Baby I'm thinking it over Who: Clint Barton & Rosalind Lutece When: Thursday, mid-afternoon Where: Clint & Loki's apartment What: After days of radio silence Rosalind confronts Clint. Angst. Feels. Rosalind is stubborn and so is Clint. Rating: PG-13 Status: Complete
Death was always a difficult subject to broach with people. The mere mention of it was a stark reminder of one’s own mortality, and that at any given moment your life could be slipping through your fingers like sand. It was inevitable, after all, and yet in Marrowood the usual rules did not apply. Death there meant resurrection, a painful one, but you did return. It would seem that the town that was their curse was also their savior.
But there was a hardship that came with each death, something that would either strengthen the bonds that people had with one another, or break them. Rosalind knew that whomever found her body would be confronted with a ghastly sight, her injuries not something for the faint of heart. When Robert told her that it was Clint that discovered her, her heart sank a little. She did not want him to see her in such a state, but at the same time if there was anyone used to death it was the SHIELD agent. He had told her of his escapades, she knew of the various deaths he had encountered, and as such she thought he would be okay with it.
That didn’t seem to be the case. He had yet to contact her since her resurrection despite her various attempts to reach him. Rosalind wondered if she had done something wrong, but other than dying (which she had no control over) she could not find a reason for the sudden cold shoulder. He would not talk with her over the network, a form of communication that was so easy to ignore if one so chose, and so Rosalind decided to confront him at the apartment Clint shared with Loki.
She made her way there midday, and rapped sharply on the door. He would not be able to ignore her then, and she had no intention of leaving until they had talked.
Currently, Clint was still getting his head on straight. As much as the recent debacle with the town had barely grazed his personal well being, beyond hunting everywhere for Loki, it had still managed to knock him for six. It was less a matter of having experience with deaths, and more the concept of the deaths he’d had to watch here.
Natasha’s first death had been hard to handle; probably the nature of it really. Her second disappearance was less of a death and simply more of her blinking out of existence, before reappearing some time later as a completely different version of herself, one that Clint didn’t know, one that knew a completely different him. And that was fine, really. He was good at adapting to things.
But it’d all added up to Clint being largely aware that he shouldn’t bother getting close to anyone, because it was far too fluid here. Rosalind, however, snuck in it seemed. And yeah, Clint was aware of himself enough to know that it was slightly more than a friendship, he danced with her at a damn wedding. But he was also aware enough to not get involved, or at least try not to get involved. He done that before and it got him no where. This was twice as bad.
And yet. She still died.
Just like Natasha. Just like Loki. And Clint was subject to yet another revolving door of people living and dying in this pit and it was just going to chew him out eventually. He felt a little like shit ignoring the messages that came through, and yes, he figured she might need to talk to someone, but he did not think he was the person for that. Not at all.
He did not expect her to show up at his doorstep (why did he have a doorstep? Loki’s fault. Damn.) leaving him little option but to stare before stepping aside, ducking his head to let her pass.
He had enough sense to not let this happen in the hallway. “You look better.” A little colour in the cheeks, less blood out of her body than in it. All good things.
It was awkward standing there, and never in Rosalind’s life had she felt awkward. Her hands fidgeting, and the moment he stared at her she stared at him, unwavering. There were a multitude of things that she wanted to say to him, a part of her even wanted to be angry that he had avoided her at all. That wasn’t fair, not when she needed him. She chastised herself because when had she ever needed anyone in her life?
Still, she offered him a smile and slipped past him into the apartment. “I feel better,” she said lightly. “Resurrection is a good thing, though the dying part leaves very little to be desired.” Yes, she was trying to make a joke, and maybe it was a little too soon. Rosalind was never really good at the societal rules concerning hard-to-talk-about subjects. She licked her lips, her throat suddenly becoming very dry. The nervousness was palatable, and once again for the second time in the span of five minutes Rosalind chastised herself. Why should she be nervous? What was there to be gained from such a feeling? She came here to confront Clint, and she intended to do just that.
