ᴍɪsᴛᴇʀ ᴡɪsᴅᴏᴍ (wisdoms) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-09-09 09:05:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, clint barton (hawkeye), pete wisdom |
Who: Barton & Wisdom
What: Infiltration, explosions, and bonding
When: Friday!
Where: A weapons depot, where Clint's bro Barney has gotten himself into some trouble
Rating/Warnings: Violence, snark, dick jokes
Status: Complete
Barney was… A complication. Which was putting it mildly, really, but family and all that, so Clint was taking it a day at a time. It just so happened that it included another mess that Barney got himself involved in. He supposed the plus side was that Barney wasn’t getting himself neck deep in this shit, but then, weapons dealers didn’t really need to get deep with to get yourself killed. And as estranged as they were, Clint wasn’t going to just step back and let that one happen. Getting Pete involved hadn’t been his first thought, but when it came to it, Pete was better than roping Kate into things; Nat had enough on her plate, and Wisdom was more than capable of taking care of himself, so… Infiltrating and pretty much fucking up a weapons trade depot. Just another Friday night? “Most brothers just borrow money or need a place to crash. Why does mine get tangled up with weapons dealers and the international arms trade?” Go big or go home? “It’s good money,” was Wisdom’s rather honest response, with a smirk that reached the depths of intense cobalt eyes. “He either had a drug habit or a romance to fund, you’d know better than me. Maybe he just enjoys the thrill. But perhaps this will knock some sense into him.” Just another Friday night indeed. Wisdom was prepared, however, and this was the type of thing he did for a living - good thing Barton came forth with the offer for an assignment when he did, because Pete was going a bit mad working solely on damage control from the latest debacle. He wanted to sink his hot knives into something juicy, and this seemed to be it. Besides, anything for a friend and co-worker, right? Wearing a smart black suit, pressed and sophisticated, he checked the holster of the gun at his hip (likely would be unnecessary, since he preferred to use the abilities his mutant genes gave him) and then flexed his fingers - he was practically buzzing with ambient heat he’d absorbed, and needed to let loose a little. Presumably, leaving this building standing at first was a good idea though - as dark and shadowy as it looked, it was probably stuffed with something volatile. Weapons traffickers usually preferred rundown warehouses to conduct their business in. He couldn’t tell what this had once been exactly, but it fit the description of shady. “How should we best get in, do you think?” Probably a good point; money pretty much made people do stupid dumbass shit, like traffic weapons. “Knowing Barney? All of the above.” Sure, Clint loved the guy, but he was a lazy shit and a quick route to cash was Barney’s prefered way to anything. Clint wasn’t just as smart as Wisdom for infiltration, he was pretty sure he’d feel like he was dressing for his own funeral if he even contemplated a suit, but the tactical pants and dark jacket at least housed enough of his own weapons (no bow, because conspicuous) that he had a mini-arsenal of his own. Puny humans needed to make do where they could after all. “Back door? I mean, these places usually have a back door.” Less guarded, just as easy to access. It might not manage to be a full blown cartoon cliche warehouse operation with the dark trucks coming and going or the armed guards all around, but it had the security system that a run down, almost deserted building wouldn’t need if it wasn’t housing something important. Clint’s money was on explosives, which would make it a very bad idea to just blow the place up. “At the very least, easier lock to pick. No one puts the same effort into the back door as the front door.” A rookie mistake was simply strolling in like they owned the place - actually, that was a few notches below rookie, so back door it was. Wisdom was just glad that it wasn’t one of those infiltrations where there was a passcode to get into some secret society meeting and he had to pretend to ‘blend’ before unleashing the diversion. He’d gotten shot at one of those the last time, it was just not a delightful experience. “Fair enough,” he nodded, and to the back door it was. Stealthy and quiet, no need to flap his gums with words and speaking voices that would alert any guards to their presence - the quicker they got in and out, the better. He held up a finger, indicating to wait a moment - and then the tip of that finger glowed a little, like the burning end of a cigarette lighter. It was a lot hotter than that though, hot enough and precise enough to slice through a heavy padlock that had been holding the door closed. And then it hit the ground with a gentle