brandingproblem | open post

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."

Steve chokes on his food, but then laughs, at least for a second there. He also blushes, but that could be from inhaling his lunch as easily as from anything else.

It doesn't last long because the rest of what they're talking about, but for a second? Definitely there.

Then he just... shrugs. "There's plenty of blame to go around. I'm not telling you to blame me. Just that I thought you did." But also: a lot of them blame themselves, and Steve definitely does and would have accepted it. He just... really doesn't want to fight with Clint - at all, and especially not about that.

"There's nothing left to blame."

And that might be the really damning part. If he had anything to aim all the anger and grief at, that'd be one thing. But Thanos is gone. The Stones are gone. There's nothing to be done, now, but wait for the end of his too-long natural life. He feels like taking it all out on the fucks that want to exploit those who are left is a good target, though. Catharsis, if there's any to be found.

"So if you're looking for a fight out of me, you gotta try harder than just showing up unannounced."

He wishes there were a target, too. A way out, get some kind of victory isn't even on his radar. He'd just take a target.

He's not going to bother saying it. Clint was in the room when Ultron very accurately pegged him. If knowing him and having it spelled out doesn't tell him that Steve would really like something to fight, Steve saying it won't make it better.

And it's not about him.

Clint finding any outlet is better than having not. Not good. Not when Steve's pretty sure Clint doesn't really much want to win, but better than not. Probably.

"I dunno, Clint, seems like turning up was enough to get some kind of fight out of you out there. I won't argue if we're done with it, though. Hitting things is a lot more my speed than arguing"

"Fight or flight was really leaning more towards flight there, if I'm honest." No reason to start fighting friends if he can just get away and vanish again. And now that's looking less like an option. He can't just drag Steve around because he's also aimless and looking for some people to eviscerate.

"But if you need a sparring partner, didn't have to come out all this way for one."

"Yeah, that would have been at least as awkward, but probably less painful." Less physically painful for him, anyway.

Steve finishes what he's eating and then just... folds down to sit on the floor, one leg folded under him with the other knee up, but still with the wall against his shoulder.

"I can go for a run if I want a physical outlet and skip punching you. Maybe instead you settle for a couple of days company now and then and if you're feeling real generous work out a deadman's switch so somebody knows if something happens to you."

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