Chasing after a disembodied voice was just about one of the last things Matt wanted to do, but it seemed like ignoring it was not going to be something he was going to get away with, not as it amped itself up the longer he ignored it. But now armed with stories of others who had experienced something similar he was feeling a little more like he wouldn’t end up dead if he went to find the source.
And with Clint accompanying him he was glad to know he’d have someone he trusted completely watching his back. If nothing else then he was pretty sure Clint would absolutely avenge him - and not just on account of his being an Avenger. So all things considered he could be going into this in a worse place.
“Okay so,” he said with a low sigh, “I think this is the way, I guess we’re just going to follow it until we find this statue and then we just…. see what happens.” He shrugged, it wasn’t a great plan, or even much of plan, but it was just about all he could do - from what he’d heard from Diana and Alexis, no one ended up dead after dealing with this thing, but he couldn’t be sure that would stay true if he just continued avoiding it. The sound of his own name was already becoming a distraction that he couldn’t get away from, he didn’t want to think what things would be like if it got much worse.
Honestly, the Avengers did surprisingly little in the way of Avenging. Clint wasn’t sure who’d named the team originally, but it seemed maybe like they’d been on a confusing path, at the time.
Either way, he had his bow in one hand and a quiver on his back and he looked like he was more than ready to use them to shoot a disembodied voice, if he needed to. Even if he couldn’t hear it. Maybe the statue needed to be shot?
“It’s still just saying your name, right? Nothing else?” Compelling voices were not something Clint liked the idea of.
“Right,” Matt nodded, as they walked, letting the calling of his name lead the way. “It’s just my name but it’s -” He frowned, uncertain of how to explain it exactly, it wasn’t just his name, it was sort of like an invitation, like someone was calling him home. But definitely not home - because if there was home to be found here in Dunwich it was right there beside him and not in the direction that he was hearing his name.
“It wants me to follow it.” He finished finally, lifting his shoulders as he shrugged. It had started simple enough, just his name - not in any direction in particular, but the more days that passed the more it became clear that this was leading him somewhere, there actually was a direction he was meant to be headed in.
“So Alexis said she had a vision when she found this statue, and Diana’s friend had one too.” That was about all Matt had come to expect from whatever they were walking into. “But they both seemed to come out of it fine in the end,” As fine as any of them were in this place.
“What kind of vision?” Clint asked, expression wary. Because whether or not he trusted Dunwich enough to have Matt come out fine in the end was highly up for debate, and he didn’t think he’d forgive himself if he walked Matt off to his doom like some kind of world’s worst escort.
“Like, are we talking … shrooms or acid or – hey, could you even see a vision? Do you like – visualize like that? The fuck does this town think it’s getting up to?”
“Alexis said something about black eyes and bugs,” Matt lifted his shoulders, and Diana hadn’t known what Jake had seen so they could only guess at what the results might be. “And now she’s got that weird fucked up teleportation thing,” Unknown if the two were related of course, but it was something worth noting he thought. Matt didn’t want to think about what that would be like, he navigated the world well enough with his enhanced senses but that would be something else entirely.
As for whether or not he could see a vision, “It’s a mix really, I used to dream more like seeing when I was younger right after the accident.” But the older he’d gotten things had changed, and his dreams had changed to reflect his new reality. “These days it’s a little more like what I see normally,” The world on fire. But as for what he might see in a vision?
“If it’s a vision though there’s no telling what it will look like, right?” his shoulders hitching up just a little, attempting to keep things light, things easy and not letting himself think too much about how he might just be walking into something that would be a lot worse than just a vision.
“What?” Clint said, because he had no idea what black eyes and bugs had to do with anything beyond sounding just … super fucked up. Maybe that was more like acid then. Just seeing weird shit. He hoped not, because Matt was a very cool guy and Clint loved him dearly but that didn’t mean he thought he’d be the sort of guy to handle psychedelic visions very well.
Not that he said so.
“Do me a favor and don’t get weird teleportation, okay? She makes it look super tiring.”
Clint turned his bow around in his hands and nodded along with the idea of how Matt saw when he dreamt. It made sense, he figured. He dreamt less in sound than he’d done, once, too. Not exactly the same, but … well.
“Maybe it’ll be a unicorn,” he said, squinting ahead of them as they walked. It wasn’t like Dunwich was all that big. They’d have to wind up somewhere notable eventually.
Best not to think about black eyes and bugs, he didn't want to know - didn't want that to be whatever was waiting for him. But if it was, he would deal with that if it happened, and he wasn't going to let himself think about it until it was.
Matt had always been an in the moment guy, and this was no different. He just hoped whatever happened in the moment wasn't going to be something that came for Clint too.
"I'll send it back if this statue tries to give it to me." He promised.
He huffed at the idea of a unicorn, maybe it would be. Maybe a vision didn't have to be a bad thing, even if it was from Dunwich, even if it started with voices that left him feeling like he might very well lose his mind. It didn't take too long though, following the calling of his name eventually they came to it. It was a park, nothing special, a few rows of hedges and flowers.
And there surrounded by it all was a statue. "Nothing seems out of the ordinary," Not to his own perspective at least, the only thing that seemed out of the ordinary was the call of his own name.
Clint was pretty sure that random almost superpowers didn’t work that way – but then, he was the world’s least expert at superpowers, despite the fact that he hung out with people who had them pretty much constantly. He snuffed out a little laugh over it though, never not pleased about the way that Matt carried on in such a nonplussed sort of way.
