sixthiterationlogs | Hello Darkness My Old Friend

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Hello Darkness My Old Friend

WHO: Bruce Banner
WHERE: South Village Fountain
WHEN: 9/17
OPEN TO: Open to all!
WARNINGS: None yet

BUNKER/SOUTH VILLAGE FOUNTAIN

In the tube, Banner was unconscious. Nothing so restful as a simple dream, that would be too kind, instead his mind was restless. It was a waking nightmare, seeing people turn to dust before his eyes, seeing the looks of pain and loss on the few people in the world he still cared about, and the friend he knew best was missing, gone, who knows where. Everything was wrong. And now he was here. His hair was newly short and gray, his figure average and unassuming, and he woke up suddenly to propulsion that he couldn't possibly be ready for.

This wasn't really the first time he woke up somewhere he shouldn't be, in a place he couldn't remember; this was a common situation. It wasn't even the first time he was in the water, struggling to breathe, his limbs wildly flailing. But it was a rare occurrence that this moment of concern didn't follow with the feeling to the tip of his toes of the other presence waiting. Then again, he and the Hulk had issues. Issues not even close to being addressed. It meant he was vulnerable. It meant many things. Banner finally got himself together and swam up, figuring out which way was up, and broke the surface gasping. To where? To here. Where was here?

Exhausted and with a heavy heart, he sat on the edge of the fountain and breathed deeply, running hands through his wet hair. Nothing seemed familiar around there, but hey, it wasn't a planet geared toward trying to kill him or freak him out. So far. Don't jinx it, Banner. He sat there for a long time, he had no idea how long. He was in no hurry to move. The world was too much right then, and whatever this was, it was a few steps above.

The strangest part of everything was the clothing. The extras. Normally he woke up naked. So there was that one small good thing. It took him awhile before he was up and walking, but eventually it happened.

INN

At first he simply walked around. Nothing was familiar. In fact, he was fairly certain it seemed dissimilar from anything he'd known before. Some things were the same, yes, but Banner couldn't see how the Hulk brought him this far. And he was wearing clothes. What the hell was happening now? Was this another trick from Thanos? That made sense. He clearly liked to torture people. When he saw the inn, he paused. He tried to avoid people most of the time. It was too dangerous, he was too dangerous, except now he wasn't at all and that meant people he walked into could in fact be dangerous to him. He tried to reach out to see if the Hulk was still ignoring him.

There was nothing. No touch. No moment of anger or denial. No feeling whatsoever. Nothing. He was the only on home. At first he couldn't figure out what that meant. All these years later, how could it be? All the years trying to get here, and it just happened when he woke up. Stunned and overwhelmed, he could only stumble over to the outside wall of the Inn and lean against it. Not going in, just hovering there, and then he started to crumble down until he was sitting on the ground, staring off into space.

What was he feeling? Relief? Loss? Fear? Confusion? All of it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Bruce wasn't ready to process his varied emotions over Tony working with Thaddeus Ross because that's exactly what it meant and it was Ross who had the accords and Ross who was hoping they'd all fail and the Avengers almost were in the hands of a sociopath. "That's who Rhodey was talking to, he had me leave the room." Bruce was putting that together. It made sense at the time for no one to know he was there, outside of the other Avengers, but if Ross knew he was back, it wouldn't have changed anything right then, but later? Hard to say, when there was no way of knowing what the later was. Rhodey was protecting him, on behalf of Tony, he saw that now.

He was going to circle back to all of that.

"You were in a secure location, surrounded by Avengers, with the one dangerous person in custody, and you were retired. You can't always be the suit." Tony used to always be the suit, but it wasn't healthy for him. This situation was not the kind of one where people brought in a weapon thinking they'd have to use it, so far he got that much. "The man thought all of this through. That's a lot of moving pieces. A lot of if they do this I do that." Not outside the realm of possibility though. He and Tony were geniuses. If they wanted to manipulate situations to this extent and put their minds behind it, it would be done.

Ross must have loved it. Every second. Seeing Tony fail, having good reason to arrest or make an enemy out of the others. "So Steve, Sam, and Barnes are out in the wind, someone's framing Barnes, but I have a feeling things are about to get worse." All of this explained an argument between him and Cap, but a very, very bad break up? Not so much.

"You don't always get to pick who you work with when it comes to business and politics. The best thing I can say about Ross is he isn't Hydra. Sweeping all those connected officials out left a power vacuum." Could anyone honestly be surprised he stepped up to what he thought he deserved?

