There's the weak, and the strong, and the best that have no answers

[usavatar]

WHO: Steve Rogers and Clint Barton and Frank Castle, anyone else in Avengers Mansion or who later happens by.
WHERE: Avenger's Mansion, and THE MEAN STREETS OF NEW YORK CITY
WHEN: The night after Steve's arrival
WARNINGS: N/A
SUMMARY: Valeria brings Steve 'round to Avengers Mansion; later he sneaks out to decompress and gets tailed instead.
FORMAT: Any.


Clint
The trip to the mansion is uneventful, for all that Steve gets his fare share of glances on mass transit. He can't blame the people for it - his suit is supposed to be eye-catching, and the fact that he's filthy with the remains of a battle that hasn't happened here makes it all the more so. Valeria knows the city, it seems, and they approach the imposing building in short order after they leave the subway. There's someone out front as they walk up - someone holding a bow.



The Palatial Manse
It feels good to get clean, even if it's in another unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. People who, according to Mockingbird, are dying to see him. That might be the reason he takes a little longer to tend to his injuries, particularly the gash-and-burn across his side. Might be why he doesn't leave the massive bathroom immediately once he's dressed and his hair is combed. He spends a few minutes staring down his reflection without thinking much at all - and then it's a quiet descent to the living room, which he mostly finds by accident.


Frank Castle/Others
It's somewhere between late and early when he feels the mansion quiet down enough that he can find his way out without being seen. Without being seen by more than the accusing eyes of a small dog dressed in a bee costume, anyway. He hits the sidewalk outside of the gates and takes what feels like his first deep breath since arriving. Steve doesn't pick a direction so much as he starts walking and lets his instinct find paths still familiar even in another world. He's not doing this for the sights. He just needs time to think.

Comments

[trickshot]

Clint doesn’t know what to do.

For as long as he can remember, he has defined himself in contrast to Steve Rogers. The older man is his friend, rival, confidante and leader. Coming to the City, being here without Steve, would have been hard, had Clint not just gone through a year of thinking the captain was dead. That had made the transition easier, because he was used to it, and he knew Commander Rogers was somewhere else in the multiverse, alive.

This is different. Had Steve shown up from the past, Clint would have caught him up to speed. If he’d shown up from the future, he’d have badgered Rogers for details. If he hadn’t arrived at all, Clint would have continued to live with it.

But now he’s here, and he’s not the man Clint knows. He doesn’t know what to do.

After his conversation with Steve and Val ends, Clint drops his communicator on the couch and heads out to the front of the mansion, grabbing his bow as he goes. He knocks an arrow without quite knowing why, and sights every spot he might see them at—every direction they might be coming from. He waits. He doesn’t know what to do.

Then he sees Steve—not his Steve, but this Steve. His mouth opens, his mind tries to register the differences. Definitely not the man he knows. Wearing a similar outfit, carrying himself in a similar way. Their faces are uncannily alike, but not exact. Clint’s mind can’t register it.

The bow clatters to the ground with a carelessness uncharacteristic of him. He doesn’t care, doesn’t notice. He’s already halfway down the drive. He pulls back his arm before he can think, and punches Steve Rogers in the jaw with as much force as he can muster.

[usavatar]

He's still on the battlefield. Exhausted, certainly, and in the lull of lost adrenaline, but he's still wired with the expectation of attack. He sees the assault coming as soon as the stranger starts his charge, but the shield is slung in its harness on Steve's back.

Ambush?

But it's sloppy, emotional, and without intent to critically wound.

The mental dissonance and his slowed response time all combine to result in Steve Rogers getting punched in the jaw.

He doesn't stagger, doesn't flinch, takes the blow and tastes blood as his teeth cut the inside of his cheek. Then he's seizing the man's wrist, stepping in with a twist to slam his own heel into the stranger's ankle to break his stance, and executing a throw that will land the other man on his back several feet away.

[trickshot]

Captain America taught Clint Barton how to fight. Hawkeye may have always been an archer, but it was Steve Rogers who turned him into one of the world's best hand-to-hand combatants. That doesn't show, much, when Steve throws Clint and he falls back with a heavy "oof." But it's evident when Clint picks himself back up and surges forward again.

There's a faraway look in his blue eyes, like he's not actually seeing what he's doing. He certainly isn't thinking about it. No, he has simply let instinct take over. Sore from the fall but resilient, Clint throws another punch.

[usavatar]

Steve backs off.

It's not that he doesn't feel equipped to engage, or that he's afraid. There's something in this man's face that makes him uneasy and the way he comes at Steve is familiar enough to be disorienting. Steve turns the punch aside fluidly, leading his opponent back toward the street with each block and dodge.

Steve gets the attackers measure a little better with each exchange, taking more hits than he would on a good day and still refusing to return a single blow. He catches the next incoming punch to buy a moment to speak.

