"It has been said that time heals all wounds. I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue, and the pain lessens, but it is never gone." ~Rose Kennedy

"What happened?!" Tony demanded, obvious anger glinting in his glazed brown orbs. His fingers twitched in a seemingly random pattern at his sides, but upon closer inspection, one could see that the movement was repetitive and exact, as if the engineer were subconsciously preparing the firing sequence to activate his repulsors. Tony barely registered the action at all, his mind far too preoccupied with the man laying unconscious before him.

Bruce was hurt. To what extent, he wasn't sure yet, but he knew by the way his heart seemed to set so heavily in his chest that it was bad. First the nightmares, next the blackouts, then his twitchy, paranoid demeanor these past few days, and now this...whatever this was. It wasn't good. It was magic, not science, not mechanics, not something of this world, of this planet, and Tony had no idea how to help him.

"I have no idea," Clint admitted, arms folded over his chest, his gaze following as Bruce's still form as it was taken from the stairwell by a medical team, concern in his blue-grey eyes. "But he's...he's messed up, Stark. It doesn't take a genius to see that."

Tony's eyes broke away from their intense hold on Bruce's battered form, slid over, and narrowed at Clint's words.

"He's broken, Tony," Clint stated, brows furrowed with a surprising amount of sympathy. It also didn't take a genius to see that the doctor had grown on Clint during his little 'sabbatical' away from S.H.I.E.L.D.

"You don't think I know that!" Tony snapped, leaning toward Clint with clenched teeth. "We're all messed up, Clint! All of us! Cap's lost just about everything in his life, Bucky, Peggy, his old team, everyone he's ever known! Thor's brother has tried to kill him, multiple times and nearly committed genocide against his own people, if the guy's story holds any truth to it at all, as well as almost enslaved us all. Nat...I wouldn't to touch that with a ten foot pole."

Something defensive, slightly heated, flickered in Clint's expression, but he remained silent. Despite what everyone thought, he knew when to shut his trap, when to pick his fights, and Stark just needed to vent a bit. No reason to bite back on Natasha's behalf.

"You know about your issues. And me…" Tony chuckled somewhat manically and mopped over the thick layer of stubble on his face, shaking his head slightly. "I'm about as fucked up as they come."

The heated flare seemed to dim, and Clint's features and tone softened a bit, but his expression remained uncharacteristically stern, especially when one considered who exactly it was he was talking to. "Never suggested that we weren't. But you have to understand, this might be magic, but that doesn't mean that it's just going to go away with the wave of a wand or a wiggle of Loki's nose, if he even agrees to help." He paused for a moment, a sigh escaping his lips. "Scars run deep. Some can't be healed in a day."

Tony frowned deeply and turned, his back facing the archer as he thought, shoulders tensed with stress. He found himself lightly tracing the sensitive flesh around the reactor, as if remembering just how it had gotten there, and he swallowed, his throat suddenly parched. Scars run deep...yeah, that was an understatement if he'd ever heard one.

"He may not be fixable, Tony. You have to face that reality," Clint reiterated firmly.

But Tony couldn't face that. He couldn't face losing his best friend to something like this, something so unknown and volatile, something that he couldn't control or understand. At least not in the limited amount of time they had left.

If he'd learned anything about this man from the months he'd known him, it was that losing control, of losing that firm grip on his sanity, or what was left of it, was one of Banner's biggest fears. It had only taken Tony one conversation with the guy to figure that one out for himself.

"But you can control it."

"Because I learned how."

"It's different."

Along with this memory, his mind kept returning to that moment in the Helicarrier all those months ago. Tensions were high, voices were raised, defensive, people were saying things out of anger, things they didn't mean. And Bruce admitted… well he didn't think that anyone was really able to see Banner the same way after that.

"I got low…"

It was hard to believe that anyone could be at a lower point than this.

He had been at that low point, after Yinsen, but that wasn't really the point right now, was it?

But then again, who the hell knew what exactly Bruce had been through before they'd met? S.H.I.E.L.D. might have some inkling, considering that they'd placed the guy under surveillance the minute after they got wind of his little stint with Ross in California. Not that they would ever willingly convey what little information they might have. Willingly, key word there. He could easily hack into their systems again, extract a few files on his favorite green rage monster but…

Well, despite his paranoia, Tony simply respected Bruce too much too pry into his past like that. At least the past the the doctor wasn't willing to offer up for discussion himself, without provocation. And if the good doctor was as keen on show-and-tell as Tony was, he might never get to hear about Bruce's past from his own lips. And Tony was strangely okay with that.

The point was that despite whatever may have happened in Bruce's past, whatever atrocities may have befallen him, Tony wanted to be there, to help him now. Bruce had grown to be one of Tony's closest friends and colleagues, and he wanted, needed, to help him, to make things right. He didn't think that he'd be able to live with the guilt of having idly and helplessly sat by while Bruce deteriorated in front of him.

He saw himself in Bruce. He saw it in the demons that the scientist harbored in the dark smudges beneath his eyes, the sleepless nights, in every burdened sigh that escaped the physicist's lips, in those fleeting flickers of pain that crossed the other's expression that he revealed when he thought no one was paying attention, when he thought no one could see them.

He saw the loneliness in the other's eyes that accompanied just about every genius throughout their life. And oh, did Tony know that loneliness. Maybe that was why he built so many suits, so many robots like Dum-E and U and Butterfingers, why he'd built JARVIS; maybe it was to fill a deep, aching void in his life, to fill the void that his guardian and mentor had left when he'd finally died, to fill the one in his heart that had nothing to do with shrapnel.

Of course, there was always Pepper, but that wasn't quite the same thing. Sure, there were things that the CEO could give him that his robots never could (lots of things, in fact), but there were still those things that she could never hope to understand.

But Bruce did. He got it. And maybe that was why it was so damn hard to see him like this.

"Stark? Tony, ya still with me, man?"

With a swallow, Tony mentally shook himself as he felt a firm hand on his shoulder, and he turned his head to meet Clint's concerned gaze for a brief moment. He blinked, slipped the familiar emotional mask over his features, shrugged out of the archer's grip, and headed toward the door, intent on following the medical team from the stairwell.

Tony paused in the doorway, however, a calloused hand resting against the door's metal frame as he spared Clint a parting glance over his shoulder and muttered determinedly in a strained tone, "Maybe he just hasn't found the right mechanic yet."