Summary:Clint has concern? Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
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Mario's is an institution in Brooklyn. It's a single successful store that stays open at all hours of the day, always crewed by various members of Mario's family. It has a reputation of having the perfect Brooklyn slice available on demand, though if you want a full pie then usually you gotta wait. But sometimes, someties… if you know the right people, you can get special treatment.
The door opens, jangling, late at night well after the dinner hour. The bell rings announcing the arrival of customers and through the door steps none other than Clint Barton. "Marioooooayyyohhh." Barton spreads his arms wide in greeting.
Mario replies with a wide grin, "Heeeey, Hawkguy, what they let you out on the streets again?"
"Nothing can contain me, Mario. You know that."
"Hey hey, Hawkeye. Do the thing."
"Aww c'mon, Mario. What if I miss? You gonna start chargin' me for pizza now?"
"Hey, you never knowww." The old man with the mustache grins as he points back through their kitchen past the order window and gestures to… what looks like an old dart board. He then slaps three darts up on the countertop, which Barton scoops up.
Gesturing with the darts, Clint says, "Oh yeah, this is Agent Harman. She's a rookie, I'm showin' her the ropes."
"Hey there pretty lady." Mario grins and gives her a nod, bobbing his head a few times. "If this bum misses, don't you worry I'll pick up the price of yer pizza. Capiche?"
She had been mildly surprised at the idea of stopping for pizza with Barton, but there had been only the slightest hesitation before she agreed. If people kept talking about food, maybe she'd remember to eat on a more normal schedule. She knows she's been quieter than usual, hair currently a deep brunette, her clothes tending to the dark and unremarkable.
She steps in behind Clint, a hint of a snicker as he's dragging out the proprietor's name. There's a snrk that's almost a snort when he says nothing can contain him, but she keeps her smart remarks to herself… for a change. She's also been doing that since she 'got back'.
"Really? You throw darts for your pizza?" She will hassle Clint, though it lacks just a touch of her usual bite. She will smile for the afore-named Mario. "Buona serata, Mario." She even blushes, just a bit. "But what if I make the bum miss?" She teases.
"You wouldn't, Harman. You're all heart." Clint says as he lines up and with no hesitation, no pause, not even much time to aim he brings up the darts and tosses them one after another. The first one straight on hard enough for it to /thwok/ into the bullseye, the next is sort of lobbed sidearm so it flies and falls into the bullseye. While the third he tosses it and it ricochets off a hanging pot to thwop into the bullseye.
"Voila, free pizza." That said Clint grins towards Mario and gestures, "Just a pie, Mario. Pepperoni. And we'll grab sodas?"
Shaking his head, Mario just gives Thea an eyeball of exasperation, "This guy, am I right?" But the old Italian man grins and heads on back to start on the order.
Clint, for his part, is pulling open the refrigeration unit, sliding the door open and grabbing a soda, then offers it first to Thea should she want it. If so he'll grab another. That done he'll grab the corner seat for two, stepping over the back and into a chair then twisting it a little to the side as he settles.
"Barton, even with your aim, you couldn't find my heart, so I am told." Thea snarks back, shaking her head at his shots. She will reach out and take the soda without comment, before she follows him to sink into a seat there in the corner. Eyes flick around the little dining room, marking doors, windows, the number of people, calculating how hard it would be to get behind the counter from where they sit. It's habit, but it's a little more anxious now than before.
"I take it this is a favorite of yours, and you're a favorite of Mario's."
"In Brooklyn, none better." Clint says as he eases back into the chair, twisting the cap off his soda and taking a small drink. He sets it aside for now and then reaches for the parmesan cheese shaker in the middle of the table and lightly taps it a few times, to make sure it's usable.
"But yah, we get along. Have for a few years." Too many to be fair. He smiles as he looks to the window then looks back to her and his lip twists up a little. "How are you holding up, Thea?" He tilts his head the other way and frowns a little, gaze hazing a touch as he looks at her. A small hint of concern there.
"I hear about the rough times, and all." That's one way to put it.
"I will have to default to your expert opinion. I was away too many years to have tried many of the pizza places in Brooklyn." There is a ghost of a smile, just a tug of her mouth in an upward direction. "He seems like a welcoming sort of fun loving guy, from my few moments of observation." Her tone is cool, eyes studying the window by the door.
When he asks how she's holding up, there's something close to a flinch as her eyes jerk to his face, pupils widening slightly and decreasing the natural gray-blue visible. "Rough times. You mean being rendered helpless by some painful clockwork steampunk nightmare of a snake, being duplicated somehow, no one noticing, while I was being.. kept in a tube full of disgusting goo? Then waking up in blinding pain, with a spike in my head, before being dumped naked and covered in that goo, stumbling after the bad guy into the light of day here? In the middle of people I know trying to take it out, while I'm still naked and in hobbling pain?" The smile is quick, almost harsh. "Oh, I'm fine." There's a snort.
