Don't Give Me Hope

Be aware, you may not like the advice you get.

Matt doesn’t move while Remy talks. Not even when the word killer lands between them like something heavy and deliberate. The wind shifts across the rooftop, carrying the scent of rain and city asphalt, but Matt’s focus stays fixed on the man in front of him—the rough edge in his voice, the way his breath catches before he forces the laugh out.

“You’re right,” Matt says quietly. There’s no anger in it. No judgment. Just acknowledgment.

“You steal,” he continues after a moment, his head tilting slightly toward the sound of Remy running his hand through his hair. “You lie when it suits you. You’ve killed people.” He lets the words settle, unsoftened but not sharpened either. “Those are facts.”

Matt takes a slow step closer, boots quiet against the rooftop gravel.

“But that’s not the whole picture,” he adds, voice lower now. “You watch over people who don’t even know you’re there. You walk away when you could take more than you do. And you keep showing up here even though you think it’s a mistake.” The faintest ghost of a smile touches the corner of his mouth. “That doesn’t sound like someone who’s as bad for me as you want to believe.”

A faint breath escapes through his nose at the attempted joke, the sound carrying more warmth than amusement. Remy was doing what he always did when something got too close to the truth—reaching for humor before he had to sit with the fact that someone had seen him and hadn't turned away. Matt recognized it because, if he was honest, he'd spent years doing much the same.

"You probably would," he admits, the corner of his mouth lifting. "You're good at disappearing." His head tilts ever so slightly, listening to the uneven rhythm of Remy's breathing, the subtle tremor that still hadn't left his shoulders. "But that's not the same thing as getting away."

Another step closes some of the distance between them, though he leaves enough space that Remy can choose what happens next. "You keep acting like I'm trying to catch you," Matt says quietly. "I'm not." His voice is steady, impossible to mistake. "If I wanted to arrest you, I wouldn't have waited until tonight to make up my mind." He lets that settle before continuing. "I'm standing here because every time you give me a reason to walk away, you end up giving me another one to stay."

Matt stills the second Remy’s hands find his face. It’s not resistance—just a quiet, instinctive pause, like his body is bracing for something it doesn’t quite know how to receive. The gentle pressure guiding his head upward pulls him out of it, his breath catching for a fraction of a second before it steadies again. He doesn’t pull away. His sightless eyes lift with him, unfocused but no longer hidden, something raw and unguarded flickering there that he usually keeps buried behind control.

Remy’s words land—and this time, they don’t slide off. Matt exhales quietly, the sound a little uneven at the edges as something shifts in his chest. His brow tightens faintly, not in rejection, but in the effort it takes to let it in. “...You make it sound easy,” he murmurs, voice low and rougher now. Not dismissive—just honest.

His grip on Remy's wrists tightens for the briefest moment before relaxing again. "No," he admits quietly. "There's no hesitation." A slow breath leaves him as he lets his forehead rest more fully against Remy's. "Your heart hasn't changed once since you started talking." The corner of his mouth lifts into a small, reluctant smile. "Makes you incredibly difficult to argue with."

The smile lingers for only a moment before it fades. His hands slip away from Remy's wrists, and he takes a slow step back, creating just enough distance to make the next part feel impossibly harder. His fingers rise almost automatically to the temples of his sunglasses, lingering there as uncertainty settles across his features. The glasses had become second nature years ago, a barrier between himself and the reactions he'd grown used to seeing from everyone else.

Clint huffs out a quiet breath at that, the corner of his mouth lifting despite himself as he leans back in the chair, phone still pressed to his ear. The shift in Remy’s breathing doesn’t go unnoticed—it never does—and something about the way his voice drops pulls Clint’s focus right back in. “Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, softer now, but there’s a thread of something sharper underneath. “Don’t get cocky. You got lucky.”

He tilts his head slightly, listening—not just to the voice, but everything around it. The background noise, the echo, the rhythm of the city bleeding through the line. His fingers tap once against his knee as he processes, expression tightening just a fraction like he’s already working it out whether he wants to admit it or not. “You really think I need a hint?” Clint adds, voice quieter now, more deliberate. “I can hear traffic—close, but not gridlocked. Open space nearby… alley’s probably not as boxed in as you want me to think.” A faint pause. “And there’s music. Distant. Live, not recorded.”

Remy listened quietly, leaning against the cool brick, eyes closed as he listened to Clint pick apart the sounds around him. "Ya good, just as ah knew ya would be." He breathed into the microphone, opening his eyes to take in the scenery around him. Not really taking in the details as his focus was more on the voice of the other man on the line. It was a tease really, and he found himself annoyed with the distance between them already.

"Ah never said ah was hidin', Birdie." He spoke slowly into the phone, deliberately allowing his tongue to click on the words. "An if ah was, ya'd have ah much harder time findin' me. Mah whole gig is tah be unseen and unheard. Wouldn' be mucha t'ief if ah didn' now would ah?" Straightening up, he walked more into the alley, wonderin' if he should make this game of tag a bit more interesting. He hummed in thought, tapping his chin.

"Ah count on it. Best hurry d'ough before ah grow impatient." Gambit pressed, lips close to the microphone before whispering. "Cause ah'll make sure ya gotta work for it an ah don't plan on lettin' ya win easily if at all."

A quiet laugh slips out before he can stop it, low enough that it almost disappears beneath the noise of the city outside his own window. "There he is," he murmurs. "Was wonderin' how long it'd take before your ego showed up." The words are easy, familiar, carrying the kind of affection that only ever surfaced when someone managed to get under his skin in exactly the right way.

His chair scrapes softly against the floor as he stands, already reaching for his jacket without giving himself time to reconsider. "You're right," Clint admits. "If you wanted to disappear, I wouldn't hear a damn thing." He slips the phone between his shoulder and ear while locking his apartment behind him. "But that's not what you're doing." A satisfied smile tugs at the corner of his mouth as he heads toward the stairwell. "You keep talking. You keep giving me just enough to follow. Doesn't sound like a guy who wants to stay lost."

I do have an idea for a starter call that I'll post at some point and it will be capped. it will be centered around going on vacation.