artesian-rp-blog1

[artesian-rp-blog1]

Erin Wade (test)

So this is an OC that's the offspring of Wade Wilson and Raven Darkholme. It's... just a test to figure out what the heck is up with the Mysterious Blue Society Warning, contains inside jokes.

Do you know how many universes there are? In the whole multiverse? Take it from me, there's a lot. There the one where I live, and the one where the main people live, and the one where the ultimate people live, and the weird one where everyone has a mustache and is evil, and there's the one where everyone is totally, you know, normal, and there's one where everything is super shiny and is actually part of a movie and not comics at all... There's a lot. I've visited, like, fifty of them, and that's this tiny fraction of a fraction of a fraction of how many there are. As many people's minds as there are, imagining things and making things up, that's how many universes. It can get preeeettty craaaazzzzy. It helps a bit if you divide them into categories. There's the comic worlds. Then there's the cartoon worlds. Then there's the movie worlds. There's only a few of those, and they're super picky about who they let in those. My mom's in one of those, and my dad's is sooooo excited because he's getting his very own world and maybe they'll do it right this time because last time they didn't let him talk, and he loves to talk. I don't live in any of those worlds, because I'm not a mainstream character. I live in the uncharted backwaters of the fanfic world, right between a world where Barney inherited the Barton Farm and has a decent life and one where my mom and Eric met during WWII. I call them BartonFarm-verse and Orange-verse. Since I'm the most important change in my verse (yeah, I know, arrogant as hell) I call this the Erin-verse. Welcome to the Erinverse! I'm Erin Wade. Nice to meetcha, reader. I'd shake your hand but only Azazel can jump that many worlds in one go. Also, it'd freak you out. Don't lie, it totally would. Soooooo... I've got a story to tell you. It's mostly about me, but it's kinda about my parents, and it's a lot about the multiverse and secret organizations... it's mostly about family though. And universe destroying calamities. There might be a Frankensteinian amalgamation of Teddy Roosevelt, She Hulk, Groot, Marilyn Monroe, and me fighting a dinosaur. I'm not sure yet. Anyway, it's a true story (or as true as true gets in the multiverse) and it starts... Well, it starts with my parents, I guess. My dad is Wade Wilson, aka Deadpool, and my mom is Raven Darkholme, aka Mystique. (Their ship name is Rade when they're being badass and Waven when they aren't. FYI). Long story short, my mom was in trouble, she hired my dad to protect her, they fell in love and they got married. It was quite a wild ride, but if I tell that whole story I'll never have a chance to tell mine. (I'd usually say something like: see Erin #13 for more details but I'm a fanfic character, and we don't have back issues, we have a bunch of excitable authors scribbling notes on their lecture notes). My immediate family is amazing. I grew up in this family that was so glad to not be horribly screwed up that... look, my dad and mom both had shitty parents. They had crappy childhoods. And their lives have been really really painful, until they found each other and found some sort of peace. They work hard at making all of this work, at making this safe place for me to be. They... I've been to a lot of universes where my dad is a total psychopath mass murderer. There's one universe where he killed literally everyone in it. And my mom in a lot of universes is really unhappy. Alone, lost, angry, damaged... They feel like they've got a chance, in this one, to actually have a good life, and they both know how really rare that is. Growing up, my mom read me a bedtime story every night, and she'd do the voices and sometimes the faces too. My dad and I had really elaborate secret knocks that we'd do on the door every night when he came home. Every Saturday morning, there was pancakes. Every PTA meeting, both of my parents would attend and scare the socks off my teachers. We had tickle-fights and sang stupid songs and I never felt embarrassed by them, because what was there to be embarrassed by? They're the most important people in my life. It's their opinions that matter most of all. And they loved me unconditionally, and I'm not saying that because that's how love is supposed to be, blah blah blah. Unconditional love is actually really really rare. As long as I have a life where I become myself, and as long as I'm happy and I take care of myself so I'll be around for a good long while, they're happy. All the want is for me to be spared the pain they had. I'm really lucky, I know. My dad doesn't have any other biological kids, across the multiverse that I can reach. His life usually hurts a lot, and there's not a lot of marriage and children in it. A lot of death and quips and things, but not a lot of that. My mom though, she has a LOT of kids. And not just, a thousand copies of Kurt. Though there are a lot of versions of him. (That's my mom's kid with Azazel, the demon guy. He's an asshole.) Point is, my mom has, in one universe or another, had kiddos with practically everyone. I've met a lot of them. Some of them were dropped off in orphanages, and never knew their mom or dad. Some of them were raised just by my mom. Some had a life a little like mine, with a mom and a dad and a family. Some even have siblings. Most of them are pretty cool. I mean, there are a few that are really scary, like her son with Thanos. (I asked my mom what was up with that relationship, and she just stared at me for a long time). But Warren's really nice and shy and funny, and Levanna is just the most intense and gorgeous girl you'll ever meet. And Sheridan is this whiz kid (I swear, she got it all). As far as my half-siblings go, there's about ten I see all the time, because they're pretty close, universally speaking. We hang out, you know? Me and Kurt go and pick them all up and we have a pizza party, I mean, meeting of the Mysterious Order of Blue. It's a secret, okay, so don't go telling anyone about it because we'd be in big trouble if Azazel found out, or one of the other teleporters. ... So I'm thinking that just listening to me talk about it is going to get boring really fast, so I'm going to ask the others to tell bits of this. They don't know that they're in a story (they think they're really real, like you, reader, think you are) so I can just take bits from their story instead of having them talk to you. It's complicated. Here goes.

She consulted her list. Captain Stark of the New Horizon. No, that sounds like a cruise ship. She crossed it out with a swipe of her finger. Captain Sheridan Stark, piloting the Final Frontier. Better... Captain Sherry, of the Party Boat. Dad would laugh himself sick, but it probably wasn't worth christening her ship that just to make the great Tony Stark throw up from laughing so hard. She crossed it out too, then called up another projection, shining the letters on the side of her vessel. Captain Sherry and the Stark Courage. She flicked between that and the Final Frontier. How many Final Frontiers are there in the galactic database? she wondered, and inputed the search string into the database and choked. If she named her ship that, she'd be the Final Frontier, MMMMMMMLXVI. Definitely not. The Stark Courage, however, hadn't been used. Yes, Captain Sheridan of the Stark Courage. That would do nicely. She filled in the form, detailing the new specs of her ship, registering it one by one in every star system it could reach when - BAMF - she dropped the pad and whirled around. "Erin!" she yelped, throwing out her arms for a hug from her... brother? "What's up?" she asked, at exactly the same moment as Erin did. "I asked first," he insisted, grinning as he squeezed her in a very very tight hug indeed. He was taller than her by a good margin, and took every opportunity of reminding her of it. Sheridan rolled her eyes. "I am registering my ship, Wade. Given that I can't just teleport to Beta Nu or Xandar, and I'm definitely not going to get stuck on Earth forever." Erin released her from the hug and skipped back, putting his hands behind his back. "Ah, but there's an added bonus to having a starship you know." He made a snappy salute. "Captain Sheridan, sailor of the starry seas. I'm not a captain, just a mad-man with a box." He tapped the teleporter chinched around his waist, a hard lump under his woolen sweater.

[artesian-rp-blog1]

Barton Farm - Part 3

Okay now we're actually seeing the farm. And family. And more family than Clint expected. Flufffffff.

This was the address. That was the basic... shape of the land he'd grown up in. Slight hillocks, a roll and fall to the land that was just enough to break up the flatness of Iowa into something where the horizon wasn't as flat and inevitable as falling towards a pavement of blue sky. That was the trellis where mom's roses had just started climbing when he'd visited again. 

But the house... the fields... this was...

A few fields had been cleared in at least an acre on each side of the property. A new house, a little white farmhouse that looked surprisingly cosy and indefatigably clean stood a dozen yards from the foundation of the torched old house, mostly covered with snow.

There was someone playing the piano inside the house, and it wasn't too good, but that was a good thing. It wasn't chilly and precise like the icicles hanging from the overhangs on the front porch, but warm and chaotic like the firelight flickering inside. There was a calico cat asleep in the window. Father had never allowed cats inside, but kept them out in the barn. Clint liked cats, and he and Barney had smuggled in a litter of kittens one particularly cold winter's night, keeping them warm and safe under the blankets.

He was carrying his luggage over his shoulder, and had to stamp his feet to keep them warm in his completely inadequate winter boots. When was the last time he'd been in snow this deep? Sofia? Sheesh, he'd been spoiled on snow-plows in New York since...

... all of that. That stuff. The stuff that happened which he didn't much want to think about, out here in the cold. His brother and his mother were in there and if he wanted to get back on SHIELD's rosters he had to at least pretend to be a sane guy heading for a reconciliation with his family. He wanted to be in DC, working with STRIKE, doing what he did best, what made being him worthwhile.

Deep breath. Nipping ice in his mouth all the way down to his lungs. He unhooked the garden gate, latched it behind him, headed up the pathway, climbed the three steps up to the big wraparound porch, walked across the decking to the front door and pulled the rope on the ring bell hook, and somewhere inside a bell clanged noisily.

The piano music faltered, and stopped, replaced with a voice. Quiet, light, but strong. "mumble mumble mumble?" it asked.

"muuumble mble." That was Barney's voice, and Clint's heart decided the rest of him was a complete idiot standing here and made a break for it through his throat. He swallowed it back down. "Mumble?"

And then a third voice spoke, and Clint froze. "Mumble mble muumble." This was a woman's, young, not his mothers or anyone else. And then another, high and childlike. Who all was here? Some neighbors? His parents hadn't been that sociable when...

Footsteps, too late to head back to the motel in town and invent a cover-story of how he'd meant to visit his family but something blah blah had come up so obviously blah blah blah. The door opened, by a little girl in braces, pigtails (people still wore those?) and a red and green christmas dress. "Hello?" she asked, sounding very grown up in tone, even if her voice was still very much a little kid's. "Who are you?"

