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And here already is where the truth of things lies: if it were just him, he wouldn't bother. Not tonight, maybe not tomorrow either. Not until something broke through the autopilot mechanics on his system and he forced himself through the motions, threw together something out of a can or a package, forced it down his throat. If it were just him, he'd keep sitting here on this porch step until the damn sun came back up again, maybe.

But it's not just him. It's Clint, too, who has it worse, and so Frank has a reason to slowly peel himself up from the stairs. He's got a reason to turn, and thud his way across the floorboards toward the kitchen.

Because, as he goes, he says, "If I cook, you're gonna eat."

And that's an order, Second Lieutenant. If you can't do for you, you do for your men, that's how it works. You have two families; one in the corp, one at home. Just so happens Frank's has some overlap.

He goes through the kitchen. Most things are still well and good, it hasn't been that long. He can put together something decent, something packed with the calories they're gonna need to manage. Something with protein, something with carbs, something with vegetables. He's Italian, this is how he shows love: by force-feeding pasta down someone's throat and complaining that the store-bought kind isn't as good as the kind his mother used to make.

That last part doesn't apply tonight, but the first does. Clint's getting a bowl of something shoved under his nose whether he's got the appetite for it or not.

Clint can recognize an order when it's given, even if their military days are behind them. Knows Frank's tone when he means something as an order. There's a quiet, reflexive "Yessir" out of him.

Even if the very thought of eating turns his stomach. He can survive on very little. Granola bar, or protein shake, or shit-ass rations meant to survive for years in the worst conditions.

It doesn't take too long for Clint to follow Frank into the kitchen. Because if he sits too long he might never get back up. The sounds of whipping up some grub isn't enough. He's old school enough to have a radio on the sill, something that would play whatever while cooking or while washing dishes. Something with a nice beat coming on, pulling Laura into a little spin of a dance in spite of soapy hands or a dripping stirring spoon. It's not right without more sound. Because it's too fucking quiet that out here, where neighbors are a drive away instead of a walk, and it feels like the world's gone dead.

He has to scroll through station after station, between panic-voiced news updates, static, dead air, the emergency broadcast system, shit that makes his heart start hammering out a salsa beat all its own. Until he finds a station that's still playing music. Old classic country. Someone probably set their board up to just play through anything and everything they've got, because there's no announcements, no commercials, no DJ voice between songs.

Stays on his feet until Frank's shoving something at him, and he takes it and stares at it. He's waiting for the break. He's waiting for the breaking point when everything collapses and he can't hold back. But he keeps on holding. Maybe because he has this idea that this can be fixed. And then he doesn't get to do any breaking. He doesn't get to go as bad as Frank got to be. He's not the only one that's ever lost everything. Wanda would kick his entire ass about it. If he wallowed.

Maria used to love to dance. That's part of why she liked that he played, he thinks — because she couldn't help herself. Doesn't matter what was on, or where, doesn't matter if it was the damn Girl From Ipanema playing on an elevator, she'd start swaying and moving. He used to watch her, transfixed, until she caught him staring. She'd sing along, too, though only if they were alone. Her and Laura, they got along on that. Fed off each other's energies, he thinks, until they let themselves get carried away in a way Frank never could quite inspire her into the same way. The girls had their own thing, their own dynamic — probably spent a good bit of time railing about their husbands, who probably deserved it at the time, or at least he did.

It was hard to live with Maria gone. It feels downright wrong now for it to be both of them. It's on the tip of his tongue to ask Clint over the soulful strumming of Hello Darlin', right there on his lips to ask, how could it be both of them and not us? They were the ones in the damn field, they were the ones throwing their bodies in front of bullets, how is it that things could possibly play out like this? Where'd they go wrong?

But that's not the kind of shit to put on the man, at least not sober and on the first night, and so he says nothing. Instead, posts himself up over a bowl of his own with his elbows planted on either side, fingers threaded together, head bent as though in prayer, spending more time staring at the contents than actually eating them. Circling it around, over and over in his head — how do you protect people from something like this? How do you do it, when you don't have that super soldier serum or radiation poisoning and you're not a god, and you weren't trained by the goddamn KGB or whatever. How do you do it?

Karen's purse; Karen's gun; how was he supposed to protect her from that?

Look up, darlin', let me kiss you
Just for old time's sake
Let me hold you in my arms one more time-

He gets up and shuts off the radio, and the only reason he doesn't do it by flinging it off the counter in one sharp sweep is because it isn't his and this isn't his house and he's keeping his shit together for someone else.

Edited 2025-02-27 17:59 (UTC)

Frank moving and shutting off the music makes Clint flinch, but it brings him out of the reverie of staring into food and looking for all the world like a pathetic statue. Huffs out a small breath. "If you hate Conway Twitty that much--" He has a second half to that sentence, something snarky, something jokey, but he can't bring himself to finish it. It's like it slips away. Like water through his fingers. Some traitorous part of his brain starts humming along about all we are is dust in the wind and he has to shut that down before he starts laughing with genuine hysterics.

