(mw) log: clint/sam WHO: Clint Barton and Sam Winchester WHEN: Way backdated to when Clint got here (like a month ago, oops) WHERE: The gym! WHAT: Clint and Sam meet, talk about Kate, that kinda shit. WARNINGS: N/A
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"So, you're The Boyfriend."
The way Clint said it, the capital letters were audible.
Clint Barton was Kate Bishop's person. They weren't related, they weren't exes. They were friends, but it was something that went beyond friends. He could have called her his protege and said he was her mentor, but that wasn't right, either. She was just as good as he was, and she had way more of her crap together. He loved her. He admired her. He thought she was pretty much perfect. But he didn't want to sleep with her, whatever that meant.
Clint was almost as tall as Sam and built like an acrobat, and he wore ripped jeans and a t-shirt. He had blond hair, he needed a shave, and it looked like someone had opened up a box of bandaids and just stuck them on whatever exposed skin they could find. He wore two large hearing aids, light purple and obvious.
They'd settled at the gym, which was quiet for the time being, and Clint leaned back against the wall with a little smirk. "Hi, Boyfriend."
--
Sam, truthfully, was way out of his depth here. He had done the boyfriend thing before, but it had been a long time ago, and pretty much literally a different lifetime. He had a general idea of how important Kate and Clint were to each other, but didn’t actually know very much about Clint as a person.
He was intrigued, and also a little intimidated.
Even though he was slightly taller, he had a way of holding himself that made him look smaller. Literally, in some ways: he slouched, his shoulders slumped. But also, his expression and temperament gave the impression of being mild and gentle, which took another few inches off his height. It wasn’t entirely misleading.
The corner of his mouth quirked up, as he leaned against the wall nearby, absentmindedly pushing at a hanging punching bag with his fingertips so that it swung back and forth just a little bit. “Is that my nickname now? Is this a thing where you only call me by my name once you’ve decided I can stay?”
--
Clint was watching Sam carefully. It probably looked intimidating, or at least a little unsettling, until it was obvious that he was watching Sam's lips. The hearing aids only did so much. Really, they took the guesswork out of the lipreading.
He laughed, raising an eyebrow. "I don't tell Katie what to do," he said. "And I don't think she's ever approved of my love life. My approval's not really necessary, you're probably a real catch if she lets you stick around."
Still, he felt protective. Kate was still his, and he'd missed out on a year of her life here. He just wandered on in and she had a whole new life that had nothing to do with him. He wanted to know who this guy was, wanted to know who she'd gotten tangled up with. Maybe he felt a little left behind. That wasn't anyone's fault, but it was still jarring as hell.
--
“Good to know.” Sam hadn’t really expected that approval was necessary, but at the same time, he had a feeling that Clint’s opinion mattered to Kate regardless. It didn’t worry him, exactly, but… he still wanted them to get along. It was really nice that Kate did so well with Dean and Cas (and now Jo and Bobby), and it would be even nicer if that went both ways. Knowing what Clint’s perspective was on this particular interrogation was helpful, when it came to figuring out what to expect from this conversation.
He shrugged slightly, and spread his hands. “I’m not good at talking about myself, but anyone that matters to Kate - I’m an open book. No interrogation required.”
--
"Fair enough." Clint seemed easygoing, somewhere between being genuinely chilled out and just being exhausted, weighed down by crap in his personal life. Of course he was tired now, considering where he'd ended up, but alternate universes were kind of old hat to him. He didn't like them, but they weren't completely unfathomable.
"Let's keep it honest. I ask you something, you answer, then you ask me something. Even exchange of info? And I don't need details about what you do with her or to her, 'cause wow. No."
--
“Sounds like a deal.” Sam smiled a little, wryly. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t have given you details even if you’d asked for them.”
--
Clint raked a hand back through his hair, taking a brief moment to adjust one of his hearing aids. He still wasn't used to how they felt; he hadn't worn hearing aids in years and they just felt like plastic bricks on his ears now. "Your, uh. Uncle? Friend? I'm rooming with him. He warned me not to mess with all the magical marks he's got drawn all over the place. You know anything about that?"
