all_inclusive | i got infinite ammunition

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i got infinite ammunition

Roughly three hours ago, Clint had been skillfully monkeying his way down the side of a building, the grips sewn in the palms of his gloves helping him to twist and turn his way through a fire escape that had, long ago, become nothing more than a tilting mass of rusted metal leaning haphazardly against a wall of brick. Roughly three hours ago, he'd been burning with a purpose, the heady sensation of a job completed but with the bitter caution of knowing he was not yet out of danger. Landing silently on his feet in the alleyway, he had kept to the shadows. Three blocks over he heard sirens, but of course it was too late.

The room he had torched had been filled with hardware containing information on several SHIELD operatives, including their alternate identities. It had already been copied, placed under safe keeping, but the originals had to be wiped clean. When it came to fires, Clint often volunteered; too often when the spark was set by a rookie it spread and harmed civilians. Besides, there was really no place quite like southeast Asia to disappear to for a bit when you wanted to clear your head of things.

At the next building down, at the opposite end of the alley, he had made quick work of the lock. But upon going through he was not in an abandoned service hallway for an insurance firm. Even if there hadn't been windows full of sunlight when he knew it had to be the dead of night, the very air told him that he had experienced something very, very odd.

It took some time to ascertain he had not had a stroke, was not going insane, and really was in what appeared to be a pretty nice hotel, far nicer than the ones he usually stayed in. Dimensional doorways weren't completely out of his grasp, of course, but the ones he knew about required a bit more pomp, circumstance, and energy fields than the single, quiet door he had walked through.

Since a few tries had told him that returning was not an option, he ended up going immediately into what he called 'airport mode' - when waiting for a flight, train, or similar, it was always best to procure three things: book, coffee, and a sandwich. Even if you didn't even want those items. So there he was in the Bistro, a third of the way through a book he had found in the gift shop, wondering how long it was going to take before he could either a) get back home or b) panic. At least his gear was more or less subtle, and he had his compound bow and quiver on the floor and tucked along the side of his leg, mostly out of sight.

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Natasha’s personal radar was a sleek and well-trained thing, forever on the lookout for danger and disadvantage and easily accessible exits. She could go almost nowhere without being utterly aware of her surroundings, and while there were a few guests in the hotel that were of her personal acquaintance, she knew where most of them could generally be found at any given time. She watched, she waited, she concerned herself with little that did not personally affect her, and she liked it that way.

It was, however, quite a surprise when her gaze focused upon someone familiar and yet entirely unexpected in the bistro, her stride slowing to a stop as she looked upon the last face she’d expected to see. She felt a fluttering of something close to relief, or perhaps just comfort. After all, wasn’t everything easier to handle with Barton somewhere in the mix? She would not have wished him here, as for all the comforts of the Nexus, it was a dangerous place, too. But he was there, and if she should’ve felt anything other than gladness in seeing him again in such a place, she could not find It within herself to do so.

She made her way across the room and to where he sat, dragging the empty chair at his table around with her foot until she could plop down beside him and brace one foot on the bottom rung of his chair. She gave him a look, then gently elbowed his bicep. She might’ve hugged him, but in that moment it would’ve been far, far too much. “Jesus, Barton,” she said with an air of exasperation, though she was smiling. Just a little. “You do find yourself in the stickiest shit. How did you wind up here?”

Clint's awareness of his surroundings was like a setting on a machine that was always on, but it certainly wasn't at the forefront. He was reading (passable) fiction and listening and tracking the movements of people around him, all at once, quite relaxed, which was simply how he operated in public after so many years. He never really focused on anyone until they crossed onto his radar to the point where they were too close to ignore.

Even so, this woman would not have tried to sneak up on him. As soon as he realized Natasha was there, he watched her approach. There was a mixture of gladness and wariness at the sight of her, because - well, because he was in some sort of weird dimensional world, and so was she, and that was just really odd. But the wariness left as soon as she was close enough to ascertain it definitely was her. Someone else could be fooled by a fake, or an illusion, but not Clint, not with her.

"Well, if it isn't the deadliest woman in the world," he said, lowering his book, reflecting his smile back at her. "I'm about two hours away from a panic attack, actually, but you seem cheerful enough."

Seeing Clint grinning at her was a piece that clicked naturally into place, like a point upon which she could base her center of gravity. She could never look at him and not think about the tremendous debt that she owed him, not because it was something he lorded over her or because it was something she sensed weighted their friendship, but because she was still taken aback by how generous he'd been with her in a time where she'd deserved nothing of the sort. She had spent years attempting to assess the fullness of heart of the man in front of her, and sensed she'd only scratched the surface of who he was and what he would and could do for others. It was staggering, really, and while she might've hesitated to use words like 'blessing', she knew Barton's intervention in her life years ago had been nothing less than a gift.

"Still two hours?" Natasha said, her brows creeping up, though her smile broadened into fullness at the 'deadly' compliment. Never let it be said that the Black Widow couldn't be charmed. "Well, you must've not been here that long, then. You're very nonchalant for someone who has just crossed dimensions. It's pretty spectacular, isn't it?"

