You Left, I Stayed
by Cider Sky
A/N: Thank you to everyone you followed, alerted, favorites and, of course, reviewed. This story is coming from a kind of painful part of my own experiences with death so I am glad to hear that is seems authentic, albeit a bit of a downer.
Again, I can't thank you enough and I hope you enjoy this next chapter.
Chapter Four: In Case of Emergency (Call Bruce Banner)
It's their six-year anniversary and he needs to drink. No. He needs to get absolutely wasted.
He knows it's an immature response; a stupid and pathetic response but sometimes a man needed stupid. Sometimes the stupid thing is the right thing.
Phil had told him that once, after getting shot saving his worthless hide.
Clint feels ashamed that he's bastardizing the man's words, twisting them into an excuse for something ugly but God, he can't face this sober.
And he really doesn't want to drink alone.
Drinking alone is what brings stupid into the realms of pathetic and he really doesn't want to be that guy at the bar.
What he wants is to talk, as hard as that is to admit, and experience has taught him that he is looser with his words when he's had a few.
More specifically he wants to talk to Natasha.
And she's been waiting for it, waiting on the outskirts of his pain and agony though she too is suffering. She's been waiting for something to break within him, not out of malice or cruelty, but because it is their way. One could only fix something after it had broken, after all.
She's never pushed or pestered him. She doesn't try to get him to talk about feelings and doesn't ask about the SHIELD mandated therapy sessions. She doesn't ask about what he's done with his ring, the one that used to hang on a chain around his neck but now feels so heavy that he's sure it's going to push through his skin.
She's been waiting so damn patiently but, as luck would have it, and he's never been a particularly lucky man, she is not here.
Clint grabs one of his many wallets, all filled with a different version of himself, and heads towards his window.
He uses the window because leaving by any other route would mean having to explain himself.
He's found it's hard to explain the reasoning for seeking the means of your own destruction.
He goes to a bar in Mott Haven. And Morisania. And South Bronx.
He drinks and worse, he fights.
He gets thrown out of the first two and leaves on his own accord for the three that follow.
By one thirty he's in Soundview.
He drinks.
He fights.
It's not even an incendiary comment that gets his fists swinging, and he knows this, even as he stands up and shoves the man hard against the chest, the man who is raven-haired and resembles Loki only because he wants him to.
He knows this is what he was really looking for, that if he couldn't talk then well, he was going to fight.
No one fights with him. All they see is a madman provoked by nothing, not a man who might be worthy of an ally.
Good, Clint thinks, as he absorbs a punch to his abdomen and allows the douchebag with the backwards Kanji tattoo to land that wild swing to his jaw.
He takes each man on, allowing a few hits here and there, but eventually, they all fall, until one doesn't.
This one has a knife.
Clint dreams.
"You're being stupid, Clint."
"Sometimes being stupid is right thing to be."
"Don't do this. This isn't what I want."
"It's not what I want either, but hey, you know what they say about that. You can't always get it."
….
"You're being selfish. This isn't you."
"It is me. This is me without you. Get used to it."
"You're not the only one who has lost someone, Clint."
"Yeah. Yeah, but they didn't lose you."
Clint wakes up to a high-pitched, rhythmic beeping and he immediately knows he's in a hospital.
The beeping isn't the sound of his heart, it's someone else's, someone from the room next to him. Save for the nasal cannula and it's constant, irritating flow of oxygen, and the pinch of the IV in his arm, he's unattached.
Which means escaping will be easy.
He ignores the pull of stitches in his arm and the throbbing in his temple – ah, yes, that's what had taken him down, a fucking pool queue to the temple post slice to his bicep– and tosses the cannula aside, his attention already on that pesky IV.
"Mr. Coulton?" Clint halts his attempts of ripping the IV out of his arm. "I'm Patti, your nurse."
Coulton? Right. He' hadn't been looking when he had grabbed for one of his many aliases and covers. This was the one he had created using his and Phil's surnames. He had thought it terribly clever. Phil had thought it terribly cliché.
Cliché it might have been, but it was truly a work of art. Coulton has impressive academic credentials, a respectable job and is as a straight shooter.
He couldn't have chosen a more inappropriate alias for his outing and a small part of him feels like he has betrayed Clint Coulton.
Clint turns towards the timid voice; a young, doe-eyed nurse is watching him with trepidation, too green to know how to handle a possibly uncooperative patient.
"We tried contacting your emergency contact, a Mr –" Patti flips through the paperwork as Clint's groggy head tries to block out that incessant beeping from the room over, "Mr. Phil Coulson, but we were unable to reach him."
They, Phil and himself, had worked hard on Clint Coulton, hammering every detail out until it was perfect and legal; there was nary a hole to be found.