"Uh." He tried again. "I'm Clint. Clint Barton. I'm sorta but not exactly expected. What's your name?"

She gazed up at him. "I'm Anne. It's nice to meet you. Lemme go ask my dad if he's expecting you." The door shut and Clint blinked at it. Dad?

Excited mumbles, including his name. Despite his iffy hearing at times, he still maintained an uncanny awareness of when someone was talking about him, usually in time to avoid being found for reprisals of some kind. "Clint and those damn practical jokes" was a common one.

Then the door opened and he was glommed into a hug that made his heart thud down from his mouth into his chest and beat wildly. His muscles were stiff as he overrode his impulse to throw the man off of him in a painful and possibly fatal manner. Breathe, Clint. It's a hug. After a moment, he returned it.

"You came. You came back, you rat bastard son of a - " Barney said, then stepped back and grinned at his brother. He was tanned, wearing a shirt that said 'farming ain't for sissies' and there was a chip he didn't remember in one of his teeth. "Uh. Good to see you. Uh. Come in."

Clint hesitated on the threshold, his eyes flicking behind his brother, taking the situation in. At least three people inside the building, civilians, no hostiles at present, unknown layout -

He took a breath, and returned his brother's smile, but he knew his eyes were guarded. He couldn't quite help it. He was used to not knowing what to do, but usually he knew at least how to feel. "I... hi," he started, and stopped, then nodded at his brother and followed him indoors. As the door swung shut behind him, he was engulfed in the warmth of the small farmhouse. The air was dry and soft, charred around the edges by a woodfire. He didn't know air could feel like that. He began to discern other scents puffing past him: turkey, yams, cinnamon, evergreen, something sweet but burnt?

Clint took off his coat and hung it up on the coat-rack, adding his holster at a meaningful glance from his brother. His shoes too were added to a pair of his brother's mud-odored rubber boots, a pair of lady's riding boots, a pair of small tennis shoes that would fit neatly in the palms of his hands, a pair of patent black leather slippers, and a pair of slippers embroidered with lavender blossoms which tugged at a memory too hard and threw him off balance as he undid the laces on his trainers.

He muttered to himself, "Mom, you, a lady, and two kids?" He straightened up, and asked, "Do I have a niece? And a sister in law?" He couldn't understand the tone in his own voice, what it meant, what he felt.

Barney smiled, and his face was unfamiliar."And a nephew."

His brother blinked. "You have two kids?"

"We're hoping for three."

"Oh." He wasn't sure what to say. He stuck his hands in his pockets, curling his fingers around the coins he'd dropped in there earlier. "Where's mom?"

"Cooking. She won't let Linda touch the pecan pies." He put his arm on Clint's shoulders and steered him out of the mudroom and into the rest of the house.

"She, uh, always has been picky about the pies," he commented, uncomfortable conscious of the grip of the callused hand on his shoulder, just one layer of cloth from his skin. He didn't know this person. He wanted him to let go.

Abruptly, Barney removed his hand, facing him in the narrow hallway. He was shorter than Clint by a few inches now. "Uh. Are you..."

"I'm fine," Clint replied shortly. "Can... can I see mom first? Then, uh, your family," he requested, and Barney nodded, directing him to the kitchen. His sock-feet transitioned from the soft carpets of the hallway to the cool tiles of the kitchen floor, the holes in the weave of his socks chilling him like he'd stepped on tiny pieces of ice which melted too slowly beneath his soles. The tiles were tan stone, scrubbed spotless, but chipped in places.

He was looking at the ground. He should be looking up. He looked up.

Mom.

Mom?

Her hair was grey, not blond, tied back in a long ponytail that swayed elegant when she moved carefully and comfortably. There was no tension in her hands or her shoulders now. She didn't flinch when one of the children in the living room dropped something heavy, like she used to at loud noises. She was the same height, he supposed. Those were her lavender slippers by the front door. He leaned against the doorway of the kitchen, watching her cook for a moment, until she turned around with the pecan pie in her hands.

Mom's face was wrinkled now, crows feet that had hardly begun to stamp their impression in the corners of her eyes when he'd last seen her were deeply embedded in her skin. There were tracks that sketched out her expressions from her chin to her forehead. Laugh lines. There were so many laugh lines on her face. Her eyes widened, their clear blue matching Clint's own - he'd always taken after her looks, not his father's. He was thankful for that.

"Clint?" she asked, slowly putting the pecan pie down on the countertop and shucking off the hot-mitts. He swallowed, his throat dry, his eyes prickling in the smoke tinged air. "You've grown so much..." she murmured, reaching out to touch his face, cup his chin and pass a thumb over his cheek. Her hands were warm from the oven, but slightly papery against the slight stubble from his beard.

"I'm glad to see you," he said, automatically, his voice calm and quiet. He put an arm around her and squeezed gently, and she burst into tears, the warmth of her breath and the moisture pooling on his SHIELD issued shirt. "Aww, mom," he muttered, patting her back uncertainly, pulling his own tears back from his eyes with a tight elastic band, winding them up inside into a tense knot to join the rest of the ache inside him.

[artesian-rp-blog1]

Barton Farm - Part 2

Part two in a desperate try to make the Barton Bros and all around them light and fluffy. In which Clint actually sees a psychologist. (Shock! Psychologists and Avengers :O )

The SHIELD psychologist clicked a button on her actual tape-recorder. Who used those nowadays anyway? Cassette tapes? What was it about a tape that had a whole lot more substance than a mp3?

"So. Mom told me to call you and invite you to the farm for a while. A visit. She'd like to see you. Says you're welcome anytime, just drop by. You know the address. Uh. We'd like to see you."

Click went the message, and with a manicured nail, the gray-haired psychologist stopped the tape. "This was on your voicemail, Agent Barton. Why haven't you responded?"

Clint grinned and tilted his head, the ball on his santa hat slipping from one shoulder to the other. "I get a tapped phone! Wow, I feel special."

"We do not intend to invade your privacy any more than's necessary, Clint," she assured him, smiling a little too sharply for her sweet matronly attitude. "You're one of our more high-risk patients, and we want to make sure you're making the adjustment well."

"Just, I'm curious, how would you know? Ever had someone who'd been a puppet - " He raised his arms and wobbled them like a marionette. "For a god before?"

"Natasha Romanoff was my patient, Clint. After you brought her in, it was my responsibility to help her adjust, which she has," the woman said softly. Clint was silent, fiddling with the pen he'd filched from her desk, passing it between his fingers. He met her gaze for a moment, and twirled the pen on his fingertip.

"You are not special, Hawkeye," she continued, and he dropped the pen, managing to catch it before it hit the floor. "You are human. You hurt and heal like all other men, no matter how extraordinary the hurts, or how well you've healed them in the past. Go see your family, Agent Barton. New York can take care of itself for a while," she finished dryly. "Heal another wound, and your nightmares will follow."

He fiddled with the pen, but didn't spin it again. "Right, you should have been a poet, but I never got the point of that. I came here to see if you'll clear me for active duty again. I'm guessing no - "

"If you spend a suitable length of time with your family, I will consider it."

His eyes widened. "You serious?"

"When am I not?"

Clint twirled the pen, dropped it, caught it with his elbow, flipped it down, and caught it in his palm, then placed it on the desk. "I'll try it."

[artesian-rp-blog1]

Barton Farm - Part 1

Fluff/angst, a bit of both. MCU Clint, not comics Clint! Based on that tantalizing hint that Clint has a farm he can hang out at, family, and the fact that I do not accept that MCU Clint's backstory has to be as tragic as comics Clint (lalalala)

"Hey, uh. This is Barney. Your brother." The voice paused for a few moments, and he could hear the static on the line before it started again, like a car with an engine that just barely caught before it hiccoughed into silence again. "It's been a long time. I... I lost track of you, I mean, you wanted me to. Should I even be calling?"

Clint finally remembered he had a mouthful of cereal, chewed it up, and swallowed. "Ah, hell, I'm calling anyway. I saw you on the news and recognized my little brother. Your archery is even better than it was in the circus, and I'm glad you're okay. Listen, a lot's happened since... then, and I figure you might want to know? Or not. Call me, bro." The phone beeped, played its end of message recording, and started the next message, "Ah, shit, it's Barney again, my number is ###-###-####."

Clint put the empty cereal bowl in the bathroom sink and eyed the half-full container of milk. He might as well drink that before it spoiled. He poured it into the cereal bowl and sat on the edge of the motel bed, sipping at it. Barney futzing Barton. He supposed that was what he got for letting himself get wrapped up in something that wasn't covert. They'd kept his name out of it, him and Natasha, but with his codename and his face plastered all over the news (they'd made an action figure out of him, for kids to play with, Christ what a dumb idea, yes of course he'd bought one), it was only a matter of time before someone recognized him.

Like his brother. He supposed it could have been worse, like one of his old clients or victim's associates, out for a little payback. He'd always been at a distance, if he could help it, a blur in his perch and his calling card feathering a mark that wasn't much different from a roundel, really. Barney Barton was simple compared to that. He should call him. Looking back, it was hard to believe he'd done what he did. Ditching the circus and the only family he felt safe with because Barney and the Swordsman had been stealing? He'd been so damn self-righteous back then, he could have given Cap'n a run for his money.

He should call him. Check in, see if anything had changed. Say sorry, I forgive you, and what now? SHIELD was begging him to take some leave, some real vacation. If they found out he wasn't doing anything of the kind, but working freelance on a bunch of Russian gangsters messing with one of his old neighborhoods... well, found out, they already knew, but they might bother to visit and glare meaningfully if he fell out of one more window. He should call, visit Barney, catch up on everything... hell, when was the last time he'd seen his mom? Fifteen? He'd been using his Francis deWinter passport by then, hadn't he?

Calling. Yes.

He stared at the phone.

The phone didn't stare back. It sat there like a dumb inanimate object with no mind of its own, but Clint would have sworn it narrowed its eyes. Which it didn't have.

The phone sat there accusingly.

He'd call tomorrow.

