brandingproblem | au shenanigans for icasm

He sits up straighter and glares directly at Loki. "I am trying to ask what I mean, and no matter what I say, you end up finding some way to twist it around. No one else seems to have this kind of issue; I'm pretty sure this is just a you problem."

He's pretty sure this entire situation is a Loki problem that just happens to also be a Clint problem.

"Do you want me to get into how I feel about it? Because I don't think it's going to help. If I start explaining the things that felt weird and wrong and sick and disturbing, those are all the parts you're going to like and encourage and enjoy. You're not going to understand my point of view or validate my perspective on it, and you're not my fucking therapist!"

Loki slowly turns his head to look at Clint straight on as he speaks. The man probably isn't wrong; Loki does tend to twist things to suit him, words especially, and it's not as though he's likely to have set that particular skill or impulse aside just when dealing with Clint.

He doesn't know how to bridge this, in particular. He knows what he wants, from Clint; he has a sense of what he thinks he deserves, but a more nebulous series of ideas of what Clint thinks he deserves. Or is acceptable. "Appropriate", even.

As if they can't just make the fucking rules up as they go along. As if they're going to somehow get in trouble. As if that were even a real threat at this point.

Then tell me what you liked about it. Is there anything that didn't feel weird, or sick, or wrong, or disturbing? His expression is put upon, but his emotional response is... hesitant, not quite hopeful, but something close to it, before he frowns sharply and looks away, feeling distinctly foolish for having hoped for something so soft in the first damned place.

The anger seems to dissipate rapidly. Replaced by something more distressed. Clint looks away as well.

"I liked a lot of it, too. What I remember of it. Hunting felt good. Hurting you. Touching you." And that's the thing. A lot that he liked is also what felt wrong and disturbing. "I get so pulled inside out with you. It's all backwards. I love it and I hate it, just the same. I don't know who I am when I'm around you. I don't know that I like him. And in a dream...I didn't think it would..."

Matter? Is what he would normally say, if he weren't trying to also consider his words more carefully.

"Reflect, manifest, here. I don't know how fully in control I was, how lucid, but I know I was trying to let myself do and feel things I don't want to or don't get to. Here."

Sighing, Loki allows his head to drop a little, chin angled towards his own chest as he stares at his hands and Clint's legs. He understands. Kind of. The idea, at least, of not knowing who he is being rather unsettling. Upsetting. Uncomfortable. That Clint may not know if he likes that version of himself.

At the same time he doesn't understand, because he's rarely been a creature who hesitates to indulge, good or bad.

Who do you want to be? Still not looking up. Maybe that's a goal. Or at least a good place to start. Loki swallows. Someone who wouldn't be here in the first place, I suspect. Which, again, circles back around to the things Loki can't do: change the past, or let go.

"Yeah. Well. I can't hope for that, because it's not in anyone's power to do anything about it. Not my fault. In some ways, it's not yours, either." A little shake of the head. "I don't think that's the right question."

What the right question is eludes him, of course. But it's not about who he wants to be. Or at least, that's not the right question for him right now.

"Didn't used to think I was complicated; now I wish you'd picked up someone easier to deal with."

Loki doesn't look up. He keeps his focus downward, on the scars on his hands, on the texture in the material of Clint's pants.

He knows how he would answer the question if it were turned back on him. That he wants to be someone worthy. Of Clint's care, or his violence as necessary, without Clint hating himself for it.

There's little point in saying that without being asked first, however.

How would I even begin to handle a simple person? How would I ever trust anything they say, or feel, or do?

"You could trust everything they did. It'd be simple. You sure as hell can't trust me. You do, but you also can't. Everything's a contradiction with us."

He drains the rest of the beer, sets the bottle aside, sits up straighter. Looks at Loki. Wants, for once, to catch his gaze.

"Name something I can do to make this better for you."

He picks off an invisible bit of lint from Clint's pant leg. Trust doesn't mean believing everything you do or will do would be only in my best interest. He realizes that's... probably not ideal, for anyone else, and that trusting someone who doubts who they are when they're around Loki is likely the height of foolishness but here they are.

Foolish.

The request does get Loki to look at Clint, as if staring at the other man's face for several long moments will somehow make what he means clearer to Loki. It doesn't; he's not exactly surprised, but he also doesn't demand clarification. Loki is annoyed, clearly, and afraid, kind of, mostly of saying the wrong thing. Showing too much, too early, and thus making the desirable become ultimately unattainable.

