InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Listening to the news! Again?"

ʙᴀʀᴛᴏɴ (cauterising) wrote in somerealityrpg,
@ 2019-08-19 17:31:00

Entry tags:

active: clint barton, active: natasha romanoff

WHO: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanoff
WHERE: Bakery in Goodland
WHEN: backdated quite a bit (screw you life)
WHAT: Breakfast, normal talk, some plans
WARNINGS: Language and some death talks.
STATUS: Complete

Since Clint’s arrival and all that he had shared with her, Natasha had been a good deal of time with him. He was still shaken by what had happened and she was trying to wrap her head around the fact that she had died in their world. She hadn’t said anything to Tony, Wanda, or Bucky since she had no idea what they knew and didn’t know. Wanda had come from a point after her, Natasha knew that much and she was pretty sure that Bucky had as well. Clint hadn’t been ready to face anyone yet and Natasha was fine with that. What they needed right now was time together, time to reassure themselves that they were indeed alive and together. It hadn’t been easy since everyone lived in the same building but Jim had asked no questions and neither had Clint’s roommates.

When she woke up on Friday morning, Natasha decided that it was time for them to get out and explore. She’d been out a few times and hadn’t really expected Clint to agree to go out with her today but he had said yes so the two of them made their way outside and Nat picked a direction and they started walking. The city was close enough to the New York she remembered that it was easy to get around and they stopped at a coffee shop on the corner to have breakfast. While they were waiting on their food, Nat propped her chin on her hand and looked at her companion. “You’re going to have to tell them you’re here sooner or later,” she said. “I’m bound to slip up and say something otherwise. I get it, believe me, I don’t want to have to talk about where you came from but we might as well bite the bullet.”

The shift from constant alert to trying to settle was a difficult transition. It wasn’t something he was unused to, they’d always gone from mission to slow down in the past, but those missions tended not last five years of isolation and constant mental anguish. The time spent in Goodland so far had been relatively stress free, and without the need to give too many details to Natasha beyond the initial explanations.

“Yeah, I know,” leaning back in the seat, toying with the napkin a little, Clint tried to settle into the civilian mode. “I will.” He knew that Barnes, Stark and Wanda were there. The kid from the airport too, and as far as Clint was aware, all but Stark had gotten dusted five years ago and Clint was avoided all of that for good enough reason.

“I’m enjoying the quiet for a little while.” He wasn’t about to claim he was only really looking for Natasha’s company right now though.

She nodded. Truthfully she was perfectly happy not letting anyone know he was here either. They never got much time to just simply be in their own world. There were too many complications, too much going on, too much that had to remain left unsaid. Here they could just enjoy spending the day together without worrying about something or someone show up that
Wanted to destroy the world. At least for the moment.

“Nothing’s quiet once Tony finds out,” she said with a small smile. “I don’t think he understands the meaning of the word ‘quiet.’ But he’s actually been helpful to everybody Responsible even. I thought maybe it was some kind of a clone but no, he’s real.” The last time she’d seen him, he hadn’t been in a good place and when she’d walked away from him, she hadn’t cared if she ever saw him again but apparently he’d grown up if that was the proper term for it.

“What do you want to eat?” she picked up the menu and looked at it. She’d rather talk about food and forget about everyone but the two of them for a while. “Looks like they’ve got a little of everything.”

It wasn’t like Clint was hiding. Maybe he was less social with people he’d normally be social with, but it wasn’t hiding, it was processing, figuring things out. And it came with a certain level of ‘leave me alone’ with it too. He’d kind of managed to avoid the pair he shared living space with for the most part too, either by loitering elsewhere or snatching Nat’s time -still getting used to being able to do that. Like Vormir was just some horrible nightmare that happened the night before or something.

“Point.” He couldn’t say for sure how things would go with Stark. They’d sort of barely had to interact since Clint came back in with Natasha, mostly because the science dudes were off doing science. “It’s Tony, I think we remember how he compensates for things.” It was like after the invasion, and everyone ended up at some wrecked place to eat instead of debriefing and sleeping off an alien invasion. Stark seemed to compensate for things by being massively helpful or overly generous. Not a flaw, but odd when you knew him.

