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Clint shook his head, hunching miserably. “I kind of… didn’t take the news very well. I may have punched him in the face. And then put my fist through the wall. And then went straight to Stark, because I figured that he’d be good for some booze and commiseration, and then he told me that you’d be the best person to talk to. So he gave me a jet and some gear, and, uh… yeah. So that happened.”

Clint buried his face in his hands, breathing carefully because nobody likes the sight of a grown-ass man sobbing pathetically. “I just… ever since the whole, you know, with Loki, I just… every time I feel mad, or like I can’t be around people, it’s almost like… it’s almost like he’s in there with me, again. When Phil stepped out, I wanted to just… hold him or something, and then it hit me how many lies were involved, how deep it went, how little our whole history meant to him if he would just let me dangle in the wind like this for so long, and I just- everything went blue and I wanted to hurt him. I punched him in the face to keep my hands away from the knife I had in my belt,” Clint whispered, horrified.

“I need- I need to be able to control this, because either I’m just going through a shit time or I’m actually really fucking crazy now, but either way, I can’t- I can’t lose what I-” Clint looked up at Bruce, miserable and hopeful together all at once. “If there’s anybody who knows what this is like, it’s you, right? Stark told me that you’re the best guy for… for feelings and shit. I dunno, but… I just really kinda hope a few days away from all that bullshit will help, anyways.”

Bruce took off his glasses, folded them and set them on one of the battered tables. Clint was a wild card, now; someone Bruce usually liked very much to avoid. Whether from his time under Loki’s control or because Clint was just an intense guy, Bruce started to think that the combination could be rather volatile. Again, Bruce was at a loss. He didn’t know Clint very well so anything he could judge from his behavior might be within his normal range. But, if Clint seemed worried enough to trudge out to Tibet find help, then Bruce would do what he could.

“So, you mentioned a jet?” There wasn’t a proper landing strip around for … well, quite a long way. Bruce wasn’t so much interested in the jet, as he was interested in getting Clint’s attention away from Agent Coulson.

Of all the help he’d lent over the years (medical, mechanical, physical labor..) this wasn’t something that people regularly wanted from him. Added to that, Clint knew him, Bruce could only assume he’d read his file several times; Bruce felt exposed in a way that he wasn’t really accustomed, any more. Some people might think that Bruce had all the answers about controlling oneself, but what worked for him, if it could be called ‘working’, might not have the same effect for Barton.

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“Ah, jeez, awhile…” Clint glanced aside, doing a little math in his head. “…shit, going on eighteen years. I was nineteen when I first got involved with all that.” Clint sighed, putting his face in his hands. “Things seemed a lot simpler then, I guess. I thought… I guess I thought that, just ‘cause we were the good guys, that would make us, you know… actual good guys.”

Clint exhaled, looking up at Bruce, his fingertips pressed against his mouth. “So apparently Phil’s- Agent Coulson. Apparently he’s alive. I mean, they…” Clint breathed in and out a few times, having a hard time. “He’s the oldest friend I got. Not just in SHIELD- anywhere. Period. The only person I trust as much as Natasha. Losing him was like…” Clint shook his head again.

“He’s been… this whole time. And I just… if I can’t even trust… if I can’t even trust that, then… then what else is there?”

Bruce stayed quiet for several moments. He hadn’t known Phil Coulson for very long- days at most. They had met maybe twice, in the short time that Bruce had been on the Helicarrier, before Loki, through Hawkeye, had attacked. The first time was just after the craft had taken flight; Coulson had handed Bruce a packet of information on the Tesseract, introduced himself, then smiled awkwardly at Steve.

The second time, Agent Coulson had strolled into Bruce’s shared workspace, chatted with Tony for a few minutes and then Coulson smiled and left.

Bruce had no idea that the man had been killed in the line of action until long after everything had ended, after their impromptu meal. Bruce had asked Tony where the team’s (apparent) handler was, surely he wanted to see Thor off to Asgard? But Tony shushed him with an almost imperceptible shake of his head.  Stark told him about Coulson, later, while they were driving, which they ended up doing for quite some time. Tony needed time to decompress and come to terms with … a lot and Bruce was along for the ride. He was content with that; he had quite a bit of his own baggage to sort through. 

Of course, now that Bruce had a little more back story for Clint, he understood the attachment and, to his deep sorrow, he understood the guilt that the Agent was almost certainly carrying with him. The anger, too, at being lied to.

“Have you talked to him, yet?” Bruce asked, speaking of Agent Coulson. Bruce certainly didn’t have the answers that Clint was seeking. If one of the roots of his damage was Phil, regardless of who had lied to him, then Clint needed to talk to him about it.

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Clint opens his mouth to respond, takes a step, and stumbles, only barely catching himself from a fall. He shakes his head once, twice, it’s not enough to dispel the cottony feeling, like he’s being gently smothered. Clint makes it to a chair and sits, inhaling slowly before shaking his head a few more times for good measure.

“Headache,” he mutters by way of explanation, massaging the bridge of his nose and pinching at the spot right between his eyes. “Side effect of… whatever all happened, I guess.”

Clint takes a deep breath, looking up at Bruce. “I dunno, Dr. Banner. Stark can’t get enough of you, and Steve and Natasha are alright, but I just… I think you should stay away from SHIELD for the time being. I think I need to stay away from them for the time bein’. I just… they’re just such fucking liars, all of them,” he sighs, his voice cracking.

