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"Depends on what you mean by trust." But maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe he spent too much time at home than with the team doing crazy things; maybe it's hard to think of him as ever being part of a team to start with. "But I'm going to trust you to know what you're doing."

"It means that I don't know where Banner is, Thor's busy, I'm telling Nat, and that leaves Tony and I'll let him beat the shit out of me but I won't hand him something that easy to use against me - or carelessly fuck up with you. You don't really know any of the other people around well enough for it to be any of their business." He's not explaining to convince, he's explaining because Clint... well expressed interest in what he meant by trust.

And because they're on the floor, probably.

He won't point out that Thor's not actually all that busy. Either Steve's being polite, or he doesn't get around the area much to have heard otherwise. Tony is a different beast he'll defer to Steve to. Probably doesn't want to hear about anything even remotely Avengers-y anymore, and who can blame him?

"Fair enough. If I run into Bruce, I'll probably just keep quiet about it. If he disappeared, it's for a reason."

He's being polite about Thor.

"Yeah and so will I. Though I guess every reason I'd apply to him should apply to you, but I sure felt driven to track you down...." Even he's not sure what that was about.

"Less likely to flatten you like a pancake. He's always good at being alone, so he and the big guy can work out whatever their differences are on their own. Hopefully he makes he way back out of whatever hole he's dug for himself. Or ends up content enough to stay there."

"Hulk and I get along fine," Steve says, somewhat dryly. "And even if we didn't, no. Being afraid isn't a factor. That he prefers being alone and wanted to be that way before this all started's a factor, though."

"So me fucking off into the night without a word, that wasn't a factor?" Just...curious with regard to that point.

"It certainly... heightened my concern for you." A pause and faint grimace. "There was more than one factor. One was just that I like you more." Which doesn't mean he doesn't like Banner, but... Bruce is by nature pretty remote.

"It's my sunny personality and my great ass." Said in the most deadpan voice imaginable.

"I'm also one to check on because Bruce can't do anything to himself. Big guy'll take care of it if he tries to off himself. He can't exactly end up in a ditch unless he got himself absolutely plastered."

His expression at 'sunny personality and great ass' is actually a little pained, but he... isn't going to refute it or even acknowledge it besides that expression.

"I know. On the other hand, if I actually thought he was in that kind of state and there was no conflict about somebody else would could do real damage to themselves.... I'd probably worry more. That's a shit state to get trapped in."

"I don't envy him, that's for sure." He'll just gloss over his joke getting that reaction. Nothing to worry about. Don't make anything of it. "Promise I won't tell anyone you play favorites, though."

Good man. Do not dig into that one. He'd have to say something awkward given the guy he's in the room with right now.

"Me either." Envy Banner. Thinking you're going to die, choosing it and waking up again is... one way to get some perspective. "And thanks for keeping my very closely guarded secrets." That part is a joke. Obviously, he hopes.

"I'm a man of secrets. Yours, mine, Nat's, whole government secrets, you name it. I try to know when to keep them." Life of a spy, there's lots of secrets up there that people would pay dearly to have. "Not as secretive as Fury ever was, thank god."

"If I live for another hundred years, I will still die being reluctantly impressed, fond of and ticked off at that man." He sounds mostly fond and exasperated but the ticked off applies too.

There was... a lot in there that was kind of personal - or rather that Steve took personally.

"All sounds about right."

He could just let it fall into silence. Meditate and let Steve do more drawing or whatever he'll do. But floor time seems to be a sacred talking time. A little. "Are you worried?"

Floor time is definitely time for at least some walls to come down and masks to come off. "I'm not worried anything's gonna go seriously wrong. You know how to plan and what you're doing, I know where your medical kit is." And has some confidence in his own ability if things go that off the rails. "I might even be looking forward to it."

"Seems strange to get all excited for it," he notes. On Steve's end, anyway. Since he won't be part of it.

Steve looks every bit as confused as he feels. "Why's that strange?"

"You're going to sit on a ledge and try to peek what you can through windows and sort of watch someone else do some violence. If you were actually an active part of the mission..."

Well, it gets a bit of a laugh out of him. "I like getting shit done, yeah. But I get to watch you be competent and efficient, with a bare minimum chance I'm gonna have to take a swan dive off that ledge and involve myself. I won't go so far as saying that sounds fun, but it's got its own kind of appeal."

At least knowing who the target was and as long as Clint came out of it with an acceptable levels of injury, anyway.

"Your very own action movie to watch, and you don't even have to pay ridiculous theater prices." There are perhaps other comments he could make about the potential appeal of watching competence and efficiency, but he'll just keep those to himself. "Your turn to be eye in the sky overwatch for me. If I stuck you in some of the sniper nests I've been in before, you would probably start going a little crazy."

"A little role reversal never hurt anyone." There's a bit of a smile with that one.

He could make a pretty reasonable guess or two about reasons he wouldn't love some of those nests, but he's way more interested in Clint's reasoning, so. "Yeah? Why?"

"I get you're fine with stillness and boredom, but it'd probably still make you itch to get on out and do something up close and personal. And some of them have been particularly uncomfortable."

But maybe that wouldn't bother Steve, either. He hums out a thoughtful noise. "Anything's probably tolerable after the ice."

"It'd make sense if it worked that way. It kinda worked out the opposite. I can keep myself still just fine. Anything keeping me that way, and I'm pretty uncomfortable. Throw in cold and wet and I'm ready to climb out of my skin. Won't and don't. Want to. Probably a good thing the war was over by the time I came out of the ice." Besides the 70 years of war and the... less than ideal that would be. "...and that I wasn't exactly somebody they were gonna shove in a tank, anyway." Or foxhole, for that matter.

"So no snow missions if you can help it. Noted." There's nothing really to note; it isn't like he's planning missions for Cap. "Nothing underwater. You ever been in a sub?"

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