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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."

"Maybe you shouldn't skip punching me."

He says it very simply, but now he's wondering if he shouldn't have glossed over that bit and gone with 'fuck that' instead about the deadman's switch. Too late to stuff the words back in his mouth now.

"You got some anger, take it out on me."

He stares at Clint, but in a way that's more assessing and speculative than shocked or horrified, and not because he's going for that.

"You want pain and to bleed, we'll work it out and I'll feel good about it - probably even enjoy it, but I'm not 'taking my anger out' on anybody but Thanos." Too dangerous, too uncontrolled, too close to being someone he absolutely is not going to be.

And no, there's not a single hint of being embarrassed, uncomfortable, judgemental or upset in saying any of that.

That snaps Clint's gaze up, his own assessing happening. It's not the kind of response he was expecting. Huh. Maybe the whole event fucked Steve up more than he's let anyone know.

There's no judgement. Steve says he'll even feel good about it. No running off in disgust, no chiding him for poor coping habits, just a promise to work something out if that's what Clint wants.

It relaxes some of the steel in his spine, a dip in his shoulders for it. He works himself hard, always has, to stay in peak condition. Now he works just as hard to be the most deadly thing with a blade in the world. It isn't that he never gets hurt, same as on the old job, but nobody gets too close to doing any hospital-worthy damage. (And when there's somewhere needs stitching he can't reach, well, there are always some back alley medics and holes in the wall that'll do whatever's needed with no questions asked for a wad of cash.) He's just a hair too smart and too good to get into fight clubs, not useful.

To be fair, it's not useful to get beat up on by one of his allies, either, but that's different.

"And what do you want?"

Got it, Steve thinks when Clint's head comes up and his shoulders go down.

He's not shocked. He is not, even now that they're here, surprised. It makes sense. It fits. It fits what Clint has lost, who Clint is, and what Clint's been doing. Clint's reaction is subtle, but clear enough, and it's a relief.

It's a relief because it gives Steve a way of being useful to Clint, but almost more importantly, he doesn't consider what he's talking about anything like unhealthy. It might well be the most healthy coping mechanism he can think of for this man in these circumstances.

It's sure as hell a lot healthier than Ronin.

He stays put on the floor, keeps his eyes on Clint. Continues to be real damn matter of fact in answering what is a completely fair question. "I like helping people who matter to me. Help comes in flavors besides vanilla."

Can't flirt without tripping over his own feet. This? Easy. Because of the motivation. Familiarity. What the dynamic is. Already knowing and caring.

Clint gives a scoff, a sharp little shake of his head, setting aside the remnants of his meal and leaning forward, arms across his knees. "That's a damned cop-out and you know it. Didn't ask what you like. I asked what you want."

Sure, he can rephrase it. Clint expects something pithy like 'I want to help you', which might be true but would be annoying. 'I want to make sure you don't die because we're friends' would also be a restatement of what Steve's already said and also annoying.

Maybe what Steve wants is to feel something. Maybe what he wants is for the world to go back to the way it was. Maybe what he wants is to go back to the 40's and live out the rest of his life the way he was supposed to. At least that would feel more real.

"What I need and want is people to stop asking me questions about what I want and need and then asking me like I'm lying or evading when I give them an answer. Then acting shocked when I stop telling them," he snaps.

He drags one hand back through his hair in frustration, then lets it fall. "You're not hearing me - or maybe just not getting it. I'm not offering myself up like a star spangled martyr. I want a lot of things that aren't possible." Something to fight. To go home. To get everyone they lost back. To just be done. "I also want to take every bit of focus I've got and to put it on someone else in a way that is good for everybody. Hurting you until you drop through the metaphorical floor counts. I'm not going to put another motivator on it because you can't wrap your head around the idea that you can make somebody bleed and have it be about something besides venting anger."

Edited 2024-11-01 18:12 (UTC)

It's almost like he can feel the sparks fly with the way their methods of communication keep breaking down so spectacularly. Clint gives him a hardened glare, building up a sharp retort--

--and then lets it go, flopping back along the excuse for a bed with a long exhale. He rubs at his eyes.

"Imagine I made some joke about how kinky that sounds," he says tiredly with a wave of his hand.

Still better than Steve trying to communicate with Tony - though maybe he and Clint would do better if they stopped talking and started writing each other letters.

He quirks a faint smile. "Pretty sure that's less sounding kinky than it actually kinky." He sounds apologetic around that one, though. "I can get out of your hair, but I can't do it for about 24 hours." And he doesn't really... want to get out of Clint's hair, communication breakdown or not.

"Well, hey, if making me bleed gets you off, let me know before we get into a beat down drag out, yeah?" Easier to make light than to really dig deep into anything else.

He lets out another huff at the dingy ceiling before sitting back up to reach for a notebook, this time under the pillow. He flips it open, and from the right angle Steve might be able to make out what looks to be a simple layout of the immediate area. He's adding to it, jotting some notes along the way. "Any particular reason why you're glued to my side for that long?" As opposed to two or three days, or even indefinitely.

"Unless you get off on it, I'm not going to be," Steve says, tone dry and almost amused but only in the most self-depreciating sense.

Steve does look to follow Clint's motion and doesn't look away from the notebook. The layout strikes him and he doesn't need more than a glance to know what Clint's doing with it, or to have it stick in his head.

"24's the minimum. I didn't really make arrangements for being here. Wasn't sure I'd actually find you, and definitely didn't know how it would go if it did. Wasting resources on treating it like a real vacation didn't make sense. Figured I'd give it a solid day and then decide and work something out or just get out."

Edited 2024-11-01 19:10 (UTC)

Clint lets it drop without further comment. Lest either one of them learn a little more than they bargained for. He marks down light sources, any external cameras he noticed. Hums absently at Steve's explanation. "S'pose you could go jetsetting around the world with me, taking out the garbage left of humanity until the work's done."

He harbors no illusions that that's how it would actually go.

"I dunno. Could be fun for a while." At least it'd be motion, and they're back to that oppressive thing. "Probably an offer better suited to Nat, though. She could use getting out of that place for a while." And Clint trusts her, and she's worried.

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