So, really, he shouldn't be so surprised that Phil hadn't overlooked his medical history, much less an emergency contact.
His mouth suddenly feels very dry and he can't really speak because the idea of reaching Phil now was laughable. She was trying to hunt down a ghost.
"Is there another number we can try?" She clicks her pen and waits.
He swallows back a wave of nausea; it's kind of ironic. He had gotten shit-faced just to avoid all those little reminders and here was this stranger, asking him about Phil.
Patti gives him that gentle, almost hesitant smile all medical personnel seem capable of and he knows it's meant to be comforting but she was picking at an extremely poorly healing wound.
"It's okay." She says and for a moment Clint feels a stab of anger, how could she possibly say that? She didn't know a fucking thing about him and - "It's common for patients to suffer a lapse in memory after a concussion."
Oh. The anger dissipates and wow, this isn't him. He had never been quick to anger. She looks nervous and he realizes he might be glaring at her a little bit and fuck, Phil would hate who he is turning into.
Now she's eyeing the bruises and the thick bandage around his arm and she is no doubt trying to fight the urge to make negative judgments. Judgments that were probably fucking true to begin with,.
"We can always have an officer visit the address listed in … Brooklyn? When we can't reach a patient's family –"
"No." Clint says, a little to quickly and the Patti's brows shoot up, probably worried she had said something wrong.
Clint clears his throat and rattles off a phone number and Patti gives him another winning smile. He hates her for it.
He watches her scribble it down.
(718) 670 – 0422.
"Great." She smiles again and she just stands there for a second and he can see it in her eyes and the way she's shifting side to side, she's going to try – "Don't worry. He'll come. I'm sure."
He ignores her when she asks if he needs anything else.
Patti dials the number and picks at the sleeve of her cerulean scrubs feeling quite accomplished.
She feels as though she had made the connection with the patient, had showed him that she cares, that she is patient and to be trusted. It's only her fifth week but she feels like she's getting the hang of this. She really doesn't understand why the other nurses were so suspicious of some of their patients, why they constantly warned her about this bed and that bed. Patients needed to be trusted –
"Phil's Pizza. Delivery or Take-Out?" The other voice replies, snapping her out her feel-good thoughts and throwing her right back into reality.
She hangs up and hurries down the hall. She pushes the curtain back but it's too late.
He's gone.
Clint does his best to not stumble through the halls as he picks past the nurses and doctors and patients. They don't spare him a second glance and he's nearly home free when he spots a figure in the lobby, a figure that's staring right at back him and for a moment, Clint's too shocked to move
So, Bruce Banner comes to him instead.
They sit there on a bench outside the hospital, watching as a flurry of paramedics and EMTs and patients come in and out.
They sit in silence, side by side, and Clint's a little amazed over how okay Bruce seems to be with doing and saying nothing, sitting outside of some community hospital in the Bronx at three in the damned morning.
Surely he should be sleeping or doing science or something.
Clint huffs in small disbelief, shaking his head because of all the people to come looking for him.
"How'd you find me?"
"Natasha told me to –" Bruce gives him a sidelong glance and Clint knows just from that that he's probably not going to like what comes next, " – to keep an eye on you."
Clint doesn't know what had happened between the two, mainly because he had been too busy being mind fucked, but it's clear that they had formed some kind of relationship.
He wasn't sure it was a matter of like as it was difficult for Natasha to like anyone, really. No, not yet at least. It was more likely a matter of respect, a matter of understanding that Bruce could crush any of them at a moment's notice.
It still didn't really explain why he's here or why she'd entrusted such a task to him.
"That doesn't really answer my question, doc."
Bruce exhales and he almost sounds amused.
"Well, just for future reference, your floors directly above mine," Clint's still not sure where he's going with this and his body is choosing now to inform him just how unhappy it is, " - it's not everyday I see people propelling past my window."
Oh. Right. He probably should have checked just who's windows he's be passing on his way down but he hadn't really been thinking.
"So, you followed me here?" Clint asks, a little surprised because Bruce, when he isn't the Hulk, just seems so … normal. Not at all the kind to go off following people into the heart of the Bronx.
"I wouldn't say that, really. I lost you as soon as you got to the Bronx. Following people is not my strong suit. I'm better at avoiding them." There's something disarming in Bruce's voice and the way he only half smiles. There's nothing patronizing or deceptive in his words, he doesn't try to make an excuse for himself; he just tells it the way it is.
"Oh." Okay. "But how'd you –"
"I followed the heresay."
"Yeah, and what was the heresay."
"That some guy was going bar to bar picking fights and beating people to a pulp."
"Sounds about right." Clint admits because yeah, that's exactly what had happened, exactly what he had wanted to happen.
