Summary:Clint is training trickshots as Shuri is handing the paperwork in for the Avengers. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
  |
Needs must when the devil drives. And at times, now and again, Clint Barton may as well have horns and a pitchfork. What else are the devil's play things? Idle hands. And it is so very terribly idle when you're waiting for the information you sent out for to come back. SHIELD has a lot of contacts, and Hawkeye an entire bevy of his own. Once you get them moving you can get a lot of information back.
But it takes time.
The first few hours he'd managed to distract himself with work. In the Mansion it's sometimes better than the Triskelion since there's less random chaos around. But once what work he could do was done, he started to lash around for something else.
He went down to the sub-level Gym. All the old training programs were out of date, not much of a challenge anymore. But an Archer of Clint's caliber, it's easy for them to make things a touch more challenging for themselves.
Which is what leads to him being in the Foyer at this hour, standing in front of the monitor on the wall, looking sideways down the length of the hallway with his bow drawn and ready, an arrow nocked and set. Some distance down the hall a cast iron pan is hanging from the wall, angled to the side a bit.
An electronic voice pipes up, « Agent Barton, this is highly irregular. Training is to be conducted in the gymnasium. »
"I am training in the gymnasium." Clint says, straining a bit as he holds the arrow and adjusts his aim by looking at the monitor a bit, "Sorta." He adds.
As the black car returns for the second time this week, again some driver lets out the dignitary that belongs to the little flags posted on the front of the car. The harsh light from the foyer first illuminates shiny black fabric clinging to legs, then the rest of the female as she moves to the door, golden decorations getting drawn out of the darkness. A young woman of high physical fitness, so much her movement patterns tell, carying a folder she wanted to hand in…
« We have a visitor. »
"Yeah?" Clint says without looking up from the monitor, though his arms are straining a bit, trembling from holding the string back at full extension for an extended period of time. He grimaces, "Can you tell them to hold up?"
« I do not think the Ambassador from Wakanda would appreciate being told to 'hold up', Agent Barton. »
"What, T'Challa?" Not exactly up on who is all what and where. But then finally he releases the bow string with an audible /TWANG-PFFFT!/ as the arrow flies, then ricochets off the distant iron skillet with a /PANG!/ and then flies out of view down the hall.
Crinkling his nose, Clint eyes the monitor again, then turns towards the door. It opens but moments before Shuri would need to lower herself to knock or make entry. And there, in all his glory, stands Clint. T-shirt, jeans, white sneakers, and now with a bow slung over one shoulder. "Oh hey." He greets her rather informally.
One finger lifts as if he recognized her and then his head tilts to the side with brow furrowing. "Hey." He repeats again, perhaps not entirely placing her. It may have been… years, after all.
The woman waited in front of the door as one of the residents appeared, giving him a raised eyebrow for a short moment, the folder still in her hand. "Is this some kind of test?" she asks carefully, moving to get in and to the counter slowly. "To see if I can hand in the papers without being stopped? I thought Captain Rogers was more impressed." she almost muses. She stops as she is almost there, the purplish cat with the fur trim at the neck and the much golden jewlery catching the light and playing with the room's reflections on their surface. "Because if, I almost did it."
Accepting the folder, Clint won't make any move to stop her. It's clear his gaze is distracted by the ornamentation and the woman that wears it. His lip twists as he murmurs, "I don't think it's a test." The folder is lifted and he casually starts to peruse it, nosily.
"Then again maybe we're both being tested?" His eyebrows raise and then he smiles. "Oh hey, you're Shuri." He looks up, features warm. He remembers her a bit more now, "T'Challa's little sister. We met some time ago. I'm Clint. Err. Hawkeye."
A hand is extended towards her in greeting. "You've grown." Then he tilts his head to the side slightly, "Tall." A nod is given as if approving.
But then he looks back at the folder and he continues to flip through it, though now he's turning and walking down the hall, clearly expecting for her to walk with him. "And you're joining the Avengers? Very cool. All familial and such."
A couple long moments Shuri just eyes clint flipping through the folder that she had had to fill out for the Avengers. All of it stuff he had had to fill in himself some years ago. Age, where she was born and such, though some of the information didn't exactly make too much sense for anyone that didn't have a map of Wakanda or a good grasp on their customs. Like the lack of a family name in the appropriate field and references to places of study nobody outside of Wakanda would know. "I… think the last time I saw you Mister Barton was in… Azania? When they had that big earthquake some dozen years or such back?" she wonders, tapping her chin a moment. Just calling her tall? Well, she was kind of tall… "Well, as you see, I am indeed trying."
