i got infinite ammunition

[barton_me]

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.

Comments

[regimes_fall]

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?”

[barton_me]

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."

[regimes_fall]

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?"

[barton_me]

"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.

[regimes_fall]

"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.

[barton_me]

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."

[regimes_fall]

"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.

[barton_me]

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.

[regimes_fall]

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."

[barton_me]

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.

[regimes_fall]

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.

[barton_me]

"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.

[regimes_fall]

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."

[barton_me]

The coffee had gone from lukewarm to cold. Which wasn't that bad - Clint wasn't exactly picky - but the offer of vodka was now much more appealing, even though it wasn't his usual drink. "I'm not angry," he clarified; not thinking he really needed to, but just in case. And he wasn't, really. Clint saved his anger for bigger things than friends making a verbal misstep. In the realm of conversation, it could not be said that he was a sensitive person, especially not for Nat, for whom he could forgive almost anything.

"Of course you have vodka," he said, amused. He dug into his back pocket for money to lay down for his sandwich. He had yet to go to his room; naturally, the idea of walking through another door was weirding him out for the time being. He did have the key, but wasn't keen on using it.

When he got to his feet, though, before picking up his bow and quiver, he held out his arms to her so he could gather her into a hug. Her physical affection sometimes seemed to burn hot and cold, but he liked to hug her, and had a feeling she enjoyed it when he did, too.

[regimes_fall]

Clint was allowed his full spectrum of emotions, so if he had been angry with her over her verbal misstep, she would not have held it against him. She did know that he wasn't an overly sensitive person, and was pleased when he assured her out loud that she hadn't gone and done something that might start their reunion off on the wrong foot. She hadn't been overly concerned about it, but because she cared for him he'd deserved the apology all the same.

"I know you aren't," she said as she stood with him, and when he held his arms out to her in offering, she went into them with the ease and familiarity with which Clint had inspired in her from the first. She hugged him tight, even moving to rest her cheek on his shoulder as she rubbed her hands along his back in an unconsciously soothing motion. "I'm glad you're here, Clint," she said softly into the material of his shirt, and meant it. She would've preferred he stay well away from the occasional danger the Nexus could present, but was also selfish enough to be happy for his presence and camaraderie.

"Come on," she said when she finally pulled away from the comfort of his hug. "Let's go get drunk like Russian stereotypes, yes?" She thought he might need it for the news she was going to deliver, but perhaps not. Her old friend was surely made of some steadfast stuff, she'd learned that time and again.

With his bill settled, she led him up to her room and inside without much fuss, turning on the light and having a look around before gesturing. "Plop down anywhere," she said. "I don't have any mixers other than ice, so we'll drink it on the rocks, if you want."

[barton_me]

He retrieved his bow before following her, falling into step beside her as they walked. As they moved he looked around him, surreptitiously but alert, aware of what she had told him - that they were not alone, that there were people there from their past and their future. "You're the Russian stereotype," he said. "I'm the American stereotype. You know, minus the racism and sexism, stuff like that."

When they arrived he looked around her room in some interest, "Do they all look like this, or is this just you?" he wondered, aloud. Bow and quiver were set atop a chair backed against the wall. He kept his knives on him, if only because they weren't exactly sheathed in a way where if he passed out drunk they'd be digging into somewhere uncomfortable. Clint left weapons on for enemies, strangers, and close friends, all for different reasons. Natasha, he knew, would not give a damn.

"As long as there's ice, should be good," he said. Of all the places to sit, he chose a small couch - sort of. He sat on the floor with his back against it. It seemed like the better option. "Is it bad enough vodka that it will make the 'big things' you have to tell me less big?" he asked, and, because he knew it couldn't possibly be true, he asked, "You don't have a kid, do you? I am not uncle material."

[regimes_fall]

Natasha glanced up at Clint as she straightened from the mini fridge in the corner, one hand holding a bottle of vodka frosty from the freezer and the other holding a small tray of ice. Her gaze flicked to the room as she sat both items on the counter, then turned for glasses. "I think they're different for every person," she said. "Granted, I haven't been in many people's rooms, but of the rooms I have been in, all were different. I think the hotel tries to be as accommodating as possible, strangely enough."

Natasha's room boasted sparse but comfortable furnishings, a wet bar, and enough security to make her feel comfortable sleeping there, which was really all she wanted or needed anyway. "Maybe yours will have a pizza oven in one corner. If so, dinner's on you from here on out."

