The doctors had been out to see them twice since they had spoken to Tony, and both times they had looked grim. They tried to be encouraging, to sound optimistic, but there really wasn't any way to make he's still losing blood at an alarming rate, we're taking him back into surgery sound positive. They had received word an hour ago that Bruce was on his way and doing everything he could to help the surgeons, but it had been eight hours since the explosion and things weren't looking any better. As much as it killed him, Clint was starting to lose hope.

In his mind's eye he saw Steve's body, burned and bleeding, and he was beginning to think that maybe even the super soldier wouldn't be able to survive this. It was a new feeling. Steve had been injured as often as any of them – probably more so – but he always bounced back so quickly. The serum enabled his body to heal at a superhuman rate, but that serum was failing him now. Without it there was no way his body could cope with the severity of his wounds. You didn't have to be as smart as Stark or Banner to figure that one out.

Tony was silently pacing around the waiting room, trying and failing miserably to hide how worried he was. Clint had tried pacing, too, at one point, but had given it up when he could no longer ignore his own exhaustion and bruises. It hadn't helped much, anyway.

Without warning Tony rounded on him, anger replacing the fear in his eyes. "For god's sake, Barton, would you get rid of that blood already? I can smell it from over here!" Clint hadn't taken much notice of the dried red that covered him from head to toe, but now that he was aware of it his skin burned with the need to get it off. Without a word he stood and half-sprinted, half-staggered to the bathroom, going straight to the sink and turning on the water as hot as it would go. It scalded his skin but he didn't care, not as long as the red-tinged water continued to disappear down the drain.

He scrubbed his arms up to his shoulders, and then after a glance in the mirror scrubbed at his face until he was sure the top layer of his skin was gone. He ran his hands through his hair and then stood, bracing himself against the counter with both hands, dripping and trying to control his breathing and stop the trembling of his arms and legs. He focused on the sound of the running water and closed his eyes, feeling the weariness creep into his bones.

Somewhere behind him he heard the door swing open and footsteps came to a stop at his side. "I got an agent to bring you a change of clothes. And one of the nurses came out with an update. He's out of surgery again. They think they have all of the shrapnel out, and they were finally able to address the burns seriously. But he's not breathing on his own and they're still not happy with how they left things." Tony paused and placed his hand on Clint's shoulder. "Get changed. I'll let you know if I hear anything else." The real message went unsaid, but Clint heard it clearly. I'm sorry. Take all the time you need. It was as close as Tony was going to come to saying those words out loud.

Clint changed slowly, trying to avoid touching the dried blood that saturated his uniform, and tried to absorb what his teammate had told him. Out of surgery: good. Not breathing: bad. Bruce was still an hour and a half away: very bad. But at least there was hope. Clint had never been a particularly optimistic person, but right now he knew that if he let go of what hope he had left he would crumble. Hope was all he had.

….

Tony wasn't really big on guilt. To him, what was in the past should stay there and there was no point in reliving it over and over. Or at least that's what he told himself. It didn't stop him from hating himself for the look on Hawkeye's face after he yelled at him. But really, he'd been staring at tat blood for hours and it had started to stare back, following him around the room until he couldn't take it anymore. It was a relief when Barton emerged from the restroom wearing a clean t-shirt and jeans, his skin still pink from the hot water. They both remained silent even as Clint took a seat next to him and sighed wearily, looking longingly at the doors Steve had disappeared through so many hours ago.

Eventually Clint broke the silence. "Fury called. Natasha's on her way back from her mission. She'll get here about an hour after Banner."

Tony nodded. "Does she know?"

"I asked him not to tell her. She's not gonna take it well, and I'd rather be the one to tell her." Tony couldn't begin to understand the dynamics among the three SHIELD agents. Clint and Natasha had obviously been co-dependent long before the rest of them had come along, and somehow they had expanded to include Steve in their little VIP club. It made sense, really; they only came together as a complete team in the most dire of circumstances, but those three worked together on an almost daily basis. Here Steve was just another agent, albeit a slightly ore conspicuously dressed one. He was highly respected, of course, and knew his stuff, but when it came down to it he wasn't the one to make the call. When there were the Avengers, the weight of leadership settled on his young shoulders and he was a different man.

Tony almost found himself envying Clint and Natasha for getting to know the lighter, slightly less closed-off Steve Rogers. Although he was slowly opening up with the rest of them, he was still a twenty-four-year-old kid with severe PTSD from a war he fought seventy – and yet only one – years ago. He had lost everyone he had ever known and been thrown into an entirely new world. That came with some inherent emotional difficulties. Besides, it wasn't like Tony had any room to judge.

It just wasn't fair, he decided. The hits just kept on coming. How much could their team-turned-family be expected to take before they got a break? Other than Pepper, these people were the only good things in his life. And as much as he'd like to think differently, Steve was the glue that held them together. Without him they weren't the Avengers. They were just a group of dysfunctional people playing superheroes. Just as Tony was realizing how important they all were to him he was faced with the very real possibility of losing them. And it just wasn't fair.

