Namor & Clint | Saturday Afternoon

[x-hawkeye.livejournal.com]

Namor and Clint play some video games and Clint asks some questions.


Clint reached for a napkin to clean off his Cheeto-orange fingers before picking up his controller again and saying, "You might like single player stuff better - y'know, go in, storm the castle, rescue people, defeat evil. Instead of this stuff, which is all just... racing and fighting." But they'd been playing Tekken on his ancient N-64 for an hour and it was kind of interesting despite just being a fighting game. The strike combos were a lot of fun to figure out.

"You're just saying that because I'm beating you," Namor replied jokingly. He was putting up an impressive showing, but Clint had a lot more experience. "Rescuing people and defeating evil feels so overdone." He stretched, glad for the break, and moved to pick up some of the mess they were making by sheer virtue of being teenage boys with snacks. It had only been an hour, but they were slowly starting to encompass more of Clint's shared common room by the minute.

Namor yawned, "I'm not sure why you keep changing fighters, though."

"Yeah, but you picked the villain and stuck with him," Clint said, getting to a good pause screen with part of a song on loop before standing to help clear up some of the mess they'd been making. "I just like figuring out everybody's powers and their combos. I had a foster brother once who just mashed buttons - or he hit the same button over and over again. It was kinda ridiculous, how often he won doing that."

"Oh, he's the villain?" Namor added indifferently while righting some books. "I just prefer to master one character before moving onto others."

"Yeah, he's the villain," Clint said. Then he paused. "Huh. That actually makes a lot of sense. I'll stick with the dude I just kicked your ass with. He feels like good luck."

"And let it be known that today Clint Barton admitted that he needs luck to beat me in Tekken," Namor said paired with his best mocking grin.

"Whateva, whateva," Clint said, laughing a little. "I do what I want." He stood up and went to the kitchenette, grabbing a couple bottles of water and a bag of Doritos before heading back to the couch. "Anyway, I wanted to tell you — I totally don't need help talking to women and you should totally not go around telling Hope she's a gold-digging ho."

The other boy had resettled himself, content that they had resumed a reasonable degree of order. "One: That is up for debate. Two: I would not use words that vulgar."

"No, seriously - a calculated risk to get a new person to join in a massive snowball fight is totally different from insulting a girl's morals, ambitions, and intentions," Clint said, handing Namor a bottle of water. "I mean, dude. You can think it if you have to, but don't say it.

"Besides which, it's like I told her — you two are from totally different worlds. She's got that whole 'American dream, improve yourself' thing going for her and you're like... y'know. Stodgy royalty who's had money and clout and prestige for ages. You can't fault people for wanting that kind of thing — I'm pretty sure your ancestors didn't start out rich and y'know..." He paused to wave his free hand in his friend's general direction. "Like you."

Namor moved to object to this, but then merely just shrugged. "That may be so, but Miss Abbott is mimicking everything I hate about the people around those who have had 'clout and prestige for ages.'" He added the last bit with his best Clint impression. "I may not be nice about it, but I feel that she's limiting herself."

He blinked. "And I am not stodgy."

"You're kinda stodgy," Clint said. Then he grinned. "Or you were at first, anyway. Y'know, the whole title thing — Marquis de Yadda Yadda of the line of Yadda Yadda. And besides - Hope's a product of her upbringing, it's not her fault her parents are cray. She's a lot better now than she was before."

"My title is not a joking matter. It represents years of service and the loyalty engendered by my family," Namor stated while giving Clint a very sour expression. "As for Miss Abbott, she can do what she wants as long as she keeps her judgingly polite judging away from me."

"Her judgingly polite judging?" Clint asked, quirking a smile. "So what, you feel like she's judging you? Why? What's there to judge?"

The sour expression matured, blossoming into a scowl. "A change of subject would be great."

Giving that line of questioning up entirely, Clint cracked open his bottle of water and took a swig before shrugging and asked, "How do your wings work?"

Namor considered that he really like how Clint didn't dwell on things. In appreciation, he shrugged, "They're there. They flap when I fly. They make me faster in the water. They're wings."

"Right, but they're not aerodynamically sound or like... scientifically and logically purposeful." Clint considered Namor for a moment, one eye squinting just a little. "I think it's meant to be a physical manifestation to differentiate you from the general populace or something, like, it's supposed to make you stand out — y'know, Hermes and Mercury, Greek and Roman Gods respectively — you probably knew that already - were said to have wings on their shoes. I'll bet they were mutants - or the same mutant. Or a line of mutants with the same mutation - physicial differentiation that indicates your powers or something."

His companion nodded along, idly getting another cheeto and popping it into his mouth. This was familiar territory. "Well, my father and I have very similar mutations. Except where he cannot fly."

"But he's got the water stuff — does he have water wings?"

"No," Namor's flat look conveyed what he thought of puns, "But then he has gills and I do not."

