barton (awcoffee) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-01-15 23:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | clint barton (hawkeye), yondu udonta |
Who: Yondu and Clint Barton
When: November
Where: Around the OC
What: Random run in, recognizing faces
Rating/Warning: PG (some cussing)
Status: Complete
Yondu Udonta was starving. He'd been on a stake out for half the day, running on nothing but coffee and the whiskey in his emergency flask he kept on him for situations like these. The ex-con he'd been waiting on had taken his sweet time coming out of his hideaway - a tiny apartment on the back end of a project on the worst side of town. Needless to say Yondu had to find a good way to stay inconspicuous from such a poor vantage point. The best way? Looking like he was homeless. His long overcoat and scraggly five clock shadow covering his craggy, weathered face made it easier than he had thought. It was just fighting over a bench with the only view of the apartment had been a pain - a real homeless guy claimed it was where he slept every day. Judging by what Yondu was able to see, he knew the guy preferred it due to all the action he could see coming from that window. After finally paying off the peeping Tom when bullying hadn't worked, Yondu waited and watched and wondered if Jessica got this bored more or less doing the same thing as a private eye.
When the parolee had emerged - via the fire escape as opposed to the front door - Yondu was able to pounce and collar the guy so fast he hadn't known what had hit him. Yondu hadn't even needed to engage the Yaka arrow.
All in all a good payday but damn was he hungry. He sat at the table of the In and Out burger joint nearly salivating over the burger, milkshake, and pile of fries he'd ordered. He grabbed the burger and lunged into a huge bite, growling with delight at finally getting some greasy sustenance. He was in the middle of his second bite when he spotted a young man he could swear looked like a young pup he used to arrest every now and then back in Missouri.
Nah, it couldn't be. Could it? He wrinkled his nose and stared, eyes trying to suss out his features.
“Clint Barton? That you?” He barked across the distance. Who gave a damn if he ended up wrong? Least that could happen was the guy ignoring him or saying he had the wrong person.
Adapting to California was taking a little while longer than Clint would like. Sure, he’d found an apartment, it was a little shitty and rundown, but they accepted dogs so that was enough for him, he’d managed to get his shit together enough to see a medical professional (as much as the woman on the networks contacts were legit) to be sure he wasn’t bleeding internally and all those bullets were definitely out of him.
But it wasn’t the exact same as picking up and moving state as it had been before, since he was trying to keep a low profile from potential blow back. Getting out on his own wasn’t hard, keeping from going to the easy shit was what was hard.
Hearing his name, a little tiny through the hearing aids and the noise in the joint -orders, cooking, chatting going on all around, almost had him flinching. But if someone was coming to shoot him, very unlikely that they’d alert him they were there and In and Out wasn’t the place to do it anyway. Which was what had him turning towards where he thought the noise came from. “Whu?”
Yep. That was definitely Clint Barton. Kid looked a little worse for wear from what he could gather.
“Barton!” Yondu hollered over the ruckus, one cheek puffed with food as he spoke. He raised his burger wielding hand to catch the young man's eye. He hadn't seen anyone from his old life considering Quill was in jail at the moment. He had to admit it felt good seeing a familiar face from the old days.
There had to be something said for the antics of Orange County; Clint wouldn’t have said that finding someone who used to bust you for jumping bail (and honestly, he’d only done it a few times when he needed to be somewhere just so that he could make the money to cover the bail) or when he’d just been busted for a minor B&E as a kid, but meeting that guy, years down the line, shouldn’t exactly be considered ‘friendly’.
Given that most people Clint knew from his past probably wanted to kill him right now, the bar was fairly low.
“Yo,” all he had was a coffee and some lukewarm fries by this point, so getting out of the way and slotting into some space where Udonta was -and Clint still had issues pronouncing that, but it was hardly the point. “Fancy seeing you again?” Hopefully not because Clint had any warrants out -fuck that would suck so much. He could always hedge his bets. His ribs were still healing and his jaw was mildly bruised, but he could probably still outrun a chase.
“Been a while, kid.” He gestured for Clint to take the empty seat across from him. Setting the burger down he wiped his hands and took a long sip from his soda. “The hell brings you to town? You're not gonna make an old man start runnin’ again are ya’?” It wasn't meant to sound grumpy or threatening, but Yondu couldn't help but try to act like he was suspicious just a little of the guy. He had fun making people squirm.
He bit into a cluster of fries, watching to see his reaction.
It was hard to not be a little on edge, since Clint wasn’t sure what information and passed on since he’d left Jacques behind, or if Jacques had even died. There was probably some trail of him at the scene, since he’d been there so much, and it wasn’t like he most certainly killed everyone -he hadn’t exactly been doing his best work what with the hole in his side and the broken ribs. But even if there was something flagged on him, he figured he might be able to make a case for it.
Cop killing didn’t exactly go over well with authorities, even just bounty hunters, so he didn’t think people would be weeping too much if Jacques had died from his injuries. “Jus’ checking out the area.” He was renting, not leasing, so he could bail if he needed to, even with Lucky making it a little harder to stay on the run if that was what happened.
