brandingproblem | open post

Steve is more a front-lines, lead the charge, fighting guy than someone suited to just tracking somebody down. Without a couple of years of being a fugitive under his belt, he'd be even less suited.

What he lacks in subtlety, though, he makes up for in being damned stubborn.

Why is he tracking Clint? Because Clint's a member of his fucking team. Because he cares. Because he's worried, and has more than enough compassion (and intelligence) to know that he has good reason to be. Without Clint having lost his family? Maybe Steve would have left it (and Clint) alone. With them gone, there is not a snowball's chance in hell Steve's going to do that.

He doesn't know what kind of reception he's going to get when he finally tracks Barton down to Mexico. He isn't expecting it to be a warm up - not with the 'tracking him down' part in play, though he knows Clint's not exactly running from him. It doesn't matter in any way that stops him.

It does matter just enough that he makes a point of choosing an outdoor location during daylight hours, making damn sure Clint has seen him on the street and approaching directly from the front. "You're not an easy guy to find."

He had to run. And Natasha knew that, too.

He's pretty sure she's the only real reason he's been allowed to do this as long as he has. Because he's good, damned good at disappearing, but she's always been better. Assumes that she's been tracking his movements (at the very least, predicting his next moves) and simply letting him be, keeping anyone from going after him. Or probably at least strongly suggested he be left alone.

In the wake of the devastation, all that was left of the team huddled together in various states of action or inaction in New York, he'd felt so suffocated, like crawling out of his own skin because screaming about it wouldn't have felt like enough. There were five hundred million things to do, and at the very same time, nothing to be done. He had stuck around for as long as he could, but the despondency was too much, and he simply vanished from his room one night.

Nothing has felt right since.

The idea of going back surfaces every once in a while. And that never feels right, either. The pain inside of him always feels fresh, and when he looks around the places he goes to, sees the pain and damage left behind? It's easier to reach for bitterness and anger. The mighty Avengers (and the backing of an entire advanced country) couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. And with half of them gone, what's the point?

Clint doesn't do well without a mission, though. His aimless wanderings to try and keep off the radar only make him restless. And as he moves, he sees the inevitable: the gaping power vacuums being filled, desperate people getting preyed upon, devastated communities ravaged.

And if the Avengers can't, won't do something about it, well.

Steve does the smart thing catching him out in the open like this. Clint's been casing warehouses and the surrounding areas, rooftops, back alleys, easy entrances and exits, places to slip off into the night and disappear, ways to slip in unnoticed, places he can perch and watch from. Trying to sneak up on him wouldn't have been wise, and in the dark or the confines of a building might have been worse.

God. This isn't supposed to happen. Not Steve of all people.

"Yeah, kinda what years in the business does." Didn't disappear well enough, but maybe his activities have drawn enough attention. Clint doesn't bolt, even if part of him wants to. That instinct of having been made, get out before there's trouble. But he doesn't make any approach, watches keenly. "You're not supposed to be here."

Steve's doing his best to walk a line, here, with how he treats Clint.

His motivation isn't his own safety. He knows Clint can, given just the right opportunity, absolutely kill him. He finds the idea of that damn unlikely. Put a projectile somewhere non-lethal if he feels the need to get away strongly enough, sure, but not kill.

He looks up, squinting faintly toward the sky and their surroundings and then back to Clint. "I'm pretty sure I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be." He sounds really, really confident when he says it. He doesn't take so much as a single step toward Clint, though, not yet.

"Have you already done what you came here to do?" He sounds matter of fact, maybe a little interest. Not high pressure, not judgemental.

He wants Clint back. He wants Clint not to be alone, more. He is absolutely treating Clint a little like he would an almost feral cat. ...Or maybe just a really wounded person.

Same difference, in the end. Once upon a time, a determined SHIELD agent recruited Clint to the cause and effectively domesticated a feral cat. The tendencies are still there, clearly.

"I'm here on vacation," he says smoothly, almost like it's true. More like it's a joke. "Maybe we hit up the beach, you and me. Drink a couple mimosas and pick up a souvenir shotglass."

How does he get out of here without hurting Steve enough to impair him for a bit?

"Probably not worth wasting the money on giving me alcohol, but I wouldn't mind at least seeing a beach with you." Subtle emphasis on with.

He's not going away. Shield determination - even Fury's - isn't really all that much compared to Steve's. Clint hurts him enough to get away, he gets away and Steve will come back again and repeat this whole song and dance until hell is as frozen as he was, once upon a time.

But he will play the game and not mention anything too direct about intentions or worry or emotions. Let Clint lead the charade. Steve's goal, in this second, is just to very firmly and indirectly make it clear that he's not going away.

"You can play tour guide."