"But you don't need them," Clint pointed out, tone only half-sure. "Is there like. An upper limit to how long you can stay in the water? I remember you were in it like all last summer except for when we were getting attacked by giant scorpion statues and stuff. Or — wait. How do you breathe underwater?"

"I've never lost my breath underwater. There was one summer I spent weeks under the sea," Namor said while bittersweetly recalling the endless ocean during Attilan's time-out from time. "No one's ever cut me open to find out how it works."

"Well duh," Clint said, frowning at the last part of Namor's statement. "Chopping people up to figure out how their mutations work is the work of crazy evil people with not consciences. They should be locked up. I'll bet some of them would love to get their hands on my eyeballs - but that's besides the point. I'll bet you have some sort of oxygen absorption thing with your skin. I mean, you don't breathe in the water, do you?"

"You can keep your eyeballs to yourself, thank you," Namor responded with a smile. He took a moment to consider. "I do breathe in the water, actually. I suppose I just haven't thought about it before?"

"You should think about," Clint said, glancing over at Namor. "I mean, what if something goes wrong one day? You need to be able to say, 'Look, things worked this way for however many years, this is happening now and it's not normal.' Or Whatever. And thank you, I think I will keep my eyeballs - they're rather comfortable where they are."

"My powers are confusing," Namor explained with a frown. "Underwater breathing? Flight? Super strength? All I need is the ability to shoot lasers from my eyes and freezing breath. Plus, I had the underwater abilities at birth. The wings didn't happen until I was eleven."

"So that was like - the wings part - it was like most mutations that hit kind of with puberty or something," Clint said. "I've always had my eyes, always been colorblind, so I'm not going of the manifesting types. Was it painful, when they manifested?"

"Yes," was all Clint got. Namor's face was a proud, impassive mask.

"That sucks," Clint said succinctly. Then, rather than dwelling, he continued, "Want nachos?"

"Nachos sound like a much better time," Namor perked up. "But you are right about the wings making no sense. I cannot fly if they are covered."

"Isn't there something somewhere in mythology about that, too?" Clint asked, capping his water and pushing himself up to go back to the kitchenette. He fished the tortilla chips out of the cupboard, the cheese, salsa, and sour cream from the fridge, and set about throwing everything together. "I mean, immobilizing something depowering a person? I don't know, mythology's not really my strongest subject. I took it freshman year because this girl I liked was in it."

"Hermes' wings were only attached to his sandals," Namor noted while fiddling with console. "Are we still playing?" He started to wrap up the controllers, "You learn a lot about mythology when your father is named Triton and you have an Aunt Medusa."

"No, we're eating," Clint said, popping a tortilla chip into his mouth before continuing, "Sorry if I'm boring you. But I like science. And your wings don't make sense from a scientific point of view, so there's gotta be some other reason you evolved like you did."

Namor finished his tidying, moving to prop his elbows on the accompanying breakfast bar separating the kitchette from the living space. "You're not boring me. Perhaps my mutation didn't like being limited to the sea and land. Even that's a step up from my father, who needs special equipment to be on the surface."

"Your dad's sea-locked?" Clint didn't know if that was a real term or not, but it seemed to describe things well enough. He stuck the cheese-covered tortilla chips in the microwave and set them for a minute, then looked back toward Namor.

"Yes," Namor responded proudly, but with the sinking realization that he hadn't meant to share this. "He has scales and fins to go with the gills."

Clint squinted, looking at Namor a little more closely. "You're proud of him," Clint said. "But something's not right." He realized he might be freaking the other young man out the way he'd unnerved Hope so he said, "Sorry — microexpressions. Why'd you look upset for a second?"

"Expectations." Namor made a curt gesture to indicate that this wasn't a good subject. "My father has succeeded despite his limitations, which is inspiring for all mutants."

Clint didn't call Namor's BS even though he could have. He just nodded instead. "True enough — there's lots of people who could let their mutations limit their abilities or whatever. Sounds like your dad set a good example for you."

"Well, he was disinterested in being the Duke of Anything," Namor conceded as if this was something mildly scandalous, but well known. "He forged a business empire instead."

"Oh God, don't act like that. I'll start calling you Your Victorian Dudliness, I'm not even lying. If you say that him making his own way is all scandal-inducing," Clint half-laughed.

"I have no idea what you mean." This was paired with a wry smile. Namor wasn't any good at playing innocent. "I'm proud of my father. I wouldn't discredit his success."

"Yeah, but you rich people have weird ideas sometimes - or at least the English did back in like. The early 1800's," Clint said, shaking his head. "That probably wasn't even the Victorian Era — whatever. I suck at History. But it's good about your dad — I don't really remember mine. My biological dad, I mean.”

“Queen Victoria ruled from 1837 to 1901,” Namor rattled off absently, “So you're mostly right. I'm fortunate to have a rather close family."

Clint just shook his head at the way Namor knew that - he sucked at dates, himself. Then he shrugged as the microwave conveniently dinged and said, "Nachos?"

"Yes," Namor replied thankfully. "Nachos."