DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING

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Trigger happy

Bruce Banner thought today was going to be a normal day. It was already mid-afternoon and there were no calls from the police, fire-department, or SHIELD requesting the Avengers assistance for anything. Thor and Steve were on the couch watching yet another movie in hopes to better understand the references Tony threw their way. Natasha was curled up by one of large windows, reading a book while listening to music through her earphones. The good doctor himself had just fixed him a nice, hot cup of herbal tea and was about to head back to his lab until…

"Hey Bruce, if you see Clint around, try to stall him until I can lock up the lab!" shouts Tony as he darts past the other man. Something familiar was in his arms, but it wasn't usually something that the genius had unless he was given prior consent. And consent was something that was never given to the man, especially pertaining to that particular item. Sigh…the normal day calm was about to take another long vacation.

Tony had almost made it to the elevator. He was so agonizingly close that he swore his fingers ghosted across the silver buttons until Barton decided to burst from the ceiling vents and tackle him to the ground. The dark haired male knew what the archer was after, but he had already made up his mind that wouldn't give the younger man back the item until he was done with it.

"Damn it, Tony, give me back my fucking bow!" yells Clint as he tries to wrench his beloved possession from the inventor's hands.

"Not until I fix it! It got damaged during the last mission you went on, and I just want to help make it better!" The older man then pokes the other in his side where he knows an injury hides just beneath purple short sleeve shirt. The action was suppose to make the blond loosen his grip but it only re-enforced it.

"I can fix my own damn bow, thank you very much! I've been doing it for years without any help!"

"Well I know that I can fix it better!"

"So what? You're an expert on bows and arrows now?!"

"Did you forget that I used to make weapons for a living?! So yeah, I think I know a few things about your precious bow, no matter how outdated the weapon is!"

Bruce watched the scuffle from a safe distance, slowly shaking his head at the childish behavior. Natasha had only taken a second to glance up from her book before turning her back to the scene. Steve had flat-out ignored the fight in favor of watching the movie while Thor seemed to be torn between watching the action movie on TV and watching the fight between two friends.

Despite the fighting and cussing the scientist could tell that the two men weren't going all out. Clint didn't seem to want to damage his precious bow anymore than it already was and Tony didn't seem to want to hurt the blond's still recuperating body. This being the case, the scuffle could go on for awhile. Banner looked on for another minute before choosing to go watch the film with the super soldier and the thunder god. The fight would resolve itself soon enough.

"Would you stop being so damn stubborn, Hawk-ass?! Just think of giving me the bow a favor for having to fix the huge mess you made when you blew up the Helicarrier!"

The silence after that statement was so deafening that it seemed like the whole world had stopped because of it. The shock from that single sentence took all of the fight from the younger male, and Tony used the moment to snatch the bow away and make a break for the elevator again.

"T-Tony!" sputtered Rogers, once he had awoken from his trance. His voice was in full captain disapproval mode. "What in the world…?!"

"Sorry Cap, but that statement only buys me so many seconds!" Once the elevator door had closed behind him everyone's eyes shifted back to Clint, who seemed to still be in shock. After a while he finally woke up from his trance and quickly left the room. Natasha soon put down her book and followed after.

"I don't know what has gotten into Tony, but I'm going to find out," declared Steve.

Bruce watched the American war hero disappear into the elevator before walking over to where Thor was still sitting and collapsed onto the couch. What in the world was going on here?

"I thought today would be the day that we all relaxed, Friend Banner," said Thor.

"Yeah, me too."

XxXxXxX

A few days had past and Banner was happy that he didn't find Tony ax-murdered by Clint and/or Natasha. As promised, Tony gave the archer back his bow completely repaired with a few modifications, and Clint begrudgingly admitted that he couldn't find a reason to complain about them. The rest of the team was thankful that whatever disagreement the two had had been resolved.

Today the team decided to take it easy after dealing with bad guy of the week trying to destroy the city the other day. And Tony and Clint thought today would be perfect to further Thor's education on videogames.

"Okay Thor, you've beaten all the Atari games, and conquered the Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog games, and mastered the Zelda games. What do you wanna play now?" asks Clint as he looked though a pile of videogame cases. "You wanna try Gears of War, Halo, God of War, or BioShock? I recommend BioShock; it's a pretty good game."

"Uh no," stated Stark before ripping the game case out of Clint's hands and throwing it across the room. "This game is banned until further notice."

"Stark, what the hell?!" shouts Barton. "What do you have against BioShock?!"

The billionaire genius gave the archer an annoyed look. "Does it look like I wanna risk dealing with you going all blue eyed when the game utters that phrase, would you kindly?"