"What are you doing? Who are you?"

[trickshot]

When Steve catches his punch, Clint strains against him for a moment. He knows six thousand ways to counter moves like this. He's fought Steve so many times. The different scenes are playing over in his head, now.

What are you doing, Barton?

He steps back suddenly, expression blank. At the question, his eyes narrow and he lifts his head, defiant.

"I'm Hawkeye. Who the hell are you?"

[usavatar]

He bridles at the guy's tone, confusion burned out by anger at the attack, the accusation in the question. "Agent Clint Barton is Hawkeye," Steve says, his voice quiet and even and cold. "And I'm Captain Steve Rogers, formerly of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, currently serving the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division along with the Avengers. Want to tell me why you attacked me?"

[trickshot]

Clint pauses, catches his breath. He rolls his eyes at the sky and mutters, darkly, "I hate alternate universes."

Then he turns back to Steve and faces him squarely. He lifts his brows pointedly, like the Captain has just uttered something very interesting but not particularly relevant.

"That'd be me. Clint Barton. Drop the agent, though, or I'll sock you again."

[fronttowardenemy]

There's a lot to learn from listening.

Frank watches the network far more than he'll ever use it. It's discouraging, really, watching how many of them scramble around without asking the right questions. He gets the answers he wants, eventually, by tracking the responses.

This man in the City is Captain America, but not at the same time.

Spider-Man and Bauer and plenty others mentioned it: alternate universes. While Frank tends to avoid that bullshit as much as possible, leaving it to the ones more equipped for it, he can't deny the existence of such things. He has witnessed and experienced too many things for this to seem absurd to him.

The question is: how different is he?

It isn't good to be here after Murdock outed him on the network. Stupid thing to do. It doesn't disadvantage him too greatly to have his existence known -- after all, Spider-Man had found him and that active mouth probably spread it already -- but it's unlikely that any of the Avengers expect him outside the Mansion.

Then the man himself exits the place. Frank isn't surprised or calling coincidence. It makes sense that Rogers wouldn't stick around; after that much insanity he'd want the space to breathe, no matter how ill-advised it might be to jump out into the unknown.

Keeping a safe distance behind, Frank follows.

[usavatar]

For a while he meanders through the fog of enervation, content to bathe in the sounds of the midnight city. It's the first thing to really convince him that there's no clear and present danger here. No aliens from the sky or leviathans storming through buildings on their way to sweep through vehicles on the ground. A phrase by now familiar enough to incite irony drifts through his thoughts: It could almost be home.

That spark of awareness broadens into the realization that he isn't alone on the street and hasn't been for some time now. A few more turns, taken at random, to make sure he isn't imagining things, and then Steve stops. He doesn't have it as bad as he used to, going out at night. He can do it now usually without worrying about being harassed. But clearly there's a first time for everything.

Steve shifts to face whoever it is, keeping his injured side turned away and his guard up. There's no trace of weariness on his face - though there is a spreading bruise, courtesy of Clint Barton. "I'd rather not beat someone else into the ground on my first day here. Whoever you think you're following, I'm not him."

[fronttowardenemy]

When it's mindless wandering, that makes it all the easier to notice that Frank is following him. Honestly, Frank would have been more bothered if Rogers hadn't noticed him. The man he knew was sharper than that, and this one lives up to expectation so far.

When the man calls out, he emerges from the darkness. His coat is buttoned up, concealing the skull, and his hands are at his sides -- having them in his pockets would seem more questionable, so he keeps them visible.

"Know that already," he admits. But who does Rogers think is following him? Would he recognize this man at all?

[usavatar]

There's not even an inkling of familiarity on Steve's part. "Then what do you want? To test me?"

The double-blow of genuine kindness and genuine disappointment in almost everyone who knows his name is somehow ten times worse than S.H.I.E.L.D.'s kid-glove handling of a possibly unbalanced asset. With them, at least, it was protocol. Business. The rage he's had running under the surface for months flares, and he shifts to a ready stance, fists raised.

"Let's get it over with."

[fronttowardenemy]

Frank frowns slightly, his head bent. This man looks younger than the Steve Rogers he knows, and it shows in his reactions as well. The anger isn't unexpected; especially after this kind of hell. He doubted the others took it gently, either. They were a clumsy bunch. No real protocol about them.

"No," he says firmly, his posture not changing. "I won't."

He never would -- not against Captain America. But this man didn't know that. Not yet, anyway.

[usavatar]

The fight eases out of Steve slowly in the silence after the other man speaks, though the hostility doesn't. Even if this guy isn't on the attack, he's still been following in silence for who knows how long.

"What do you want? Who are you?"

