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[brandingproblem]

overflows, misc psls/memes, starters that don't seem to fit anywhere else, etc

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[brandingproblem]

Clint smirks. "I can hear your brain running too fast from here. Turning yourself off seems like it isn't a problem with how you focus on drawing or how you relax into quiet, but you're thinking the whole time, aren't you?"

[imperfectsoldier]

[OOC: ...Well my tag mades no sense in this thread. Thank you for saving us and I'm so sorry.]

"Yeah," he admits, tone wryly self-aware. "I can knock it down into a lower gear and change directions, but off's not much of a thing. Was that where you getting what I'm about was going?"

[brandingproblem]

"Sort of. I think some of it is just seeing where our new lines are. There's a baseline I associate with you that no longer fully applies in the wake of all this shit. We're both fucked up, but now we're even more fucked up, and we're learning about each other all over again."

[imperfectsoldier]

"Yeah, and even before the more fucked up shit... Hawkeye and Captain America spent more time together than Steve and Clint. That was it's whole different dynamic, even in down time."

Or it was for him, in a lot of ways. Hard to put team stuff completely away when you were with the team.

[brandingproblem]

"So maybe you feel like you're making up for lost time," he suggests with a little frown. "Trying to get to know us as us, even belatedly, instead of...Cap and Hawk, or Ronin."

[imperfectsoldier]

"No maybe about that one. I am definitely trying to get to know you." Whoever Clint was, now, even.

Hell, he might even be trying to let himself be known, though that one comes in fits and starts and even to himself is uncertain and sometimes feels contradictory.

[brandingproblem]

"Not a lot of us left to know." With Bruce fucked off, Tony fucked off, and Thor fucked off. Of the original gang, it's just Nat back home holding down the fort.

"This satisfying your curiosity, or just leave you with more questions?"

[imperfectsoldier]

"This is making me feel less alone, work out who I am, and making me like you more." There's no exasperation in his voice, but that's because it's brutal honesty floor time. It's sacred.

[brandingproblem]

"Glad I could help." Like with giving Steve the artistic spark again. Only, figuring oneself out is a much bigger task. The art's part of it. "Given you a lot to think about, too, about yourself. With a little bit of me as a bonus."

[imperfectsoldier]

"I can for the little bit of you. Me having some things about myself to bother with was the bonus." He hadn't seen that coming at all, and given the parts of Clint that are still Clint? He probably should have.

[brandingproblem]

There would probably be more of a visual struggle with accepting this if not for his meditative ritual. He's still Clint, but also, there's more of something else settled over him like a cloak that keeps things at more of a distance. A part that doesn't want Steve to care the way he does. Doesn't see what there is to like anymore. Wants to push away.

He steeps in the stillness for a few long moments. "Well, don't think too hard about me."

[imperfectsoldier]

"I'll try to keep it down to reasonable amounts." It's sort of dismissive, but not entirely. Making light of himself with it, and also just generally making sure the read on it's not too heavy. Setting Clint off and making him want to run... is a recurring fear, here, apparently. "And if I do, I'll keep it to myself."

He can feel the shift and the stillness. He more or less gets the reason for it right. It's not the same as anything he's known or any of them do, but it's similar enough that it isn't immediately alarming to him, either.

[brandingproblem]

"I've never been good in a spotlight. Even if it's just one person's." Well. Demonstrably untrue, given several people who put him in their own personal spotlight. It's a little bit of making light in his own right.

"Good thing I try to do my work under cover of darkness now." See, he can still be funny even now. To a degree.

[imperfectsoldier]

"Yeah, that outfit would be an odd choice for midday operations." There's a little bit of a smile with that, warmth and humor in his faint accent. "Feels like it's better suited for shadows. Maybe some indirect light."

[brandingproblem]

Clint gives a light scoff. "Hey, none of my outfits have exactly been bright or standing out. I've seen you in a pretty vibrant shade of blue though."

[imperfectsoldier]

"You have," he agrees, with a wry grin. "Most times I get to dress myself or even input into suit design. I like blue -- and got all the black I'll ever want to wear out of my system the couple of years we were... divided on the accords."

[brandingproblem]

"Must've been fun."

They haven't really talked about that. About what anyone got up to after Steve did a big breakout of everyone and what happened between then and the dusting. They couldn't exactly send postcards or facetime him, what with being international fugitives and all.

[imperfectsoldier]

"They weren't the best couple of years of my life, but they were a long way from the worst." Come to think of it, he'd been more angry and more inclined to take an outlet then. Realizing that makes his expression turn a little confused. "I was pretty crabby the whole time, though."

[brandingproblem]

"Crabby. You had a fundamental disagreement about your continued existence as someone superpowered and went on the run from your own government and a lot of other governments. And you were crabby." It's not the word Clint would've picked, though it's an entertaining one.

[imperfectsoldier]

He smiles, faintly. "I took it personally." Really, really personally. "I was flat out mad, a lot. I was probably more angry then than I am now. I did a lot of what you're doing now, down to the costume change. I just wasn't doing it alone -- getting Sam off my ass was a problem."

[brandingproblem]

"Taking Wanda with you definitely helped, I imagine. She's hard to dissuade when she gets an idea in her head. When she's got a target to direct her energy at."

Sure, he could use past tense. She's as much dust as half the world. But he doesn't.

[imperfectsoldier]

He's noticing and he's not going to challenge it, especially when Clint's this close to going out and doing dangerous shit. "She was with me for a while after I got you all out. She ended up in Scotland- with Vision most of the time, though I don't think I'm supposed to know that part. Hell of a power house when she set her sights on something, though, yeah."

[brandingproblem]

"Vision who was something of her jailer way back when?" Huh! Huh. The way things change. "Whatever makes her happy." And then it's heavy on his tongue, the knowledge, the acknowledgement. "Made her happy."

His grief is not only for his family of marriage and blood. It's the friends and family made of the bonds forged in fire he has grief for as well.

[imperfectsoldier]

"Yeah." That is all he really thinks he's going to say, but he thunks his head (lightly) against the wall behind him. "Take what you can find where you can. Then and now, I guess."

He isn't sure if he wants to cry or not. Sort of, but it feels almost too... tiring to do.

[brandingproblem]

He eyes Steve, examining, seeing how emotionally exhausted he seems. How draining it all is. He could press. But he makes to stand instead.

"I'm going to start changing. Not all the way; I'll do the rest when I'm in a more clandestine spot." Just makes things easier if he doesn't have to risk getting caught putting on boots and pants and such. "And you can get into your position and watch some fireworks."