brandingproblem | open post

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.

Yeah. Yeah, okay. Steve might know a thing or three about all of that. He put everything on the line for Bucky, the last remnant of what he had before the ice. Clint had helped.

And now that's gone, too, and whatever fucked up family's been cobbled together is what's left.

"Stubborn son of a bitch." In another context, it would be fond. It nearly is, the quiet, calm manner Clint says it. He keeps walking, then, expecting Steve will keep following.

"You know what the Ronin gets up to, Steve?" He didn't pick the name, but it's a fitting moniker nevertheless. If he insists on hanging around, he better know what he's in for.

Steve is actively grateful for Clint leaving it there. Almost more so for Clint stopping his active attempts to get rid of him. He... hates being that kind of exposed and honest. He could just about, sometimes, half admit something sideways to Sam. That had been about as good as it had ever gotten.

There's real relief in just moving on, regardless of what it's moving on to.

And yeah, he's following. "I've got a pattern of targets and results. I don't have methods and I sure as shit don't have the plan for here, though the target's pretty obvious."

It's a practical thing. Digging into Steve's baggage means turnabout is fair play. Clint likes to think tactical, though. If he really wants to give a good effort to piss Steve off, chase him away, he can pick a moment to go digging claws into it full swing.

No matter what man he is now, though, he doesn't have the intention of hurting the people who were friends and family to him.

"Results are real brutal. But effective. Pretty sure the likes of Captain America wouldn't approve."

If Clint comes out swinging, Steve'll either swipe back or won't. There's no real way to predict from where he is right now. He's not going to waste time or energy think about it.

Just walk, and listen and then snort. "I'm not gettin' back on that merry go around." He's pretty sure Clint believes it. He's willing to entertain that Clint might even be right. He doubts Clint's completely right, though.

"I'm not trying to stop you doing what you need to do or gonna get in your way. How about you let me sorry about the state of my hands, or soul, or approval or whatever this is. I just need enough of a plan that I can at least stay out of your way."

"Y'know, there's a real easy thing you can do to stay out of my way," Clint snaps. Which is not happening. He shakes his head. "You're not coming on this op, if that's what you're thinking. If all you wanna do is play guardian angel, then you're gonna be real bored."

Steve's pretty clear done engaging with all levels of this discussion. They've reached some kind of agreement, that neither one of them's quite happy with. Clint's dealing with Steve being there, Steve's dealing with getting out of Clint's way but not taking him home.

He'll revisit if something changes.

"I'll find a book."

"Fine. Twiddle your thumbs until it's time to move."

He's not taking Steve to whatever his next destination is. They walk for a time--mostly because Clint still isn't sure that he's taking Steve anywhere. If he can find somewhere to ditch him, all the better.

"You don't have better shit to be doing than following me around? What happens after this? Go globetrotting after me until, what?"

He might actually be just fed-up enough, and enough himself, that he'd pointedly settle in and actually twiddle his thumbs.

Not at the moment, though.

He shrugs, slightly. "Bounce between you and Nat at the Compound, I guess. Everybody's else is managing to build some kind of life for themselves." It just is what it is. Run a damn support group while he's back there, maybe. Something.

Sam would've been a much better choice to send after Clint, but he's not an option. So maybe Steve just feels like he has to do this instead. Nothing he says seems to indicate 'send you to therapy' or 'sign you into a psych ward'. What it indicates is that even Steve is unmoored. What life he felt like he was really starting to build got shattered, and now he's just as adrift as Clint.

Maybe it's a guilt thing. Determined not to get Steve wrapped up in this lifestyle until he feels all kinds of bad about it and goes back?

And then do what? What kind of life is he supposed to build back up?

"This isn't the kind of life you want to make for yourself."

Sam would have been a better choice for a lot of things. One of the many he'd have been a better choice for would have been sending after Clint.

He actively grits his teeth a second there, then forces physical tension out of himself - including his jaw - on a deep breath and exhale. Pissed, hurt, just frustrated or weirdly lonely in spite of the presence of another person, he doesn't know.

"What kind of life do you think I want to be making for myself?"

"I don't think you know what you want." But he can't want to be chasing after Clint and potentially sitting around while a massacre happens. "Did it all get too much for you, too?"

Steve would be sitting around while it happened either way. He's just going to end up sitting around closer this way.

This might be progress. Maybe. He still shoots Clint a sideways look before he answers the question, half expecting any answer is going to twist around and bite him on his ass.

"It gets pretty... suffocating out there, sometimes." He won't stay gone. He knows that. He can't. He's not going to pretend that the movement at least has felt better than... not.

The sound that comes out of him is somewhere between a huff and a laugh, but there's the briefest flash of a wry smirk that goes with it. "That's a good word for it. 's why I couldn't stick around, y'know, suffocating."

"Yeah. I always had some idea why you needed out of there." A pause, but still walking, and with not the first idea where they're going. "I wasn't even upset about you leaving."

"What was the upsetting part? Staying gone?" Clint decides to lead them out to a main street with more people actually around. That might make things a little less stifling. "Didn't know where I was going, at first. Just needed to go. Figured if I ever needed to go back..."

But clearly he had never felt that need. And now he'd prefer to do anything but go back.

"You sure you want an answer to that?" Fair warning that he will give one.

"Sure. Fuck it. Unless you wanna wait and have heartfelt conversation where it's a little more private." Given most everyone around speaks Spanish almost exclusively, he's not overly worried about eavesdroppers unless they're recognized. Outside the States, Clint's demonstrably less recognizable, he finds. But then, he hasn't dragged Steve Rogers around with him before. "In which case, we could grab some tamales and tostadas for the road."

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