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Here is the thing: you tell him you hate him because sometimes, sometimes that’s the only thing you can tell him. He is too much. Like one of those stray cats you never feed for fear they’ll stick around, but you name them, in your head, and you pat them when you see them and you pretend you don’t care. You pretend you don’t care because everyone knows not caring is easier because caring gets you hurt.
You haven’t cared in years, you think sometimes, but then that’s not true. You care every day.
You care about Kate and the Avengers. You care about coffee and Lucky. You care about your arrows and your bed and Bobbi and the sunset and—and you don’t care about him. Or the cat. And you try not to care about the other things as much as is expected, frankly, because most of those things can leave.
It is a proven fact that if things have the capability of leaving you, they usually do.
So you don’t feed the cat, and you tell Remy Lebeau you hate him, even if you don’t.
“Pass me de cream, cher?” he says, “And the pot of coffee?” and the cat metaphor may not have actually been reaching all that far. He’s leaning against your counter, smiling at you, red eyes just hidden beneath the brim of his hat dipping low over his forehead.
“How do you keep getting into my apartment?” you ask, as you reach for the cream.
He just holds out his empty mug, and you furrow your brow at him, but pour the coffee anyway. You know how he takes his coffee, but you refuse to feed the cat, so you just set the cream on the table between you. He picks it up before you set it down, so your fingers brush together. It seems ridiculous, but his skin seems so much colder than yours that the temperature difference is startling. It always has been.
You’ve sort of gotten used to it over the years.
“Seriously,” you ask, leaning back so that you’re standing just two feet away from each other, resting your hips on the same counter (it’s a small kitchen, you tell yourself. You aren’t touching, you say. Not yet.), “you don’t have a key.”
“You don’t have a lock.”
“Yes I do.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Then why don’t you—“
“Why don’t I what?”
“—use it, Barton. Sorry, but in the years I’ been comin’ here for coffee and de like, you ain’t once used that shiny lock o’ yours. ‘S like new.”
There’s a quiet silence over the kitchen. And there usually is, because you’re bad at talking and he is too and that’s another thing you have in common. And you don’t like to think about the things you and Remy have in common.
“Maybe—“ you start and then stop.
What maybe? What is there to maybe about this? Remy comes over for coffee or dinner or sometimes because he got himself injured and you have an extensive first aid kit and don’t ask questions.
“Maybe?”
“Maybe I didn’t want to keep you out.”
And it’s quiet for the rest of the morning.
“Seeya, Hawkeye.”
“At least put your cup in the sink? Or, like, throw it away? I can’t even say y’were raised in a barn, because I was literally raised in a barn, but I’ve got better manners than you.”
Remy just winks, and you shake your head.
“I hate you, y’know? Like, I really hate you, Lebeau,” you say. “Don’t let the door hit you!” and he leaves with the sound of his laughter echoing around your apartment. God, you really hate him.
--
You tell him you hate him because if you didn’t you’d say something stupid. Like tell him you love him. And you don’t know when that started because it’s not anything you planned and it was a little startling, like most things about him are, when you first thought it. He didn’t even do anything special.
He was asleep and you weren’t and he made this soft noise, like the act of breathing had escaped him for a second and you looked at him.
(You’re always looking at him. The slant of his nose. The bow of his lips. The scars—so faded that sometimes you can’t even see them, but you never forget that they’re there. You never forget he's fought battles you'll probably never find the right name for and it's all that you can do to be there when he shakes himself awake again.)
You looked at him, sleeping, snuffling quietly, and you feel your heart drop to your toes right before it rockets back up to your throat, swelling almost painfully as it goes. So quickly you almost choke on it.
You all but jumped to your feet, tugging at the hem of your shirt even though it hadn’t even risen up a little bit. Your head felt like television static turned up too loudly.
Remy snored.
“I hate you,” you told him.
He was sleeping and you hated him and he shifted in the chair and you didn’t hate him at all.
“Mmh,” said Remy.
He blinked slowly, once and then twice, like he’d forgotten how to open his eyes. So slowly you didn’t even think he was really waking up for a moment.
Remy said, “Morning.”
You said, “You’re drooling on my chair.”
He ignored you. “Coffee?”
You glance down at the cup in your hand and nod. He reaches out, child-like, and you bite down on the inside of your cheek. It’s gone cold, and you tell him, but he doesn’t care, so you hand it over. It’s strong coffee, always is, but you don’t think that’s why you flush a little when he takes a long sip. He doesn’t look away from your eyes when he drinks.
When he hands it back, you take another sip. You realize three things in quick succession: you don’t look away from him either because you’re stubborn; he doesn’t look away from you because he loves you; his mouth was the last thing to touch the rim of the mug you still have cradled to your lips.
--
You tell him you hate him because he’s bleeding from at least three different places and you’re running out of bandages from the last four times he’s done this and you don’t get it, okay? You don’t understand why he seems to want to get himself killed.
Okay, that’s not true. You understand it. You really do. But that doesn’t make it easier to wrap your head around it.
You hate him because you’re down to using the Toy Story Band-Aids that Kate bought you that one time. You try to save these for special occasions, which Remy knows.
“I hate you,” you say, and he grins. Buzz Lightyear stares up at you from his chin.
It’s not past five am yet, but it really isn’t that dark outside. Oh, New York. The lights never really go away. Sometimes it feels like they’re watching you. Sometimes that’s comforting. Other times (tonight, tonight, tonight) you wish they’d leave you in peace.
Remy touches your hair. He does that sometimes. That, you don’t hate so much.
Your hand braces itself on his thigh as you wipe the antiseptic down the two inch gash on his cheek. He shivers and so do you. God.
The air is heavier, somehow. You can feel it on your skin and weighing down everywhere. New York summers are brutal, but it’s February and your heating’s broken.
“Remy,” you say. “I want to kiss you.”
His lips part and you hear the startled inhale and it’s all a testament to how close you’re sitting next to each other.
“But I’m not going to.”
“Oh?”
“I’m not going to kiss you because I need– you need to tell me that’s what you want, yeah?”
Again, a startled breath. Again, a quiet, “oh?” This is the closest you’ve ever been to him without him trying to cover up his eyes. It’s nice. It makes your fingers itch.
You don’t say anything, just nod and stick a bandage over the cut. It’s not one of the Toy Story ones, which makes you kind of sad. Remy is still looking at you. Your hand is still on his thigh, which is a fact you’re startlingly aware of. Each one of your fingertips is an open flame. You want to take your hand off of him. You want to clench your fist to make the feeling go away.
You can’t move. You can’t move.
“Hey, Clint.”
“Hey, Remy.”
He put his hand over yours. “Kiss me,” he says.
“God,” you say, and then you kiss him.
You kiss him and you kiss him and he kisses you until you can’t breathe. And your heart is doing that thing where it’s swelling in your throat again, but this time it doesn’t feel painful. It feels sort of nice. He has one hand in your hair and you have one hand on his thigh and your mouths are trading kisses like baseball cards. All those points of contact are less like flames and more like infernos.
You push forwards and your teeth click against his. It hurts a little, so you pull away and mouth sorry around a smile.
Remy smiles back at you and mutters, “I’m not,” and pulls you back.
You tell him you hate him and he laughs I love you, too right back into your mouth.