Chapter Text
I Want To Hate You
There's something to be said about the tang of copper in your mouth, the way your smiles runs red and run into each other until you're just baring your teeth at all the wrong people in all the wrong lights. There's six worn people crowded round a too-small table and the lights are all wrong, Fury's pacing like he can stomp out their mistakes with his boots.
Clint comes down from adrenaline highs with rattled teeth and bruised ribs more often than he can remember. He's counting the ways in which his body can ache and coming up with more than he can put a number to, so he purses his lips and grinds his ruby red teeth and tries not to think about the way Stark lounges on the chair beside him, his smile pristine white and his eyes full of things he'd like to say but hasn't found the words to make it sting enough.
They're eyes that Clint could learn to hate, if he didn't think he was half-way there already. Because there were times when Tony wasn't a team player, and there are more aches on Clint's body than there should be, and Tony Stark's name is written along them in purple blotches along his skin. Tony who is safe in his metal suit, Tony who owns the blood in Clint's mouth, who put it there with his actions and inactions and goddamn cowboy attitude.
"So let me get this straight," Fury's saying, and there's a crinkle in his brow that Clint's sure has only appeared since this so-called team has formed. "Stark was trying to-"
"I was trying to save the day," Tony cuts him off, with that stupid smug know-it-all look on his face that Clint wants to smack away. "And Barton here got in the way."
Fists clenched tightly, the aforementioned archer throws a dark look in his direction. He's all about patience, so he's not going to let a comment from Mr. I-think-I'm-better-than-everyone get to him. Not even with his foot tapping madly on the floor while he's trying to maintain some semblance of that thing they called calm.
"Really this whole thing could have been avoided if he'd just followed orders."
"If I'd followed orders?!" Clint spits angrily. "That's rich, coming from you Stark! If you'd listened to Rogers to begin with then we wouldn't even be in this mess."
There's something to be said about the way Tony looks at him, like he really does believe that Clint is an idiot, and he should hate him for it, he really should.
"I saw a way to end that fight quickly and I took it. I warned you to get out of the way and you refused. Clearly all the blame here falls to you."
He's known for being patient, but patience feels like a fleeting memory whenever Tony's involved and it's all Clint can do to keep himself from spitting a comment back. So he bares his teeth, red and raw, and calls it a smile. Lets his hands rise up in a mockery of peace that he's sure Tony can see right through with those mocking eyes of his, the ones Clint can't quite find it in him to hate.
He wants to write out another ending, one where Tony wears the bruises and Clint wears the armour for a change. One where he's not sucking blood off the back of his knuckles and staring at a death sentence in the form of a reckless team mate. One where he can hate Tony Stark for being all the things he doesn't need in his life rolled into one nicely wrapped package.
But this isn't that ending, so he settles with a smile and an upturned palm.
"Whatever you say, Stark. Next time I won't pick the enemies off your six while you try and kill me."