“Anything with bacon. And coffee.” Was there anything better than bacon? Especially if it could mask any other serious conversations that had to happen any time soon.

“Very true,” she said and put down her menu. “Bacon always, preferably with hashbrowns. Sometimes with pancakes but I think hashbrowns and bacon sound like a winner.” She grinned at him. “And isn’t your blood fifty percent coffee anyway? We’ll see if this place meets your standard.” it was fun being able to tease him this way, not having to worry about anyone getting the wrong idea or feeling that she might be overstepping. Natashs knew the rest of the team didn’t really understand their relationship and sometimes she didn’t either but it didn’t matter, Clint was an important part of her life and had been since the day they met and would be until the day….okay, best not to go down that path, she thought.

“After we eat, there is a thrift shop I want to go to. One of the kids mentioned it and I love looking at other people’s old junk. And I’m kind of looking for something. They might have it.” She was hoping to find a pair of ballet slippers that weren’t in too rough a shape. She had her own but they weren’t here of course and wearing someone else’s wasn’t ideal but it would do until she could afford to buy her own and break them in. And who knew how long that would take. “Do you have a hammer in your apartment? I couldn’t find ours, who knows where it is, Maybe Jim wanted to go hammer something.”

It had always been a standing joke that he wasn’t friendly without his coffee, and usually that was a whole pot of coffee. Less so towards that last few years, but it was still an important factor in getting him to do anything at all. “Pancakes need an ungodly amount of syrup.”

Bacon, hash browns and throwing in a fried egg with as much coffee as his body would handle would at least bring a semblance of normal to the start of the day. “You know I love a thrift shop,” who didn’t? Other people’s stuff was interesting, and he was inherently nosy. “It’s not like either of us have places we need to be yet.” There would need to be, some time soon there would need to be consideration for something like a job -one that didn’t involve espionage it seemed. But for now, there wasn’t a rush.

“Maybe? I’ve not really looked, I dare say we could find one somewhere. Stark probably has a dozen already.”

“Any hammer that Tony might have has probably been customized to the point that it will talk to you, operate on different speeds and require a degree from MIT to even turn on,” she laughed. “I just want to beat the shit out of a pair of toe shoes. Yeah I know that sounds weird but it’s how you break them in.” The waitress came and took their orders and Natasha looked at him. He seemed to be in a better frame of mind these days which was a relief. She had been worried about him.

“So have you actually talked to your roommates or have you managed to avoid that? I confess that I probably wouldn’t have been super social either when I first got here except for the fact that our Jubilant Entity seems to think that I am qualified to chaperone teenage boys. Although there is one girl now. She’s from some other time and is having some trouble with modern appliances.” Nat had gone over and explained the microwave to her and Freddy had been helping her too so hopefully she wouldn’t burn the place down. “I do kind of question why whoever does these things suck her in an apartment with three other teenage boys. They’re good kids but come on, we’ve both been teenagers. Although I was killing people when I was sixteen so you can’t go by me.”

“I mean, if that’s all you’re doing, can’t you just use a brick?” He knew she couldn’t, he wasn’t obtuse to the details in ballet shoes thanks in part to Lila adoring Natasha and taking some ballet lessons in school. “Maybe they’ll have a hardware store somewhere around here.”

At some point he was going to need to look at making more arrows, he could usually work with scraps, repurpose things, he had a quiver full at the moment, thankfully, but his pessimistic outlook hadn’t shifted entirely at the moment, so he wasn’t exactly expecting anything to go too smoothly.

He could probably point out that she did just fine with some kids, and maybe the point was that she wouldn’t baby them, but offer support. Natasha might not be the sort to get gooey about babies, for her own reasons, but she was great at not talking down to kids. But the examples he had of that were still a little raw. “Maybe the point is that she’s not alone.”

It’d be one thing if there were a few other girls, young enough that they’d need a mentor, but if it was just her, “Pretty sure being isolated like that in a strange place would be worse than if she were surrounded by idiot boys.”

