![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
MENTAL LINK.
[Though it may be the first time that Bruce has reached out to everyone mentally, there’s no hesitation in how quickly his voice permeates in other hosts’ heads. As with most things, the man gets right to it — besides, this isn’t exactly being done for the sake of pleasantries.
Straight to business then:]
(If you’ve been paying attention, you’d know that Public Security Commissioner Seong-Hye Ngozi has been hiding something. I plan on visiting her office to find out exactly what that is.)
[Images of the office building itself filters through the link, the fruit of prior research and reconnaissance. And the implication is more than clear that this isn’t exactly going to be a scheduled office visit.]
(I’ll need distractions outside of the Public Security offices. Only volunteer if you’re confident that you know what you’re doing.)
[He’s sure questions are on their way, but he’s not willing to entertain them preemptively. Thus, his words end there.]
((ooc; this is the post for your character to ICly offer themselves to help with the break-in plot. (As detailed here.) Note that while Bruce might not find everyone’s credentials compelling, that won’t stop your character from coordinating with others if they want. He's not your supervisor!!!
Therefore, threadjacking is highly encouraged so all characters can sort out their plotting together!)
Straight to business then:]
(If you’ve been paying attention, you’d know that Public Security Commissioner Seong-Hye Ngozi has been hiding something. I plan on visiting her office to find out exactly what that is.)
[Images of the office building itself filters through the link, the fruit of prior research and reconnaissance. And the implication is more than clear that this isn’t exactly going to be a scheduled office visit.]
(I’ll need distractions outside of the Public Security offices. Only volunteer if you’re confident that you know what you’re doing.)
[He’s sure questions are on their way, but he’s not willing to entertain them preemptively. Thus, his words end there.]
((ooc; this is the post for your character to ICly offer themselves to help with the break-in plot. (As detailed here.) Note that while Bruce might not find everyone’s credentials compelling, that won’t stop your character from coordinating with others if they want. He's not your supervisor!!!
Therefore, threadjacking is highly encouraged so all characters can sort out their plotting together!)
no subject
[ Fury was always the shadiest of them all, disappearing when it was convenient, shuffling blame around when things got bad. The first Fury, anyway. The second one was just another sketchy replacement for his dad. ]
( Not shooting to kill. You and I fought SHIELD for exactly this, Clint. Because they were purposely hurting people they weren't supposed to. Because they were out forcing others to do their little dirty work while pretending to keep their hands clean. Because we're supposed to be the good — )
[ — wait. There wasn't a we. This wasn't the same partner who fought beside her. A memory rises, but she brushes it away. These mental links were throwing her off her game. ]
no subject
He knows what she meant to say. We're supposed to be the good guys -- yeah, Clint gets it. Once, he'd thought SHIELD had been the better option, the so called good guys, and then HYDRA happened. Hell, once he'd considered the Avengers the good guys too, and then the Accords, and then Clint made the sacrifice play and Tony and Ross had them tossed in the Raft.
There are no good guys, no bad guys; and he's goddamn tired of trying to find a place. ]
( Good guys, yeah, I get it. I goddamn tried to be that, Kate. After Loki--fuck, I know I've got red in my ledger. I tried to wipe it out with the Avengers, and you know what that got us? )
[ And she's not the only one caught in memory, because it surfaces, bright with anger. The heft of cuffs around their wrists, the sight of water spilling from the Raft, knowing they were never meant to leave -- Wanda, dazed and drugged out of her mind, locked up in a straight jacket. Sam, his eye closed shut with a black eye, treated like the criminal he wasn't. Clint catches the thought, seals it away with a hissed curse. ]
( SHIELD's dust, Kate. But you don't need to tell me what I should have been. )
no subject
( I made the call first. )
[ It's out before he can help it, and then he catches himself and focus on the link between him and Clint, making the rest of this private. ]
( You'll never be anything but one of the best men I've known. )
>privaaaate
( If you hadn't, I would have said it anyway. )
[ But he knows, there's no blame to be fostered there. Clint's well aware they chose to make the sacrifice play -- he just should have known a superhero title wouldn't mean much. He'd lived in that shadowy world long before he learned how to walk through them. ]
( Don't need to flatter me, man. )
[ But there's an edge of gratitude. ]
>privaaaate
[ And he'd have done it again, even with everything - though he'd have changed what he said to Stark - but that doesn't mean there isn't a low undercurrent of anger and resigned bitterness at the memory of the Raft. At its very existence, at the fact that there will always be people who will look at him and see not his years of service, not his work at the VA, not even an Avenger, but a criminal.
