nurse_temple (nurse_temple) wrote in chances_rpg, @ 2021-11-15 17:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | marvel comics: clint barton, ~ex mcu: claire temple |
Who: Claire Temple and Clint Barton
What: Off-duty visit
When: Saturday morning
Where: Claire’s apartment
Warnings: Moderate? Probably mentions of violence
Status: Closed/Complete
Things had at least slowed down since Halloween, but that wasn’t saying life was anything less than chaotic for the night nurse. It was especially worse when you had a goddamn turkey following you wherever you went- one that had a mouth on it to boot. Just when she thought she’d dealt with it all, too.
She was tired. It was almost 6am and she was finally stumbling to her apartment to get some sleep, digging for her keys in her bag in the hopes that she wouldn’t wake up Daisy when she stumbled in. Not that her roommate was anything less than understanding, but there was a reason Claire lived alone back where she came from. Her odd hours didn’t make her the most ideal roommate.
She’d just stuck the key in the lock when she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye and froze, reaching into her jacket pocket where she always kept her pepper spray. Just in case.
"Okay," Clint said as he rounded the end of the hallway with a pronounced limp, hands raised and haphazardly bandaged, "this looks bad."
And he knew it did. Felt bad too.
He could barely see out of his left eye, and if he kept his arm wrapped around his stomach then the air didn't feel as crunchy when he breathed in and out. Didn't much keep him from looking like a hot mess, though. His bloodied lips quirked a wry expression. Not quite a smile, because nothing about this was funny, but it was mostly the irony of the situation that made the whole thing absurd. "You said you could help, right?"
He was lucky. Did he know how lucky he was? Because Claire was exhausted and honestly, she wasn’t really in the mood for super-hero bullshit, but she knew it was a matter of time before it came around again. Seeing the guy limp around the corner, she pulled her hand out of her pocket and sighed, looking him over.
“How many taxis ran you over?” She sounded tired when she said it, shoulders falling. Beside her the bird gobbled and she shot it a glare before turning back to nod at Clint.
“You can come in, but you have to be quiet.”
With that, Claire opened the door to step into the apartment, setting her bag down on the couch along with her keys then immediately going to the kitchen to start grabbing supplies. Starting with a couple of ice packs.
“Sit down at the kitchen table and tell me exactly what happened.”
The time between the hallway and the table was a pain-filled haze. He thought by the lingering pins and needles he felt in his lower arm that he might have knocked his elbow into something on his way to somewhere else. Also thought maybe he'd apologized to whatever he'd hit, or maybe he imagined it. But at least her command had nested itself in his head, because he didn't even let out a grunt or anything when he eased himself into the chair and stared blearily around. "Birdedette Peters started it," he stated with earnest conviction, "but I wasn't about to let this stupid bird get kicked around by a bunch of assholes."
He sighed and instantly regretted it. "So they kicked me instead."
The bird in question made herself at home on the floor next to his chair and began warbling "Last Midnight" to itself. Clint made a face and then told her the whole sad and very stupid story about rehearsals going ridiculously late, which meant he was stumbling home sore as can be and had to walk because no one in their right minds would pick up a man at three o'clock in the morning with a turkey in tow. Blah-blah-blah, ran into a bunch of drunk bro-types who started out just calling out dumb shit at him while he was just trying to go about his merry way, and then didn't like it when the turkey started shooting it right back at them with rapid-fire musical precision. Nope, they didn't like that at all. Bing, bang, boom, there he was, stumbling the rest of the way home and then up here.
"Honestly, this time my severe hatred of hospitals isn't what kept me away, it was the fact that they wouldn't see me either way if I'd walked in with Ms. Peters here." Clint shrugged a shoulder and instantly regretted it. "So here I am, tryin' not to bleed on your kitchen floor. And I would like to point out that this time is not my fault."
“Birdadette. Peters.” Claire just stared at him, ice pack in hand as she closed the freezer. Her eyes moved to the bird then back to him. These things were more trouble than they were before, but now? Jesus Christ, she was done with this shit.
