brandingproblem | open post

Clint freezes. And he hates that he freezes, because it means he can't fully deny anything or brush it off as nothing to talk about at all. "Who said anything about 'won't'?" Sip coffee. Be casual. "Don't worry about a thing. Be back before you know it."

So it's an escape. So sue him. Spent a little time together, have plans to spend more time together than they have in what feels like an age, acknowledge they're both some form of fucked up (even if Phil seems fine, so far, even if waiting for the other shoe to drop), and it'll all work out in the end. He can escape so long as Phil lets him, because it's still something he needs help with, and it would've gotten done one way or another.

But if he spends a little extra time away than strictly needed, well. It's fine. Even if he feels bad about it. It won't kill either of them.

Phil suspects Clint will kiss him when he comes back just to be a stubborn asshole and prove nothing is wrong. When clearly something is. He didn't miss the way Clint went tense for a second.

Still, Phil might just take it.

But they've been through these rough patches before. Phil worries sometimes about the propriety of what they're doing. Clint worries he's going to ruin things by being himself. They're a mess but they do better together. They've always been better together.

He sighs to himself and waits patiently for Clint to come back.

He does eventually come back. With fresh, folded laundry. And? Fresh donuts as well. As recompense.

"Just call me your housemaid. Got anything else that needs doing? I'll be a handyman all day long so long as it makes you comfy. Pretty sure I remember where all your clothes go, too, so I can put all that away, and then...whatever else you need."

"Once you put that away can we please talk?" Phil watches him, frowning slightly. "If you say no or try to avoid it I will get up and follow you."

Because he's a stubborn bastard and refuses to let this awkwardness go unaddressed for long. He might have given Clint more time if he had come sooner.

There are some things he wants that Clint can't give him right now so they need to sort that out.

"...Yeah. Whatever you need."

He sets the box of donuts beside Phil with a brief smile, then disappears to go sort away all the clothes. Worrying all the while. Given he knows damn well what the conversation is going to be, and he doesn't want to have it. But he's not going to make Phil get up or do anything he shouldn't. Even though moving around clearly isn't going to do too much to Phil, but...still.

He at least doesn't dally. Does the job he's taken on himself and then comes back out, to grab another mug of coffee that's been sitting warm in the pot, and a donut, and sits like this is all cool and fine.

You Phil thinks to himself but doesn't say it out loud. Clint's spooked enough.

"Is there a reason you're scared to be here?" he asks watching Clint. He can read him pretty well after all these years. He wants to know the answer.

Hopefully, it's not that Clint feels guilty about what happened to him. The other agents, what he did under control, Phil can understand that. What happened to him was his own choice, though.

A frown. "I'm not scared. To be here. I mean, I figured you'd be...kinda pissed about how long it took for me to get here. I should've visited you in medical; I should've shown up here sooner. I should've been here. For you. And it took Nat yelling at me about it to even show up."

Well, Phil can't really argue against those points. Clint should have done those things. Medical had been painfully lonely except for the occasional visits from Nat and Stark, of all people.

"You are dealing with a lot yourself," he says, his voice calm and patient. "I also figured SHIELD wouldn't let you see me until they were relatively certain that you were free of Loki's magic."

He reaches across the distance, again simply laying his hand on Clint's knee. "You needed time. Nat was probably tried of me asking for updates all the time."

"Yeah." About not letting him visit an at the time critically injured agent until cleared. About dealing with a lot, but that alone doesn't feel like an excuse.

Phil touches him again, and he gets it, he definitely does, and it's nice, and he allows it, but it's also just kind of weird in a way that's hard to define. He opens his mouth to say more, then...doesn't, and chews on his donut instead.

Phil lets the silence sit for a bit to see if Clint will say anything else but no, he doesn't say anything else. It's frustrating but much about Clint is. Always has been and for some reason that doesn't discourage Phil.

"Do you need me to forgive you?" he asks, still studying Clint. "Or apologize for risking my life against an alien god?"

He expects the answer will be no on both counts but Clint can surprise him.

"No." But then he stares into the middle distance, frown deepening. "Don't apologize. But..." An amendment. "Do you forgive me? Because you don't have to. If you don't."

"I never blamed you in the first place," Phil says honestly. Now he has to look away. "This is going to sound awful but I was... kind of relieved when you showed up in security footage. I thought... I thought you died when the New Mexico base collapsed."

He's not particularly proud of this fact. It's selfish and cruel. It might have been easier on Clint if he had gone down with the base. Then he wouldn't have the guilt to live with.

Phil, though, he's not sure who he would have become in the emptiness of a world without Clint Barton. "And then Nat and I started planning how to get you back."

"...I meant for not being here. I kinda...I figured that you probably didn't blame me for getting mindscrambled like I was. I mean. It doesn't help, really, but." Clint shakes his head. "I was too good to just let us all get buried. Hill tried her best, though, I gotta give her that."

