brandingproblem | open post

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."

Steve's a lot less recognizable without the shield or a suit, but he's still a well built, clearly American guy. Especially given speaking English. "No promises on it being heartfelt enough to embarrass you, but private's better." Also he's hungry and visibly perks up a little at mention of food.

Fine by Clint, though he does internally curse at himself. Because then he's probably actually going to lead Steve back to where he's holed up. It isn't like there's anything out of the ordinary, just what he takes with him. It just might be...sad.

Christ, he shouldn't care about that.

Thankfully, just like in New York, you can throw a rock and hit a street vendor. There aren't quite so many as there used to be, he thinks. But people gotta eat, people gotta make their money, and people like convenient. Not everything has gone back to a new, bizarre normal, but a lot of things have been getting there. Clint's Spanish is good enough to chat up the sellers, pay for a decent amount of food, and he makes Steve carry some of it.

And if they're silent the rest of the way, that doesn't bother him at all.

The dim apartment complex isn't far. It functions as a cheap roof over people's heads. And for Clint, it functions as a place where people don't ask questions. "Home sweet temporary home," he mutters, depositing some of the goods on a rickety table.

Steve's pretty silent on the way back, but not in a way that implies any kind of discomfort or awkwardness. In truth the quiet, getting the food and carrying it back to the apartment provides a little bit of a reprieve for him. He can lay down a speech when he needs to, but he's a long way from Tony levels of verbose.

He pays attention to where they are and the apartment on a tactical level - where it is, who's around, what kind of activity level there is - but he's not uncomfortable with the place. He's spent more time in places like it than anywhere like Stark Tower or the Avengers Tower, by a lot.

Still sad, but it's sad for reasons than have more to do with Clint than the place.

Inside he starts unloading the food he'd been carrying onto the table, alongside Clint. "It upset me because you didn't tell me you were going." He pauses, then looks up. "Actually it scared the hell out of me." Direct on that one. "It left me filling in gaps on why, besides not wanting a chance that somebody might be able to stop you. Best case scenario I could figure out for you going and not saying anything was that you were pissed off. Worst was that you were going off to die."

Then the activity he'd been tracking toward Clint? Not exactly reassuring.

"Someone would've tried to talk me out of it." Clint shakes his head, not meeting Steve's eye as he takes a few hot goodies for himself and sits on the edge of the bed. "Wasn't gonna sit through that. If I was gonna be dead, I'd be dead."

Is what he figures. Plenty of easy ways to go. This isn't one of them. Might be a slow death, but it's at least active, lets him get shit done while digging his own grave.

"If you came all this way for an apology, you're gonna be sorely disappointed."

Steve grabs one of the tostadas, since that one's a lower mess option and eats standing up and leaning one shoulder against the wall. "I didn't come here for an apology. I came to give you one and because watching you commit suicide in slow motion from a distance wasn't my idea of a good time."

And he's still here because Clint's managed to engage Steve's opposition reflex and Steve's got his heels dug in.

As soon as he's done speaking, though? Eating. It's been a long few days.

"Oh, so you wanna watch it up close and personal, makes perfect sense." He pulls the sword handle from his hoodie and sets it carefully on the pillow, then pulls his legs up to sit crosswise. His lap doesn't make for much of a table, but it's something. "I don't need an apology from you."

"Yeah, I figured that out somewhere when we were cycling between you trying to keep blood off my pristine hands and just being mad I was breathing in the same country as you." A pause. "Think it was in the gap you called me Atlas, actually."

His tone's dry, and not really amused. "Me preferring to be close shouldn't be that much of a shock."

"S'pose if anyone was going to even bother trying to show up besides Tasha, it'd be you on some noble-ass crusade." Even if Steve seems to think it's merely about friendship or something. "What, did you really think I blamed you?"

"Yeah, I'm making no promises this won't turn into a situation where you're getting tag teamed by us." She was worried too, and she and Steve... had been pretty good friends for a while, but they'd gotten closer in pure self-defense. "And yeah, I really did think you blamed me."

Deadpan: "Don't go putting images like that in my head, Rogers; you're gonna make me blush."

Not that he should go deliberately misconstruing anything at a sex joke, but, y'know, at least he still has something resembling a sense of humor.

"No one to blame but the purple piece of shit that's been dogging us since Loki first took a swing at us, and I hear he's been taken care of."

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