brandingproblem | open post

"If they don't, we can fight about it after the fact." Meaning, yeah. He's got every intention of being reasonable, but he's still mostly him. He's going to do what he's going to do, and will deal with the consequences.

"More than twenty four hours isn't a problem and obviously your time-line needs to be what it is. I'm trying to work out when I'm fitting in that sparring session, more than where I'm working in some beach time. Do you have a location for that in mind?" In here is a bad idea.

...He still cares more about timing right now than place.

It's almost a laugh. It's laugh-adjacent, the noise that comes out of him. "You really need it, too, huh?" Not enough people to punch in New York, maybe. Or nobody left who wants to spar but with no holds barred. How many punching bags has he torn through? "Just remember, I don't heal the way you do."

Does the idea of getting absolutely wrecked by Steve sound appealing? Yeah. But he also can't be out of commission for weeks or months while he heals. (Well, hiding in a hole for a couple weeks while he scouts out a new location isn't so bad.) Clint's always been someone who heals well and pushes the limits of what a healing body could and should do. Much to the chagrin of his handlers, back when he had handlers. Steve can pull his punches like a master, but if the gloves come off, that super strength is deadly. So. Balancing act. Bloody each other up without doing something foolish like shattering spines or crushing rib cages.

"Funny enough, I didn't scout out a good place for two ex-heroes to duke it out in mind. Must've forgot to look for one, silly me."

He's not really offended in any serious way, not even enough not to have some faint amusement in his expression. There's just also a bit of a look.

"I am not gonna forget you don't heal the way I do." He's not elaborating because it'll drag the mood down and he doesn't want that, but sparring sessions with him don't come without some holds barred. Brief interlude when Bucky was relatively stable and still here. No one spars with Hulk. Because yeah. Gloves off, it's deadly. He doesn't forget that. Ever.

"Bruised and sore, maybe bloody. Not broken." That's the start of terms, Clint can negotiate around it as he wants or need, or at least negotiate it with Steve. "And I'll find a place. You pick the time, and I'll show up."

Edited 2024-11-09 00:14 (UTC)

"You tired?" It's an abrupt change of topic, no matter how casually he affects it. He rolls back up to his feet, gives a little stretch, and makes to clear items from the bed. Sword. Notebook. There's a good, sharp blade for throwing under the pillow that he tucks in his hoodie. "Shower first? I don't have any clothes to lend you that you aren't gonna stretch into the next dimension. If you brought a go bag, better go fetch it."

"I'll go grab it. I'm going to take the long way there and back," just in case. "So give me half an hour before you fall asleep or get twitchy about it. I'll shower and get ready for bed, then."

Not a single hint he has even noticed how abrupt the topic change is, just him getting to his feet and preparing to head out. Unless Clint suddenly has some objections.

"Sounds good. I'll be here." He's not going to make a run for it while Steve's out. The thought is tempting. Now that it's all catching up to him now. But he won't. He'll be a good little host about it. Try to set up the couch in a way that should be comfy enough. Shove things away. Pack a few things. Hell, a quick shower while Steve's gone isn't a bad idea anyway.

Steve's aware this would be a great opportunity for Clint to shake him, but he's also pretty sure Clint won't. He's not sure why, except somehow ending up on the floor together and a lot of that talk felt more... solid and real than anything has in a while.

He doesn't rush back. He picks up his backpack with his stuff, and does what he said he was going to. He takes the long way back, getting some idea of a place that will work for privacy for an intense sparring session without getting authorities or spectators involved, and makes it back within that half hour.

He hesitates outside the door for about half second, then raps on it with the backs of his knuckles. It's pretty quiet, but if Clint's expecting him it should be audible enough.

He has to ease the tension out of himself (as much as he can, given the natural tension he carries on himself these days) when there's a rap on the door. Quiet. Soft. But he hears it well enough. And he knows it's Steve, but the paranoid part thinks someone's caught him out, connected dots, come for their pound of flesh.

It's just Steve. He knows this.

He has to wonder if Steve's surprised to see him. He's still a little surprised at himself. But then, maybe if someone else had found him, they wouldn't have been as understanding.

Clint's dressed down, hair still sporting a bit of dampness in it, simple sweatpants, simple shirt. It'll give Steve a glimpse at the working of lines along one arm, the start(?) of a bigger picture of a tattoo. He doesn't say anything as he moves aside to let Steve back in, nor when he closes the door again gently.

