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

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

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.

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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."

Edited 2013-05-13 18:39 (UTC)

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."

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."

"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."

"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."

"Don't tell me your Hawkeye doesn't have a bow." That's one alternate universe discrepancy he could not accept.

Clint eyes the wound, knows there's nothing he can do for it. "You can have Bobbi look at that, when she gets back. Or Hank."

"He uses a sling, actually. Pretty amazing what he can do with it."

Steve glances down at it. "It'll heal. I just need to get cleaned up."

Really, he doesn't want anyone he doesn't know near his blood - it's still dangerous, without Erskine's research and oversight to make sure that research is used properly. At least from where Steve is standing.

He grins in a strange way. Clearly Steve's Clint has yet to be called Goliath.

"You said it was aliens, right? How d'you know, then? That it'll clean up okay? There could be Skrull-Kree voodoo magic science, in there."

"They were called the Chitauri. What are Kree?"

Though now he's eying the injury with slight concern. "What kind of damage can they do?"

"Ahm. Aliens we fight, sometimes? Except Mar-vell, he was good."

Clint pulls a face and then lifts his hands in a placating way. "How should I know? I'm not a scientist. It just seems like the kinda thing you should let someone check out."

"Like the Thor to our Loki, I guess." He still hesitates, focus drifting slightly as he remembers the punch of the light across his stomach and the feeling of a burn shredding into his side. "I'd like any tissue or blood samples destroyed afterwards," Steve says quietly. "No offense, it's... Dr. Banner tried to recreate Dr. Erskine's work and the Hulk happened. As useful as it can be, it still ruined his life."

"More like, they're a planet of Loki's and Mar-vell was the one Thor. Kinda the reverse, with Asgard. They like us sometimes."

At the second party, Clint just shrugs. Clearly whatever Steve thinks will offend him just rolls off his shoulders. He does decline to mention that Bobbi's work for SHIELD was based on the super-soldier serum, though.

"You're among... I don't know. Maybe not friends, but people you can trust. 'Cides, none of us need anything else to pump us up. We're all Avengers, remember?"

Steve is not good at hiding his emotions or his thoughts, most of the time. The look he gives Clint now is a glossy gatefold spread of tired suspicion. From being under SHIELD's unspoken house arrest to Fury's excuses for the HYDRA tech, he doesn't have much trust left.

He can't put his finger on what makes him resist Clint's insistence that they're allies. It is not in fact the punch to the face. "What does that mean, that you're all pumped up?"

Clint's almost, but not quite, used to that look. He and his Cap align on a lot of things, they've shared looks like that before. But there's something about Steve's expression that goes deeper, and that bothers Clint for a moment.

"Hell no. I don't need powers, I don't want 'em."

"You don't," he says, absently. "Not if you're anything like Agent Barton. You and Agent Romanoff both -"

And then Steve catches himself. Comparisons, however inevitable, aren't fair to either party. Which only makes him wonder about himself. His other self, a man of more experience and obviously someone this Clint knows well and cares about. Someone they all care about and miss. The latter makes Steve feel small in an unfamiliar way.

He fusses with the blood-smutched batting he used to clean his side. "Your other selves are good people, is all."

Clint squints at the mention of the other Clint, the other Natasha.

"Well, I'd hope so." He says that casually. "Dunno how much brains he could have, though. Being an agent."

"Brains enough to earn Natasha Romanoff's unswerving loyalty, which is brains enough for me." It's somewhere between a warning and a reprimand.

"...you sure it's not the other way around?"

"Is what the other way around?" He sets about cleaning up the first aid kit, re-packing what fell out and gathering his waste. "Where would I find the garbage can?"

"The loyalty thing." That isn't really fair; Natasha's nothing if not loyal. But he's thinking back to the early days, when she left, and maybe there's a part of him that's never gotten over that. How much he loved her, how easy it was for her to walk away. (Never mind that he walked away, before, and it wasn't easy for her, at all.)

He points vaguely to one direction of the kitchen, to the other question.

He considers his answer carefully as he deposits the junk in the garbage can, keeping his eyes on Clint when he finally speaks. "She vouched for him after he nearly took the hellicarrier out of the sky with all of us on board. She went to great lengths before that to get him back from the people who... got inside his head. She trusts him with her life, and I trust that."

"...so you trust him because you trust her?" That's a little unnerving. The trust between Steve and Clint had always been between them; no one else was necessary. He hides his uncertainty in another moment. "So he snapped and took on SHIELD single-handed? Dunno if I'd be that crazy."

"He was brainwashed. Or... used, somehow, when Loki took the Tesseract."

The past twenty-four hours are getting to him. He's feeling the empty rattle of lost adrenaline on top of too long on high alert. "He knew the helicarrier and he knew SHIELD. Natasha -" He tilts his head, surprised at himself for the informal address. "Agent Romanoff caught him and brought him in. So yeah, she trusted him and I trusted her - and then I saw him fight, and I saw him pull a little boy out of a bus and usher civilians to safety. He fought with me, and I trust him. He's going to need people who trust him over the next few months, I'm guessing."

Edited 2013-05-31 06:37 (UTC)

Clint declines to mention that the last and possibly most significant time he came up against Loki, he kissed him. Control, brainwashing, the tesseract... that sounds too much like what happened to Barnes. It's not him.

It's not him.

His eyes darken and his fists clench. His problems are always of his own making. It's not what other people do to him, it's what he does to himself. That's a painful thing to admit, but also one that awards him some measure of control over the craziness of his supernatural life.

His response? He laughs.

"I joined the Avengers after several months of... light treason work, with the mysterious Madame Natasha. Nobody trusted me, the first time I was on the team. Even after Tony vouched for me." He pauses, remembering. It seems like so long ago.

"Tasha didn't end up with us until much later. But you know, in those first months, there was one guy who I knew would either end up strangling me, or be the best person I could have watching my back."

Steve.

Edited 2013-05-31 22:56 (UTC)

It's so different. It's all to different, from this man's relationship with Natasha to the way he joined their team. There's only one thing even remotely consistent - the one guy, and the weight of responsibility for someone he's not even in the same universe with settles into a knot in his throat. He never found it exhausting before, living for others' hope.

Steve clears his throat. "I take it he didn't strangle you."

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trickshot - 2013-06-05 19:07 (UTC) - Expand

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