"Well, you got my vote." Clint's vote doesn't really count. He strolls along the hallway and runs a fingertip over the skillet that hangs weirdly from the wall. Then he turns and looks down the hallway to what seems to be a steel pot that's propped up in a stairwell holding the door open.
"But yeah, the security effort in Azania." He glances over his shoulder, "Ambassador Princess." He stops in the doorway and holds it open for her, blue eyes slipping back to peer at her own as his lip twists up a touch. "Should I have bowed?"
Into the stairwell he goes whether she precedes him or not. Then he says sidelong, "Is it okay for me to call you Shuri still? Madame Excellency? Her Diplomatic Highness?"
Reaching the next flight of steps down there's another pot that is angled just so and pointing towards the large double doors of the gym and training hall.
Shuri chuckles a little as she follows, letting Clint ramble a little about the old times. "Well, Ambassador is what I do for Wakanda, Princess is how Wakanda is used to refer to me because T'Challa used to be King, but currently there's a regent… well, it's a mess." She only gives the tiny glimpse on the current Wakandan council position and makeup. "But I am still Shuri."
Through those double doors and into the large gym with its padded floors and myriad of exercise equipment. Out in the middle of that stainless steel floor is an old hay-stuffed target that currently has just a single arrow imbedded in it… but not in the bullseye. It's on the first blue line a good six inches above where he likely was aiming.
It's this fact that has Clint scowling to himself as he steps into the room, his footsteps echoing off the metal walls and he frowns when he /yoinks/ that arrow out of the hay. "Dammit." He says, shaking his head.
But then he looks back towards her and says, "Well, good that you're still Shuri." His eyebrows lift, "You've grown into…" He shakes is head and looks back at her folder, thumbing it open again and peruses her CV and then tilts his head at her. "Quite a competent woman."
Then a once over and he adds, "Buff too." He tilts his head to the side and now leans against the target, "What do you intend to do as an Avenger?"
"Impressive, if one considers that you shot around about six corners, each increasing the angular error and widening the path where the arrow might have ended. All based on a tiny change in the cinditions of the shop. "You hadn't have any line of ight, right? I mean, you couldn't takke alook at i."
"I cheated, was looking on the monitor." Clint says, though still… that's not a bad shot all things considered. He dabs at his brow with the collar of his shirt, his features a touch sweat-slick form the exertion of his training. But then he gives her a nod. "Alright, Shuri. I'll pass this on. Let me know if you need anything else from me. Otherwise I'll get it to the right folks."
That said he extends a hand towards her to shake.
"Even with the camera, it's a very tricky shot… how did you atnticipate the movement of people to not hit them or the moveent of earth at that stretch you had to shoot through?"
"Even with the camera, it's a very tricky shot… how did you atnticipate the movement of people to not hit them or the moveent of earth at that stretch you had to shoot through?" Shuri gives to note as she shakes the hand of Clint, smiling some. "Good to see you still kicking."
Slinging the bow over his shoulder, Clint lets it collapse so it settles into place and then he turns to look at her, "Yeah, well. Figure if you spend most of your life doin' one thing you should be at least decent at it." A hint of humility? Maybe. That said he advances into the gym and gestures as he asks, "You ever been in here?"
He motions to some of the equipment and says, "Stark spent a pretty penny making it so the Avengers can train well, even the folks that can lift elephants or smash mountains and junk."
He rounds back to Shuri, "It might be able to keep up with you, even when we mere mortals might not be able to." His lip twists slightly.
"Na. I mean, when? When I saw you last we were back in Africa and my stay in america is the first outside of Wakanda since almost a decade." Shuri explains, shrugging a litle as she follows. "Does he believe every problem can be solved by throwing money at it? All the cool training equipment is nice, but the best trainer is combat. With a sparring partner or real, keeps you on the toes…" The ambassador chuckles, lifting an eyebrow. "You, keeping up with me? I'll show you."
"I'm no slouch, but…" Clint folds his arms over his chest and tilts his head to the side at Shuri, "You probably have an edge or two over me." He stuffs his hands into his pockets and looks around the room, gauging the equipment that sits at rest and the robotic weapons that sit there unactivated.
"Then again," He turns to smile at her sidelong, "It's rare that I tell a lady no if she's dead set on causing trouble."