Clint looks... Exposed, maybe even vulnerable in a specific kind of way. Fragile, but in a way that's brittle. Maybe it's the damp hair, maybe it's being dressed down that far. Maybe it's none of those and he's just projecting.

He doesn't move out of Clint's way by much - just gets inside, and stays fairly close while Clint shuts the door and watches him. The degree of care there says something too, probably.

Steve doesn't break the silence, but when he does move to move past Clint he deliberately touches him. Not forced, not unnatural, just a hand on one of Clint's upper back as he moves behind.

It's not really casual. It's a normal sort of touch for him, but he's looking for the response to it. Staying silent this far? Just seems like the right thing.

Edited (Just fixing shit.) 2024-11-11 14:37 (UTC)

He's never been prone to being jumpy. A spy has to keep cool under pressure and when faced with the unexpected. A dad has to keep cool with a bunch of kids running underfoot. He's always had a physicality to his affections, to family and friends and teammates.

Clearly he's let people touch him willingly. Someone charted the course for a vicious snake along his arm, for instance. But it's been a long time since a casual, friendly touch has entered his life. A knock of boots is one thing. This is not dissimilar, though. It's casual and Steve all the same, but Clint's rapidly trying to figure out if it's calculated, if any of it warrants the way his shoulders tense up like he wants to whirl around and fight, see an attack where there very much isn't one.

Seeing potential threats everywhere keeps him alive.

Steve is not, though. Not a threat. Not an enemy. It's fucking Steve. So he forces his shoulders to relax again. "Bed's all yours," he finally makes himself say to break the silence before it gets awkward. "Can keep your bag under it; mine's in the closet."

It's fucking Steve.

It's casual, friendly, even affectionate touch - and it's also information. The reaction doesn't surprise him. The... sad part isn't so much just that there's tension, as the type of tense. It doesn't even read to Steve as a 'don't', so much as a checked pivot and strike.

He does not draw attention to it, directly, doesn't back off, and isn't awkward. In silence or return from it, for that matter.

"Sounds good," he says, easily. "Though I am gonna grab that shower and change first. My hair's about 8 hours from qualifying as an oil spill." Look, he can and often is filthy around any battle scenario, but given the option of not being, he's taking it.

Besides, there's a steady kind of normal in that, while he drops his bag on the bed, and grabs his own sweats and t-shirt out of it. "I think I managed to find a place that'll work for us."

"Also all yours," he says with a brief flash of tense, fake smile. "Water heats slow, but at least it heats."

So not talking about the reaction. Okay. Whatever Steve was looking for (if he was looking for something, if he wasn't just being Steve, though his every motion around Clint has had a particular weight to it so maybe he was looking, maybe he's doing his own scouting out of Clint's whole being--), he's filed it away internally. He can work with that.

He turns to the couch, running a hand through his hair. It's not the short spikes it used to be, slowly growing out, but still very recognizably Clint. "You're determined to try and work me over before I gotta get to my work, huh?"

Steve just needs a damn haircut. He's starting to look less like a military guy and more like a middle aged escapee from a boyband. Those couple of years on the run might've built his tolerance to hair in (and on) his face a little further than ideal for aesthetics.

He stops what he's doing and looks at Clint, then- "I'm gonna shower and pretend you don't seem to be on some see-saw with this and whether or not you trust me or are sure you wanna do this." He's been pretty clear, he thinks. Yes. He wants to do this. "You change your mind about it, let me know. If you need to be armed to feel okay about doing it, do that. Otherwise, we can hit that warehouse tomorrow morning, and you to have recovery time before you get busy."

It's less about wanting to do it--because god, yes, he wants to let someone (earn the right to) beat the shit out of him--and more about the timing. Ugh, they might have to have a conversation about the amount of hurt involved if he's supposed to recover enough in a day to not be hindered or distracted.

Fine, maybe they do a little sparring, he gets the wind knocked out of him, and then it's up and at 'em. Maybe break his nose so they have to crack it back in place and tape it down, but the swelling still might be a hindrance. Bruised ribs he can work through. Cracked ones, too, though he remembers the way Coulson gave him a stern talking-to about it while laid up in medical after.