He sets the bowl down on on the table harder than he should. Doesn't break, but it's a sharp sound that's damn near to dropping it. He was given an order, and he knows he should eat, but what's the point? It feels so far away.

"I don't understand." And he hates how lost his voice is. "I don't--" His hand slams down a few times on the table, and the sting of it is actually kind of nice. Makes him feel something. "--fucking understand what's happening, Frank."

The bowl hits the table, and Frank's pretty sure he sees it — the first cracks. The first hints of it, like foreshadowing. It took hours, and that's impressive — Frank woke up from a coma fucking pissed off immediately. Grabbed the scrubs of the nurse hovering over him and demanded to be taken home to see his family, only he found an empty house, and he started splintering in--

Well, truth be told, he doesn't know exactly how long it took. His memories are blurry, both from the grief and the still-healing bullet to the brain, but it couldn't have been a full day before he broke down.

He's still standing by the radio through it, and he turns, hips pressing back into the counter lip, fingers curling around the edges, elbows jutting out behind him. Bent, just a little, like he's bearing weight that isn't there.

"I know," he says softly, in agreement. "I know, man. I know you don't."

Nobody understands what's happening. Not a single human left on this fucking planet does, he thinks. Even if they know, they don't understand.

Starting to wish he'd swept that radio off the counter so hard it crashed into the wall, bet it'd feel real satisfying about now. He wonders, absently, if that's gonna be roughly the fate of Clint's bowl, the way he keeps slamming his hand down. Nobody can hold themselves this rigidly for long; the shoe's gnona drop. Frank doesn't so much as flinch through the sound; passive, externally calm in a way he doesn't feel, in a way that's one more wrong thing happening away from snapping entirely.

He'd like to drive his fists into something, and he'd like to bleed, and maybe ten he'd feel some sense of control over something since it happened. Hell, at this point he wouldn't even mind if Clint threw a punch, it'd probably do 'em both good. Whatever happens, it's gotta be something. Something needs to happen. The tension's been winding tighter and tighter every hour since before he got here, even if they pretend like it hasn't been.

He can't even be mad at Frank. Frank's not pitying him; he's not that kind of guy. He understands. "How can they just be gone?" He whirls on his brother and looks like he's got half a mind to throw the bowl at his head. "How in the hell did you keep going?"

By being too fucking pissed off to let anyone involved get away with it. By showing up on Clint's doorstep and getting his face punched in before getting pulled into a bear hug. By making plans. By working.

"I don't even get a fucking bullet in my skull for it, not unless I put it there myself! There aren't even any bodies to b--god," and he regrets the words as they come pouring out, because it makes him feel sick. Frank's whole family got buried. There's something there that says they were there. There's no bodies. They're just gone. If there's a funeral, it'd be with empty graves, and that's not fucking right. His fists beat at his own chest. "If any stupid fuck deserves it, it's me! I'm supposed to protect them, man. I'm supposed to make this world a safer place. Instead I've been here retired and on house arrest when maybe I could've been out there doing something about all this!"

How can they just be gone? And brother, if that doesn't echo every thought he's woken up with since it happened, every goddamn day for years. How can they just be gone? How can something so integral to him, his life, his heart, his beating fucking heart, his reason for breathing his time on earth — how can it just be gone, and how in the hell can he keep on standing here like he isn't gone, too? Wishes he had the answer, but he couldn't tell you how he survived this any more than he could tell you how he survived the bullet to his head.

And yeah, here it is. Here it comes. They're different, him and Clint, but in so many ways they're the same — these thoughts, these things coming outta his mouth, Frank could be sitting in the same chair, could be under his skin saying the same goddamn things. He remembers saying the same goddamn things, raging about it to nobody and then raging about it again to Clint and then raging about it to Curt and then raging about it to Karen, and on, and on, and on, it never stops, he never really stopped raging. It's just further between now, and a little quieter when he breaks all over again.

He paces across the kitchen, drags a chair up toward Clint's side of the table, posted up by the corner, close enough to touch. Close enough that his elbow nudges Clint's when he plants them on the table's surface.

"Listen to me, look- listen to me. This is gonna make it feel worse right now, but it's the truth, and you need to hear it: there's nothing you could've done. This is not your fault. You couldn't protect them from this," and that's not comforting. He knows that's not comforting, not right now, maybe it will be in a year or two, but it's fact. The cold, hard truth of it is gonna rip away any sense of control Clint might be deluding himself into thinking he had here, but it's also gonna kneecap some of the guilt before it can eat away at his soul the way it did Frank's — at least a little, maybe, if he's lucky. "You were exactly where you were supposed to be. Only thing that would've changed is you wouldn't have been here with 'em when it happened. You'd wonder, you'd spend every minute of every damn day wondering, what were they doing when it happened? Were they in the kitchen, were they in the yard, were they cooking dinner or fighting or sleeping, you wouldn't know. You wouldn't know."