Edited 2024-10-31 03:02 (UTC)

He's not much for arrows anymore. With what he has to do, he has to go in hard and fast, with brutal efficiency. If he needs to hurt Steve, that's what he has to do, and that might not end well. They've sparred often enough to have an idea of how they do in close quarters combat. Steve's bigger, but he isn't slow by any means.

Still. His hand grips the hilt of his sword, folded up in his hoodie pocket.

"Pretty sure you're not here on vacation." Clint tips his head. "She send you my way?"

Steve has no desire to tip Clint over into coming at him with violence; he's fully prepared for it to happen, and just as prepared to just take anything short of lethal levels of it. He'll heal. He can pick this up again when he does. Damage done from him so much as returning violence to Clint, when what he wants is Clint to at least stop bolting away from him? Not so much.

Dragging Clint home unconscious is not the goal. In fact, that would be counter productive and really, really stupid.

He still doesn't want that.

He tilts his head slightly, as much as the subtle muscle tension that comes with Clint's grip tightening inside his pocket. "Nat? No. She can get in touch if she needs me. I'd be surprised if she didn't know what I was up to, but I didn't get sent." And she didn't try to stop him.

"I'm not here to force you back."

Good. Then they're in agreement that that'd be a really fucking stupid idea.

"Nice seeing you. Give the others my regards."

He knows it's not that simple. Steve found him, and found him for a reason. And when Steve gets an idea in his head, he doesn't let it go. Doesn't let anything stop him from doing what he thinks is right. It's so sickeningly wholesome of him, a reason Clint always picked up the phone and suited up to help even when he "retired". And it's a reason why he can't be involved in any of this.

Clint turns to leave. Not turn the whole way around and present his back, but perpendicular, to keep Steve in his periphery. To his credit, he doesn't run. Not yet.

"Sounds good."

Except he says that when he moves with Clint. He maintains more or less the same distance between them, but when Clint turns to walk, so does he. Then gestures with one hand in a 'lead the way' sort of way.

Steve said exactly what he meant. He's not here to force Clint back. He said nothing about not wanting Clint back, and didn't even imply he was going to leave.

"I'll let them know when I'm back." It won't be when someone calls him. That would just be pointing a spotlight on Clint, and Steve's not doing that anymore than he's going to just walk away.

"This the game we're gonna play, Cap? Cuz I gotta tell you, I'm not really up for games." He's not going to just lead Steve back to the hovel he's holed himself up in for the time being. Not deliberately, anyway. He glances over, shoots him a cold look. "Go home."

"No."

It's pretty mild, but okay. If Clint wants direct, he'll do it with relief.

"You can come back or you can not, but I'm not leaving you out here alone anymore. It's not working for me and it's not working for you."

"It's working for me just fine. Seems like it's working for me better than anything any of the rest of you are doing is working for any of you, so." Not that he keeps in touch to find out, but he knows that the Avengers, such as they are, aren't exactly avenging much right now. Tony apparently came back from god damn space and then fucked off. Somehow, finally, something they can agree on.

"You're not gonna wanna be here when I'm done with my vacation."

"No." He's flat in tone and expression around that one. "You resent me? I earned it about four billion times over. You wanna target and an excuse?" He holds both his arms out. "You can have it now or when you're done - hell, play it right and you can have both. But you're not gonna stand there and imply that people who are using everything they've got to do something between not die and finding a way to live with this shit are doing something wrong. And you're not gonna convince me that you acting like a cornered wild animal is what working for you looks like."

He spins on his heel to stare at Steve, incensed and hurt in a way he can't articulate. "What in the hell makes you think I resent you?"

Well, gosh, Clint, maybe it's the whole disappearing and going to ground and then becoming a figure of absolute fear and terror and refusing to come home thing.

"I set everything aside to follow you, fighting our own friends, because you asked me to. And I would have done it again, and again, and again." Does he resent Steve for tracking him down, for being here? Fuck, he's not sure he can. "But right here, right now, if what you see is me backed into a corner, it's because you're backing me into one. And that's on you. I just want you to go back home before you get caught up in something you're gonna hate yourself for."

Steve does not have a poker face. 'Are you fucking kidding me right now' is not hard to read on his face.

He still leaves it - for now - because he's incredulous, disbelieving, frustrated about all of it. Probably more the last point than all the rest combined.

"You want an accounting of all the shit I've done that makes what you've got going on not a massive problem for me, or can we just hit the part where my failure lead to half of life on the planet being turned into dust?" He actually kind of growls. "I walk away and I get a report that you succeeded in getting yourself killed, I'm gonna hate myself more. This?" He snorts. "File under Ultron being right about me, because right now I don't have a problem with it. I've got a big problem with losing another person."

Edited 2024-10-31 13:44 (UTC)

"You sanctimonious little shit," which is a funny thing to call someone several inches taller, "you don't get to put the blame of half the universe on your shoulders. Get over yourself, Atlas. You blame Nat for it, too? Rhodes? How about Thor?"

