"Could spar, but then that'd ruin the surprise of all the new ways I fight." There's a hint of a smirk, the intention not-so-serious even if his voice makes it sound it is. He could see sparring. Especially if it ends with getting the shit kicked out of him. There's so much appeal in several ways to that previously-floated idea.

But not before a mission. Not when he has to be at his peak. And not directly after, when he has to lay the hell low and get out of town. But sometime between...hm. Yeah. Could see it. Especially when things get real bad. When his brain spins awful circles like tires in mud, leaves his skin cold and clammy and his chest feel like collapsing in on itself.

Though it isn't like there isn't the hint of paranoia, of Steve getting used to Clint's whole new methods of fighting that blends in the old as well, and somehow using that against him. What that would mean or even look like, he isn't sure, but the thought is there, background noise.

The verbal fight would be the one that would end up with them both wounded and cut deep enough to be hard to heal. He isn't opposed to going there, but it has to be a damn good reason for going there. He could do it easily just to make Steve leave. But that doesn't feel, currently, good enough. Some evening when they're feeling particularly vicious and vindictive?

It isn't that having a friend around isn't nice in its own way. Having someone to talk to besides himself does ease something, just a hair, inside his ribcage. But at the same time, it's a variable he didn't account for, something he was actively avoiding, something that butts up against whatever little holes in the ground he calls a temporary living space, and he recognizes that Steve is trying very hard to give him physical space.

"You afraid of me?" He doesn't think that's the case. Afraid Clint might rabbit and disappear again, maybe.