The Control of Tension
Chapter 4: Capsized
It's the third day when Bruce first notices the headache.
He's deceptively calm as he tells Clint, walking by on his way to the box of supplies to down a plain coconut water and some painkillers of his own.
That's kind of his trademark move, now that he thinks about it. Deceptively calm.
Bruce sits down at the table he's been using as his main workstation. His eyes scan the papers but his brain is far away from any real task.
Not that any of this is truly useful. This is make-work. This is a careful network of lies designed to occupy his mind, to contain the Hulk.
It's only a matter of time now. Well, it's possible that Tony and the others will manage to put together a vaccine before he can't hold back the Other Guy any longer. He'll draw it out as long as he can.
In the last supply run he requested his favorite lavender cherry black tea and the pleasantly squat, speckled mug he often uses. Sometimes the comfort of routine things helps. He won't hold back in taking the ibuprofen. Keeping comfortable has got to be the priority.
But still.
Keeping calm will put the change off until the last possible second, but there is a threshold amount of cellular damage where he's never been able to keep control.
Bruce is angry with himself for not foreseeing this. For letting this become an issue. And, as always, for everything about himself that contributed to the creation of the Hulk.
Bruce jumps just a bit at the feeling of a hand on his shoulder. But after the "Oh, it's Clint, of course" moment, he ends up calmer than before.
"Hey, Doc. Are you doing all right?"
Clint slides into the chair next to him.
"More or less," Bruce answers. His eyes drift closed in a gesture of exhaustion.
Clint decides that that is not an acceptable answer, under the circumstances. He needs to know more about what's going on inside that head; it's always full of something.
"So are you really just going to sit around and wait for the worst to happen?"
Bruce looks at him incredulously.
"If you've got any other suggestions, I'm all ears."
"Well, what if you changed on purpose?"
"If that's supposed to be a joke..."
"Nope," The archer plants his elbows on the table and leans on one of them, slightly towards where Bruce is slumped. "Hear me out. You might not remember it, but when we fought Loki, Hulk did a whole bunch of standing around waiting for instructions. Nat told me..."
Clint watches Bruce flinch at a memory.
"Yeah, not a great day for me, either. I gave Nat as many bruises as you did. Look, she's fine, she's right over there." Clint gestures at Natasha, in her seat on the other side of the glass again. "And she told me that the green guy who chased her around the Helicarrier was totally different than the green guy who stood back and watched while we took Loki into custody. The second time, you changed on purpose."
Bruce looks at Clint, and then shakes his head. "That's not good enough reason. The best thing that could happen is I don't change."
"You told me you always change."
Bruce's mouth goes tense and small before he starts speaking again.
"The whole point of this - of everything I'm doing - is to hold off the Other Guy as long as possible so that Tony can swoop in and save the day the way he always does. I have to believe that - I have to pretend to believe that - because that's how I'm keeping calm. That's what I'm clinging to, and you just want me to throw all that away?" Bruce isn't quite yelling. But he's shaking, just the tiniest bit, and he notices it himself and starts counting the remaining glass slides in his head while he talks. "I don't think I can do that."
Clint knows he's dancing around the line here, and he loves the feeling of it.
"Doc." He grabs Bruce's wrist, making the scientist look up at him. "Sometimes you just have to let go."
This moment, with the pulse pumping through the wrist in his hand, the brown eyes looking at him, open, brittle and defiant all at once, is one of the moments Clint lives for. He knows what he's going to do.
Aim. Loose.
He kisses Bruce.
The kiss is decisive, but not hard. He's trying to communicate something, not push. The scientist's lips are warm and smell of spices and chemicals. He pulls back again without waiting for a response, but leaves his hands where they are, one curled loosely around Bruce's neck, the other still encircling his wrist.
Bruce's face fills with a mixture of confusion and indignation.
"What the hell?!" He shakes his head a little, eyes still trained on Clint as if he were a dangerous animal. "Are you actually insane?"
Clint smiles. The kiss might have provoked Hulk's anger but Clint can see that it's caught the attention of Bruce's brain even more. He watches gears engage and turn behind Bruce's eyes as the scientist tries to figure out what just happened.
Bruce's eyes narrow.
"Is this some kind of experiment to you? You want to poke the Hulk to see what he'll do? That's idiotic, and it's certainly not the time!"
"Doc, I don't do experiments."
Bruce's eyebrows crinkle and confusion becomes foremost again. "Then why...?"
"Why do people usually kiss people?" Clint sits back and continues to enjoy the show that is Bruce's face. It's good to see something there that isn't stress or resignation. Clint is very pleased with himself.
In Bruce's head, the waters of emotion are stirred up, but they're not threatening to rise up and overwhelm him. It's like high waves at low tide.
