It took twenty-three minutes for them to realize something was wrong. It was twenty-nine minutes before they found out what that something was. Thirty-four minutes had passed before they found him.

He was squatting against the wall of the gym. His face had taken on a stoniness that was unsettling, but his eyes were dry. There was a faint tremor in his hands that one would only notice if they were looking for it.

Clint was looking for it.

He was the first to reach Steve. The usually quick-thinking archer felt the tendrils of his mind wrap around smoke, grasping for a placating phrase he knew he wouldn't find. What do you say to a man whose last string tethering him to his past had been sliced in half by the unwavering hand of fate? If there were such words, Clint didn't have them.

He found himself standing a good five feet away from the other man. It wasn't because he was worried that Steve would turn violent, because Clint knew he wouldn't (he would carry all his hurt and anger deep in a box behind his ribs, like he was afraid they'd get out). He was more worried that Steve would realize how utterly useless Clint was, how his words were failing him even though he could talk his way out of the direst of situations. It was a bit ironic, Clint supposed, how he could hand out the words he knew people wanted, he could stroke their egos, and push their buttons and get anything he desired. But he couldn't formulate a workable sentence now, when he needed it more than ever.

"Steve, I…" Clint's words were swallowed by uncertainty. He tried again. "I'm sorry." The words settled themselves at Steve's feet like an ant at the face of a mountain. Clint almost wished he could gather the words back up and seal them away in his chest. They were inadequate, and Clint knew it. Steve deserved more than that.

A slight pulling together of the supersoldier's eyebrows was the only indication that the words had not fallen upon deaf ears. But Steve didn't respond.

Clint was saved from the suffocating silence by the arrival of Tony. He couldn't help but breathe a small sigh of relief.

(He immediately felt guilty afterwards—it sounded like he thought Steve was a burden when he wasn't. He was so far from such a thing.)

But Tony would know what to say. He could slash apart your confidence at the worst of times, and was callous the rest of the time. But there were small pockets of hurting when the pure heartache and anguish would erode the iron walls surrounding Iron Man's heart, and he would say just the right thing to get someone back on their feet.

(He should've acknowledged the fact that this wasn't something you could just brush off.)

(Part of him hoped that Captain America could. He was the epitome of mankind, wasn't he?)

"Steve, buddy—" Steve's head bobbed lower. Clint waited for the rest of Tony's sentence, waited for him to make this all better, but a swift glance toward the other man slapped Clint in the face with the realization that Tony didn't know what to say either. Dread started to crawl through Clint's veins, thick and hot.

(They couldn't lose Cap. He held the reins to the team. Not only would they lose their leader, but they'd lose the team too.)

"Where's Bruce? Natasha?" It took Clint a second to register that Tony was talking to him. He opened his mouth to reply when the two people in question ran through the gym doors. The red of the Black Widow's hair knocked against Steve's blond as she fell to her knees in front of him. The uncharacteristic display of compassion and sympathy as Natasha's hand found its way onto Cap's broad shoulder tied together the story of their ever-growing friendship. The grounds of the relationship weren't clear to the rest of the team—nor would they ever be, but as Steve's head came to a rest on her shoulder, Clint was just grateful that someone had taken the time to understand the inner workings of Steve Rogers.

(He was also guilty as hell that he hadn't taken that time as well, but Steve had always seemed invincible in a way no one ever was.)

"I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." Natasha repeated the words into his hair like a mantra, like they were a soothing balm that could heal the broken and raw fragments of Steve's shattered heart.

(He wished such a thing were possible.)

Bruce slid down the wall on Cap's other side, resting his hand on the other man's leg.

There were no words exchanged and the aching silence permeated through them, seeping through Clint's pores and filling him with its emptiness. He found himself wishing Thor was there, to fill the mocking hollowness with his booming voice.

Clint didn't know how he ended up on his knees, but he was soon situated with one hand on Cap's other leg, and the other scratching at the scuffed gym floor, as if it were trying to dig a hole to escape from his own utter helplessness. Tony was seated by Bruce, arms wrapped loosely around his knees, eyes closed in a way that tried to convey aloofness.

Natasha met Clint's eyes over Steve's head, and he found his hand encased in hers. He looked up at her, like she could tell him what to do, but she was back to muttering in Russian to Steve. Her fingers squeezed Clint's.

One hour and six minutes had passed since they first knew something was wrong.

One hour and six minutes had passed and Steve just broke down.

Clint didn't even realize what had happened at first. He didn't know anything was different until he happened to glance up and note with shock that there were tears on Steve's face. Clint stiffened, but Natasha sent him a look that clearly conveyed what would happen if he drew attention to the supersoldier's moment of weakness.

"I miss her so much," Steve whispered. He didn't appear to be talking to anyone in particular. His eyes were closed, and his head was tipped back against the wall in utter defeat. "I miss her so much."

"I know," Natasha said softly.

"I loved her, you know?"

"I know." Her hand rhythmically squeezed Clint's, and Clint realized that she might have had what was the shine of tears in her eyes. But then she blinked and met Clint's eyes again, and he concluded he must have imagined it.

"She didn't even know who I was toward the end."

Clint hated everything. He hated the entity that ripped Steve's life out from under him, only to throw him a lifeboat, and rip that away too just when he had begun to build up the glimmer of hope that maybe he would make it to land. He hated how words were hollow and Steve's grief was anything but.

(He hated how helpless he was as his friend floundered in the water like it was 1942 all over again.)

"I'm sorry, Steve," he said quietly. (I'm sorry I can't help you more.)

"I miss her." The words were like a feeble attempt to bridge the gap from where Steve's broken heart lay on the ground to wherever Peggy Carter was now.

"I know."

(But they didn't, not really.)

(Words were inadequate compared to a grief as yawning as Steve Roger's.)

Clint didn't know what to say to make the agony feel better, so he said what he could.

"We're not leaving you."

Author's Note: Long time, no fic, amiright? Anyway, Cap is my favorite Avenger, and I just saw Winter Soldier and I still haven't recovered. So what else to do but write an angsty oneshot? Read and review. It's greatly appreciated.

Title stolen from U2. Sorry buddies.