And wouldn't that be worse? Somehow, impossibly, wouldn't that be worse? It would be for him.

Why did Karen have her gun out?

At least Clint doesn't pull himself away this time like Frank's made of fire. It makes every inch of his body stiffen up like he's ready to fight, but there's nothing to fight. It's just Frank. And he could hit Frank, sure. But in this case, at long last, he doesn't deserve it.

He shakes his head through the whole little speech, but he's listening. He swears he's listening. And the place where his logic's all hogtied, that bit of brain agrees. What the hell could he have done? He doesn't know. He wasn't there. And he's got no powers, nothing but insane aim and some funky arrows, and he probably would've gotten hit once and been taken out of the fight, and then he wouldn't be here.

These past two years have been some of the best of his life. Getting to be with them, every single day. And now that's gone. But he knows where they were, what they were doing. They were all happy.

"Doesn't mean a damn thing." Doesn't it?

Yeah, you shake that head, shake it all you want, man, you know he's right. You know he's right, and for the first time since all this began, a little bit of his own heat begins to creep through that empathy and that patience he's had so firmly at the forefront.

"Yeah it does, yeah it does," He says, a quick double-dip, an echo to really grind it in there because- "Frankie and Lisa, you know they didn't die fast. Did I ever tell you? They had time. Minutes. Minutes."

Angry and confrontational as he's starting to sound, the fact that his eyes are starting to go red at the edges proves it isn't really anger he's feeling, he's just from New York, that's just his default, because it's easier. It hurts like a god damn knife that he's twisting in himself, and sometimes the only thing you can do when something feels that bad is to keep on twisting it.

"I wonder- I wonder all the time what they were thinking, what was going through their heads. If they were trying to get to me, or if they were asking why, but I was out, I was out like a fuckin' light. So yeah, it means somethin'. You got to see 'em happy, and you got to see 'em go fast, and that's one less thing you have to live with. That's what it all comes down to from now on, is finding ways to live with it."

It's a comfort to Frank at the very least, to know that Clint knows how they went. So he doesn't have to wonder about them, too.

"I'll live with it the way you did." Clint snaps it harsher than maybe he should. Pushing past that horror of the kids lingering, bleeding out. The reminder that for as much as this hurts, Frank arguably had it worse. "You didn't want me going anywhere, but fuck that. I get picked up, get settled in with my people, then I'm gonna get to work. That's what you did. You worked."

And it was bloody, awful, horrible work. But it was work, and it kept Frank going. If he doesn't have work, then what in god's name does he actually have? Himself and his horrible growing emptiness. He can at least pretend to fill it. Put a rug over it. He might step on it one day and go plummeting, but he can cover it up for now.

"I'm gonna work, and I'm gonna help fix this, and you can bring Karen over, cuz Laura would love to meet her, okay? And this'll all be a stupid nightmare to haunt us for a couple years."

"I didn't say I didn't want you goin' anywhere. I do. You can't stay in this house, you'll lose your goddamn mind- I said the compound-" he snaps back while Clint's still going, so the two of them are talking over one another. He leans back, tipping the kitchen chair absently, rocking it up onto two legs as his heels plant themselves onto the tile. Braced for something, an argument, an escalation. Louder and louder, grappling voices, "I'm saying the type- the type of work they want you to do-"

And then he says Karen's name, and Frank's hand is the one that slams down onto the table, cutting himself off abruptly with a sound that reverberates around the kitchen and through his own mind and up his wrist.

"God damn it! Don't-"

Don't bring her up, don't bring her into this, don't bring up the fact that he never let them go there no matter how much she argued with him about it, because- because, because, because. The words flow out swiftly, with momentum, with rising tempo and octave, "It's a joke. It's a fucking joke, the whole thing's a god damn joke. I stay out of her way, I stay clear, I give her a wide god damn berth, I never brought her around, I never- so the shit that follows me didn't wind up gettig her killed, and what happens after years, years is some random bullshit act of god that I couldn't even-"

He stands up abruptly to pace away from the table. The chair tips the rest of the way backward, banging off the tile. When he paces back, there's a little more level control in his tone;

"You wanna work, great. Work. But don't expect that the kinda work they're gonna have you doing is gonna satisfy you for more than a week."

Because there's nobody to fight, you can't fight an army that doesn't exist. And the stuff they'll have him do, Frank bets dollars that it won't contribute to that fixing things concept he's so adamant about. It's gonna be crowd control, it's gonna be relief aid, it's gonna be anything and everything to care for the people just as lost and sad and fucked up as Clint is.

