WHO:Clint & Sharon WHEN: (waaaay backdated) December WHERE: Mall somewhere WHAT: During the Christmas Characters stuff. WARNINGS: They shoot the Grinch... soooo PG? STATUS: Complete
Christmas wasn’t a terrible time of year. Clint wasn’t sure yet if he preferred being over seas to being home. Even if this year was a little different than most. He’d figured he’d go out before the carnage and chaos began with the last minute shoppers and get some gifts for Simone’s kids upstairs because the rugrats were great when it came to dogsitting his giant dork of a dog.
Of course that meant, when a reported sighting of a giant, fuzzy green yeti came in, he was near the area and ended up wandering over to find some gridlocked traffic and cars almost on top of each other.
“The Grinch?” He’d overheard some of the drivers complaining to the cops about out of control dress up freaks, but this being Orange County, obviously that probably wasn’t the end of things. Clint just gave his head a rub with his thumbs because seriously.
Sharon arrived on the scene only a few minutes after the call came in. She’d been nearby, actually, investigating another sighting. A living, walking, snowman? Sharon wasn’t sure how a snowman was supposed to walk, seeing it had no legs, but this was Orange County, so “fuckery” was the answer to all those questions. (The snowman was no longer on the first scene when Sharon arrived, which was fine by her.)
She saw Clint and came over to him right away. “Hey. Have you seen it?”
Giving a tight smile at Sharon, Clint just shook his head, “Saw what I think was the tip of a Christmas tree disappearing down an alley, which I’m guessing was stolen from the mall.” Which was likely, since there were complaints about that too. “But they’re talking big, green and covered in fur.” Which limited what it could be greatly.
At least the place was getting festive.
“Some sort of Christmas Yeti?” Sharon asked, completely flummoxed. “Jesus, this place. Why do we live here again?” She asked, and then nodded for Clint to come along with her.
They passed by panicked people on the street, following where the tip of the Christmas Tree had disappeared. Sharon drew her gun, carefully side-stepping over fallen, broken ornaments.
Since he’d been out shopping -like honest to god shopping, not even weapon shopping- Clint wasn’t really packing heat. He had his back up in his back holster should he need it, but his bow was at home and honestly he wasn’t expecting to need his guns for shopping. “I wanna say we’re here for the atmosphere, but I think that’s a lie too.”
There were probably reasons, like good reasons other than ‘moving is hard’ and he disliked putting effort into boring things like moving anyway. But when giant green things stole Christmas trees and stopped traffic before absconding into warehouses. “You think there’s a giant magpie that likes trees around? I am not up for dealing with a giant bird.”
“Your aim is so much better than mine,” Sharon mused, wishing that the Hawkeye had his bow. If he did have it, he hid it really well--the thing was pretty massive, if she recalled correctly. She turned down the next block and thought she saw…
“Is that thing wearing a… Santa hat?” She asked. There were fewer panicked people on this street, and the door to the warehouse was wide open. There seemed to be a huge stash of torn down Christmas Trees and trash bags full of wrapped presents littered about.
“Don’t worry, I aim really well with just about everything.” Arrows, bullets, bo-staff, throwing stars, knives, the aim carried over to anything Clint shot or threw. Partly why his Ronin gig was successful.
Of course when he spotted what Sharon spotted he was just as speechless for a moment too. “I’m too busy trying to work out if it’s ironic of something that furry to be wearing a fur lined hat.” Because that was a lot of green and red. Why would a giant furry green--- “Is that a Grinch?” Okay, Orange County was really getting festive.
Sharon was on duty, so she had a second piece in the holster under her arm. She pulled it out and offered it to him. Grinch or no Grinch, she didn’t want to take any chances. Besides, having Hawkeye at her back? That was the best insurance ever.
“We should probably put an end to his reign of tree stealing. Don’t you think?” If they couldn’t reason with the thing--what was the line? His heart grew three sizes that day--they had bullets to back up their point.
He would really hate it if they needed to shoot some beloved (was the Grinch beloved? He couldn’t remember) Christmas character just because he was stealing trees and blocking traffic up. “Okay, if we need to pull him in, you’re cuffing him and I’m recording it. There’s no way around that.” But he still checked over the gun like he should, making sure he was ready should he actually need to shoot a Grinch, and boy was he not sure about how this became his life.
