“People are kinda weird about that.”

“...you have a weirdly good grasp of my characterization for a guy who just started talking to me without my mask on today.”

"I'm good at people. Which is also why I'm writing a bunch of fanfic about you and not about Natasha."

“Even I wouldn’t write fanfiction about her. I don’t wanna get knifed in my sleep.”

“...I mean, I do, but—you know what I mean.”

"I'll add it to my to-do list."

“Best boyfriend, or best boyfriend?”

He clicks around a little more, trying to decide on a next fic.

“...uh, this wasn’t here forever, by the way.”

He gestures at the scars.

“Don’t know if you knew and you just changed it for the fic.”

"You never mention things about your past."

“Yeah. It’s kind of a depressing story. Shocker, right?”

"I guessed. You don't have to talk about it."

“Yeah. Thanks.”

”...maybe we can swap tragic backstories sometime.”

"Mine's all public record. I killed people for five years, got kidnapped by terrorists, almost died, watched the American government blow up a village full of children with the weapons I made them, and came back a hippie with a power plant in my chest and a flying robot suit."

"You say that in one sentence like that's a one-sentence backstory. That's like, at least twenty minutes of movie."

"Oh, yeah, and my parents died in a car crash when I was seventeen, that was also not great."

...nope. He can't quip about that.

How about he hugs him instead.

Hugs. 

"My dad worked really hard on himself so that he could be a good dad for me. He was an alcoholic and he had bipolar disorder but he got clean and went to therapy and parenting classes as soon as he knew I was conceived and-- he was always kind and patient and treated me like I mattered. I miss him a lot. And also he killed kids. I'd ask someone how you're supposed to reconcile those two things but the person I asked about that kind of thing was, in fact, my dad."

"...yeah. That sounds really fucking rough."

He is going to pet Asher's back now.

"I mean – if anybody's gonna say that people can...be basically good people and still do really shitty things, it's gonna be me, but..."

"...if you kill children without some really good reason I might have to reconsider this relationship."

"–no! No I absolutely fucking don't. Hard limit! A guy tried to give me a job like that once and I just shot him!"

He's laughing. "Then you're a better person than my dad!"

"I was gonna say I could have just left, but – nah, dude totally deserved it."

Squeeze.

"I'm in general against you killing people but I think probably trying to convince you not to kill people will work less well than, like, designing you nonlethal weapons or finding you a different job."

"Can't do a different job unless you're really great at finding people who don't wanna be found...the thing about nonlethal weapons is that people get up and walk away afterwards, which is kind of not how the job works."

"I don't understand how the first two things connect."

"...I'm looking for somebody. If I do this for long enough – do the right favors, knock off the right people – I'm gonna find them. And I'm getting a lot of practice for when I do."

He sounds firmly convinced of this, a little desperate to believe it.

"...I don't know why I keep having to remind people that they're friends with a billionaire superhero."