--
Surprise registered on Sam’s face - that definitely wasn’t the first question he’d been expecting. Then he looked amused. “Bobby? Yeah, he’s my - adoptive uncle, basically. His wards are for keeping out monsters. Demons, angels, that kind of thing. We hunt them, usually. At home.”
He was aware that it was his turn to ask a question, and he really didn’t know where to start. He hadn’t intended to mention the hearing aids, it didn’t seem polite, especially when Clint appeared to be able to understand him just fine. But when he messed with them, Sam said, “Are you hearing me okay?”
--
Demons. Angels. That kind of thing.
Well, it could be weirder. Clint had seen a lot, and it was kind of a trademark of the people in his world that they weren't freaked out by much. He felt sometimes like he'd seen the weirdest of the weird, for sure. If Bobby wanted to keep demons and angels out of their place, he wasn't about to complain.
"Ah—" Clint's response to the question was a little roll of his eyes as he gestured to his ears. "No."
He was being a smartass. He didn't know what Kate had told Sam, or how much Sam knew. "No, I'm not," he said, a little more seriously. "But that's how it is, I'm not going to hear you okay. I'll hear you, kind of." Without the hearing aids, he heard almost nothing. With them, he got just enough that reading lips was much, much easier.
"So, you … hunt angels?" Nobody hunted angels. "Or demons, anyway. Monsters. That's what you do?"
--
So far as Sam could remember, Kate hadn’t covered this part. Or maybe she had, but he’d been paying more attention to everything that was relevant to her. He hadn’t been listening to her stories in order to figure out what Clint was like, after all.
“Sorry,” he said. “I- uh, I took an ASL class once, but I don’t remember much of it. Otherwise I’d offer to switch to that. But you’re getting what I’m saying, so…”
He took a deep breath. “Uh, yeah. Monster hunter. That’s my job.”
--
Clint waved a dismissive hand when Sam offered ASL. His own ASL was rusty as hell, and while he knew he needed the practice he was pretty sure they weren't going to understand one another. He could read Sam's lips, and the hearing aids helped enough that it took out the guesswork.
So he grinned when Sam confirmed that he was a monster hunter. "Badass? What kinds of monsters?" he asked, intensely interested. He could appreciate anyone without superpowers who went and took on the world. He and Kate were two of those people.
--
Sam shrugged. “All kinds,” he said. “Anything that decided to poke its head out of the dark and hurt someone. And in my world, there were an awful lot of them. A hundred different flavors of spooky and scary, looking for blood and gore or the end of the world.”
--
Clint had worried that Kate had nabbed herself someone boring. Not that boring was bad. Safe was good, but he had a feeling that Katie wouldn't have liked safe for very long. She needed a person who'd seen some shit, someone who'd been through some stuff, who knew how to get going when the going got tough.
Sam seemed like that kind of guy.
"So you know what Katie does?" he asked, knowing the question was unnecessary. Of course Sam knew. "Greatest sharpshooter known to man, except for me, but sometimes better? Avenger? Takes down badguys, goes toe-to-toe against assholes with superpowers even though she doesn't have any? You know all that, or you should."
It wasn't his turn to ask a question, but Sam hadn't offered one, so he kept on going.
--
“Yeah.” Sam smiled, a softer and warmer expression than any he’d worn yet since meeting Clint. It was affectionate, but also a little proud and wistful. He had seen what Kate could do, including when she’d kicked his ass that time he’d turned into a demon, and he still never failed to be amazed by her strength, and bravery, and determination. “Yeah, I know all that.”
He’d already mostly forgotten about the questions; he’d expected this interrogation to be mostly one-sided, anyway. He knew more about Clint than the other way around, to begin with. He would eventually ask more, probably, but for the moment it seemed better to follow the conversation wherever Clint wanted it to go.
--
Clint spoke of her like he was a proud parent or big brother, more than a friend but not a boyfriend, someone who had absolute adoration for her. Kate was his person, as far as he was concerned. He wasn't perfect and he didn't always take care of her the way she needed, but he loved her. If she was going to be with some guy, it needed to be some guy who knew how to appreciate her as much as he himself knew how to appreciate her.