He nods again as he gives her words thought, "And I think you're right, I've learned more from my time fightin' with Nat than with jumpin' around all of Stark's toys."
"Besides being like 20 years younger, what edge should I have? Sure, you're past your prime…" Shuri can be mean, teasing him as she reaches to her belt to pull free a mask from a small compartment in the belt.
"Oh, you ha a sparr with Natasha Romanova? She's well known."
"We're old friends. Been training for a while." He takes a few steps and then a seat upon a pile of blue foldable mats that are usually used for sparring with another, though he doesn't seem inclined to get them out and make them ready, perhaps not thinking she's serious. "Best person I've ever seen fight hand to hand, really impressive."
Then there's a beat as he looks sidelong at Shuri and adds with a half-smirk, "Though if you tell her I said that I'll deny it."
"Old friends, hmm? Isn't she a little young for you?" Shuri teases, knowing that the russian is probably twice his age due to being a supersoldier. "Well, if you find her the best, you havn't seen a lot."
Shuri chuckles, slipping the mask over her head, the material clinging to her face but still obscuring features, then merging with the suit. "Depends on if you can manage one hit."
Eyes lifting, Clint tells her, "One thing that's stayed the same, Shuri. You're still a brat." But then he gains his feet and sets the bow down next to that pile of mats and takes his time stepping out of his shoes. "A'right, c'mon then. If we're gonna do this let's do it right."
It's then that he grabs some of the mats and pulls them off the pile, unfolding and setting them out with a FWUMPF of sound. He casually boots it into place with his foot, then grabs a few more, unfolding them and gesturing for her to help if she wants. But once they've got them in place so they have a decent square some twenty feet wide, usable for two people to match against each other.
"You sure you don't wanna change? I mean… that seems a bit… formal." Since Clint is in blue jeans and a tight white t-shirt at this point. He does, however, step onto the mats and starts to loosen up, lifting his arms and twisting to the side slowly.
Shuri chuckles, helping him a couple moments. It doesn't seem she has to exert herself too much to lift the heavy mats, climbing onto them right after. Finding her stance, she shakes her head, moving to a ready, hands lifting some as she waits. "It's a standard Black Panther Habit. Sure, a little overdressed for sparring…"
Clint does surrender a bit to her, considering that well… mystical magical enhanced powers and the like. But he's taller, older, more experienced, grumpy. Ok so this probably won't go well. At least he has a few tricks up his sleeve that might help him not entirely get overrun. All of this runs through his thoughts as he looks at the lithe Princess as she warms up. Then his lip twists, and she's not entirely unattractive either so that might be a plus.
Drawing his arm across his broad chest, Clint finishes loosening up as he shakes out, then turns his hips to the side to fix the angle on her. His hands come up, one fist slightly forwad of the other and his balance held loose and low.
"Any particular rules you want or we just gonna play until someone says uncle?"
Shuri chuckles as she waits for Clint to move, lifting her fingers to gesture at him a moment. Come… She doesn't even seem to need to limber up, waiting for him to act first. "First one to give up?" Her position isn't too unsimilar, her feet well on the ground the muscles tense, her body like a coiled up spring.
She gives Clint an opening… though it isn't real. Just a feint to draw him in, so she can step aside and give him a strike to the chest.
The first few moments between two fighters is often a time of gauging, checking the reach, the movement, the focus. When she steps in with the feint he eases back and doesn't buy it though he lets a jab snap forwards to keep her honest. Enough of a strike to give her that chance to shift to the side and fire the strike at his chest.
She'll feel the impact as he hunkers behind his guard, a strong shoulder catching the impact and helping to push it to the side. Though Clint is older, he's definitely kept in shape. His arms are thick with muscle from so many hours of exercise and drawing a heavy pull bow. And he's quick.
A rapid combination of three punches are fired at her as he circles, mainly just to keep the distance since he has the longer reach for the moment. Then he finally answers her, "Sure, first one to give up, tap out. Or if you're feeling you have to you can just cry out, 'Hawkeye is the best.' and I'll let you stand back up."
His lip twists a bit, goading her, but perhaps more seeing how she'll react and if it'll give him an edge.
Shuri lets Clint come, allows him to gaugue her defense a little, to probe her with the fast strokes, but she seems to have no problems to avoid them, to let his strikes run into the empty space right next to her, not even contesting his larger reach. For now.
