( open post. )

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1. leave prompts, pictures, or anything you like, really.
2. well when you say it like that it sounds stupid
3. okay, this looks bad.

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"Kitchen requires a lot more thinking so I overthink," he tells him easily enough. Everything else comes to him like breathing. Built and honed over so much time. A kind of muscle memory.

Clint notices the way Bruce tenses up and relaxes purposefully, letting one leg slide out from where it was so it's more a sprawl. He can tell what he's thinking but he doesn't plan on bringing that up unless Bruce does. Things go wrong and the instinct is to go to ground. Go to what's familiar. As close as they are---

Familiar is running. That's what's safe. "Don't think okay is the word for it, that witch did a number on 'em." He can't help but think that if she'd come after him first maybe he could've stopped this happening to the others.

[therapissed]

"Just a little."

Bruce barely remembers the violent rush of feeling Wanda's magic sink into his mind. It hadn't been just him, but she'd somehow bypassed his own mind to get at the Hulk, and the terrifying rush of rage that had followed had been sheer blind panic and a childish need to stamp out the source.

He sighs and rubs a hand over his face, pinching at the bridge of his nose. "Tony's lucky he got out alive."

Glancing over the peaceful greenery surrounding them, Bruce wrings his hands, squeezing a bit at the base of his fingers and thumbs, trying to find something to just do before he gets restless again. "It's only a matter of time before all our luck runs out, isn't it?"

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Clint doesn't have a lot of personal experience to guide off in regards to this. It's the second time Nat's been put under by an opposing force and left to face down demons she thought she'd buried. Suppose it's the same for Bruce as well.

With what happened here compared the beginnings of their team on the helicarrier? It feels very far away today.

Clint nods at the comment and licks his lips. "He is but he did, so focus on that. Don't do the rest to yourself."

There isn't a lot of good to grab ahold of at the moment. He's not exactly good at pep talks. He's not good at the whole hopeful turn of it all. He's a realist. He sees what's in front of him and what he sees? What they're up against? Bruce beats him to the punch with the question, like he's reading his thoughts and his own hands rub together as his chin drops towards his chest with a sigh. "Yeah. Looks like."

He clears his throat a little. "You know, way back where Coulson found me I would've just---bugged out." It's a hard thing to say. Harder thing to put on the proverbial table but there it is.

[therapissed]

Much like Clint just reassured him of Tony's survival, Bruce counters quietly with, "Maybe, but you didn't."

They're trying to focus on what is rather than what could have been. Bruce isn't too good at that, especially in a positive way, but he's trying for Clint. It's funny, really, how they both do this. Try to be positive where the other is negative, the blind helping the blind to stay on the rocking wagon that seems hellbent on throwing them off.

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"Be pretty awful to dip out on a good partner in crime," he offers back. Clint isn't sure he'll get his meaning but he hopes so.

They have options. They could just---go. Leave the saving of the world to someone else. Get out while the getting's good. Tony and Cap had been talking about ending the fight out there before tempers flared.

Maybe it's time for that. There's no shame in throwing in the towel.