[artesian-rp-blog1]

Pizza and Plies (experiment, Clint's perspective)

(This is an edited version of the Clintasha thread, from Clint’s perspective, translated from RP style to Fic style.)

After that unnerving encounter with the that nerdy guy like a ferociously dangerous chihuahua, Clint was tempted to just forget the sight-seeing. Why did he like New York anyway? It was filled with too many people, people he couldn’t predict or keep track of. He couldn’t make a situation understandable, manageable and safe here. Anything could happen and did.

At the next bend in the park, he stopped dead in the path, Lucky yanking on the leash in his hand and straining his arm as he just stood and the park streamed around him, people jogging past, bicycles swerving.

Oh. This was why he loved New York.

Sometimes you walked around a corner and met a monster, and sometimes you walked around a corner and saw a goddess. There was rage and serenity, ugliness and beauty, war and peace, packed up tightly into a half-thousand square miles of towering city-scape and sprawling streets.

A step, a turn, and her red hair swished past her face, revealing her clear, cool, and focused eyes as she executed the turn with perfect precision. There were other women there, copying her motions, but Clint hardly noticed them. She was beautiful and familiar, like he’d seen her before… perhaps she was just so lovely that he’d just unexpectedly met someone that existed only as an ideal in his mind.

Lucky was wagging his tail enthusiastically, staring at the dancers much the same way Clint was. He looked down and petted the dog’s head. “You want to go say hi, don’t you,” he said to the dog.

"Mhmmm. Me too."

A woman walking past started giggling, stopped, and turned to face Clint unexpectedly. “Good luck! Do you have any idea who that is?”

Yes, he wanted to say. I know her better than I know myself, but that made no sense at all. The familiarity with someone who just… who… his brain glitched, and flowed smoothly on with someone I’ve never met, was absurd. Huh. He’d never fallen in love at first sight before. “Uh, no?” he responded.

"That’s Natasha Romanoff,” the girl informed him, pulling her fuzzy cat-eared hat down tighter over her ears. “She’s the lead for the Bolshoi Ballet. She’s amazing.”

"Huh. Wow," he responded, back to watching Natasha. The girl waited for a moment for some further remark, but clearly Clint was mesmerized, and not paying attention to her and her cuddly and cute outfit. She pulled her scarf up tighter, and waved to him, with another added wish of good luck.

Having finished the baffling warm-up of ballet-ish stuff, the women began balance and stretching exercises, balancing on one foot and then the other. An idea occurred to Clint, and he grinned at Lucky. “You thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked the dog, then tied his leash to a nearby post, slipped his feet out of his shoes, and stepped into the last empty space in the group of two rows of three, and, after rolling his shoulders once or twice, carefully copied Natasha’s pose, right along with the other ballet dancers.

A few minutes later, he was getting Zumba flashbacks from that one time when he’d tagged along with an ex of his to her zumba class. It was just, like, aerobics and a latin dance class, right?

He ran marathons. He did parkour. He was a fitness junky. He was tough. He could kick ass, and no Zumba class would scare him. Hahah no. This was like that. Girls were crazy. These ballet exercises might have been slow and careful and precise, but keeping his form as close as possible to Natasha and the other girls was taking it out of him.

Still, he now had a fantastic excuse for staring at her, every inch. He congratulated himself on his brilliance. Then she stopped moving, her eyes zeroed in on him, scanning from head to toe as she relaxed gently into a more neutral position that still seemed to scream ballet dancer here watch out I can do an artsy kick all the way up to your nose, and turned to him.

"What do you think you’re doing?" she asked, eyebrow arching as she watched him mimicking the moves of the other girls. "This isn’t a free for all." Her heavily accented words weren’t stern as such, more so irritated... and maybe secretly amused?

He couldn't read her. There was so much just in her eyes, it was like flipping through the pages of a book in Cyrillic, completely incomprehensible but rich with detail. The intensity in her gaze made him wobble slightly. No, Barton, your balance is better than this, he thought, and held the position, holding one leg up near his head with his hand in a rough P shape. He met her eyes mildly as the other dancers stopped their own routines, and turned to him too.

Sheesh, he hadn’t been watched quizzically by so many beautiful women since that job straightening out a fashion firm.

"It’s a free country, isn’t it?" he replied cheekily, smiling at her, hoping to coax a smile out of her in return. It didn’t seem likely. Strange, he hadn’t expected her to have an accent. For some reason, it made him nervous.

Hands on her hips, Natasha tilted her head to the side as she considered the intruder in their midst. "This is a private practise for Bolshoi ballet dancers only, незнакомец1," Natasha explained, moving closer to him.

Human beings were supposed to be warmer than the surrounding air in the wintertime, right? Snow melts on their skin, and the wind blows red into their cheeks as their blood resolutely circulates, keeping the soft skin alive and warm and so touchable.

While Natasha spoke, he wondered if she was warm and touchable, beneath her cold attitude. There was something at the corner of her mouth, when she slipped into Russian for a moment, that made him wonder. Surely the ice couldn’t reach all the way to her heart?

She was like a hot-spring inside, boiling heat and melting liquidity, hidden and controlled by sculptured ice. He was sure of it.

"And if you refuse to leave," she continued, coming to a halt not too far from him, "then I do hope you can keep up."

The cold expression on her face as she looked him up and down didn't flicker even slightly as he allowed his face to become a bit more serious and focused. “I’ll do my best,” he began to say, before she interrupted him with her hand on his leg, lifting it slightly higher.

"Your posture is awful," she declared before releasing him and moving back towards the front of the group. He was right. Her hands were warm and soft, not as chilly as snow and hard as ice.

“Yes, teacher,” he responded mock-seriously, wondering if he could still bend his hip joint all the way to the ground again. “Always looking to improve,” he added as she returned to the front of the group. The other dancers were muttering amongst themselves and casting glances at him, which clearly irritated the lovely Natasha.

"Well, seeing as we have a new member to our troop, why don’t we test his mettle a little," Natasha suggested, bouncing up onto her toes a few times, lifting them up individually to massage her toes and roll her ankles. Pointedly ignoring him she added, "Lets just go through the usual warm-up routine, practise our plies and jumps. Unfortunately, дурак will just have to wing it." A few of the girls laughed amongst themselves, looking over their shoulders at him.

He just smiled politely at the other girls glancing at him, bouncing his eyebrows up and down once before he refocused on the task ahead of him. дурак was ready to wing it, as long as she didn’t expect him to literally sprout wings and hover, and he’d give that a go as well.

Compartmentalize it. Shut it away. Deal with the task at hand. Focus, Barton. Focus, Barton.

I know her. I know her. She’s dangerous.

Shut it, subconscious. I’m busy.

But you know her.

So what if I do? She doesn’t know me. And she won’t unless I nail this - whoops, what did she do?

Clint cursed the loquacious atmosphere inside his head and raised his hands quickly, catching up with the ballerinas as they slowly and gracefully lifted their arms to a position level with their shoulders. It was like a wingbeat, Clint imagined, visualizing his own arms as wings. He angled his fingers like feathers and adjusted his shoulders back, watching Natasha like a hawk, eyes fixed on her, trying desperately to predict her next movement accurately enough that he could follow along without tripping over his own feet.

His training as a kid, following along with the acrobats, didn’t really prepare him for copying a Bolshoi ballerina, but he was just going to pretend it did and maybe reality would end up actually being that way and hey you never know?

Focus, Barton.

Focus.

Focus.

Well, his feet were in about the right position, meaning still on the ground and not in the air. He knew he was moving wrong, as much as he tried to tell his limbs to be light and floaty and girly, they kept insisted they were strong, tough, and masculine as two sharks sword fighting with tanks.

That wasn’t exactly a bad thing, as far as flirting went, but he was trying to succeed at this ballet stuff. Standing there and flexing his biceps till she asked for his number was clearly not a winning strategy. Two, three AND four step back turn - did he turn too fast again? - yeah, how did they get their feet there? Step in front? At least Natasha repeated her steps frequently enough that he could get it right the second time.

Upright, floaty, light, elegance and charm - shit, he’d just stepped on his own foot. They were getting more complicated too, clearly intending to wash the дурак out.

He picked things up fast, but not this fast. Whoops, missed a turn.

Ah, screw this. He went over backwards, almost ending up flat on his back before he caught himself with his hands and pushed up hard, tensing his body like a bowstring, and flipped himself onto his hands in a handstand. Natasha was charming from this angle too, though she wasn’t wearing a skirt so he didn’t feel like a total cad. Well, he couldn’t actually follow the steps exactly, but he could still move side to side, turn around, and keep his balance. Poise and dignity, Barton, poise and dignity, he thought, as the ballet girls around him began to giggle and lose their focus.

Rule two of flirting. If you can’t impress them (and good luck impressing a woman, dude), make them laugh.

Or, he thought, as he carefully bent a leg, pointing his bare toes elegantly in mimicry of the other girls, the few who hadn’t stopped dancing to giggle at him, do both.

Maybe not. She moved towards him, a tiny hint of a smile vanishing into irritation. "What a beautiful hand stand,” Natasha commented, sarcasm hugging every syllable of her speech, “If you’re attempting to impress someone, your dog perhaps-” She gestured to Lucky, who was wagging his tail frantically. “-consider it a success.”

"My dog’s a big fan," Clint conceded, still upside down. Ballerina Romanoff was a big grump, but at least she hadn’t tried to kill him yet. As first meetings went, he had worse.

Wait, what? She was a ballerina. Why was he even thinking that about her? Harmless beautiful woman, that was all.

Not that any beautiful woman is truly harmless. He wobbled slightly as she continued, and nodded, looking up her long length to the underside of her chin and nostrils and the glinting of her teeth as she bit out her words. “Now kindly take your эго som-” She didn’t sound right, her voice wasn’t - it was blurring -

- sharper and yet more liquid and easy, but he couldn’t make out the words.

не следуй за мной, ястреб. я тебя убью.2

He twitched his head, disoriented, and nearly fell over. The last syllable, her lips not curving right around the buh and uhh, meshed with something that looked, to his eyes (used to lip-reading), like practice?