"I've never been helpless before. Never. I'm disgusted with myself."
A nod is given, "Yeah, I'd call those rough times." Since well, he's seen his fair share. But he watches her as she speaks about them, speaks about the difficulties she faced and dealt with. He tilts his head as he remains quiet, just listening and letting her vent as she likes.
Then at the snort he nods a little, smiles a little sympathetically at the last few words. He waits… one second… two, as if making sure she's done before he says. "Yeah, we spend a lot of time training. Learning about ourselves. That when we deal with something bigger, or something capable of stealing our agency from us… that yeah. Hard to deal with."
She's likely already talked to a ton of people about it at SHIELD, counseling, advisers. Didn't help him, he doubts it helped her. "Lotta people are gonna be telling you to try and get over it, get past it… I dunno if that's always a good idea."
Thea rolls her eyes, as if Clint missed the point. She's sure he didn't miss the deflective humor, the lack of any emotion at reeling off the things that were covered under 'rough times'. She watches him silently, intently, as he talks about learning about oneself, training. Of course, she'd come to SHIELD largely trained already. Now she just had to learn how to handle bureaucratic bullshit.
No one has suggested she speak to anyone, but then again, it's hard to talk to her to make such suggestions when she's largely isolated herself. Working out, some range time, nothing exciting, but not the sort of place one would want to try to have such a conversation.
"Actually, very few people have talked to me about it at all. Spiderman is pretty much it, for any sort of conversation. And he just told me he wanted to make sure I was okay. He didn't tell me to get over it, forget it, or any other crap. So what is the suggestion of the great Hawkguy?" There's a roll of a tease in the words, since that was what Mario had called him.
"Well shit, girl." Clint eyes her sidelong as he folds his arms over his chest, "SHIELD has people to talk to about these things, make use of them. We have one of the craziest jobs out there, it takes a toll. Don't act all tough and just talk to Spider-Man." There's a pause then he adds, "Who is a nice guy, gigantic flake, but a nice guy. Still, not someone I'd aim at trauma survivors. Right?"
That said he gives a nod to Mario as the man emerges from the back.
"What took you so long, old man?"
"Hah, free pizza and he still complains!" Mario shakes his had sadly and sets the pizza in its to-go box on the table and grins at them. "Can I get you guys anything else?"
"Nah, Mario. We're good. We'll get outta your hair soon enough."
"No rush, not like we get a lotta customers this time of night." That said, Mario starts to head back towards the kitchen.
"Spiderman is my friend, and someone I trust. He doesn't want to turn over anything I say, to look for cracks or flaws in it, to try and decide what I really meant, or that kind of mumbo jumbo." Thea responds. "It's not being tough, Clint. There is nothing wrong with not talking it out with someone while laying on a couch, when they have never been and never will be in the situations we get put in. "
She will fall silent when he's hassling Mario, offering the older man another of her 'pretty girl' smiles. "I'll smack him around for his bad manners later, Mario. Thank you so much for bringing it out to us personally."
She waits until Mario is away and distracted, to let her attention return to Clint. "I'm currently trying to break it all down, step by step, to see what I missed, if I could have changed anything, and eventually accepting I couldn't have known what would happen, and accept that it did happen to me."
"Well then, sounds like you got it under control." Clint's lip twitches and he waves a hand to the side, as if brushing it off absently. He lifts a hand and says, "Consider myself duly informed, you got it taken care of, and don't need nobody's help. Understood."
That said he leans forward and pops open the box of the pizza, pulling one of the paper plates from the stack of them on the nearby counter, tosses her one before he grabs a slice for himself.
The next few minutes involve the elaborate effort and activity of getting the slices split from each other without losing too much cheese or any of the precious pepperoni.
There's a tip of her head, her gaze looking him over impatiently. "That's not what I said, and you know it. I just don't want to have someone taking notes on everything I said, and trying to determine what I meant, versus listening to what I was actually saying."
She watches him with the pizza, before she will reach out to pluck up a piece of pepperoni off the top of a piece to pop into her mouth. "You? You would understand what I meant. Some head shrink that's never been out in the field, not so much I don't think. I just.. well, when my mom died, dad sent me to therapy. You learn a lot about that whole working through it shit."
"Ehn," Clint says as he gets a bite and chews for a time on a mouthful of cheese, swallows, then washes it down with a sip of soda. "But Harman, we're assholes." His lip twists up a little but he sets his pizza down on its plate, letting it… congeal for a bit.
