He drinks - again - looking at Rogers with a sort of skeptical reproach, as though it's his fault they're standing here staring each other down - again. God, he really doesn't want to wind up on that road (at least not after all of twenty seconds, which - record time), and he turns his head to look at nothing in particular, just to break the line of sight. Playing chicken's a stupid habit, although not one he's ever tried to break. It always crops up around people to whom he feels like he has something to prove, and Rogers is that, for some godforsaken reason that doesn't bear thinking on. It's different, somehow, from the desire to impress, which is the source of all the gleeful stunts he pulls for, say, Banner (whom he hasn't seen in a couple of days, but the world finding out you're the Hulk is a good enough excuse for a little brooding).
He should take up introspection, instead. He's not going to. "Anyway. The pool's on 42. Make yourself at home. My house is your house. Go crazy. Don't, you know, invite friends over who turn out to be fascist infiltrators who use my intellectual property to facilitate the murder of any potential threat to their global dominance, but - otherwise." Mouth twisted slightly, he looks him in the eye again. "You know, if ... that's okay."
It's not the most delicate way to test the waters, but he doesn't do delicate. It is, possibly, less forward than how the hell did you not notice, but equally unfair. There's not a lot of sympathy left in his reserves, though. For him, the hit he's taken is personal, and has little to do with the concrete consequences. Sure, the data spill is making PR a nightmare, but when is it ever not. There are no secrets coming out about him that people haven't been publishing in tabloids since he was old enough to read. The sting is in having fucked up - in having been duped. In having wasted another couple of years in a life that's already littered with waste.
It is, in short, extremely inconvenient for his personal project of rehabilitating his sense of moral righteousness. Among other things.
no subject
He drinks - again - looking at Rogers with a sort of skeptical reproach, as though it's his fault they're standing here staring each other down - again. God, he really doesn't want to wind up on that road (at least not after all of twenty seconds, which - record time), and he turns his head to look at nothing in particular, just to break the line of sight. Playing chicken's a stupid habit, although not one he's ever tried to break. It always crops up around people to whom he feels like he has something to prove, and Rogers is that, for some godforsaken reason that doesn't bear thinking on. It's different, somehow, from the desire to impress, which is the source of all the gleeful stunts he pulls for, say, Banner (whom he hasn't seen in a couple of days, but the world finding out you're the Hulk is a good enough excuse for a little brooding).
He should take up introspection, instead. He's not going to. "Anyway. The pool's on 42. Make yourself at home. My house is your house. Go crazy. Don't, you know, invite friends over who turn out to be fascist infiltrators who use my intellectual property to facilitate the murder of any potential threat to their global dominance, but - otherwise." Mouth twisted slightly, he looks him in the eye again. "You know, if ... that's okay."
It's not the most delicate way to test the waters, but he doesn't do delicate. It is, possibly, less forward than how the hell did you not notice, but equally unfair. There's not a lot of sympathy left in his reserves, though. For him, the hit he's taken is personal, and has little to do with the concrete consequences. Sure, the data spill is making PR a nightmare, but when is it ever not. There are no secrets coming out about him that people haven't been publishing in tabloids since he was old enough to read. The sting is in having fucked up - in having been duped. In having wasted another couple of years in a life that's already littered with waste.
It is, in short, extremely inconvenient for his personal project of rehabilitating his sense of moral righteousness. Among other things.