But hell, maybe he's wrong. He doesn't know that team well enough, he's just a guy. Maybe they do have some magical recipe for un-fucking the universe, maybe there's a twelve-step plan and they've got the whole thing completely under control, and all they need to pull it off is a retired father of three and some kickass arrows.

If that's the case, though, if they knew that much, if they were capable of it, he doubts it ever would have gotten this far in the first place.

More than anything, though, what he knows is this: the people Frank loses, he doesn't get back. Maybe Clint'll have a different script with a different set of rules. Here's hoping, but he's not holding his breath.

They're arguing and they're reaching a boiling point and then--Frank's hand slams down and feels like it gives a definitive ending to things for a hot second. Apparently bringing up Karen and Frank's god damn obvious affections for her was like poking a bear with a stick.

And Clint can't say that that feels bad, actually.

The logic trapped under the floorboards gets what Frank's saying about the kind of work it'll be. Any disaster relief work. He knows what it's like. But he doesn't know anything and doesn't know if anyone else knows anything and maybe there's a plan or maybe there's going to be a plan. Somewhere between Stark's genius and Rogers's bullheaded determination, there will be a plan.

He stares at the chair toppled over on the floor and feels a bubbling anger. Keep poking the bear. He stands, his own chair screeching back but not falling. "What do you want me to do? I don't have anyone to start blasting right now, damn it. You don't want me to go with them, you don't want me to stay, you want me to work but not that work, what, what the fuck do you want me to do? You've been through it, and how'd that work out for you?"

All things considered, it could've worked out a hell of a lot worse. But the killings, the gang wars, the prison stint, the prison escape, it could've worked out better. "You kept her at arms length like the idiot you always are, and now she's gone, too. Does it feel better, huh? Does it feel not as bad for the fact that you gave her a wide berth?" He breathes out hard. "Pick up the chair."

-how'd that work out for you?

Clint doesn't even get to finish the whole question before Frank answers sharply, "It didn't!"

Nothing worked, because nothing will ever work, there's no fixing it or erasing it, he's not better, he's just better at pushing it down, and pushing, and pushing, and pushing, but with the right kind of pressure, the right exertion of force, all that compact density will spiral out and explode like the big bang all over again because nothing worked, you poor dumb son of a bitch.

But any of that, any of it, that he might want to throw out is lost beneath that assault on the obvious truth that is Frank's tragedy of a relationship with Karen. Relationship, lack thereof. Friendship with benefits if the benefits mean pain and stringing each other a long and never getting to move on because the love is real, but also never letting it happen because the love is real.

Pick up the chair.

Oh, he recognizes this moment for what it is. It's one of those. They've had more than a handful of them — truth be told, he's half-convinced that one of these moments is what cemented them in the first place. Way, way back at the start, when war was new and trenches were new and IEDs were new. When the stress mounted and one of them shoved the other, he can't even remember which, just that by the end they were both bleeding into the dirt and slowly picking each other back up again. Somebody had a broken nose — probably himself.

Sometimes he backs down from these moments, when they're not right. They both know he knows how to navigate them when he wants to. Compromise. Pick up the chair, and the moment goes away.

"I'll pick it up as soon as you wake the fuck up from your head-in-the-ass fantasy land about how all this is gonna end! Wake up!"

He does not pick up the chair.

Try me, asshole.

There might be part of him that recognizes the moment, part of him that sees the escalation as deliberate on both their ends. It's to get something to break, something to snap, and he won't hit Frank without a reason to. The reasons don't have to be good ones, but there needs to be a reason.

What Clint wants to do is break something that isn't Frank's face, the fucking chair or a cabinet or kick out some rails of the porch, but he knows he'll regret it in an instant if he does. What Clint wants to do is break someone that isn't Frank, and Frank's not going to stand for that shit.

So Frank makes there be a reason, they both make there be a reason, and Clint takes that moment in a stranglehold. He needs to wake up from the dream that it'll work out fine, that he won't be Frank, but it's the one thing he's got that's keeping him going right now. Therefore:

He launches himself at Frank.

It's not as neat and tidy as a punch. That's too simple. Uses too few muscles. He puts his whole body into tackling his wartime brother with a yell that would sound more in place in a zoo or a circus, some vicious lion roar. Something inhuman, deep and guttural. He doesn't feel exactly human anymore anyway, so it fits.

That is, perhaps, how it's clear to the both of them that these moments aren't real. They both know how to fight. They both have years of it, years of it beneath them, with technical skill and competency, and none of that technical skill involves wantonly tackling your opponent to the ground, particularly when you know exactly how strong their ground game is. Frank's got a couple inches of height and a few pounds of muscle on him, the strategic play would involve some range.

It's not about that. It's not about any of that. It's about the visceral outlet of an outward explosion of energy, it's about the satisfaction of hitting something and the pain of being hit, and it's just- something else.