thud. “You’re right - that padlock was fucking shoddy.” The whole maneuver was executed with a lot more finesse than simply blasting the door in. Which was always a favoured move, but time and a place for everything. As much as Clint had the military training for tracking and infiltrating, along with years of the merc work with Natasha in the dreams and then the ‘superhero’ gig, blending in wasn’t really his thing. He was either balls to the wall destruction or distance kill, swift and silent. So it was a little bit in between right now and there was a preference to not get shot up just yet (he wasn’t holding his breath, but he would like to postpone it for as long as possible here). “Probably helps that you went with the blowtorch approach rather than the lock picking one.” But hey, why be a human furnace if you can’t use that shit? The place mostly lived up to the cliche on the inside, the whole crates without markings thing and the dim lighting for effect -really, what sort of effect was this to achieve other than moderate blindness- the usual maze of boxes to work through. At least they were keeping with the general program of arms dealers that was set up to date. The whole point of this, of course was to fabricate some kind of double cross slash rival whatever it was arms dealers got into (spat probably wasn’t the right word there) while not getting killed and presumably staying relatively within the law. Clint wasn’t exactly sure how inside the law that was, but hey, someone could clear that up for him when he went over that little line. “I feel like someone should have a really snappy, iconic line for when we inevitably get caught.” Of course, Clint could not keep the mouth shut, regardless of the situation; it seemed to be a flaw in his character. Since his fiancee was a former superstar in the arms dealing world (no one ever suspected a tiny redhead of trafficking, and Wisdom’s observation about money was likely accurate - arms dealing was a relatively simple way to earn some nice cash flow), Pete had heard his fair share of stories. About the various players in the game, about the seedy underworld itself, about where they set up shop. This? This seemed about right. And to think it was so close by, so right in their back trouser pockets. Oh, Barney. What had you gotten yourself into? Clint had briefed him about everything, so Wisdom wasn’t going in blind when it came to the objective. Infiltration and fabrication, right up his sneaky British alley. “I think between the two of us we can figure something out,” he chuckled, a low sound hopefully covered by the squeak of fucking rodents or whatever vermin was scurrying about down here. Mickey’s cousins, probably. “Though I don’t know, can they handle that much sarcasm?” Best get to work, in order to do as much of the fucking up before inevitably getting caught. What better way to instil a false alarm when it came to rival arms dealers than to destroy some explosives in the dead of night? Either way, he was ready. “I’ve got a solvent - should eat through just about anything. Just don’t spill it on your nuts or something,” he helpfully advised. “Well it’s potentially the last thing they’ll hear, we should make it memorable.” Although it wasn’t really an objective to kill tonight, it wasn’t like Clint was holding out for a peaceful getaway, he really doubted Wisdom was either, just the way things went with this shit. Of course then Wisdom brings up nut dissolving solvents and Clint is wondering how far back is safe enough to still provide cover. “I’m about to start worrying about exactly what sort of shit you do in your free time.” Of course since this was technically his free time, it was probably more of the same. Everyone had to have a hobby. The little rodents weren’t the only problem either, echoing footfalls at least alerting them to the direction of guards or henchmen or whatever they wanted to call themselves around here. “I’m guessing we should avoid that way for now, and play with your solvent over there,” because yes, as much fucking up as possible pre-caught would be nice. What, Clint didn’t think his partner-in-crime (this was only sort of illegal) wasn’t absolutely hilarious? Pete flashed a broad grin in the dark, stark white teeth visible like a Cheshire Cat moon in the midnight sky. “That’s good, mate, just cover me,” he assured, since the space was well enough - Barton also didn’t need to be up his bumhole, so it was suitable, and he’d pick up on anything with those hawk eyes anyway. The explosives were sealed away in munition boxes, ready to be installed into whichever model grenade launcher or whatever else - so Wisdom took care of them quickly, slicing into the somewhat tough and resistant packaging with a fingers, similar to how he did with the lock, and then popping open the bottle of testicle-burning solvent. It would not go on his testicles, however. Rather, he