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"I will absolutely draw you, now." There is a picture of Clint in there, from years ago. "But even if the result makes you uncomfortable, I get to keep it."

Because... well, he cares. Specifically about Clint. and he doesn't want Clint lighting his own face on fire because that shows.

"It's your art. For you. Unless you sell it to a collection or a museum or something. Then I feel like you owe some of us money."

Clint tips his head, curious. "You weren't having us pose or anything. Were you just drawing us while we were hanging out? You don't do like...traditional sit there and keep the same pose for a couple hours portraits."

"Nah. I probably would have needed that or something like a photograph to work from before the serum." He flips his book open to the back page, and retrieves the pencil. Pivots the open page faces him and sketches out a crude map, but a damn accurate one. "That's a map I saw in a hydra base in 1944. Serum changed how my mind and memory work, too."

Edited 2024-11-19 20:40 (UTC)

Clint's brows knit together, leaning over the map. He's a little incredulous, actually, when he looks back up at Steve. "Dude." Because that's incredible. "I didn't know you had photo memory. That's amazing."

That incredulity and... enthusiasm is more than enough for Steve to not give a single shit about his own mixed feelings on the subject. Hell, it makes him grin outright in a way that is pretty sincere. "I guess I didn't realize it hadn't come up. No need to model. Do whatever you feel like with the evening. I've got a picture in my head I can work from now."

Hell, he wants to get it on paper and that... is a good feeling. Enough to have him pulling the book back open and finding a clean page to start.

"I mean, maybe casually it came up? But not like-" with a motion to the map. And the art! He's just doing that shit from memory!

"God, right, uh. I'm gonna try not being self-conscious now. Gonna just...exist." Clint gives a little laugh. "Don't usually do this part with company. Or any of it, the lead-up to the mission. Gets boring sometimes. Probably just gonna do some research." There are always more targets, after all. Global operations. "Just let me know if you need anything, I guess."

The memory thing has some downsides, it came 'out of a bottle' rather than having anything to do with him, Steve's bad at any kind of attention on that stuff, and....

Right now, he doesn't care at all and none of it matters, because it's Clint and Clint might just be more present and relaxed than Steve's seen him since everything went to hell. That is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

"I can move to the bed if you need the table again. Might have to physically poke me to get my attention once I'm going, but it's not a problem." Hell, he's already getting some pale, sketched out lines onto paper, that will disappear into the finished product.

"Nah, I think we're good. I can be comfy anywhere." Given all the places he's had to spend copious amounts of time in, small spaces, uncomfortable positions, he means it.

He pulls out a laptop from his gear and settles himself back on the bed, cross-legged like when he was doodling his own map. "Don't be surprised if I end up watching over your shoulder at some point, though." Not anytime soon, probably. He's distinctly aware of Steve, taking up his allowed space, drawing Clint. But he can compartmentalize and focus on trawling the dark web, perusing known digital hangouts of tech savvy mobs, and checking up on any of his trackers. He can let them lapse into a somewhat comfortable silence, save for the light tapping of keys and the whisper of pencil on paper.

Steve resolutely refuses to consider the amount of leg flexibility and strength to pull off some of the positions he's seen Clint stay in for extended periods of time. He's not drawing that, dammit, and he doesn't want that level of distraction.

It's actually not a real issue. Once Clint settles to work, so does Steve and his focus on it turns pretty complete. His position shifts here and there - leaned over the table, head propped in his hand, leaned back in his chair with one knee braced up by the table and sketchbook against his upraised thigh, whatever - but he doesn't actually stop.

What he's drawing really is Clint. Clint as he is now, complete with incomplete tattoo on one arm, slightly too long hair, faint lines around his eyes, even the bruising on his face, but... that exact moment he got excited about Steve's memory or art or whatever it was. Not... shut off and cold but that moment of life he'd had. Getting that into a set of eyes in grayscale and pencil is by far what takes the most time and is also the last thing he does and finishes.