So he lets Clint cross that distance without even trying to shut him out, and he lets things connect, and he spins it into a grapple that leaves the two of them, digging fingers and fists into one another in a wild attempt to drag the other down to the ground, accompanied by one or two staggering blows because it's not not about that, either. There's just enough presence of mind, just enough of himself reserved beneath the feral growling he's doing himself, to know to steer this outside. Enough to shove him toward the door with every staggered footstep, until they go bursting out of it and spilling onto the front porch. There, things open up. The environment ceases to be a hindrance; there is no precious furniture to break, no glass, no dining room chairs the kids sat in.

Just hardwood, and steps, and the pain of sprawling down them, and eventually there's just grass and dirt and an elbow to the face and a sweep to the legs and someone grabs someone else in a chokehold only to get flung viciously over a shoulder.

It's chaos. Undignified, bloody, dirty chaos in exactly all the right ways.

Frank feels too careful at first. In a knock down drag out one on one, Frank's got him beat. Clint's no slouch, got speed and flexibility and a lower center of gravity on his side, got cleverness in spades. But this, this is something different than just them fighting for real. This is raw. This is a need to scratch and claw and bite and punch at anything that even remotely looks like a target. This is do something about it before the stillness becomes so much he has to break literally anything, himself included. Frank could take him out, stupid as he's being. Doesn't. Because Frank gets it.

The animal frenzy part of him doesn't even fully realize what Frank's doing, even when they take a tumble down the stairs and into the dirt. There's a familiarity, though, in this song and dance. If they wanted to maim, they could. As it is, bruises and split lips and busted noses are practically saying hi. Even the animal in Clint knows he's not gunning to rip open Frank's throat or go for the eyes. He just. needs. to put. the man. down. Or get put down himself.

There's blood in his teeth and red in his vision, grass tickling his ears and a fist in Frank's shirt. His chest is burning. Is that from the rage? It has to be. Because the alternative is the dam opening, the levee breaking. In all the sound of nothingness, suddenly somethingness. A low drone at first that quickly becomes a high whirl, the dust kicking up around and past them, lights of the quinjet as it touches down not far from the house. And he knows what that means, but he throws another punch anyway.

The engines haven't powered down yet when there's boots on the ground, and Rhodey's got one of his War Machine guns trained on the pair, and Steve looks ready to scruff them both and would be able to, and Natasha barrels out looking genuinely mad as all hell and ready to brawl.

"...Frank?"

Is the only reason there isn't an otherwise immediate jump into action. Heads whip to Natasha, who still looks mad as hell, but in a way where it's her looking disappointed in the fact that boys will be boys.

"You made good time. Get off."

Rhodey tips his head, eyebrows cocked. "So are we shooting him or are we not shooting him?"

"I think we'll let Barton decide that." And that sounds so oddly distant from Steve. Even Clint can recognize that. It's not sigh what are we gonna do with you tired, it's bone tired, it's don't want to be conscious tired, it's want to wake up from this tired, and god if Clint can't relate.

He's still got a fist in Frank's shirt. But the fight's leaving him. His other fist stays on the ground this time, and his teeth are clenched so hard they might break, and his chest is heaving from the explosion of action. But the red's going from his sight. Draining away.

He can't say he's a fan of most of Clint's coworkers. He likes Natasha, even if they have a perpetual game of one-upsmanship and occasionally annoy the everloving shit out of each other with slightly oppposing viewpoints on some key issues — the issues that matter, they're on the same page about. Namely, the Bartons. All of them. Clint, Laura, the kids, they see eye to eye on them, so they've got one permanent fixture keeping them tethered.

The rest? Iffy. He doesn't know Rhodey except for what he's seen on the news. Has a slight, begrudging respect for Steve soldier to soldier, even if he's a little resentful about the hypocrisy that separates the two of them. They star-spangle Frank up and he'd bet money he'd go from Punisher to Captain too. Unless they're pretending like those skulls Rogers bounces off of steel with all that super strength don't shatter like tissue paper half the time, like he's not out here killing bad guys just like Frank is, but with a flying disc instead of a gun.

He thinks they're not careful enough. That they take too much for granted with Clint. That they could be doing more to watch out for him. The whole mind control thing started them off on a bad foot, and they never really recovered in his eyes.

So yeah, no, he's got no burning urge to justify himself or redeem the skeptical reputation he seems to instantly have when they come bounding down their jet. All he does is spit blood into the grass beside them, and slowly haul himself to his feet, pointedly ignoring the guns trained on him — if you're gonna shoot me, pull the trigger already and shut the hell up — in favor of holding a hand out to Clint. An offer, obviously, to help haul him to his feet.

Because that's how it works. That's what you do after this.

That's how this works. His muscles are aching. And that feels good. Or at least it feels. He's going to have bruises on bruises, and he's pretty sure Banner's gonna have a field day with whatever fractures or god forbid breaks they've given each other. (Or is Banner still gone? Guy had Hulked off to space last he knew...) It aches in a way that feels acceptable. Not near enough to match the ache inside him, but it's something.

