I Wrote Your Name

Chapter 2: Get Through This

"I wrote your name in the sand, but the ocean washed it away

I wrote your name in the clouds, but the wind blew it away

I wrote your name in my heart, where forever it will stay"

Bruce leaned heavily against the counter in his office in the medical center at the SHIELD headquarters. His glasses were held loosely between his fingers, while his other hand worked the tension loose from his forehead in a slow massaging motion. He wished he could have said that he saw red when the SHIELD medics brought Tony in on a cot, followed closely by a very concerned pair of super special agents, but that wouldn't come close to describing the green rage he felt when his eyes settled on the damage Tony sustained in his own home. Bruce's first thought was that something happened to Tony overseas while he was away in Japan but when Steve never showed up at the medical center the good doctor knew immediately something was wrong. He never said anything, no one did, but a few months ago Steve would have been crawling the walls if he learned that something like this had happened to the genius and now when Tony needed him the most their blonde captain was nowhere to be seen.

Since no one was sure what had happened to the brilliant engineer, the medics brought him in strapped to a back board and outfitted with a snug fitting cervical collar with an IV drip inserted into his veins. When Bruce had taken up the position at the clinic to continue to practice medicine on the injured SHIELD agents who would come back banged up, battered and bruised none of his previous patients made his stomach tighten the way Tony did. Bruce had never really seen the arc reactor up close, as Tony generally hid the revolutionary device from the team and the world most of the time, but the scars mushrooming out from around the epicenter looked just as painful as the day they blemished his skin. The dark discoloration on his side pushed the doctor to call for scans of the man's chest cavity, and when they came back he was surprised to see two fractured ribs—instead of the whole side being one cluster-fuck of broken bones. But what really drew in Bruce's curiosity were the yellow and green bruises that littered Tony's body like smudge marks.

Looking down at the nurse's notes, his eyes focusing on the large, loopy handwriting, he bit down on his bottom lip as a means to calm himself down. Katie was a very through nurse, one of his favorite staff members, but he had a hard time believing that there were bruises all down Tony's body. She brought it to his attention when she was helping him out of the pair of bloodied jeans and into a pair of comfy grey sweatpants. Before she was hired on with SHIELD, the bubbly auburn haired nurse worked at the metro clinic where she saw patient after patient who came in with the same markings all down their bodies. They all had one thing in common, and Bruce refused to believe that Steve would ever do something that heinous to Tony. He tried to tell himself that they were the remains from earlier battle wounds Tony sustained from his Ironman suit, but Bruce knew that Tony had upgraded the impact system to take the brunt of nearly all hits so all he would feel was a stiff soreness in his muscles the next morning. He wished he could believe that it was just the hazards of the job, he wished he could be just that blind.

"Doctor Banner?" Katie softly knocked on the metal framing of his door, her small fingers curling around the chilled metal as she peeked into his private office with a sad smile on her face. He looked at her with hard eyes, something the girl had become accustomed to when he was either tired or after a hard case had come in, and tried to hold everything in as he knew he couldn't lash out at the girl for no reason. It wasn't Katie's fault that Tony was laying in a hospital bed after all. "I just wanted to inform you that Ironman—I mean, Mr. Stark is awake again." She nodded her head at him before disappearing back down the hall back to the nurses' station to monitor the other patients laid up in the clinic.

Straightening his back, Bruce folded Tony's chart up under his arm before slipping his glasses back over the bridge of his nose and making his way down the hall towards the one room where his friend was laying with a glazed expression over his soft features. Flattening down the surface of his dark blue scrubs Bruce took a second look at his friend, doing a double take as he truly believed he wasn't seeing what he was seeing. Dropping the chart to the ground, the contents sliding lazily across the smooth floor in multiple directions, Bruce threw open the door to the man's room with an expression of horror written across his face. The sudden intrusion startled the engineer on the bed, causing his hands that were loosely holding the glowing reactor in his palms to jerk and pulling tight on the cord connected to the plating in his chest. "Are you insane?" Bruce screamed, trying to keep the other guy back in the far recess of his mind.

