Have you...do you remember that thing with Wanda? The reality shift when Magneto ruled the world? Who: Clint Barton and Carol Danvers What: First meetings outside the Net When: Monday, September 22nd, dinner time Where: Bar patio, Huntington Beach Rating: G for Gen, probably. Status: Complete
While it was true that Clint could cook for himself, if he had to, it was also true that he preferred not to, and he could afford not to, most of the time. One of his favorite dinner spots was a bar near Huntington Beach that he had never seen crowded, and had an outdoor patio in the back, and the owners didn’t mind if he brought Lucky on Margarita Mondays (which were delicious, though really, he came for the cheap tacos).
He was there, ensconced in a back corner booth, a half-eaten plate of tacos in front of him, and a half-eaten taco halfway to his mouth when out of his peripheral vision he saw something streak across the sky.
Carol did a loop, spinning through the air as she made her way south. She loved this, pushing herself, testing her abilities, and occasionally freaking out a bystander. But then, a lot of Orange County had gotten used to strangeness, and by the time she landed, her costume replaced by street clothing in a flash of light, no one seemed to notice.
She walked into the bar and made her way over to get herself a drink.
From his semi-hidden position on the other side of the fence, where he could see the street mostly without being seen, Clint squinted, watching the bogie turn into something far less--or potentially far more--dangerous.
He laughed a little to himself, because, well, small world, and gave a considering hum as he watched her enter the bar. Luckily for him, the bartender knew to pay attention when he waved, and in the shorthand sign language they’d developed over time, he managed to indicate that he wanted to pay for the blonde’s drink.
Carol didn’t exactly need to have her drink paid for, and she was of a mind to chew out whoever offered. Except it was a free drink and who in their right mind turned that down? She turned to try to figure out who had done that, and both of her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline. “Clint Barton??”
From his booth Clint couldn’t hear her words--well, he couldn’t have heard her even if she wasn’t across the bar--but he could read her surprise, and laughed a little as he lifted two fingers and saluted, as was proper, considering his rank.
She shook her head, and taking her drink she walked over to where Barton was sitting. She grinned at him. “Mind if I have a seat?” She didn’t wait for an affirmative, before turning the chair around and sitting on it backways. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
“Captain,” Clint greeted, and returned the smile. “Fair warning--” he gestured at his ear with one hand. “Don’t hear so good anymore. Mostly deaf. Blast trauma. Pretty good at lip-reading after ten years, and faking it, but….” He trailed off and shrugged a shoulder. “Might have to ask you to repeat something sometimes.”
She nodded at him, making a note of that. “Fair enough. Smack me if it looks like I’m trying to shout too loud. I don’t think I’d have been able to tell if you hadn’t said something.” Carol rested her arms on the back of the chair, giving Clint a considering look, then holding her fingers out for the dog to give her a proper sniff-over. She was a cat person, but she liked dogs, still. Mostly.
Lucky was on duty--mostly. He knew Clint’s routines better than Clint did, so he knew what it meant when Clint was at the bar eating. His ear cocked in interest when Carol held out her hand, his nostrils flaring slightly, but other than that, he didn’t move from his position, stretched out next to the booth, doing his best impression of a speedbump.
Clint nodded at her response, having caught enough of that to know that she was surprised but was taking it in stride. He supposed their lives being what they were, dealing with hearing loss was small potatoes.
That settled, he gestured at his plate. “Place makes great, cheap tacos, if you want to join me. Is this a regular haunt of yours or did you just get thirsty during your flight?”
She was impressed with the dog, he seemed to have more discipline than his master sometimes did.
“First time trying this place,” she admitted. “But you see a lot of little places when flying over them, and I make a mental note sometimes. My memory isn’t what it used to be, but I can remember the new stuff. “
She waved a waitress over and ordered ‘whatever purple man here is having’, then turned back to him. “What keeps you occupied here?”