"I don't blame you for that either," Phil says with a little shake of his head. "It would have been nice, yes. But god, I'm just too old and tired to be mad that you needed time and space after everything."

Anger, resentment, what would they do but delay getting Clint back? Phil had his darker moments late at night when the pain was bad but they're both fucked up for various reasons. He just don't want to waste the time.

"I can yell if it'll make you feel better. A good dressing down?"

"No...no, if your heart's not in it, it's not really gonna do me any good, huh?" It's a halfhearted joke. "If you really feel it, then go for it; I can take it."

But he can hear some implication. That yes, he should have showed up. That under different circumstances, Phil would've been pissed about it.

"I didn't know Nat had gotten you back when I woke up," he says, his thumb back to idly stroking. "When I could stay conscious long enough to hold a conversation I demanded to know your status. Knowing you were alive and yourself that's been enough for me."

He shakes his head. "It was starting to be not enough. I think Nat sensed that in my texts. I really do just need to see you until you're ready for more."

"Ready for more," he echoes. "You make it sound like I'm gonna move in." That's not what Phil means, he's pretty sure, but it's where he's decided to take it. "What about you? You're making this about me, but, god, you must've thought you lost me, and a lot of good people died, and you got stabbed by an alien despot. You can't tell me you're just good, like I'm the only one with problems."

"Sometimes I wish you would." Phil's not going to deny that. Out of the two of them he's the romantic. He likes happy endings and sappy rom-coms where everything works out. He likes the idea of this thing of theirs working out.

"If you're here when I'm trying to sleep you can see how many problems I have." Phil wants to lean against Clint's side because Clint would never let anything happen to him. He's very protective.

"I dream of dying. I dream of having to give the order to kill you. Sometimes Loki kills you in front of me. I have problems."

It shouldn't be gratifying to hear Phil admitting to some of his issues. But it is. It feels good to know that he really isn't the only one fucked up. (That the focus shouldn't necessarily be solely on him.)

And it means he doesn't have to necessarily reply to the idea that Phil would like him to move in. That's a conversation for another time. Probably. Maybe for over vacation. Maybe for not right now, because there's no way in hell he's having that conversation with a clear head.

"Natasha came pretty close to doing me in. If she hadn't knocked some sense in me..." A one shouldered shrug. "I get dreams, too. They suck. Sorry."

Natasha would try her best to save Clint. She owned him. But she would also put him down if there was no way to save him. She would have made it quick and clean and painless.

Phil sighs and gives in, leaning over to press his shoulder against Clint's. "I hate this post-op come down. It's worse than Monaco. And I'm not sure how to come back to center."

Near death experiences facing off against Gods and almost losing the man Phil's now certain he's in love with have done a number on his head. It will take SHIELD psychologists a long time to help him untangle it all.

He wants to like it so badly. There's the part of him that craves this, to be with his boyfriend, to touch him and kiss him (and blow him, sure), to go back to normal or some semblance thereof.

But there's another part that wants to crawl away and hide from it. To recoil as if burnt.

But he needs this. Right? They both definitely need it. So Clint doesn't say anything. Allows Phil to have this. It's nice and he's going to make himself like it, damn it.

"Time." An unhelpful suggestion, even if it's true. "And talking things out. You'll come back to center, Phil. You need to heal up first. Full recovery, and then you'll have an excuse to strip off your shirt so you can show off your battle scar."

Clint usually relaxes against him when they're like this. Phil doesn't like that he doesn't so he stubbornly stays in place so either Clint will tell him to move or get over whatever is bothering him.

"You will too," he says softly. "You'll find your center."

He frowns at the idea of showing anyone his scar. Phil doesn't even like to look at it in the mirror.

"You're my center." It's cheesy and sappy, but he knows Phil likes that. The curse of all those schmaltzy Hallmark movies and the like. Maybe that'll distract him.

"We're both gonna be okay. It's just gonna be a process is all. And the process will suck." The process has sucked. Immensely. "But we'll get there."

It does touch that soft, sappy part of Phil. If they weren't both incredibly twisted up by what had happened he would even believe it was entirely genuine. It mostly is. Clint can be sweet like that. It just doesn't feel like Clint's heart is in it right now.

"No vacation in New Mexico," he says after a few minutes of silence, staring into the middle distance. "No deserts."

Is this awkward? It must be awkward. Because he should probably cuddle up, hold Phil tight, kiss him, and then make lewd suggestions for other activities whether cleared by medical or not.

Instead of just letting Phil lean on him and drinking coffee feeling like his skin is tingling in all the wrong ways..

"Pretty sure a nice cabin in the woods is gonna be about as far from a desert as we can get unless you wanna take a yacht out in the middle of the ocean."

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