[incywincyhero]

[Spidey had seen Cap's first post on the Network, and since he'd been late to the party he had plenty of other people's conversations to read through, just enough to discern that (a) this wasn't their Cap, and (b) the poor guy had enough on his plate already without yet another stranger claiming to know him sticking his webbed face in. So, he resolved to wait a few days for Steve to settle in before seeking him out to introduce himself.

In retrospect, that plan would've been better served if Spidey hadn't stopped by the mansion in search of company.]

Oh, uh. Hey... Cap.

[Wow. Almost as good a first impression as the first time they met.]

[usavatar]

[Steve stops in the doorway, hands clasped neatly against the small of his back, studying the costumed stranger without moving into the room.]

I think you have me at a disadvantage.

[incywincyhero]

Whoa! [Spidey holds up his hands, spread wide.] Look, first thing you gotta know about me is that I really don't stand on formality.

[He moves closer and offers a hand to shake.] Spider-Man. It's nice to meet you.

[usavatar]

Yeah, that... seems to be the common trend. [Steve's handshake is firm, even if his words aren't.] I'd introduce myself, but it would be a little [circular hand gestures] redundant.

[incywincyhero]

I wasn't gonna make a thing of it, but... yeah. [A shrug.] This isn't my first alternate universe rodeo, so if you're worried about me being weirded out or expecting you to know things -- don't.

[Beat.] How about you? From what you said over the network, it sounded like you'd just, ah, woken up.

[usavatar]

So it happened to him, too. [He suspected, but the confirmation is somehow disappointing.] Yes. SHIELD found me around six months ago.

belated as hell i hope this is ok ;;

[mocks]

It's the eve of Bobbi's trip to London with Callie's team, and there is still a ton of preparations to be done. Bobbi is somehow maintaining a level of calm while working in one of the labs in the Mansion's basement, reading over her data on Skrulls again and again and again, committing every last detail to memory. As if she hadn't memorized it already.

But all work and no play makes Mockingbird a dull Avenger, and also a starving one. She's pushed her glasses up into her hair and is slowly trudging up the stairs now, wondering if her husband is around, wondering if there's something in the kitchen to eat besides leftover barbecue from their wedding.

yes always I am the backtaggingest AS YOU CAN SEE sob

[usavatar]

Steve is in the kitchen himself, wondering what the protocol is for... well, eating. He's not sure what belongs to who, or even where anything is, and he doesn't feel right rifling through their cupboards.

In the end he procures some fruit from the fridge, cutting it up with a knife from a rack on the counter. It's more to give himself something to focus on than because he actually wants the fruit cut - learned rituals, practiced distractions, attempting to stave off the restlessness of inactivity. Of missions interrupted.

His grip on the knife shifts as he hears Bobbi enter, flipped from 'cutting fruit' to 'ready to stab someone' - and he promptly drops it to hide the motion. "Ma'am. Mockingbird. I hope it's all right that I raided the refrigerator."

oh good :3

[mocks]

She's glad to see him, and in a way, almost relieved. While she understands that he still doesn't really know her (or the other Avengers, to be frank) it's comforting to have Steve around regardless. His presence is a welcome one, a neutralizing one, and though she's spend most of the past three years as acting leader of the Avengers, she accepts that with Captain America around, he's the most obvious choice to take on the role.

And she's even happy to ignore the subtle movement of the knife in his hand if it means peace of mind and welcome company.

"Of course it is, sport. Me casa, su casa." She smiles, a casual friendliness about her, and she reaches for the fridge door herself. "Anything good in there?"

[usavatar]

Sport.

Steve sets the knife on the counter, feeling sheepish. "You speak Spanish?"

He knows enough to parse the phrase's meaning - after all, he's from New York - but it was never high on his list of linguistic priorities.

He scoops up his apple slices and joins her, offering what he has. "That depends on what you call good. I couldn't date most of the left-overs."

[mocks]

"Fluently," she nods, now partially obscured by the refrigerator doors, emerging a moment later with a bottle of Coke. Her smile broadens when he offers up the apple, and she takes it with a nod of thanks. "Most of that stuff is probably from the wedding. And let's face it, a week is pushing it when it comes to leftovers and what's safe."

They'd be better off if they just made something from scratch. Or ordered something for delivery. It's be less hazardous to their health and more familiar for her, at least. She likes take out, and the Steve she knew could appreciate it, too.

"There's a stash of menus in the drawer by the sink. We could order something if you like. My treat."

[usavatar]

"Congratulations," he says, embarrassed at the fact that he thought - very publicly - that Clint had married Natasha.

He glances toward the sink, then rifles through the drawer, drawing out a stack of menus and arranging them in a crooked pile on the counter between them. It stays balanced for a moment before it capsizes and sends the menus splaying out like playing cards fanned out by a magician.

Steve considers arranging them again and decides against it. "Pick a menu, any menu?"