"It wasn't about being the suit it was about for once thinking I wouldn't need it to get through a situation. The one time I think we have shit handled, that I figure Rogers has his head on straight and we can talk through it, get through it-" Face to face with an armed supersoldier with hallow eyes that fired without flinching. Jesus. "It gets worse. So much worse. I'm...either we round up who we have left and collect them quietly- or another task force is assembled to do it. Military. This wasn't above board entirely but a lot of shit was getting flung around and again, people were terrified. Suddenly the Winter Soldier who's already killed once is on the loose, Captain America is missing, and the Avengers are a hot fucking mess. Rogers calls in Barton from retirement and Scott Lang. Romanoff, for reasons I don't fucking agree with, called in T'challa. Who was out for blood because he thought Barnes killed his father. I call in a pitch hitter as a show of force and a reminder that there are more people these Accords would affect other than us. Because it wasn't supposed to become a fight."

But it...when it was Rogers feeling like his back was against the wall? It would always, always become a fight.

"...We catch up with them at an airport in Germany. We get the place evacuated and I try, again, to talk Rogers down. To de-escalate. It doesn't work."

The only obvious reaction he had so far was giving Tony a very reproachful look about Ross. Ross was a different sort of evil, but an equal evil in Bruce's eyes. A very dangerous one, when he was controlling the government and now apparently the Avengers. There are a lot of things Bruce wanted to say, and not all of them were going to be what Tony wanted to hear, which was exactly why he was staying quiet. Because if he interrupted to ~~argue~~ discuss, they probably wouldn't make it to the end, and he couldn't know how it all fell apart without the full story. He owed it to Tony to hear him out from beginning to end and without jumping to a judgment.

There was a slight flicker of sadness in his eyes when Nat's name was mentioned, but that was a whole backlog of problems too. He sighed and patted Tony's shoulder, clearly letting him know that despite the look, he was still there as an anchor. "It was going to be a fight no matter what. Steve wasn't going to let anyone have Barnes. That's just always where it was headed." There was a lot of weariness in that, and Bruce was thankful now on about ten different levels that he wasn't there. With the Hulk in the mix and with Ross, it would have escalated but a hundred.

"It's a fight, a bad fight, but you sound like you hate the man now, Tony." Tony was forgiving in a lot of instances, of everyone but himself. "So I'm assuming it's still coming."

The look is obvious and- Bruce hadn't been there. Bruce had fucked off to space and he didn't resent him for it as much as he actually might. His expression didn't close off so much as he leaned back, out of Bruce's space. A reminder to himself not to depend too much on any one person. To expect anything other than derision. Relief made a man forget that shit, apparently.

"...Hate takes effort." And that's energy Tony decided a long time ago he wasn't going to waste on Rogers. "I don't care anymore. There's a difference."

Getting to that meant getting past Germany, so. "We fight. I didn't want it to be a fight- but we fight. Rogers drops a damn freight car on Peter, Romanoff decides to let them walk away to minimize damage when they finally get to a parked quinjet- Maximoff drops half a parking garage on me, Lang risks tearing himself in half to become a fifty foot giant that we have to knock down which distracts us long enough for Barnes and Rogers to bail. Rhodey and I give chase and- Sam tries to dogfight us. In the suits. The wings can't catch up, I'm not worried, Rhodey shouldn't have been worried but he put a call down to Vision to make Sam a glider. Bring him down gently. Wilson evades because it's reflex and instinct- and the mind stone shorts out Rhodey's arc reactor."

His voice went cold and clipped, flattening out. Hiding his upset that the thing he built to protect one of the most important people in his life? Failed.

"...We both dive to try to catch him. Neither of us make it."

Bruce felt the withdrawal and wanted to sigh more, because what was he supposed to do, approve completely of everything that was being said? Tony had to know that a lot of what was happening here were hitting all of Bruce's buttons, but he was there and he was trying. If it was anyone else, he would have already left the room, right around the time Thaddeus fucking Ross was mentioned. "Don't," he said firmly, not saying what the don't was, because it was obvious when he leaned right back into Tony's space. Don't.

Any of the swirling feelings in him dissipated, and his eyes widened. "Rhodey was injured? He seemed ... he seemed fine when I saw him." There was a lot going on at the time, it wasn't as if Bruce had a moment or two to step aside and ask how he was feeling. He was taking on a pretty serious government pressure moment, and helping the team figure out next steps with Vision. And this fact came closely on the heels of him realizing that Rhodey went out of his way to protect Bruce from Ross, which meant a lot.

"There's no point to saying it wasn't your fault, is there?" Not only his fault, at least. There was fault on every single set of shoulders involved in the situation. There was fault on his shoulders too, for Sokovia and the Hulk's actions before, for Ross' vendetta. Blame to go around. Bruce took Tony's hand loosely in his, eyes dropping down to it, so very tired. They really never got a damn break. "He's still ... you probably don't know. He's still alive."