“Don’t start,” her death glare was directed at Clint’s bird, and then she shot a similar stare to her own. Good news was at least her turkey was learning to shut the hell up when she gave it a look. It muttered, but it tended to sulk more- much like another annoying hero-type she remembered.
“I don’t know. They’re getting used to me having Benny around.” Benny. Yes. Don’t ask. She walked over and gently set the wrapped ice pack on Clint’s face. “Hold this there. The swelling is going to take a little while to go down. And you might need stitches.” She sighed, making a face and then putting the other ice pack on his ribs, placing his hand over it to hold that there, too.
“You’re not the first guy to try to impress me with a Bernadette Peters story, believe it or not. Just don’t pass out and I’ll forgive you.” She went to the bathroom to get the kit, talking as she moved.
“So, how many of these assholes were there?” She was keeping him talking. Keeping him awake. Right now, that was important until she could fully assess him. Coming back over with the kit, she got a glass of water prepared then handed him a few pills and the glass, holding the ice pack in place while he took the pills.
“This happens to you a lot, doesn’t it?”
His skin was going blessedly numb where it was connected to the ice packs, but any relief he felt was short lived as about a dozen other hurts shoved their way to the forefront. His nerve endings seemed to be operating on some hellish queue system, and boy, did he really fucking hate this development. The pills didn't have that sweet, sweet placebo effect either, which sucked. "Five? Four of them did the punching and the kicked, while the other fucker filmed it. Don't be surprised if it winds up on TikTok or Twitter or whatever other hellsite there is out there."
His lips spread in a wicked smile that was worth every second of pain as he leveled a fierce look at her. "I gave as good as I got, though, once I was sure Ms. Peters here was out of the way." He paused to take another drink and then set the glass on the table so he could take over the face pack again. "I'm gonna be petty and say here's hopin' they don't have their own Nurse Claire to patch up their hurts. I'd like it very much if they suffered."
He did a decent job of not fidgeting or letting the guilt play out all over his face, but mostly the latter was down to his inspection of the kitchen floor. "Back home? Yeah. Here? Guess it was too much to hope for quiet. The whole thing never would've happened if I'd had my bow with me, but I guess that's illegal around here and being an Avenger don't really amount to much—let alone giving me a certain amount of amnesty." Clint sighed, one of those bone-weary ones. "I don't actually like getting beaten up."
Claire made a face at the mention of filming it, clearly put off by the fact that anyone would find this entertaining. What the hell was wrong with people? “God, I thought social media was shitty back in 2012. Somehow, it just keeps getting worse.” Especially with kids. Jesus.
She shouldn’t have chuckled at the remark about the others not having a nurse, but she did, nodding. “They probably have their mom’s though- I mean, if they’re acting this immature about a talking turkey, I’m assuming they all went crying back home to mommy.” That was her way of insulting the guys that did this to him.
“It’s probably better you didn’t have your bow. You might be getting treated in jail by now.” She smirked and leaned closer to inspect the injury on his face then sighed. “Okay, I think you might need stitches. I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you’ve had plenty of them before. Also, take your shirt off.”
She was already opening the box on the table to get out what she would need. “Carefully- I need to see if you have any cracked ribs. The way you slouched in here makes me nervous.”
His thoughts were coming slow as molasses, so it wasn't until he was easing his shirt off and hissing the whole time, that something she said tickled something in his head. "You're from 2012?" he asked on the other side of half-nudity. He didn't have to look down to see the rainbow of bruises blossoming across his stomach and sides; he felt them just fine. "Me too. The technology alone is enough to wrap your head around, let alone on the social norms. Maybe 'norm' is the wrong word."
Clint chuckled and then regretted it in an instant. His next breath was on the back of a fervent swear. "Yeah, I'm familiar. With and without anesthetic. Kinda tickles with, but I think I can keep myself from laughing." He grimaced at her, which was the closest he could come to smiling at this point. "The timing of all this couldn't be any fucking worse. Finally got my dream job, and now I'm gonna show up like this. Well, dream job for this place. As close to a dream job as I'm gonna get without being an Avenger or Hawkeye. If I say 'dream job' enough, the words'll stop meaning so much, right? That's how this has to work."