“The brick would just smush them up too much,” she pointed out. “And finding a pair that actually work on my feet might be tricky but hey, I’m adaptable.” she hadn’t had a lot of choice in the matter when it came to being adaptable. The option was simple, adapt or die and she really wanted to live if for no other reason than to piss off the KGB.

“I think you’re right. She doesn’t seem like the type to admit that she’s scared but this has to be hard on her. She’s got some kind of powers too, I’m not sure what they are. I offered to help her learn to cook some simple things. By simple I mean putting them in the microwave,” Natasha laughed at his expression. “Don’t look at me like that. You know I can cook. If you call pouring Campbell’s soup in a pot cooking. We won’t talk about the time I actually tried to bake cookies.” It had been a disaster, they were hard as brick and even the cat who lived in the alley behind Natasha’s tiny apartment wouldn’t eat them.

It was probably hard to dance in smushed up shoes; which undoubtedly was what Natasha was thinking about, dancing again. He'd seen her like once or twice in the scheme of things, usually for an assignment, but it was clear from how good she was that Natasha did it privately -maybe her form of stress relief. Clint would shoot things for that, it made sense that Natasha might dance. Given that this was some kind of fake New York, he was pretty sure they'd find something that might work for her.

The mention of cooking, and Natasha showing anyone how to cook, almost made Clint laugh. Almost. Although the look on his face was probably what headed Natasha off with the warning not to comment. It almost made him comment on Lila being a better cook than Natasha, but the rawness of mentioning them, even five years on, was still there and he wasn't prepared to do it. It didn't feel like that kind of heavy day, so he was fine with leaving his past in a little boulder by his feet for now. "So if the apartment building burns down, I'm throwing you under that bus." Since it didn't look like there was anywhere else around here to live.

"It's not impossible to live on sandwiches anyway, it'll just get dull after the second week." It wasn't like Clint was a stellar chef either, he could cook, he could get by. He definitely didn't almost burn the place down as much as Natasha did, but he wasn't about to open up a kitchen any time soon either. “If she needs someone to show her how to kill a man with her thighs, at least you’ll be the expert there.”

“There’s been some talk about starting a fight club and it’s not a bad idea but considering that some of the people here have super powers and everyone had some cabin fever, I don’t know if it’s a good idea.” she shrugged. “I mean if you and I need to get something out of our systems, we just beat the shit out of each other pass out bandaids when it’s over than go get a drink or a cup of coffee. But that’s us, no one else is like us.” She smiled at him, sitting back as the waitress brought their order and resuming the conversation once she was gone. “Everybody seems to have ideas here but not a lot of actual follow through yet.”

Nat took a bite of her hashbrowns and then nodded. “Not bad. Anyway, yes you can live on sandwiches, try different kinds of bread, you might be able to stretch it for longer than two weeks. I could always go to culinary school but nah, I would hate that.” Not enough movement for her, at least with dance she wasn’t still and there was creativity involved so it seemed like the best option. “Maybe I’m nuts but as long as I’m stuck here, I might as well do something I’ve always wished I could do hence the toe shoes. I still practiced at home but no one ever saw me. I don’t even know if anybody knew that I really was a dancer.”

Clint’s expression might’ve indicated his feelings on the ‘fight club’ idea, given the number of super powered people or just plain weird people who were here. And then the normal folks who might’ve thought they could get in on that shit for the glory or whatever. “Our system works because we work together,” they’d had maybe two fights in all the time they’d known each other that were in any way serious -the first time they met, and when Loki had his mind in a vice grip. And even then it hadn’t felt like either of them were trying to kill the other with all seriousness.

Ideas were easy to throw out there, doing them tended to be a problem for people. And Clint wasn’t about to wade into that shit right now. He was lucky he was currently functioning. Before everything that happened, he wouldn’t really have thought too much about a fight club. Could he hold his own against the likes of Thor or Bucky? No. But he could spar long enough with Steve to at least get a work out before the Super Soldier put him on the mat. Now he’d be too worried he’d snap a neck at a twitch until he trained himself out of his constant fight mode.