Rushing forward and carefully removing the glowing device from Tony's shaking hands, Bruce tentatively pushed the arc reactor back into the socket walls around Tony's sternum. A soft click echoed about the room and Bruce felt the air return to his lungs knowing the thing keeping his friend alive was back in its place deep in his chest. He didn't want to think what Tony would have done if he hadn't gotten there any later, he couldn't picture his life without the whirlwind of energy that was Tony Stark. Unlike everyone else who walked about him like they were stepping on eggshells, Tony overtly tested the man's patients by poking and prodding at him. At times the engineer really got on his nerves, but he knew just how far to push and knew when to stop to allow Bruce to calm down. If Bruce was being honest with himself, Tony was his best friend and as much as he hated relying on someone he depended on Tony for a sense of normality.

Gripping Tony's limp wrists in his hands, forcing those dexterous fingers away from the device in his chest, Bruce was torn with calling Katie in to tie him up in a set of soft restrains and throwing him out the window for even thinking about doing something so incredibly stupid. "What's going on?" Clint's voice called from the doorway.

Bruce didn't break eye contact with Tony, holding the younger man's eyes with his own in fear that if he looked away Tony would pull away and start for the reactor once more. "It's okay, I've got it covered, Clint." Holding the engineer's gaze with his own for a moment longer, Bruce slowly uncurled his fingers from Tony's wrists sensing that Tony wasn't a danger to himself anymore. He trusted him not to do anything stupid in front of them. As flashy as Tony was in front of the media, he wasn't so bold as to harm himself in front of the team. Turning back to look at the shaken blonde, Bruce offered a small smile. "Has Steve shown up yet?" Neither Bruce nor Clint missed the flash of emotion that cracked across the darkness in the man's eyes.

Leaning fully against the frame, Clint rubbed a hand through his hair to come at a rest as the base of his skull to rub away the tension building in his neck muscles. "No, Tasha contacted him initially twelve hours ago and he hasn't once responded. Director Fury has issued a BOLO to all SHILED agents with strict orders to bring him into base if found. I'm worried because this isn't like Cap." Working his fingers into the tired muscles, Clint dropped his arm to bring it at a rest in front of his chest. "Has Tony said anything?"

Bruce looked to the man in question, hating how they were talking about him as if he wasn't present in the room. Resisting the urge to reach out and touch the stoic man on the bed he looked back to Clint and shook his head slightly. "One of my nurses informed me that he just woke up actually. I think it would be beneficial to try to get him to eat something, would you be so kind as to head down to the nurse's station to have Katie ready his med's and work on getting him something to eat?" Clint nodded curtly before disappearing from the threshold.

As hard as Bruce tried to get the brunette to speak, let alone eat something of substance other than allowing him to get his nutrients from the IV drip in his arm, the brunette never moved from his seated position on the bed, only able to stare off into the far corner with an expressionless face. Bruce worried momentarily that it was the drugs affecting him so, disabling the man to function properly but after reading over the chart that the nurses put back together he found that the dosing was just right. Easing the man into a laying position Bruce tucked the blankets up around his shoulders, allowing his fingers to brush through the dark locks of hair on his head in a comforting gesture. Steve was still missing and as worried as Bruce was over Tony's wellbeing he was equally worried as it wasn't normal for the Captain to just disappear for extended periods of time. It wasn't until the following day when a team of four escorted Captain Rogers into the medical wing.

The blondes expression was hard, and if Bruce didn't know any better he would jump to the conclusion that Steve had been out drinking his kidneys into a grave. Resisting the urge to run up to the unharmed soldier, Bruce waited in the shadows of his office listening intently to the loud discussion between Steve and Natasha outside.

"Where were you?" She questioned sternly.

Steve folded his arms over his chest defensively and took a step back in a failed attempt to put space between himself and the fiery redhead. "I would have figured Tony would have told you guys by now."

"Told us what?" Her questions were short and crisp. Worrying her bottom lip with her teeth, the agent crossed her arms in a mimicking manner to match Steve's defensive body language. "Steve, Tony has been catatonic ever since he was brought in. What happened?" Her sigh was loud, revealing just how tired she was.

Steve narrowed his gaze on her petite body. "This is ridiculous! He's being childish and dragging all of you into this too? Typical Tony Stark! I don't know why I didn't listen to you guys in the beginning, but my ears are wide open now for an I told you so. Come on, I need to hear it." Natasha wasn't amused by Steve's own childish outburst. His wild gesturing hands brought on red flags in the agents head, making her feel weary about Steve. "Say it! I deserve it!"