So he clasps Frank's hand, gets pulled to his feet. Feels lightheaded for a moment. Feels dizzy. Feels distant and floaty but at the same time more grounded.

"Hiya Tash," is what he says, though it comes out a little muffled and mumbled through his punched up mouth.

She does not look impressed. Though that doesn't stop her from closing the gap and taking his other hand. Squeezes. Her eyes are searching.

He glances away. It's been years since he's seen her. It's good to know for sure she's here. Physically real. And it's also a lot. "Changed your hair again."

"Like you're surprised."

Rhodey finally lowers his guns and blows out a huff of air, turning and stalking as best as he can back to the jet. There are other people in there, he knows. There have to be. Where's the rest--where's the rest of them?

Clint stares at the jet and then abruptly turns back to the house. "Give us five."

Not for the packed up gear. Though that would be the logical thing. No--it's that Frank made food, and it seems a shame to let that go uneaten, and they can't just leave it all sitting there. Gotta at least wash up the used dishes. Don't even have to put them away. Can tupperware the food and dish some out and actually eat on the flight. Something.

It's something.

"Nat," Frank greets her finally once she's close enough, accompanied by one stoic nod of his bleeding head. Got him right in the eyebrow at one point, right in the nose at another — not that the latter's surprising. Seems to always happen, he's had the damn thing broken no less than twelve times in his life. The more it breaks, the easier a target it becomes. Kind of a vicious circle.

He's set to follow Clint's lead here; when he's ready to go, they'll go. Until then, he'll stay. They'll let him on board that damn plane if he has to stow away with the goddamn luggage right now, it's not a good time for him to be wandering alone. Not after- this. Not for either of them.

He starts to turn to follow Clint into the house — only to pause and turn back to Natasha again.

"Hey- my van, you think you could-" Because he's not leaving it here, but he's also not driving it back to New York.

"We'll handle it."

That earns her the faintest attempt at a smile, and a genuine, "'ppreciate it."

First thing Frank asked Karen about when he found out she broke into his house, those early early days when his head was still scrambled, was whether or not the dishes were on the table or in the sink. Never felt more relief than when she told him they were in the drying rack. He gets this part, too.

He goes in. Picks up the chair and tucks it neatly back into its place at the table.

The chair nearly does him in.

Has to stand there and gulp down air a few time when Frank sets it right.

His motions feel sluggish when he moves over to his uneaten bowl. The thought of eating momentarily turns his stomach, but the order-following (sometimes) soldier in him says you hork down what you can when you can. He barely tastes it. But at least he eats it. Inhales it, even. Like finishing one last meal before setting out on a mission.

Frank takes care of what's left of the food, and Clint sets to washing dishes. Even with the bleeding. They know better than to bleed on food or clean dishes. It's all more than five minutes, but he figures nobody's going to complain about a break, a chance to stretch legs and breathe fresh air after being cooped up in there. Nobody else comes into the house. He has the brief, hysterical thought that it might already be haunted.

A little first aid never killed anyone. He looks, really looks at Frank's face, frowns, and gets the kit. They can at least stop their active bleeds.

It's a little more doing. And maybe now he's hanging on by whatever threads he can grasp at.

Very suddenly, all at once, he gets why Frank was going easy in the house. He was trying to get them outside so they could really go hog on each other without breaking anything. "Thanks." A little broken. A little hoarse. But he means it sincerely.

They do it in silence. Companionable, not strained. Shoveling down food, packing it away, washing the dishes. All of it done in the quiet of the house to the tune of running water, scrubbing blood off hands and forearms to keep shit clean. And he knows they're procrastinating, that none of this really needs to be done, that they're dragging on well beyond five minutes, but...

He'd bet money on this being the last time Clint spends in his kitchen for a long, long while. He won't be coming back here again, not while he can work, not until there's some kind of definitive about Laura and the kids. It's not so bad an idea to just exist here a little longer, while he can. Until he can't anymore.

House isn't gonna smell like her for long. Other houses won't smell like this one at all, ever. The light won't hit tile the same way, the appliances won't hum at quite the same frequency, the central air won't kick on exactly the same way. Soon, all that'll be far, far away.

Clint says thanks; Frank nods, slow and steady, and murmurs back a quiet, hoarse, "Yeah, no problem."

Whether it's for the fight, the minimization of property damage, the food, the chair, he doesn't know. Doesn't matter. No problem.

But- he'll be the one to put it into words.

"It's time to go, man. It's time. We gotta go."

If he was still angry, still raw about it, he'd snap something harsh about how Frank doesn't get to tell him when to leave his own home.

But it is time. He can't just stay here. Or, staying here won't do anything for him. Probably do more harm than good. So Clint nods, a little absently first, but then more solid. Don't leave them all waiting.

