thecapitol | and here i am falling

Entry tags:

and here i am falling

Who| Sam Wilson and Clint Barton
What| raincheck date ending in possible emotional breakdown
Where| A bar in the Capitol, one of the blind spots
When| After the arena
Warnings/Notes| Bird losers being bird losers, drinking. Discussions of death, violence, mind control, and PTSD likely.

Sam hadn't watched any of the footage of the space arena, but that's harder to do this time around. They play the footage even more when it's going on, and with Sam being back before the arena's ended, it feels like he can't escape it. So he knows when all his friends die. How they die, though he's trying to ignore that in favor of knowing when they're going to be coming back. He checks in with all of them - or, well. The ones who let him, anyway. Jet won't answer his door, and Sam tries not to fixate on that too much, even though Jet is the one he's most worried about.

But Clint is a close second. Natasha didn't come back, and as much as Sam loves her, as hard as that's hitting him, he knows it's gotta be worse for Clint.

So a couple of days after Clint comes back, Sam's at his door again.

"Come on. I owe you a raincheck on a better date, don't I? You and me are gonna go have some fun."

And if they happen to end up in the blind spot in the back alley by the club, no one will know but them.

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It's the first time that Sam's actually been in this club for any length of time. Usually he just brings Bucky right to the back alley, and he cracks the back door and listens to the music while they talk away from the Capitol's eyes.

But tonight Sam pulls Clint inside, ignoring the way the murmurs of some of the patrons inside go excited when they're recognized. Instead, he heads to the bar, grinning a little when he sees signs advertising their karaoke.

"So how many of these do I have to buy you to get you to go up on stage and sing with me?"

It's the first time Clint's been here, all told. Between the last Arena, and this one, he hadn't actually had more than a few days to get himself together and look around, and he hadn't felt comfortable enough to bother. Now, he needs the change of scenery, needs to jolt away from the cold ache still lingering in his bones.

So Sam drags him to a club and Clint goes easily.

He looks up, spots the sign as Sam brings it to his attention, and nearly chokes on his laughter. It feels almost sacrilegious, laughing when, when -- when Natasha's dead. But Clint's managed to live this long by compartmentalizing, shoving things down so he doesn't have to deal with them. Eventually, it'll bubble up, choke him and drown him, drag him screaming and gasping down.

For now, he slots Sam a sly little grin, ignoring the way some of the nearest patrons squeal and giggle.

"How 'bout we start with the first and see where it goes?"

This isn't exactly what Sam'd had in mind, when he promised Clint a raincheck. Oh, it was the right place, and he was doing just about everything he'd planned, but he hadn't thought one of the motivators would be trying to shake them both out of grief. It can't even be simple grief, either, the Capitol and all its complications just makes things even more confusing.

But she's still gone, and Sam's still worried about Clint. And he's still hoping that maybe both of them can put everything aside for a couple of hours and just have some fun.

He smirks at Clint's response, waving over the bartender so they can order their first round.

"You know I'm gonna take that as a challenge, right?"

Clint knows grief. It's been no stranger since he woke up one day to hear his parents were dead, and it's been within arm's reach ever since. But he doesn't dwell on it often, because grief is debilitating, and to an assassin, it could mean his own death. Natasha though, she was so much more to him. It cuts him to the quick, flays him alive and leaves him open and exposed for these capitolites to poke and prod at.

He misses her so goddamn much.

Sam's done a good job of trying to cover that space, support and contact and comfort. Here, he drags Clint out for the night and smirks like he had back in the Arena, snow down his back and Clint's hand up his shirt. That, if anything, is what gets Clint to come down from it all, focused in on Sam and the easy way he gestures for the bartender.

"That's exactly how I meant it."

"Oh, I was hoping so."

Honestly, Sam has no idea what he orders. Something bright and shiny and full of alcohol, and really, that's all that matters for tonight. When the first two drinks come, Sam just goes ahead and orders another couple.

It's going to be that kind of night. The kind where he doesn't focus on anything but the drinks and the atmosphere, and maybe on getting Clint to smile.

He picks up his glass of Dayglo liquid, holding it up in a toast before downing about half of it. "I'm counting on them accepting autographs from us as payment for our tab, by the way, so get ready to run at the end of the night if they don't go for it."