"You can talk to me, and I can tell you it sucks, but for people like us…" He shakes his head, "What you're gonna hear back might be sorta phrased nicely, might be gentle in some ways, but ultimately… at the end of the day, it's gonna be some form of, 'suck it up, and get back out there.'"
He grabs a plastic knife and fork and starts to slice bits of the pizza into smaller sections, "Now, maybe that's what you need to hear. So here, I'll tell it to you. Suck it up, kid. And get back out there."
He stabs a bit of crust and cheese, then pops it into his mouth and chews. "But somehow, I get the vibe you're not quite at that point yet."
"If you burn your mouth, I'm not healing it for you." Thea taunts him when he can't wait to shove pizza in his mouth, though she gets her own slice out of the box and onto a plate.
"But you're one of the few assholes I trust to be an honest asshole, Clint. You're so good at it." She will mock compliment him with a mocking flutter of lashes. She will pick up her slice, folding it in half, and take her own bite.
She will chew and swallow, picking up a napkin to wipe grease off her fingers. "I have no problem with being told to suck it up. I am quite used to going back out into the field again without time to even finish writing down what happened from the time previous."
"You may want to get your vibe detector checked. I can do my job as perfectly well as always. I compartmentalize, just like everyone else. I don't have to let this hog all my time, to think it around, over, and through." There may be a little bit of sass about his vibe detector.
"Well then!" Clint smirks as he pointedly eats with knife and fork for now so he doesn't burn his mouth, "Seems like we're done, let's talk about something else then!" That said he rests his elbows on the table and starts to work on his slice a bit more, taking a bite here and there, chewing for a time.
"What else has been up for you? Anything exciting?" There's a pause as he looks up, brow furrowing. "That one guy still giving you a hard time since you whupped him way back when?" That one in the gym. He can't remember his name. Probably getting old.
"Anything else you need to come clean about. You can tell your uncle Clint, he'll make everything better." His smirk deepens as he focuses on the pizza and continues to eat.
"You mean Nichols?" She looks at him askance. "I haven't had much time to see him, what with …the rough times and all." She points out, before she's picking up her slice again. "Though if he's eager for a rematch, I'd be more than willing to give it to him." Anything to feel like she's in complete control of herself again.
"Come clean? Sorry, Clint, but my life is pretty boring. I don't date, I work and then work out, heal those that need it, then go home, read, work on my linguistics, and order delivery." There's a quick grin. "So unless Uncle Clint has a friend to set me up with, there's no fun stories out of me."
That sort of draws him up short as his eyebrows raise. "Well, I mean, I could." He scritches his chin thoughtfully then pushes that hand through his hair as he tilts his head back her way. "I mean, I think Groucho is single." Groucho, the tech analyst who shares Clint's office with him. Groucho the guy who doesn't actually have a mustache nor look anything like Groucho. Groucho whom Clint hasn't bothered to learn his actual name all this time.
"Or there are plenty of other people running around, m'sure you could find someone. You're a beautiful if a little bit spooky girl. Go out." He waves a hand and focuses back on his pizza. "Go dancing."
He picks up the slice now that it's somewhat more manageable and takes a bite.
Thea rolls her eyes, reaching for her soda. "You could what, set me up with some friend? I am not dating a Marx brother. I prefer the Stooges." She's sassing him again, of course.
She does pause, pizza partially lifted towards her mouth. "Spooky? Me? How do you figure?" Her eyebrows pull closer together as she scrutinizes him a moment.
"Spooky, sooooper powers to control a person's body. Like some puppeteer." Clint's lip twists again as he takes another bite of his pizza. "Spooky." He finishes that slice and then casually starts to withdraw a second from the box, this'll be his last though. Promise.
He uses his fork to scoop some of the cheese tendrils all together and then layer them onto his second slice, creating a small hill of cheese and then takes knife and fork to dissecting it. "But honestly, I dunno how you are outside work really. You could be crazy. You might do roller derby for all I know. Or raise carnivorous plants. Or something equally insano. Like go line dancing or something."
He shrugs and smiles sidelong, "But sidenote, Groucho is a decent guy. Works in analytics."
Thea's expression is flat and not showing any humor. "I haven't made you dance around like you're on strings. Can it, Clint." She mock snarls. "There is nothing spooky about me."
She tears off another slice of pizza, watching him with his little cheese hill. "Roller derby could be fun, but leagues would be hard, given our jobs." She shrugs. "I just told you what I do. I read. Work on my foreign language skills. I like long baths, and food. I even cook, sometimes. I don't have a lot of hobbies. There wasn't any real time for them, for a long time."