“Is there a reason you’ve been ignoring me,” she asked him pointedly once he closed the door. “Because I will not accept that you have not seen my messages to you. So I’d like to know the reason, if you please.”
Weirdly, Clint was kind of used to ‘awkward’, it had a tendency to follow him through life, but this was a new kind of awkward. Not one he really wanted to grind his teeth through either. The dying jokes were probably a little too soon, a little too raw, but Clint just nodded absently. He doubted there was much to be enjoyed in dying, but he wasn’t about to sit down and grill someone about it. Not at all.
Of course Rosa would get right to the point, and Clint snorted slightly as he just wandered through the shared apartment, door swinging closed behind Rosalind’s entrance. “Just busy.” There was no point in saying he didn’t see them, and really, lying was just stupid. But there wasn’t really much he wanted to say, and the explanations just seemed a little pointless to him.
No one seemed to get just how big a deal this dying thing really was.
“You want some water, or is this a flying visit?” He didn’t want to be overly rude, there was no point in taking it out on her, but he really wasn’t in the mindset to go through this right now either.
Rosalind was taken aback by Clint’s behavior with her. She imagined a variety of responses from the man, a smile on his face at seeing her, a hug perhaps (though she wouldn’t have been angry if there was not one), but this? He was stoic, dismissive even, and that upset the red-haired woman. Her eyes widened in disbelief, and she let out a half-laugh.
“I cannot believe that you’re being dismissive with me,” she said with a shake of her head. “Let me assure you, Clint, that I am quite used to men being dismissive me. As a woman in science, physics of all things, I saw it all the time. I am adept at dealing with it, and it does not shut me up so easily.” She moved to stand in front of him practically forcing him to look at her straight on. It was hard for her to make the trip to his apartment that day probably for the same reasons that it was hard for him to even acknowledge her presence. There were feelings there that Rosalind had never had in the past. She did not know what to do with them, but she did not think she could ignore them. Not when her greatest desire when she awoke just a few days prior was to see him. The man standing in front of her.
“Do you think this is easy for me, hrm?” Her voice was gentle, and her eyes were pleading, something she was not used to doing. “I know you found my body, and I’m so-” She cut herself off, unsure of as to why she felt the need to apologise to him for something she had no control over. She took a deep breath. “I did not want to die, and I’m sorry for making that joke earlier.” It probably was too soon now that she thought of it in hindsight.
“But you cannot ignore me. I will not be ignored. Not when I ca-” Rosalind stopped herself short, and frowned at him. Oh he knew how she felt, didn’t he?
Naturally brushing her off wouldn’t work. Annoyingly it was something he rather liked about Rosa, she didn’t take shit, not his or anyone elses. But now wasn’t the time for her more charming of traits to rear their head and further prolong this whole thing. “And I’m very sure that has worked well for you in the past.” But Clint was a top-class shit, he drove Fury to infuriation time and time again, he’d been the cause of more than a few breakdowns, Clint could stonewall better than most. “But it’s not really the time.”
He didn’t think it was easy, not in the least. Dying and coming back seemed like one of the worst things to go through, and Clint couldn’t help but feel bad for her, but at the same time, he was too busy rebuilding some defences against this shit hole and what it does to people. He just sighed and shook his head, because it wasn’t like he could expect her to really understand his whole issue with mortality, not really. In the last few years he’d seem more than enough of his ‘friends’ die, come close or not close enough himself. And Marrowood just exploited that.
He frowned a little as she cut herself off, about to ask her what she was going to say before stopping. It didn’t matter, it wasn’t the point. “Well, I doubt anyone wants to die,” he’d said the same thing to Loki, “but shit happens, right?” All the time in this place, day in and day out. “Now, I’m sorry that I missed your recent calls, but if you have anything important that needs done, you know where I am.”
It was just about as dismissive as Clint could get without outright asking her to leave, which he really want to do, but distance seemed like the better option.
“Shit happens?” Her tone questioning him and the nonchalant manner of his statement. “I should say it is some shit,” she said again with a laugh. She was getting angry at his mannerisms toward her, unsure what spawned it all and yet knowing that it had something (if not everything) to do with her death. She placed a hand on her waist, and the other to her forehead as if she were reeling from everything that was happening. And she was, wasn’t she?
