brandingproblem | au shenanigans for icasm

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."

A possibility I am... more or less prepared for. A possibility he has actively plotted against, more like.

There's a moment's hesitation; not to tell Clint about Idunn's apples but for the admission that not every orgasm has to be led by pain. That he craves Clint's softness, as well, before. During. After.

There's that longing, again. Softer than before. Immediately tinged by embarrassment. Stop making him feel soft things, Clint, he doesn't know what to make of it at his big age.

He shrugs, swirling the tea ball in the mug.

Edited 2022-08-20 20:19 (UTC)

He huffs out of his nose and raises a hand like he's going to--he doesn't know what. It moves unbidden. Like he's going to rest it on Loki's shoulder? Stroke his cheek? Take him by the jaw?

Lowers it again. Flexes, once, like shaking off whatever drove the impulse to begin with.

"It's not like you to be shy." Shy with--is it desire? It's not exactly desire that bleeds through but something like it. "You talk too much, remember? So what is it?"

Green eyes track the lifting movement and drop of Clint's hand, before the alarm begins to rattle, and Loki reaches out to silence it.

Any of those gestures would have been welcome. There's a sense of thrill at what almost occurs, that doesn't quite dissipate despite Clint's decision not to see it through.

Loki picks up the mug, removes the tea ball and sets it into the sink, and blows against the surface of the liquid.

They are standing very close to one another, now. Loki turns to fully face Clint, leaning slightly against the counter.

I am not a creature that tends toward gentleness. I, perhaps, have never been, or at least not after I reached adulthood. I thrive in the absurd, the outcast, the subversive. That which has been deemed outside of reasonable desire. Pain is part of that.

You know this. An incline of his head.

And yet. I find that I crave your care, your gentleness, even in the face of my belief that I do not, could not, possibly be deserving of it. It's complicated. Confusing, even, at times. I know how to navigate a desire for suffering, for pain. How to encourage it, pursue it. I don't know what I'm doing with the rest.

So. Shyness. Embarrassment. He takes another sip and shifts his gaze away.

Loki tends to be confused about Clint's dual state of mind, and yet when Loki explains his desire for pain and craving for care, he thinks it's the clearest he's ever seen Loki. Maybe the reasonings they hold differ, but the idea of being split down that middle, wondering at what it means to deserve, juggling desires that are unusual, that makes so much god damn sense he could choke.

"You don't ask me to. You only ever ask for..." Loki barely asks for anything, honestly. He thinks about the taste of tears and blood. Blinks. It's gone again. But when he licks his lips, just a brief darting to wet them, the warm metallic taste lingers in the background.

He tips his head, searching. Drums fingers on the countertop for a moment before flattening his hand on the surface. Phrasing. It's interesting. Curious.

"Am I outside of reasonable desire?"

He expects the answer to be a scoffed no, but he wonders. Loki thriving off the chaotic and unwanted and strange and set apart. Did Clint seem that way when he was chosen? Was there something of his difference in his eyes that Loki had seen?

Asking for things is difficult, for there always exists the potential for denial.

A sigh. Another sip.

I suppose it could be worked on, my habit of only allowing for and making implied and explicit demands.

Is that Loki giving Clint the room to tell him to ask for things more? To take the risk of being denied? (Will small miracles never cease? Apparently today is the day for it.)

Another sip as he turns Clint's question over in his mind. Yes. A breath. Some of that is my fault, if there's fault to be had.

He pulls a hand through his hair, causing the curls to bounce and rearrange themselves around his face.

It's not a no. It's a yes. He doesn't know why this feels settling and upsetting at once.

Hasn't he always known he was different, outside, undesirable? Look at the Avengers, at who they were, at the ones who claim to be them now. Fuckups and assholes and broken, damaged people. All of them. You have to be to do the things they do.

"Think if there's fault, it's to the guy that knocked up a young girl and left her all alone." Red noseless fuck had named him, son of Edith, and not anyone else. "You didn't help by reaching in my head and squeezing my brain like a sponge, no, but I don't think any of it's your fault."

One of the few things he doesn't think Loki can be faulted for, really.

"Still managed to get married to the greatest woman in history." He's allowed to be dramatic and sappy about his wife, thanks. "Raise a bunch of kids who are smarter and kinder than I'll ever be. Have a house. Have two houses, even if moving was kind of just a necessity of having a bunch of people suddenly know where your incredibly secret and private off the radar life is. Saved the world a couple times. I think that's pretty good for an outcast weirdo nobody dipshit who should've been dead decades ago."

Nose wrinkle. I take some offense to the idea that you're a dipshit. Also, Clint is definitely not a nobody at this point, even amongst his own people but especially in Loki's regard; still, that might be a pointless fight for another time.

Loki suspects it's a well-known secret amongst the Barton clan the high regard with which he considers Clint's family; even Laura who occasionally asks him pointedly (in his opinion) ridiculous questions he refuses to properly answer. You know how I feel about the children you've raised, the father you are. High praise, from a creature that has staunchly avoided parenthood for two millennia and also cannot stand a single person he ever has or could call 'father'.

"Hey, I'm the dumbass who never finished school; I can call myself a dipshit if I want." And maybe he's not a nobody now, but he most certainly was for a good bit of his life. "You attached yourself to a dipshit. Good job."

(Affectionate. Somehow.)