Edited 2014-08-04 03:43 (UTC)

"I'm a very calm person," Clint protested. He wasn't going to add that having a dimension-jumping god fiddling around with your brain probably left its own marks that made experiencing travel of that kind somewhat less significant; but he'd rather just blame it on hanging around Selvig, who liked to talk about Thor. "I'm always nonchalant." The same could be said for her, of course.

He picked up his plate, shifting it and setting it down in front of her in case she wanted what was left. He wasn't hungry, but had dutifully eaten half of the sandwich. Lack of appetite was usually a warning, but he didn't care. "It has pickles," he warned, dog-earing his page.

"You just have a very piercing resting face that makes you look calm," Natasha said. "Or just passively hating everything. Or perhaps both at once, who knows?" She said it in an appropriately dry and obviously teasing tone, thinking that perhaps, if she treated Clint as she would under any normal circumstance, it might make the enormity of what she was going to have to eventually say to him go down a little easier. Clint was smart, understanding, and hung around Selvig enough that Natasha wasn't worried about his disbelieving her or going into some sort of seizure when she got around to everything, but she didn't want him being overly distressed in the meantime, either.

She moved to pick up the remaining half of his abandoned sandwich, peeling back the top to search out the aforementioned pickles and cast them to the side of the plate. She had been coming to the bistro to eat, after all, and she'd had a few months to gain her appetite back after the initial shock of arrival so what Clint lacked in appetite, she could surely make up for. "So, what were you doing when you wound up here?" She asked before taking her first bite and watching him expectantly while she chewed.

Clint had never really gotten the hang of reading newspapers the way he assumed 'distinguished' men did, never messing up the pages and generally being able to use the newspaper itself as a prop for expressing himself. Sometimes he wished he did, though, for moments like this, where he was ninety percent sure Natasha had something on her mind, and a newspaper would be useful for him to hide behind and give her a semblance of privacy while she sorted something out.

She was an excruciatingly difficult person to read, which was generally why he didn't even bother. But he could pick up when she was anxious, when she was thinking, when she was bored, even.

"Running away," he said, easily. "Same as usual. Picked a lock, went through a door, ended up here."

"Ah," Natasha said once she swallowed, and while she could feel him looking at her, almost anticipating her saying something, the expectation in him did not make her uncomfortable. Clint was one who knew when to ask questions and knew when to let her sort it out for herself, and that was always an invaluable trait in a friend. She often had little reason to regret that she wasn't demonstrative or loquacious when it came to her own feelings of fondness, because if there was ever another human being on the planet who deserved to know how dear he was, Clint was it.

"Well," she continued. "When did you come from? As in, what year? What was the last assignment you and I worked on together? That might sound weird, but please entertain me."

It was possible, even highly likely, that she and Clint came from two different timelines. She mostly needed to find out if New York had already happened for him or not, as Loki being in attendance at the hotel was going to be a whole other barrel of worms to tackle, but she trusted Clint enough to think that he'd listen to her before he sat out with murderous intent. Mostly.

Clint picked up his coffee, which had mostly been forgotten, tasted it, and realized he hadn't added sugar. He stirred it in, hoping it would dissolve in the lukewarm liquid.

"It's 2012," he said. Natasha's question was weird, of course, but she was asking it seriously, so he didn't even begin to question its correctness. She was an exacting person, not exactly known for flights of fancy or saying anything superfluous. But if she wanted to know the when, well, that meant that time might not line up here. Which might mean she had experienced more than him - or he had experienced more than her.

"You and I were in an altercation in New York," he said, frankly. "Not with each other. And it wasn't exactly assigned." If she had experienced that, then she would know what he was talking about. If not, then he at least had lead-in before he started discussing aliens.

Natasha exhaled slowly through her nose at his words, though she lifted the sandwich for another bite, and mostly to think, before allowing herself to speak. The thing about Clint was that he was understanding. Perhaps even more so than Rogers, which was saying quite a bit. Her continued existence alone was proof of that, and still she hesitated.

"Time is different here," she said finally. "The doors, like the one you came through, seem to open at random for everyone on their initial visit. No one knows why or how, or who controls it, but there are people here from God knows how many different universes, and some from ours. From the same universe as you and I, I mean, but sometimes people come through at different points in time. It's 2014 where I came from most recently, but when I first arrived here, it was from a door in New York. In 2012. I was here for two months, then found my door home and returned. No time had passed on that side. I was there for two years, and found my way back here again. Entirely by accident."

She sat the sandwich down on the plate and began to neatly rip it into bite sized pieces. A hard thing to do, considering the condiments that leaked out of the sides, but she made swift enough work of it. "Rogers is here, from the same time as me. Thor and Jane Foster, from a time after New York, I think, but I haven't gotten to talk to either of them. I hear Tony is here as well, probably Bruce. Loki, too. But when I first arrived here, he was from a time before what happened in New York. I think he's been playing around in the doors, maybe doing what he did just before the attack on New York, but I've been talking to him. He released you, as a favor to me."

