You Can't Call It That!

Three days prior...

Clint didn’t often feel bad for putting his foot in it.

Oh, he did it regularly enough; he had a well-earned reputation for telling it how it was, something that was appreciated by most, but it still managed to ruffle a few feathers on occasion. So, it wasn’t unusual for him to say something that wasn’t the most appropriate or advisable in the given circumstances.

It was just the feeling bad that didn’t happen often.

He figured people were grown ass adults, and if they couldn’t handle the truth, it was their problem, not his.   

Having embraced this aspect of his personality with ease long ago, Clint had to wonder at the sheer level of wretchedness that had been eating away at him for the past few weeks.

It had been a stupid throwaway statement, said without thinking. Truth and teasing and surety of the falsehood making his words bold and cutting. Uncaring.

And he did stand by it, by the honesty of what he’d said. Children should have pets, to aid with growth and development and social skills. To deny a child a companion for no truly necessary reason was malicious. Heartless.

He stood by it.

He just wished he’d never said it.

Tony had blinked, lingering smile still dripping off his face, replaced by a strangely disconcerting combination of flustered, defensive, and gutted.

It had made Clint feel nauseas.

 

His words had trailed off into nothingness as he’d stared at Tony, waiting for the scathing sarcasm, the biting anger, waiting- welcoming it.

 

He already regretted the words.

Only, Tony didn’t react like that. He hardly seemed to react at all.

A weak quip, an excuse that Clint couldn’t even remember now, may not have even heard then, and Tony had turned on his heel and left the kitchen. Retreating. Running.

Clint had watched him go.

The piece of toast hit him in the side of the face, and he turned his hang dog expression Natasha’s way, meeting the second crust face on.

She spewed something poisonous in Russian, and Clint swallowed, hanging his head, his own muttered “Shit, shit- okay. I can fix this...How do I fix this?” almost lost beneath the tirade.

Steve intercepted the next projectile, dropping it to the table with a sigh, speaking as he got to his feet, “I’ll go after him. Bruce, let Fury know we’ll be late.”

And Clint was left to Natasha’s tender mercies, which mostly consisted of a pillow to the head, and much Russian profanity.

That had been three weeks ago and, for the most part, things had been completely normal. Tony and Steve had come back into the room half an hour later, and the six of them had left for SHIELD headquarters.

The only indication that anything was even amiss was the unusual quietness of the troublesome two, and the slight tightening of Steve’s jaw.

Nothing had changed, they still bantered, mocked, teased, and tore each other to shreds in the way only friends can, yet…there was something.

An unspoken tension, a slight break in the casual familiarity and comfortableness that had instantly formed between Clint and Tony, almost as soon as they’d lay eyes on each other. A sense of brotherhood, broken.

And Clint didn’t know how to fix it.

Or, he did.  But an apology wasn’t something he could do. Not for something like this. Not with Tony. The level of awkward that would come from such a gesture, and the following conversation…would likely be worse than the state of things between them now.

But looking at the little rock in the centre of his palm, it black googly eyes wobbling up at him as he moved it gently, Clint figured that he’d found another way.

Another version of ‘I’m sorry I was an insensitive and unthinking ass. Your friendship means the world to me, and I treasure our bond.  Even though I think your parents were pathetic excuses for such, I can’t help but thank them for making sure you turned out the way you have. Because you’re pretty awesome and I love you.  ’

Or,

 

‘Here, have a pet rock’.