let the toxic chemical sizzle and splash on various bombs and booms. Really spreading the love, you know. “How you holding up over there?” asked as quietly as possible. Cover was something Clint was good at, it was pretty much his skill set if it was really examined in depth, but who bothered with that nonsense. Clearly Wisdom’s skill set was insane explosions with even more insane chemical compounds. They all had their wheelhouse. “Fine,” really, Clint was maybe expecting a little more from this, “I dunno if they’re home,” at the very least some kind of security type monitoring of the place. Like was it too much to ask some guys to wander around the building every once in a while? Maybe pretend like they had army grade explosives up in this place that might be volatile or tempting to a pair of assholes? Of course the thought was barely through Clint’s mind when he actually managed to pick up on footsteps -difficult sometimes, considering his hearing issues, but not impossible when it came to echoing buildings and rats scurrying away from large people. “Opps, spoke too soon.” It wasn’t like it was an armed force of hostiles though, so long as Wisdom kept his head down and didn’t blow something up? “Shush yourself a minute.” And that was as low as Clint’s voice went. The security seemed to be not up to par, but as we all know, appearances were deceiving. Or perhaps it really was as sorry as it appeared, and felt, here in the dark? Wisdom wouldn’t lean that way, however. He was about as British and cynical as they came, so he was essentially waiting for the other shoe to drop. In the form of a grenade or something. Shushing himself too, roger that. He could still see Barton, a bit, though the fellow did blend in nicely wearing his own shadowy attire. Finished with the solvent, he tossed the empty bottle and side-stepped a bit, blending in and attempting to head Clint’s way while moving stealthily. If he could get in a good spot to launch a counter-attack, all the better - but mostly, he would hold out hope for once that whatever was wandering about nearby wouldn’t decide to discover them. Oh wait, like that’d happen. At the very least, it was dull enough inside to hide mostly well enough, Clint just had to press himself up against a wall to be fairly unseen. Of course that was only from one angle and Clint didn’t quite duck fast enough to avoid detection from another of the guards having a smoke at the end of the building, “Who the fuck smokes around explosives?” He mostly hissed it while trying to crab walk to another location. “So we’ve been spotted.” At least if the gun grabbing and shifting to investigate was anything to go by. It seemed like the dude wasn’t sure what he saw, just that he saw something. He didn’t bother moving towards Wisdom, since it’d be easier if they weren’t in the same place, and also crotch burning solvents in fights were not Clint’s idea of a good time. Considering the two armed guards coming from the left, and the two rounding where Clint had been, it was a very good guess that this was going to develop into some kind of fight -which, yeah, Clint sort of expected, but sometimes it was nice to have a quiet night out with a work-buddy breaking and entering you know. Smoking around explosives, that was certainly on the ‘fucking special’ side of things. “Your brother’s been spending time with a group of morons - I hope it doesn’t rub off,” Wisdom uttered in response, and alright, here we go. Time for some mayhem. He had to have known that it wouldn’t be a matter of ‘get in, get out.’ Though having a chance to expel the ambient heat he was constantly absorbing was always nice - sometimes he got jittery if he didn’t. He was in the spot where Clint had been, which meant the two who headed in from that direction were met with knives to the back - one received such gifts, rather, the claws protruding from the tips of Pete’s fingers and then retracting. Skin sizzled, any body armor or bulletproof vest the human guard was wearing sliced right through - he didn’t have much time to be in pain, which was so merciful wasn’t it - but he went down and knocked into his compatriot, whose curse words of surprise were plenty colourful. Pete would take care of that one too - he just couldn’t see the other two who had come in from the left, fuck it all. The curse up storm was fairly impressive at least, and Wisdom taking those two, gave Clint some time to shift again, going over some crates of something deadly to drop on the arriving two guards. Sadly, Clint didn’t have awesome little tricks like searing heat knives, just normal knives and guns. And his fists, which made contact with one jaw to startle the guard before his elbow went into the other one’s solar plexus. He didn’t bother mentioning to Wisdom that honestly, his brother was just as moronic, but it was definitely implied. With his knee meeting the nose of the guy