Clint sniffs, picking up his bag. “Hey, speakin’ of Stark, he made me bring you all this stuff.” Unzipping a few pockets, he lifts up a large sealed bag full of what appear to be organic, free-trade chocolate bars. “There were chocolate covered coffee beans, too, but I figured those were the toll for makin’ me carry ten pounds of snack food across the Tibetan wilderness.”

Bruce watched Clint, evaluated his demeanor. He didn’t know this man very well at all so there was no real indication to Bruce that Clint was or wasn’t acting differently. His lack of coordination, while he suspected was wildly out of character for the marksman, might simply be explained by his trek through the snowstorm. For all Bruce knew, Clint had never operated in this type temperature extreme. It was highly unlikely, of course, but Bruce was not able to rule it out.

He handed the agent four tablets of Ibuprofen for his headache and took the weighty bag of snacks. “Tony is … lonely.” Bruce said, quietly as he unpacked what Tony had dubbed (to Bruce’s mild amusement,) Banner-snacks. Stark was lonely in a manor that no one else around him could quell; it was intellectual segregation and something that Bruce was intimately acquainted with. He suspected that it really wasn’t clear to Tony he was lonely like that until their first meeting on board S.H.I.E.L.D’S Helicarrier, either. He confided to Bruce, later, that he was rebuilding his tower and that Bruce, like the rest of the team, would have his very own floor.

Bruce had every intention of steering clear of Fury and his collection of supers, but Barton indorsing Bruce’s natural inclination to stay away had him instantly suspicious. Well, more suspicious..

“How long have you worked for SHIELD?” It can’t have been a recent development that they lie to get their desired outcome; Fury certainly seemed to be a professional, in all regards.

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Clint stares for a moment, before grinning faintly. “You’ve been hangin’ out with Stark a little too much for your own good, Dr. Banner.”

Clint edges in and shuts the door behind him, the smile fading as he slowly strips off his gloves and parka and scarf and hat.

“I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, I-” Clint shakes his head a little, not liking the dazed feeling that’s slowly coming over him. “I was doin’ fine. Better, at least. I was…” The room loses focus, the colors too bright, and he blinks back the rising anger, the bile in the back of his throat.

“They lied,” he says, and it’s pathetic, his voice has never really sounded like that, like a lost little child, even when he was one. “About- Phil. Coulson. They lied. They…” Clint covers his face with his hands, exhaling slowly.

“I don’t know what to do. I had to leave, I think I was about this close to killing every single one of them, and I didn’t know who else could help me, who else would even want to…” Clint looks up then, breathing raggedly. “You don’t really have to do anything, man. I think I just need a few days away from everything, and you seem to have a pretty good handle on getting yourself away from… everything.”

Bruce moved to take the clothing from Clint and hangs them all up to dry; the snow had really picked up in the last few hours. The agent was no more barging in than any of the others that usually frequented his homes; they all needed something from him, usually medicines but all of them needed to be healed.

Clint seemed different that he had the last time they saw one another in New York. Of course, Bruce conceded, the man had just helped fight off an alien invasion after several days of being mentally compromised. It was actually amazing to Bruce that Clint had, with little complaint, had stepped into the fight. It was completely understandable, given what Loki’d done to him, but Bruce imagined that Clint had to be feeling it that day. The mental weariness, the bone tired ache the unbearable weight of what he’d been forced to do, by Loki.

Even if you managed to push it aside for a few days, it would always come back.

“Wait, what do you mean ‘they lied’?” Bruce asked, partway to hanging up Clint’s winter coat. “Lied about what, exactly?”

And who were ‘they’? Fury, undoubtedly, but what could have Clint so … angry?

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Clint trudges through the wind and the snow, letting his mind be empty, letting his body be nothing but a vessel for the blinding, burning rage that hasn’t left him since he heard the news, a little over 48 hours ago.

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Bruce cleared his throat and set down the book he’d been reading, to look at Agent Barton. He could infer easily enough that what Barton wanted was someone who understood not being in control of their actions. Somewhere, in the science driven parts of his brain, Bruce strongly wondered how much the Agent remembered, or if like him, Barton had only flashes and a slow burning, terrible feeling of complete wrongness.

Bruce had left New York while Tony worked on rebuilding his tower; he was arguing with Director Fury and the City of New York as to whether or not it was too soon to just keep the last standing ‘A’ and commit to the building being coined ‘Avenger’s Tower’ or if the people were still too terrified to be given a daily reminder.

Tony maintained that it was his damn building that they’d all saved the city and actually, it’s his building so kindly walk out those doors and plummet, if you please. Bruce thought it was all pointless, anyway; all the citizens had to do was to look around at their nearly leveled city and they were reminded. How was one stupid letter going to terrorize them more than the Chitauri had? At which point, Bruce had made an off handed joke about the tower being given the scarlet A, since they seemed to be handed all the blame anyway; The mayor had hemmed and hawed, backpedaling, Fury had nearly smiled and Tony, of course, had clapped and given the note to JARVIS.

Four weeks later, the Avenger’s Tower was nearly complete and the last thing that was to adorn the building was an enormous, scarlet letter.

There was a parade and Bruce still wasn’t sure if Tony had paid for it or if the Mayor had finally realized that people actually liked the fact that they were alive, all thanks to Tony’s last effort to save the island. Either way, the Avengers were there to stay.

“In or out Barton.”

Bruce gave the agent a slightly suggestive smile and immediately realized that he’d spent far too much time with Tony.