Billy & Clint | Early Monday Afternoon

[x-hawkeye.livejournal.com]

Clint and his SWORD partner are called to the scene of a 'crime' in progress. Things don't exactly turn out the way they expect when they meet Billy.

"Seriously, Hendrickson," Clint said, exasperation clear. "Doc Foster hasn't detected any of the anomalies that usually show up when the Bifrost Bridge opens up and spits out an Asgardian."

"Doesn't matter," Hendrickson grunted. "Somebody's going around busting up respectable businesses and destroying buildings. He calls himself Asgardian - he's just begging for us to check him out."

"Yeah," Clint said, shaking his head. It was true that they'd been connecting the dots over the past several weeks - the only common denominator with a lot of seemingly random incidents and accidents was the victims' stances on mutants.

"And when it turns out he's not Asgardian," Hendrickson continued, an odd note entering his voice. "We take him down, cuff him, and bring him in. Probably one of those mutie bastards."

Clint bit his tongue to keep himself from responding immediately. Hendrickson hadn't always been so vocal about his dislike of mutants but, thanks to M-Day, everyone seemed to be spouting off anti-mutant rhetoric. His lack of response appeared to signal to his partner that he was willing to listen to more of it, though, so Clint spent the rest of the drive to the latest sighting of the unlikely Asgardian listening to Hendrickson as the other man attempted (and failed) to build a case against mutants everywhere.

"Pete," Clint finally said. "Man, you gotta shut up for two minutes at least. Mutants are probably just like everybody else - some extreme, some moderate, some who don't care one way or the other. Just leave it for a little while. We're here."

They pulled up to the curb and Clint cut the engine and opened his door, stepping out into the sunshine without waiting to hear his partner's response. He grabbed his bow and quiver from the backseat and arranged them, then headed toward the area they needed to investigate. The sight that met him when he entered the alley behind the business that had called in the report... was unexpected, to say the least.

"Not so much fun to be the defenseless ones for a change, is it?" a voice echoed from within the alley. Further inside, a figure crouched on a fire escape, looking at three men, suspended in midair in front of him. Even further inside, a small boy peered out from behind a dumpster, his whiskers quivering with fear.

"Pretty easy to be all 'tough' when you're bigger and stronger, hmm?" The figure stood as he continued to taunt the would-be thugs. A black cloak was pulled over his face, hiding his features. "Not so much when you can't even fight back, though. Could you even do anything if I said I wanted you to hang upside down?" The figures suddenly lurched downward, only to jerk stop suddenly, upside-down as if held by their ankles.

"You know, I really think you should pull your pants up. People might think you're hoodlums." The figure said, and suddenly three pairs of jeans fell up to their ankles. "Oh wait, my bad. I forgot today was upside-down day."

Hendrickson had drawn his sidearm when the three men in the alley fell downward only to jerk to a stop before hitting cement. Clint had to admit, he'd been a little worried, but the figure's little speech had him suppressing a smile despite himself. He didn't bother drawing his bow, just cleared his throat before calling, "So... you don't sound Asgardian to me. I'm pretty familiar with their speech patterns. Why don't you put those guys down so we can talk."

The figure's head swung toward the new voice, and with the concentration broken, the thugs fell several feet to the ground. If the drop hurt, they certainly didn't show it, scrambling to their feet and rushing their way out of the alley. From the other end, a scratching scurry echoed back down as the boy also vanished.

A soft muttering carried down from the fire escape in the now silent alley, and suddenly a bright blue flash appeared and when it faded, the figure was gone. The voice echoed from a new location, though, much higher up atop the buildings. "Who are you?"

"Pete, put your gun away," Clint murmured, walking out into the open with his hands clearly visible. "I'm Clint Barton. I work with SWORD. We've had reports of somebody calling themselves Asgardian running around all vigilante-style so y'know. We came to check it out. We really do just want to talk."

"Riiiight. Just 'talk'," the voice called back. "Well, how about we start 'talking' about how you found me."

"Well, see, there's these things called telephones. Sometimes, concerned citizens use them to alert the authorities to suspicious activity in their general area. 'Asgardian' is one of SWORD's buzzwords, so when that popped up, the call got rerouted to us. We were in the area anyway, so here we are." He glanced at his partner to see that he hadn't actually holstered his weapon yet, so Clint furrowed his brows significantly.

"Right," the voice's sarcasm practically dripped down into the alley below. "So I'm supposed to believe that two cops come running at me with guns pointed just because they heard an ancient Norse name over some tapped phone line. Surely you can do better than that."

"One, we're not cops. We're agents of SWORD. Two, I haven't drawn a gun and Hendrickson over here's putting his away. Three, I'm getting a crick in my neck. You should come down where I can actually talk to you face to hood. You can obviously get away if you need to - blue flashes of light sort of gave you away there." Clint wiggled his fingers at the figure on the rooftop.

There was silence for a brief moment, then three lights appeared in the alley. The first dim atop the building, as the figure vanished, the second much brighter as he appeared back in the alley in front of them, and the third, as Hendrickson's gun vanished from his hand, reappearing in the cloaked figure's. He tossed it aside with a sniff. "Not fast enough. Okay so talk."

"Well, like I said, my name's Clint," he repeated. "I actually know an Asgardian. So is what you're doing magic or something else?"

"What do you mean, 'Know an Asgardian,'" the figure asked, dodging the question with one of his own.

"Thor," Clint said. "Know him. Periodically go drinking with him. He's pretty cool. Has a biker vibe going most of the time."

"Okaaaay, then" the figure said. "Well, this has been fun. Let's do it again sometime. I'll call you. Really. Don't call me, I'll call you."

"Hey," Clint said, smile dropping away. "I can see what you're doing. I even admire it to an extent. But you're drawing attention to yourself. That's dangerous."

"Yeah, well," the man replied. "If some of us who can play as legends don't stand up for the...mice...they get mauled. And they don't deserve that. So screw danger."

Clint gave the hooded figure an unimpressed look. "Yeah, and how's it gonna help anybody for you to get squished by the fourth or fifth or sixth guy who shows up to mob you for hanging their friends upside down in the air and pantsing them? There're better ways of helping people than pulling this vigilante stuff."

Hendrickson was going to go for his spare gun. Clint could see his partner's hand twitching out of the corner of his eye.

"Just remember," Clint said quickly. "Barton." The look me up before you get yourself killed was heavily implied. "Now get out of here." He was turning before he finished speaking, grabbing the other SWORD agent's wrist and pushing it upward as a shot rang out. It ricocheted off the fire escape but the bullet never came near any of them.

A blue light blazed as the gun went off, surrounding this Asgardian with a shimmering dome. It winked out taking him with it, as the shot's echo faded, and the voice returned a moment later, from the other end of the alley. "Tell that to the kid they were about to pound. He needed help now, not in an hour when the cops got here. If the cops didn't shoot him themselves, just because his skin is a bit furry. They tend to be a bit trigger happy when it comes to people that are different. At least in my experience."

"Go," Clint growled, now actively struggling with Hendrickson. The other agent seemed determined to turn around so he could take another shot at the vigilante. They'd had similar training but Hendrickson wasn't expecting the elbow that smashed into his face. Clint was going to pay for that one, he knew. He'd gotten to a point where he didn't actually care. He probably should, but he just couldn't anymore.

"Thanks for the Asgardian tip, by the way. Guess I'll have to create a new name. Nobody wants to be saved by some cheap knock-off. Speaking of saving, pro tip---You might want to watch your back. Your partner's a lousy shot." And with that, a light flashed at the back of the alley, and the vigilante was gone.