InsaneJournal

Who: Wanda Maximoff & Clint Barton
What: Long overdue reuinion
When: After this
Rating/Warnings: Green

Not normally anti-social Clint Barton had in fact been keeping himself to himself. He was, of course, talking to the people he wanted to talk to but at the same time he wasn’t really feeling like throwing himself back in wholeheartedly yet, not while some wounds were still too fresh to just act like nothing had happened.

Like always he thought better from a distinct height so he’d taken to finding perches that allowed him the vantage point he appreciated, especially as it wasn’t somewhere to get too comfortable if what the good Doctor had told him was true. Plus flying sharks, that in itself was enough to tell Clint that letting his guard down was not advisable.

Currently, he was perched atop of his shitty motel roof, cigarette in hand and smoke escaping him in a breath out.

Wanda landed gracefully behind him, her booted feet barely making a sound on the asphalt of the rooftop. The magenta glow disappeared from around her hands as she settled her weight, backpack on her shoulder containing the package that she had found upon her arrival in New York City.

She had wandered around for a while, trying to locate Clint’s mind amongst the buzz of the city. She’d ended up isolating a particular city block and then finally down to where he was precisely.

She could see the smoke curling up around his head and as she saw him sitting there, breathing and okay, she felt a knot release in her chest. He probably already knew she was there, but she reached out and nudged his mind with hers anyway before she spoke, standing still and wringing her hands together, twisting one of the rings she wore on her fingers anxiously as she waited for him to respond.

“Clint.”

Clint was pretty impossible to sneak up on, Natasha excluded, so when Wanda made her approach he was aware. Not one to be overly emotional even though truth be told he had been worried, especially as they’d been separated. He’d promised to keep her safe and he definitely hadn’t done that, but it wasn’t like he could have predicted Dr Stephen Strange.

He exhaled smoke and flicked his cigarette away until it vanished over the side of the building. Then and only then did he turn and offer Wanda a warm smile.

“Took you long enough,” he teased.

Wanda tilted her head at him, eyes having tracked the cigarette, her expression openly relieved that he was there and that he was acknowledging her. She did not fully understand what had happened but she had concerns. Something very wrong had happened, something that had supplanted her not only in space but in something else as well. The whole world just felt off. She had no words to describe it. It just felt incorrect.

“Well, it is not easy to travel instantaneously halfway around the world,” she remarked dryly, wringing her fingers together, standing on the outside of her boots, barely stopping herself from fidgeting on the spot. “What happened? I saw you this morning when I left the house. And now I am here.”

Clint snorted. “I’m gonna take your word on that.” He rose to his feet and closed the distance so he could assess her more closely, to make sure she was okay and definitely in one piece.

“You haven’t met the good Doctor yet?”

If she had she definitely would know what this was all about. “Turns out our universe was in danger of being devoured by another and he worked his magic to stop it from happening but it resulted in this-” Clint gestured around. “A branched off universe off the,” cue the air-quotes, “main universe.” He probably wasn’t explaining it very well but admittedly he’d drifted off after a while.

“You okay?”

“So how long have you been here?” Wanda asked, curiosity and concern in her eyes as she stepped a little closer to him. She didn’t know what had happened to her, or to him, and even as he explained it made little sense. A timeline had broken? She thought she had a good grasp of English, but that did not make sense to her.

She curled her arms around herself. “I’m okay,” she answered, “confused and tired but I am unharmed- if that is your question?”

Was everything different here? Was Laura still gone? She could have found out the answer herself but she had promised Clint that she would stay out of his head as much as she could; he understood sometimes that her nightmares got the better of her, though, and that she couldn’t control what happened when she was asleep.

“A little while,” Clint shared. “Long enough to know that while this universe might be split off not a lot has changed.” He knew he definitely hadn’t explained things well so he was definitely going to tell Wanda to speak to Strange herself as that guy went and broke shit so he could explain it.

He tipped his head. “You wanna head downstairs? You look like you could do with some sleep.”

Wanda clicked her tongue, “You know how to give a girl a compliment,” but it was true, she was tired. Travelling across the world in an instant and walking around all day searching the minds around her for Clint’s presence was exhausting. Tomorrow, she would go and speak to this Doctor Strange, and then she would investigate her own dwellings.

“There was a package at my feet,” she said, slinging the bag around and drawing out the room key, holding it out to Clint. “In the morning, maybe, I can find it?”

Clint rolled his eyes. “It’s a little early to be busting my balls.” He took a hold of the room key that Wanda was holding out to him and slung an arm around her neck, comfortable and relaxed enough in her presence to do that. He wasn’t exactly a non-demonstrative person after all.

“In the morning we’ll dig out the package,” he agreed.

He was expecting it to be the standard welcome wagon but there might be some surprises in there that he wasn’t aware of.

Wanda’s arm slid around Clint’s waist and she immediately leaned into him, tiling her head to the side and resting against his shoulder. For a brief moment, as he led her inside, things were right with the world, or as right as they could be with that nagging wrongness hanging over her head.