CHAPTER 13

Clint wasn't one to lose his temper in front of the group and the minute he had stormed out of the medical bay, he had immediately regretted it.

Everything had been going so well for the team in the last few weeks that he had almost forgotten just how insufferable some of his coworkers could be. First, there was Natasha who had stated point blank that she thought Loki should stay. That didn't bother Clint too much because he was coming from the same school of thought: keep Loki on the team to keep him safe and get rid of Thanos. If he was still being sketchy after the fact, maybe they send Loki back to his dad to be dealt with. But there was a mutual agreement that something off about the god's sudden attack on Natasha. However, when they both tried to explain this to the others, all they got in return was yelling.

If he was being honest with himself, it all came back to Tony as it often does in their team fights. Clint was turned off by the billionaire's choice words toward Steve who, quite frankly, looked like he was game for whatever Natasha wanted to do about Loki going forward. But then it became about faulty leadership and pride and suddenly Steve and Tony were in a shouting match which was irritating Bruce to the point where he had to walk himself into the Hulk chamber.

Clint left after he tried to interfere and both Bruce and Tony had made a comment about how he had no credibility due to his 'faulty judgement' and his 'greater risk of being susceptible to being compromised.' Not even Natasha had tried to stop him as he grabbed his jacket from a nearby chair and stormed out of the room, up a flight of stairs, and out the front door of the tower.

Most of Clint's aggression had released after about fifteen minutes of walking so when he reached 59th street and saw the entrance to Central Park, the archer did not know where to go next. He looked around to find his next location, spotting large groups of people either heading home for the night or starting their night on the town. Smack dab in the middle of all of the hustle and bustle was Bruce Banner walking straight towards him.

Without thinking, Clint turned and began walking right into the moonlit park.

"Clint, stop!"

"I'm not talking to you!" He threw over his shoulder. Luckily, the moon was bright enough to light the pathways, making his escape route from Bruce much more visible.

"You're acting like a child!"

"I came to let off some steam, as I'm sure you already did in your little bunker, so just leave me alone!"

Clint didn't turn around but he could hear Bruce's frustrated sigh. They continued that way, Clint leading in the front with Bruce trailing after him, for about ten more minutes until they reached a rocky clearing in the park. The spot was very well known to Clint who scaled a large formation with ease, leaving Bruce standing at the base of the rock.

"Can you please come down here?"

"You should have turned around, Bruce." Clint called down from above, "I am not in the mood to talk."

"I don't need you to talk. I just need to hear me out."

"Bruce, whatever you're going to say—"

"I'm sorry!"

The archer rolled his eyes. "Did you really just stalk me into Central Park to say you were sorry?"

Bruce, a little taken a back by his flippant tone, let out a hesitant, "Yes?"

"Why didn't you just wait for me to come back home like a normal human?"

"Because," the scientist huffed as he dug his hands into his jacket pockets, "I wanted to make sure you felt like you had a safe space to come back to. Look, what Tony and I said back there about you being 'susceptible' or whatever was wrong and I'm sorry. I just got so heated and I wanted to blame someone."

Clint raised his brow with intrigue."Why not blame Loki?"

"Because I think you're right." Bruce confessed. "I think he's innocent."

Clint rubbed his cold hand across his face. "Three days. All we need is just three days of uninterrupted sleep and maybe we can function like a team and not a bunch of maniacs." That got a chuckle out of the other man. "And by the way, apology accepted. Just—"

Clint ushered his teammate over to a rocky portion of the formation and held out a hand. Slowly, he guided Bruce up the rocks and only let go when he, too, had reached the top.

"Thanks." Bruce looked around at the view for a moment before turning back to Clint. "Are we good then?"

Clint nodded. "We're always good, man. Just… I get it. Our jobs are really stressful."

"Yeah. Sometimes, I think I agreed to the wrong career." Bruce mumbled almost to himself.

Clint walked to the end of the rock and took a seat with his legs dangling over the edge. Patting the space beside him, Bruce walked over and did the same. "What would you be instead?"