"What?" He was allowed distance if he needed it. Best buffer in the world, a few inches. A few miles. A couple of lightyears. But Bruce leaned right back in and apparetly he wasn't supposed to peel back if he needed it and-

Fuck it, fine. He'll deal.

"You didn't notice the braces? Good. Means I finally have them discreet enough. There was massive spinal trauma. He was paralyzed, never supposed to walk again." And Tony couldn't abide a world where Rhodey couldn't fly, let alone couldn't walk. He'd spent days alternating between helping Rhodey with physical therapy and throwing himself into working on the braces, reintegrating them with the War Machine armor. Giving Rhodey back his life that he shouldn't have had to struggle to keep. "I know. Barnes told me."

But a second opinion, a confirmation? Kind of important. The tension in Tony's shoulders loosened somewhat, fingers loose in Bruce's hand. "Which is fucking hilarious when we get to the end of this little story. Rogers and Barnes high tail it to Sibera. Everyone else: Barton, Maximoff, Wilson, Lang, they get rounded up and sent to The Raft which is what happens when you break the law. You go to jail. Pretty sure the only reason they ended up there was Maximoff, not that it makes it better. They hadn't signed the Accords so there was no due process and I didn't get any time to try and get them a trial or held somewhere not fucking awful- also I was in the hospital with Rhodey trying to figure out what happened with Vision and what should've been a clean shot that never needed to be made- mistakes to go around. So. I'm injured, compromised, the rest are in lockup, Vision's contemplative, Ross is demanding answers and I've got nothing to give. But I know they're not just hiding out, Rogers had said something about a threat- more winter soldiers."

Which- fuck. One was bad enough. "I kill surveillance long enough for Wilson to tell me where they were going because two on five, even if two are supersoldiers, those aren't good odds. I fly out to Sibera which is when we start unpicking the tangle of planning Zemo had left behind. Killing the power grid to get at Barnes, killing his actual assigned psychiatrist to trigger him, setting off the bomb at the UN summit. I thought- we all thought he wanted the soldiers. A man that meticulous and detail oriented with five supersoldiers programmed to obey? It'd be a nightmare."

"Barnes told you? But Barnes is ---" Dead seemed like such a terrible word. Dust was what it looked like, dead was what it was. "He was one of the first people who died after the snap." Which meant that someone else must have told him. What a conversation that would have been, you died but here's the people who didn't. There were so few of them at the end. Bruce only saw the numbers they had in their corner, but out in the rest of the world? No one had the numbers. He had no idea about Pepper or Betty or Ross either.

It was actively difficult not to react to things as he heard them. He was doing better at the moment hiding his thoughts than he typically did. it was taking a concentrated effort. Tony was much better at seeming stony faced, although there were still curls at the edges of real emotion. Steve and Nat were steel traps. Bruce was really just aiming for not reacting to the Raft or what Wanda being there would mean or what Ross was really after. This was all a disaster, but he was very aware now about how much worse it would have been if he was there. Trapped in the Hulk on another planet was horrible, but on earth with the government trying to control superheroes and Ross having all the power and them fighting each other? The Hulk being there would have made it worse for everyone.

"All of you had trouble handling one supersoldier, the damage of five would be serious. But he didn't want them. He wanted to hurt the Avengers. Otherwise this wouldn't be about Barnes and it wouldn't be about you and it wouldn't be about Steve." Unless he was targeting one of them specifically, which was possible, it all worked to the same goal. The Avengers broke up because of this. So whoever this guy was, he won.

"I know." Barnes had told him that too. And then the word's in the air, the Snap, and all Tony could see or hear was Peter apologizing as he crumbled away. Nevermind that the kid was here and solid- having that ash and dust on his hands, his face, under his nails-

There was a reason he was always a little sooty, lately. Like if he tried he could reprogram his brain to associate it with something else. It hasn't taken just yet.

"We get there and- there's a bunker. Door's open, Rogers and Barnes are inside- Ross doesn't know I'm there but I can't let them face it on their own. But we get in and I'm only picking up one heat signature. There are five cryo tubes with corpses in them. Zemo shot them all in the head. Which, weird, but okay. He wanted all three of us in that Bunker to...see an empire fall. Zemo is Sokovian. He lost someone in the fight with Ultron. Everyone. And he promised Rogers would too which- that's a laugh." Seeing as he was the one that walked away with most of the team but, whatever. Zemo couldn't see the future. "An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again. But one which crumples from within? That's dead… forever. That's what he said. And...then he pulled up footage of an old dirt road dated December Sixteenth, Nineteen ninety one."

