Who:Clint Barton & Kate Bishop When: Thursday @ 1 Where: Archery Range What: A lesson after some Dreams. Warnings: Mild language. Status: Complete.
After a handful of dreams about herself as a superhero (what.) Kate found that her job at the archery range was actually a little boring. The best part about it was the students, not the freedom to use the range--like it used to be. She felt more solid in her skills than she’d ever felt before. She felt like she needed less practice. Probably not good to become so full of herself that she let her skills slip, but.
Well. She could get plenty in when she was with her students. And speaking of, she was excited to see Clint again today. After hanging out with him the other night, pizza and beer, she was excited to have another lesson.
Weirdly, Clint had been fairly restless lately. His sleep patterns had taken a hell of a hit, unusual dreams leaving him exhausted and a little wiped, not entirely sure what was up with that. Weird dreams seemed to be a common occurrence around these parts, and as much as Clint wasn’t the sort to really think too much on it, he wasn’t sure what to make of things.
As weird as dreaming about Barney was by itself, dreaming of a circus was just as out there. Clint wasn’t nuts about the circus, he really didn’t like clowns and the ‘freak show’ aspect of things was just lost of him. He just didn’t get what the hell his subconscious was cycling through right then.
A little more haggard than usual, Clint was about five minutes late for his session with Kate, still sipping at his takeaway coffee, glasses over his eyes mostly to keep the sun out but to shield the dark circles from disruptive sleep too. “Hey, sorry, overslept.” Because up until about half an hour ago, Clint was power napping on his sofa.
“Wow, you look like shit,” Kate said. Geez, Kate, tell us how you really feel. She jumped down from her perch on the desk and offered a hand out to help him with his stuff. Perhaps it was a little selfish of her, but while they’d discussed her Dreams a little, she hadn’t asked about his. Now she was wondering if the Dream Plague had affected him, too.
“You know, we can always reschedule.” She added, moving with him and his things into the gymnasium-sized, indoor range.
“No, it’s fine.” He couldn’t exactly work up the energy to actually stop her assisting him with anything, but he could at least protest shifting things around. “I dunno, might just need to clear my head.” It happened sometimes, and usually the steady motion of archery helped soothe that, the restless almost settled way his head could get after weeks or months deployed. But this was down-time, permanent down-time, so he couldn’t really figure why it’d be an issue.
“Just don’t expect too much out of me, yeah?” Clint had functioned on much less than a few hours sleep in much more complicated situations. He was still mostly at ease, so it wasn’t too big a deal if he was sleeping a little more infrequently than usual. Provided he wasn’t shooting at anyone he suspected he’d be fine.
“I never do,” Kate teased, then moved over to the station where they normally practiced. She leaned against the wall, waiting for him to set up. “How much did you forget from last week, eh?” She asked, grinning softly. Her hands were itching to get on a bow now, too.
Set up was mostly on automatic pilot, just going through the motions steadily while setting. It was weirdly familiar, not just from repeated visits to the range now. Clint couldn’t really place it but it was like his body was already familiar with everything.
“We’re lucky I remember my name right now.” It wasn’t too far off the mark, maybe because it wasn’t like he had anything to do really. No assignments, no missions, no anything really. It didn’t really stop him from automatically taking up his positioning, his stance and posture second nature and coming to him without thought.
“Should I start calling you other names, just to keep you on your toes?” Kate asked. Even though Clint was tired and possible a little grumpy (though, it was a little hard to tell with him?) she was having fun flirting and playing. “Chris Burton. Clement Bartrom.” Beat. “Sugar pants?”
Kate moved forward and picked up the spare bow and an arrow. “C’mon, Honey Nuts, time to show me whatcha got.”
“Clement Bartrom?” Clint just paused in his set up, raising an eyebrow at Kate for that one, snickering under his breath. “I’m gonna start worrying about how your mind works, Kate.” It was less that Clint was grumpy, just slightly irritated by his own subconscious. Not that he’d take it out on Kate.
But the point of the archery was to try and clear his head, maybe enough that he’d be able to sleep properly too. Taking up position, Clint gave Kate a small smirk before drawing and firing, landing bullseye without much trouble at all.
Kate had a comeback prepared. She opened her mouth to spit it out, playful and flirtatious, but then Clint landed a bullseye with ease.She looked a little surprised on the outside, but inside she was shocked. Sorry, Clint.
"Shit." She grinned. "With no warm up? Do it again."
