InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Evil Chin-Rat!"

şçąŗɭęţ (witchiest) wrote in avengers_logs,
@ 2019-01-01 19:30:00

Entry tags:

-complete, clint barton, wanda maximoff

Who: Clint & Wanda
What: Meeting for an update and a chat
When: Today?
Where: A delish pizza place
Rating: Green
Status: Complete

Wanda liked pizza, and New York? Well, it was one of the best places in the United States to find pizza. She figured it would be a good meeting spot, when she asked Clint to see her - a meeting between them was a long time overdue; she had a lot to update him on, and she wondered how he was adjusting here. Without his family.

For the last Clint, a different version of him, she worried. She worried a lot.

One of the more popular pizzerias nearby was usually hell around lunchtime, but lulled to near-sedation in the late afternoon. She showed up around 2:00, still smelling the yeast and oregano from the flurry of business they’d done for the lunch crowd. The interior was a red and white checkered motif, and it reminded her of those old-timey places in a more ‘retro’ America, when poodle skirts and milkshakes were a thing. Or more of a ‘thing’ than skinny jeans and overpriced latte’s these days.

She ordered a lemonade and waited in a booth for Clint; it was a window seat so she gazed outside, keeping the plastic-laminated menu closed for now. Deciding on what she wanted could wait until he got here.

Clint was late but it wasn’t long before a purple knit cap appeared in the window and a jingle of the bell above the door announced his presence. Clint stamped the cold from his bones at the entrance. It had been summer for him only a few weeks ago, the grass in the back field as tall as Nate. Thrown suddenly into winter, he seemed to feel the chill more.

Clint paused, breathing in the familiar smell of grease and cheese. Back when he lived in New York, he ate at places like this practically three days a week. He’d spotted Wanda when he walked in and he headed over to her, tugging off his hat and shoving it into his coat pocket. “Hey Wanda. How you doing?” The lines around his eyes crinkled into a smile but the laugh lines on his cheeks were hidden under a heavy layer of stubble.

“I am fine,” she smiled, perking up a little when Clint joined her. The smile was genuine, even, since he was one of the few people she trusted and felt comfortable around - her collection of framed photos had made the trip to another universe, surviving that journey, and one was of his youngest child, Nathaniel. Pietro’s namesake - well, middle name. It was nice to have that connection to her brother, somehow - and she knew Pietro would have been smug about the name choice but also secretly pleased.

She sipped on her lemonade, auburn hair falling to frame her face - she pushed it back, tucking the errant strands behind her ears. “You? I was...worried. I know it is difficult being here and feeling lost, without family.”

Clint exhaled hard against his teeth. “Wanda,” he sighed, settling heavily into his chair. “Going right to it.” A protest wasn’t an answer so it was a relief when a server came over to take his drink order. Clint asked for a beer and looked at Wanda like maybe she’d have moved on from the question.

That was a good try, but no. Wanda just waited patiently for the server to leave - she ordered another lemonade, since she was rapidly going through this current one. “Clint,” she repeated his name, in a similar fashion, only hers came with an expectant eyebrow raise. “You have always looked out for me. It’s only fair I do the same.”

Adjusting the sleeves of her red sweater, she leaned back against the booth behind her. The menu was pushed toward her companion, so he could decide on what he wanted to eat - a good meal always helped make things better, at least for a little while.

There were a few spare straws on the table and Clint reached for one, spinning it through his fingers. “But you haven’t told me what’s going on with you. I haven’t seen you and you’ve seen, I think, several mes. What’s the news, Wanda?”

“I’ve only seen one other you,” Wanda replied. And she was pretty certain that ‘other Clint’ started sleeping with Natasha a week or so after arriving - but she wasn’t about to ask if that was the case now. At least not until Clint had some food in front of him. “The news is that I got here and moved into the Sanctum, and Doctor Strange has been tutoring me. I’m a waitress at a vegan cafe and I started to go on dates with Bucky.”

Oh, and she also got turned to dust and blown off to beneath orange skies and a landscape that was straight from nightmares, in the sense that she could hear everything, her powers amplified, the energy of the world within the soul stone...dangerous. She was glad to be gone but she and Stephen had tried to make it as comfortable as possible for the others there - she would see to it they escaped eventually, all of them. Then there was the battle in Wakanda - the silver lining being it turned out better than it did in her dreams.

“No questions yet, I want to hear about you next. And also order something,” she insisted, gently but still. Quit being stubborn, Barton. The server had just materialized and was now there, waiting to see what they wanted.

Clint raised his eyebrows into a pointed look but he ordered a couple of slices: a white and an all-meat. “I do have follow-up questions. We’ll come back to you. I’m…” he shrugged and waved a hand. “I’m here. I was home in the summer and now in New York at Christmas. I’ve seen some strange stuff in my life. This alternate universe might be the strangest.”

It was one slice of cheese and one slice of pepperoni for her. Once their orders were taken, there was a ghost of a smile on Wanda’s face because, yes, she assumed that Clint would have follow-up questions. No mindreading necessary and besides, she didn’t do that to her teammates anyway. Especially not to those she was closest to, and considered good friends.