"Is this with or without the other guy?"

Clint gave him a side glance. "Interesting."

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"It's interesting to me that you still think of yourself as two different people." Clint pointed out as he pulled out a bag of warm New York vendor peanuts from his inside jacket pocket. Seeing Bruce's incredulous look, he replied, "What? You know me. I'm always prepared."

"Yeah, sure." Bruce responded before grabbing a handful from Clint's outreached hand.

"Anyway, I want to know what you would do if you didn't have the Hulk."

"Hm," Bruce tossed a few peanuts in his mouth as he thought about his answer. "I think I would go back to being a scientist though I would stay as far away as I could from gamma radiation. Maybe I'd work on curing cancer or something." He turned to Clint and shrugged. "I don't know."

"And if you did have the Hulk?"

There was a longer pause with the only sounds coming from traffic and voices chattering out in the distance. Bruce popped the rest of his handful of peanuts in his mouth while he thought and held out his hand for Clint to hand him more.

"You know what's weird? I still see myself being right where I am right now. I don't think I could be doing anything else so long as I have this weird thing in me." Bruce, undecided on how that revelation made him feel, turned to Clint. "What about you? What would you do if you weren't on this team?"

"See, the weird thing about me is this was kind of my job before the team was even made." Clint answered. "I don't think I ever told anyone other than Natasha this but I was there when Thor came to Earth the first time. It was me and Coulson guarding the hammer in New Mexico. I've been doing this 'fighting bad guys' gig for a while now and I don't know if there's anything else I could do at this point."

"I mean, there's always the circus!"

Clint made a fake gagging noise before tossing another peanut into his mouth. "If you ever find me back in the circus, you have every right to shoot me on site."

The two of them sat together in silence as they finished their snack, looking out at the city lights of midtown and the traffic racing between the tall buildings. They stayed like that for almost twenty minutes before Bruce's phone buzzed.

"It's Steve." He shared, reading the screen. "He's checking in to see if we're okay."

The archer rolled his eyes. "I've gotta say that Steve is the ultimate mom friend and I wouldn't have it any other way."

"He's asking if we're headed back."

Clint hit Bruce with a pleading look. "Can we just chill here for a bit longer? I'm not sure I'm ready to go back."

The other man smiled. "Of course! I've got nowhere else to be."

Bruce shot back one more text before putting the device back into his pocket. Meanwhile, Clint crumpled up the empty bag of peanuts and threw it over the edge and across the way where it landed perfectly into the open trash bin.

"I'm assuming that you come to this spot often, then." Bruce asked.

Clint nodded his head. "An old therapist once told me that everyone needs a calming place. Somewhere where nothing is expected of them and they can just relax. After the battle, I would have these terrible nightmares and one of the only ways I could get myself to sleep is if I exhausted myself so I would just go on walks. Then one day, I climbed up here to see if I could and I've been coming here since."

He then pointed to a clearing in the skyline between two skyscrapers. "You can get a really nice view of the sunrise from this point, too."

"What were the other ways?"

"Hm?"

"The other ways you would get yourself to fall asleep." Bruce elaborated. "I'm just curious cause the other… the Hulk had me on some crazy medicines and occasionally lots of weed."

"At first, it was melatonin pills." The other man answered. "Then it was yoga and for a short period of time I also tried weed but I hated the way it made me feel and Natasha hated the smell."

Clint couldn't help but notice a shift in Bruce's demeanor at the mention of Natasha's name. The scientist, unconsciously, began wringing out his hands as a nervous look broke out on his face.

"Were you two… dating at the time?

"That's a very forward question." Clint smirked, knowingly. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no reason… it's just you said Natasha didn't… well, it sounds like you were close and—"

"You do know we're all grown ass adults here and you don't need to ask for my blessing to date my best friend, right?"

