Gabriel & Clint | Early Sunday Morning

[x-hawkeye.livejournal.com]

Gabriel's doing the walk of shame, Clint's getting tossed out of his latest ex's apartment.


Clint had one leg in his jeans as he half-hobbled to the front door. "Lisa, seriously - I didn't - " He never finished the sentence, dropping his pants in favor of catching the iPod that came hurtling toward his head. He put it down on the half table in the hallway. "I don't even know what you're talking about!"

"That's the problem, Clint," she yelled. "Six months of this and you can't even remember breakfast. You never remember breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner. Or movies. Or my birthday. I don't even know why I put up with you."

"Reliable sources tell me I'm good in bed," Clint replied, then had to duck to the side to avoid a wine bottle full of sand that Lisa had been using as a book end. The bottle shattered on the brick wall behind him and he raised his eyebrows. "No, seriously, Lisa, you need to like - "

"Don't you tell me what I need to do. What I need is for you to get out of my house!"

"Yeah, fine - no, seriously, I'm leaving, but like. Can't I get my stuff?" Clint backed toward the door, barely managing not to trip over his loose pant leg or step on the broken pieces of glass behind him.

"I'll give you your stuff, you jackass," Lisa shouted, hurling Clint's laptop at him. He caught that even as he tried to open the door to the street. The button-down he'd worn over the other night came next. He had no idea where his tie was - or his power cord, for that matter. If he didn't get them back, he was pretty sure Lisa would just burn them. She had a pretty impressive pair of crazy eyes going on there.

He kept backing out, though, as she threw his knapsack out the door - it sailed over his shoulder to land in the muddy slush on the sidewalk. It was waterproof, so he wasn't too worried, but he had research in there that he'd need to check on. Clint tried to pull his shirt on while keeping hold of his laptop and simultaneously attempting to pull his jeans on both legs. "Lisa, if you just - " He got a face full of door for his efforts and wound up letting out a tired sigh. "Christ."

Gabriel needed darker sunglasses. Much, much, much darker sunglasses. It had been a late night, not that he could totally remember all of it, and his head was pounding. At some point between coming off the pot high and going home with Karl, he'd taken too many shots. And now he was paying for it, and all the Perrier and cigarettes he'd swiped on his way out the door couldn't save him.

It didn't help that New York was such a noisy city. Even on the Upper East Side, the city was rising with a bang this morning. Doors were slamming, car horns were blaring. Too much. Too much, too much, too much. Gabriel paused next to a tree and flicked a half-smoked cigarette to the ground, where it landed next to a wet knapsack. "Huh." He kicked the bag with his foot, then picked it up.

"Dammit, Lisa," Clint said, jeans finally buttoned, laptop under one arm, shirt gaping opened. "My work ID's on the bedside table - don't make me call somebody so I can get in there legally to get it, you know I - " He didn't get a chance to finish before a window upstairs slammed open and his badge came sailing out. "Shit!" He half-dove for it, catching it before it could hit the sidewalk. "Thanks," he called, giving the irate woman in the window a small salute. He turned around to get his knapsack and saw a stranger holding it. "Oh, hey - sorry."

All the shouting had caused Gabriel to clench his eyes shut and bow his head toward the ground. His temples throbbed and all he wanted was to get back to the mansion where he could down three Advil, lock his door, and pass the fuck out.

"No worries. Here." His eyes flicked open, and he moved to give the backpack to this stranger. "Rough morning? He turned to look at the man, his eyes widened. The bag fell back into the puddle. "Jesus fucking Christ," he spat out, now bewildered.

Maybe he was still drunk. Maybe this was a stress dream. This had to be a stress dream. There was no way this was happening.