Yeah, him and Clint operate on the same wavelength in more ways than one.
He gives an amused huff at that, shaking his head. ]
( You know me better than that. I only go for flattery when I'm flirting. )
>privaaaate
Maybe, in another world, Clint would have been right there with them instead of undercover. Maybe.
But in this one, Clint can feel the tense undercurrent of anger and bitterness curling in Sam's mind. In this one, Clint knows exactly how Sam feels, betrayed and gutted out, reduced in one fell swoop to nothing more than a criminal. Funny, but Clint hadn't expected that one.
Sam deserves so much more than that. ]
( What, I don't get that famous Wilson charm? Save the world and this is what I get. )
[ He grouses, but there's a soft edge of relief. He doesn't really want to talk about it, not yet, not ever. Should've kept his mouth goddamn shut. ]
>privaaaate
Sometimes he just needs to acknowledge them a little, keep them from bubbling up and spilling over in a way he doesn't want - he refuses to let them have any more control over him - and it's so damn good to do it with someone who gets at least part of it, who has a similar bitterness beating against his own ribs.
He doesn't need to explain any of it to Clint, because he was there. Hell, he doesn't even have to acknowledge it after this, after they pull back a little and switch to goofing around, because Clint doesn't want to talk about it any more than Sam does. Eventually, maybe, and Sam'll probably be there before Clint is, but right now they're on the same page.
So he smirks a little, letting amusement trickle through their mental connection to replace what he pushes away. ]
( You feeling a little under appreciated, turtle-dove? You wanna hear how I think you got the whole package, huh, looks and brains and that sassy ass little smirk that won't quit? Wanna hear how much it means to me that I got someone here that I trust easy as breathing, that I don't ever gotta think twice about because I know you'll have my back quick as I've got yours, how it makes this crap a little easier knowing we can take it on together? ) [ He'd started off playing around, but it's still pretty clear that his words are sincere. ] ( Well, there you go. )
no subject
She'd been kidding herself. She thought she could fill in that Clint-shaped hole, that she could play pretend. But this wasn't the same Clint. This one had shades of dark that didn't match up with what she'd known.
Even with the mental link, she feels like her voice catches in her throat, like she can't find the words to follow. A speechless Kate is never a good Kate. ]
( Clint. ) [ Why would they put him there? Why would they put any of them there? She has an idea of what it could be. Of what circumstances arose by the mere existence of the Avengers, but — Clint hadn't been there. He'd been dead. ] ( Why did they put you there? What happened? )
>PRIVATE
Clint's fought in more than enough wars -- in a way, he's never stopped.
But Kate's horror leaks through, a speechlessness that makes him wince. There's a hitch in her voice that he knows is his fault. But ok, ok. There's a sharp inhale, lingering, irritation at the goddamn situation he left behind prickling in the dark of his mind. She asked, and he'll tell her. ]
( Turns out, after a while, people aren't too happy with just being saved. After a few missions went wrong, the U.N. put forward the Sokovia Accords, tried to turn the Avengers into an operation under their jurisdiction. A couple signed it, but those who didn't were supposed to hang up their suits. I'd already retired after Sokovia-- ) [ A snippet; buildings falling, a robot army, Pietro's body crumbling to the ground as the city fell out of the sky. ] ( But after the U.N. put out a hit for Barnes, Steve called me in asking for help. It'd been just him and Sam and Barnes, they weren't enough to take on the others. So I got Lang, got Wanda, and we fought.