He hadn't wanted anyone to get involved, though. He may not regret the bruises, the concussion and the laceration in his bicep but he certainly regrets getting Bruce involved.
Which leads him to the question that is still burning in the back of his mind.
"Why did Natasha ask you?" He doesn't mean for it to be as filled with venom as it is but Bruce doesn't seem to notice or care.
Bruce doesn't answer right away; instead he takes a moment to look at his hands, at the people moving around them, and it looks as though he's mulling over the best way to answer him.
"I know." Bruce says simply and it's extremely disappointing because it makes no damn sense. Clint only has to wait another second before Bruce clarifies, clearly reading the archer's impatience. "I know about you and Phil."
Clint takes a moment to digest the information.
"Did Natasha –" Clint starts, the stabbing pain of betrayal already welling up inside him.
"No." The easy sincerity and kindness in his eyes is as good as any lie detector. He's telling the truth and Clint is relieved.
"No, I figured it out on my own." Bruce's voice dips and he almost sounds forlorn.
Clint suddenly feels as though his defenses have been ripped away, as though Bruce can see through all the bullshit and into his goddamn soul.
Bruce looks away.
"You could have told us, Clint."
Clint doesn't know what to say to that. There hadn't been a single moment after Phil's death in which Clint had felt it would have been appropriate to share that part of him.
They had hardly known him then. In fact, his first impression probably couldn't have been any worse.
"Told you what?" Clint spits out; any relief his impromptu fighting had provided is leaking away. It's turning into exhaustion and it's letting all the anger and resentment back in, all that anger and resentment he had fought out of himself.
"Told you that Phil was my husband and that I am the reason he's dead? That I fucking killed my husband? Is that what I should've told you?"
A few people turn to look at them on their way into the hospital but Clint doesn't care.
"Should I have told you that everything, every goddamn thing reminds me of him and that I can barely fucking think anymore?"
Bruce's expression doesn't change; he doesn't seem upset or insulted, he doesn't try to placate him or calm him down. He just listens, even despite the fact that he is making an absolute scene right now.
He feels broken, so goddamn broken that he doesn't even remember what living is. Something inside him just snaps
"Tell me, Banner, what exactly should I have told you?"
Bruce's answer is not what Clint expects.
"We care about you, Clint." To Clint's addled mind this has no preface and it almost feels like a struggle to keep. "I'm not going to say you should have told us everything about you and Phil, that's your business, but, you should have told us you were suffering."
God, he knows he's right, knows what Bruce is saying is perfectly logical but he just can't accept it. Nothing is getting past the anger brewing inside him. He knows he should be damn grateful; that Bruce isn't the kind to go into densely populated areas, that this is probably hell for him but fuck. He's not thinking straight.
"And then what? We all talk about my feelings and hug it out?" Clint's gaze hardens but his voice cracks and it's not completely effective or threatening.
"You shouldn't have come out here, Banner." He's sick of this, all of it, and as soon as the vile words are out of his mouth he gets to his feet.
He hears Bruce falling in step behind him and really, it would've been too generous a mercy for the man to just back off.
"Listen. You're angry, I get it. I know anger." It's Bruce's turn to raise his voice. "But what happened happened and you can't change that."
"You think I don-" Clint turns on his heel, ignoring the way his entire body protested against the quick movement; he was going horrendously sore for the next few days.
"No. I'm not saying that." Bruce interjects, unforgiving with his tone and it's clear that maybe, he's had enough of the archer's torrid affair with self-resentment.
"I know what self-destruction looks like. Clint. It's a dark, lonely road. I've been there." Clint swears he can see a flash of green I the man's eyes
"And I'm not going to pretend to know what Phil would want for you, but I can tell you what I want."
Clint meets the man's unwavering gaze.
"And it is not this." Each word is perfectly annunciated, clear and precise, intended to cut through him like a knife.
Clint's first thought is that Phil would have liked Bruce had he gotten the chance to get to know him. His second is far darker.
"What if it's what I want?" For the first time since their rather tumultuous conversation began, Bruce's expression drops, his shoulders sagging ever so slightly as he nods, puling his hands together in a way that made him look much more the unassuming scientist he was used to.
Bruce looks down for a second, one fucking second, to collect his thoughts.
"It's no–" When he looks back up Clint is gone.
He's not surprised.
Bruce looks around for a moment, taking in the crunch of glass and gravel under his shoes and the din of a tired city, and hails a cab.
Bruce doesn't see Clint until their next mission, a full week later.
Fresh bruises peek out from under his uniform and he feels like a failure.
I promise, it gets better in the last chapter. One more angst!fest to go guys, I swear. Thanks for sticking with me.