Or just go into it blind and let whatever happens happen. Fuck it. Maybe that's the strat.

By the time Steve's done, Clint's curled on the couch with a blanket around him. Pretending to sleep.

Steve's pushing the timing. He's pushing the timing because any time he can get to Clint, it's going to be at best a couple of days. He's making assumptions, but Clint is going to have to move after he acts, and he can't see a scenario where Clint tolerates Steve trailing after him.

Steve would prefer a conversation. He'll live without one. It won't be totally blind, at least. He knows Clint, knows some of the shit he's done and worked through both with Steve and before him, knows more or less what his method is now.

What that translates to is, yeah, rib cage. Heavy bruising, maybe letting something crack but not break - that's easy enough to support. Upper back, but not shoulders, spine, or anything like kidneys - again with bruising, not breaking. Shit that he can make hurt a stunning amount but won't do any lasting damage.

This is absolutely a place where something like a HYDRA electric baton would come in handy, but he'll make it work.

He comes out of the shower smelling fairly strongly of soap, rolls his eyes at Clint pretending to be asleep (but silently), because no way did someone that tense fall asleep that fast. He does not call it out. He shoves the clothes he'd been wearing into a plastic bag and to the bottom of his pack and then takes the damn bed.

He does fall asleep. Not deeply asleep but an up and down thing where he dozes, drops to deeper sleep, rouses enough to orient and make sure he can still hear Clint breathing, and then drops back.

It's almost, almost annoying the way Steve refuses to push him. Maybe they really do need a fast and furious spar just to get something like a fight out of their system. It's what he would've expected, a fight. Just fucking fight him already. Tell him he's wrong, tell him he's being stupid and dangerous and fucked up, try to take him home or whatever the hell home might be now, and fight about it.

But Steve is smart and knows better. That that kind of fight, even if he were aiming for it (and apparently isn't), would make Clint run. And he wants Clint close. And Clint is fucking stupid enough to allow it. The little game of 'I know that you know that I know that you know that-' chess is exhausting, and he knows he can take Steve at his word. That's all he's ever needed from Steve. Just his word.

Steve's a good man, and it has nothing to do with purity or with a willingness to kill or not.

It doesn't make sleep come easily, though. Having another person in the room is...a habit he had fallen out of. His senses feel particularly attuned to each breath and all movement. If they both slept on their sides, they might even both be able to snuggly, tightly fit on the bed together. So of course Clint will stay right where he's at on the lumpy-ass couch.

There's a time deep in the night where, if Steve rouses, he won't be able to hear Clint. He's slipped out into the dark, where he can breathe for a bit. Really breathe in cooler air with the tang of salt on the breeze. Try to work out some of the ratcheted tension, try to meditate a little, try to recenter himself.

It at least makes him feel better by the time he slips back in, enough that when he's curled back on the couch, he feels like he can actually sleep instead of faking it til he makes it.

Steve could physical stop Clint. He could bodily remove Clint and drag him back 'home'. Steve can't get what he wants with force.

And he respects Clint too much - and cares too much - to try.

He's never in his life, not even with Bucky, had a single impulse to drag a person into bed with him the way he does Clint. He'll examine that one later - maybe. More likely he won't think about it but will try it after he kicks the shit out of Clint and gets him into a state that can substitute for more relaxed for a few hours.

He lays awake and quiet until he hears Clint come back in, then settles back into that interrupted sleep cycle. Sits on the edge of his bed and rubs his face with both hands. Sleeping in wet hair made a mess of it, and Steve does not care.

"Rise and shine, Barton." Not that he doesn't expect Clint to have woken up from the second Steve moved.

"Five more minutes," will not make a difference, because yes, he's awake enough to be aware of Steve moving, and he'd really like a coffee, and also would really like to sleep more, and he says it anyway.

He's got one leg over the arm of the couch, the other off the edge with his heel on the floor, one arm under his head for a pillow and the other currently over his eyes. The picture of sleeping beauty, clearly.

He lifts the arm after a few moments to glance at Steve. And his mess of hair. All that time away and getting rid of the good ol' boy Captain, replaced with the wanted criminal on the run, looks good on him. "Maybe even five more hours."

And actually being sleep and sprawled out looks really good on Clint. Enough to make Steve stop for a second and just look at him. Doesn't say a word, but there is... there is definitely a period there of looking without talking.