All of whom are going to blame themselves. Because that's the kind of people they are. Clint wishes he could take some blame, but he wasn't anywhere close to it. If anyone had gotten in touch with him, damn the legal system, he would've ripped off his ankle monitor in a heartbeat.

(And then he wouldn't have made a difference and would have gone home to nothingness.)

"Half the universe is not your responsibility. And I'm not your responsibility, either."

There is no rational reason Steve should find Clint calling him a sanctimonious little shit reassuring, but he kind of does. Maybe he'll examine the whys of that later, maybe he won't.

"I might resent Thor just a little right about now," he admits. "I shouldn't, and it's not fair, but I might." Which is too much honesty, but apparently too much honesty is where this conversation is right now. "I'm not here because I think I'm responsible for you. I'm here because you left, didn't tell anyone where you were going, started doing dangerous shit alone and you're my friend, Clint. Whether you want that or not. And since we're here, stop claiming me you'd follow me again when you're actively trying to get rid of me."

He does expect honesty out of Steve, but that's still an admittance he wasn't expecting. Tension between the team, well, that's achingly familiar.

"Would've, past tense." Now? Now he doesn't want to work on a team, follow anyone but himself. Responsible to no one. Nobody to disappoint. None of them to look at him like a monster for doing what nobody else sees fit to do.

"Shockingly, I'm used to doing dangerous shit alone. I can take care of myself. And if you don't want to get your hands dirty, you better stay out of my way."

There's less tension than there is Steve recognizing good and well that Thor needs to be where he is and doing what he's doing, but still being... well, kind of resentful about it. His feelings about Tony - in this one - aren't all that dissimilar.

There is no fucking team. He's got a teenager, a traumatized alien, a raccoon and Natasha. He's never been more lonely in his life, and that is fucking saying something.

"I don't know who you've mistaken me for, but I'm not going to keep going in circles on it. If the options are my hands getting dirty," dirtier, "and getting out of your way, they're just going to get dirty."

He just doesn't buy that. Steve won't join in, and he can't be Captain America even if he somehow does. What he imagines is that Steve's going to keep talking at him, and then when push comes to shove, he's going to be held back by a grip he can't fight his way out of.

"If you're not gonna force me back, you're just gonna, what, follow me around? Be the angel on my shoulder?"

"What I'm going to do is whatever it takes not to have tell Natasha the only person still on earth that she loves is dead."

There's... no varnish or apology or manipulation that. It's as bluntly stated as anything Steve has ever said. He'd point himself out in that equation, but he's pretty sure he already had.

Edited 2024-10-31 14:42 (UTC)

"Don't." The anger is easier to reach for, something to smother the pain at least temporarily. "You don't get to act like this is for her. If she wanted to make damn sure, she'd be here herself."

That's what partners do. She's given him space, and if she were so worried he was going to kill himself doing this, she would be here. Could be that's her confidence in his skills. So much has come after him, and he keeps surviving, every time. A couple of cartels and mobs and yakuza and mafias aren't going to do him in.

But Clint can't act righteous about it, either. He doesn't want that love, that care or pity. He can't face it. Can't take kindness. That's not for him anymore, and if he could just explain that instead of all the words getting jumbled up and stoppered up in his throat--

"Stop giving a shit about me," he growls. It's like telling the sun to stop shining, he knows, but it barrels out of him anyway. "Better for everyone if you just let me disappear."

Steve doesn't need the words. There are some gaps in his specifics, but he's trying to make this about other people for reasons. That he'd rather take another high dive off a high rise than admit that he's here because he needs Clint at least within reach is creating some issues.

"All right. Let's play out where this goes in your head. I stop giving a shit about you. "Not possible Clint. He can't stop loving people, but for the sake of conversation. "I leave you alone and go back to the Compound. Then I'm doing what?" Besides what wasn't working for them (him).

Edited 2024-10-31 15:12 (UTC)

"You go back to whatever it is you were already doing with the rest of your life. You stop chasing ghosts. You..." The irony could make him gag. It makes him want to crawl into the deepest, darkest hole he can find. But he can't let himself do that, either. "You let go, of the version of me you thought you knew. The man's dead."

Or at least buried under so much pain as to be unrecognizable.

He isn't sure he's been less comfortable in a conversation in his life. He'd probably prefer dealing with being disemboweled at this point. He'd definitely prefer any physical fight.

"You wanna go ahead and tell me what life you think I'm getting back to? My life stopped in 1945. I almost got something back with the team when that was a thing. Fights, ghosts, and giving a shit are what I've got."

He might, just might, know something about the person you were being dead. He might also know a thing or two about sticking with someone else who's been profoundly damaged to the point of becoming dangerous.

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