A road Tony had studied and obsessed over in the aftermath, trying to find the fault in the road, in the car, anything that might prove his father hadn't gotten drunk with his mother in the car and lost control. It wasn't an accident so it had to have been Howard balls deep in bourbon, being frustrated and reckless and that- that didn't fit. He'd been more careful with Maria in the car, always, but that had to have been it and-

Tony shook himself out of the fugue, scrubbing at his jawline. "...Apparently there was a camera close to where my parents crashed and had their 'accident'."

Now Tony was working with Steve and Barnes so it was baffling to think what could then turn it around and change things so drastically. What Zemo was saying and Tony was repeating, it did sound like he planned exactly what ended up happening. Bruce's mind was jumping around, until he heard the date. The date was familiar, why was the date familiar? As soon as Tony put it into context, Bruce's head picked up, brown eyes wide. The death of Howard and Maria Stark was highly publicized, and everyone in the science and technology field was horrified at the loss of such a great mind. He was all over the Project Rebirth files too.

"He made you watch?" That was cruel beyond imagining. Tony actually loved his parents. It wasn't like Tony would turn away, if Zemo was doing it to torture him. Whoever this Zemo was, he was scum, and Bruce really hoped he got some kind of retribution for all that had happened. But as awful as that was, why would it make Tony mad at Steve? Steve cared about Howard too, he would be sympathetic. His mind was curling over the facts, flipping them around, trying to find the through line.

It clicked all at once. Zemo pinned the death of the king on Barnes, so Steve would protect him, so they'd have to arrest him, so the rest would happen. If it was going to plan, it was necessary for those three people to be in the room. And if those three people were in the room, and he was showing Tony's parents dying, it had to be connected. It shifted again and reframed, and he just felt a wave of sadness that could knock him off his feet. For Tony and for Steve and for this entire screwed up situation and screwed up world. "It was a hit, not an accident, right?" Everything was rotten to its core. "Tony, I'm so sorry."

"I thought- I'd assumed, for years that Howard just did what he always did, had too much bourbon and drove. Lost control of the car. I knew there was a coverup with the story, I just- I was wrong in what they were covering up. He never would risk my Mom. Never. We might've argued and he might've been distant but he wouldn't risk her." The one thing both Stark men had in common: an absolute adoration and bone deep love of Maria. "But- we'd argued before they drove out, I've always been good at pissing him off, stressing him out, it's a talent. I blamed him. I blamed him and I blamed myself for years."

Decades. Baggage and issues and pain and all of it unresolved because of this loss cutting the legs out from under him when he and Howard were finally starting to talk and kind of understand each other. All that potential- gone. Irrecoverable. Tony's gaze swept to the middle distance, jaw working. Two years to process everything and he still- "Barnes looked like he was about to cry and I didn't get it until I saw Hydra's favorite Murder Doll roll up to the scene. He- ah. Howard recognized him. Last thing out of his mouth was 'Sargent Barnes.' It's kind of amazing how well a metal fist can mimic impact trauma from a steering wheel."

Horrifying, more like. "Strangled mom. Shot out the camera. But that-"

It cracked him open a little, still, every time he thought about it. Dug in and wrenched around until he couldn't breathe, even then with a full set of lungs and a sternum that isn't half so fragile as it ought to be. Sharp, pained, hysterical laughter trickled out of him from behind his palm, his eyes half closed. "That wasn't the worst part, Bruce."

This was a mess. A horrible unfixable mess. All thoughts about Thaddeus Ross was swept to the side, because for all of Bruce's own feelings of anger and betrayal and opinions, it really didn't matter much in comparison. That could wait, and it probably should, because he was already going to be irrational walking into it. Tony blamed himself for his parents, and then he found out the truth, but it wasn't like retribution or relief, knowing it wasn't his fault. A car accident was bad, but being murdered by a supersoldier, that was worse. And he strangled Maria Stark. Fucking hell. If someone had a video of his mother dying, rather than just the actual knowledge of how she died, it would be terrible, and that was long ago.

Bruce stopped himself from saying what could be worse? and instead just gently ran his fingers through his hair, rubbed his arm, he didn't know what really would help, if anything could help. That's what Betty did for him, when things were bad, and it didn't fix things but he remembered then he wasn't alone. His heart felt like it could bleed for the man in front of him, who gave so much to him and others, and got this back. "Just remember to breathe," he murmured, having had experience with emotional breakdowns before. "You don't have to continue if you're not okay."

"The worst part-" He had to hold it together because he's over this. He'd made his choice to step off the bridge while it was still burning before it took him down along with it. He was done. He didn't have to care anymore and that? That was a fucking relief. "The worst part, Bruce? Was that he knew."