Besides, what is this? Dying? Having some of his greatest fears realized in his lack of voice, a magic that doesn't work as it has for ages, a sense of powerlessness? Or is this the thing that this usually is, for him: the pervasive sense of loneliness coupled with the belief that it is what he deserves and all he's worth?

He could hedge. He could say 'I don't know'. He could be petty. But he's simultaneously afraid of being too specific. Clint could hold him; it would help, but he'd be too concerned that it would only happen the once, now, and he's not sure how he feels about that. So it goes with any number of other primarily physical comforts he can think of.

You could care, is what he settles on, in whatever way will not make you hate yourself for it.

Edited 2022-08-20 02:17 (UTC)

It is very easy to take this the worst of all ways. Maybe he's starting to see why Loki reacts some of the ways that he does. If you don't get your hopes up, you won't be disappointed.

Because there's a thought that comes to mind. That he could alter the parameters of what he wants out of this, that he could blithely say name something I can actually do, just to twist the dagger a little deeper. Out of anger, pettiness. Spite.

Instead, he scoots closer, pushing off the corner of the couch he'd settled against. Knees over Loki's lap instead. "Give me your hands." And then, after a moment, "Please." Because Loki has been polite, save that scare with being pet, and it's the least he can do to try and attempt it in return.

There is hesitation, confusion, curiosity, all within Loki in the moments it takes Clint to realign his body. When Clint's legs move Loki's hands shift to press into the couch at either side of his hips. He had, in all honesty, expected the other man to inform him that he'd already reached that particular limit just by being here in the first place. In Loki's apartment, in his presence.

If you don't get your hopes up, you won't be disappointed. If you expect the worst you can be surprised by things being not as terrible as that, even when they're still fairly terrible.

The confusion remains even as Loki twists his body, angles himself more in Clint's direction, and holds out hands that are immediately unsteady without something to apply constant pressure to.

There are... several reasons for that, honestly. Instead of being precious about it, Loki decides instead to focus on the fact that the tremors are less bad than they were merely two days ago. So is the pain. He suspects that the scars will always be visible, to the two of them especially and in particular, but he sees little reason to be upset about that.

Scars are a mark of survival.

He cups Loki's hands in his, gentle, palm up. Focuses on the scarring there, and on long fingers lightly curled, and on the shake in them. Presses his thumbs into certain points, the meat of Loki's hands, feeling him out.

Nods to himself, sets one of Loki's hands back down--on Clint's knee, even, rather than anywhere else. A deliberate choice. And sets both of his hands to the task of rubbing the one between them. Massaging his thumbs into the muscles. Pulling firmly but gently at fingers, rolling joints, rubbing long lines down the whole length of Loki's hand. If anything in particular seems to hurt or pull, he turns his attention there.

Having spent a lifetime using his hands for his work, he knows plenty about caring for them, exercises to retain flexibility and mobility, has had doctors massage at them before. He can't say he's ever been pierced through and through in the middle of them, but Loki's body is healing itself rapidly enough. When Clint is satisfied with his work on one hand, he takes the other back up for the same thorough attention.

At first, Loki more or less holds his breath in an attempt not to overreact. To balk from or desire too much of what he asked for: care. Which for him could cover a large swath of behaviors that aren't necessarily limited to acts of kindness, compassion; and while he knows that there can be a level of care in pain if applied for certain reasons, certain necessities, certain ends, it's definitely not the sort of thing he would expect out of Clint at this moment.

It's... nice? Not so gentle that Loki feels physically uncertain about it, in that way he has of being twitchy around unexpectedly soft and gentle things he's not prepared for (and this, actually, is what has him realize that perhaps the way he'd touched Clint earlier had not been the best idea). There's pain, of course there is... the muscles are stiff, the nerves are shot, but Loki makes a valiant attempt not to make any noises of discomfort, even when it does hurt.

Clint can tell, anyway, either by the involuntary movement of his hands or just by virtue of knowing Loki. Perhaps it's a ridiculous endeavor to begin with but Loki has always been a man of pride at odd turns, even when it does not suit or support him.

That his libido responds is not entirely surprising, honestly. It's touch and contact from the person he craves it from the most these days, after all. It is, however, embarrassing to become hard at this moment when he is trying very sincerely not to push, or make demands, or be...

Whatever it is that makes him difficult for Clint. Beyond the troubled history. Being himself, he thinks ruefully. Who gets horny at every single inappropriate damned moment, it would seem.

Really, it is one thing to find violence sensual. To be attracted to the things that others tell themselves cannot possibly be attractive. It is quite another to spend centuries sublimating suffering into ecstasy just to get incredibly aroused by soft kindness from someone who is offering nothing else.