If Sam has no idea, then Clint's even more lost. But they're obnoxiously colored, fruity and sharp with the bite of alcohol, and that works perfectly fine for him. He picks it up, brows lifted, and tips in toast to Sam, follows his example easily. It's not a bad drink, all told, and since he's here trying mostly to burn through the grief eating him up, any alcohol works.

Especially when its Sam sitting next to him, someone Clint's come to like and maybe trust in far too short of a time. But he does, that's fine. It simply means he snorts with laughter, smirk of his own curling briefly at his mouth as Sam speaks up.

"What, takin' me out on a night of crime, Wilson?"

Given the glint in his eyes, its rather clear Clint would honestly find it hilarious. He rests his elbow on the counter, chin in palm, and watches Sam like a lazy lion looking over its lands. Amusement writ into the lines of his face, even as he takes another drink.

These days, Sam doesn't think a lot about the timing of things. It's not like he's got any leg to stand on, considering he was trusting Steve and Nat wholeheartedly after about a week with them. The only way it's come back to bite him so far is in having more people he loves - but he's here not to think about that right now.

Sam smiles at him, slow and pleased and a little bit impish as he takes another long drink of his glowy alcohol.

"An upstanding soldier like me? Nah, of course not. What kind of example would that be setting, huh?"

And yet he's still smirking as he finishes off his drink.

Hell, Clint's in right along Sam on that one. He didn't trust Natasha right after recruiting her, he wasn't that stupid, but he'd seen something in that desperate, aching young girl. Something that wanted redemption, something that was better, or could be, eventually. Clint's good at that, seeing the parts of people they want hidden.

He's not called Hawkeye just for his marksmanship, after all. So here, now, Clint watches. He grins, just as slow, just as pleased, gaze lingering on Sam's mouth, the line of his throat as he swallows.

"Right, 'course not," There's a pleased smirk all his own, one that actually meets his eyes. "And you're all about setting good examples."

Sam's had a little too much to drink and he's had just the right amount of fun. But as the night winds down and he's stopped drinking but the alcohol hasn't finished sinking in, he starts finding it all a little overwhelming. He'd brought Clint down here so the both of them could have some fun, so they could get away from all kinds of death, either their friends' or their own.

But he'd also wanted to actually talk to him, even though it occurs to him that maybe he should have done this before they got too tipsy.

Too late now. And Sam really does need to get out of there for a minute.

So he leans over, grabbing Clint's hand to pull him in. "Come with me? I need to get some air."

They're in the same boat, mostly. Clint's usually one of those guys that's pretty fun to get drunk with -- he's got way too many party tricks involving darts and cheating frat boys out of bets -- but today he's barely keeping from spiraling downwards. Despite the fun, and the ease of Sam lingering at his side, Clint's still fresh from an Arena, fresh from his own death, and it means he's dealing with more than his usual paranoia.

And people keep staring, keep giggling and whispering. If Sam's a little overwhelmed, Clint's starting to feel his tolerance for people divebomb, and that's never a good situation to be in.

So Sam leans over, speaks softly, and Clint doesn't do much more than nod, slotting his fingers with Sam's. He lets him guide him through the crowd, with all the faith of a blind man.

The second they're out in the alley, Sam relaxes in a way he never does, even when they're in the Capitol. Even when he'd been drinking in there.

He pulls Clint over to the far side of the alley, leaning into the wall and not letting go of Clint's hand even when he slides down it to sit on the ground, back against the wall.

"No eyes or ears on us here," he says. "This is a Capitol blind spot, I come here when all that-" He waves a hand, back at the club, and out at the Capitol in general. "Gets to be too much. And when I've got stuff to talk about that I don't want them to see."

He notices immediately when Sam relaxes, head tilting, eyeing him carefully. It might have just been the sudden hush, the lack of people, but Sam's never quite this loose-limbed and at ease. Even before Sam speaks up, Clint's hoping.

It's a painful relief, eyes sliding shut even as he drops down to join Sam, tugged alongside him by their joined hands. His shoulders slump, in increments, because Clint is one paranoid bastard and he can't quite bring himself to relax even in a place like this. But he lists to the side, leans in against Sam's side and doesn't even notice they're still holding hands.

"You're a miracle worker." He breathes, because if Sam says it's a blind spot, then Clint believes him. That should be terrifying to realize, but he's just so damn tired.