“You know what is shit,” she said using the word more in the past few moments that she ever had in her entire life. “The fact that you think you can treat me this way. You carried my body to my bed,” Rosalind said, her ire rising with her voice. “You cannot tell me that that did nothing to you. You cannot tell me that the time we’ve spent together meant nothing.” She began to pace in front of him, her temper flaring like the red in her hair. She suddenly felt tears brimming at the edge of her eyes, but she took a deep breath and forced them back.
“What I need done,” she said with a pause. “Is for you to be with me. Show me you care as much as I care for you. Because I have not cared for anything other than my work my entire life, and then you... “ she paused and stopped her pacing and looked straight at him. “You found a way in. You can’t do that and then just... “ she raised her hands into the air and gestured at him. “This!”
Clint wasn’t entirely sure what he expected, but it hadn’t really been this. Yelling, sure, he could take that. Maybe a slap because what was another woman slapping him in the scheme of things? “And then just what?” Because okay, so, apparently things were slightly less complicated than his usual route of things, but when he got down to the basics of it, he knew when a woman was out of his league and it was stupid to forge things like that here.
The problem wasn’t it meaning nothing, it was the exact opposite and Clint was fairly done with getting screwed over with this bullshit. “I carried your body to your bed.” He put a fair amount of emphasis on that himself too. “Dead, Rosa, like bled out on the floor, stone-cold dead. And… it might not be in the plan for anyone to go through but it sucks.” Because it doesn’t matter how you rationalise it, it doesn’t matter thinking about the fact that they’ll come back, maybe. It never really works that way, does it? It’s a stab, a sudden realisation of grief, because dead still means dead and it doesn’t suck any less.
Probably a lot more than watching the revolving door of his world-mates come in and out, seeing one Natasha after, having a Natasha he knew but didn’t really, Barnes vanishing, Kate vanishing, even before he’d gotten use to this place the endless in and out. It was so much worse to get to know people, enjoy their company, flirt around and maybe consider the usual progression of these things before the start reminder that this was not a normal place, and these people were not going to be there forever.
“I--” he cut himself off from apologising, because there was no reason to tell her he was sorry that things got complicated, because at the very least, maybe they were better getting complicated now. “I dunno what you want me to say here.” Because he couldn’t say that he didn’t care, which was why it’d been so startling to find her, why he’d proceeded to go home and get drunk -just like after Natasha, the first time- and so far Clint’s track record didn’t inspire confidence. He just shrugged slightly, avoiding looking at her directly because fuck she was getting teary eyed and he felt like the biggest jackass already.
“And then just pull away like I mean nothing,” she said calmly as she interjected him. Theirs was to be an argument that went back and forth between them, there was nothing one-sided when either side was unwilling to back down. She huffed a bit, her heart racing in her chest as her anger rose. Because she was angry that he could be so nonchalant about it all. She turned away from him for a moment, ashamed that she had let her emotions get the better of her. How could she have let herself lose control?
Rosalind listened to his words, and turned to look at him. She knew it couldn’t have been easy, emotionally at least, for him to take her lifeless body to her bed. Was that the reason he could barely look at her now because it reminded him of her death? She suddenly felt bad for going off on him the way she did because maybe he didn’t deserve it. Maybe. No, he did because he was still being a jackass to her. She took another deep breath to compose herself, and shook her head at him. “Don’t you think I know it was terrible? Not just for me, but for you? But what I don’t understand is why …” she cut herself off. Her jaw clenched as she stared at him.
She didn’t know that he had gotten himself drunk after he left her in her bed, nor did she know about his experiences with the other Natashas or all of the other people that had come in and out of Clint’s life. If she had she might have understood why her death was so hard on him, harder than the both of them realized.
But Rosalind would not waver her gaze. She took a step closer to Clint when he shrugged, and though her eyes were slightly blurry she had yet to shed a tear. “What I want is…” she ground her teeth, and shook her head. “Just a little bit of honesty about why you did not come to see me, or talk with me, or anything. I am ill prepared to lose what we have because of this town. I shall not sit idly by and let you push me away.”