Clint dropped himself back down the ground in a kneel, Natasha leaning over him, and he looked up, his face blank and empty for half a moment. He cupped his hand over his ear and shook his head again, trying to banish the strange echo, the sounds of snow crunching and the twang of a bowstring.

His hearing must have been acting up. He was imagining things. She didn’t threaten to kill him, did she? After a moment, he smiled. “I’m sorry for interrupting you in your practice. I’ll leave you alone while you finish.” He stood up, walking back a few paces, his hands in front of him in a placating gesture.

“Thank you, незнакомец,” she uttered curtly in response to his apology before turning strictly on her heel back to the front of the group of ballerinas.

***

He should have gone home. He should have given the encounter up as just an unsuccessful flirtation, that Natasha was far above him and that nothing good could come of hanging around. She was a ballerina for the Bolshoi, an artist, a successful woman with nerves of steel, but a sheltered one too, with a heart of glass. She clearly wasn’t the type for a one-night stand with the likes of him, and that’s all it could have ever been between them. He was Clint Barton, he didn’t want to be famous or associated with fame. The idea of ‘Barton’ being known everywhere he went terrified him.

And that voice, those words, that damn hearing-aid malfunction - he needed to get it replaced, if it turned simple accented English into paranoia-laced Russian - that terrified him as well. He didn’t frighten easily, but the clarity he’d heard in those words, the familiarity that went with them…

He couldn’t possibly have met her before. There was just no way. He’d never been to Russia. She didn’t hang around in his circles. And yet.

And yet what, Clint, he could hear his brother saying. You frightened of a girl like that? You’re my brother. You’re smart, fast, untouchable, and you’ve got what it takes. Don’t give up.

So he didn’t. He sat and waited, watching her practice from a discreet distance. Lucky liked her, so how bad could she be? Lucky was a great judge of character. The women were much better without him there to distract them, but they didn’t smile. Natasha didn’t smile at all, not once in the half hour he sat on the park bench and watched. Hardly any expression by the occasional irritation twitched at her lips, and her eyes were as precise as measuring instruments, noting, but not caring.

So when she’d finally finished, and began slipping her street shoes back on her feet and bundling back into her warm outer layers, he approached her, but he was still feeling nervous and a little confused. A lot confused. He should have left, but he did like a challenge.

She didn’t see him, slinging her bag onto her shoulder, so he cleared his throat. She lifted her eyes to him and rolled them. “You’re certainly persistent,” she commented.

He shrugged and said as she walked along the path, “Your practice was wonderful. I wish I could have seen it to music.”

She arched a brow, listening now. Clint turned around, walking in front of her and to the side, the leash for Lucky tangling around his feet as the dog tried to jump up on her again. "Thank you," Natasha responded, allowing one corner of her mouth to soften into a half-smile, before adding, "though it would have been much smoother without your interruption."

“Eh,” he muttered, unapologetically. “So, uh, spasibo ot neznakomtsa3,” he said, trying to tone down his obviously horrendous accent from being an Iowan who learned street Russian from a Swedish old lady in Brooklyn. And Barney had said that foreign languages were a waste of time, and that everyone in the US would speak a little English if you yelled at them loud enough.

Natasha’s brows lifted once more and her half-smile made an unhindered reappearance. “Vy govorite po-russki4?” she asked. “Well, aren’t you full of surprises,” she commented, “first showing an interest in ballet, then able to speak Russian. Albeit poor Russian.”

He shrugged, still walking backwards, neatly sidestepping around a yattering stockbroker on a blue-tooth headset. “Ya govoryu russkim….” he sought for words for a moment, passing a schizophrenic guy talking to the air in much the same way as the stockbroker, but with warmer clothes and no tie. “…plokho,5 ” he finished.

“Mhm,” she agreed at his Russian response, a knowing smile fighting its way back for a short moment before softening.

"Ah! You can smile," he added as her half-smile reappeared. She clearly tried to suppress it, but a cute little dimple remained. "I was wondering for a while. You had your mind on business, I get that." God, did he. When he was working, he was a stone-faced auditor, no emotion showing in the slightest. Of course, his job wasn’t dancing for a living. He’d probably smile a bit more if he was back at the circus doing flips with Barney. He suppressed a twinge of pain out of years of practice, hardly allowing a twitch of his eyelids, his grin not fading a millimeter.

He was used to that pain. Why should it ever bubble up to the surface when no one could do a god damn thing about it? Focus on what you had, and what you could become; live for the now and live for the always, but don’t live for the past. “So what do you do when you can lighten up? Stop with the business for a while and start with living your life again?” he babbled on, realizing too late that ballet probably was her life.

She was narrowing her eyes. “Who’s to say I’m not already living my life,” she responded, looking back ahead, “ballet isn’t just an art form. It’s a career, a way of life. Everything else is secondary.”

"Sure, career," he agreed. He had a career too, but he was determined not to let it swallow his life. He still bought clothes from the thrift-stores and saved up his cash for a someday when he wouldn’t have to work, and could escape from his job. It seemed like her career was swallowing her whole, except for the teethmarks scoring her brow as incipient frown-lines.

She looked back at him. “Speaking of business, where did you learn that stunt you did earlier? Tsirk6?” The word startled him, and he almost bumped into an old lady taking pictures of the rather dreary day as if they’d be better seen through the lens of a camera. It had been a long time since he’d heard that word spoken.

“Tsirk, yes.” He smiled a little. Ah, now he’d caught her interest. “Good guess.” If it was a guess. It wasn’t as if Hawkeye had been world-famous, or even state-wide famous, and the Barton Brothers were just one more circus team vying for the spotlight Natasha had achieved, but it was possible she’d heard of him. “Don’t suppose you’ve heard of the Barton Brothers? Hawkeye? Not the football team,” he clarified.

She tilted her head, thinking. "Hawkeye rings a bit of a bell," she answered, "I’ve only been to the tsirk once, as a child. Long before ballet." Why would his name be familiar? He’d never toured overseas - never even been to Russia. It wasn’t as if she’d have heard his nickname after that. They really didn’t run in the same circles. She paused for a moment while he thought, then added, "So, were you both acrobats? You and your brother?"

"Uh, yeah," he answered, turning around so he was facing the way he was walking. "My brother Barney and I. Acrobats -" he repeated, not mentioning the other specialty the Barton Brothers were known for: their prowess with weaponry, though Clint had been the real star of that show, with his compound bow and his knack for trick shots. People sometimes got nervous about that. Yes, I’ve been training in deadly weaponry since I was a child. Clint preferred people to be at ease around him most of the time, not reaching for their pepper spray. ” - we were about the same weight and height for years, when we were kids, and we used that to our advantage. We were a great team.” He turned his head to smile at her.

Should he tell one of his stories? There were more than a few things about that he’d prefer not to get into. Not while he was flirting, or on a first date, or on a second date, or, how about never. ‘Never’ summed it up well.

"You never did tell me your name, neznakomets7," Nat said behind him, and he refocused, turning around and stopping directly in front of her, extending his hand.

“It’s Clint Barton.” He smiled at her, squeezing her hand firmly in the handshake.

“Clint,” she repeated, and he liked the way his name sounded in her voice, “Natasha Romanoff.”

“Charmed,” he replied. “Now, I suppose you have more business to get to than chatting with an ex-circus neznakomets, so -“

He reached into his pocket, and, pulling out a crayola marker, scribbled a telephone number on the back of her wrist in purple ink. Perfectly washable, of course, hopefully she’d know that and not slug him. “- if you need someone to help you smile a little, give me a call.” He released her hand, letting his fingers trail across her palm as he did. She looked bemused, at least, not angry.

"Duly noted," she responded, looking up from the scrawl on the back of her wrist with a small half smirk, "Yastreb8."

1Stranger

2* Ne sleduy za mnoy, yastreb. Ya tebya ub’yu.

(Do not follow me, Hawk. I will kill you.)

3“спасибо от незнакомца”

*Thank you from a stranger.

4’Вы говорите по-русски?’ You speak Russian?

5*”Я говорю России… плохо” I speak Russian… badly.

6’Цирк?’ ‘The Circus?’

7’незнакомец’ 'stranger'

8’ястреб’ 'Hawk'

[artesian-rp-blog1]

Pizza and Plies (experiment, Natasha's perspective)

(This is an edited version of the Clintasha thread, from Natasha's perspective, translated from RP style to Fic style.)

What with her instructors and teachers currently keeping a close eye on her, Natasha found practising to be even more of a difficult task that it had been previously. Training with the Bolshoi was always a difficult task; they pushed your body to it’s breaking point, making sure that every movement you made was powered with grace and poise and was nothing but perfection.

Recently, however, her focus was all over the place and it was definitely not like her to be off-track. Natasha was always at the top of her game, always dancing to the best of her abilities- always, always the favourite student, the звезда of the Bolshoi. And yet, after the incident which had ended with her being suspended from rehearsals for three days and being subjected to training in whatever space was suitable and free at the time, she’d found the NYCB studio to be bordering on claustrophobic for her.

Such a disappointing practise then led Natasha to suggest training out in the park with a few of her fellow dancers, without the strain of having their teacher’s’ eyes bearing down on them and out in the open air. Perhaps it was the endless hours of being cooped up in a room with no windows that was beginning to get to her, after all these years. But she was still dancing perfectly, despite her distracted mind, and so there was little to worry about.

Once in the park, the group of dancers assembled themselves in neat lines with Natasha positioned towards the front, suggesting moves that the other girls could try as a means of warming up, contorting her body in ways that only few were capable; despite her ‘freak outs’ - as they were being called -, she was still the top prima ballerina of the Bolshoi and still someone to be looked up to by the underlings of the company. The younger ballerinas knew better than to dispute her words and advice. They were practically gospel.