Except that guy had to want to sleep with her, too, because Clint didn't want to do that.
"Good," he said. "You should know that, and remember that. Not that she'll let you forget, and she'll chew your ass out if you try and treat her like a damsel. She can be a real spoiled brat sometimes, but … ain't her fault. People born with silver spoons in their mouths will eventually grow out of it, most of the time."
--
Sam grinned, in spite of himself, because it was true - she’d already reminded him multiple times. He almost wanted to laugh, but he didn’t, because he didn’t want that to be interpreted the wrong way.
“No, it’s a good thing,” he said. “That she got to have - a life. A real choice between that and being a hero. And she decided to be a hero.” There was real and obvious admiration for her in his voice when he spoke. He’d always liked that about Kate - that she’d overcome her pain by fighting, trying to stop other people from hurting too. It was something they had in common. “I promise, I’m not going to forget that anytime soon.”
--
Clint and Kate couldn't have come from more different backgrounds. Clint grew up poor, Kate grew up rich, and somehow they met in the middle being Hawkeye. It took a certain kind of person who was crazy enough to go up against the big bads with a couple sticks and some string.
"She told you she just took the name, right?" He snorted. "I've been Hawkeye for years. I mean, years. She and her upstart pals — Billy, Teddy, those guys — they make their own little squad and she's like, sure, Hawkeye sounds like a great name."
He started to grin. "Better than Asgardian, though, right? Billy used to call himself Asgardian." He snickered. "Ass Guardian."
--
Sam smiled crookedly. “You must’ve made it look good,” he said. “Being a Hawkeye. Being an Avenger.” He took a deep breath. “In a way I was the opposite. I was raised to hunt, and didn’t want it. But… came back around to it. And that’s a very long story.”
He smiled a little. “Stick around long enough and I’ll probably tell it.”
--
Clint pulled himself away from the wall and reached out, giving Sam a solid little smack on the shoulder. "Lucky for you, I'm not going anywhere," he said with a grin. "Which means, give it a few weeks, and I want all-out storytime."
They didn't know each other yet. Clint was more or less an open book, but he knew most people were a little more choosy about who got to know things. Sam seemed like good people, he didn't seem like he was hiding any skeletons in his closet that Kate wouldn't have uncovered.
It didn't stop Clint from feeling like an overprotective big brother. Kate probably would hate that.
"So, uh. Male bonding. You wanna see if you can kick my ass, or what? —The answer's yes, by the way. Yes, you can definitely kick my ass."
--
“Good,” Sam said, meaning it. So far, he liked Clint. There was definitely a protective big brother vibe about him, but that was to be expected -- and, frankly, it made him feel even a little bit more comfortable. He knew how the protective older brother thing worked.
He laughed. “Kate can kick my ass,” he said, amused. “If she can kick yours, too - then we might be fairly even.”
--
"Katie's always kickin' my ass," said Clint.
He liked to make the excuse that he was an archer with acrobatics training, that he stayed away from the fight and didn't need extensive martial arts training — and for years, that was the case, until he spent some time as a ninja, and it turned out that ninjas needed to be better at fighting stuff (who knew).
"You look like you're a guy who fights dirty. Am I wrong?"
--
“No,” Sam answered, vaguely amused. “You’re not wrong.”
He pushed away from the wall a little bit, and spread his hands in a peaceful gesture. He wasn’t really invested in sparring, but willing, if that was what Clint wanted to do. “I usually save my dirtiest tricks for monsters, but I can show you a few if you want.”
--
Sparring was how superheroes said hello.
It was kind of a stupid thing, when you really thought about it. Sam might have been a fighter who fought dirty, but he wasn't itching to beat the crap out of his girlfriend's friend, either, and Clint could only read that as a good sign.
"Tell you what," he said. "Let's say you don't beat up my pretty face, and you get the new guy a drink, instead?"
--
Sam grinned. He leaned over and gave Clint’s shoulder a firm, friendly pat. “Sounds like a good plan to me.”