Tony swallowed down whatever tangle of emotion that kept making his voice thick. The reveal had been devastating. What came after?

Something he should've seen coming from day one.

"Rogers knew. Since the Hydra dump. That my parents had been killed, and that Barnes did it." As much as he'd like to believe that brief moment of 'I didn't know it was him-' how could he trust it? After everything he'd been through in the days before, every line he'd tried to give, every pound of flesh he'd offered up to Rogers and the Avengers- he'd finally hit bone. "He lived with me, worked with me, laughed and had me help fund his 'find Bucky Barnes' missions for three years. And never said a word. I had to find out like that. With Barnes three feet to my left. Suffice to say I didn't handle it well."

That was devastating. Bruce could think of a few reasons why it happened. None of them excuses, just rational analysis. It came down to trust. Steve didn't trust that Tony wouldn't react badly, wouldn't try to hurt his friend. He didn't trust their friendship in comparison. Whatever trust had started to build, it wasn't enough. For Tony, that was devastating. He wanted to be trusted. Bruce didn't want to be trusted, personally. He didn't trust himself, he couldn't imagine asking others to. But it mattered to Tony, what the team thought, what the world thought, making a tangible difference, making up for his mistakes.

"Yeah, I don't know anyone who would handle it well. You were triggered by the situation and then by the video. Whoever his Zemo guy was, he was very astute. I wonder how he understood everyone's minds so well." A question that wouldn't be answered, but sometimes an outside view was capable of seeing what people close to it was not. You hit this pressure point and this one, and it explodes. Bruce was the last person to judge anyone for reacting badly in a situation. He literally tore through cities because of his poor anger management.

Bruce sighed and rubbed Tony's arms, trying to keep him in the moment, not lost to the memories. "So you fought them, the team split up, Cap and the others went on the run, and that's how things were until Thanos." He met up with them then. He told them they looked great, but they did look awful, just great in terms of him being glad to see their faces. "I get why it was hard to call him now." Bruce did instead. There wasn't time to ask questions, but it also was the end of the world. Bruce would have said as much even if he had context. Some things trumped personal issues. "That is all ... really fucking bad, and I'm kind of an expert on really fucking bad." He rarely swore, so when he did, there were good reasons.

"We fight. I blow off Barnes' metal arm, Rogers cracks the reactor with his shield my father made and gave him." Which was five kinds of fucked up every which way. "The whole time leading up to the Bunker I was trying to get him to listen. To talk to me, with me, to fix the mess we were in and he didn't budge an inch. Didn't try to listen, didn't want to. The one thing he actually heard? Was me telling him that shield didn't belong to him. He left it, shuffled out with Barnes over one shoulder and left me in Siberia in dead armor."

Vision came as soon as Friday alerted him in the middle of the fight but- it'd been an uncomfortable stretch of time trying to determine if he was dying or not. At least he'd gotten out of there before frostbite kicked in. "...one new sternum and a fresh set of braces for Rhodey to try later? I get a package. A bullshit apology letter and that phone."

That he'd carried in case Rogers would ever reach out. A reminder to not trust so easy, to not crack himself open at the promise of stability. That everything he built? Didn't fucking matter to people that weren't him. So fuck them. Storytime over Tony peeled away to pour himself a mug of water, dropping to sit next to Bruce on the table, sipping. It was awful. It was a fucking mess. It was...what Tony should've seen coming. "I thought, for a very brief moment-"

Because despair was fucking pervasive and this? This wasn't something he'd tell anyone but Rhodey and even then it took half a bottle of scotch and a promise of absolute silence from the one person he could trust with that shit. Bruce would understand, maybe. "About killing the homing beacon in the armor. Just. Letting it end."

Bruce was in a bit of a pickle. At a middle ground, where he understood both sides of this situation so clearly, and knew enough about both men to understand how tragic this all was. If Steve trusted Tony more. If Tony saw that none of it was truly in his control. If if if. Too many ifs, ands, or buts. He really wanted to sleep, maybe for a week, a month. "Right, the phone you had." And Tony kept it on his person, Bruce thought maybe there was sentiment in that, but he couldn't know for sure. As a person who lacked judgment, all it added up to was that no one could win. Well ... mostly a lack of judgment. Outside of Thaddeus fucking Ross.

This time he didn't stop Tony when he took distance to get the water, because he saw that he needed it. If there was someone who understood absolutely the moment when you just gave up on everything, on when the world seemed too hard to live with, it was Bruce. He told them all in a moment of fragility that he tried to kill himself, but it didn't work. He didn't tell them how many times he tried, how many different ways. It was futile, and he still tried. He could do it right this moment. Before the Avengers, he knew he would.