Sam notices it, but he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t let go, either. All the times he’s held hands like this in recent memory have been when someone was dying, or seriously injured. It’s kind of nice doing it when nobody’s life is immediately on the line.

“Miracle worker, yeah,” he agrees, tone light even if the hollow laugh that accompanies it isn’t.

He doesn’t feel like one. Sam remembers dark blood spilling out onto the snow, red hair tangled under blood splattered fingers, his other hand in hers - grip tightening while hers weakened - a desperate murmur, ’I love you, Nat, you gotta know that.’ Her small, secretive smile, the way she used his hand so she could lean up to kiss him-

“Still couldn’t save her.”

Clint's not that tactile of a person, all told. Oh sure, he likes contact, but the truth is: Clint doesn't trust many people to get that close to him. Coulson, once. Natasha, always. And now, Sam, in that tremulous, new bloom sort of way. He leans in, and Sam leans back, and it's okay. He's fine.

He's not, however, pleased to hear that hollow laugh. To hear those words, the admission of failure.

"Don't--" He cuts himself off, sharply, pulls away to press the heel of his palms to his eyes. Softly, a trembling sort of break beneath his voice, he murmurs, "At least you were there."

Because Clint certainly wasn't. He'd been doing his own thing, and then he'd followed her screams -- and others, others he doesn't dwell on -- into the caves and it had been a fucking lie. She was gone, and he was torn to bits by the corrupted being wearing her face.

The instant Clint pulls away, Sam misses it. He’d surprise himself with how much, but well. He’s pretty drunk, so it makes sense to him.

Especially since the other thing going through his mind is ’shit’. Sam hadn’t meant to say that, he hadn’t meant to bring up the thing they were both trying - and failing - to forget, not so abruptly like that.

Not when it means Clint pulling away like that, pushing at his eyes like he’s trying to stop tears, even if he can’t keep his voice steady.

“Hey, no,” Sam protests quietly. “Don’t shut it down like that, don’t - c’mere.”

He reaches for him, and as long as Clint doesn’t get violent at him, he’s just going to start pulling him in.

He'd say he misses it too, but he doesn't. Can't. Clint's too busy angrily trying to stop those tears from falling, curled in tight upon himself with the guilt and shame eating at him. He fucked up, he knows it, and maybe he couldn't have done anything to save Natasha. But maybe he could have tried, could have kept her from suffering so much. Could have found his own end right alongside her once more, where he belonged.

After so long as a whole, it's hard being the jagged half left behind. Sam knows this all too well, even if Clint doesn't know he does.

So Sam reaches out, and Clint stills, tension up the curved line of his spine. He's drunk and grieving and angry at his own goddamn self -- Sam is too much, too soon. But Clint just, gives into it, shoulders slumping, listing to the side into Sam's hold. He speaks softly, into the palm of his hands, tremulous and aching.

"I wasn't there, Sam."

Not being there at all, missing most of it and showing up just in time to see someone take their last breath, seeing all of it in startling detail and not being able to do a thing, it's all the same. It all leaves the same feeling of helplessness, of failure, of I should have mixed in with raw grief.

"I know." He doesn't sound hollow anymore. There's too much emotion in his voice now, twisted and weighted heavy in a way that only comes with someone all too intimately familiar with a statement like that. "Couldn't do a goddamn thing."

He keeps pulling, hauling Clint up into his lap so he can slide his arms all the way around him.

"No one around here to see you, Clint. It's okay not to be okay. It's okay to be a little bit broken."

It's like someone cracked open his chest, broke sternum and rib and scooped out the tender beating heart nestled right inside. He feels vulnerable and exposed, bleeding out on the floor as Sam speaks to him. As Sam reaches out and holds him, lets the twisted weight of his voice fall upon his back.

Clint's falling apart. He's been playing good at holding himself together, oh he was. But it's too much, suddenly.

He keens, softly, a trembling, tear-stained gasp of a sound. It lingers in the hollow of his throat, echoes on the calcite row of his teeth. Presses against Sam skin when he lets himself get hauled bodily up into Sam's lap. For a moment, Clint's stiff and ungainly, unsure of himself. But Sam's arms wrap around him, hold him tight, and the warmth of his words -- It's okay to not be okay, it's okay to be a little bit broken -- are so foreign.