Silence entered the room again and Bruce was once again shocked at Tony's overly abrasive attitude towards Clint. Looks like their disagreement hadn't been resolved after all. Clint's posture went completely rigid at the comment before he seemed to inwardly shrink inside himself.

The god of thunder was also shocked and boomed loudly, "Man of Iron, why do say such things to the Archer?!"

Tony easily waved the bigger man off. "Pfft he knows I'm only joking with him, don't you Legolas?"

Bruce was about say something about his science bro's nonchalant attitude towards Clint's feelings, but stopped when Clint woke up from his daze. He still seemed a little out of it, but he insistently said he was fine with Tony's jokes, and offered a weak smile to prove it. Bruce managed to return it with a small one of his own before casting a disapproving look Tony's way. He didn't know if the man had been drinking or not. It certainly would explain his behavior.

"Really it's fine you guys. And besides, I think Thor would enjoy God of War much more." With that said Barton handed said videogame case to the demi-god, who shared a worried glance with Banner before accepting the game.

"Very well. We shall see why this man is deemed worthy of the title God of War!"

As the game began Bruce forced Tony's words to the back of his mind to focus on helping Thor get the basic concept of the game. He just hoped that this wouldn't turn into a serious matter.

XxXxXxX

Bruce wasn't sure this was a great idea. The whole thing was like a recipe for disaster! Tony and Clint were squaring off against each other in the ring, and the gamma genius had a bad feeling that this wasn't going to end well.

At the count of three the fight commenced and two began throwing blows at each other. Everything seemed to be going normal during the fight. Clint would jab and Tony would either block or dodge before returning the blow with his own. Maybe the scientist was worrying over nothing. Barton said he wasn't bothered by Stark's comments and had allowed himself to put against the snarky billionaire anyway.

The fight continued to wear on with Clint gaining the upper hand and was pushing Tony back. The fight looked like it was about to end and Bruce was happy that it hadn't turned into an all out war between his two friends. But before the blond could land another blow Tony had said…something to the other man which caused him to freeze. Using the opening the Iron man creator scored a direct hit to the archer's nose, causing him to fall back hard onto the floor mat. Oh-no…

Natasha was in the ring in record time and had Tony wrapped up in headlock before anyone could blink. If looks could kill the team would be short one genius. "What did you say to him?!" she growled venomously while tightening her arm around his neck. Oh, so he wasn't the only one who saw Tony say something. It must have been something bad if it got such a reaction from Clint.

"Nat, stop it! Put him down!" exclaims Clint as he tried pull his partner away from the inventor. "It's fine, really, he didn't do anything wrong!"

The red haired female looked skeptical, looking back and forth between her partner and Stark. "Are you sure he didn't say anything? I could kill him for you."

The archer chuckled softly while shaking his head. "Nat, I told you that we couldn't kill Stark because it would be hard to explain to Pepper why he went missing."

Tony gasped incredulously at the statement. "Is that the only why you two never kill me?!" He was answered with a sharp boot to the stomach.

"Really Tasha, all he said was that combining Cap, Bruce, and himself together would be Stark Spangled Banner. It was so completely random that I just froze."

If Banner wasn't sure that Barton was lying he would've been laughing right along with the demi-god and the billionaire. Well, Tony started to laugh, but he got another boot to the stomach because of it. The female assassin finally relented and dropped Tony to the floor. A small flicker of emotion entered her normally blank eyes as she said something in Russian to her partner. Clint smiled and said something back to her before following her out of the ring.

'Another crisis averted,' Bruce thought before moving to the ring to help his friend up. Besides winching every time he breathed Tony was okay.

"Nobody told me it was gonna be a tag-team match," he chuckled. "Why didn't you jump in and be my tag-team partner?"

Bruce shrugged. "Natasha's scary."

"Good point."

XxXxXxX

"Tony, we need to talk."

Said male and Bruce looked up from another one of their science projects to see Steve Rogers before them. Judging from his voice the man was in full Captain America mode and a lecture was about to handed out. Bruce had a feeling on what the talk was going to be about and worried on how Tony was going to take it.

"Do we need to talk right now? I'm in the middle of something," says Tony before snickering. "Stark Spangled Banner…that crazy kid."

"Yes, right now, Tony." states Steve before indicating Tony to follow him.

The billionaire genius rolls his eyes before getting up to the follow the man. "If I don't come back alive then I leave all of my science-y things to you, Science-bro."

Bruce gives his overly dramatic friend a wry grin. "I'll treasure them forever, Science-bro."

Once the two men leave the room Banner tries to keep his mind focused on the project in front of him, but before long his curiosity got the better of him. Creeping slowly to the room that his teammates disappeared into he pressed his ear against the door to hear Rogers laying into Stark.