rather violently, Clint probably took longer with one dude that Mister Hot Knives in the Back over there. And as the one guy dropped, the other took a steel pipe to the back of Clint’s head and boom, stars. The collision of the steel pipe against skull was enough to alert Pete to Barton’s location, at least - or he had an idea, anyway, thanks to the sounds of a scuffle. There was one on his end too, the other cockroach fighting for his life - it was admirable, Wisdom had to give him that. And even with hot knives, he wasn’t exactly immune to bullets - a lot of projectiles, his heat shields could disintegrate but bullets were not on the list. Shots were fired (luckily, it was just the sound of those bullets pinging off of ceiling pipes and walls rather than sinking into flesh), punches were thrown, but Wisdom managed to cut the other fellow off at the knees - literally. It wasn’t pretty, and down he went. Rolling back up into a crouch to assess, he wasn’t about to just throw hot knives blindly - the risk of hitting Clint rather than the actual target was too great. The flicker of light from them was helpful though, the way they burned in the dark, and he managed to get a glimpse of the one with the pipe and sent scorching hot blades whizzing his way. Clint figured he should be thankful it was just a pipe to the back of the head, he had a hard skull, even the nausea was receding fairly quickly and his vision clearing slightly. Concussions were his best friend at this point. “Oh, that sucked…” Of course the gun shots had definitely drawn attention by this point, and they were going to be swarmed soon. “Thinking we should skidaddle and let your crotch-melter do it’s job?” As soon as Clint could see straight, he’d totally be doing that, the door was to the left, right? Right? Whatever. Standing up straight only made his head ache a little worse, but fuck it he could handle some extra discomfort to get out before actually getting shot. Again. Barney was a God damned bad luck totem, it was absolutely a certainty now. Crotch-melter. That made Wisdom snort in amusement, but alright, he had to agree that ‘skidaddling’ was likely a good plan. “Better now than before the ambush,” he nodded, taking off at a fast clip toward the way they came - the melted locks would hopefully mean that getting out would still be as simple as getting in was. He was a bit concerned for Clint, however, and while perhaps he’d had worse it was also true that he’d been better too; Pete would help if he could. He was a bit soft-hearted like that, don’t tell anyone. “Here,” he slid the ring he wore on the third finger of his left hand and passed it over to Barton. “Hold this for a bit, it’ll ease the headache.” Later he’d explain that the Orihalcon did it, the material from Lina’s dreamworld that was blood, skin, and nails from a dragon god. Apparently it had healing powers - and certainly had gotten him out of a bind or two. His own bumps and bruises would also be tended to later on. He was skeptical, sure, but didn’t bother questioning it while taking the passed over ring. It would feel really weird to put it on, so Clint just held it in a closed fist while frowning. “I would totally call bullshit but I’ve died and come back so magical ring really doesn’t seem that farfetched.” At least he wasn’t slurring, or wobbling. Walking was apparently something he could definitely keep doing right now. “You’d think they’d be a touch more vigilant before the gunshots, but hey, why complain.” Talking also seemed to ease that ‘I am going to barf’ feeling that the movement caused, so it was all just a case of compartmentalising. At least Wisdom was right and the ache at the back of his skull was totally easing off. At least if they were ambushed now, with the exit mostly clear and a far better positioning available outside, they wouldn’t be hemmed in with explosives all around, although they were expecting some kind of fireworks from Wisdom’s little party favour soon. As long as that ring wasn’t dropped or left behind (it was his engagement token, the pea-sized sentimental place in his shriveled black heart appreciated such things), Pete was all for helping out a coworker in need. It seemed to be doing the job, anyway. “I’m not quite certain if vigilance - “ Oh, well, alright. And here was the ambush - or rather, about five things happening at once. One was more bullets whizzing by (and where the bloody fuck had they come from? Who was shooting at them?) and the other was the loud bang, crash that happened to be a room full of weapons deflating and caving in on itself. He’d left a wee bit of a surprise, and what could he say - maybe he wasn’t American, but he did enjoy a little fireworks show here and there. “Fuck it, fuck it all,” And honestly, that was an appropriate way to summon up recent events. Heat billowed out, expanding, forming to all corners of the corridor - and maybe