He is not having 'innocent' thoughts.

He rakes his hand through his hair, wincing a little when he rips through a tangle. "You've got until coffee's done." And if Clint doesn't have supplies here, Steve's got instant shit in his backpack, and will use it and hot water. It's awful, but he has priorities.

Odd ones given that caffeine has no impact on him - or maybe not, because routine does.

He keeps his eye on Steve for as long as Steve looks at him. And only drops his arm back over his eyes when Steve moves to do coffee.

That was a look that felt oddly difficult to discern. Sleepy fog brain needs coffee, that's what he'll blame it on. Gives a hum that's just this side of a whine and throws the sheet off him. "Guess I can't say no to coffee."

They can keep this up. They can keep this up until the mission, this bizarre parody of domesticity. The things they had gotten used to before everything went to hell.

Actually, he has no idea what Steve got used to while he was on the run. But before that. When they were still all Avengers. When there was still a Tower to consider something of a home base. When they would occasionally all live in the same spaces and exist in them and actually all act like friends that knew each other. That was a lifetime ago, huh? Several lifetimes.

"I got us dinner. Feel like breakfast can be on you. Depending on how good your Spanish is. Or lunch. If you want breakfast to just be caffeine." And protein bars.

Steve got used to a lot of things, but he also kept some kind of basic routine. Part of that is the 'parody of domesticity' - meaning as much of the mundane shit as he could manage.

Like coffee in the morning.

"My Spanish is decent," he says, rifling through the cabinets like he lives there to start coffee and find mugs. He figures it's fair game since this place isn't even really Clint's, just a place Clint's moved into for long enough to get a job done. "I'd probably suggest you not go with a heavy breakfast and wait for lunch, but it's your stomach. You want me to go out, I'll go out."

Meanwhile, though, once coffee is working, Steve goes back to his backpack, pulls out a protein bar and tosses it, underhand, across to Clint and comes back with an energy gel pack and second bar for himself. He tears the gel thing open with his teeth, immediately.

...He also got used to riding the edge of not being able to get enough calories to support his stupid metabolism, and finding some relatively low bulk, easy transport and consume, methods of compensating. Sam gets the credit for introducing them, though.

Thank god Steve packed for this trip. He doesn't know actually how long Steve's been traveling around trying to find him. But the man knows how to travel. So does Clint. None of this part is strange to them, as he catches the bar with only seeing the movement out of the corner of his eye.

"Okay, then you're on deck for either lunch or dinner. Guess it depends when you wanna do this."

He's certain he doesn't have to elaborate on what 'this' is.

Steve bites down on the packet, near the bottom and then just pulls it through his teeth. Swallows with a faint grimace, before he turns his body and physical focus to putting coffee together.

"I'm gonna go out and grab some food after I get coffee in me, then we can take a walk and to 'this'." This, that - no, he doesn't need it spelled out. "More flexibility on what we eat and when's not gonna hurt anything."

He's actually going to do a really light 'grocery' style run of food that can wait, so he doesn't have to leave to take care of it once they're back. Grab some pain killers for Clint while he's out there. "Anything specific besides food you want me to grab while I'm out there?"

His spanish is more than good enough for this.

Clint chews on his bar and simply stares at Steve for a while. Because. That sounds suspiciously like running errands in some kind of excuse to, what, get them to eat better? Take care of Clint? He supposes letting someone else be in charge of food means dealing with however someone plans on doing that. Making sure they can stay in as much as possible isn't the worst idea, no. Clint's just trying to see the ulterior motives.

"No."

Steve is perfectly aware he is being stared at suspiciously. He is also perfectly aware that there is no ulterior motive beyond... yeah, trying to take care of Clint, he guesses. Not a lot of benefit in leaving Clint alone later, when later he's going to be at least banged up. Definitely no benefit in adding any additional trips in and out.

Which is to say, Clint stares at him and Steve looks back and looks bewildered while he does it. He does not have a poker face. He's not saying anything, which makes it easy to ignore, but his expression's pretty clearly asking what the fuck.

"... All right, then." Then fills the mugs and hands one over to Clint, and leans back against a counter so he can drink his own, around getting his own protein bar down. It'll take him maybe three minutes and he'll grab his hat and sunglasses and go.

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