"No, a world without you, Tony, is a world not worth being in. I know you feel like you failed, and that the pain of living feels worse than the silence of death." Bruce put an arm around his shoulder, turning his head to prop his chin up on Tony's shoulder. "You are loved for who you are. Not by people who can't see it, but there's us, there are people who know you." For all his understanding of both sides, his loyalties were clear. "You saved my life. You saved a lot of lives."

"I had a right to tap out." If he wanted it. He'd given everything he was, everything he ha to keep the Avengers together, to make them something that'd outlast him. A legacy that would protect the world. And Rogers...didn't care. Didn't care so much he tore the team apart or let it get torn apart or-

It didn't matter. They broke. Tony picked up the pieces like he always did. Cleaned up their mess like he always did. Tried to double down and make having a smaller team work. And it did until...

Until.

Tony sagged against the bench, sagged against Bruce. It was over and done with, he got past it. He worked, he rebuilt his life, rebuilt himself again because that's what he did. What didn't kill him only gave him more to work with to build up his walls higher. He tried not to make the same mistake more than once. So. He wouldn't do it here. "Bruce-"

No one says shit like this to him- or if they did he couldn't really absorb it. Too many years of telling himself different but. He reached up, patted Bruce's hand. "...He saved me. Barnes. When I woke up I was in a bad way. Thanos impaled me, through and through. Nearly killed me. Then when I wake up here that wound reopens and Barnes? Patched me up, got me to a doctor. We've spoken. I've forgiven him. He's...actually not that bad."

"We all have a right to tap out if we want to." Bruce believed that. He wasn't sorry he tried to kill himself, and if he could have, he would have found a way to do it. Yes it would have been a sad end to a sad life, but then there were people who would be alive right now if he was gone. Everyone should have the choice to control their own life, but controlling others was where things got sticky. "It's your life, but I'm glad you didn't."

He could die now. Like anyone else. His mortality hadn't been much of a question for him for a long while, and he'd been young before that so he hadn't thought it over. Bruce knew he wanted to live, and he chose not to die, but he could now. He was a different kind of liability. Fantastic. Now wasn't the time.

Bruce nodded, his arm still around Tony. "I'm not surprised to hear that. He was a victim of Hydra. Nothing he did was his choice. You reacted emotionally, but with distance, you can see that and be willing to give him a real shot. You give people a lot of shots." He was someone who got those chances too from Tony, so he appreciated it, respected it. "I read a lot about that time when we were tasked with the Project Rebirth reboot, most everyone just cared about the science, but you know me, I like to be thorough and know everything. News reels, papers, that sort of thing. People spoke well of him." But he was secondary of course to Steve himself, who was the focal point. Captain America's best friend and sidekick.

"In hindsight, it's good I wasn't there, it would've all been a lot worse if I was, but I'm sorry you had to take so much on by yourself."

"So. Barnes and I are...alright. Clint seems to be over it, he's said his peace. Maximoff I'm avoiding for the most part because she doesn't know what all's coming and she doesn't want to know. Live and let live, whatever. Romanoff I can't get a read on and frankly? I don't know if I want to." Triple Double Agent bullshit was one thing, he could deal with that. He could handle her letting them by, the call she made in the middle of the fight, the choice she made to bring in T'Challa-

But those parting words? A little damning. If that is all she ever saw or thought when she looked at him, if that was the only thing that she understood from the time they lived and fought and worked together? He didn't feel a need to let her in again. Giving everyone except Bruce a chance to slink in close had been a mistake. They didn't have much in common other than save the world and maybe he'd been a little desperate to be a part of something good, something worthwhile and lasting.

Didn't matter. It wasn't enough. Nothing was going to be enough.

"Probably would've ended with me telling Ross to go fuck himself, political fallout or no." He huffed, scrubbing at his face. "Yeah, well. That's what I do, isn't it? Pick up after everyone, make reparations, smooth things over. It's not like I already have two full time jobs or anything. The split was- messy but probably a long time coming. You had it right at the beginning. We were a time bomb."

"Nat ... Nat's gone through a lot too. I know she's a hard read." Bruce wouldn't pretend that he was objective on this matter, but he also had kept his feelings about her and their situation very close to the chest. He'd never really spoken about it to anyone, there hadn't been time, and he never got to process. It was there, in the way he used her nickname instead of her full name, in how familiar it sounded. They had a window, and it closed, but he would never forget the things she said to him, or the glimpses into her true self she gave him. However fleeting.

"That's not where it would have ended, and political fallout isn't the worst thing that would happen." He could see a lot of scenarios, and all of them led to greater disasters. No one could understand the levels that Ross would go down to like the man he hated. Bruce could see his vision, and that was what frightened him. Outside of generalized fear and hate toward someone who wanted to torture him. There was no point to trying to guess what Ross had in store for him. If the Hulk was still not coming out if/when he got back, he'd end it before Ross could get his hands on him. It was that simple.