"You two broke up?" The words sounded so wrong to her because as far as she knew the two were a happy couple. Natasha knew she didn't have much to go by, as herself and Clint were usually out for months at a time working recon and intelligence missions all over the globe, but when they were home she was positive she never picked up on hints that Steve and Tony had a stain placed on their relationship. "What did he do?" She wasn't being fair to Tony, and she knew it too, but the man's track record wasn't something that she could easily ignore. "Steve!"

"He's Tony-fucking-Stark, isn't that enough reason?" Reigning himself in, Steve leaned against the wall dragging his massive hand over his face to rub wearily at his temples that were throbbing. "Just let Tony get over his little hissy fit and go back to your own lives, I know mine is waiting for me back at the truck."

He turned to leave and only made a face paces when Natasha's soft voice trickled to his ears. "Where did the bruises come from, Steve?" She knew he had to have seen them, and she was even more appalled that he hadn't said anything about them. Natasha had an extensive talk with the friendly nurse up front who filled her in with the gruesome details of the bruises that littered the expanse of his body and she didn't want to think about the accusations she was making, but at the current moment her thoughts were plagued by images of Steve placing his hands on Tony in anything over than a loving gentle nature. His stride stopped, making the soldier cock his head to the side to look sidelong at the agent behind him. "What did you do Steve?"

"What we do is dangerous work, Tasha, you know that." He was gone within moments, leaving the entire clinic in awe of the gravity of what they just heard.

Bruce's fists were balled so tightly he was amazed he wasn't curling his fingers against the agony his tendons were feeling under such pressure. As much as he wanted to Hulk out and chase down the super-solider and beat the answers out of him he knew his time and efforts would be put too much better use in the stark white room that Tony lay in. Steve's answer was more than enough evidence to convince the jury in his mind that Steve was guilty for a majority of those marks on Tony's body. He didn't really try to hide the fact that he did it, though the thing that really angered the doctor was that he didn't feel the least bit remorseful about inflicting the damage upon the weaker man. Looking across the office to focus his gaze on a silent Clint who was sitting in the shadows, Bruce wanted to argue with the blonde not to chase after Steve because nothing either of the agents, or Bruce as himself, could do to Steve to even affect him. There was always the option of getting the police involved, or in this case the SHIELD prosecutor who oversaw all cases involving all SHIELD agents, but what person in their right mind was going to convict Steve of domestic violence?

"I'd kill him if I could." Clint muttered before sweeping out of the room in a fluid motion.

"I think I know a few people who would let you too, Clint." Bruce muttered to himself before looking back down at the charts of the other patients he was overseeing. Most were in for broken bones, lacerations, and even the one had a concussion but none of them were on the top of his priority list.

A-V-E-N-G-E-R-S

Tony looked around his bedroom he used to share with Steve before turning with pleading eyes to look at Natasha who had a firm grip upon his body, too afraid to let go in fear that he would topple over. The blood stain on the hardwood floors was still visible even after many attempts to properly clean it up by the cleaning staff. She helped him under the covers before moving to quickly leave the room, unsure how to approach the situation that was a foreign topic to her. Asking Jarvis to shut the lights off, she quietly crept across the hall, reminding the genius that she was just a call away before disappearing into the safety of her own room. They were all tired and could all use a good night sleep to think clearly on how to handle the situation between Tony and Steve.

It was nearing close to the early hours of the morning when the genius finally threw back the covers, unable to stand the suffocating feeling of Steve around him in the room. Tentatively moving around the room, mindful of the stain on the floor, he reached the hall without incident and quickly found himself curled up on the couch in the living room. How he got there amazed him as he didn't remember moving down the stairs or even curling into the soft fabric of the plush couch but there he was starring at a muted TV screen with fast moving pictures of the local news station feeding the media their usual garbage on life, morals, politics, and the occasional lunatic that happened to slip under the radar. Shivering from the chill the room offered, the genius bolted upright and to his feet when the large afghan blanketed his body. The threaded blanket fell to the floor in a heap as Clint took a tentative step back holding his hands up defensively to Tony's terrified expression. "Easy, soldier, it's just me."

Tony's body visibly relaxed, creating a calming aura about the room as both men tried to ignore the giant purple and green polka-dotted elephant suspended from the ceiling. Moving around the couch Clint laid down where Tony's body once was and motioned for him to join him. Tony's muscles froze, already not liking the way the agent was treating him, but when the blonde's hands reached out to pull him gently into the curve of his body Tony relaxed once again, enjoying the warmth from the body of his teammate. "Don't worry; I'm not going to try anything." Tony knew as much, but it was nice to hear it come from the man's mouth as he was pretty sure the blonde was captivated with a certain redheaded agent.