Edited 2014-08-05 05:34 (UTC)

There were so many things he could address. Shifting timelines - maybe even alternate universes? It was real sci fi shit, which Clint wasn't exactly an expert on. It was mind bending, interesting, upsetting. She came from the future. Maybe not his future, but a future. How could that be?

And not just her, but the rest of them. People they had both known were here, and their experiences matched, but only to a certain extent, was that what she was saying? And Loki. Of course, Loki. He heard her breeze over that - he heard everything she said, and he digested it because he could. Shocking information, but he had heard worse.

Of all she said, though, there was one thing. He put his coffee down and turned towards her. Sometimes, when he looked at her as closely as he did then, he was reminded of how young she was. Just a child, really. When he worried about how she needed to learn to take care of herself it wasn't because he doubted her capabilities in anything; he simply thought that she didn't, exactly, know how.

As a favor to me. Those words were ringing unpleasantly in his ears. "What did you trade me for, Natasha?" He asked. He cared not that she had changed things, that she had saved him - he trusted in her that if she could, she would. But not, never, would he want that to happen at risk to herself.

Edited 2014-08-05 05:54 (UTC)

Natasha's hands stilled in their attempt at ripping apart the sandwich, and she lifted her gaze to meet Clint's evenly. She was a calm, cool, and practiced liar, and could usually sell the most fantastical stories without batting an eyelash, but that had never been so with Clint. Even if he didn't know the exact root of her lie, he was capable of spotting one on her lips the moment before she spoke it, she knew. It was something she found both admirable and unsettling about him, and made approaching difficult subjects with him nearly impossible because in such instances of emotional heavy lifting, Natasha almost always preferred to lie. Clint was built to endure, Natasha was built to dodge. It was quite simply the conflict of their natures.

"Nothing," she answered him honestly. "Not yet. I asked him specifically for a price, and he alluded to receiving my help if he asked for it in the future. He's a salesman, as I'm sure you can imagine." She brushed her fingertips together, ridding them of any crumbs before she put her hand on the table closer to him. Not quite a comforting touch, but a reaching all the same. "Trust me. I think he's different. When I first arrived here New York had not happened yet for him, and he was like an entirely different person. Even now, I think those aliens are torturing him or something. I'm not saying it excuses him, or that he's at all trustworthy, but I think there's potential there to right a few wrongs. You were only the first of those things on my list."

She knew that she would not have to speak of her sentiment for Clint to know it existed, so she did not. He would know that she might've traded anything of herself to save him from what happened in New York because it was a horror so similar to her own. She would attempt to save anyone of that, but that fact held doubly true for the likes of Clint Barton, as her debt to him was simply that great. But then, he was there now, and New York was a none too distant memory for him. She hadn't saved him from that at all, had she? How foolish she felt.

Edited 2014-08-05 06:27 (UTC)

"I don't need to imagine anything," Clint said, and it came out a little colder than he had expected. He liked to think he was fine; in most cases his way of dealing with things was to pretend there was nothing really wrong, and, through the power of positive thinking (he liked to believe) it tended to go away. Or at least leave his radar, which was good enough for him. Most of the time.

But he couldn't shake off not having belonged to himself. And how the memory of what it had felt like still left a strange taste in his mouth. The memories were past events that hadn't felt bad while they'd been occurring, that was the strange thing. But their existence haunted him in the aftermath, and he felt altered, like his mind was more open, like it could catch hold of sounds or sights or ideas better. That was the worst part; things would have been easier if, after everything, he'd felt the same as before it had all happened. But that was wishful thinking.

She said she'd gotten Loki to set him free, but Clint didn't remember any of that. But that meant nothing, to him. Either Loki lied - very possible - or their worlds had split, somewhere. It would make sense. Maybe the girl sitting with him was just one of the many possibilities of Natasha Romanoff. Maybe in another world, he'd fired the shot when he was supposed to. Thankfully, that wasn't the world he lived in.

"I trust you, Tas," he said, after a moment, picking up his coffee again.

Edited 2014-08-06 03:59 (UTC)

Her regret was immediate and tangible, curling her tongue with the same bitter taste as if she'd accidentally happened upon a mouthful of unsweetened chocolate. Of course he would have to imagine little of Loki, as he'd lived for a time with the man himself in his head, hadn't he? Natasha knew what that felt like, perhaps not Loki specifically, but she well knew what it was to be a vessel for another's machinations. She and Clint had never made a business of tiptoeing around each other and she didn't plan to start now, but her comment had been careless and she knew it.

"I know," she said in response to his comment on Loki, and his statement that he trusted her. "I'm sorry."

She moved her hand from the table to hold it loosely in her lap, though she did nudge at his knee with hers. "There's some big things I need to tell you about," she said. "About work, so we should probably talk about that in private. Did you get your room yet or do you just want to come back to mine? I have vodka."

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