"Eh," Clint said, looking at the other man slightly askance as he bent to get his knapsack. "You could say that, yeah - both the 'rough morning' and the 'Jesus fucking Christ,'" he muttered, loosening the drawstring so he could actually open the bag. He shoved his laptop and his badge inside, then looked down at his bare feet. His tie hit the ground a few feet to the left of him. A toothbrush, several pairs of boxers, and a stack of undershirts came next. That left Clint blinking slowly. "Wow, I didn't realize how much stuff I had here. Huh. Are you alright? You look a little... not well."

Gabriel stared at him, channeling most of his energy to keep his jaw from dropping. "Fine," he said half-convincingly. The man picking up the clothes now strewn about the sidewalk was — it was Clint, but not-Clint. Longer in the face, scruffier, dirtier. It's what Clint might have looked like if he had gotten to live for another decade.

He knew this was bound to happen. Xorn had said as much, and he'd been saved-but-not-saved by new Miles, and new Lorna had shown up, and Wanda, and everything. But he wasn't ready for this now, if at all.

"I'm fine." He wasn't. Gabriel looked back up at the man - definitely a man, that was for sure, not a boy - studying his face for something he recognized. It was there, but it wasn't there.

No way. His mind was playing tricks on him. He was still under the influence. "Just fine."

"You know," Clint said, his tone almost conversational as he stepped to the side just in time to catch the game console that Lisa shoved out of the upstairs window next. "There's this movie with Mark Wahlberg where he explains that 'fine' actually means 'freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.' Just so you know." He sat the console down on the sidewalk and reached out to grab a roll of socks that came hurtling out the window before they could smack the stranger in the face. "This isn't exactly how I planned to spend the morning." A shoe and a boot fell to the sidewalk directly beneath the window - both for the left foot. He was pretty sure the shoe wasn't actually his.

The guy on the sidewalk, obviously on a sabbatical of shame this morning, looked... rough. Like he hadn't had a proper night's sleep in weeks. His eyes were bloodshot so there was probably a fair bit of alcohol in his recent past and his hair was literally pointing in every possible direction it could. "I'm Clint - you'll want to move in like three seconds, I'd guess a controller to match the console is coming next."

He wasn't wrong, and Gabriel was almost too floored by the fact that this man's name was Clint, that he almost got beaned in the head. Good thing he was fast enough that he took a step back, reached out and caught the controller before it hit the ground. He glanced at it in his hands, then glanced at Clint-but-not-Clint.

Well, there was one way to find out, anyway. "Here." He made a move to toss the controller toward Clint, but at the last second, he threw real force behind the lob, sending it a good few feet to Clint's right.

Clint reached out, reflexively taking the step and a half necessary to be within proper range to snag the controller out of the air before it hit the steps he'd come down. Then he quirked an eyebrow at the other man. "Well, that's new. My ex is raining my belongings down on me from above and strangers are tossing them at me on the street. Today's just not my day."

"Mine either." Damn it. He sure moved like Clint - all reflexes and instinct. Fucking Xorn. Fucking everything. And today of all days, no doubt. "Your fly's unzipped." Gabriel said flatly. Feeling queasy, he moved to lean against the tree.

Socks went into the knapsack with the tie and the shirts - he'd have to carry the single boot, assuming he could find his phone to call a cab. It was too cold outside to walk barefoot and there was no point putting on socks with the slush everywhere. He stuck the controller in the knapsack, too. Then he zipped his jeans up and looked over at the other man. "Well, vaguely helpful, slightly violent stranger on the street, it's as good to meet you as the circumstances allow. Sorry to've interrupted your walk." Because no one actually said sabbatical of shame unless they were being an asshole and Clint was occasionally an asshole by accident, but not usually on purpose.

Gabriel winced. That was an edge he wasn't expecting, and maybe this Clint and that Clint weren't the same Clint after all.

Except they probably were.

"Sorry," he said after a few seconds of silence. "I'm not — had a rough night last night. Rough morning. Rough few weeks. I'm not usually this... you know." He waved his hand vaguely. "This."