"Being unable to take some good-natured ribbing, first sign of shell-shock." Clint says as he doesn't seem cowed one bit, though he keeps on keepin' on with his slice of pizza. It's a methodical thing, chop, slice, poke, eat. And once he's about halfway through that slice he sighs and smiles.
"Ok, that's enough carbs and all for the evening. You want the rest of it? I can take it home unless you'd rather munch it all yourself."
That said he slides the half a slice left of his back into the box, then leans over to toss his utensils and paper plate in the open trash can.
If Thea was slightly moodier, she might stick her tongue out at him. She just rolls her eyes, instead, finishing her pizza, barring the crust. "Shell shock. You're picking up on vocabulary from Cap's time, now?" She smirks, sipping her soda.
"You won it fair and square, you take it home. I have plenty more carbs at home." The joys of being able to control her own metabolism. "Well, what do you do for fun?"
Clint scoops up his soda and smirks at her, but says nothing about Cap's vocabulary, perhaps proud of his own unique repertoire. Instead he takes a nice long sip of his drink, then twists the cap back onto it to preserve the fizziness. For now at least.
"Alright, I'll take it. But I get fat, I'm blaming you." He grins.
But then his eyebrows raise at her question and he murmurs casually, "Same as you, pretty much." The archer turns to the side, letting his gaze drift beyond that large window in the front of the pizzeria. "Work. Train. Workout. Sleep, sometimes in my home. Sometimes in the office. Shower. Eat." Usually at the Triskelion.
His eyes slip back to her as he adds, "If I feel lonely, sometimes I swipe right. Sometimes I think about getting a dog. Pretty much that's it."
"If you get fat, I'll work out with you to help you work it off." Thea teases him, her smile reaching her eyes. "See? So why act so surprised that I don't date, if you don't really, either? Sure, you can say I've got the super powers, but I still need to sleep, just like you."
She's glad she hasn't sipped her soda. "Swipe right? You're on hook up apps?" She's biting down on her bottom lip. "I wasn't expecting that. I figured you were a go to a bar and pick up in person sort of guy."
A small scoff comes from him, "I've 'dated' sort of." He slips past that offer to help him work out, instead addressing the other aspects of what she said, "And sure, no harm in going to somewhere social. But yeah," His lip twists a little defiantly as he murmurs. "I've swiped right twice, so far. They were nice people, young. But not something I can see me doing with any regularity."
So he does sort of date, but… rarely. "Ever since, Bobbi though, I have all these rules." He crinkles his nose a little. "Narrows things down, but for good reasons."
"Well, sort of.. dating, hooking up, whatever you call it. Good on you. I was on the move for a few years, so the dating thing never really was something I had time for." She shrugs, sipping her soda again. "I don't know if swiping would work for me. I mean.. if I meet someone in person and talk to them, at least I have a hint if we have anything in common, any chemistry."
Her head tips to the side. "Bobbi? And rules like what? You seem more the rule breaker than maker."
A heh slips from him as he unscrews the cap of his soda again to take another sip. Shaking his head a little bit he looks out the window and murmurs, "Just a bunch. Don't date co-workers anymore." He ticks off one finger. "Date people closer to my own age," He ticks off a second. "Try to have some shared interests." A third.
Then he looks back, "Though that combination can be tough when my interests are basically my job."
His smile returns as he looks outside, "But hey. Figure it's how it's gotta be."
"Co-workers are probably the only ones who would understand the way your job works, and why you can't always talk about it, but I can see why you'd be hedging against that. I guess it could be awkward. Never been in that sort of situation." Thea shrugs.
"I don't know how it's going to be, or should be. I guess I'd have to try dating, first. My problem being most guys wouldn't understand the job, or the powers. The age thing doesn't matter to me as much. I was the only person my age where I was trained for years."
Clint lifts a hand to the side, kind of gesturing casually. "Yeah, try marrying one of your co-workers and then going through a messy divorce. You'd swear it off too." The archer then tilts the bottle of soda back and drains about half of it, but seems content to be finished there. He tosses the container into the rubbish bin, then grabs the pizza box.
"You ready? Figure we can start walkin." And as he says that he pushes himself to his feet, taking up the pizza box. He then lifts his voice.
"Alright Mario, we're outta here, man."
"See you later, Hawkguy!"
"You too!"
He'll start towards the door and then hold it open for her to precede him out into the night once again.
"Considering I don't plan on trying marriage, I think I'll avoid that snafu." Thea teases, even as she rises to her feet, and makes sure to tidy up the table and make sure everything is in place. She will turn to wave to Mario, before she steps past Clint into the cool night air.