“I’mma let you ask the questions, I tend to piss things off.”
“I can be diplomatic,” Sharon assured Clint as they edged closer. “My human-grinch relations training’s still fresh.” Whatever that meant. Diplomacy with a grinch? Seriously.
She moved in, keeping the gun ready but pointed at the ground. There were few people in this world or any other that Sharon would rather have at her back than Hawkeye. Or Iron Man. Or Captain America. Or Black Widow. They were sort of the All-Stars, while she was still in the minor leagues. But hey.
“Oi!” She called out to the green guy.
The Grinch stopped and turned to look over at them. He looked absolutely sheepish for one moment, eyes flicking from Sharon to Clint, then to the guns in their hands.
“You really shouldn’t take things that don’t belong to you,” Sharon added.
“But I’m Santa Claus,” The Grinch said.
Sharon waited a beat, sure there was going to be a rhyming couplet attached to that. She glanced at Clint, then back to the beast. Didn’t The Grinch’s poem rhyme?
Oi, that was a nice, diplomatic approach to things, sure, he could follow that. He was still having trouble with the whole Grinch thing maybe, but the rest of it, sure. Why not, Christmas in Orange County after all.
He had no idea why Sharon was looking to him for input, currently he was stuck on the fact that one or both of them was likely going to need to shoot a giant furry green thing dressed like Santa, and then explain it. Because that would be an interesting approach for them.
“Doesn’t Santa give people shit though?” He was pretty sure that was how the tale went. “Are we gonna need to sing something for his heart to grow or something? Because I gotta tell you, I only sing while exceptionally drunk.” That part was for Sharon, because he hadn’t seen this movie (and no, he didn’t read the book) in years.
Sharon turned to Clint again. “No, I don’t think singing will do it.” Though, they did sing in the end of both the book and the movie. Movies. There were several of them now, weren’t there?
Her attention came back to Mr. Green-Fake-Santa, and she lifted the gun just slightly. “Sir, if you don’t refrain from breaking the law and come with us, then we will have to use force.” She had her voice raised a bit. Yeah, one of them was gonna have to shoot the green guy. Probably Clint. He was the better aim.
The Grinch shook his head, and went back to his task, seemingly ignoring the pair of them.
Fuck. He was going to be the asshole that shot a children’s book character. That was officially going to be what he was. He was already calculating angles, velocity and exactly where to shoot the furry green giant to incapacitate without actually having the drama of dead Grinch on their hands. He was sure this was more OC fuckery, but he could do without the issues it might present.
“Okay, I’m counting to ten, then I’m shooting him. I have shopping to do.” That was, again for Sharon, so that she could maybe get the idiot to pay attention and maybe avoid getting shot. But Clint wasn’t holding out hope.
“I’ll back you up.” Sharon told him, keeping her eyes on the crazy, green guy. She was ready to shoot now, too. Damn. All she wanted to do was finish her last minute Christmas shopping and get home to her boyfriend and baby. But now there was going to be the death of a Grinch on her conscience.
“Go on.” She held her gun up a little higher, making aim.
Fuck his life. Clint just blew out a breath before counting on his head. At least he’d have Sharon to back him up, tell them that yeah, he did need to shoot the dickhead, not just Clint’s patience. And figuring that disabling rather than flat out killing was for the best, they could call in back-up to take him in and they could wander off. Finish what they were doing.
And if it got worse, they’d just kill him. Seemed better.
“Heads up,” it was a quick double tap, Clint taking out one leg at the knee and putting another in the things back, potentially crippling it but hey ho, it was being an asshat and fucking with their free time. The fact that it bellowed as it went down only helped Clint feel better about getting to shoot something. Children’s book character or not.
Sharon didn’t have to be told twice. She landed a bullet in the thing’s shoulder. Not a great shot, as she was aiming for the head… but eh. The green guy tumbled down to the ground with a squeal, and then laid still, whimpering.
A second later and Sharon had her phone in hand, calling for back-up. The other was still carrying her gun, pointed straight at the green dude. She stepped over to Clint once the call was made.
“We’ll get a clean-up crew in here to help get rid of this mess.” As if The Agency didn’t have about a billion other things to be doing. Orange County was fucking insane.