Resting his head on Clint's gently rising and falling chest, Tony found himself counting the cadence of the marksman's heartbeat, something that used to calm him down when he couldn't sleep and Steve was around to soothe him. The archer's hands were comfortingly running along his back, massaging the tense muscles while being mindful of the tender areas. "I did this for my mother," he admitted after a period of silence. No one knew much of Clint's childhood, but judging by the usual cold exterior, Tony wouldn't say it was a leap of faith to guess that it wasn't the picture perfect Kodak family. "It's not right what he did, Tony, it's never okay. I tried to convince my mom many times, and would hold her just like this after many fights between herself and my dad, but she wouldn't listen and before I knew it my momma was an angle in the ground. She left me with my mean old man. I know what it's like to be on the receiving end Tony. I just want you to know you're not alone; that you don't need Steve."

The two locked eyes for a moment, Tony searching for the lie he was sure there as he didn't want to believe that someone else ever had to endure the pain he suffered by someone who he thought loved him. Like the blonde, Tony didn't have an amazing childhood so to speak but he knew that a parent should never lay a hurtful hand to their child and to think of Clint in that situation put the brunette on edge. It was evident by the conviction in the marksman's voice that he still felt really strongly about the subject.

He reached awkwardly to the floor to pick up to dropped afghan to flick out over the length of Tony's backside, making sure to cover his feet in the process. When he heard the wobbly footsteps head down the hall, an instant reminder of his childhood, Clint knew he couldn't let Tony lay out here all alone for the remainder of the night. There was no doubt in his mind that Tony hadn't slept a wink since the three Avengers brought him back to the mansion and he couldn't really blame him as he wouldn't want to sleep in the same room that brought back the good and the bad memories of such a strong relationship with their captain. If and when Steve ever decided to come back, Clint was going to make sure to have the man's things removed back into his old room at the end of the hall that hadn't been used since the two hooked up. If he had his way, Steve would have to sleep outside but he knew from experience that Tony was going to allow him back into the home that he shared with the team because that's what his mother always did; she always let that bastard back in no matter how much he pleaded.

Struggling with himself to not fall asleep, to stay awake and keep vigil over the distressed brunette, Clint felt his eyes slip shut a few times before they finally found a resting place. He wanted to wait until Tony fell asleep, but it would be a lost cause because without the added drugs in his system the agent knew that Tony wouldn't submit himself to the shadows of his mind so willingly to be reminded of the torment that Steve had put him through. His right arm slid off the side of the couch, fingers brushing the surface of the plush rug in the center of their shared space, as his left firmly held Tony in place on his chest. If Tony tried to get up Clint knew he would be instantly jarred awake to deter Tony's escape.

They would get through this together, as a team—which sadly included Steve—because there would come a day where the world would call upon them for help and with the deep fissure running through their team camaraderie Clint subconsciously knew only disaster would await them. They had to get through this to save their makeshift, dysfunctional family they created among themselves. They just had to…

A-V-E-N-G-E-R-S

A/N HOLY REVIEWS AND ALERTS YOU GUYS! I went to work, and when I came home to check my e-mail not nine hours later I thought my inbox was going to explode. I was really nervous about posting this initially because I wasn't sure how everyone was going to accept it and if I can correctly judge this by your appreciative reviews I think a majority of you loved it, hated and loved it, or just cried all the way though. I'll admit, this chapter was tough to start because I kind of outdid myself in the first one with the emotional effect of Steve being nothing short of an abusive/cheating lover. I rewrote this chapter many times from Tony's perspective, Steve's perspective, and then I finally landed on their teammate's response to the whole situation. I hope I made it emotional enough, bringing it to a dark place for all members because in a abusive domestic relationship it's not just the couple that suffers but everyone around them too (i.e. Natasha not sure how to act around Tony, Clint understanding from drawing from experience, and Bruce being the supportive friend who just wants to impale Steve with his fist). I personally think overall, going back with my earlier statement from chapter one, that I think Steve would be the one to cheat as dating a man back in the 1940's wasn't kosher nor is Steve a perfect person as everyone makes him out to be and as much as I hate to say this I'm really enjoying writing this. Leave your comments in the box below, I love hearing from my readers to see how well/how terrible I'm doing. You guys are amazing! Here's a shout out to everyone who reviewed and alerted this because you all made my day!