Before long, the array of dancers were in a world of their own in the midst of nature, following Natasha’s examples and moves almost without fault. Passersby in the park occasionally paused to watch them, marvel at the way their bodies moved, though the redhead scarcely noticed. Often she would pause and move about the girls, lifting a leg a little higher there or straightening out another’s arm here, or perhaps comment on someone’s posture - “Remember what Madame Michkova always tell us; it’s as though there’s a piece of string attached to your  head and it’s pulling you up, up, always up, light as a feather” - or give the occasional few words of ‘encouragement’ (though the latter generally went along the lines of, “Excellent. You’re channelling the heart and soul of a congested frog beautifullyl”).

So Natasha had a little ways to go on harnessing empathy, so what? Ballet was a competitive occupation; you either sank or swam and Natasha took no prisoners when it came to achieving what she desired most. A prima ballerina’s golden years were short and fleeting and Natasha did not wish to waste her time on others when she found much more purpose in caring for her own needs and aspirations. For the time being, at least. This practise outside, submerged in greenery, was more for her own sake rather than the other dancers around her.

You could dub her as selfish, or manipulative, or driven or some other term all you pleased but she was simply making the most of her life as it was now, at its peak, for as long as she could. The long and short of it was that, she cared for her fellow dancers - they had become like family to her over the years of her travelling across the globe - but she was not willing to risk her career for them. There was no doubt they felt the same.

With the initial exercises out of the way, Natasha then began the balancing and stretching exercises. The group of girls all moved in sync, hopping from one leg to the other, making sure their hands were delicately poised over their laps as they did so, chins always lifted even when simply exercising.

She was so focused on her own exercises that, for a short while, she failed to notice a new addition to the group. A blond man in a t-shirt and sweatpants was following along in the back of the group, imitating the girls beautifully precise movements with some success. Her eyes zeroed in on him, scanning from head to toe, and she halted her exercises and relaxed. To a point.

"What do you think you’re doing?" she asked, eyebrow arching as she watched him mimicking the moves of the other girls. "This isn’t a free for all." Her words weren’t stern as such, more so irritated - her heavily accented voice likely made them seem more schoolmarmish - and maybe secretly amused; for a random New Yorker, he had oddly good poise. He put some of the other girls to shame.

"It’s a free country, isn’t it?" he replied cheekily, smiling at her, still holding the last pose she had held, before she had turned.

Hands on her hips, Natasha tilted her head to the side as she considered the intruder in their midst. The other girls appeared just as confused at the random man mimicking their exercises - and quite well, too. Not, mind you, that Natasha was about to declare that aloud. It was difficult enough for her to hand out compliments to those who weren’t herself, let alone complete strangers. Even if they were on the datable spectrum in terms of appearances.

Speaking of appearances, Nat had her own to maintain and that was generally of the ‘untouchable ice Queen’ which, in all respects, she was particularly fond of. You could look but couldn’t touch. Unobtainable. Suited her just fine. And right now, she couldn’t sacrifice such an appearance for the sake of some brazen, blue-eyed wanderer.

"This is a private practise for Bolshoi ballet dancers only, незнакомец," Natasha explained, moving closer to him, "and if you refuse to leave," she came to a halt not too far from him, "then I do hope you can keep up."

She then looked his body up and down before reaching out and lifting his leg higher. "Your posture is awful," she declared before releasing him and moving back towards the front of the group.

“Yes, teacher,” he responded mock-seriously,. “Always looking to improve,” he added as she returned to the front of the group.

Natasha rolled her eyes to herself as she reached her previous position, back still to the stranger as she uttered, “We’ll see, дурак,” she muttered to herself, glancing at a few of the other dancers as she passed them to see them muttering amongst themselves and casting glances at the irreverent blond. Great, now their focus was split. So much for getting out in the open air and just going with the flow without any pressure. A sigh escaped her, rolling her eyes skyward once more. If whatever Gods gave me the power to do that round-house kick before showed themselves now, I would not complain, she thought to herself before refocusing on the group, sparing the man a single glance before speaking.

"Well, seeing as we have a new member to our troop, why don’t we test his mettle a little," Nat suggested, bouncing up onto her toes a few times, lifting them up individually to massage her toes and roll her ankles, as a means of warming them up . Pointedly ignoring the man, she added, "Lets just go through the usual warm-up routine, practise our plies and jumps. Unfortunately, дурак will just have to wing it." A few of the girls laughed amongst themselves, looking over their shoulders at the man. Anyone would think they were teenage shut-ins that had never seen a man before.

Not wanting to sacrifice any of her own concentration, Natasha made sure to focus on herself and the movements of her fellow ballerinas as opposed to keeping tabs on the stranger. However, as they began to move, positioning their feet just so for the plié and opening their arms wide, her eyes found themselves drifting over to him nonetheless and she very nearly allowed herself to smile at the sight of him hurrying to catch up already, his eyes on her almost as intense as hers had been on him previously-

Focus, Natasha, focus. Bow your legs, arms straight and light …

The initial segment of their warm-up routine involved primarily arm movements, feather-light hand gestures with straight yet relaxed backs and poised chins, and the occasional shifting of the feet. But Natasha wasn’t one for going easy on anyone, especially strangers. Slowly, she added in more moves, beginning with a single turn pirouette and slow dainty steps, before starting to add in a few more complicated, faster-paced movements; from pas de bourree to pique and chaines turns.

All the while, Natasha’s eyes would occasionally find themselves keeping watch on the blond, unable to entirely control herself.

Natasha didn’t allow herself to think in great deal as to why she found him so interesting … and, not to mention, amusing. There was something about him that she couldn’t quite place… a feeling in her chest. A familiarity perhaps-

Focus. Men were not her priority. Even if they do happen to have a dog and progressively improving posture, be quirky, and borderline cute.

After a few minutes of practice, it seemed as though her aim to test the stranger’s abilities was both a success and a failure. With each turn and step she made, she would finish it with a brief glance in his general direction and, as before, suppress the smile that wished to take  a hold of her lips at seeing him stumble and miss steps.

Each time they would finish a turn, legs positioned just so with an arm stretched out before them, Natasha would see the man just managing to catch up before she moved onto the next step. She couldn’t deny the small delight she felt at seeing him struggle and flail, stepping on his own feet in the process. The other girls seemed to find similar enjoyment in it, though they were much more open in their appreciation.

Okay, so perhaps he was keeping up relatively well given he’d never witnessed or practiced the routine before. Relatively. She’d allow him that.

Just as she was finishing a series of pique turns, a chorus of giggles erupted amongst the other dancers and, with her own concentration briefly broken, her brow furrowed as she halted her routine to glance towards the source-What on earth is the дурак doing now? From the looks of it, he was positioned quite comfortably in a hand stand and, as Natasha attempted to continue their routine, he seemed fairly capable to mimic the general movements whilst also being upside down.

When the giggles amongst the ballerinas didn’t appear to be diminishing and with their focus already splintered, Nat heaved a sigh and dropped back down from her half-point onto her feet.

Fine, yes, okay, so she was impressed; clearly he had better balance than she’d believed and she doubted even she herself could maintain a hand stand such as that. For the smallest, shortest moment she smiled, eyebrow raised, as she considered the way he pointed his toes, but managed to stop herself. He’s disrupting the other girl’s’ concentration. She used that annoyance to fuel her irritation as she moved towards him.

"What a beautiful hand stand,” Natasha commented, sarcasm hugging every syllable of her speech, “If you’re attempting to impress someone, your dog perhaps-” She blindly gestured to where a dog was tethered up nearby; she could only assume it was his given the way it’s tail was wagging wildly, “-consider it a success.”

"My dog’s a big fan," he said, still upside down.

“Now,” she continued, “kindly take your эго somewhere else; you’re distracting the girls and we need to practice.” She didn’t need to look at the other dancers to know a few were rolling their eyes at her show of being a spoil-sport, but ballet was more important than some (cute) idiot trying to show off.

Natasha noticed a peculiar look that appeared on the man’s face. Though upside down, she could see the shift in his expression that changed from cheeky and playful to confused … maybe even concerned? She may as well have been speaking her mother tongue to him for the good her words seemed to be doing. For a brief instant, she wondered if she had said something offensive. Well, of course she had, but rather said something unintentionally offensive. As much of a killjoy as she was, she wasn’t entirely incapable of feeling at least some fraction of guilt; she knew the man was being harmless.

Reviewing what she had said in her head, Nat couldn’t pick out anything that could have provoked that response from him and she had almost been tempted to prompt him, ask if maybe he ought to come down from his current position. Maybe the blood was rushing to his head and confusing him. But then he was coming down himself, crouching in front of her and looking up, shaking his head as if to clear it of something.

For a short moment, something felt oddly familiar about this scene. A sense of deja vu. It wasn’t quite right. The setting was wrong. She felt as if wind ought to be whipping her hair into her face, her breaths pooling in front of her in ice-cold air. It seemed as though it were her turn to look confused, if only for a brief moment.

Ястреб.

Hawk… What on earth-

And then he was speaking, getting to his feet and smiling as if nothing had happened. Natasha attempted to brush it off with the same finesse as he had, reaffirming her look of irritation as she watched him retreat, masking her underlying puzzlement.

“I’m sorry for interrupting you in your practice. I’ll leave you alone while you finish,” he said, holding his hands up in a placating gesture.

“Thank you, незнакомец,” she uttered curtly in response to his apology before turning strictly on her heel back to the front of the group of ballerinas. She’d almost entirely forgotten their presence and felt as if she had fallen back into the present with a thud.

Regardless of such, Natasha managed to curb her focus back to the routine, leading the girls through it from start to finish without her mind wandering. That was the good thing about ballet; though it was relaxing, it was hard work and required a large amount of concentration. You couldn’t risk your mind deviating.

By the time she had finished up the routine and was saying her goodbye’s to the girls, she’d almost forgotten her little encounter. Almost. Reaching down to pick up her bag to sling it over one shoulder, it seemed to all return to her. Beginning to walk towards the path leading out of the park, she remembered that one word. Hawk. Why did it feel as if it had much more significance than it ought to have? And who even was that man?