He tries ignoring it, ensuring to keep his hip incredibly still, trying not to remember the moments of soft sensuality before pain that had taken him by surprise in Clint's dream, until he realizes the hand that had been set at Clint's knee is now, weakly, gripping into the fabric of his pant leg. Loki keeps his eyes on Clint's hands and forces himself to relax. It half works; his weakened death grip on Clint's knee lets up, at least.

Loki is not going to look up, however.

He works in this not-so-casual silence, focused. Will not demand that Loki look at him. Won't scoff that he needs to get a grip on himself. Feels that hold on his knee, curled into the denim, does not comment on it.

Loki wanted care. This is him, caring, without hating himself for it. Maybe hating what he did in some regards, but not hating this. He refuses, too, to feel self-hate for this giving into Loki's wants again so easily. In a sense, Clint asked for this himself.

At least this is something that makes full sense to find attractive. A desire that he can wrap his mind around. He doesn't think on it much, because that will get awkward fast, because he might instead think of pulling those fingers into his mouth, or elegant hands wrapped tight around his windpipe, or nails digging into his skin. Clint lets out one little breath about it and refocuses.

Until he feels done with that hand, too, and sets it back down as well. A moment where his hand is over Loki's, on his leg. This could be cozy if they wanted it to be.

"Does that feel any better?"

Loki nods, breathes. Doesn't look up. He wants to lift his hands and sign 'thank you', keep his mouth shut and his voice out of Clint's head, but he also doesn't want to break the contact at all.

So. Another breath, and then: Thank you. The jumble of emotions behind that lead with desire and shame at the forefront.

The kind thing, or perhaps the sensible one, would be to gently imply that Clint should leave. Or perhaps just ask him to, outright. He's going to fuck it up, Loki's even more certain of it now, this fragile moment of peace; it is merely a kindness that Clint hasn't laughed at him, or rolled his eyes, or grown irritated or disgusted or what have you.

'Why are you incapable of self-control?' is Odin's voice, in his head. An argument centuries past, a man years dead. 'What need have I for that?' had been his response, at the time, but now?

He screws his eyes shut. Clint will decide what happens next. He'll probably leave before it becomes too strange to handle. And Loki will refuse to make any move to stop him.

They are sometimes way more similar than Clint feels entirely comfortable pointing out. Because there is shame that filters through, which is something he wasn't sure Loki was even capable of feeling at all, much less about...whatever this is. That he's horny for touch? That hands are one of the most sensitive parts of the body for obvious reason, that interest and warmth and kindness and tenderness and arousal intertwine in this case, that he likes something that isn't pain and horror and blood?

Loki does not technically answer the question, but Clint doesn't feel like being pedantic about it.

This is a nice moment. They come so few and far between with them. He wants to frame it and hang it on a wall to remind himself he is capable of this. So he keeps his hand there over Loki's. Warm and secure.

He should go.

"Do you need any help with anything around here?"

A furrow between his brow, heat rising in his cheeks, are both responses Loki tries to push aside in his own mind in favor of extracting Loki's overwhelming and unrelenting desire away from Clint's question. The warmth of the other man's hand on his.

The shock that Clint hasn't opted to leave yet, despite the fact that both of them know he should.

He opens his eyes. Doesn't look directly at Clint. Looks around the apartment instead. Some of the plants need watering. He could probably manage it, or at least the bulk of it now that Clint has alleviated some of the pain in his hands, but. Well.

Loki doesn't actually want Clint to leave.

Clint does not comment on the blush. He's being nice. He's being kind, maybe because Loki deserves it, maybe not, maybe out of guilt, maybe not. So he's going to make an effort. Sees it, notes it, says nothing.

They are both trying right now, trying to live in a moment that is not likely to happen this way again, doesn't want to scare it off like a skittish wild animal. Loki makes a suggestion, something that may or may not really need doing, to keep him around. Avoids anything wild or lewd or strange or annoying. Clint could go, should go.

"Okay."

There's a question that's been sitting right under his ribcage that even now he wants to ask, but he's not sure he'll like the answer. Not sure he needs it, can guess at it, maybe. He moves, slow and easy, off Loki's lap, makes to stand. Whatever's left of the tea is cold now, and he takes the mug and empty beer bottle to help clear up. Rummages around a little, until he finds a little watering can to fill. Loki has taken good care of his plants, but some are looking a little bit parched. No wonder, if his hands cramp up enough that holding anything for long is a burden. Does this chore, without complaint. Sees the view out the windows. Shivers at the deja vu.

