➵ for usavatar ● there's no justice in the world and there never was

[arches]

<sub>( In battle, he can forget. Eyes on a target, a mission to fulfill, and no room for error, there is no time to think about who he is or what’s been done to him. In battle, there is purpose, and the adrenaline of living each moment between life and death, and the thrilling feeling of victory.

And then, it is over, and he is left with the things he has done.

Eating shawarma does not give him purpose. It does not help him forget. It’s delicious, to be sure, but Natasha’s presence beside him is really the only thing keeping him grounded, the only thing stopping him from bolting. He doesn’t belong at this table—the men around him are heroes, and Natasha as much as any of them. And he? He spent his week sniping innocent security guards and his own associates.

He puts his leg up on her chair, and she touches his knee, briefly. If one woman was capable of absolving him of everything, it would be her. But even she can’t do that for him, so he munches into his sandwich and smacks his lips and tells Banner that green is really his color. And Stark is going on about how he deserves a statue, and Thor is clapping him on the back, and the captain? The captain Clint can’t get a read on. He’s an American hero, a living legend. And Clint Barton is nothing but a man with blood on his hands.

They wrap up their food and get up, and Natasha is touching his shoulder and whispering something about keeping a promise (he finds out later that she’s conferring with Banner, finding him a way to vanish and a place to vanish to), and Thor and Stark are still wrapped up in their conversation, so despite Clint’s best efforts, he finds himself face-to-face with Steve Rogers, genuine American hero. )</sub>

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[usavatar]

[Steve, meanwhile, is gathering a small collection of spices, rice, a rice cooker, and amusement. Oh, also a wok. Yeah.]

How do you feel about Chinese stir fry?

[arches]

That I didn't know it existed in 1945.

_{( He's giving Steve a keen look. But then he just shrugs, and pretty much makes an expression that says he'll eat anything. )}

[usavatar]

It existed in China. [Said with all the bland innocence of the deliberately obtuse. He sets everything up and waits for the wok to heat.]

Painting, drawing, reading and training only take up so much time.

[arches]

_{( Clint, meanwhile, is cracking eggs into a bowl and beating them. )}

Oh, free time. I remember what that is--I think.

[usavatar]

[Steve readies the rice cooker, waiting to start that until the rest is rolling along. He bites down on irritation, checking the wok instead of snapping back something unwarranted.]

You say that like you miss it.

[arches]

_{( Clint gives Steve a careful look, then runs one hand over the back of his neck. Why was he bothering with this guy, again? )}

You have to have had something once, to miss it. But no. Pretty much my whole life is this mission or that, then coming home and collapsing for as long as possible until I get another assignment. Instead of free time, I have training and evals, flight times and debriefs.

[usavatar]

[He drizzles oil and a few spices into the wok, shortly followed by chunks of diced meat that he cut already or something, I just looked up a recipe okay. He doesn't say anything right off, but it's not hard to see through the forced blankness on his face.

He misses that. Longs for it. A real life, an important life, lived at the edge of the familiar, doing work that protects others and ensures their security - God, he misses it. It's such a strange dichotomy between not wanting anything to do with SHIELD and wanting nothing more than that sense of purpose in his life again. There aren't going to be alien invasions every day.

Steve shakes his head and dumps the vegetables in to the wok.] Would you do anything else?

[arches]

_{( Clint pauses to consider that. He must have had days where he thought about a life beyond SHIELD, a life beyond living in the shadows and wrestling with the worst of humanity. But those days were few and far between, because he was always keenly aware of the realities of his life. He is tied into this, for the length of his life. And he knows it. )}

I can't.

[usavatar]

[Meat out, vegetables in. He takes the handles of the wok and starts to swirl them through the spice-and-oil mix with a hand that's confident, if not practiced.

He almost argues the point - can't being that word he's never believed in - but thinks better of it. Clint doesn't need his foundations shaken any more today than they already have been.] Different question - if you could, would you want to?

[arches]

_{( It's a mute point. There is no place for people like Clint in the world. Because, laughably, for all that he is "normal," he does not fit it with the general populace. Maybe that's why he keeps everything at a distance. But aloud, what he says is: )}

Of course not. I'd get bored in a week.

[usavatar]

[Steve lapses into silence, wondering - as he has a lot the past few months - what he would have done if he'd made it out of the war alive. What next? The SSR existed for a specific purpose. Not to say new enemies wouldn't exist, but what would his place have been? He was Captain America, hero of the Second World War, conveniently vanished before he could have been locked away as a lab rat, part of the arms race against Russia in the decades that followed.

Peggy wouldn't have let that happen. Phillips wouldn't have let it, either. But Steve knows for a fact no small number of people would have tried to put him back in a test tube. Bored in a week. He shakes his head.]

I wonder if any of us could have lives outside of what we do, after this. If we could before.

[arches]

<sub>( Clint thought idly of the places he'd seen--Istanbul from a low-flying jet, Budapest from behind the cover of a safehouse, Moscow from its sewers. Sure, there was an appeal to the reverse of that, to seeing things in the sunlight. But there was also a danger. Because light exposed, and destroyed, the shadows. And they were always where Clint had belonged. Being an Avenger was like stepping into the sun. And while he was convinced it had been the right decision, he wasn't so sure how the rest of his life would hold up in face of it. A risk worth taking, sure, but still one that shook his entire existence.

But not boring. The thought made him smile, softly. )</sub>

We're not cut out for it. You saw us out there, today--we're total hogs for the glory. You don't do that kind of thing unless you live for it.