The sarcasm was clear in Clint's voice as he watched the scientist scramble for something to say. After grasping for a way to deny his suspicions, Bruce gave in with a sigh.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Yes, and no." Clint teased. "I only caught on a few days ago but I'm sure it's going clear over Tony and Steve's heads. As far as I know, Thor still thinks you're in love with him."

Bruce let out a hearty laugh, his breath creating a cloud of fog in the cold air. "Who told you about that?" Before Clint could even answer, though, he sighed, answering his own question, "Tony. Jesus Christ, that man does not know how to keep a secret."

"I have to be honest, though." Clint continued. "If I know, and I'm usually kind of slow at picking up on these things, then Natasha also knows."

A look of realization came over Bruce before he shut his eyes and groaned. "Shit."

That made Clint smile. "Not to worry, Brucie!" He patted the other man on the shoulder before rising to his feet. "You just have to talk to her. I promise she doesn't bite." The archer extended his hand once again and Bruce, looking uneasy at the prospect of Natasha knowing about his feelings, took it and rose to his feet.

"Shall we head back into the belly of the beast?" Clint asked.

Bruce gave a mocking bow with a grin. "After you!"

Carefully, the two made it down the rocks and back onto the main path. In no time where they back in the lobby of Avengers Tower, calling an elevator, and exiting out on the communal floor too caught up in conversation to notice they were not alone.

"You've never had Sticky's? Dude, that's an A plus option! There's even one on 43rd street!"

Bruce shrugged. "I'm not really a fried chicken guy…"

"Well, you two look a hell of a lot better."

The two men whipped around to spot Natasha bundled in a blanket on the couch. There was a book in her good hand and a look of relief on her face.

"I'm surprised you stayed up." Clint responded.

"I'm surprised your both still alive."

Bruce looked at Natasha in confusion. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"My bet was you were going to piss off Clint, he would try to kill you, and then you'd hulk out." Clint opened his mouth to contradict her, but after some thought he shook his head in agreement. "Yeah, that sounds like me."

"Well, no one killed anyone," Bruce clarified, "though I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Tony had murder Steve."

"Or Loki." Clint added.

The heavy sigh that Natasha gave made it very clear that no one was dead but the situation wasn't much better than when they had left. "Let's just say Steve is punching it out in the gym, Thor still isn't back, and I gave Tony access to our spot on the roof."

"He's not going to…"

Nobody needed Bruce to finish that sentence to know he was concerned that Tony's emotional state my lead to drastic decisions. Natasha's eyes grew at the implication as she quickly shook her head.

"No, no! Nothing like that! He just needed a space and," she turned to Clint, "I figured you wouldn't mind if I told him about the perch."

"Hey," Clint shrugged, "technically, it's his tower. He pays the bills, not me."

"Perch?" Bruce asked.

"It's a spot I discovered off of one of the higher floors of the building." Clint explained. " I think it's where Tony had intended to put a generator before he made the self-sustaining gadget that he has in the Hudson."

"We use it when we don't want to be found." Natasha went to close her book with her injured arm and grimaced in pain at the motion. Without hesitation, Bruce swept in to grab the book off the floor where it had fallen and cradled the bandaged arm.

"Is this the first time you are feeling pain since the medical team was here?"

Natasha nodded. "Technically, they didn't clear me to leave but—"

"You snuck off anyway." Bruce looked up at her and playfully smiled. "Makes sense."

Then Clint saw it. It was no secret that he knew Natasha very well. He had seen her be cold, friendly, and flirty on multiple occasions, some of them close up. Most of them had been part of a con or on a SHIELD issued mission. However, the smile she was giving Bruce, although small, was a look even Clint hadn't seen on her face in a long time.

"Well, then." The archer stretched his arms and let out an incredibly fake yawn, "I'm going to call it a night and let you two play doctor over here."

Bruce immediately blushed at the implication of his statement while Natasha nodded towards her friend as he saluted them both and headed into the elevator. As the doors closed, Clint caught a last glimpse of the two of them laughing before heading up to his floor with a proud and knowing smile on his face.