She could still sense him though, his presence and his mental signature and whether he was warm or cold, things like that - that was just how things worked with her, even without digging deep into a person’s thoughts. “It is very strange,” she agreed. “Sometimes we have dreams about what happens in another universe - dreams of the future, perhaps? But...some things remain the same no matter where we are.”

Pietro was still dead, a fact that weighed her down with its grief everyday. But Vision was alive (he was ‘powered down,’ but alive) so that was one bright spot.

“I do think your family is safe. You will see them again one day.”

Clint had left his family more times than he could count. SHIELD, then the Avengers all pulled him away. But he had never vanished. When Cooper was born, Clint made a promise to himself that his kid would never wake up not knowing where his father was. It was probably the orphan in Clint that felt that way. Even if he left suddenly in an emergency, Clint never left without saying goodbye. Now he was gone. Torn away by some cruel trick of a science fiction universe.

Clint had a drink of his beer. “Yeah,” he traced his thumb across the beading on the glass. “You’re probably right.”

“Did Dr. Strange explain it all?” Wanda asked, head tilting slightly. “It is basically...you are here and this is what you know now but they don’t even know you are gone. Some kind of time-splitting thing happened, when he saved the world.” Then there was Thanos to contend with - but those who had been turned to dust escaped here, which meant even after it happened elsewhere they would find a way out.

None of it seemed especially fair, but that was life. It was like they hardly ever got a break. She also didn’t know if there was any point in bringing up Thanos, when Clint was already missing his family - but then again, Thanos would return one day. So it would be discussed eventually - just not right now, maybe. “Apparently Pietro was here once too,” she shared, looking down into her lemonade. “But he’s not anymore.”

Clint wasn’t sure if time stopped in his old life or if that timeline ceased to exist. Neither were appealing options to think about. Her addition caught his attention though. “How?” he started and then stopped. It didn’t really matter. He wasn’t the only one hurt by this. He wasn’t that special. For a moment Clint could see Pietro in those last moments in Sokovia, before the boy’s legs collapsed beneath him. Punk. He’d have made one hell of a hero.

He reached over to rest his hand on Wanda’s wrist. “I’m sorry, Wanda.”

Wanda missed him everyday. It was difficult, because she never really got to grieve for her brother - and a part of her still blamed herself for his death. Her anger, her need for revenge, had driven them both to do what they did and the way her anger used to radiate off of her - she may as well have killed Pietro herself.

“Thank you - I am sorry too. Sorry you’re without your family,” her hand patted Clint’s. “It can feel very lonely and confusing. But I’m here for you.” She couldn’t fix everything, or pretend like it was all fine and well, but she was here.

“Thanks.” Clint gave her an appreciative smile over his beer. “So vegan food.” Clint’s familiarity with vegan food was limited to black coffee. “And Bucky. How’s that going?”

“I don’t always eat vegan food,” Wanda laughed a little - no, she was definitely carnivorous sometimes. Plus she enjoyed cheese and other dairy too much to really give them up. “The cafe makes some good desserts though. It was just the restaurant closest to where I am living that was hiring, so I can walk to and from work.” She hadn’t mastered Stephen’s portals, using those as a way to travel - she didn’t have a sling ring, for one thing - so she’d have to go about it the old-fashioned way. “I would like to attend school eventually. College classes. I want to study something I enjoy.” She’d be a little older than the average student, but that was okay.

As for Bucky, her cheeks flushed pink - it was unable to be helped. “We have a lot in common,” she smiled. They did - lots of guilt, former tools of HYDRA, that sort of thing. “He’s very sweet.”

“I like dessert. Maybe I’ll come by and see you sometime.” Clint had to bite back a comment about how Bucky had better be sweet. She didn’t need him to do that. No matter how much he looked out for her, Clint wasn’t her father and even if he was, it still wasn’t his place. Wanda wasn’t an object to protect. Clint tried to think what he’d do in another ten years when it was Lila. Hopefully the same thing. And Lila would at least know the soft fleshy places to hit someone since she couldn’t tear someone into atomic dust the way Wanda could. But Wanda seemed happy. She was at a good age and place for it. Clint had been just a little older than she was now when he started running around New York City with Laura. Best time of his life.

“Long as you’re happy. You deserve that. And you should go to school, I think that’s great. You’d be good at that.”

Clint was sweet too, in a different way - he was always good at encouraging her, especially when she felt down in the dumps. He also was a great father to his children and it hurt Wanda as well, that he couldn’t be with them now. Maybe there was a way - she’d do whatever she could to help. Talk to Stephen, perhaps. They could brainstorm.

“I am happy,” she nodded. “And I’m happy you’re here. We can be there for each other.” She could always help make sure he didn’t drink himself into a black hole, right? “And whenever you come by the cafe, I’ll have some vegan pie for you.” Cornflower blue eyes twinkled at that, a bit of amusement to lift the spirits.

But then their pizza slices arrived, and food always helped lift the spirits a little too. “Now eat up,” she encouraged. “New York pizza is supposed to be the best.”