He knew that things weren’t exactly fair on Rosa, his asshole behaviour wasn’t something she deserved, but in the long run, really, they’d both possibly be a little better off. He didn’t understand all these people falling headlong into these relationships, when all they were guaranteed was drama and trouble. Seriously, who got married in Hell Town? Idiots is what. Which was why, whatever this was developing here, (and he wouldn’t be so deluded as to call it ‘love’, attraction yes, definitely, but love?) it was better just stopping before they both got too involved in something that wasn’t going to go anywhere.
Why cut themselves up over something that had no future?
But honesty? Well, not exactly something Clint was versed in. He wasn’t a spy to the same degree as Natasha, and he wasn’t a silvertongue like Loki, but he wasn’t exactly open either. For all that Rosa was socially unaware, Clint sucked at personal relationships that weren’t decided for him. Team mates, partners, handlers, he was good with them, because he had to be, at least most of the time. Friends? Not so much. Relationships were difficult when someone lied for a profession. So they tended not to happen, and this, whatever this was with him and Rosa? It was dangerously close to serious.
“Do you know what it’s like to find the body of the woman you’ve worked with for nearly a decade, bloodied and eviscerated and mauled?” And if he was going to be completely honest, he’d been a little bit in love with Natasha for years, long enough to know that it wasn’t going to happen, but not quite long enough to get over it yet. But that was a little too much honesty. “And she’s the closest thing you have in the world to family?” She’d been the first here and possibly the most painful, and reasoning that she’d come back didn’t work right, because she came back wrong. Didn’t remember anything here, didn’t remember dying, thank god. But it wasn’t like it helped.
“And then…” And then Rosa, brilliant, sharp, cunning Rosa, stabbed in the gut and left like… “It’s just gonna keep happening, because no one wants to die, but this town doesn’t care. And I can’t compromise myself like that again.” Because it might just be attraction now, but Clint knew his type. Smart, beautiful, stubborn and way out of his league. He had a thing for red-heads.
He wasn’t entirely sure what his already battered psyche could take.
Rosalind felt deflated somehow. Heart sinking in her chest as Clint spoke. Her eyes were stinging, and she realised right then why she had never engaged in relationships other than professional ones. Human emotions, the flow of chemicals in the body and brain made on irrational and unable to think clearly. If she were in her right mind, and unburdened by the inefficient workings of hormones she would not have come here in the first place. She should be in her lab, working, trying to find a way out of this place because honestly? Clint was right. Things here were not permanent and at any moment they could be whisked away back to their reality, or they could be killed by demons falling from the sky. Still...
She licked her lips, so dry now like her throat after her ranting. “I’ll take some water now if you don’t mind,” she said to him softly. The scratching in her throat was starting to burn, and it was a good distraction from everything going through her mind. She moved over toward one of the windows and looked out at the town. It seemed so normal from where they were, and if she didn’t know better she might actually want to live there. Pity that it was a hell on Earth, if they were even on Earth at all. She wrapped her arms around her body, and took another cleansing breath.
“I’d like to think that this town would not be able to change us as individuals,” she said to him though she wasn’t looking at him. “Perhaps there is no future, and it is a practice in futility to even engage in interactions with those not from our world because we may never see them again. No one knows why we were brought here, some people call it fate and I cannot prove whether or not that is the case. But what I do believe is that things happen for a reason because we make those decisions, and the moment we allow a place or events to dictate how we live our lives is the moment we lose a bit of ourselves.” Rosalind turned to face him, a slight ache in her chest that she attributed to the memory of her wound and not so much that her heart was hurting.
“So you cannot allow yourself to be compromised? Because it hurts? Because it is easier to live without those sort of attachments? Then so be it. I respect you enough… care about you enough to do at least that for you.” Her arms fell to her side for a moment before she smoothed out the front of her dress. “You know I thought of you,” she said with her eyes trained on him. “As I was dying. And I didn’t want to leave you, despite the promise of resurrection I had no way of knowing whether or not it was real. Out of everyone in my life in this town you were my last thought, and my first when I awoke.”