There were a lot of adjectives Clint could've supplied but he refrained. Instead, he offered the other man a small smile. "No problem. I hope things get better. And that my ex doesn't throw anything else at you while you're standing here. I've got a family thing I gotta get to, though. My parents will at least let me crash for a couple hours in my old room."

"You parents are cool with that?" Gabriel tried to raise an eyebrow and act surprised. And actually, maybe he could have been surprised. Everything about this world was fucked up, so it wasn't like Clint's parents were necessarily even the same parents. Maybe this Clint had two moms.

"I mean, once I explain about Lisa," Clint said, gesturing toward the window just as it slammed shut. He winced. "They're pretty laid back about most things. Except missing family dinner for anything but, like, national security." Grinning suddenly, he finished, "Steve makes this face."

"I bet," Gabriel said wryly. "Something like..." He did his best to imitate Clint's dad based on the two times he'd met them before the world completely exploded.

Clint laughed. "God, yeah - that's pretty much it." He held his hand out. "It was good meeting you. Sorry it was while my ex threw things at me."

"I nev—" Gabriel paused, then shook Clint's hand. "Sure. Clint," he said, more as confirmation than anything else. And then, because he hoped to hear his name leave his now-much-older-dead-ex-boyfriend's-lips, he finally smiled. "I'm Gabriel."

And that... was a killer smile. "Good meeting you, Gabriel," he repeated, adding a name to the face and filing them away in his mental Rolodex. If he hadn't been leaving the scene of his latest romantic train wreck... well. No use wondering what might've been. "Take care."

There it was.Gabriel tried not to lose his shit. "You too," his smile weakened slightly. "Good luck with..." He gestured to what amounted to the contents of a dresser now dumped onto the stoop and sidewalk. "You know."

"Yeah..." Clint trailed off, hand slipping from Gabriel's as he surveyed the rest of the things Lisa had tossed out the window to the pavement. "Might just trash most of this. Not worth carrying it back to my apartment." Turning away, he sat his knapsack on the ground after digging through it to find his phone. He hit speed dial number six, holding the phone up to his ear just as his regular cabbie picked up the line. He had to at least gather this mess up and find a bin for it.

Gabriel lacked more to say, but a part of him desperately wanted to keep talking. And another part didn't. This whole encounter had been too fucking surreal, and he'd obviously proven he wasn't in any way able to be witty or quick at the moment. Given what he looked like, Gabriel knew there was no way he was making anything close to a good impression.

Still, maybe he could clear the way for a second chance. With Clint's back turned, Gabriel closed his eyes, adjusted his sunglasses and powered up. As the world slowed around him, he moved toward new Clint's bag, digging through it until he found a pen and what felt like a piece of paper. He pulled the flimsy sheet out and examined it. New Clint had eaten a lot of number fives.

Gabriel scribbled his name and number on the receipt, then tossed it and the pen back into the bag. Clint was still on the phone, and in slo-mo, so Gabriel darted around the older man and snapped a picture of him before returning to his position by the tree.

"Shouldn't throw this shit away," he said, carrying on some semblance of the conversation even if Clint was on the phone. His heart was beating a little faster now. "At least give it to charity."

Clint thought, for just a moment, that he'd caught a glimpse of something but he blinked and it was gone - his eyes never lied, though. "Hang on," he said to the phone, letting his hand fall to his side. He glanced back over his shoulder and gave Gabriel a considering look. "You're right, that's a better idea. But it still involves picking it all up and carrying it somewhere." He quirked an eyebrow, then put the phone back to his mouth and said, "Hey, Mickey, can you bring me some boxes? Yeah, yeah - another one. Whatever. Show up with boxes and I'll give you some of Steve's pancakes."

The idea of pancakes made Gabriel alternate between nauseous and ravenous at the same time. He took that as his cue to leave. With a small wave and a nod, he headed toward the subway. After a few steps, he stopped and turned around, trying to get a firm mental picture of new Clint, this Clint. Because old Clint, his Clint, was gone, and this was what he'd been left with.