"Do you want more tea?" To help soothe that throat further. To keep his aching hands nice and warm. This might all be honest; this might all be a lie. But it doesn't bother him right now to keep it going.

His gaze does affix itself to Clint's face when he acquiesces to Loki's request. Clint moves away from him carefully and Loki's hands slide back to settle into the seat of the couch as he attempts to breathe and will his arousal down to a manageable and less embarrassing state.

There is always something oddly fascinating about watching someone else navigate a space in which Loki spends a great deal of time alone. The children know where he lives, yes, but he can count on one hand the number of times they've been inside for more than a handful of minutes; usually Loki meets them out in the world, shape-shifted into a different form, a different gender presentation, in order to avoid attention or scrutiny from those that would recognize him otherwise.

The Bartons always recognize him, though. That he allows for, on purpose.

Clint's new question startles him out of his considerations. The sense of longing for something as simple as this to continue rises in his chest, his throat. He can't, won't, ask for it. The presumption and imposition inherent in the concept of it are too much. What would he even say? 'I'm desperately lonely could you just stay and be here? I won't fight you. You wouldn't have to touch me.'

Desperate. Pathetic. His hands ball into fists.

Yes, thank you. Predominantly Loki feels thankful, in his uncertain and wary way, though the longing remains; Loki can't help it but he will continue to ignore it. So too, remains the self-disgust quick on its heels. He rises, then, because his kitchen is full of things both potent and dangerous, even though the tea in question is still on the counter, the kettle half full of water on the stove. But if he doesn't do something, if he just continues to passively accept Clint's help in this way, if he remains consumed by wanting with no real outlet, he's certain that he will say or do something foolish.

Ruin it. He's so afraid of ruining it. Of proving that he doesn't deserve this because he can't even pull it together long enough for a trial run.

In the kitchen he gathers the few things that aren't still out. The honey, the lemon, the tea ball. A spoon. Arranges them on the counter as something to do with his hands, something else to focus on, as the cat follows and leaps up into the window seat, cleaning herself.

Loki finally gets up, and that feels so much better than him staying seated right there, watching him, trying to breathe through arousal and all else. It's better than him being entirely passive. Clint could have withstood it, yes, but it feels like some kind of oppressive weight is starting to lift off his shoulders as he puts the kettle back on.

Someone's going to break this silence, this niceness. It might as well be him, hands curled on the counter, watching the kettle, suddenly lacking anything else to do immediately before things are ready to go.

"I'm not sorry for the things I did in a dream where I don't think I was ever in full control and where I didn't have all the information." Start with that. "I do feel guilty about it." He blinks, sucks in a breath. "You're going to be frustrated with that and ask me why. Don't ask me why. I think we both know I'm not going to have any satisfying answers for it. But I feel it. Guilty and used. A little like a monster. Which I know. I know you'd scoff at it. What's a monster to the likes of you, to the likes of people much more awful than you ever were or could be? Logic doesn't have a place in dreams, and it doesn't always have one in feelings, either."

I don't think you're a monster, Loki starts and then pauses. He's a good negotiator, knows how to understand others well enough to get them to do things that are more aligned with his interests than their own. But it's not often he turns that ability around, forces himself to listen, not for the cracks where he can slip in, but for the shift in perspective. For many reasons. But I don't think a monster would feel guilty about it at all.

He's not trying to change Clint's mind. It's not insistent, or cajoling. He meant what he said earlier, when he'd told Clint that he wanted them to understand each other. This is him, making an attempt to understand in the face of the certainty that he will fail at it.

About feeling used, well. Accurate, perhaps. Loki did use him to an end. Trusted him with something he still feels relatively certain needed to happen, though he can also see how perhaps it went further than Clint feels was necessary. To that end he almost asks if Clint would still feel the same way if Loki had merely been injured, not dead, and then he remembers his own reaction the last time he unintentionally broke Clint's arm. In a crowded place, in the middle of an argument.

He'd fled. Not far. But still.

Sometimes a scale is only bad to worse and 'better' has no place in it.

He could tell Clint that he hadn't meant for him to find out, or a least not until Loki was better healed, more himself, but he doubts that would help.

I don't know how to improve any of that. The guilt. That I used you. That you feel like a monster as a result.

Edited 2022-08-20 15:56 (UTC)

"I know." That Loki doesn't think him monstrous. That guilt has no place in the heart of a monster. "I know I'm not one, not for those reasons. I think it's...that I want things, enjoy things, that I don't think I should. They make some part of me feel that sickness. Like I said before. That...I liked it. A lot of it. And hated it, too. I'm not supposed to..."