He thought again of the information he had failed to pass on to Clint, and his stomach turned. He just hadn't had the heart to tell him, but he would find out eventually and know he had lied to him. But honestly Tony didn't think he could get the words out without vomiting. If he doesn't start healing soon, he'll lose one or both of his legs. Some of his arteries were severed and he's not getting enough blood to his legs. His tissues are dying already. He fought nausea. A Captain America without legs was a Captain America who couldn't fight. A Steve Rogers without Captain America was a Steve Rogers Tony was afraid to meet.

Tony was pulled from his thoughts by a SHIELD agent clearing her throat. "What?" he asked, rather rudely, but the woman seemed unfazed.

"I was instructed to inform you that the quinjet carrying Dr. Banner will be arriving in approximately twenty minutes. Fury would like you to meet him in the hangar to talk over any ideas he may have had on the way." Her manner was cold, completely indifferent to the condition of her fellow agent. It infuriated him and he hated her immediately. He left without a word and walked quickly toward the elevators that would take him up to the hangar. He was suddenly extremely relieved to be out of the infirmary. It made things seem less real, less horrible. This was where Tony was more comfortable. He needed distance. He could help Bruce try to figure things out, but he couldn't sit around playing the worried friend and waiting for more bad news. He just couldn't do it.

….

Bruce was so engrossed in the notes he had just been sent from medical that he almost failed to notice Tony waiting for him by the planes. His fellow genius was obviously equally distracted by whatever he was looking at on his phone, but they fell into step as they both headed back down the hall to the elevators.

"Did they tell you…?" he began, only to be cut off by his companion.

"Yeah, but Clint doesn't know. Have you found anything?"

Bruce ran a weary hand over his face, closing his eyes. "Maybe. It'll take me a while to know for sure, but they still have some of his blood in case I can use it. It's a bit of a long shot, but I may be able to accelerate the reproduction of the serum and mass produce serum-infused blood. It wouldn't be enough to make a new super soldier, but it should be enough to speed up his healing and save his life. But as for… everything else, I'm afraid going to be too late." The last part was barely more than a whisper, but they both sagged under the weight the words carried.

"I'll head on to the lab and get everything ready. You go by medical and get whatever we'll need." Bruce nodded, unable to say anything else before Stark disappeared down the next hallway, walking quickly and back on his phone. He was obviously avoiding going back to the hospital wing, and Bruce honestly wished he could do the same. But if there was any hope of saving his friend he had to assess his condition for himself and get what little of his blood there was left.

As soon as he entered the waiting room Barton was at his side. "Where the hell is Stark? Please tell me you figured something out." Hope mixed with anger in the archer's eyes, and Bruce thought vaguely that Tony may have been avoiding more than he'd realized.

"He went on to the lab to get to work. And I may have something but I have to go see Steve before I can get to work on it."

"Goddamn him! I just talked to a doctor. Steve's back in surgery in a last ditch effort to reestablish blood flow to his legs. He's really not stable enough to go back in but he's Captain America and he needs his fucking legs. I can't believe he didn't tell me. Especially after… but it's okay now, right? You can fix it, and I'll kick Stark's ass and it'll all be back to normal."

Bruce couldn't find it in him to say otherwise, so he kept his doubts to himself and proceeded past the doors to the ICU. He had to change into scrubs and wash up before being allowed into the OR, and when he finally got there he found chaos.

Steve, pale and still, lay on his back on the cold metal operating table, surrounded by frantic doctors and nurses. He was intubated, and the rest of his face was covered with bandages, as were his arms and neck. A blanket covered his legs up to the hips, but his chest and abdomen were wide open, filled with gloved hands and pooling blood. Monitors and alarms were blaring, nearly drowning out the words of the doctors. "Find the source of the bleeding, now! We're losing him. Jennings, get the crash cart, we're going to need it."

Bruce stood frozen, holding a surgical mask to his face and feeling as though his own heart were about to stop beating. The internal damage Rogers had sustained was obvious, and the doctors were fighting a losing battle. He needed to get them the serum-infused blood, and fast.

He caught the attention of one of the nurses in the hall and asked for the blood they had set aside. He never took his eyes from Steve's bandaged face as the medical staff worked feverishly to stop the life from leaking out of him. He didn't even glance at the nurse as she handed him the blood and then let to complete some other task. Suddenly a new sound, more terrifying than all the rest, cut through the clamor. Steve's heart had stopped.

Banner's heart pounded in his hears, mocking the fact that Steve was dead, and he very nearly hulked out right there in the middle of Med Bay. Everything became hazy, and he barely registered the morbid contortions of Steve's mangled body as the doctors attempted to shock him back into existence.

This was it. He had been too late. He had been off trying to assuage his guilt and because he hadn't been there, their leader was paying the ultimate price. Bruce finally had something good in his life and he had been too busy feeling sorry for himself to appreciate it. Now he was going to lose everything all over again.

Without warning the wailing of the alarms cut out and were replaced by the steady, if somewhat slow, beeps that indicated a heartbeat. The haze lifted enough for him to hear one of the surgeons report, "I found the source of the bleed and it's under control. We need to get out give him a chance to stabilize." Tears of relief sprung into his eyes, and both to avoid embarrassment and out of urgency to do something useful, he fled back out of the OR and ran past Clint without so much as a glance. That had been too close. Way too close. And if he had any say in it that wouldn't happen again.