"I didn't say I didn't want you goin' anywhere. I do. You can't stay in this house, you'll lose your goddamn mind- I said the compound-" he snaps back while Clint's still going, so the two of them are talking over one another. He leans back, tipping the kitchen chair absently, rocking it up onto two legs as his heels plant themselves onto the tile. Braced for something, an argument, an escalation. Louder and louder, grappling voices, "I'm saying the type- the type of work they want you to do-"
And then he says Karen's name, and Frank's hand is the one that slams down onto the table, cutting himself off abruptly with a sound that reverberates around the kitchen and through his own mind and up his wrist.
"God damn it! Don't-"
Don't bring her up, don't bring her into this, don't bring up the fact that he never let them go there no matter how much she argued with him about it, because- because, because, because. The words flow out swiftly, with momentum, with rising tempo and octave, "It's a joke. It's a fucking joke, the whole thing's a god damn joke. I stay out of her way, I stay clear, I give her a wide god damn berth, I never brought her around, I never- so the shit that follows me didn't wind up gettig her killed, and what happens after years, years is some random bullshit act of god that I couldn't even-"
He stands up abruptly to pace away from the table. The chair tips the rest of the way backward, banging off the tile. When he paces back, there's a little more level control in his tone;
"You wanna work, great. Work. But don't expect that the kinda work they're gonna have you doing is gonna satisfy you for more than a week."
Because there's nobody to fight, you can't fight an army that doesn't exist. And the stuff they'll have him do, Frank bets dollars that it won't contribute to that fixing things concept he's so adamant about. It's gonna be crowd control, it's gonna be relief aid, it's gonna be anything and everything to care for the people just as lost and sad and fucked up as Clint is.
But hell, maybe he's wrong. He doesn't know that team well enough, he's just a guy. Maybe they do have some magical recipe for un-fucking the universe, maybe there's a twelve-step plan and they've got the whole thing completely under control, and all they need to pull it off is a retired father of three and some kickass arrows.
If that's the case, though, if they knew that much, if they were capable of it, he doubts it ever would have gotten this far in the first place.
More than anything, though, what he knows is this: the people Frank loses, he doesn't get back. Maybe Clint'll have a different script with a different set of rules. Here's hoping, but he's not holding his breath.
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And then he says Karen's name, and Frank's hand is the one that slams down onto the table, cutting himself off abruptly with a sound that reverberates around the kitchen and through his own mind and up his wrist.
"God damn it! Don't-"
Don't bring her up, don't bring her into this, don't bring up the fact that he never let them go there no matter how much she argued with him about it, because- because, because, because. The words flow out swiftly, with momentum, with rising tempo and octave, "It's a joke. It's a fucking joke, the whole thing's a god damn joke. I stay out of her way, I stay clear, I give her a wide god damn berth, I never brought her around, I never- so the shit that follows me didn't wind up gettig her killed, and what happens after years, years is some random bullshit act of god that I couldn't even-"
He stands up abruptly to pace away from the table. The chair tips the rest of the way backward, banging off the tile. When he paces back, there's a little more level control in his tone;
"You wanna work, great. Work. But don't expect that the kinda work they're gonna have you doing is gonna satisfy you for more than a week."
Because there's nobody to fight, you can't fight an army that doesn't exist. And the stuff they'll have him do, Frank bets dollars that it won't contribute to that fixing things concept he's so adamant about. It's gonna be crowd control, it's gonna be relief aid, it's gonna be anything and everything to care for the people just as lost and sad and fucked up as Clint is.
But hell, maybe he's wrong. He doesn't know that team well enough, he's just a guy. Maybe they do have some magical recipe for un-fucking the universe, maybe there's a twelve-step plan and they've got the whole thing completely under control, and all they need to pull it off is a retired father of three and some kickass arrows.
If that's the case, though, if they knew that much, if they were capable of it, he doubts it ever would have gotten this far in the first place.
More than anything, though, what he knows is this: the people Frank loses, he doesn't get back. Maybe Clint'll have a different script with a different set of rules. Here's hoping, but he's not holding his breath.