And Clint's confused Steve cares about him as a person. ...that picture would look very different, if Steve didn't.

At some point, Clint has to give in to curiosity. There are a few new leads but nothing more pressing than his next destination. Just places and people to keep in mind for later.

But Steve's been sketching him for what feels like an awfully long time. And he knows it'll look good, lifelike, that it'll be him on the page, but something lit a fire under Steve in a way all the logos and 2d shapes didn't.

So he peeks, just as he warned he might. Gets a drink and glances at it upside down. And then gets intrigued enough to come over Steve's shoulder. It's... It is him, yeah. He knows his own face, and Steve has spared no details, even the unflattering ones. But it's also not quite the face that looks back at him in the mirror each day, these black days. In a good way. A different way. It's hard to know how to feel about it, really, but he has to crack a joke to break his own tension over his knee.

"Doesn't look a thing like me, Rogers. You gotta get those super eyes checked."

Steve looks up and over his shoulder at Clint and cracks a grin. "I think maybe one of us is more biased than the other - and that one of us is you."

Steve likes Clint more than Clint likes Clint, and Steve knows it.

"I think one of us is being a smartass, and I can't tell who." Spoilers, it's both of them, and he knows it. Steve's grin inspires a little smile of his own, all in good fun.

"It's good." Which feels inadequate. "I looked like that once?" And also, visually, now, but in the emotional sense... "Dunno, feels like you're reaching for days long past. Which I'm not opposed to." Or maybe some of the softness and gentleness and cuddling and touches inspired a softer look out of him. Maybe he's not giving himself enough credit.

Maybe he's not giving Steve enough credit, for sure.

It's definitely both of them, though Steve--

He shakes his head a little, and taps his pencil against the drawing, right between the sketch's eyes. "That is the expression that was on your face right before I started drawing and that made me want to draw again."

You're still in there, Clint. Damaged and hurting and changed, for sure, but in there. You are still a person, not just a killing machine.

"I--" Clint blinks in surprise. "It is?" Mr. Photographic Memory wouldn't lie to him. Has not once lied to him.

His own face does something complicated. Guarded but curious but concerned but considering but--complicated. He sees the evidence in front of his face and can understand where Steve's been coming at him from. Not suggesting he isn't what he is now, but that he is also still Clint. Whatever that means these days. But it's hard to fathom. Difficult to accept. The same as taking solace in a touch. Like it isn't for him, like it's some kind of betrayal to have it.

But Steve's able to step back and see the whole of him. Not just the darkness.

"Glad I could inspire something nice," is what he eventually says.

Maybe he's not really doing Clint any favors, drawing attention to the fact that he is still a person, that he is still him just changed. Maybe he should stop not just creating space for there to be more, but almost demanding it.

But he can't just let Clint disappear entirely. Not into a global mission, not inside himself. Not when he's right there and in reach.

Steve has never wanted to touch anybody as badly as he wants to touch Clint just then. The position they're in stops him from doing it - can't do it easily so that means there's a gap to check himself - but God he wants to.

He puts the pencil down but doesn't close the book, just stays half pivoted so he can keep seeing Clint. Keeps a bit of a smile, but one that does actually reach his eyes. "So am I."

Steve's so open. Happy, in this moment at least. Genuine. And it's so hard not to let that seep into him in turn. His gaze turns from the drawing to Steve, and he's struck by that smile and that sincerity.

He ducks his head, a little smile tugging at the corner. Ah, so that's a taste of humble pie, huh. "You're good at this." And he's not exactly talking about the art, here. Clint rests a hand lightly on Steve's shoulder. "Thanks for being you."

Steve reaches up and gives Clint's hand on his shoulder a slow, careful, squeeze. He suddenly has... a dozen pictures he wants to draw, and they're all Clint.

None that he'd show Clint, at least any time soon, because they're not at all sexual but are intimate. He might draw them just to get the ideas out of his head, and never show Clint. Or show him two years from now.