“Really?” Claire grinned. It was the first time she’d met anyone else from that year here. Or so she thought. “Yeah, it’s crazy how quickly Tindr became a thing, right?” She chuckled, but she did her best to help him remove the shirt without too much extra pain.
“Oof, you are probably going to still need to go into the hospital to get some x-rays. They really did a number on you, huh?” She was half-listening to him talk about his dream job when she mentioned Hawkeye and her eyebrow raised. “You’re an Avenger?”
That was a new one. She knew the name. “Bow and arrow guy? Right. You don’t look like him…” Not the one she knew, at least. She studied him for a second. “Maybe it’s the sunglasses.”
He snorted at the mention of the dating/hook-up app, and it hurt like fire running up and down his left side. Kind of left him lightheaded and gasping a little, with sparks zooming across his field of vision. Clint started to reach across himself, because that seemed to help, but stopped because the very nice nurse lady with the killer glare would probably turn it on him if he interrupted her work.
Instead, he hummed an affirmative, just giving himself time to string together words. He was just stupid enough on pain to put a hand to his face, expecting to find glasses, but just succeeded in poking tender skin. Oh, right. "Oh, right. Yeah, that's me. Bow and arrow guy. Different world. None of your Avengers look like my Avengers, but similar enough that if you squint, you get who they're supposed to be. You obviously know who they are, so, you a fan, or…?"
“No. Not a fan.” Claire muttered as she ran her fingers very, very gently over the bruises- she was feeling for the bumps, indicators of swelling. She sighed. “You got at least one broken one here.” If he was lucky it was just one. “You’re cuter than our version, though. For the record.”
There was a small grin on her face when she said it, but then she was business again as she went to get some bandages from the box.
“They helped some aliens do a number on the city. I mean, they saved the world, but a lot of people blamed them for what happened, too. The whole Loki thing.” She wasn't sure how much this Hawkeye knew about that, but she assumed he might have heard something.
“I was always a Captain America fan, anyway. Sorry.” She kept her voice serious, but the light grin on her face probably gave away the fact she was teasing him.
One of the many terrible things about this was the complete lack of enjoyment he was getting at having a beautiful woman touching his skin—and make no mistake, Claire was a beautiful woman. But now wasn't the time to be making a pass at a medical professional, no matter how distracting her smile was. He still allowed himself a grin at her compliment, however, even if it hurt. It was a nice distraction from the fact that he'd probably be losing his brand new circus job on account of this busted rib. "I'll take what I can get at this point."
But the feeling faded into something a lot more somber. He knew about the guilt associated with the destruction, and subsequent cleanup, of public property. It was even worse when there were casualties. "Heard something about that," he mumbled and looked to the side. His Avengers had run up against Loki plenty, but he'd never heard of the Chitauri until he and Steve got to talking a bit at the job fair the other week. "Loki's another thorn in our collective side, I guess. The similarities between our worlds are really freaky sometimes."
Clint chuckled, but it wasn't quite as painful this time. The meds must've been kicking in. "'Sokay. I occasionally double for him back home every once in a while. Was even Cap for a tiny blink of an eye, but that life wasn't for me. I'm much more at home with putting arrows in folk who deserve it. Non-lethally when I can help it, of course. I gotta say, though, you seem oddly calm, all things considered. Something tells me this ain't your first rodeo with a broken hero showing up at your door. What's your story, Claire-the-night-nurse? Humor me, I've had a shitty night."
She listened to his story as she worked to do her best and wrap his ribs- it really wasn’t going to do much but hold him together until he could see a real doctor, but he’d heal. In time. “You’d be surprised how desperate people are for good workers these days. Maybe talk to your employer and see if they can give you a leave of absence? Or take up crime-fighting for profit.” She paused and looked up at him. “I’m kidding, by the way. Don’t do that.”
He was cute. She’d give him that- even under the bruises and cuts, but she had been down that road before and she’d be hard-pressed to try again. Once was enough.
“Yeah, not a big fan of Loki. Or aliens in general, right now. Though I kind of have a hard time seeing you as the Captain America-type. No offense.” She finished wrapping his ribs then went to work on his face, putting on gloves as she started to prepare something to clean him up.