“No?” Clint asked, of the hedges, the flowers, the statue that was probably the source of their problems. And he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary either, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have an arrow nocked in his bow, pointed at the statue. “It’s not like – talking to you some more or…?”
“Just calling to me.” Matt said shaking his head, that hadn’t changed, just the repetitive call of his name - though perhaps now that he was closer it was more insistent? Or maybe that was just because he was taking his sweet time about it. He wasn’t totally sure which it might be, but he knew that leaving here without getting closer was only going to hurt him.
He considered it, just how stupid this might be, what might result from it if he gave in. And in the end decided there really was no other choice in all of this.
“I’m going to go over there.” He decided finally, “I think I have to get closer.” Then maybe he’d get his vision, whatever it might be and then they could leave and things would go back to normal. Whatever passed for normal here. “Cover me?”
Clint was covering Matt already – his aim had not wavered from the statue and it wouldn’t, not even once, unless Matt asked anything differently of him. Which –
“Yeah,” he said, gaze peeking over at Matt for just a second. “You sure you don’t want – I don’t know. Should I go with you?”
But, like most things in Dunwich, that probably just wasn’t how it worked.
All Clint could really do was wait until Matt did whatever it was he was going to do, and the statue did… Whatever it was it was going to do.
“I think-,” Matt started and stopped - he would like Clint there with him, but if something was going to happen it’d be better if Clint was not in the immediate danger zone. “I think wait here, if something changes I’ll be able to pick up on it quickly.” He promised making up his mind, and doing his best to appear confident in the choice. He wasn’t just going to sit around and let something jump out at him, or Clint.
With that decided Matt made his way closer to the statue, the sound of his name getting louder the nearer he got, making him wince just a little, like it was trying to narrow down his focus so that there was nowhere else he could take information about the world around him.
And suddenly, like he’d reached some predetermined point the voice stopped and everything went quiet - he didn’t hear anything, like he’d lost the sense entirely. Before he could lift his hands to his head a flash of light filled his field of vision, blinding him all over again leaving him standing there, still and unmoving as images filled his mind with far more clarity than he ever saw in his day to day life
And in the flash of light he saw a church, the clouds in the sky were dark and swirling overhead as the chapel doors blew open slamming against the creaking structure, offering sanctuary to anyone who could make it inside. But the wind was blowing too hard, pressing him back, keeping him from getting any closer. A deep rumble of thunder filled his ears, an ominous warning before just a beat later a streak of lightning flashed across the sky, striking the bell tower of the church. The bell ringing with the force of the assault, loud and overwhelming.
His vision went white again, the sound of the bell sounding again and again, Matt’s hands flew to his ears as he was freed from the vision, but it did nothing to shut out the sound, crying out as he stumbled back breaking free of the hold that the statue and the vision had on him.
Maybe Matt had told him to stay put – and Clint had for a moment, but he’d followed after before too long – his bow still drawn the sting taut and the arrow ready to fly at any given notice. Not that he was really sure it’d do anything. It probably wouldn’t. But it made him feel better, all the same.
At least, that was until Matt went all stone still, himself – only for what felt like a few seconds, before he was crying out loudly enough for Clint to hear even without looking, and then –
Then Clint dropped his bow, and was at Matt’s side in a second. “Hey. Hey,” he said, feeling like it was probably too loud but he was too in it to regulate. “You – what’d you see? You okay?”
Matt stumbled back when Clint reached him, the world coming back into that kind of focus he was used to. He grasped Clint's arm, steadying himself, maybe even them both in that moment. As he took just a beat to take stock of himself, listening for his name or anything else.
"It's... it's okay." He finally said, "I'm okay." It had just taken him by surprise, shocked to see anything in a way he'd thought was lost to him all together. And maybe it wasn't quite like others might see it, he couldn't be sure, it had been so long now that he couldn't remember. But he'd seen it with more clarity than he had anything since he was a child.
"It was a church?" He said, still not sure what it meant, if anything. If he was supposed to have gained some sort of answer from what he'd seen. "There was a storm, lightning hit the bell tower." He told Clint, looking back at the statue for a beat, like he expected to hear something more, to see something more but it stood still and quiet as it was meant to. "It was so loud, like there was nothing else but the sound of that bell."
It seemed safe enough now – at least as safe as anything ever was in Dunwich – and the statue wasn’t moving or anything like that, and hadn’t threatened to in the first place, Clint supposed. So it seemed fine to get them both sitting on the ground, facing each other, their knees bumping together in a way Clint thought reassuring.
“Was it the church from here? The Beam?”
He had no idea what any of it meant. He didn’t think Matt did either.
“I-” Matt started and shook his head, the image flickering behind his eyelids, or maybe just the ghost of it, not the full sort of vision it had been before, but like it had been burned there on his eyes, the way things could if you stared at them for too long. “I don’t think so, but it might have been.”
He wasn’t totally sure, “I’ve never actually seen it before.”
But he wasn’t sure what it meant, if anything, if maybe that was the point, seeing it the flash of lightning, the sound of the church bell. All he knew was it was over, “It’s not saying my name anymore.”
Clint considered that for a moment, wondered if there were just more churches around that they’d missed – something like that? It was hard to know - Clint wasn’t the sort to randomly wander into holy houses. But maybe it was worth looking into.
Not this second though. This adventure had been enough.
“Well,” Clint said, sounding unsure. “That’s something, anyway, right? Best case scenario, even.” He glanced around – making sure nothing strange had happened in the interim. But no, it was just them, the flowers, the statue.