He was actually a little surprised himself, because sure, he could hit the middle sometimes, but it wasn’t usually straight away, it took a while to clear his head to get to the steady point of the motion. Frowning a little, Clint just set up another arrow, his stance altering itself as if he always knew how and drawing back the arrow before letting it fly.
Landing right next to the first one, bang on the bullseye. “Huh.” Definitely not a common occurrence. “Either you are a very good teacher, or sleep deprivation has it’s perks.”
Kate watched the second arrow fly, then folded her arms across her chest. This was unusual. She didn't even hit it twice in a row without a warm up. Without five minutes to get her head in the game. Now she was a little suspicious, and, to be honest, a little jealous.
"Are you cheating on me with another instructor?" Kate asked. It was likely comical how jealous she came off in saying it.
“I sorta wish I could say yes to that.” Because at least then it would make some sense, right? Because then it would explain the leap from one week to the next in his ability. But no, he hadn’t actually picked up his bow since last week.
“So… Do you think people can pick stuff up from what they dream?” He was definitely losing his mind if he just said that out loud. But who dreams about grueling practise with a bow and then suddenly gets insanely good?
"...under normal circumstances I would say no. But." Well, there was Hans and his tiny girlfriend. They had weird, shitty things happening to them once a month or more.
"What are you dreaming about?" She asked.
That was a loaded question really. His last few nights dreaming had been rather disturbing. Not in the fact that they were creepy or weird, but in the sense that they warped his view of a man long dead and brother he wasn’t even sure where was anymore. Sensitive subjects really. His father had never been abusive, strict and serious yes, but never straight out violent towards him or his brother.
This dream person with his father’s face and voice and everything was another thing entirely. “Joining the circus.” He went with the lesser of two evils for now, deciding that it was probably only that part that was relevant anyway. “Like those cliche small town runaways, just leaving and joining a circus.”
Staring at the target though, practically feeling the way his body would shift into perfect form. “I dreamt I was trained to shoot there.”
“Well… Jeez, I guess that explains it?” Kate said, watching the way his body moved. There was certainly a difference between now and last week. She stepped over and brought her hand to rest on his back, beneath his shoulder blade. “...your form is much better. And it looks instinctual--like you’re not even trying.”
Her hand lingered on his back for a moment, then she lowered it. “...I threatened to join the circus once. When I was a kid. My dad was pissing me off, so I screamed at him, then ran up to my room crying.”
The fact that his dreams explained it should not have been comforting. But weirdly the fact that there was any sort of explanation was good. “Yeah, well I followed through.” He managed a tired chuckle at that, because it’d left him with some weird affection at the idea.
Taking up position again, Clint fired a third arrow right into the centre mass again, shrugging slightly. “It’s entirely just motor function.” No part of him was actually Thinking about taking the shot. He just did. “We can totally pass this off as your teaching.”
“Hey, I may be good,” Kate said with a flirtatious smirk, “but I’m not that good. This is something else.” She’d take the credit, though. “All right, we’ll have to jump you forward to more advanced techniques. Moving targets. Stationary targets while moving. Moving targets while moving.”
The weird sort of giddy excitement that came with that was a bit of a rush, Clint just laughed a little, feeling more upbeat than when he’d dragged his butt down here. “Okay, see, now you’re just trying to knock me back down a few notches, huh.” It was light and teasing, Clint smirking at Kate.
“Okay, I can take that. Should be fun.” Even if he was terrible, it’d be a challenge that just shooting didn’t feel like anymore.
“Oh, if I wanted to knock you down a few notches, I can think of a few more interesting ways to do it.” Kate smirked. “C’mon, let’s go outside. We’ve got a clay pigeon machine.” She grabbed his arm, playfully, and gave him a tug toward the door to outside.
The tug was somewhat amusing, although Clint did almost end up herding Kate along outside, one hand on her back to keep himself from bumping right into her and just not moving away as they went outside. Clay pigeons were fine for Clint when he had a rifle, or even a hand gun.
A bow and arrow, well, he’d just need to see how that went.
“There’s no actual birds out here though, right? I’m not gonna get fined for shooting down some endangered species, am I?”
“No no,” Kate laughed, leaning back just slightly against his hand. She didn’t want him to move it, though she knew that in a minute or two he’d have to. She would go set up the machine and have it shoot the clay disc up into the air. Of course, she was looking forward to impressing him with her own skill--but if he was getting better from the Dreams? Then he was going to impress her, too. Maybe.
Unless they were all crazy.
She gave him a bright smile, her face still close to his. “You think you’re ready for this?”