Only thing is, you fight alongside people long enough, you know each other's plays. Sometimes to win, you gotta get a little desperate. Steve and Barnes, they had to get out of there -- the rest of us? We pulled a sacrifice play. And they stuck us under the pacific for it. )
>PRIVATE
Only it's far too different. Kate sees Pietro's bullet wounds — her best friend's uncle — and she feels the ache. This happened right in front of Clint's eyes. He lived this. ]
( The Superhuman Registration Act. That's what we called it. ) [ She recalls memories of the news footage briefly, of the school in remains, of heroes on the street beaten and put in handcuffs, of her own hands chained while being shoved into the back of a van. ] ( No one trusted us. We had to sign up or we'd be done for. Tony started heading SHIELD and threw us in a witch hunt. Cap wouldn't have it, though. He and Sam stopped every arrest he could. He got us out of there and we joined the Resistance. We laid low but Tony wouldn't stop. He thought it'd be an awesome idea to make a Thor clone to chase us down. )
[ More beaten bodies, a modernized war zone, and a large hammer blasting a hole through a costumed hero. ]
( It got to be too much. They were locking people up in the Negative Zone, literally sub-space and if they weren't locked up, they — ) [ Steve Rogers removing his mask, surrendering on a set of steps, bullets hurling through his back. ] ( You weren't there, Clint. At the time, everyone thought you were dead. )
[ There's an ache as she remembers everything, as she connects it with Clint's anger and pain. Two different set of events all amounting to the same thing. Of trying to be good, of facing the consequences for it. ]
( I didn't — I didn't know. What you saw, what they did. But I know, I know, where you'd stand in either story. You're still good. Whatever that actually means, I know if it's something we can all still be, I know you're it. )
>continues to be private
But it slips away as Kate finds her voice, finds her memories. They spill, the slip of news and rubble, of unfamiliar heroes cuffed and shoved into vans. Feels the too tight metal around her-his wrists.
His mouth twists, some bitter little laugh caught behind the calcite rows of his teeth. Dying a sharp death. Tony, Tony, Tony. Of course it all came back to Stark, of course he made it worse in his fucking bid to make things better. Ultron, the Accords, the goddamn Raft -- when would he learn?
Only -- only it keeps on going, streets turning into warzones, the gore of a falling hero. And then, and then Steve, and Clint turns to stone. The press of their minds sparks with sudden ache, a faint denial slipping between the cracks.
It's too much information, shit that doesn't make sense but does, vaguely. ]
( What? ) [ Numbed. He -- he tucks her words away, acknowledgement in her belief in him set aside. He can't focus on it now, the knowledge sitting uneasily within him. ] ( They killed Steve? Where were the others? Natasha, Wanda, Sam? )
[ And it's growing, the steady realization that this is what was building up back home. That if they'd had this many heroes, if Ross had had what he'd wanted, they could have torn the world apart instead of an airport in Germany. That maybe it wouldn't have been a cell under the pacific, but a bullet in the back of his head. He's cold, cold. Laura wouldn't have ever known. The kids, god. Nate wouldn't have even known him, Lila would have barely remembered him, Cooper might've hated him -- only, only this is what happened. Clint had pulled the sacrifice play again, deep in Wakanda, holding his guts in and bidding on one last desperate play. ]
( Where was I? Why'd everyone think I was dead? )
backflips into this mess.
swoons!!!
( Broadcasting too loud, huh? )
flexes
[ It's not as if Bellamy's possessed of such impeccable restraint. The bond between them stretches, humming with intent while Bellamy considers the best way to broach the topic at hand, settling finally on&mdash ]
( I have alcohol, if you want some. )
[ This is leveling up from toast. ]
my hero
( Best news I've heard all day. See you in a bit? )
[ GONNA DRINK WITH DA BOI, AYYYY ]
no subject
( When you're done, come to the common room. )
no subject
There's a soft thread of acknowledgement, before Clint pulls back. It takes a few more minutes, tying up conversations and convincing Sam he isn't about to go brood alone. But eventually, Clint makes his way down to the common room. ]
Hey man.
[ Drops onto the sofa, a graceless sprawl, rubbing one hand over his face. ]
no subject
[ Bellamy's book of the moment is tucked between his thigh and the cushion, safely out of the way as he hands Clint a bottle. ]
I think it's this place's version of moonshine.
[ And it was miles better than anything Monty had brewed. Drinking it was nostalgic. Bellamy was only sipping, just for the taste, rather than trying to even maintain a buzz. He hands it off easily, without asking the obvious questions. ]
no subject
He drinks, one shoulder sloping in a shrug. Yeah, definitely moonshine, miles better than any of the shit they had in the circus. The drink helps a bit more, but not necessarily because of the kick. It's just strangely familiar, the unwind from rough missions, Nat swiping a bottle from between his fingers, the reassurance they're alive.
Tradition. He proffers the drink, a silent question. Silent regard. ]