“Probably not nuts,” the food at least gave something to focus on, make a point in keeping the conversation somewhat light rather than letting it go to those darker places all over again. “I mean, what else is there to do around here? I think people will complain if we start killing folks.” There was a reason Clint was yet to actually say ‘hello’ to anyone. “Probably think it’s all a cover, like Natalie was.” Frankly, Clint had always liked the Natalie cover. The modelling shit Natasha had to do for it probably helped.

“They probably did. Ah Natalie,” she grinned. “She was kinda fun actually. I got some really nice underwear out of it too.” Two years of work that was a lot harder than she had expected, she’d had no idea what models went through but she had enjoyed it and she’d ended up catching the person she’d been after so it was all good. “I believe that’s the closest I’ve ever come to using my own name which made things a lot easier.”

She took a sip of coffee before she continued. “I guess I’ll have to break down and ask the Entity for space to put up a barre and some mirrors. There are plenty of empty meeting rooms and such off the lobby, I checked them out the other day. It might sound crazy but it’s far from the craziest thing I’ve ever done.” Nat could sit there and list a lot of things that people would consider insane but the day wasn’t long enough.

“Because you didn’t before?” Clint still had his wits about that. “You realise you can buy that yourself, right?” Sometimes, the covers for assignments were very detailed, like very detailed. And while Clint hated when they put him in a monkey suit, he did very much like when Natasha was all dolled up in those insane dresses. “Probably because it was long term, I mean, can you imagine answering to ‘Sandra’ for two years and then being thrown back into normal?”

A space where she could dance would probably help to put down something like ‘normal’ in this place. And while Clint could set up some targets and amuse himself, it wasn’t something he was overly keen on at this exact moment either. He might just slowly go through town and rob all the coffee places. “Probably someone else around here likes it enough that it’ll be more than just you who’d want the space.”

She laughed. “That’s true and you’re right, I could do that myself. I know a guy who can build stuff. None of it would be that expensive, it’s not like I’m asking for a building or a lot of space like Jim or Tony. I guess everyone is just thinking that since it brought us here, we need permission to do stuff.” She wasn’t used to asking permission, she was more of do first then ask permission later. So what would the Entity do? She wanted a ballet studio, not to stage a coup.

“I saw somebody mention it the other day,” she said. “There’s someone trying to figure out an educational program for the kids which none of them really want I’m sure because who wants to go to school? There was at least one person who mentioned ballet. Probably more would show up if someone took the first step. I could tell them you’re going to wear a tutu for the first class, I bet that would get people in.”

It wouldn’t be hard. He could easily get space set up for a ballet studio, the barre would be easy, hardwood flooring wasn’t new to him and the main issue would be getting floor to ceiling mirrors in for a space, but it wasn’t impossible at all. And it might keep him busy enough that he would stop thinking so damn much. He disliked when he had time to let his thoughts get away with him.

It was why he was constantly doing something.

“I can do it if you want.” He might not even need to cut down any trees, just get some hardware stuff. “They’d avoid school on principle, they have just been kidnapped to an alternate dimension where they have no idea if it means anything. They graduate high school here and what? You think diplomas mean something to this place?”

Clint would be terrible at watching these kids, they’d get to do whatever they wanted.

“I thought you might know the guy who could do it,” she said with a grin. “Damn you come in handy sometimes.” Natasha knew that having something to do would be good for him, she had to keep busy herself so she understood. “It’s probably not hard to find what we need if we can figure out where stuff is. I keep remembering where things were in New York and then remembering that we aren’t there exactly.”

She thought about what he said about the kids. She didn’t disagree. “I think that’s kind of what she’s going for, the person I talked to. Offering them some fun things to do but obviously a diploma from a different dimension isn’t going to be worth squat. Some people like to learn just for the sake of learning but most kids don’t. I didn’t have a choice but I would have been a nerd and been the one who wanted to read all the time,” she grinned.

“Well, I’d hate to be useless.” And okay, so that was a little bit of the truth, but he understood Nat’s point. Plus, he was geared up for wearing himself out in some manner and construction of any kind tended to do that.