He shudders and slumps in against Sam, angrily fights the tears because he can't let himself break. If he does, he's scared he's going to shatter into pieces.

"I can't." Choked off, bitter and aching and full of self-loathing. "I can't do this without her, not after--"

Cuts himself off, unsure, unsteady.

Edited (tights, jfc) 2015-04-06 05:28 (UTC)

Sam slides his arms around Clint, crossing over them over each other so he can rest one palm on each of his shoulder blades. He stays like that, keeping his breathing deep and even, until he feels Clint relaxing against him. Then he breathes out, a deep, shaky exhale as he lets his head fall forward to rest on Clint's shoulder.

He wonders if anyone ever told Clint that he didn't have to be okay before. God knows no one ever said that to Sam, not until he first started going into counseling, and it's still hard for him to believe sometimes.

There's more he's going to say after that - he's going to repeat himself, maybe add that Sam himself is about two seconds away from crying all over Clint's shoulder and it isn't like he's going to notice a few extra tears, but then Clint says that. He doesn't look up, because he's pretty sure that anything Clint could be talking about - or cutting himself off from talking about - is the kind of thing that might be easier to go into without someone staring at you.

Instead he just holds Clint a little tighter, focusing on keeping his breathing nice and steady.

"After what?"

Sam holds him and it aches, a bleeding hollow beneath his ribs, throbbing in time with each pulse of his heart. Clint's hands fist in the fabric of Sam's shirt, tight against his torso, drawing in breath after breath like it's the only thing he can do.

But the easy answer is this: nobody's told him that before. Not really. There had been SHIELD therapists, but they hadn't ever gotten through to him, not really. There had been Coulson, once, but he'd never verbalized it. Simply there is brief touches and a shoulder to lean on, words careful and wry and soft. Clint misses him, aches with his death. It wasn't at his hands, but it might as well have been

Doesn't mean he meant to let things spill, his guilt and shame and agony clawing up his throat. He'd known the instant he said it that Sam would ask, that he wouldn't let it drop. But he'd hoped.

So Clint freezes, absolutely painfully still. For a moment, its almost as if he's not even breathing, more statue in Sam's arms than a flesh and blood person.

"I--" Can't bring himself to talk about it, can't bring himself to say that hated name. Closes his eyes, drags in a shuddering breath. Curses, under his breath and spits it out like poison. "Loki. After Loki."

Yeah, well. Sam's telling him now, and he's just going to keep telling him. Long as they're in the blind spot, here where no one can see them? It's okay to be a mess. It's the best he can do here, when it comes to making a safe space for the people he cares about, but it's better than nothing.

It's better than keeping all that pain locked up inside and left to fester. That Sam knows, he still remembers what it was like when he let it get to that point.

He's quiet for a long moment, fingers curling a little bit to press into Clint's shoulder blades. Sam honestly isn't sure if he's supposed to know what that means, beyond just Loki raining destruction down on New York. Sam'd been there for the aftermath - he'd volunteered to do search and rescue with a number of other retired pararescuemen - but the amount of venom in Loki's name has to mean a hell of a lot more than that.

"What happened with him?"

He doesn't know how to handle this, Sam. Doesn't know how to handle you, doesn't know how to handle this place, the truths seeping under his skin like poison and ichor. He feels tainted, guilt stricken and wounded. And Natasha's not here to help, she's not here to whisper her advice, her belief. He's not alone but--but he is.

Sam isn't Natasha, no matter how much Clint might like him.

So he doesn't speak, doesn't move. Gathers himself slowly. They're quiet, holding each other tight. If he wasn't drunk, maybe Clint wouldn't stay here, cradled in Sam's arms. Maybe he wouldn't open his mouth and let it all spill out of him.

"He--" Presses his face against Sam's neck, as if he could hide from the aching blue truth. His voice is dull, as if repeating facts. "A couple days before Loki attacked Manhattan, he took over a SHIELD base. I was guarding the Tesseract there when he came through, and he decided I had potential."

You have heart, and the ache, the clawing magic grasping at him, dragging him deep down under the truth and loyalty woven into Loki's scepter, into his touch. Clint pauses, breath shuddering.

"He stole me. Used his magic to control me and some others. Got me to shoot Fury, made me run missions, made me take the helicarrier out of the sky. Nat got me out, but just barely."

