#// and you're standing up for steve i cannot be/lieve/

[overclocksaa]

@hitsharder​ / I liked you better when you were an alcoholic clint out here trying to start civil war iii

It might be a statement out of the blue with no lead up, sure, but Clint Barton shoving his own foot as far down his own throat as he can get it is actually nothing new.  Half the time he opens his mouth, you can damn near bet something offensive and crude is going to fall out of it, and he’s going to pat himself on the back for thinking he’s oh so damn clever for it, and is shocked - shocked - when someone feeds him a fist, literally or metaphorically.

There’s no reason this should be such a slap in the face, because of that.  Of course Clint doesn’t think before says things.  Of course he reaches for poor impulse control, bad wording, and inflammatory statements to provoke a reaction.  Of course Tony should ignore it, shut him down without losing it completely and not give him the attention he wants from it, because to Clint any attention is apparently good attention.

There’s also the fact that, as far as these things go, there already is a raging, barely functioning alcoholic in the room, and then there’s Tony, who keeps so tight a grip on his self control - who has learned the hard way what slipping back in the bottle with lose him - that it squeaks.  He’d never say that, not like that.  He’s sympathetic to the problem Clint refuses to admit he has - for obvious reasons.  He’s tried, before, to get Clint to realize the problem and address it, and it’s as the old adage goes, you can only help those that want to help themselves, and Clint just flat out doesn’t want help. 

But being sympathetic doesn’t mean it doesn’t make him see red.  Doesn’t mean he doesn’t clench his jaw so tight he’s sure he’s cracked a crown.  Doesn’t mean - while he’s not going to, he’s not going to give Clint the satisfaction - he doesn’t have the urge to add another break in Clint’s nose for the sheer audacity of it.

“That’s hilarious, coming from you.”  His tone is deceptively cool, his words clipped.  Precise.  His fingers twitch with the effort to keep his hands from curling into fists, because if they curl into fists, then this ends the way he’s sure Clint wants it to.  “Considering you’re one of the first in line to accuse me of drinking every single time I do something you don’t agree with.”

It’s everyone’s go-to excuse with him, right?  Tony does something like take an unpopular side, choose the option of less evil that’s not so naively optimistic as to be a fairytale, and everyone automatically assumes he’s gone darkside because he’s hitting the sauce.  It’s played out that way a million times.  People would always rather believe that than the fact that maybe idealism will only get them so far.

Or - and this one actually still rankles, and he knows he’s supposed to let it go and forgive and forget because of what followed after - the fact that Clint had been more than happy to side with Hank Pym and decide Tony’s insistence that no, he hadn’t been drinking in front of the UN, had all been an excuse, piggy backing off all the other bad shit that had happened that day.  He hasn’t forgotten it.  He’s never going to forget it.  The Avengers can’t stop eating their own long enough to realize they’re being short-sighted and stupid about things.  It’s the Avengers way, after all.

People think Steve’s the one that will hold on to shit forever, but no.  No, that’s Tony.  It’s not a grudge, it’s a lesson learned on who can be counted on for support and who can’t, and Clint very much cannot be counted on for anything but crude observations and bad decisions.

"You’ve got thirty seconds to get the hell out of my house and off my property.“