She poured the drinks, added the ice, and made her way over to where Clint sat. She didn't feel like sitting on the floor, so she handed him his glass and curled up on the couch behind him, one knee resting against his shoulder. "It's pretty big, Barton," she said with a sigh. "And I'd make an even worse mother than you would an uncle, so let's not joke about that."

She took a drink from her glass, draining it until there was just a bit of vodka mixing with the ice at the bottom of her glass, and then started to speak. She saw no reason to keep delaying, and she laid out the facts of what had happened in Washington from start to finish as though she were relating any other details of a mission to him. She kept to the facts, skimming around her personal feelings on anything because her feelings were abundant and confusing when it came to much of what had happened in Washington, so she simply left them all out for the time being.

"Barnes is at the hotel too," she finished after she'd brought him up to speed. "He and Rogers are currently doing the whole seek and avoid thing, last I knew. I don't see much of either of them."

[barton_me]

Couches always seemed slightly too comfortable to Clint, like he was sinking into them instead of actually sitting. Which, he knew that was an odd way of looking at it, but that was it nonetheless. "Well, fingers crossed for the pizza oven," he said, accepting the glass from her. Vodka tasted the same to Clint no matter what, but he did have an inkling that the good stuff didn't taste like pure poison, and that Natasha never bought the bad stuff.

It was easier to listen to Natasha without looking right in her face, too. He could just concentrate on the words, digest them as he saw fit. She had a lot of big things to say, but Clint was not the kind of person to balk. If anything, she was giving him a report; and those were bread and butter, in his trade, no matter how sensational.

In reality, Barnes was the least of his concerns. So apparently the Winter Soldier - who he always believed to exist, if only because Natasha didn't believe in ghost stories, and treated him as real - was an old companion of Cap's, and had shot Natasha for a second time. Someone had to give him a talking to about that.

"SHIELD is gone?" he asked, instead, looking up over his shoulder at her. Her drink was empty, his only slightly touched, so he held it up for her if she wanted to drink it. He could always get a refill. Gone. All of it. They'd taken it apart.

Man, what about all of his stuff? Ah, well.

"Are you okay with that?" he inquired.

[regimes_fall]

There was something almost cathartic in the full disclosure of events to Clint, as Natasha had not spoken of them in such a linear fashion since they happened. The only person in the hotel with which she might’ve made such a full disclosure to was Rogers, and he’d been there for the events and knew first hand. No matter how clinical she’d made her retelling of the events, it did her some good to speak of them in even the most factual of terms. She had not expected Clint to balk, or otherwise make any grand display of emotion as that was simply not his way, nor was it hers. The quiet calm with which he took the news was almost as comforting to her as the hug he’d given her downstairs.

She took the drink when he offered it to her, moving to sit her glass of watery ice down on the floor and take his mostly fresh one, rubbing her fingers through the condensation on the side of the glass as she pondered his question. She took a drink before speaking because sometimes she felt like vodka was a cold form of humanizing medicine, and she wanted to get her tongue loosened up enough to talk to the one person she could give a (mostly) full disclosure to. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “It’s not what we thought it was.”

Natasha’s sins numbered many, but perhaps her greatest was that of pride. She’d spent a good long while thinking she was so goddamn good at her job, so goddamn smart, and she hadn’t even noticed that the heart of what she was building and working for with her friends was rotting from the inside out. It stung like betrayal to know that. It hurt even worse to know that Fury, a person she would’ve trusted second only to Clint, had not trusted her the same in return. Natasha had always viewed the world in what she had assumed was the cold, harsh light of rationality and experience. Therefore, having her illusions shattered like so much glass hurt twice as bad.

“Besides,” she said, the word echoing in the glass as she moved to take another drink, then licked her lips as she swallowed, “if we get too nostalgic, Rogers got word that Coulson is going to start up SHIELD again. I guess we’ll see.” She paused, then shook her head as though to rattle a thought loose. "Oh. Also, apparently Coulson is alive. I haven't seen it for myself and I'm not sure how the hell he managed that, but Rogers got word of that, too."

[barton_me]

He wiped his hand off on his knee when she took the glass from him, which had been mostly sweating rather than being drunk while he'd held it. "It wasn't," he agreed (which, really, was an opinion he only held because she suggested it, but he trusted those facts). He knew that she wouldn't like it; Natasha had put a lot of stake in SHIELD. Hell, she'd put a lot of stake in him; he'd been the one who had convinced her to come and work with him in the first place. He hoped she didn't blame him for any of that.