“I guess, if it’s not boring learning, y’know? Something interesting, shit that they wanna know and learn. Not dumb history shit or whatever.” Clint hadn’t really bothered much with school, given that he hadn’t really gone beyond what he’d been forced to do. But he’d been solid at maths and physics to the point where it barely really mattered. And then he made a living killing people, so…

“Pretty sure they’d get bored anyway, y’know? Nothing to do all day every day?” That was gonna get to him eventually too.

“They probably would. I wouldn’t have paid attention if someone hadn’t been literally holding a gun to the backs of our heads.” she shook her head. “But I was always good with the stuff I really liked, I liked history although it was a shock when I left Russia and found out that pretty much everything they taught us about the world was bullshit. Hopefully we can keep them at least interested enough not to beat each other up.”

None of them seemed like the type that would do that but you never knew when kids, or grownups for that matter, were cooped up for a while. “I also don’t expect all of them to show up every day. I don’t know how that’s going to be enforced or if it is but like you said this is so strange and who knows how much good getting a diploma from here is.”

The thing about school, and Clint had tried to explain this to Laura numerous times and been shot down, was that they taught a specific agenda. Russia was probably the same with things like maths and physics and sciences that were universal, but history and the social studies tended to be skewed a little towards whatever agenda was being pushed -like Mother Russia is the best, or no, Columbus didn't massacre natives and that's why we absolutely should celebrate this asshole. So the idea of school, to someone who hadn't gone and didn't really feel like he'd missed an awful lot, was a bit of a loss. "Well, so long as it's stuff they wanna learn then, stick to that."

Clint shrugged slightly, wondering how many would ask to learn how to kill a man with their thighs.

"Three times a week seems more than enough. For like a few hours." Really, it was a good thing Clint wasn't responsible for any of these kids.

“Most of them are old enough that they can decide for themselves whether they want to show up or not. I’m certainly not going to force them because that’s not fair. Like Jughead is almost seventeen and he’s lived on his own for years. He’s a smart guy, and he’s writing and he seems to love it from what he’s said to me. So I wouldn’t feel right making him show up when he knows more about writing than I do. Now if he decides he wants to learn gymnastics or ballet…” she laughed. “I don’t see that though. Plus they come from different worlds and I don’t know how this
is going to work. This isn’t even a real place so what the hell do we say?” She liked the idea of teaching them languages though and other things they might be interested in learning but the basics were something they should have already.

“If I had been going to school anywhere other than where I was, the first thing I would have learned was how to skip class without getting caught. And I would have been damn good at too.
Even if I was in first grade.”

Very little of anything made sense to Clint, frankly the notion that they’d even bother with school in this place was weird to him. Maybe because he hadn’t had that kind of education. “Lets face it, by the time we were most of their ages, we’d already amounted a body count.” And maybe not for the right people. “We’re probably not people to ask about normal stuff.”

But Clint was already making plans on how he could work out a dance studio for Natasha, in the building or another one. It wasn’t like anyone was overly attached to empty buildings surely. Smirking as he finished up his food, Clint took a sip of his coffee.

“First thing I figured out with SHIELD was how to bail out of debriefing.” Not the same thing, but close.

Natasha laughed. “Yeah, I can see that. I hated debriefings. I usually had to stay though because someone had to do the paperwork,” she gave him a playful kick under the table. “But I was gone as soon as I could get away. I never stuck around for the coffee and shitty danish. Unless someone stopped at the bakery across the street, their stuff was good. The rest of it? I think they had it in a hidden cabinet so it got stale and they gave it to us on purpose to keep us awake since you had to work to chew it.”

“Why would we stick around for a debrief if we had to write the report anyway. Just a rehash.” It wasn’t like Clint became an assassin so that he could work on his penmanship. His writing was terrible, and Fury often complained that they couldn’t read a word he wrote and he needed to do it again, so why bother in the first place? Was he a little sorry that Natasha had to do it all? Eh, she was way more detailed than him anyway.

“God that coffee was terrible.” It was almost enough to give him flashbacks. “Thank God we don’t need to drink that anymore.” Even if this place wasn’t forever, Clint was fine with right here and right now, and just dealing with what came their way as it happened.