He breathes out slow, leans heavy over the counter, counts to five in his head. "I'm not supposed to like any of that. I can deal with wanting, but liking feels like I'm crossing a line. I'm a weapon." Saying that feels grounding. Grounds him, solidifies him, makes him whole. "Weapon's not supposed to like it, just do."

He's been a weapon without a master for longer than sits well with him. SHIELD fell, but there was still work to do. The Avengers fell, and the law came down on him, forced him into another retirement. And it was good. Enough space on the homestead that he didn't always feel caged, quality time with the family. The caged feeling could be set aside and mitigated by other shit. Or he tried to.

And then Thanos happened, and there was work to do, and now that that's done, he has to keep finding work, but without someone to tell him exactly what to do. If Fury calls him, he'll answer. If one of the Avengers that are left called for him, he'd consider it. Apparently, given one Kate Bishop, he can get into his own damn trouble just fine. There's still shit out there. And with two birds having left the nest now and another on his way to growing up, everything's starting to feel like a cage again. Laura's given him permission to go and do. Whatever he needs to, so long as he comes home. But he doesn't have anyone but Fury to answer to now, and who knows where that son of a bitch is. He'll never be Ronin again, never don the outfit and run around with a fucking sword cleaning up the sorry shit that filled every fucking vacuum of power. But he'd be something not dissimilar if left to his own devices.

The kettle starts to whistle. He turns off the heat, thankful for even something small to break him out of this feeling threatening to pull him under.

"Am I your weapon? Am I a weapon you use against yourself?"

Watching Clint breathe through to voice the idea that he has function but is not meant to have... violent desires? No, that's not entirely correct. Take pleasure in the fulfillment of violent desire, yes, that's more accurate, puts a few pieces of their differences into perspective.

Loki's frowning, as Clint speaks, as he listens feels senses his way through the emotional response on the other side of their connection. Being a weapon elicits the same response in Clint that knowing Clint killed him elicits in Loki. It's probably not the healthiest thing, in the broader sense, for most people, but.

Neither of them are most people.

The question has him huffing, slightly amused as his hands spoon honey into the mug, add tea into the tea ball, arranging both items so that Clint can add the hot water.

Often. It is not all he wants of Clint nor does it encompass all that he believes the archer is capable of, but. It's not an inaccurate assessment of how things have been between them. Ideally that would not be all.

There's a frown light on his lips, a divot between his brows, as he sets to pouring the water over tea leaves. Tea ceremonies are meant to imbue harmony and balance and patience, beauty in the mundane, tight control, everything perfect and in its place. Mindfulness of the everyday, enhance the aroma and taste.

Pretty sure he couldn't do any of that shit. It's leaf water. You drink it. But he's trying to internalize some of that as Loki's uncomplicated words wash over and in him.

He doesn't think he needs to ask what more he would be. Ideally. 'Partner' seems like the safest word for it, and it feels tremendously inadequate. "I'm yours, and you're mine." If he is a weapon, and he is Loki's, then he is Loki's weapon. Stands to reason.

Question it from the side, then. Direct and yet indirect at the same time. "What else would you use me for besides your instrument of suicide?"

There is a flush of fondness, pride, and no little possessiveness at Clint's acknowledgement of their state of belonging to one another that comes through without Loki expressing anything else directly, though he is watching Clint with an enigmatic smile that the archer is very familiar with.

There's a wind-up kitchen timer on the counter. Loki sets it to three minutes.

You could consider it my rebirth, if that helps at all. Since one must die in order to be reborn, no matter what some insane evangelical Christians might insist. For myself? A corrective measure. For others? Well. He shrugs, hands open, palms up. There are many things I would show you, many places different from this. And there are some methods of behavior that even I cannot tolerate, that should be also be corrected in those we may encounter.

He knows about the Ronin, even though it has mostly been Nate who has explained to Loki the history and cultural references at play there. He thinks Clint didn't have a terrible idea, really, he just doesn't thrive without an external sense of direction.

"You just wanna go on a space adventure with me and fuck up some assholes who need fucked up?" Clint squints his eyes at Loki. That seems so simple. That seems too simple. But then, Loki has no home, no kingdom. An agent of chaos across the stars.

Be Hawkeye, just for the likes of a sad and lonely prince who thinks a little step sideways has him reformed.

"Seems like you're just gonna have to get used to life on boring old Earth for the next couple decades and then find someone else to hurt you 'til you cum."

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