"Oh, you can tap out by begging for the mercy of the panther god." She finally goes to attack on her own, slipping a leg forward and trying to sweep out the legs from under Clint, her concealed face smiling. Being fully masked can be an advantage…
Her rejoinder gets him to smirk and exhale a chuff of air that might almost be a snort except then she twists and slices his legs out from under him. She's strong, maybe a little stronger than Natasha when she gets a good mad on, so she's able to knock him down.
But it's not like the first time he's fallen. She's able to make that sweep and he rolls with it, one arm lashing out to break the fall and thump upon the mats as he converts it, controls it, and then snaps out a short low kick aimed to prevent her from following up, to give him time to get to his feet even as he takes a few quick steps back.
A good exchange, all told, but she's got the initiative now.
Shuri gives the fallen Clint a moment or two to get up, returning to a gentle stance, a basic defense, one hand raised again to beckeon him to come again. A good exchange and she gives up the initiative? This is sparring after all. "Surely just a bad start, Clint, hmmm?"
"Pfft," Clint replies as he dusts off the legs of his jeans and then slips back into stance with an ease of practiced motion, though not as graceful as the woman before him. "Not bad, I mean… Nat would have me twisted up in a pretzel and begging for mercy by this point, but hey you're not bad yourself."
Oooh, probably not good teasing her like that. But perhaps any sting might be robbed from those words by the wry smirk on his lips.
He gestures at her, "How about you take a go if you're hard enough," He lifts a hand, curling two fingers as if daring for her to come at him.
"Like a Pretzl, hmm? I could, but that would cut the training short." Shuri remarks, possibly grinning under that full covering mask, her stance slowly shifting. Her feet find a stand a little wider, the tension in the legs building.
The next moment she releases the tension, catpulting her body forward into a fast strike with the right aimed for the lower end of Clint's sternum, the left waiting for the impact to come and contact the side of the Archer.
If there's one thing Clint is good at, it's judging distances, reach, and speed. He knows how fast she is, how skilled and powerful. He's there waiting for that split second of a charge, his lip curved as if slightly glad that well… if she were serious he'd be in a lot more trouble.
But when she comes in it's smooth, that right aimed for his chest, only for him to catch it on a forearm and push it to the side. But then that gives her an angle with the left, aiming for his side as he turns into the blow. She'll feel the jolt up her arm as she connects and he winces…
But he took that hit to try and close the distance in that moment, seeking to try and catch her wrist in his firm grip, to twist sharply as he tries to bring her across his hip and down towards the mats. A movement she's seen before most likely, practiced against. A hip throw to try and get her to the mats on her back with her arm over his knee and locked…
Though chances are it might not work out that way.
The movement to pull her of balance and to the ground seems to succeed for the first moments, Shuri's body lifting along the path Clint pulls her, but she indeed is trained how to deal with that. In a moment she repositions her legs, almost curling up in the throw, taking the impact on the mats with her back, but giving the archer a double kick in return as he tries to pin her, right to the torso.
The archer, for his part, looks a little smug as he tries to lock that arm bar in, already a few quips springing to mind about this particular Black Panther. But then his eyes go wide.
It's a clean twist as she plants on her arms, and then draws her legs in while Clint tries to get that grip in place and shift her balance. Only for her to snap out with a powerful mule kick that seems to life the archer /up/ into the air and gets him to hit the mats with a thud, rolling onto his back as an explosion of breath that bursts from his lips.
A grimace mars his normally handsome features as he scowls and tries to sit up quick enough, in case she decides to follow up.
Shuri in turn uses the momentum still left in the kick to spring back to her feet, doing the few steps over to plant her foot on Clint's torso, heel at the solarplexus. Not that she wore heels. "You were about to get cocky, didn't you?" she teases looking down at him through the mask. Her coat still hangs on, though a little out of position it should be in, but of course she's pretty much over Clint, with all the benefits.
"What, me?" Clint says as she rests her foot on his chest and he coughs again a little, "Never." He does quirk an eyebrow a little, "But it's ok, I got your number now. You play kinda rough. S'alright."
There's no hint to the movement, not telegraphed in those blue eyes nor the tension in the firm muscles of his chest and arms. But suddenly his hand comes up to grab and lock her knee upon him, the other catching the back of the ankle. Fingers dig in through that fabric to cause a blaze of pain from the pressure points held.
He abruptly twists his hips, holding that leg and trying to slam her onto the mats. It's all in one motion, a burst of pain, tension, and then movement as he tries to hold her down, his weight upon her back as he attempts to slither a forearm across her neck from behind, likely seeking to get a choke hold and tighten it.