He shrugged. "Of course we were, Tony. We're a group of troubled people with super powers and complicated pasts all attempting to find redemption through violence. You can't smash everyone together like action figures. Fixing the world wouldn't fix our own problems." Bruce said it matter of factly, and it wasn't meant darkly either, or pessimistically. They were human, that's all. "But we did put up one hell of a fight before we lost. For a short time, only the mission mattered again." The interpersonal drama was gone. Now only if it could stay gone.

"If you think I wouldn't burn the world down to keep you safe, Honeybear, you got another think coming." Political clout or no. Accords or no. He'd tried, he'd been trying to keep things together but without Bruce on the team? Without being there himself? It wasn't that he was less invested so much that he'd been sure Rogers and Rhodey had it locked down. Being proven wrong was always some kind of disappointing. But that? That was something special.

If they'd all been there, if the'd all needed him? He would've stuck it out. As it was, they didn't, he stepped back, didn't do enough (as usual) and...

They were where they were.

"It was supposed to be my legacy. Something I built that would do good. Outlast me. That's the real bitch of it- Rogers'll be around to see whatever will be coming down past this fight or the next one, see if it ever grows back. I won't." It'd been getting harder and harder to bounce back, current wristband induced mojo notwithstanding. They could've been the framework for something great. Instead? A mess. A broken mess he had to rebuild alone, which- not surprising. Not really. "We were supposed to save the world. And...we didn't."

They failed in the most spectacular way possible. "...I had it in my hand, Bruce. We had a plan, me and the kid- we almost had the gauntlet off of him."

Bruce wasn't sure if he believed him or not. He believed that Tony believed that, and he was impulsive, emotional, loyal. It would put everyone at risk and beyond that. But it wasn't what he would have chosen for any of them. He shook his head slowly and, turned toward him, so he could look in his eyes. "I love you, Tony." He'd only said those words to two other people, his mother and Betty, and it fit in with the sheer importance of who they all were to him. He knew they weren't really the types of words friends always just threw at each other, because it was typically understood or unspoken, and that had been true for them.

"I know you don't want to hear this, but what Steve did for Barnes? I would do for you. Do I think Steve should have trusted you? Yeah, I do. If he told you everything when he found out, it would've given you time to cope and you would have helped him." Bruce had no doubts about that. If anything, given all the facts, understanding what was going on, might have given him more incentive. And it would have built stronger trust between the two of them. "But it's the person he loves above all others on the line. Not everyone's strong enough to make good decisions when blinded by that kind of loyalty, or that kind of fear. I'm not saying you should or could forgive him, because he did the wrong thing, and he hurt you. Maybe you can understand why though. We all do stupid things for the people we love." He made Ultron. Exhibit 1.

He knew it wasn't what Tony wanted to hear, probably, and when they first met, he would've been afraid to talk back to him. He was always afraid of the loss of something he cared about, so he played it safe at first. Now? They'd gone through hell. It seemed pointless to avoid real conversations. "We had some almosts too. Wanda killed Vision, and he turned back time to take it right out of his head like it was nothing. Thor put an axe through his chest, but not through his head, so he could still use the stones and win. This wasn't your fault, it isn't solely on your shoulders, we all failed. I don't want you thinking that you're the only one responsible."

It wasn't Bruce's fault that Tony flinched. That he pulled back, eyes flicking away to spare himself whatever he might see in Bruce's eyes. Too many times he'd had those three words primed and sharpened like a knife, braced to carve away another layer he didn't want to give, to dig in and twist to leave him raw and aching in the aftermath. Rhodey and Pepper knew how to say it without saying it, knew that hearing it punted Tony back to a place that was dark and cold and ragged. Bruce didn't know, Tony didn't share that part of his issues. Rhodey lived through them alongside Tony- Pepper picked up from context.

Bruce didn't know how many of his issues stemmed around those three words. Hearing them, not hearing them, trying to find the right way to say them without saying them. The rest, comparatively, was easy to hear. He'd rationalized why Rogers did what he did during the accords mess. That wasn't the issue. That hadn't ever been the issue. It was the lie. Living with him, knowing him, and choosing not to trust him with something he had every right to know. Letting that get ahead of what might've been right not just for him and Barnes and the Avengers- but every other enhanced individual that'd fall under the purview of the accords.

But asking for any kind of long distance thinking from Rogers had always been a little foolhardy. How could a man look forward at what was coming when he spent his whole life staring behind?