He could offer up the house. For one last night. Plenty of room. They could all sleep, and then it wouldn't feel so empty.

Nobody would be sleeping anyway.

"Yeah, I'll grab...my stuff. Lock up."

There's another one of those inane thoughts nagging at him. Are the beds made? Should they make the beds? He was never a fan of it, but he learned to do it real well, and Laura always liked it neat and tidy. She'd want the beds made when she gets back.

If.

If.

He makes sure the lights are off. Grabs his gear. Doesn't double check it, because he's been checking it all damn day, and he knows damn well he's got everything he needs and probably then some. Locks the doors. And then stands there at the door and finds it so so difficult to breathe all of a sudden. He gets to in one two and doesn't make it to three, so it has to be out one two--

And then he turns. Marches toward the jet.

"Whoa," says Rhodey, eyeballing Frank, breaking up whatever conversation some of them have clearly been having, "whoa, whoa, why's the guy that turned you into a punching bag coming?" It's a familiar repartee, things either he picked up from Tony or just one of the many ways they get along so well. Ignore the trauma, ham it up with jokes. Even if it's not really a joke. "He's not coming with us."

"Yes, he is." Natasha. Quiet but firm.

"He's not an Avenger. In fact, it kinda sounds to me like he does the opposite of what we do."

"Either he goes," comes Clint's curt response, not wanting to turn this into a debate, "or I get in his damn van and we drive back to New York."

Steve does not look like he has time for any of this bullshit, but he's always been the defacto leader. He gives Frank an assessing stare. Looks at the assassins. "You trust him?"

"With my life."

Nat crosses her arms and gives a thoughtful inhale, then nods at Clint. "With his life."

That seems to be good enough. There's a fractional softening to Steve, and then he turns and takes the pilot seat. Which is as close to an 'okay' as Clint's pretty sure they're getting, since it's not a no.

Clint is taken aback when he climbs in. Sure, quinjets don't tend to be the roomiest, but there's plenty of room for-- There aren't enough people. Nat, Steve, Rhodes, sure, yeah. Thor's here. He didn't even see Thor or hear his booming voice. He's just sitting there, with a fucking axe, looking like there's all the weight of the universe on his shoulders. Bruce looks so small. And a little beat up. Which is patently insane, because Hulk doesn't let Bruce get beat up, and also, where the hell has Bruce been the past several years?

And that's it.

He looks at Nat, lost. She shakes her head.

...Okay. Okay. That's...something to deal with. He stows his gear and straps himself in and suddenly feels so fucking tired.

He'd kindly argue that he does exactly what the Avengers do by name alone — he avenges. It's just that because his aren't government sanctioned he's the bad guy, even though the government's been screwed up for years, even though the government's been sanctioning packing pounds and pounds of heroin in the corpses of dead GIs and Marines over in Kandahar and using their bodies to mule them back to the states, even though the government's had Hydra in it and they've been exterminating innocent civilians.

Somehow we're all supposed to pretend like everything's honkey fucking donkey because it's some guy in a suit six levels detached from the issues that's calling the shots. Well screw that, he remembers all too clearly a good handful of these guys going off the rails to have their own say in their missions, it's just that he did it first, and he doesn't have a pretty-boy face or a billion dollars.

But as much as he's tempted to go off on that tangent, that steam-powered rant, he got most of his pissed-off energy out in that fight. Good thing, because laying it all out like that would almost certainly ruin his chances of getting on this jet right now. Turns out a little brawling is good for the soul.

He doesn't nod his appreciation to Clint — doesn't really need to. He does to Natasha, because they're not quite on that level, so he's gotta make sure she knows he respects the gesture, her willingness to stand up and vouch for him. She's good people.

And then he's stepping onto the most expensive aircraft he's ever been on in his life, which is saying something considering how much money the military spends on Helos and airdrop missions and shit.

Lowly, wryly, to Clint: "So this is how the other half lives. You guys get complimentary bath robes on these things?"

Thor's low voice comes out at a rumble, lower energy than most have ever seen him, tired, resigned, "Who's this?"

"Frank," he says, and tacks on "Castle," as an afterthought, reaching out a hand to shake because he's got some goddamn manners, unlike some of these other assholes apparently.

Thor takes his hand, flexes his grip just a little too tightly, and says, "Thor, Palace. On Asgard, I mean. Not here."

Frank stares in bemusement, not entirely sure if he's joking.

"I've heard of you," says Bruce, evenly, knowingly — and ends the comment there, because he knows they both know what he means.

"Yeah, heard of you, too," says one rampage murderer to another. Except all Frank's victims were horrible people; murderers and monsters and child abusers. Bruce concedes with a fair enough shrug, too tired to bother. Aren't they all.

And that apparently is all it takes for introductions, it must pass muster, because he's given leave to plant himself down into a seat with no further bleak commentary or tests to pass. Good enough.