“Me? I had a run in with a guy who liked to dress up and beat up bad guys in Hell’s Kitchen when I lived there. He called himself the Daredevil.” She dabbed under his eye. “He was good at it- or not. Considering how many times he showed up almost dead at my door.”
Clint tried his best to be a good patient: sat still, raised his arms as much as he could to aid with the bandaging, not flirting even if he wanted to. "I'll ask, but I don't have the best of luck when it comes to these things. Probably should've gone to the hospital first and the police. Employers seem to like it when there are official records. Who knows, maybe the fight will go viral, and that'll be the evidence I need." He laughed, low and quiet, and shook his head. "Never claimed to be a smart man, but I know enough not to use my abilities for profit. It's a slippery slope."
Despite how gentle she was being, he still winced at the touch to his eye, which was now swollen entirely shut. "None taken. I know I'm not the right guy to take up the mantel except for show." His bruised face lit up a little in a bright smile. "I know him! We've teamed up a couple of times. I'm with you on the whole good-at-it thing. Man fights like he knows what's coming before someone's thrown a punch. Not sure about the whole red devil costume with horns and all, but what do I know? I used to fight in purple spandex."
“It’s okay. I like the bad-boys, so it’s a thing,” Claire wasn’t exactly flirting so much as stating a fact. She noticed him wince, and she tried to be a little gentler as she kept working, looking for anything that might need stitches. She wanted to avoid them if at all possible.
“Purple spandex? You could get away with that in your world?” She chuckled and started taping up some of his injuries. “As for the official record, I can definitely help check you into the hospital later today if you need it. So there’s a record. I wouldn’t want you getting fired because you came to me- I mean, if you want a record of it happening and all that.” She grinned. “I can even give you a ride.”
She paused. “Well, Uber with you. Same thing.”
Clint tried his best not to move anymore than he had to, but his eyes flashed in open amusement. "You bound up my ribs. You've seen I've got the torso to pull it off. Let me just say, however, I am so glad Stark was footing the bill for all the drycleaning and repair. I was a broke circus guy when I first decided to work on the side of right. Never would've lasted through my first fight before having to quit over a lack of finances."
His expression shifted into one of open wonder, slack jawed and everything. "You'd do that? You don't mind? Yeah. An Uber there with you. Let's do that. And, uh…" The room chose that moment to sway a little around them. "You think I could crash on your couch until then? 'M not sure I could make it to the apartment, and those pills you gave me are definitely startin' t' do their thing. I'll find a way t' make it up to you. You like fancy wine or alcohol? Or food?"
She was picturing it. It was a good picture, though when he mentioned Stark, she could imagine it a little more- was Tony Stark the same in every universe? She’d figured he must be. The billionaire playboy thing seemed consistent for him, especially from the other ‘Tony’s’ she’d met on the network.
“Yeah, I would. But after you rest for sure. You can crash here, I’ll just let Daisy know what’s up,” she finished with his face and stood up, grinning.
“I wouldn’t say no to fancy food or wine if you’re offering. Probably better after you heal up a little, though. You go settle in and I can get you a pillow an a blanket. Do you need help getting over there?”
"Nah, 'm fine." He stood slowly and oh, so carefully, but managed to stay upright with minimal assistance from the back of the chair. "But, yeah, after," Clint said while taking an experimental shuffling step. The world stayed more or less steady, and he managed to make it the rest of the way before he was horizontal on the couch and slightly less worried about bloodying up the upholstery. The pills and the adrenaline crash were conspiring to drag his eyelids closed as soon as his head was down, pillow or no. "Take ya somewhere fancy-pants. Hey, Claire? Thanks f'r bein' the best."
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she’d heard it before. And she was actually close by in case he did start to fall. But thankfully, the poor guy made it to the couch, and the nurse sighed, looking at her grumbly turkey then going to get a pillow and a blanket. She carefully placed it under the man’s head and put the blanket over him before going to leave a note for Daisy not to freak out when she woke up and saw the guy there. Hopefully.