The sudden action is rewarded by a wincing sound, the black clad woman ending on the mats right how Clint planned, trying to pin her down with his weight. A couple moments she seems stunned. But it's a ruse.
As Clint works on getting the forarm into a chokehold, the Black Panther springs back to action, digging her own hands into his wrist and elbow and twisting the radius against the ulna painfully, the wrist most likely protesting against the treatment. In the same movement her head comes back, aiming for Clint's nose, not necessarily to hit but to draw his attention from the actual reverse: A sudden throw to her side, over the elbow she trapped to get Clint ont his back and her on top. The fingers on the elbow release the moment he hits the mat with his back. Her own momentum caries her a little further, and then her ancon slams down into his solarplexus with a trained move.
For a moment she'll feel his bicep tense as he tries to tense the hold, his breath against the fabric of that mask as he scowls and exhales trying to pull back and to the side slightly. But she's fast, staggeringly fast and when she twists his wrist there's no illusion to him exactly how strong.
Her head snaps back and just smacks him a bit in the cheek, serving its purpose as his grip loosens subtly, letting her continue that twist to the side and slam him so hard upon the mats that he bounces slightly, free arm reaching out to try and stabilize and grab some leverage. Only for her to not give him that window she had given him twice before, when she continues the grapple gaining the superior position over him…
And then she strikes down and he curls /up/ around the impact of that hit. Yeah she's definitely not holding back as much now as the pain from that strike echoes through his nerve endings. One bare foot slides upon the mats as he tries to gather some leverage to buck her off, though she still has the edge over him for now.
And she doesn't let go of the edge, keeping his caught wrist in a hold as she slips free fully from him, pinning it against his chest as she twists her body around and reaches for his free hand to bring it in to join his other, pressing both to his chest if she can while settling onto his lower belly with her leg, the foot quite close to his crotch as she bends down to him, the mask hiding her emotion but she is surely smirking below. "Speechless?"
Now most guys might be well and truly taken with the idea of a beautiful young woman pinning a fellow down, but Clint… well he's not /entirely/ unaware of that. But he's had practice ignoring how attractive one's sparring partner is, and combine it with a competitive streak a mile wide and you get a guy who doesn't know when to quit.
"Mmm, don't hear me crying for forgiveness from your panther god, do you?" He twists his hips sharply to try and dislodge her, but without the use of his hands he's not able to get the needed leverage, at the most making her bridge or plant one foot to prevent him from breaking her balance.
Shuri growls lightly as Clint doesn't submit, instead trying to break free. She steadies herself with the off leg, but the one on his lower body moves a little to dig the knee into his abdomen better. "I could take those baby blues quite easily… But that would be a shame," Shuri answers, pulling his hands apart so they cross over his torso, allowing to be held much easier - and making it harder for him to not inflict pain upon himself by moving.
For a moment his nose crinkles and she does have him in a good grip, not exactly good position to resist, and she's a bit stronger than him. No shame in it, so he looks up at her and smirks, "Alright, you get the first point." He offers, as if they had agreed to play to more than one fall. But, to his credit, he does touch his hand to hers and lightly taps three times even as he stares up into the eyelets of her mask.
"You know, this would be more fun if you had the mask off. Since I get the vibe you might be enjoying himself." His foot slides upon the mats as he gets ready to get up, perhaps assuming she's going to let him now that he's tapped. Then again she might not.
Shuri grunts a little at the comment, but she recognizes the taps. She keeps up the pinch a moment before pulling at the hands just a tiny bit as she releases her grip, getting up in a fluent step, reaching out with a hand to help him up.
"Well fought, old man. But seems like the younger generation is ready." She can be such a brat, pulling at the edge of the mask with the other hand. It had been somewhat merged, but now started to easily peel away… "But we weren't going for points."
"Mmm," Clint says and accepts her hand, gaining his feet smoothly though not quite as graceful as her. "Ehn, you got some moves. I'll give you that." He says as he pushes a hand through his wild mane of hair, then makes a face at her sidelong.
"But you satisied now?" He winces and rolls one shoulder, a touch pained at the movement as he starts to step back towards where he left his shoes. "Figure I'll go grab a shower and something to eat then turn in. I'll tell people you were by." And give them her applications.
Shuri says, "Sure, that works fine. Add your remarks if you want." Shuri notes, smiling a little as she stores the mask away. "I might have to ask Natasha about the Pretzel though.""