Natasha had been mulling over those questions in her head as she walked, a look of concentration creasing the skin between her brows, before suddenly she became aware of someone clearing their throat. Lifting her eyes to the source, she couldn’t help but roll them when she recognised the man as the stranger from before, with his dog in tow. “You’re certainly persistent,” she commented, feeling almost as though she were addressing both the blond and his dog at the same time.

“Your practice was wonderful. I wish I could have seen it to music,” he said. The redhead arched a brow, her gaze shifting from the pathway ahead to look up at him as he moved to walk a little in front of her, turning to face her. Now that she didn’t have the eyes of her fellow ballerinas on her, nor was she attempting to practice, she felt as if she could maybe loosen up a little. After all, Natasha could most certainly handle herself - especially if her lapses into martial arts were going to become a regular occurrence - and this guy didn’t seem all that threatening.

There was also the matter of the strange sense of deja vu from before that she had almost wanted to ask him about, then realised how totally crazy it would have sounded. For one, she knew for a fact she had never met this man before in her life. She had a feeling that, if she had, he most certainly would have stuck in her memory. She found herself thinking that he wasn’t the kind of man you would simply forget.

"Thank you," Nat responded, allowing one corner of her mouth to soften into a half-smile, before adding, "though it would have been much smoother without your interruption."

“Eh,” he muttered, not sounding repentant at all. He turned around, walking in front of her and to the side, the leash for his dog tangling around his feet as the dog tried to jump up on her again. “So, uh, spasibo ot neznakomtsa*,” he said, breaking into Russian - badly accented Russian, at that. Natasha’s brows lifted once more and her half-smile made an unhindered reappearance.

“Vy govorite po-russki*?” she asked. Russian was a complicated language, often considered complex even by those who spoke it, so to hear a complete stranger - and a somewhat idiotic one at that - speak it was a bit of a revelation. “Well, aren’t you full of surprises,” she commented, “first showing an interest in ballet, then able to speak Russian. Albeit poor Russian.”

The stranger shrugged, still walking backwards, neatly sidestepping around a yattering stockbroker on a blue-tooth headset. “Ya govoryu russki…plokho,” he admitted.

Natasha couldn’t deny it was refreshing to hear someone else speak her first language rather than other ballerinas or teachers. Maybe that was adding to her cabin fever; hum-drum, same old. Even if this stranger’s was slap-dash at best; she’d heard worse attempts. “Mhm,” she agreed a knowing smile fighting its way back for a short moment before softening. "Ah! You can smile," he remarked. Natasha suddenly became overly conscious of the curve of her lips and was doing her best to push it back down again. It didn’t quite work, the vague imprint of a dimple still being visible as was the little glint in her eye.

Yes, she allowed herself some joy from time to time - the odd classic film here, a few long, quiet walks there - but, generally, she had no time for it. When you decided on the ballet profession, it became everything. You lived and breathed it. Depending on your brilliance, you had, perhaps, ten years of real, true fame before time caught up with you. The realist in Natasha knew her own time was limited. Any small accident or incident could cut it short and so she made sure that, whilst she was still at the top, she made a lasting impression whilst there.

“So what do you do when you can lighten up?” the blond asked. “Stop with the business for a while and start with living your life again?” .

Nat narrowed her eyes ever so slightly, considering him as he continued to walk backwards, blindly dodging pedestrians. “Who’s to say I’m not already living my life,” she responded, looking back ahead, “ballet isn’t just an art form. It’s a career, a way of life. Everything else is secondary.”

"Sure, career," he agreed.

Looking back at the man, she continued, “Speaking of business, where did you learn that stunt you did earlier? Tsirk*?” She’d meant it jokingly, of course. In truth, a great deal of what left Natasha’s mouth was a joke disguised as an insult. Her humour just happened to be sharper than most others. It didn’t gain her a great deal of friends, but that - like men - was not a priority.

The stranger almost bumped into an old lady taking pictures. “Tsirk, yes.” He smiled a little. “Good guess.”

He’d been in the circus? Natasha had to admit she found that interesting. Said interest likely appeared on her face, her eyes now adamantly fixed on him. So that explained his surprisingly good posture. And that form of balance must have required a great many years of training and practice. She ought to understand, having experienced a similar lifestyle herself. Had she not been so smitten with ballet, she may have seen a slight similarity between performing for in a circus act and performing ballet on stage. Both in front of a captive audience, both an art form in their own right.

“Don’t suppose you’ve heard of the Barton Brothers? Hawkeye?” he asked. “Not the football team,” he clarified.

She tilted her head. Yastreb … Hawk… Was that where she’d heard it from?

"Hawkeye rings a bit of a bell," she answered,  "I’ve only been to the tsirk once, as a child. Long before ballet." She paused for a moment; she rarely ever thought of life before ballet. In fact, she could barely remember a time when she wasn’t doing plies or having someone yelling at her for her elbow being out of place. "So, were you both acrobats? You and your brother?"

Part of her was wondering just why she was persisting on talking to this man. After all, there was aspects of what he’d done - interrupting her practice and then proceeding to follow her once she was done - that could be considered … odd, but, for some reason, she was giving him a chance. Not something she found herself doing often, if ever. That and she supposed she may as well discover more about this man if he was so intent on discovering more about her.

"Uh, yeah," he answered, turning around, now walking alongside her, facing the right direction. "My brother Barney and I. Acrobats -" he repeated, then fell silent.

He seemed a little more sombre at the mentioning of the circus and she couldn’t help but wonder what stories he must have to tell about it all. Had she still been an eager, simple child with simple dreams she may have pestered him to tell her some - despite her reserved and often bitter exterior, she had always been overly curious - but Natasha took her privacy and that of anyone else’s seriously and decided against asking him further on the matter than what he himself wished to tell. She was courteous in that respect.

Don’t pry too much into her history and she won’t pry into yours. She simply nodded her head as the stranger finished speaking and deemed that topic to be paused unless spoken otherwise.

"You never did tell me your name, neznakomets," Nat declared, looking back ahead as they began to near the busier streets of New York, the trees and greenery around them thinning out and giving way to the sight of towering structures.

He turned around yet again, and stopped directly in front of her. She stopped in her tracks as he extended his hand towards her. Well, the formality certainly appeared from nowhere. Regardless, she accepted his offered hand after a few short moments, nodding as he spoke, “It’s Clint Barton.”

“Clint,” she repeated, “Natasha Romanoff.” Though he never prompted her for the same, she felt it necessary to introduce herself for her own sake.

Still holding her hand, he said, “I suppose you have more business to get to than chatting with an ex-circus neznakomets, so -“

He reached into his pocket, and, pulling out a crayola marker, scribbled a telephone number on the back of her wrist in slightly less than elegant purple ink. “- if you need someone to help you smile a little, give me a call.” He released her hand, and she retrieved it, touching the number with the fingers of her other hand, her expression bemused.

Truthfully she had little else planned for the remainder of the afternoon. It was one of the very few days where she surprisingly had some free time - she had had an early rehearsal for her up-and-coming show which left the evening free - but Natasha wasn’t the sort to come across as anything remotely close to needy.

"Duly noted," she responded, looking up from the scrawl on the back of her wrist with a small half smirk, "Yastreb."

[artesian-rp-blog1]

Tiny Tony Adopts An Alien

(AU: Tony is the one who finds Raven raiding the kitchen, not Charles. Fluff. Fluuuuufff cuteness diabetes fluff.)

Light glowed through the blankets of the bed, the flashlight bobbing as Tony turned a page in his comic book. WHAM BANG, the page said, and "Take that, enemies of freedom!" He shifted the flashlight in his teeth and sat up a little straighter, wriggling his toes in the sheet as he read. It was close to midnight, no one had bothered to check that he was actually asleep. He was two comic books and a Structure of the Atom by Isaac Asimov book in, with four comic books and a gamma-radiation pamphlet he'd filched from his dad's desk to go.

One comic book later, and he was running out of air underneath the thick woolen blankets. He clicked off the flashlight and pulled the blankets down around his shoulders, drinking in the cool night air that streamed in his bedroom window, then froze.

It wasn't a wham bang, but it was a tap tap tap rattle sound, coming from somewhere downstairs.

He tilted his head slightly, and hopped off his bed, trailing blankets. He opened his bedroom door and stuck his head out, checking first one way down the hallway and then the other. He'd probably just imagined it.

Rattle rattle.

Nope, there really was someone in the kitchen. His stomach growled - six hours since he'd eaten. If he was cute, maybe he could talk cook into letting him have a midnight snack, like one of the cinnamon rolls for breakfast, that he'd seen on the top shelf of the fridge where he couldn't reach without a stepladder. Or... it could be a burglar. Here to steal secrets or kidnap him. Or aliens.

Though he had to admit that aliens didn't seem likely to be interested in the kitchen. But what did he know about aliens, it could be aliens. He went to the nightstand beside his bed and sorted through his inventions (the ones that Jarvis had let him keep anyway). Most of the slingshots and the thing he made from a toaster were locked in a cupboard and the librarians down town wouldn't let him check out a book on lockpicking. Just for fun, he'd said. Hahah, we know, Tony, they'd replied, that's the point.

He sighed, wriggled under his bed, and pulled out a spring-loaded air-actuated popgun with a long barrel in which two black walnuts resided snugly. After he'd sanded them into near perfect spheres, they were perfect ammunition, and the air-gun part of it would allow him to fire one with the springs and then, before he would have had time to wind up the springs again, activate the air-horn part of it (he'd taken the horn part of it off, so it wouldn't be super noisy) and shoot a second one.

Dad said no explosives till he was thirteen, but he hadn't actually said no weapons. He tied one of the blankets around his neck like a red cloak to keep himself warm, stuck the walnut pistol in the waistband of his pyjama pants, held the flashlight in his left hand and headed down to the kitchen to either wheedle treats or wreck havoc.

Tony padded across one hallway, down a flight of too large polished wooden stairs, up another long hallway, and paused just outside the kitchen, from which he could still hear rattling noises. He cocked the walnut pistol, turned off his flashlight before he reached the corner of the kitchen doorway, and peeked around it.

