Piece You Together - Bruce BannerXClint Barton

1

Bruce scrubs at his arms, nails digging long pink marks into the skin, but the painful pink is much better than the ugly disgusting filthy red that cakes his body, drying sickly brown and coming off in flakes as he scratches.

He hadn't meant for this to happen—hadn't meant to get so close—but he had no choice, the brute somehow came right up in his face, and his only other option would have been to turn and kill every innocent in sight — quick deep slice across the throat and the job was done but the spray...

How he managed to stay so calm on the journey back to the tower, with his heart hammering against his ribcage and his throat closing up and his skin trying to crawl off of him, Bruce will never know. A lifetime of masks and lies, most likely —a great deal of practice, smiling when he wants to cry, laughing when he wants to scream. A lifetime of ironclad control.

The mask cracked when he made it to his private lab,  he nearly shrieked as he watched his gore-spattered reflection in the bathroom mirror. Then, realising he was truly alone, bruce allowed the mask to fall completely, tearing his clothes off as though they burned him.

They are flung in a heap to the side of the room, clothes worth no more than rags to him now. There is no salvaging them. He will burn them as soon as he can concentrate enough to find a blowtorch.

Bruce tries to calm his breathing, but it still feels as though he cannot get enough air. As though his throat were swollen shut, narrowed to a whistling pinprick, his body forcing him to gasp and heave like a man about to drown. Terror and disgust roll in his gut, threatening to make him vomit, again, when it has already emptied what little there was in his stomach, right in front of Thor, no less, and he burns with shame to remember it.

He scrubs harder, caught in a panic.

He knows why he panics at the sight of blood, knows why the feel of it drying dark and tight across his skin engulfs him in horror, but to his great dismay that knowledge does nothing to abate the intensity of his reaction. In fact, the memory only makes it worse. Makes tears stream down his face, leaving wet streaks in the flaking gore. In between helpless gulps of air, he can hear himself in a reedy whisper, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I didn't mean to I'm sorry I didn't want to hurt him I'm sorry I'm sorry.

A hard, heavy pounding on his door almost sends him into a fit; the scalding hot water splashes out around him, spills onto the floor, swirling with thin wisps of rust from the blood that's come off.

“Banner!” comes the alarmed voice of the one person in all the world he least wishes to see right now.

He would answer, scream to be left alone, but he can barely drag his attention away from the task at hand, can barely breathe, much less stop his reedy whispering, because there is still blood on him and he can still feel it oh gods get it off me getitoffmegetitoffgetitoffI'msorryI'msorryI'msorry—

—and then the door bangs open, and calloused hands close around his wrists to drag his own hands to a standstill near his head. A low voice calls his name, calls it over and over again. Bruce can hardly hear it through the blood rushing through his head.
"Banner. Bruce, babe, look at me. Look at me, it's all right, I've got you, let me," Clint urges. His strong hand catches both of Bruce's wrists are, the other bearing the cloth that lay forgotten next to the sink, running it in loops across his skin.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” Bruce is still whispering, and he hates himself for being unable to stop, hates himself for the fear in his voice, hates himself for the tears streaking down his face.

Clint only smiles that broad, unassuming smile of his, the one that makes Bruce's heart do embarrassing backflips, and gently cleans him off as though Bruce were covered in nothing more sinister than mud. Clint continues to talk of nothing important, and though Bruce can't quite process what he is saying, the mere sound of his lover's quiet, rumbling voice soothes his terror. The fist unclenches from around his throat, and he finds himself breathing freely again.

"Bruce, baby," Clint whispers, letting go of Bruce's wrists, "Why don't we take a shower?"

Bruce barely registers the words, still distracted by the swirling anxiety deep in his stomach. Clint wraps one arm around Bruce, using the other to turn on the shower. He carefully guides Bruce under the cascading water, leaning him against the wall. Clint slowly stripped off his clothes before joining his partner under the water.

Bruce falls into Clints arms, holding him like their lives depend on it. They stay like that, latched on to each other until the water runs running down the drain truns from a rusty copper to crystal clear.

Bruce hates feeling so weak but deep down he knows that Clint will always be there to pick up the pieces and stitch them back together.