InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Technically it's a ferret. "

scott. (iburgle) wrote in avengers_logs,
@ 2019-07-25 10:53:00

Entry tags:

-complete, clint barton, scott lang

Who: Scott Lang and Clint Barton
What: Dad bros being dad bros
When: After the time jump
Where: Clint's apartment
Rating: Green
Status: Complete

The jump forward in time hadn’t been all that disruptive for Scott considering all the time traveling he’d done in the past few months. It hadn’t taken much more adjusting than oh, it’s 2023 again? Okay. Cassie’s sweet little voice had been exchanged for the more mature, teenaged one over the phone, but that was mostly it for Things That Had Changed. And he couldn’t even be that disappointed: before arriving in this universe, he’d thought he’d missed out on those years permanently. This small window of time had been a gift, and he was happy to have had it instead of sad that it had ended.

Especially when he considered Clint was missing out completely. Which was kind of horrible for him to think, and he’d immediately felt guilty when the thought crossed his mind. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be here without his family, knowing they just simply didn’t exist.

It wouldn’t surprise him if Clint was mourning, more or less. He certainly didn’t seem himself - well, at least not like the Clint he’d come to know in his universe - and that gave Scott extra motivation to drop in unannounced. Well, mostly unannounced. He’d texted first. You know, outside his door. “Hey. Did you eat? I brought pizza. And beer.” Because if he was going to enable the drinking to get his foot in the door, it wasn’t going to be with the hard stuff.

Texting helped. Former assassins tended to get jumpy about unexpected knocks at the door. "Hey Short Stuff," he said, pulling open the door. "I can eat, come on in."

It was nice to Scott. Natasha and Wanda were the only friendly faces he saw these days. He'd always liked Scott and until Morgan's recent arrival, as the only parents in their crazy world they'd had a bond. Clint was glad Scott brought beer.

Clint's space was sparse and impersonal. Clint led Scott to the couch, where they could throw the food down onto the coffee table. "How you doing? How's the future?"

“Pretty much the same as I left it,” Scott confessed, unloading the meal and drinks onto the coffee table without much hesitation. It was his first time in the apartment, but he still felt secure enough in their friendship - the one he’d forged in the other universe, anyway - to make himself comfortable.

The bare walls and minimalist interior design told him that Clint’s family hadn’t materialized with the time jump, so he didn’t ask. Instead, he parked himself on the couch and removed two of the beers from the cardboard sleeve. “Found out there’re a couple of seasons of Veep that weren’t around when I came back, so that’s cool.” Using one bottle as leverage for the other, he popped off the cap of the first and handed it to the other man.

"Final season of The Good Place is on Netflix. Future's not all bad." Clint sipped from the beer and flipped open the pizza box. He should ask how Scott's girl Cassie was doing but he didn't think he had it in him to have another conversation about how his family had yet to make an appearance. Instead he settled for something safer. "How's Hope doing?"

“She’s good, man, thanks.” The subject of families was a little touch and go, Scott knew, but he couldn’t imagine that Clint would want to be handled with kid gloves. He wouldn’t talk the guy’s ear off, or anything, but he’d be remiss if he didn’t at least mention their upcoming nuptials. “We’re, uh. Getting married in August. End of August, sometime. You should come.”

And that was where he’d leave it, because he didn’t want his friend to be too heavily reminded of his missing wife.

“Is that the show about the girl who’s in heaven but doesn’t belong there? The Good Place?” He helped himself to a piece of pizza. “I feel like I started watching it before I got into close-up magic. But close-up magic is way more time consuming than you’d think.”

“Hell yeah, I’ll be there,” Clint whooped. “Congratulations, man. That’s great. Must be something in the water lately, everybody’s getting married.” Clint raised his beer in salute.

“And yeah, that’s the show. It’s great. I think it has the edge on close-up magic. Not that I can complain.” Clint set down his beer, waved a hand, and produced a quarter from thin air.

Scott clinked his bottle against Clint’s in silent thanks, grinning somewhat bashfully at the other man’s enthusiasm. He wasn’t the type to make a big deal of things, but this was something he didn’t mind making a deal out of. The congratulations was appreciated.

As was the materializing of the quarter. Scott laughed, both pleasantly surprised and highly amused that they shared this skill. “No way, this is great,” he said, doing the same little move with one of the stray bottle caps. “Can you throw cards, too? I’m still working on that. Better at the pickpocketing side of it.”

Clint gave Scott that clearly translated to have you met me? “I can throw anything not nailed down. I used to know some card tricks but it’s been years and I’ve mostly forgotten them. I like coins though. I’m bad at sitting around a quarter gives me something to do.” He passed the coin through his fingers.

“That’s pretty much how I ended up at Online Close-Up Magic University.” It had the added benefit of amusing Cassie, but honestly he’d just found himself with a lot of time on his hands. That was house arrest for you, he supposed.

House arrest when you had the maturity level of a twelve year old, anyway.

Scott stood from the couch, intrigued by his friend’s claim that he could throw anything. Not that he doubted it, necessarily - he was more driven by wanting to see it in action somewhere that wasn’t a German airport. “All right,” he said, scouring the kitchen for a cup, and set it on the counter there. “Quarter in the glass. But you gotta stay on the couch.”

“I don’t understand why people think I’m bad at this,” Clint said with a shake of his head. “Do you need me to call my shot too? Nine ball in the corner pocket?” Clint tipped his head backward to look at the cup. From that position, body still facing forward, Clint pitched the quarter toward the counter in a reverse hook shot. He didn’t look to see if it went in and was already reaching for a slice of pizza when the coin went clink.

Scott let out a triumphant sort of holler that dissolved into laughter as he dumped the quarter back into his hand. “Over the shoulder and everything, shit.” He wandered back to the couch - to his own abandoned slice of pizza - and plopped down. “I gotta bring a deck of cards next time. You can show me your ways, I'll teach you some tricks. You know, expand your portfolio.”

“I may not have any superpowers but I do have excellent eyesight and above average hand-eye coordination.” Clint chewed on his pizza and washed it down with beer. “Or we can just play poker.”

“Or we can just play poker. But I gotta warn you.. this?” He motioned to his face - stony, serious. “Pretty hard to read.” Which might have been believable if he didn’t immediately break into a grin. “I’m kidding. I’m an open book--we’d have to play with pennies or I’d go broke.”

“You can fix that, you know,” Clint advised. “Three days holed up in an Eastern European safehouse playing gin rummy with Natasha Romanoff clears that right up.”

“Sounds terrifying,” Scott said, letting out a chuckle and taking another swig of his beer. Not that he found Natasha terrifying.. but he’d always thought that there was a certain intensity there that might make three days in a safehouse a little stressful. Unless you were Clint, he guessed. “And like a lot of work for a poker face. Wouldn’t you rather just come to my apartment every week and fleece me?”

"Hey, if you want me to take your money, I'm happy to oblige. In the meantime, work on your poker face. Like this." Clint let his face go stony, a blank expression but somehow unhappy expression most often compared to a grumpy cat.

Instead of making an earnest attempt at the kind of face Clint was - or was not, in this case - pulling, Scott threw on an overly enthusiastic and mildly confused sort of smile. “This? I’m close, I can feel it.” He chuckled, trading the goofy expression for something softer and more earnest. “I’ll workshop it later. Let’s eat, we can watch the Good Place.”