There was someone in the kitchen all right, but they were small, about his size. Not any of the adults in the house, or a burglar. Maybe it was an alien? He couldn't see their face, silhouetted by the light of the fridge, but then they turned around and -

It was him. He was the same height and the same shape, and had the same brown eyes and the same messy black hair. He was wearing a suit, the uncomfortable one they always made him wear for his birthday pictures cook kept up on the wall, and he was hugely startled to see someone in the doorway with what looked like a gun.

He froze, his arms full of apples, cheese, bread, and other food stuffs raided from the pantry and fridge. Tony lowered his weapon, his mouth falling open. He swallowed after a moment of frightened silence, and said, "I have a twin." He grinned. "They never told me I had a twin."

His twin reached down and picked up one of the apples which had tumbled from his armload of food. Why would his twin be here? Why wouldn't they tell him? Were they keeping him for a spare is something happened to him? That sounded like his Dad: redundancies and backup plans. His twin slowly shook his head. "Oooh, are you a clone?" There'd been something about that in a Twilight Zone episode last week.

His clone just stared at him, trapped between the fridge door and Tony. He edged sideways, towards the open window. "Oooh, you don't have to be scared," Tony said. "I won't let them harvest your organs to replace mine if I get sick."

His face drained of blood, paler than he'd ever seen himself before. His clone scooted backwards, shaking, and another apple dropped from the armload of food and went rolling across the floor and under the kitchen sink.

"No, really, it's okay!" Tony chirped desperately.

The clone eyed the apple, then paused in his hurried retreat. "You wouldn't want mine, anyway," he said, trying not to drop any more of the food.

"Nah, of course not," Tony replied, glancing at the walnut pistol in his hand and holstering it in his waistband again. "I'd want robot parts anyway." He imitated C3PO with one arm, swiveling it around jerkily. His clone blinked at him slowly. "So whatcha doing here?"

His clone raised the armfuls of food slightly to explain, his face full of confusion. Well, obviously yes, his clone wanted food, but how had he gotten here? It's not like there was a secret bio laboratory under the building. He would have found it. A whole lab for growing clones, you bet he would have found that. "How'd you get out? Is anyone chasing you? Do you need my help to get away?" he offered rapidly. "I've got a bike! I put an engine on it. Don't tell mom," he requested. He'd get in such trouble if they knew he'd made it a motorcycle again.

His clone shook his head. "Nobody's chasing me, I don't think." It was almost too quiet to hear in the already almost silent kitchen.

Tony headed over to the kitchen table and hopped up in a chair. "Oooh, okay." His clone approached him slowly, cautiously.

"...Why are you so calm?" his clone asked, after watching him for an uncomfortably long moment.

"Why wouldn't I be?" asked Tony. It wasn't like the clone was here to replace him. No one was chasing him, so he didn't need to help. He had a walnut pistol, and there were adults all around, who, while heavy sleepers, weren't that heavy. Besides, it was him across the table. Why would he want to hurt him?

His clone looked at the food in his arms and back to Tony, then placed it carefully on the table, picking up a piece of cheese and starting to chew on it. "Well I -- I'm you, but I'm not you." He said finally.

Tony was too busy inspecting the rest of the food pile to listen closely. "Ooh, you found the last of the cinnamon rolls. Can i have one?"

Slowly, his double slid it across the table. When his hand had retreated, Tony picked it up and started to gnaw on it. "Not me?" he prompted, chewing. His double was very preoccupied with the cheese, so he prompted again, "So you're not a clone or my twin. Why do you look like me, then? Are you an LMD?" he asked. The LMD opened, closed, opened and closed its mouth as Tony continued carelessly, "Dad's working on those, but they're not very good. You seem really good."

"I'm...uh. A me," the LMD said, and then -

- a flicker of long blue scales, a shifting of size, a blurring of features -

- and his father sat opposite him, looking very nervous and holding a piece of cheese in his hands. Tony's eyes went wide, and he instinctively jolted backwards, shoving at the table with his hands, and the chair toppled backwards. The chair crashed to the ground, and Tony's head thudded on the hard tile. He squeaked, the air knocked out of his lungs, and felt his vision get very blurry, his mind woozy.

The last thing he saw before he blacked out was his father standing over him, nervously shifting from one foot to the other and biting at his fingernails, his eyes wide and frightened.

***

Tony woke up tucked underneath his red blanket/cape, behind a big bag of flour, underneath a shelf, in the back of the pantry. He sat up slowly, narrowly avoiding bonking his head (again) on the shelf, wincing at the headache he'd earned from his topple backwards in the chair.

"Young master Tony, what are you doing awake at this hour?" Tony froze as Jarvis' voice appeared outside the pantry. He inched backwards into the shadows as he realized that he was both underneath the shelf and standing in the kitchen, searching for words and only coming out with bits of them.

Jarvis clucked softly, probably at the mess of food on the table. "I don't want to know what you were planning on doing with all this food. Feeding the rabbits again? Rabbits aren't mice. They don't like cheese." There was a rattle of the refrigerator being opened, and the food being replaced.

"I was hungry," Tony heard himself say. "I'm sorry."

Oooh, bad move. Tony was almost never sorry. He hoped it wouldn't give the shapeshifter away. Jarvis didn't understand aliens. He didn't even like Star Wars. He could almost hear Jarvis' eyebrows rise like helium balloons. "Really?"

"Mmhmm."

There was a long pause. "Well, off to bed with you. You may have an apple, but no cinnamon rolls. Those are for breakfast, Tony."

"But -" his borrowed voice started, but Tony could see him being hustled out through the crack in the pantry door, an apple in hand. The shapeshifter glanced his direction as he passed the pantry, but gave no sign he had seen him.

The light was turned off, and Tony was plunged back into almost complete darkness. He crawled out from underneath the shelf and peeked out the pantry door, listening to Jarvis' footsteps pad up the stairs to tuck the shapeshifter in bed. A few minutes later, he heard Jarvis' door close, and the house settled back into silence.

That was nice of the shapeshifter to take the trouble for him. He clicked on his flashlight and located the plate of cinnamon rolls, carefully retrieving two and stuffing them in his pockets. The shapeshifter was hungry, and an apple really wasn't enough for either of them. Then, after a pause to determine that the house was indeed quiet again, he crept out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and back to his room.

Pushing the door open, he saw the shapeshifter peering out the second story window, as if trying to gauge the distance to the ground. Tony hoped he wouldn't try to jump out. He'd broken an ankle just falling off the drainpipe half-way down, and this was even higher. "Psst?" he hissed, and the shapeshifter turned around, now an exact copy of him, pyjamas and all.

"What?" the shapeshifter asked, his eyes frightened again, sitting down on the bed and wrapping his arms around his knees.

"Sorry I freaked out," he apologized, closing the door again and flicking the flashlight on, aiming it at the ceiling. "So you're a shapeshifter?" Tony hopped up onto the bed beside him, adjusting the red blanket so it wrapped around him more tightly.

"Well...if that's what they're called, then yes," the shapeshifter said.

"Wow. Neat!" Tony said, the volume of his voice raising a bit just in excitement. A real shapeshifter was sitting next to him. Wow.

"Most people don't think it's neat," he said, sounding too sad.

Tony looked up, surprised, and scoffed. "Most people are dumb." How could anyone not think shapeshifting was neat? He could turn into anyone he wanted to look like. How can that not be absolutely amazing?

The shapeshifter's shoulders curled in on themselves. He looked really very sad, and Tony wanted to cheer him up, but... "I can't really judge. I am."

Tony hardly believed that. The shapeshifter had figured out that he had to hide Tony and pretend to be him to get out of more trouble in just a few moments. That seemed pretty smart to him. He wasn't sure that the shapeshifter would believe him though, so he just produced the cinnamon rolls from his now sticky pyjama pockets. "I brought some of the cinnamon rolls, if you're still hungry." He offered one to the shapeshifter. With a glance at Tony's face, he slowly took the cinnamon roll from his palm.

Gosh, he was so scared it reminded him of the rabbits he'd fed out in the woods, except that the shapeshifter ate far faster, stuffing his face with such hurry that Tony was a little scared he might choke. He still managed to pause long enough to manage actual speech though. "Thank you, I guess - your name is Tony, right? That--" The shapeshifter gestured to the door, presumably meaning Jarvis. "Called me Tony."

"Yup. I'm Tony," he said, still holding the second cinnamon roll. "What's your name?" The shapeshifter clearly wanted to speak, but that'd be tricky with almost an entire cinnamon roll in her mouth. "Um, when you're done eating?"

Sheepishly, he finished up, swallowing the last mouthful. "Raven." He nodded curtly.

"Nice to meet you." He offered his hand to the shapeshifter, and they exchanged a sticky handshake. "Do you come in peace?"

Raven didn't seem to understand. He probably wasn't an alien then. All of them understood that question, but if not an alien, what was he? "Just came for food, honest," he replied finally.

Tony offered Raven the second cinnamon roll. Raven glanced up at his face to make sure he meant it, and took it with a muttered thank you, tucking into that one with the same voracious interest he had taken in the previous ones. "... you're really hungry, aren't you," he muttered, and she nodded, chewing. He'd never met someone who was really hungry before. It just... wasn't a part of his world. It happened in stories, the old kind with kids that said things like Can I have some more, sir? and fairy tales about witch's cottages made of candy. Raven was actually starving, not just hungry.

No one's parents should let them get that hungry. As little as he saw of his mom and dad, they always made sure he had enough to eat, and sleep, and baths and stuff like that. Well, they didn't. Jarvis and cook and Emma did. Still. " Where's your family? Or, or people who take care of you?"

Raven shrugged vaguely. "Long ways away. Which is...better."

"My parents are away a lot but at least they make sure I get fed. And sleep on time and baths and..." He sighed. A lot of things, really. Making sure he did his homework, even the boring stuff. Brushing his teeth, brushing his hair, wearing proper clothes, not going into the toolshed (hah, they tried) and reading age appropriate books.