Thor's Thor-y introduction is, in spite of the low and somber energy, so normal that Clint almost smiles. Nowhere near close to laughing, but it's almost something lighter inside him. Or it could be the exhaustion creeping in.

Rhodey doesn't introduce himself, so, quietly to Frank: "Colonel James Rhodes, Air Force. Some have taken to calling him War Machine. Or is it Iron Patriot? Get 'em mixed up."

A shake of the head, slightly incredulous, slightly not down for all this. "You know which one it is. Frank Castle, huh? Sounds vaguely familiar."

Frank settles on one side of Clint, which means Natasha takes the other side of Clint. So at least he's wedged between the two best people still in his life. Nat's not having it. "We're not doing this right now." It's less a warning, more a command. Though from a Black Widow (from the Black Widow), it means about the same thing. Rhodey accepts this without a fight but moves up toward the front. Ostensibly to copilot for Steve. Who needs no introduction.

Clint clears his throat, awkward. But it doesn't actually clear anything. He's sitting here at last, and it's gonna be...well, not a long flight, but there's going to be time. They lift off. They move. Away from home.

He tries to cling to the feeling of work. This is like going on a mission. Or coming back from one. It's fine. It's fine. It's going to be fine. He doesn't have to get his head out of his ass. "Tell me what happened," quietly, to Nat.

She takes a breath, one of those steadying, steeling ones. "I can brief you when we get there."

"Tash. Tell me. Catch me up." Because he only got the barest details before on the phone, and if he doesn't get to work on this, then he's going to have time in his own head in this oppressively depressing atmosphere and then maybe might just start screaming to pass the time.

"I was on an alien planet as Hulk fighting gladiatorial fights until Thor and Loki crashed the party," which is obviously from Bruce instead of Natasha, so blase from the tiredness that it could almost be funny. "Asgard--" He spares a look at Thor. Thor's chin is propped heavy on his fingers as he stares hard into nothing. "It, uh, blew up."

Clint's about to say something stupid, Nat looks like she might start throwing people out airlocks, and Rhodey pipes up from the front: "Tony and the Spider-kid are out in space somewhere."

"Wha-"

"And Doctor Strange," adds Bruce.

Clint just blinks stupidly. He thinks he vaguely remembers seeing the name Strange as a person of interest to SHIELD at some point, maybe??? Who the fuck--

Nat grips his hand, and the fond, familiar motion startles him. It shouldn't. He immediately feels bad about the fact that it startles him, but he wasn't gonna hug it out with Frank, no, he was gonna let them beat each other into the dirt as physicality. "Full briefing when we get back, okay?"

And now maybe he's actually...actually thinking that's not the worst idea, because that's still overwhelming, and they haven't even talked about who they lost, except obviously anyone who isn't here got turned to so much dust, but--there has to be more to it than that, right? He needs to know about the big guy that apparently got hand on all the stupid space stones to click his heels together and wipe out half the universe and is still out there somewhere.

He opens his mouth, closes it, a couple of times before he lets it click shut with a finality. He's close to asking something stupid, asking for conformation, are the others dust, or were they killed-killed, or did they stay behind to help Wakanda, or...or...

She's trying to keep it together for his sake. Everyone's sake, but for his sake, but he can read her as well as she reads him. There are so many questions behind her eyes, and disbelief, and she was there. So he'll keep his damn trap shut. And, apparently, so will the others.

"I gotta stop retiring." Okay, he doesn't keep his trap shut completely.

He has to bite his tongue so many times throughout this exchange it's a wonder he doesn't chew it clean off. Doctor Strange? What is it with all these made-up bullshit names everybody comes up with? Do they pick these themselves? Iron Man did, he knows that much. War Machine, though? Was that like a big bad punisher situation, or did this guy get real high on his own farts and lock in the merch deal?

Asgard blew up. Spider-Man is in space. What in the absolute goddamn hell do these people do on a daily basis? Do they butter their toast the same way as everybody else, or do they summon aliens down from the goddamn moon to do it for them?

It's Clint's final words that break him, and a long, loud, graceless snort of laughter rips through the back of his throat before he can silence it. Somebody gives him a look, and he tries to repress the sideways shit-eating grin on his face. Doesn't try that hard, though, so the best thing he can do is just point it in the opposite direction and level it at a wall.

It's goddamn ridiculous. All of it. Everything. It's a cosmic fucking joke. Karen's dead, Laura's dead, the kids are dead, and the universe is laughing. Half the population's dead and somebody's in space. Half the population's dead and there's a guy named Doctor Strange. Damn near every person he cares about is fucking dead and he's on the Avengers plane getting glared at by some guy called War Machine, as though that's somehow better than The Punisher.

"Something you wanna add, Castle?" Somebody from the front asks.

Frank cheerfully returns a simple, pleasant, "Nope."

And that's that.

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