"I don't know what you have against the guy that makes you such mean things to him! First the comment about blowing up the Helicarrier and then the comment you said during the boxing match!"

'So Tony did say something else during the fight,' thought Banner. He leaned closer to door to hear more.

"Look, it's kinda complicated to explain what's going on between me and Clint. I don't hate him or anything, quite the opposite really. He's my bro in all things pranking. And there no one else who I'd team-up with to pour inching powder in all of your clothes."

If the mechanics genius thought he could change the subject by admitting that he was one of the culprits that made Captain America itchy for three days straight he was sadly mistaken.

"So did something happen that made you start acting this way towards him?"

There was a pause before Tony answered. "You could say that, yes."

"THEN FIX IT!"

Bruce jumped back at the sheer volume of the leader's voice. That tone of voice could only be brought out by Tony. He could from the silence that the blond captain was trying to reign in his control before speaking again.

"Look Tony, I know you like making jokes and comments, but you have to understand that some of the things you say can be hurtful and damaging to team moral. Clint already has enough to deal with from his SHIELD teammates, and he doesn't need you adding on to it! So fix it!"

"I'm trying to fix it! I'm trying my damned hardest to fix it!" shouted Stark before calming down. "Like I said, things are complicated with me and Clint. I wouldn't expect you to understand. Not like you couldn't…it's just complicated."

There was huff of disbelief. "Tony, from my perspective it looks like you're seriously trying to break him!"

"Yeah, it does look like that, doesn't it?"

A noise was heard on the other side of the door and Bruce had to convince himself that it was the sound of someone face-palming and not the sound of someone getting slapped. If he had to guess, it was Steve who face-palmed which meant that he was getting tired of dealing with Tony.

"Just…try to remember that we're a team and we all need to get along with each other if we're going to save the world. We all need to be at a hundred percent and your comments aren't helping us to do that."

"I couldn't agree more with you, Cap."

There was another sigh and Bruce realized that someone was about to walk out that door. Moving quickly he ran back over to the table and pretended to work on…whatever they were working on.

"It was nice talking with ya, Cap! Seriously we should do this again sometime, but let's not have this conversation again! I mean it, we can talk about anything else, but this!" Steve muttered something his breath before and afterwards Tony made his way back over to the table. "So, have you made any progress on our project?"

"Unfortunately no, it's still a…toaster…"

Tony slammed his head against the table and groaned. "If that guy hadn't kept talking and talking about what it is that he thinks I'm doing we could've made this thing into something that's…not a toaster!" He continued to stay that way, sometimes muttering something and sometimes sighing loudly in distress.

This was a bit much, even for Tony. Something was seriously wrong here. "Tony, are you—"

At that moment Tony jumped up and smiled brightly. "Just gotta try harder! That's all we can do!" He then takes the toaster out of his friend's hands and began tinkering on it. "We just have to keep trying until it's fixed, right Bruce?"

Said man wasn't sure if Tony was talking about the toaster or something else entirely. "Yeah, we'll keep trying."

XxXxXxX

Bruce rubbed his arms subconsciously as he walked through the tower in search of Tony. The air in the building was freezing cold, and that was pretty unusual because Jarvis kept the air regulated. That knowledge only helped increase his anxiety. All this week it appeared that Tony heeded the Captain's words and no ill comment had been thrown at the archer. Banner wanted to be relieved by that, but he knew his Science-Bro well enough to know that this problem that was going on wasn't going to leave just because Captain America had ordered it.

'If anything, that probably made it worse,' he thought. It wasn't long before the scientist made his way to the living room where he saw Clint asleep on one of the large, plush couches. The air was even colder in this room and the blond was shivering because of it. Not wanting the man to catch a cold Bruce went to go fetch a blanket from the closet. As he looked through the closet he wondered if he should remove Clint's blue-tinted sunglasses so they wouldn't crushed if he rolled over…

Wait a minute…since when did Clint have blue tinted sunglasses?

Bruce turned around in time to see Tony creep over to where the blond was sleeping. In his hand was his usual sharp pointy object that he used to poke everyone and it looked like he was about to use it on Barton.

"TONY DON'T—!"

But it was too late. Tony had brought the metal object down in the center of Clint's chest and all hell broke loose. Tri-colored eyes shot open in fear before Clint flung himself from the couch in order to get away from the supposed threat. But the trouble didn't stop there.

"Why is everything blue? Why is everything blue?!"

From the sound of his friend's voice Bruce could tell that Clint was close to having a panic attack. The archer had told him of the memories he had of Loki when he had been compromised. His body felt like it was made of ice and everything had been in a shade of blue. Ever since then Clint did all he could to avoid that color.

'Gotta remove those sunglasses,' thought Bruce before making a move to do so only to be stopped by Tony.

"Wait."