it wouldn’t stop all projectiles, but it’d disintegrate a few annoying ones. He hoped. “To the exit, shall we?” And the clusterfuck continued; there really seemed to be no such thing as nice night out around these parts, some quiet breaking and entering. On the plus side, bullets Clint could deal with. Mostly by grabbing his sidearm and returning fire, his vision wasn’t that wiggy that he couldn’t make it steady out to catch flashes from the guns, centre mass didn’t always do the trick, bulletproof vests as common as the might be, but it was a sure bet that they’d need to recover from the punch at least. Which of course led to the cacophony of violent explosions which really should be the PSA for not keeping things in a warehouse that people would break into and destroy. Lesson that these guys probably wouldn’t get to learn. Whoops. “I fully agree with this plan.” Because they couldn’t just shut the fuck up and get out, they had to talk about it first. Jesus, it was like a damn furnace in this joint though. Between the explosives, Wisdom’s fancy tricks and yet more explosives, someone was gonna wonder if someone missed the memo about July being long past. There was a slight sense of glee that came along with knowing that explosives in a Weapons R’Us were now the best kind of defunct - meaning, disintegrated beyond recognition along with the whole storage space being blown to kingdom come. Lina would have been so pleased to see the blast, and hear the results - nothing like some heavy duty poppers going off to really get you in the mood for a party. The sooner they got outside, however, the better. Wisdom saw a good spot to make a break for it, and he took it - basically just blasting the door back (and off), not even bothering with silly things like opening it. No one had time for that. “Well, that was fun,” he noted once they were in a relative safe zone - and he’d been grazed with a bullet, also noted, part of his suit by the shoulder torn and the skin shredded, bleeding, but apparently adrenaline was just going to keep that from bothering him. “You really know how to show a girl a good time, Barton.” Such sarcastic shits they both were - no wonder they got along like peas n’carrots. Making doors was better than using them anyway, who didn’t like making doors? “Fun, right…” Clint snorted a little, “Had a blast.” He was an idiot, but it didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy his own terrible puns, thank you very much. Plus side, no one was around to tattle, since hey, no more door. “You’d actually be amazed how often this happens.” In the whole sense of nothing going according to plan, a little less the mass destruction and explosions. Although that was occasionally a risk he ran on plans too. But who didn’t like some shooting and exploding during a little trip out? “Oh, here,” with the ache at the back of his skull gone -thank you steel pipe- Clint handed the ring back to Wisdom so that he didn’t do something utterly stupid now that no one was shooting at them and drop it like the doof he was. “Thanks.” Of course, watching some of the fires spread inside probably wasn’t a good idea, even as they stood and did it, “Well, that takes care of that problem.” No one was buying those. Of course Clint was sure Barney would have another one for him later. Wisdom took the ring back gratefully, sliding it onto his finger - almost immediately, he could feel his body beginning to repair itself, the sting of the bullet graze dissipating and giving him a sense of relief. “I’m far too cynical of a sod to be too surprised, but overall, I’m pleased the job got done,” he said, and that was what mattered, right? Just a few bumps and bruises along the way. A few bullet grazes. A few explosions. No big deal. “Hopefully your brother waits a little while before springing the next complication on you.” From what Wisdom knew of Barney though, it seemed like long-suffering Clint was due for a little more. Until the other Barton wised up and did something useful with his life. Ha, dream big. “But in the meantime, what do you say we grab a drink or several?” It was a good night to get completely pissed, in his view. Just was a case of at least it was done, really. Clint had those double barrel memories of Barney being a total tool and Barney only being a bit of a tool to deal with rattling around his head, but it wasn’t that big a deal. At least things weren’t too serious and the stuff was dealt with. Brothers, damn pain in his neck. “Let’s not jinx things, shall we.” Because this might be the tip of the iceberg, even if Barney said it wasn’t, that didn’t mean it absolutely wasn’t. Fingers crossed though. “That’s the second best idea you’ve had all night.” The first best being keeping the crotch-melting solvents away from crotches, that was the best idea ever. “I’m all in favour.” He owed Wisdom a couple of drinks for this fiasco anyway. |