Clint would’ve put money on them being insane right then, if dreaming was giving him certain skills in the waking world. But it wasn’t like any of this was logical any way. “Well, one way to find out, right?”
At the least, it was something else to try, and really if firing at stationary targets was now officially boring and easy, then why not move up to moving targets? Provided he wasn’t about to impale anyone.
Kate moved away from him and over to the machine that shot the clay pigeons. This was actually one of her favorite activities at the range. She was looking forward to seeing how far he’d advanced, and maybe getting in a little practice herself. “All right, then. Show me whatcha got.”
She waited for him to arrow up, then shot out the first clay pellet.
Clint was pretty much expecting to fail, it was insane that there’d be any chance of him hitting a damn moving target with the arrow this early in the game, show honestly, he wasn’t surprised when he did miss.
What surprised him more was the weird sort of knowledge of why he missed. That ability to gauge just where he should’ve aimed. “Um… try another.” Because if he could figure out what he did wrong from missing, chances were the trial and error method actually worked.
Kate wasn’t surprised, either, when he missed. Sometimes she missed, too. Though it wasn’t all that often, if she was honest. And she’d worked damn hard to get to where she was now. Both in this world, and in the Dream World.
He asked for another, which was good--he wasn’t taking the miss hard, it seemed. So Kate set up the machine again and it shot out another pellet for him.
This time it was like something clicked. He’d figured out the rough trajectory, guessed on the speed and just where the crossover would be for arrow versus pigeon and could work out where he needed to aim for to catch the path of the clay pigeon.
It was kind of shaky, just minorly catching the pigeons path and knocking into it, but enough to actually hit it in flight and… “Hmm.” Calculating things like wind speed and bullet velocity and force and mass were completely different from firing arrows, so it wasn’t like his sniper training could really be transferred for clay pigeon shooting with arrows.
“Honestly, I still didn’t expect that.” Apparently, hitting targets wasn’t the only thing he was picking up from these dreams.
Kate wasn’t watching the pigeon. She let it fly, but kept her own gaze on his face. He probably wasn’t watching her at all, but she could see the concentration there in his eye. And she could see things clicking into place for him. Recognition. And surprise. She heard the impact, though, the arrow knocking the clay from its course. Years on the archery range taught her what those things sounded like.
She was impressed. “...you… I shouldn’t be surprised by this.” She said, but she was. And she was smiling. “I really wish I could take credit for it, too.”
It was weird. Pretty cool, but very weird. He shouldn’t be good enough to work out that shit right then, but apparently… “It seems like running away to the circus was a very enlightening thing.” Okay, so the dreams were pretty involved in the whole learning aspect of it, and kids picked up this stuff quicker, right? But how he would learn it from dreams, well, it was weird.
“I’m not sure how I feel about this at all.” Although impressed was one part of it, a little confused came into it too.
“Freaked out?” Kate said, dusting her hands off as she walked back over toward him. “Weirded out? Not exactly scared, but definitely not comfortable with the idea.” She slipped her hands into her pockets and regarded him carefully. “...just like the rest of us, I suppose. At least we’re not alone in all of it?”
That definitely covered the range of emotions currently going hand in hand with this entire thing. Freaked out was probably where he started off and he was firmly in the massively weirded out section of things. It wasn’t terrible, who complained about having better aim and ability at something, although the dreams were a little weird in how they left strange notions of memories really.
“Yeah…” But it didn’t seem to just be him which was the better end of it. “You woke up with some innate ability at something?” Realistically it was entirely possible.
“No,” Kate shook her head after speaking, but kept her face pointing at him when she talked--it was easy, actually, so long as she remembered. “But I woke up better at the things I already do.”
She wasn’t as weirded out, really. Her dreams weren’t that far from her real life. A bit, because superheroes, how? She could get used to it, though. So long as she didn’t do something stupid and die. Which was, actually, a probability.
So far Clint had experienced a strange mix of troubled childhood, something that half made him want to contact Barney and not at the same time. The run up to the circus life was not something that made sense to him, least of all with his current real memories of his parents, who had died just a decade ago rather than when he was a child and just how?
“Lucky you.” Although really, should he be complaining that he was just getting some skills out of this? Stupid memories aside, it wasn’t that bad at all. “Let’s hope shooting things is all I get from the circus. Although I’ve wanted to know how to juggle.”
“Jugglers are hot.” Kate said, giving him a little smirk. “I’d say learning to juggle in one night is probably the best way to go about doing it, but… you really would have to live through all the practicing. Even if it happens in a Dream, it feels real.”
She moved back over to the machine. “Now. Let’s get back to work.”