Banner looked at the man like he was crazy. How could he just expect him to "wait" when their friend was a breath away from having a heart attack? But something in the other man's eyes and tone forced him to pause and Bruce turned his attention back to Clint, who finally seemed to be calming down.

"Damn it," whispered the blond as he snatched the sunglasses off and threw them across the room. "Damn it all to fucking hell."

The man sounded completely drained and Banner couldn't wait anymore and he quickly rushed to Barton's side. He was thankful that Tony didn't stop him this time.

"Are you alright, Clint?" asked Bruce as he wrapped his arms the around the shivering man. "Speak to me, Clint. Please tell me you're alright."

It took the man a while to answer because he was too interested in stealing his friend's body heat, but afterwards he muttered, "Y-Yeah, I'm fine. Just a little c-cold."

"Jarvis, return temperature to normal," says Stark before plopping down where his friends were. The air soon warmed up and Clint's shivering lessened. "Took you a minute to recover from that one, Legolas."

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" shouts Bruce angrily. He grabbed onto the billionaire's shirt and began shaking him back and forth as if to shake the answers out of him. "Why do you keep tormenting Clint like this? I thought you guys were friends!"

Tony, who was unable to stop his science bro from shaking him, tried to answer. "Really-Bruce-it's-not-what-you-think!"

"Easy Bruce, it's okay, really!" says Clint as he tries to pull Bruce away. "He was only doing this to help me!"

Bruce finally let go of Tony and turned to no longer terrified man. "Helping you? How in the world is this helping you?"

Barton looked hesitant before letting out a defeated sigh. "It happened when I went on that mission just a couple of weeks ago. Me and a small team of SHIELD agents were fighting a bunch of illegal weapon smugglers when I saw the boss trying to get away. I ran after him and then he turned around and came at me with this electric sword. I hate to admit it but the guy definitely knew how to handle a sword. And apparently he also knew about me and all that I've done."

Bruce gasped when pieces of the puzzle started falling together. "He didn't…"

Clint nodded slowly before continuing the story. "He asked me why I did continue to work for SHIELD when it was obvious that they didn't trust me anymore. Heh he must've seen the way the agents were acting towards me. Anyway the dirt-bag kept insisting that I work for him instead of SHIELD because…" There was a world weary sigh as he tried to find the strength to finish the rest of the tale. "…it wouldn't be long before L-Loki came back and took over me again…"

"Oh Clint," whispered Banner, placing a steady hand on the man's shoulder, who had started trembling again. And this time it wasn't from the cold.

"When he said that I…just froze up and the asshole used that moment to try and separate me from my shoulder. My bow took the brunt of the attack, but he still managed to cut me pretty deep."

'Physically and emotionally,' Bruce thought while gently rubbing Clint's shoulder. 'That explains what happened to the bow.'

"Ever since then Tony has been helping me to try and fix this problem so comments like that won't affect my performance in the field. And it's been working. Despite him being an asshole most of the time, he's a good friend and…he gets it."

"Aww Hawky, you say the sweetest things," says Tony, gently rubbing the agent's head. "And you guys were worried that I was trying to hurt him."

The gamma scientist rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and said, "Yeah, sorry about that. I kinda thought that you had lost your marbles."

Stark only grinned and pinched his friend's cheek. "Don't sweat it, Science-Bro. It just means that you're a good friend for trying to protect Clint. To be honest, I would have been a little worried if you hadn't jumped in."

"Yeah, thanks for trying to protect me. It's more than I can say for the people at SHIELD…"

"Don't forget that you have your Avengers team here to defend you. Are you ever going to tell them what's going on?" asked Bruce. He noticed that Clint looked a little fearful at the question, so he quickly added, "No one on this team is going to think of you as a liability, Clint. Everyone here cares for you and they would want you to get better."

"Damn straight they do! And I got the battle scars to prove it," added Tony. "I got chewed out by Cap, put in a headlock by Natasha, shaken by Bruce, and Thor keeps giving me this disappointed look that would make Steve proud!"

The archer chuckled at this. "I probably should tell them soon. We definitely don't want a repeat of what happened last time with Pepper."

"Pepper?" asks Bruce. "…You mean she knows?"

"Yep. The reason why Tony gets it is because I was helping him deal with his triggers a few months ago. Pepper walked in, saw what I was doing to Tony, and promptly slapped me across the face." He then gets up before grabbing both men's hands and pulled them up. "I'll tell them at dinner. I'll cook you guys whatever you want as a thank you…for everything."

Tony and Bruce looked at each other and smiled as they followed the younger man to the kitchen.

"It's no problem, Clint. That's what friends are for."

END

…..

This idea just popped into my head and before I knew what was happening the story pretty much wrote itself.