Regardless, his hand on Clint's is warm, and brief and careful and then gone. "You get everything you needed to done?"

"Yeah. Tomorrow's just gonna be my stupid meditative shit and a lot of otherwise hurrying up and waiting. You'll get to see the whole getup in action. Don't laugh at it." All costumes are inherently silly, to be perfectly honest, which Steve would know all too well.

The hand is there, and present, and then gone, and Clint slides his hand away as well. "You get everything you needed?"

A question deliberately phrased.

"Hey. Even I picked up some stupid meditative shit somewhere. It's useful." Just, you know, pointing that out while he tries to figure out Clint's phrasing and decide what Clint's offering and if it's an offer or a check in or - "I'm pretty okay right now. You can figure out bedtime arrangements then and I'll go with whatever works for you."

What he needs and what he wants don't exactly align often. Mostly because he doesn't need a hell of a lot and unless he's so depressed he can't function what he wants is... something, albeit usually nothing he can have. This isn't fundamentally different. Just... easier.

"Apparently, if nothing else, I'm taking the bed. If you want to also be in the bed, I'm amenable to that." Maybe he'll hold Steve a little. Maybe he'll just take comfort in a warm and breathing body next to him. It's unclear. "Living heating pad might be nice," with a quirk of his lips.

"If you're amenable, I'm curling up with you - or you can curl up around me. Whatever works best for the heating pad aspect." Look... he... is never turning down that kind of contact.

...that's a lie.

He's never turning down that contact from someone he knows, trusts, and care about. Anyone else would just get punched at this point.

"However we end up, I don't really want you at my back." At least he can admit that, with an apologetic little shrug. "I trust you. You know I do. Just hard to shake the feeling is all." Of someone there, just behind him, while he's physically vulnerable.

"You gonna stay up a bit? Get more drawing in now that you're all inspired?"

"I've been trying to avoid putting you between me and the wall. Can just roll over so we're both facing the wall, face each other again, or flip it around so I'm curled up with you and my back. Hell, I can sleep on my back if you're okay with that." Well lay on his back. "We've got options."

That said, he glances at the book, then out the window, then back at Clint. "Yeah. I'm probably going to take an hour, finish this and see if an idea I just got for the view can turn into something I like."

"We've got options," he agrees. "I don't mind the wall. And maybe I'll come around to you at my back. We'll figure it out. Think I'm gonna start with my back to it, so it leaves room for you. Whenever you come to bed."

There it is again, all at once, that ashy taste as his mouth dries out and everything suddenly feels like the edge of an impossibly deep pit. He grips tight the back of the chair, breathes hard for a moment. Just a few moments. Then flashes a meek grin, laughs in a way that seems too breathy to count as one. "Haven't had to think about sleeping positions in a while."

Hasn't had to worry about someone coming to bed, since.

He has to move so he can unglue himself from this spot. "We'll figure it out. I'm not worried. Take your time." And then he's moving, and just that small action seems to help keep him from getting too stuck.

If this had happened 12 hours ago, Steve would have been much more thrown than he is now. Now? Now, Clint's trying to give him context for the upset. Clint's trying to explain to Steve. The context itself is helpful, sure. The act of putting in the effort to use words and explain, even through that kind of grief?

That gives him more hope than anything so far that Clint might just not end up bleeding out in a gutter. That? Is a man who is making an effort to at least be understood, even if... well more raw than finessed, maybe uneven, but those aren't things Steve would recognize or care about, either.

He stays put in his chair, but leans back and wedges one leg up, so the table edge is dug into his shin and his heel is just balanced on the seat. Keeps his eyes on Clint, but not in an overly intense way, not judging or calculating.

"It's okay to worry about it." Just that. "It's also okay if it hurts like hell, you know it's going to hurt like hell and you want to try, anyway. I know what's going on. You don't need to fake your way through the shitty part to keep me from flinching away from you." Because nothing in there said 'I don't want to'. Everything just said 'it's hard'.

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