“You were fooled by his public façade.”
Steve nods miserably.
Bruce’s lip curls back in a n out and out sneer. “Don’t let it happen again Captain. I don’t follow the commands of stupid people.”
*
By the time Bruce reaches the lab Tony set up for him he feels calmer. He’s made his point, he’s channelled the impotent rage that had kept him awake all night into expressing his displeasure in a socially acceptable way, and he’s been able to repay Tony, at least a little, for all the things he said to various factions of SHIELD in his defence when he wanted to go off on his own after trashing the helicarrier. He’s ready to move forward now, putting the incident behind him and helping the others to do the same.
Until he realises that it isn’t just the others Tony is uneasy and hesitant around. Until the other man shows up about fifteen minutes after he arrives because, “JARVIS told me you’d discovered this. Isn’t it awesome? I’m a genius, tell me I’m a genius. Is there anything else you need?” and Bruce suddenly notices that he’s tense and fidgety, clearly second guessing some comments the instant after they come out of his mouth and obviously biting back others.
To be brutally honest, it’s probably not a bad thing that Tony has finally learned to be aware of exactly what is spilling out in his internal monologue and just how offensive it can be, but he should never have had to learn like this. Bruce feels the anger start to simmer up again.
The days he spends coaxing Tony to forget the awkward brain-to-mouth filter he’s forcing on himself and on not letting any obvious signs of the Other Guy out when it’s just the two of them take their toll. It doesn’t help that every interaction Tony has with the others is so awkward and stilted Bruce feels embarrassed. He blames himself bitterly for not being there. Really, what makes him any better than the others? Tony wasn’t super awesome at making friends, he’d told Bruce as much in an unguarded moment, and yet, Bruce had still assumed that his ego and wit and bullheadedness would carry him through. He hadn’t realised that having no one to translate his intentions to actions would isolate him completely. God, Bruce himself had told him that it was his fault, that he had been misinterpreting their actions, that he should try harder. At the time, he had really felt like he couldn’t stay. He had wanted to, but he knew if he did he would spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder for SHIELD and the next unbreakable cage. He needed to know Fury had told the truth about him being in the wind. But he could have stayed for a while, for Tony. He should have.