"You've been good." There's an emotion working its way up his throat, and he clears it, looks away. It's still there trying to claw. "You've been good to the kids. And to Laura. You didn't have to be. Pretty sure you only started trying to be part of the family just to piss me off," which worked at the time, "but you are, now. You're a good uncle. I know your family's complicated as hell, but I think if you ever wanted kids of your own? You wouldn't be a half-bad dad."

Eye-rolling. Also fondly. Yes, a good and somewhat predictable attachment for me, historically. You've met Thor. If we're going to talk about Loki's ability to handle being connected to a dipshit, then they might as well identify the first one he ever aligned himself with.

'You've been good', the emotion in Clint's voice, that he can simultaneously hear and feel coming from him, drives Loki to keep his mug up in front of his face, eyebrows slightly elevated. This is nice, this back and forth, but the compliment regarding his estimated parenting abilities is making him a little uncomfortable. Besides, it's not like Clint is wrong; Loki did begin ingratiating himself to the rest of the Barton family as a way of pissing Clint off.

It's just that he... actually enjoys children. In a broad sense. When they're old enough to reason. Usually. So that helped. And then, suddenly, somewhat to his own surprise, he'd managed to make friends with Clint's children.

Thank you. He isn't going to demand a subject change but it's a near thing. He will, however, continue sipping.

Thor's been less of a sticking point with them than Clint thought he would be. Mostly because Thor is so used to Loki's shenanigans by now that little is surprising, and because he's mostly pulling a Captain Marvel and roaming the universe looking for purpose and people to save. Visits New Asgard sometimes. Drops by the house specifically whenever Loki is not around even less frequently but no less unwelcome. He knows that there's a connection, and he knows no way of breaking that which a primordial force of the universe forged between them.

Clint respects Thor. Really got that balance of being so smart and so dumb at the same time nailed down. It's impressive.

Loki's probably as surprised as Clint is that this moderate softness is continuing, at any rate. The tight emotion of family. The acknowledgement that Loki is part of it, that he hasn't been bad for them. Making things all the more complicated. He nods in acknowledgement of the thanks but doesn't trust himself to say more. Because it's going to get worse if he says more. The one most likely to break the uneasy peace.

Loki frowns, softly, and sets the mug back down on the counter. Even if he weren't connected to the other man in such a way he'd be aware of his discomfort. Could trace it back to himself, as the reason.

He should encourage Clint to leave before this gets ruined by one or both of them.

He's too selfish to do that just yet.

How do you ask for forgiveness when you're not sorry for the thing you've done, when you only feel bad that it hurt someone else? Unaccustomed and unused to apologizing on the first place means Loki doesn't have the faintest idea. But that sense is there, bouncing around inside of him.

He wants to kiss Clint but that is an always state, for him. Neverending. He should ask permission, first, but the fear of rejection, the possibility that he'll ruin this moment in the asking, has him considering his other options, for once.

So he stands a little more upright, opens his arms a bit. Would you like a hug?

Thank your children for training him out of asking that particular question in a much more convoluted way.

Loki is plotting something, and Clint braces himself for whatever's about to happen or come out of his mouth (figuratively).

And then it's asking if he wants a hug. It's so...unexpected. A little childish? But in a good way. That'll be the kids, then, teaching him a few things. Trying them out on him. He laughs, actually. Surprised. In a good way.

"No," he says, even while laughing. Not from Loki. And not even really over this. It's kind of cute, though. "Do you want a hug?"

The rejection stings, causing a small flare of hurt and anger even though Clint is laughing and not in malice, even as Clint offers him the opportunity to he more honest and possibly get what he wants in the end. Touch and contact.

So he's not looking Clint in the eye when he responds. Yes. Does he expect to get one, at this point? Hard to say!

His lips are smirking, but he lets out a sigh. Loki doesn't ask him for much, and when he does, it's either something distressing, or in such a roundabout way that he can't figure out what it actually is at the heart of it. So this is new. They're trying a lot of new things, lately.

"Okay." He will try not to hurt Loki in the process. Even knowing that Loki would like it if he did. Steps up into Loki's space, curls an arm around his waist, another up, into Loki's hair, to draw him down a little, rest chin on shoulder. Holds him.

Loki spends Clint's entire yet short approach towards him glaring at somewhere around the other man's midsection. He closes his eyes as Clint embraces him and tries to relax into it, despite everything else. It's nice. It helps, actually, and he returns the embrace, wrapping his arms around Clint's back and breathing for a few moments.

Just that. Nothing else.

However. Loki recognizes that the next thing he says, or does, will either be several steps in the wrong direction between them or a demand that Clint is not prepared to meet. Because he feels raw and on edge, now. Too much honesty between them.

Better to stop before that happens.

So. He counts to twenty, in his head, and then lets go. Pulls back. Thank you for coming. He looks Clint in the eye, now. You should go.

It's strange. A sense of...calm. Maybe not contentment, but a quieting of the anger and hate and disgust. The idea that if they can have this, now, then what if they could have this moving forward?

That's not who they are. They both have too much baggage with themselves and with each other to keep it up for long. Loki's holding back, and Clint's letting him. They both have impulses that are ugly and unwise, and they can't set all that aside forever.

It's still not okay. It might not ever be okay. As a whole and for the situation that they found themselves in. Clint takes a step back, steels himself. "Yeah, I should. I'll tell the kids I checked up on you. That you're probably gonna be okay. I think Lila's kind of upset; you should probably text her more." He stands there for a beat longer. Like he doesn't want to move. Like he's waiting. Like he's debating with himself about touching Loki again. Blood doesn't come to mind this time. (But he knows it will later.)

And then he turns and goes.

au shenanigans for icasm

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