“Not running anywhere.” He hoped. “Trying out some new things.” Although he wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to keep his nose clean.
“Ah.” That could mean a few things with Clint. “When'd you get into town?” If it was anything between October to now the guy was bound to have seen some of the weird stuff that had gone down in the OC.
At Clint's insistence he was being a good boy he quirked a brow. “Oh?” Yondu said around his hearty bite of his burger. “Like what? You get yourself a proper job?” He smirked to himself as if somehow that was amusing. But he was genuinely curious.
“Early last month.” And he was still figuring out if it was worth staying, because between Orange County being weird and the people being a-okay with odd dream states being shoved into their skulls like a shared hallucination going on, Clint wasn’t sure if this particular crazy train was one he wanted to partake in. “Still figuring this place out.”
Still figuring out if there was something in the water, if there was something in the air, that just made everyone insane in the same way. Which maybe was good for him. But who knew.
At the question about a proper job though, Clint just rubbed at the back of his head, “Define proper?” He hadn’t really looked for anything, and while he wasn’t busting into anywhere, he wasn’t exactly sure if he could go legit and find a ‘proper’ job.
“Hmm,” Yondu growled. “See any crazy stuff? This place has its moments. Ain't like good 'ole Missouri that's for sure.” It had been quite the transition for him, especially when things went sideways - and then REALLY sideways.
Yondu put down his burger and leaned back, sipping from his drink a moment before answering. “Proper. Like you not bustin’ into a bank and playin’ cops n robbers.”
There was crazy stuff and then there was crazy stuff, “You mean like the surfing dogs or this so called ‘Orange County Crazy’ that goes on? Heard about it, not seen anything.” People talked about stuff happening here, people dreaming things. Clint wasn’t sure what that was all about, but he was sticking to bottled water thank you very much.
“Hey, I never robbed any banks,” just a banker or two, and he’d never been caught. The small time shit he’d done with Barney, while they were young enough to not get hauled in to be charged was exactly that, small shit. “I haven’t even boosted a car since I got here.”
But then, going straight wasn’t exactly easy, or all the lucrative.
“The Orange County crazy.” Yondu replied. “Well then you’re lucky. So far.”
Yondu raised an eyebrow at Clint’s protest, then waved it off. “Whatever. Between you, your brother and Peter I couldn’t keep shit straight half the time. Speakin’ of, how is Barney?” He practically inhaled the last of his burger. Damn, he had to visit this place more often.
He had to laugh, though, when Clint said he hadn’t stolen any vehicles. “Really? Well damn, I should play lotto. Cuz I never thought I’d see the day.”
Finishing off his drink, Clint just frowned a little, lucky so far wasn’t exactly any kind of big whoop in his books. “I dunno,” he hadn’t thought about Barney in a fair while, considering they’d been thick as thieves as kids, he kind of understood Yondu asking -since Barney probably got them in more trouble than not. “I haven’t seen him in a while.” He hadn’t seen Barney since he was about eighteen, over ten years since he’d seen his brother.
And it was probably for the best, given the direction his life went on it’s own, without Barney’s help there.
“Law abiding citizen here, man.” Mostly, at least. “How long you been in Orange County anyway?”
“Huh.” Yondu grunted, stare lingering on Clint a moment while he wiped his hands on the pile of napkins he had, as if trying to suss out how they had parted ways when they’d been inseparable in their youth. Shit happens, though, so he just shrugged. “Well I hope so. Cuz I got enough work runnin’ after criminals these days. Decided to try out bein’ a bounty hunter. Retirement didn’t stick.” He winked. “Been here just over a year now.”
“Like sitting still would be up your alley.” Some people weren’t suited to retirement, and he could see it for Yondu -too much action all the time, just going to the quiet life and fishing? Like that would settle him at all.
Although it did raise a few questions in Clint’s head as to if there would be a time that Yondu would get his name for something he’d done or not. “So all this apparent crazy stuff around here hasn’t chased you off?” If it got as bad as people said… why stay?
Yondu let out a hearty laugh. “Yeah, ain’t that the truth. Don’t know how my buddies back in Missouri can stand it.” He leaned back into his chair, folding his hands onto his stomach. He couldn’t exactly explain to Clint that the human he saw before him wasn’t actually real, that he’d been changed physically by the dreams into an alien, and that with that change he had technology that actually made half the crazy shit that happened in the OC kinda...fun. He could be himself and use the Yaka arrow with abandon, because really, was a blue alien whistling an arrow through Orcs or Stormtroopers or in the midst of a zombie horde really going to stick out when everyone’s focus was going to be on said Orcs, soldiers and zombies?
“Nah.” he replied with a dismissive wave. “Anything, it’s kinda exciting. Keeps things interesting.”
Interesting. He guessed that was one word for it.
Maybe in the midst of everything that was interesting, Clint could get away with the odd fuck up or two, could escape the scrutiny the would usually follow his usual professional choices. Then again, it wasn’t like Orange County didn’t still have a police force. “I guess I could do with interesting.”
But if he got caught up in this brand of crazy, made his usual brand of crazy would die down. “For a while at least.” And one familiar face, former arrests aside, wasn’t a bad thing.