Clint shrugged a shoulder at the question and sort of smiled. “You mean other than tacos?” He wiped his hands and pulled out his wallet, thumbing through until he found a business card for the non-profit, which he slid across the table in front of her.
“Nothing heroic, if that’s what you’re asking. When I came back like this, about...ten years ago now, I guess, I needed help. Turns out a lot of guys come back like this and never get that help, or even ask for it. My business degree wasn’t completely worthless, so my brother helped me get this started.”
She picked it up and looked it over, nodding thoughtfully. “That’s pretty nice of you. I’m impressed. We need more people helping out. I was apparently hospital bound for awhile myself, but I can’t remember anything from before December of last year.”
Clint raised an eyebrow, and needed to repeat just to make sure he’d understood that correctly. “You don’t remember anything from this life? No childhood? Nothing?”
She shook her head. “Not a thing. At first I couldn’t remember anything, then I started dreaming again. It’s…” She waved her hand. “It’s like I’m the dream me now. Or more like her than I was before all that. I basically burned my own brain out and when my powers healed me, it smoothed everything over. Happened in the dreams too. Only there...nothing came back.”
Even though that’s possibly the strangest thing Clint’s ever heard--so to speak--he supposed it wasn’t more strange than having memories of someone from another universe. He nodded, took a long drink and considered her before speaking again.
“Does anyone remember you?” That was perhaps the more important question.
“A few people,” Carol replied, nodding her head. “Mostly the Xavier people. The only Avenger I’ve spoken to who even knows who I am was Natasha. And you.” She smiled, a little sadly. It bothered her more than she cared to admit. She knew some of those people really well, and to have Tony or Steve not even know her? It hurt. “Seems like some of us dream of alternate timelines. I hate alternate timelines.”
Clint nodded his agreement, had been able to follow that enough to know that she was experiencing some of what he was, too. He knew what it felt like to not be remembered, or to be remembered but have it not be him, although it didn’t seem to bother Tony. It did make him wonder, though, and Carol was probably the only person he could ask. “Have you...do you remember that thing with Wanda? The reality shift when Magneto ruled the world?”
Carol nodded. “That whole thing was a mess.” She felt like that had been the start of the rift between the Avengers and Xavier’s students that had led, ultimately, to the conflict over the Phoenix. She still had her eye half on Emma and Scott. She didn’t trust them. But she knew they didn’t trust her, either. Rightfully, she’d admit. She’d made a lot of mistakes with them in the dreams.
“...do you think this is like that?” Now that he’d remembered it, he couldn’t discount it as an explanation. Maybe world was that world--that other world he remembered--but something magic had changed them all so they couldn’t remember it properly.
“I...don’t know. I can’t think that anyone would want this kind of life,” she replied, gesturing around as if indicating the OC. “Maybe something went wrong. Someone wanted to be a hero and then you end up with this mess. Some of us heros, other people dreaming about dark, dark places.” But then, there were people who liked the darker sort of hero.
He caught most of that, probably. “Maybe that’s the point,” Clint continued, and shrugged. The memories he had were filled with villains, and none of them ever had a motivation that made sense. “Maybe that’s their plan. Take the heroes away. Take hope away. Make everyone miserable. But the spell was too big, requires too much magic to maintain, and so we get this place.” He gestured around them.
“I’ve heard crazier things,” Carol muttered, then caught herself. “It’s crazy. But that could be as good an explanation as any. For all we know we’ve been picking up our dreamselves through some kind of bleed through.” She thought about it a moment. “Or we’re all stuck in the Matrix.”
It took Clint a moment to parse that, but then he laughed. “Well...whatever life simulation this is, I’m glad our paths crossed again.” He lifted his glass to toast with her. “To those who remember us.”
“And to those we remember who aren’t here, probably for the better.” She thought of Jess while she raised her glass. Jess, and Rhodey, and so many others that she depended on. But if they weren’t here, they weren’t dreaming, and maybe they were having better lives.