[I am so giddy right now, because - for the first time in several months - I was able to actually write a oneshot. School drained me completely, and I've been sitting for a couple weeks, trying to recover, but I'm still emotionally and physically strained. I finally decided that I HAD to write and not just sit here, so I forced myself to write yesterday and today, and I finished something. I am so EXCITED! Hopefully I'll be able to keep myself writing, but we'll see what happens; I'm still pretty exhausted.

This obviously is not the typical subject I pick, but it was the only oneshot idea I could get down on paper. I hope you enjoy it!]

Nobody could comfort him.

Sure, others had tried. Natasha often gave him that look, the one that tried to soothe him and remind him that was some kind of mind control, not your own actions. Sometimes, she actually voiced it, but he brushed her off. She didn't understand.

No matter how much he loved her—he wasn't sure yet whether it was a brother-sister relationship or something more, but it was definitely a form of love—he couldn't get her to understand. She hadn't been controlled, she hadn't wanted so desperately to fulfill Loki's every wish or need. He knew she wanted to be helpful, to make him realize how it wasn't his fault, but he couldn't keep his mind from reminding itself how useless it had been. Look at how many people you killed, it would say. You swore you would never kill someone who was harmless, but look at you. You nearly destroyed S.H.I.E.L.D., and all of your friends, Natasha, your director… they'd all be dead. What do you feel about that?

He woke up many nights, terrified by his crimes.

The others also tried to comfort him. Tony attempted to make him to play pool one night—Clint had instead brushed it off, telling him he wasn't in the mood—and Steve had tried to confront him, remind him that it was not his fault, but had failed at making any progress. No, Clint's mind wasn't to be swayed; he was convinced he was to blame for all of the funerals that had to be held.

Bruce was the only one who stayed away. At least he had the decency to not hide what he really felt.

There were some times that Clint could feel everyone's eyes on him, penetrating him, trying to figure out why he had done it. Once, when he had walked into a room occupied by nearly a dozen S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, he could've sworn he heard someone think, "Why hadn't he fought the mind control?" Even though Natasha had later tried to tell him that he had been imagining the whole thing, Clint was convinced someone had been thinking it.

It was exhausting, especially since he was running on very little sleep. Every night was dominated by nightmares of terrified eyes and blood.

I can't survive this torture, Clint thought to himself one evening, as he laid in his bed after firing an arrow at Natasha, a dream that frequently woke him. Mental torture… I wasn't trained to handle it. And nobody can help me.

When he finally drifted off into a troubled slumber, he concluded that nobody would ever be able to comfort him.

Little did he know it, someone could.

"Good morning," a voice commented from behind Clint, as he sat at the kitchen table in what Tony had deemed the Avengers' kitchen. He turned his head, nodding in Bruce's direction, continuing to stir at his coffee. Last night had been a sleepless night, so he had given up and decided to get ready early. He'd figured nobody else would be up to disturb him—Tony was most likely awake, but he would be holed up in his lab if he was—but apparently not.

For a while, the both of them were silent. Bruce was in the process of making a cup of coffee, while Clint was absentmindedly stirring his, ignoring the fact that it had long since gone cold and he hadn't drunken more than a couple sips. It was the kind of silence that was somewhere in between peaceful and uncomfortable, leaning more toward the peaceful side. Clint felt an itching urge to say something to the doctor, but it wasn't as serious as it would be in some situations.

Bruce was the first to speak. "Did you sleep well?" he asked, his coffee finishing up.

"Not particularly."

"That's a shame."

There was more silence, broken briefly by the ding of the coffee maker and the hissing sound it made as it poured into the mug that Bruce held—one that expressed some things that only Tony would be interested in enough to put on a coffee mug. Once Bruce had filled it, he returned the coffee pot to its base, and shuffled over to take the seat opposing his fellow Avengers.

If Clint hadn't been so exhausted, he would've been amused by Bruce's wild bedhead.

"Are you okay?" Bruce asked after a while of them just sitting there, the doctor sipping his coffee while Clint stirred his. When Clint looked up at him, startled by the sudden question, he noticed that Bruce was looking at him with a concerned expression.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he responded automatically, but he couldn't help his fingers from fiddling with the spoon he'd been using on his coffee.

Crossing his arms on the table, Bruce commented, "No you're not. I can tell. Trust me, you don't need to hide it; I understand what you're feeling."

"Oh yeah?" Clint asked, not amused that he was being confronted yet again by one of his fellow Avengers. They were very persistent as well as very cautious around him, and it was beginning to become irritating.

For a moment, Bruce just gave him this look, a look that said are you really asking me that? Once Clint thought about it, he muttered, "Yeah, I guess you do."

"I live every day in fear," Bruce began. "I worry that some little thing, some insignificant thing is going to set him off, provoke the Other Guy into destroying a whole town or even city. Every night, I see the horrified faces of the men and women and even children that the Other Guy murdered—" he spat out that last word, his tone bitter, "—and I think to myself, I am such a monster. A monster who doesn't even allow himself a home. I have been on the move so long, I don't even remember what it is like to live stationary. Hell, I'm not even sure I'm going to stay here very long." He gestured to the kitchen before he continued, his voice smaller, saddened. "I've learned to expect solitude, as well as self-hatred."

The archer's throat had gone dry.

"So, what are you saying?" he asked, his voice hoarse and strained. "I shouldn't wallow in my self-pity, because my life could be worse?" He suspected that wasn't what Bruce had been trying to point out, since he was one of the nicest of their small team, but that was the way it was being presented.

Just as he thought, Bruce shook his head, his eyes focused on the edge of the table. "No, I hadn't gotten to the point yet. What I'm trying to say is, you can't easily get over something that horrible. You will still have days where you feel like the worst human being in the world, and all because someone else forced you to do it, someone else had control over you. But, you have to remember that you did some incredible things during the battle of New York. You saved so many peoples' lives, and you were key to our success."

Turning his eyes so that he was staring directly at Clint, he stated, "On the days where you aren't pained by your actions, you'll find you can forgive yourself for everything you have done. Whenever I think of the Other Guy fighting alongside you, the Other Guy saving Tony…" he trailed off, his eyes suddenly fixed on a point above Clint's head, a wistful smile on his face. "Well, I know I almost can."

Clint began opening his mouth, prepared to say something—he wasn't sure what, but words were on the tip of his tongue—but Natasha picked that moment to wander into the kitchen, her eyes glazed over from waking up and her red curls tangled into knots. The words died from his throat, and Bruce's attention turned over to her. "Good morning, Natasha."

"Good morning, Doctor Banner."

"You know to call me Bruce, right?" he said, smiling at her as he stood to his feet. Nodding at Clint, he told him, "My guess is Tony is probably trying to blow up something by now, so I should probably go supervise him. I will talk to you later, okay?"

"Okay." He had nothing else to say to him, and he probably wouldn't for a while. For once, someone had finally said something that felt so relevant to him. He wasn't quite ready yet to properly express his thanks.

As Bruce left the room, Natasha watched as Clint's eyes followed the doctor out the door. Taking the seat Bruce had previously occupied, she yawned, and then asked, "I see you were talking to Doc- I mean, Bruce. Are you doing better?"

"I'm doing better," he agreed, and for the first time in a long time, it was the truth.