She hadn't mentioned it, not until later, but it had been luck and hope and the aching amount of trust between them that had had her drawing him down to Medical after that first 'Nat?'. He doesn't explain further, deeper, doesn't tell Sam about the way Loki's magic reached down and took all that made him, and switched it around. Made him loyal and subservient, made nothing else matter but Loki. But maybe Sam can get a bit of that -- stole, he says. And it's true.

That's all right; Sam's not entirely sure how to handle this, either. Maybe he'd have a better handle on things if he wasn't partly caught up in his own grief, or if he wasn't drunk, but with both of them? Yeah, he's pretty much flying by the seat of his pants here.

All he knows is that Clint's in pain, and so is he. He learned a long time ago that grief hurts a hell of a lot less if you're willing to share it with someone else.

Except there's clearly more than grief at work here. It's not like Sam didn't know that Clint had his secrets, that there wasn't something deeper lurking under all that cockiness and flirting and bird jokes. He'd never pried before, but now? Yeah, he's prying now.

He stole me. Sam's a little too drunk to have expected anything, but even if he was, it sure as hell wouldn't have been that. His chest tightens a little, twisting up in a different kind of grief as he absently runs his hand over Clint's back, a small, gentle circle over his shoulderblade.

"How much do you remember?"

The world is made of maybe's. Maybe Clint wouldn't have told Sam, maybe Sam wouldn't have asked, maybe Natasha wouldn't have died and laid them low. Doesn't entirely matter, because they're both bleeding from a wound nothing but time can heal, Clint's just got the added ache of blue dyeing his veins.

He's been hiding this for months, not only during the few months he's been here, but before that. During the months after Manhattan where everyone looked at him like he might be a step from falling apart, a step from going insane and take up Loki's orders once more. Sure, he worked at an Intelligence Agency, but that didn't mean people didn't hold grudges for what he'd done. Didn't hate him in their grief.

He barely been back when he'd been brought here, and that ached. But it doesn't matter here, where the world is a threat on all levels, and Clint and his friends have been forced to murder for the entertainment of a society. A glorified gladiator match, and Clint's still here falling apart in the first blindspot he's had in months. It's no surprise that he's shaking apart, fracturing at the edges, shattering apart into a million pieces.

"Most of it." He grits out, teeth clenched. But once he starts, he can't stop. It comes spilling from him, fast, tripping over his words, "Wasn't like Barnes, he didn't take anything away. He just reached in and played with my brain, twisted everything around. Unmade me. It wasn't--it wasn't like I was riding backseat. He made me loyal, Sam. He asked me to get him what he needed and I killed people for him; my coworkers, civilians. Hell I almost killed Natasha."

He pauses, hands smoothing out over Sam's chest, curling back in, fists against collarbone. The gentle stroked circle over his shoulderblade is ridiculously soothing, even if Sam holds him tighter, keeps him closecloseclose.

"I made the choices. I did it all, and I remember that."

Edited 2015-04-08 02:53 (UTC)

Sam pulls him closer, like if he can just hold on to the guy tight enough, he can block out all of this pain. Like if Clint can’t hold himself together any more - Clint shouldn’t have to hold himself together, he should be able to come apart and fall to pieces - then maybe Sam can hold him together for him, or at least try to help pick those pieces up.

It’s right about then that he actually realizes how screwed he is. This is Steve and Nat, Bucky and Kurloz and Jet and Albert all over again, another person slotting their way into a place that Sam thought he’d closed off forever, one he thought no one would touch after Riley.

Goddamn this is one of the reasons why he’s out here in the first place, because he lost two people who found their way in there and Sam knows better. He’d told Albert as much, that he couldn’t do this, and Albert had said he could but now Albert’s gone and Sam’s -

Sam’s sitting in a back alley with a guy in his lap, a guy spilling poison out of an open wound on him, and all he wants to do is figure out how he can help him live with it coursing in his veins, maybe try to thin it out a little.

“Sounds pretty damn close to what Bucky’s told me, actually.”

He sounds shaky there, even if it’s true, and he pauses a minute to swallow. To regroup, because nah. He can do this.

“Clint.” He’s not entirely sure how the hell he manages to get his voice to come out steady, even strong, for all that it’s quiet, but he does. “You ever say no to him? To any of those things he asked you to do?”

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