But while Clint was upset that, apparently, the organization he had worked for had a darkness to it that had been present for half a century, it was a different kind of upset. So he had worked for bad people. But he trusted in the work he did, and he trusted in what was right or wrong. His heart had steered him - well, up until recently. There was very little doubt cast onto his past choices.

The amount of lies that surrounded them was enough to choke. Coulson, alive? Well, it wouldn't be the first faked death, but that called everything else into question, including Fury. "You did good work," he said, reaching up to pat the knee that was pressed against his shoulder. "You always do. And honestly, you don't need anyone pointing you in a direction anymore. Well," he gave a little shrug. "That's what I think, anyway."

[regimes_fall]

Clint always had a way of reassuring her without making her feel as though she were being silly or patronized. She supposed it was because she’d put her faith in him wholly, long before SHIELD had ever made its way into her life, and he’d yet to betray her of his own volition. The pat on her knee and the words he gave her – generous as always – made her smile a bit. Doing the right thing and being an upstanding citizen, would forever be a shoe that was too large for her foot, but it was bearable for friends like Clint and Steve, who had enough goodness in them for her and any other lost asshole they happened upon.

“You’d better not ever fake your death and not let me know right away, if not beforehand, that you’re alive,” she said, nudging at his shoulder with her knee as she scooted down in the couch a bit so that she could rest her head on the arm. She moved her drink to rest it on the flat of her tummy, leaving a cool, slightly damp ring to soak through her shirt. “I mean it, Barton. If you ever pull some shit on me like Fury did, I will punch you in the face. Probably more than once.”

[barton_me]

"I'd never fake my death without you being in on it," Clint claimed, pushing back at her knee. "Except if, you know, I'm MIA and presumed dead and stranded somewhere. Then it's completely your fault for not finding me alive sooner than you do."

He leaned forward, shifting his weight and getting onto his feet. "Yeah, I know," he said, heading back for the fridge to get the bottle of vodka, which frosted immediately as soon as he took it back out of the freezer compartment. Natasha had punched him before, in training, when she was holding back. For such a little girl, she had a pretty powerful right hook. "You're expressively violent. It's what makes you so charming and sweet."

He stood next to the couch, topping up her drink from where it was balanced on her stomach, then reaching for the other glass to fill it as well.

[regimes_fall]

"That's different," Natasha said, nudging at him again. "Way different than you deciding purposefully to let everyone believe you're dead outside of a few select people and not choosing me to be among them." She didn't really think Clint would do such a thing, but thought it best to underline her point while they were on the subject.

She stayed where she was, watching as he went to retrieve the bottle of vodka and returned to fill her cup, the glass turning a touch colder beneath her fingertips as her supply of vodka was refreshed, then dipping to refill the glass she'd traded him earlier. His words about her being charming and sweet made her smile and she sat up a bit to have a drink before saying, "I think everyone can agree that of the pair of us, you're the charming one." She rubbed at the wet spot her glass had left on her shirt idly as she thought. "Should we get some pizza and beer for you? We could turn it into an all night thing, unless you're tired." World jumping was, after all, strenuous work.

[barton_me]

"Of course I'm the charming one," Clint said, with a grin. "I'm not the one named after a spider that bites men's heads off."

He went to sit down on the floor again, back against the couch. Technically he was having a very, very late night - it had been a little past midnight when he'd stumbled through the door, but he also hadn't been early to rise. "We can see how long I last," he said. "Where do you get pizza? Do they have room service or is that way too normal for digs like this?"

[regimes_fall]

Natasha’s experience in the Nexus had been a lonely one overall, but she supposed that was how she preferred things usually. She had friends at the hotel, people she felt comfortable seeking out when she wanted company, and plenty she would welcome should they come looking for her. She’d never invited anyone to her room for an overnight stay, though she thought she might like a night of catching up with Clint. It wouldn’t have been the first, and while sharing her space would chafe her nerves sooner rather than later, it had been a long time since she’d seen her old friend and she was inclined to keep him around for a while.

“I’m not sure,” she said after a moment of thought. “I’ve never tried to use room service, but I can call the front desk and check, I guess. Either way, I could call down to the bar and get a pizza and then we could go down and pick it up. Get you some beer, too, if you’d rather have that. Or, we can just hang out until you fall asleep. You can crash here tonight, if you want.”