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

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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.

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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."

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It's the last brick from the base of his mental defenses. Steve sags, guard crumbling into incredulous laughter.

"Of course you are. I don't know why I thought you'd look like him."

He squares off again slowly, poking the fresh bruise he can already feel along his jaw. "You sure you're finished? Mr. Barton?"

[trickshot]

Clint was expecting another bought of fighting. He doesn't know what to do with the sudden laughter. He takes a half-step back, almost alarmed, but then just gets angry.

"Him?" Not really fair, of him to sound so incredulous. Not when he's been comparing this Steve to his own since he got here. Not fair, of him to be jealous, of another Clint Barton somewhere in another universe. That didn't even make sense?

"...I'll let you know," he says, on that last score. He scratches the back of his head, rubs a hand across his neck. "Steve Rogers? Welcome to Avengers Mansion."

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"I'm sure you will."

His focus shifts past Clint to the building, though he keeps Barton in his peripheral vision just in case. It's like seeing Stark Tower for the first time, in some ways, though there's no label declaring its residents. "How long have the Avengers had a mansion?"

[trickshot]

"Ten years, maybe?" He says that like he's not really sure of the specifics. "It used to be a townhouse. Now we live in a tower, back home. But I guess Tony's not quite there, yet."

[usavatar]

"He has a tower," Steve says, absently. "But it's not ours."

He smiles, involuntarily. "Not sure he'd want us all in close quarters in the long term."

If Tony's even alive. Steve exhales like he's about to go on stage.

[trickshot]

Clint manages to muffle a laugh. The rules about being in-residence had actually be made for him, and Pietro and Wanda. They'd been the first Avengers who had no where else to go, no other lives to return to. The homeless, unwanted, possibly-evil superheroes. God, he missed those days, sometimes.

"Well. That's Tony. He doesn't even live here. It's just me, and Bobbi, and Jen. Val, right now, too. The others pop by when it suits them."

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Steve looks back at Clint again at the laugh, really studying the man for the first time, taking in every difference between him and the Clint Barton of Steve's own acquaintance.

There are a lot of them.

"I want you to understand - I've only been directly acquainted with Ag..." He breathes out a laugh of his own. "With your counterpart for maybe three hours. With the rest of the Avengers for a few days. I don't know what you expect from me, but I'm not going to lie and say that you'll get it."

[trickshot]

He tilts his head at the "three hours" comment. Three hours into meeting Captain America, Clint was at a press conference, standing beside Pietro and wandering if the overhyped Captain could really lead a team. Ha. He decides not to mention that, however.

"I don't expect anything from you," he says loosely. He starts back to the mansion, expecting Steve to follow.

[usavatar]

The punch says otherwise, Steve almost snaps back. But Clint is already moving and Steve doesn't feel like another fist fight. He drags himself up the drive, reaching back over his shoulder to run his fingers over the edge of his shield. It's comforting to at least have it close by.

[trickshot]

Clint keeps moving, reaches down to pick up his bow where he left it and then entering the mansion itself. The entry way is grandiose and a bit pretentious, but there are signs of the people who live there. A purple quiver, by the door. Folded bo-staffs, on an end table. As they move into the kitchen there's the remains of the day's meals in the sink, a bright purple coffee mug on the counter, and a stack of photo proofs on the counter. The photos are from last weekend's wedding; Clint, Bobbi, Pietro and Jennifer are beaming at the camera in the one on top of the stack. Jenn's in a suit, having been best man, and Bobbi's in a knee-length white lace dress. Clint has an arm around her, and all the lines are gone from his face when he smiles with pure bliss. Pietro has his normal, surly look, but even that's tempered a bit as his lips twitch upwards.

"Make yourself at home, or whatever." Like he cares. Or so he wants it to seem.

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The photos catch Steve with more force than the punch. It's one of those unexpected little things, like an uneven patch in the pavement making a person stumble.

Except these make him think of Peggy, the Commandos, who would occupy which stations in the formality of the wedding everyone but Peggy would have insisted on. He closes his eyes to shut out the sight and instead gives himself a clearer image of Peggy in a white dress with the Colonel at her side, Bucky at Steve's own, and it's difficult to breathe.

"Um," he opens his eyes again, turning his face from the pictures instead. "First aid kit?"

[trickshot]

Clint sees Steve's gaze go to the photos, sees him close his eyes as if in pain. He doesn't know how to interpret that, but suddenly he's defensive again. He makes a grab for the pile and misses, and the pile slips and crashes to the floor.

"Shit," he mutters, reaching to retrieve them. Tony toasting with cider. Hank in front of the cake. Peter leaning down to talk to Val. Clint passing Bobbi a plate of barbecue and kissing her cheek. Bobbi grabbing Clint's tie and kissing his lips. Natasha, elegant and in black, tilting her head to the side.

Gathering the photos up in his arms, Clint jerks his head towards one of the cabinets. "In there."

[usavatar]

And the hits just keep on coming.

Steve backs up until the shield pings against the counter, and then turns abruptly to the cabinet in question, closing his hands into fists so they don't shake in front of a stranger. It's like having a vacuum suddenly opened up inside of him, a dark place eating up all the possibilities they promised themselves at the end of the war.

Deceased. Deceased. Deceased.

Retired.

He never did call her.

The kit hits the countertop and bursts open, snapping Steve's focus back to what he should be doing. He goes throught the motions mechanically, finding disinfectant, soft pads to clean his side. Steve peels the scorched fringe of his uniform way from the wound, welcoming the white sheet of pain that snaps from midriff to skull. It's a distraction, and he desperately needs it.

[trickshot]

Clint finds himself crossing the room, looking at the wound through narrowed eyes.

"The hell did you do to yourself?"

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"Aliens," he says between his teeth. Like it's nothing, like it's normal. Because it is for these people, right? He exhales slowly, determined not to show that this hurts as much as it does, some kind of defense mechanism born out of anger and the way this Clint Barton keeps looking at him like -

Like he's Bucky, if Bucky walked into Steve's life again not knowing who he was. Or worse, knowing some other version of him, for longer. Steve gives Clint a sidelong look, quite suddenly understanding the man's reaction to his appearance a whole lot better. "I'm sorry I'm not him. If it were up to me, I wouldn't be here either."

[trickshot]

Clint's face scrunches like he just ate something sour. He doesn't want this man's pity, and certainly not that attempt at understanding. Clint Barton functions on conflict; that's what he wants.

"Save it. Not your fault."

[usavatar]

Steve clamps down on the possible responses to that, most of them pointing out Clint's behavior and its clear contradiction to the statement.

Instead he focuses on pawing the worst grit out of the injury with an antiseptic-soaked cloth pad and maintaining his silence. If the man wants a fight, that's exactly what Steve is not going to give him. "If there's extra clothes somewhere, I'd appreciate being able to clean up. I'll pay for them when I can, and I won't stay."

[trickshot]

"Don't be an idiot, boy sc--" The nickname slips out before he clenches his teeth. Then he just shakes his head. "What do you think we are, animals? You're an alternate universe version of a dude who practically runs this place, usually. You don't have to pay for anything. We have six hundred extra rooms You can use one. You can--"

He runs a hand through his hair. "It's weird, okay? But our lives are always weird."

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"Cannibals, maybe," Steve says, in the quiet deadpan that designates his sense of humor. "Wasn't sure when I saw you out front with the bow."

He inspects his side, bleeding again, and decides it's as clean as it's going to get for the time being. "'Weird'. Weird used to be Howard Stark's flying cars and fire suits."