Rosalind moved toward the door, head held high because she refused to look beaten even though she felt it.
“Lives. Lived. Will live. Dies. Died. Will die. Everything that has ever happened, or will ever happen, has already happened in another universe. Our realities are a creation of our decisions. This is my reality right now, as it is yours. Can you live with that?”
He’d placed the water on the counter, just as she’d started talking about changes and realities, watching the town rather than him and Clint wasn’t sure just what to take from everything. There was a sense of ‘live in the moment’ in this place, but there was no sure fire way to determine just how this place was going to affect them, no one could tell for sure which reality they were attached to and no one knew if they’d return to their own stream of reality with their memories intact.
Hoping they’d remember, or not remember depending on the experiences, didn’t really give them much but that. Hope. And Clint had stopped relying on that when he was a kid. And Rosa was a scientist, hope and faith and probably fate to an extent didn’t really matter to her, just what could be proven with science, and Clint rather accepted that. Things didn’t need to be tangible, they just needed to be reasonable. And until now, he didn’t really see the reason in putting himself through constant struggles when people died in this shit dump only to pop back up like it was nothing.
Her thinking of him, considering him at the end and when she awoke, before she even knew he’d been there, it was enough for him to at least admit that the feelings weren’t one sided, and he didn’t have a clue just how to deal with that in this place, but he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea or not.
But he’d never been all too concerned with good ideas anyway, had he? He reacted without thought, based largely on gut instinct or his own, sometimes selfish, wants. Logical thinking was for others, he wasn’t the rational voice of reason. He had a tactical mind and he could practice patience where needed, but it was always his instincts he relied on; jumping before looking, reacting before thinking, acting before rationalising. Why stop that now? Just because the stakes were a bit bigger and the world was entirely different.
The distance from the kitchen to the door was minimal and Clint crossed it with steady strides to close the door before Rosa could leave, hand at her hip to turn him fully towards him before pressing her into the door and ducking to seal their lips in a kiss, entirely impulsive and the only way he could actually think would get across just how not okay he was with leaving things like this.
It was only her voice that filled the room during those moments. It echoed off the walls and seemed to fall on deaf ears. Clint said nothing to her, at all. He stared at her almost blankly as if his mind was running through every scenario that was possible. Maybe Rosalind was wrong to think he cared, that him moving her body was nothing more than a courtesy. Him ignoring her was possibly due to the fact that she had somehow become boring. Not that that was unheard of, quantum physics was not everyone’s cup of tea. She sighed softly, and had almost reached the door when Clint moved to close it.
And in the same movement he kissed her.
Rosalind felt the door pressed against her back just as his lips met hers. Her eyes widened in a state of shock at the sudden expression made by the rugged archer. She honestly did not know what to do, but her heart was beating wildly against her breastbone, and it felt like it was going to escape at any moment. She blinked a few times, and when her brain caught up with her body she relaxed against him. Her hand reached up to hold onto the hand that was on her hip, and slowly she moved it up to his forearm. Her lips parted to accept his kiss and her other hand moved up to rest on his chest. She could feel his heart beating against her palm, and all her trepidation from moments ago vanished.
She moaned softly into his mouth, a purr almost as they kissed. So warm, and exciting, and something she had never experienced in her entire life. When they parted she struggled to catch her breath, and she swallowed the lump in her throat. “Well, Mr. Barton,” she started to say. “That was highly inappropriate behavior in the courtship process.” Her tone was serious, but the corner’s of Rosalind’s mouth curled upward, a mischievous smirk that she had worn more often whenever she was with him. The hand on his chest moved up to cup his cheek, and she smiled. “You will have to pay dearly for it. With another kiss, of course.” It was Rosalind this time that found Clint’s mouth, a silent prayer that only their lips knew as they pressed together. Regardless of what did or did not make sense this was what Rosalind wanted in that moment.
He could figure out how to work with this, seizing the moment bullshit aside he didn’t necessarily want to push Rosa away, not in the least. And while he knew it was hardly what she would consider proper, nor the time really since she was likely mad at him, it just felt like all he could really explain.