"...I'd ask what took so long for Wanda to come around to that choice because Vision would've offered himself up as soon as he knew what the stakes were." Rationally, logically, it was the only call to make. Wanda not wanting to- that fit. She'd lost her entire family, her security, everything. Vis was all she had left. Having to pull the trigger herself? Some kind of impossible. But she would if pressed. "But I have a feeling I won't much like the answer."

Bruce didn't take it personally. He didn't know Tony's reasons why for reacting that way, but it was fine that he did. The words were not said expecting a return answer, because he already had ample proof of how Tony cared about him. He showed it in other ways, but Bruce had a harder time doing actions that made it obvious. He couldn't protect Tony the same way, or make him safe, he couldn't fight off the world for him. All he gave was take and be grateful for it. It seemed only right the thing he could give back was love and gratitude. Tony deserved to hear things like that, but Bruce wouldn't say it often. He wanted to make a point.

"He did." That was the obvious answer. "I was there. It was his first instinct after I updated everyone on the situation." That was more or less Bruce's job when he came back down to earth. He was the only one who knew what was coming, to the best of his ability. "I think many of us would have wanted to do the same." Bruce would, if he could, without question. "Wanda was the only one with the power to do it, and she couldn't. Again, we do stupid things for the people we love. I wouldn't mind doing it to myself, but if I was asked to kill Betty with my own hands? Or you?" Or Nat. "It would be much harder." He probably would still do it, but it was hard enough he understood.

He shrugged. "I came up with an idea to try and remove the stone from his head. I figured there may be enough Vision separated from the stone, considering how he'd advanced himself, and he had his other parts to count on." He knew intellectually they should have pushed, but it seemed pointless, so Bruce looked for other options. "I think we all believed we might still have enough time. We went to Wakanda, the king there has a genius sister, and she started to work on removing it. But then the bad guys arrived." He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Vision asked again, and ... she still wouldn't." It was the wrong choice, but he understood all the same.

"...What does it say about me that I'd pull the trigger?" If it was Pepper, if it was Rhodey, if it was Bruce? He'd hate himself forever. He'd become a miserable, surly drunk afterward but-

One life verses half the universe. Half of all sentient life, a number too large to get around no matter how he tried to run the math. Half of all life- Peter, Happy, May. The world he fought so hard to save. That he tried so hard t protect. He'd do it. Perhaps it made him the heartless bastard people assumed him to be. What was one more life on his hands? Needs of the many outweighing his need to have someone, anyone, that loved him. That cared. That mattered. He'd had to cut his own heart out before.

"Strange gave up the stone to spare me." He muttered, eyes dropping closed. "It was- we fought. Gave you as much time as we could. He threw a moon at me."

Which was wild and he still had nightmares about space, again, just in a brand new flavor of awful. Fun times. "Shuri? She's brilliant. Helped with the bleeding edge armor. I probably could've cracked nanotech in...five years, if I'm being very generous, but she's something else- fuck I hope she's alright. We might actually be able to manage to fix this if she's still alive."

Young. So fucking young and she'd already lost so much-

Tony knew how that was to some extent. Knew how it could drive a mind to distraction, to working every possible angle.

"I think it means that you're stronger than a lot of people. It would be hard, but I could do it. But I'd probably try anything else first, like we did with Vision. Except if it was me, I'd know it was over the second that army came into view. I'm sure if Vision could do it himself, he would've without hesitation. It was his life and death to choose, like therest of us." Bruce thought one person first half the world was pretty much an obvious choice. It wasn't even a Sophie's choice, it was right out there, the only choice. But still, his heart had gone out to her, because he was one pile of fluff underneath it all. Nat had gotten that right. Maybe that was why he was so willing to have bygones be bygones here.

"That's ... interesting. He didn't strike me as someone who would do that for a stranger." They only met for a moment, but Strange was very clear on where he stood with the stone and his mission for it. Though he shouldn't have fought in the first place, he should've gone off to wherever the wizards had been hiding all this time. It was done all the same. He seemed like he had his head on too straight and logical for something sentimental. "I think we were winning the fight. The one with Thanos' army. Thor came out of no where and just started wrecking everything in sight." Bruce smiled. "You haven't seen him in awhile, but he's stronger now than I can put into words. He took the Hulk on and said he won." Bruce had some doubts about that.

"Shuri may have thrown what I think the kids call shade at us. Implied we didn't make Vision the right way." Clearly Bruce didn't mind, there was appreciation in his tone. Brilliant minds always appreciated one another. "You and me were ahead of our time at her age, but I don't know, I got a handful of minutes with her and already could tell she'd flown ahead."

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CW mention of suicidal ideation

CW mention of suicidal references

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TW for suicidal reference

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