"I don't...have them, any more," Raven said, shrugging again. "On my own."

"Hmmm." Tony considered the shapeshifter. "Want to? You can pretend to be me."

Raven blinked at him slowly. He had been licking the icing off his fingers, but now he just sat there, one finger in his mouth, unsure.

He continued eagerly. "They don't pay that close attention. You could be safe here. There's tons of food and places to be and stuff to do." This could be great. They could have so much fun together. Raven'd be safe here, he'd make sure he was, and Tony could get out of some of the stuff they made him do like take baths more than once a day or read sad stories about boys who were too curious. It was a perfect arrangement.

"I don't know if I could lea--" Raven hesitated, twisting the blankets in his hands. "Where would you be, though?"

"Lots of places," he answered promptly. "I can go play in the woods some of the time and I can sneak out to town and stuff. And just hide in one of the rooms for a while." He had three forts already, one in the attic, one in the cellar, and one in a tree almost a mile into the woods that their home backed out onto. He could stay out of the way when he had to. They both could, if Dad came home and was in a bad mood.

Concern (a very unfamiliar expression on the borrowed face) flitted around Raven's eyes. "Well... if you went out there, you'd have to be careful, you know. It's dangerous."

Tony pulled his popgun from his waistband, aiming it at the ceiling. "I can take care of myself," he said, cocking it with a very serious sounding click. His face was oddly shadowed in the upwards light of the flashlight, like he was telling ghost stories.

Raven just stared at him, until, flushing, Tony uncocked it and put it beside him on the bed. There was nothing like your own face looking back at you, clearly wondering if you're crazy.

Then Raven giggled, and he grinned sheepishly as the laugh grew and grew until he was loud enough he was sure it would wake up Jarvis at least. "Shhhhhhh," he hissed. "They'll heeeeear."

Raven put his hands over his mouth, his shoulders shaking. "S-sorry," he muttered, and the face flickered slightly as blue scales reappeared for a moment, brilliant yellow eyes appearing where his own brown ones should be.

They listened for a moment for adult footsteps, but no one approached the door. "It's okay," Tony whispered. "Hey, this'll be fun." He dropped the gun on the floor and kicked it underneath the bed, back among the dust bunnies where no one could confiscated it, then grabbed the second pillow from the foot of the bed, flopped it down next to Ravens, and scooted under the covers. He was getting cold.

[artesian-rp-blog1]

OoC: Sorry for not posting in anything but the Natasha thread. I'm obsessing right now, but I'll get back to Bruce and Steve soon. ^^

[artesian-rp-blog1]

This blog is no longer a Clint Barton RP blog, but contains the sideblogs for Artesian, including two active blogs: 

Tony Stark: http://ti-au-alloy-man.tumblr.com/

and

Pizza Dog (and associated human): http://pizzaandarrows.tumblr.com/

The only thing that will be posted on here is writing stuff if I feel like it, so there's no need to follow this blog, if you don't want to see that. ^^

[artesian-rp-blog1]

Continuation of my Parks and Recreation AU (3 of 3) - credit to my twitter pals who gave me some of the cutest ideas!

[artesian-rp-blog1]

Hey! A couple quick and kinda silly questions for your muse, if that's alright -- Are you a morning person now, compared to what you were like in the Other Universe? Do you still have feelings for Natasha, even after having to HIDE A BODY with her? And if you could forget all that is happening, would you?

1) A morning person? Who said I was a morning person? Eh, guess you got that idea from me actually being awake in the morning. No, I’m not a morning person, but when you have to wake up at 6:30 every morning in order to keep your job, and you do that for fifteen years, you get used to being awake in the mornings so I suppose I’m better at them than Other-me who wasn’t forced into seeing the sunrise all the time. They’re still not my best times of day. Coffee is still my god.

2) Well, uh, yes. And I am completely aware how nuts that is and how it’ll probably get me killed and there was something very wrong with Other-me. o-o Doesn’t seem to matter though, ‘s far as how I feel.

3) Hmmmm. Tough question.

…

If I could forget it completely, have it never happen, and have it go back to a normal, safe world where everyone was, well, okay, yeah. I would. But if I had to remember what it had been like, and not have it be true, then I wouldn’t. If that makes any sense.

Being able to do what I do, having a… well, a point to my life makes me feel alive, and it would hurt to lose that, if I knew I was losing it. It would hurt a lot. All of this is scary and waaay too violent and confusing and weird, but well, it’s intense, and there’s good in it too. Things are important now, and what I do actually matters.

[artesian-rp-blog1]

"Thanks." Bucky had asked him not to leave him with a stranger, but he'd known Kate for many years/five minutes, and that made her definitely not a stranger, right?

"Uh," he answered. "Just need to get away from the action here." That was a good word for it. He started walking again, his eyes on the shifty-side. Confessing to felonies seemed like a bad habit to get into, no matter how easy it would have been to let the whole story slip out.

He untied the leash around the pole and handed it to Kate. "So what do you think I put in here?" he asked, hefting the mysterious treasure bag and changing the subject. "I don't remember at all."

Pizza Dog

Huh. Odd to think that his… unorthodox adoption of the dog had happened before. Clint wondered how he’d adopted him last time. Rappelled down the side of the building and snatched him up like Spiderman -

Who? … Whatever. Clint had stopped taking his brain seriously a long time ago. He ruffled Pizza’s fur and stood back up. “An excellent name, that’s what,” he defended Bucky’s choice. He had considered Lucky, for a little while, but… Pizza. It fit. He was the Pizza-dog. “Hmmm. I’m heading out of NY for a while… Want to look after him for a few days? He’s… Bucky’ll want him back when he gets back from DC? But I don’t know how he’ll handle our kind of road-trip.”

[artesian-rp-blog1]

"I don't suppose there's any psychologists who focus on this sort of weirdness," Clint muttered. "I don't know who... he was... but yeah. He was confused, and he seems... dangerous. Maybe more so when he's not sure what's going on."

He shook his head. "Hell of a night."

"He may not make it," the vet warned.

Clint shook his head forcefully. “He’ll make it. He has to.”

The vet didn’t agree, but said nothing more about it, recognizing the look in Bucky’s eyes - worry, grief, pain - and the expression on Clint’s face - denial, determination, and anger. “How did this happen?” he asked.

"Some assholes beat him with a baseball bat," Clint growled back, and the vet’s eyes widened slightly in shock. "Do we have time to talk about that right now?"

"Of course. We’ll… I’ll take care of your dog," he turned and left.

[artesian-rp-blog1]

Huh. Odd to think that his... unorthodox adoption of the dog had happened before. Clint wondered how he'd adopted him last time. Rappelled down the side of the building and snatched him up like Spiderman -

Who? ... Whatever. Clint had stopped taking his brain seriously a long time ago. He ruffled Pizza's fur and stood back up. "An excellent name, that's what," he defended Bucky's choice. He had considered Lucky, for a little while, but... Pizza. It fit. He was the Pizza-dog. "Hmmm. I'm heading out of NY for a while... Want to look after him for a few days? He's... Bucky'll want him back when he gets back from DC? But I don't know how he'll handle our kind of road-trip."

Pizza Dog

"Who the hell is Lucky?" he asked, and smiled at her slobber-covered face. The less slime on his face the better, though Lucky seemed to mass-produce the stuff in an unending fountain. It was if the regular food he was now receiving had kickstarted his digestion into high-gear. "His name is Pizza. Blame Bucky. You know him already?" He obviously knew her.

Of course she did. It should have been obvious. Everyone he’d met in the last week had been a mysterious non-stranger from another world, so why would that be limited to humans? He should look out for a black cat, see if Natasha’s totally-not-her-cat was here too.

[artesian-rp-blog1]

"You’re in a futzing supercar while I drive this old junk. GREAT.”

[artesian-rp-blog1]

"Who the hell is Lucky?" he asked, and smiled at her slobber-covered face. The less slime on his face the better, though Lucky seemed to mass-produce the stuff in an unending fountain. It was if the regular food he was now receiving had kickstarted his digestion into high-gear. "His name is Pizza. Blame Bucky. You know him already?" He obviously knew her.

Of course she did. It should have been obvious. Everyone he'd met in the last week had been a mysterious non-stranger from another world, so why would that be limited to humans? He should look out for a black cat, see if Natasha's totally-not-her-cat was here too.

Typical Kate, walking backward just so she wouldn’t miss a bit of a conversation. Not that he minded - god, her face was so familiar. The rapidly play of expression across her features was hitting with memory buckshot, peppering him with jolts of recognition. “Now? A road trip, away from aliens, Russian mobsters in tracksuits, and mysterious government agents.”

He stopped and leaned down to untie Pizza’s leash. “Uaugh your breath, don’t lick my face dude, I’ve seen what you do with that mouth - great, now my ear is sticky.” He ruffled the dog’s fur.

[artesian-rp-blog1]

Typical Kate, walking backward just so she wouldn't miss a bit of a conversation. Not that he minded - god, her face was so familiar. The rapidly play of expression across her features was hitting with memory buckshot, peppering him with jolts of recognition. "Now? A road trip, away from aliens, Russian mobsters in tracksuits, and mysterious government agents."

He stopped and leaned down to untie Pizza's leash. "Uaugh your breath, don't lick my face dude, I've seen what you do with that mouth - great, now my ear is sticky." He ruffled the dog's fur.

He rolled his eyes. “I was an amazing accountant. Could fill out a 1040 in my sleep. Now I can’t do one without falling asleep - and my college degree vanished yesterday.” He chuckled. He’d actually been a little annoyed by that - hey, even if he wasn’t exactly Clint Barton, CPA, he’d spent years at that college. He’d earned that diploma. Hawkeye had never been to college. He’d never had a degree - and even if it was the certified lamest diploma to have, it was something that he’d never had before.

"I suppose you’re still a professional party-girl?" he shot back, an amused quirk to his lips as he opened the door for her - seemed that bit of himself had stuck around, a habit that had been stronger than the collapse.