Of course spur of the moment seemed to pay off when Rosa just scolded him and then repeated, which he had no complaints about at all. His arms wrapped around her waist, keeping her close and somewhat assuaging the remaining uncertainty and grief. He knew to keep things light and easy, even as one hand shifted up to cup the back of Rosa’s head, threading through her hair.
Reluctantly, Clint pulled back, not enough to have to part, but breaking the kiss gently. It didn’t exactly solve anything, but how was that at all new for Clint. “I’m gonna be honest, I ... really have no idea what I’m doing.” Because things hadn’t changed, in the span of time where they’d been talking, nothing was different. Except he knew she wasn’t gonna haul off and hit him.
Progress.
Her eyes fluttered open when he pulled away, and she looked up at him. Rosalind was aware of just how close they were, that she was enveloped in his arms, and that within them she felt safe. Her arms had somehow made it around his body as well. When in the span of time they were entwined that happened she had no idea. When he spoke she felt his breath upon her lips, and it took everything to focus on the words rather than the feelings she was struggling with. Unfortunately for Clint, Rosalind would be of no help in the area of relationships either. She made a soft “mmm” sound, and nodded. “I don’t either,” she admitted to him before she planted a peck on his lips. Rosalind leaned her head back to look at him, and she knew as well that things hadn’t changed that much, not really at least.
“All I know is that I’d rather be in your company, than without,” she said to him. “And if you need time away from me then I suppose I understand that as well. Just... “ Rosalind’s head leaned to the side slightly, brow furrowed as her eyes stared into his. “Just tell me,” she said as she smacked his back playfully with her hand. “I will not stand being ignored.” She patted the area of his back after she hit it, and smoothed it with her hand.
All their talk did very little to solve whatever problem it was they had in the first place. He was still wary of getting too close, and she was worried about losing him at all. But she understood (now) that perhaps he needed space and time away from her. She supposed if she saw the body of person she cared for she too would have the same reaction. Rosalind rested her cheek against his chest for a moment. “What do we do now?” A question the woman rarely asked since she always had a plan. But this was new, and she had no idea how to proceed. But this was nice, the hugging. A physiological response she was sure, and she wondered just how much oxytocin was flowing through her body at that moment.
It wasn’t really a case of needing time away, not at all. Clint didn’t need space so much as attempting to distance himself to stop what might happen. But it was kind of dumb to bother, what with things as they were. The semi-playful smack just sparked a small smirk, Clint hugging Rosa in a little closer, trying to erase memories of her cold body with the warmth that came from her just now, and maybe that would be enough, in time.
“No more ignoring.” That was something he could handle, and if she just happened to have a shadow in the form of an archer, he was sure she could find something for him to do when he needed it. Nothing would be fixed overnight, nor would it miraculously just go away, but there was hopefully enough time to figure that all out.
“Have you eaten today? Hungry?” He figured that there wasn’t really a need for changing things, not suddenly, not entirely, and provided they figured out whatever they needed to figure out, it would be fine. “Get something and I’ll walk you back to the lab? It looked like a disaster area the last time I was there.” When he found her dead. Not talking about…
There was no way they would rush into things. Two people that had a hard time dealing with emotions were not very likely to do that, but thankfully Rosalind was headstrong and would always speak her mind at the very least.
She returned the hug, the warmth of his body filled her with something that she could never get from her work. This was something she hasn't realized she was missing in her life until that moment. She knew that had she never been brought to this wretched place she'd never had this moment. Maybe it wasn't that wretched.
"Food sounds wonderful actually," she said to him with a playful bounce of her eyebrows. "Maybe some pasta. And the lab has been cleaned up some. My brother, Killian and Ariel have been helping to clean up." She thought it best not to mention how difficult the bloodstain had been to remove. Even after all their scrubbing there was still a light remnant of it in the floor, now conveniently covered with a rubber mat. "And our projects have been returned thanks to our mermaid relinquishing her claim on them." She smiled and hooked her hand around Clint's arm. "Shall we go then, Mr. Barton?"