[log] clint barton's no good very bad week [closed]

[awwnoun]

Characters: Clint, Steve, Ecks, Natasha and Tony
Location: Building 108
Date: Days 155 and 156
Summary: Clint finally meets Steve face to face after he revives - and also finds Ecks again. Nat and Tony catch up the next day.
Warnings: Will update as necessary!

108: A standard single-story house with a kitchen, living room, dining room, bathroom, and bedroom. The bed in the bedroom is a loft-style bed, giving extra space for the desk beneath it. One of the desk drawers is empty, and the others have countless small plastic cases that look like they could have been SD cards, although there aren't any computer chips in them. These are only plastic shells.

Comments

[bottledblond]

Without needing to think, he pushed his fingers upwards to catch the centers of the crosses that pattern formed to tug the shape into diamonds. Maybe he'd played this with his mother too often as a kid. Or with Bucky's little sister when Steve was brought over for dinner and she needed to be entertained after her homework was finished. He had finer hands then with narrow, quick fingers.

"Thirty-one on this good earth and sixth-eight beneath the ocean," he corrected, if that's what Natasha meant about his age. He'd only been twenty-six when he put down the plane in the water. So very young.

[redrooms]

"You are young," she replies, tugging the strings into the next pattern. She played this enough as a child for it to be automatic, too. She glances up at him, holding her hands out once again as she studies his face.

"And the Natasha you know? How old is she?"

[bottledblond]

"Ma'am, I wouldn't even hazard a guess. She's about to ur age. You're very similar," Steve responded, taking his turn. He didn't really think being in his thirties was that young. Most men his age would have returned from the war, married that gal they had been sweet on before leaving home and would have some kids to come home to after working all day. He hadn't had a gal to go home to but he'd been hoping that maybe he could ask Peggy to step out with him once the fighting was done. They could see if it would work and if she would be his best gal, maybe they'd be married and he'd have a son that he could name after Bucky sitting at his knee as he told him stories about how best friend's bravery in war.

Maybe he was a little too imaginative for his own good.

"Tony said the Captain was working with the Avengers for at least a decade. Glad to know I'll still have a job in ten years. And a little sad that the world will still need us."

[redrooms]

She nods, shifting her weight a bit as she takes the strings back. "I'm over eighty, Steve. I've been around a long time." This, she doesn't really mind telling him. It's public knowledge among the Avengers, of course, and even if this isn't her Steve, he still gets a higher base level of trust than everyone else. It's not something that can really hurt her in any case. "The world will always need the Avengers, I think. The team hasn't been around very long for you?"

[bottledblond]

Eighty? Was she another victim of an attempt to reboot the serum? Was she frozen and unfrozen when needed like Bucky? Steve respected Natasha entirely too much to ask her, so he just popped an eyebrow and then frowned at the cradle, now reversed, to pick up the strings that would return it to diamond to he wouldn't get the dreaded reverse double crown and officially lose. "You look really great for over eighty," he said, truthfully. But he looked pretty good for ninety-nine too. Shifting the strings a little further down his fingers, he looked back up at the woman, thoughtfully. "On and off for...four years? Just over the the three and a half point, now that I think about it," he confessed. "If you count time without the breaks. I was trying pretty hard with the new team to keep us all together after Tony retired and Bruce disappeared. Thor went back to Asgard... You and me, we stuck it out to train the new recruits."

[redrooms]

This time, she doesn't take the strings back right away, although she plucks at them absently. "You have a much smaller team then, it sounds like. Our roster rotates very regularly." Natasha shifts her weight, brushing her hair out of her face. "Ours began with Ant-Man, the Wasp, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, and Cap. I didn't join until much later, after Clint. I couldn't list off all of the heroes that have been on the team since."

[bottledblond]

This was like a strange dream where nothing seemed right but the players all made sense anyway. Steve was at a loss for the information, because this seemed so much like one of his best friends sitting here across from him playing a game he was pretty sure his Natasha would never play with him. There was always work and always missions. They spent as much time apart as together but they were a lot thicker than he was with Tony or Thor or Banner.

And that's why it hurt when she agreed to sign the Accords.

But as similar as this woman was to his friend, and though she was still his friend by virtue of being who she was, he needed to remember that what she told him wasn't the future or the past but an alternate of the present. So. Why not compare stories for differences?

"They sent Nat after Banner. I was already with SHIELD so I guess I was in no matter what. Thor was accidental, he'd come chasing after Loki. They didn't want Stark initially but we needed him. Barton... He was mind controlled for awhile to work against us when Loki brought the Chitauri to help him invade aaaand I see I've lost you," Steve grinned. "I would have lost me too if I didn't live it. Mythological gods and aliens all at the same time? Crazy huh?"

[redrooms]

She laughs a little, finally taking the strings from him again. "I've never heard of the Chitauri," she replies, smiling up at him. "Gods and aliens, though. That's par for the course in every timeline, I'm guessing."

Natasha, at least, is used to this idea. They've run into time travel and alternate versions of people they know before, so it isn't very hard to wrap her head around. In a way, it's almost fun to compare differences. A good distraction, at the very least, and definitely a good source of information.

"SHIELD didn't form the Avengers where I'm from. Hank Pym did that. Ant-Man."

[bottledblond]

"Hank-- He made the suit, right. I know Scott Lang." Steve was sure he was a great guy. He was sure he'd fit in with the bunch. Even with the over active hand shaking.

Steve told Natasha all about that, becoming more animated as he described Scott causing the suit to become giant, like Gulliver--

And that was when the coughing fit started. He had been doing so good today with the cough drops too!

Dropping the string, he excused himself. He had a lot of horrible phlegm to choke up. It wasn't pretty.

[redrooms]

Well, that isn't concerning. Natasha gives him a moment or so, but when she doesn't hear the hacking subside, she follows him into the bathroom, hovering behind him. After a second, she rests a hand on his back, rubbing gently.

"Are you alright?"

[bottledblond]

Steve was pretty sure that he wasn't all right, but there's no blood in his cough just yet. "Doctor Watson told me to expect it to get worse," Steve mentioned, trying to straighten up without falling over. His knees felt weak and his forehead was clammy.

Speaking of Doctor Watson though...

Steve hadn't been able to read the remarks posted, even when people told him how because he couldn't figure it out. He just wasn't sure if mentioning his name to Nat would throw her off or not, though.

[redrooms]

"Expect what to get worse?" Natasha reaches out to steady him, one hand on each arm. Mentioning Watson doesn't really throw her off, because she's great at compartmentalizing, and that's an issue they can't do much about right now. "Are you sick, or is this something else?"

[bottledblond]

"He thinks it might be MN poisoning. And that... Whatever machines are in my blood... Aren't working right." It might be because they were too busy addressing the serum. Steve didn't have any real theories, just a lot of wet and watery coughing to put up with that had twice led to a asthma attack now.