It's a new feeling, and what emotions are even involved, he's not sure.
Bruce looks at Clint, who's sitting beside him with a look that's part smug, part something softer. Three days ago he'd had very little idea who this man was. Now he knows Clint is flashy, fearless, idiotic, does things on impulse and never wastes a moment's time regretting them. That's very appealing to someone who spends the vast majority of his time regretting.
And his smile is phenomenal.
Bruce has trained himself very carefully not to think about these things. No one could get close; no one would be safe. Clint clearly doesn't give a fig what's safe and what's not.
Bruce struggles with himself, trying not to even ask the question of what he actually wants for himself. That's a place he hasn't let himself go in years. Bruce's life hasn't been about what he wanted since the creation of the Other Guy.
But Clint's already put himself in danger; he's already probably going to die. And the archer's made it clear what he wants. Why not play along, let the guy feel good for a little while before the symptoms get worse?
But Bruce can't do that; it would be wrong, because if he does die, his life would have ended with a lie, and that seems somehow dishonorable. And, if through some miracle, they both live? That would be an awkward breakup.
So Bruce's mind circles back to the question: what does he want?
There's a terrible mess of scar tissue at this place in his mind; it's hard to make himself even touch the question, because of the memory of pain. But he does, for Clint.
Bruce wants...this. The warmth that radiates from Clint like a star. The way he shrugs things off without a second glance. The fact that he's far more giving than he'd ever let on. The way he kissed, with passion but without demanding...
The dark water is threatening to overflow, and in fact Bruce can feel water on his cheeks...there's very little anger in him now, but plenty of pain, and pain will do the trick just as surely.
Bruce feels something else now. Clint has taken one of Bruce's hands in both of his, palm up, and is moving his thumbs across the skin in patterns too deliberate to be random. Bruce focuses in on the motions; glad to have a question to untangle that doesn't mean having to tear his mind away from the beautiful new thing that is Clint.
Clint's left thumb moves in curving patterns, radiating out from and curving around a central hub. His right thumb presses different areas in sequence, rarely sliding along the skin. Occasionally his fingers twitch across the back of Bruce's hand.
Bruce focuses on the sensations, focuses on the patterns, and then laughs.
"You're playing PS3," he chuckles.
"Yep," Clint says, and then sighs with exaggerated drama. "I miss Stark Tower and all of Tony's toys."
His hands haven't stopped their movements. Bruce is now simply enjoying the touch, as the dark water in his mind calms to a mild sloshing, the residual effects of the world rearranging itself completely.
So. Him and Clint Barton.
This was not a possibility that Bruce had remotely considered.
Part of Bruce's brain insists on reminding him that it can't work; that the kind of relationship this seems to be turning into is too dangerous for him to have with anyone. It would just be a dream, a thing that they would pretend could live past this room, this disease.
But it's real, in that they both want it; and for the time they have left, that could be enough.
Bruce scrubs the tears away from his eyes with his free hand, and leans somewhat awkwardly towards Clint, who understands immediately and kisses him again, in the same way but for much longer this time. The beast inside Bruce stays shockingly calm; it's enough to raise neurotransmitter levels, he supposes, but with very little increase in pulse rate. Bruce wonders idly if Clint ever learned to be a lion tamer.
After a while, Bruce gets up and goes to check on their patients. Five of the six are stable or have actually gotten stronger; they may last for a while yet with only the help of basic care and antivirals. The sixth, a woman probably in her fifties, might not live through another night.
Clint makes his way back to the bed nearest the glass, grabbing a drink and more ibuprofen on his way. He collapses onto the bed, turning his head to look at Tasha.
"I suppose you heard most of that," he says.
Natasha smiles, "Of course. I'm a spy." She cocks her head at him. "It's funny. You seem more like yourself now, despite all this, than you have for weeks. What is it about him that makes you able to forget what Loki did to you?"
"It's not exactly him, and I haven't exactly forgotten."
"What is it then?"
"I figure...this is a decision nobody but me would ever be stupid enough to make. I know it's mine."
They both chuckle at that.
Clint finishes his drink, then falls into a daze; it's early, and Tasha can't help but be reminded that the usually hyperaware archer has a serious disease.
An hour or so later, Bruce finishes what he's doing and comes over to curl up behind Clint on the bed, arm thrown over the archer. Natasha pretends not to watch them.
Love might be for children...but when had any of them gotten the chance to be children? Perhaps now is as good a time as any. Perhaps now is Clint's last chance.
She'd meant what she said to Stark - "I'd do whatever I wanted to do, with whoever I wanted to do it with."
She hopes Clint gets a chance to enjoy this.