Wanda & Clint | Sunday Morning (backdated)

[x-hawkeye.livejournal.com]

Wanda's in the kitchen when Clint wanders in. They exchange really awful pickup lines. Oh, and some geekery happens.


Taking a sip of her coffee, Wanda stared at the New York City map that she'd smoothed out over the table in the kitchen. The corners were held down with a few kitchen odds and ends which had stopped the map from sliding over while she'd scribbled notes all over it. Now she stood back and glared at it while finishing off her coffee, demanding it tell her something.

Hell, she'd take anything at this point.

Clint scrubbed the back of his head with one hand, then pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes before actually walking into the kitchen. He'd crashed on Matt's couch and, bless him, Matt didn't have a bit of edible food in that kitchenette up there. Tossing his shirt over one shoulder, he headed for the fridge and hoped these people stocked OJ and toast.

He could smell coffee and he knew there was someone else in there, dark hair, sharp cheekbones, nice eyes - he took it all in with a glance as he yawned. Sleep dep sucked. A lot. Still, he made an effort to wave 'hello' as he opened the refrigerator.

Well, the map might not be talking but at least here was a bit of distraction. "Morning," Wanda said, watching as he poked blearily around in the fridge. Her earlier frustration was slowly melting into amusement. "I believe you might be staring at a jar of pickles. There's something slightly more breakfast friendly to the right, though."

Reaching up to the cupboard next to her, Wanda popped open the door and brought down another coffee mug. He seemed like he might need a little bit of help.

"Mm..." Clint blinked a little more before grabbing the package of sausage and a container of eggs. He also snagged the milk and the OJ, then turned around and offered the woman a smile. "Thanks. And morning." He sat everything down on the counter, reached for his shirt, and pulled it on. "'m Clint. Nice to meet you."

"I'm Wanda and, trust me, you don't need to dress on my account," she laughed, handing over the steaming coffee. When it was safely out of her hands, she scooped up her own to refresh it. The kitchen never seemed to run low on coffee. It was almost magical. "You look like you could use more than a few cups of coffee. Just get in?"

Clint took a sip of coffee and hummed appreciatively before answering, "Yes. After not a lot of sleep. Got this thing from work I can't figure out. But work's in Alaska and I'm here because work's ridiculous and tried to take all my vacation time. Or well, they would've, if I hadn't decided to use it all. But seriously, blue, glow-y tubes in warehouses. That's gotta be a thing somewhere, right?" He considered the sausage and the eggs, then asked, "Want some food?"

There was a moment where Wanda's eyebrows most certainly said good morning to her hairline. "I never turn down food," she respondedafter a moment of trying to compute exactly what Clint had just said. It had seemed a bit - jumbled but if he was coming from Alaska, that might do it. "I might, though, turn down blue glow-y tubes. That cannot be a good sign, especially not when they're found in warehouses. I feel like I may need something stronger than coffee for this conversation..."

"Right?" Clint said, getting down a fews pan and beginning to prepare the food. "And this tube, it's not just blue and glow-y, it's huge and blue and glow-y. It's bigger than me, and I'm 6'2". It's got these little symbols that phase in and out sometimes, too, and I just can't figure it out. There's something inside it." He paused for a moment, mid-motion, and said, "Wait, sorry, it's been a long few days and that party the other night was wicked. I should stop rambling."

"Ramble away!" she laughed, setting her coffee mug down next to her. Wanda braced her hands against counter top and shoved up until she was seated on it, letting her long legs dangle towards the floor. "If you managed to survive Adrienne's party while jetlagged, you have earned the right to babble and stagger around exhausted." Crossing her legs, she drummed her fingers on her knees as her thoughts drifted back to the glowing tubes. "Tubes bigger than you with things inside? And symbols? Oh, that sounds ominous."

"That's what I thought," Clint said, cracking a few eggs into one pan while he used a spatula to turn the sausages in the other. "And that tube is seriously, seriously old. I was telling my brother - alloys in it that we don't even understand, no idea what metals comprise it, unknown energy source - is whatever or whoever's inside the energy source? It seems kind of like its... I dunno, building up to something. It's got this pulsing going on, not rapid-like, but slowly increasing. From a few months to a few weeks. Hm..."

He trailed off, frowning slightly at the eggs frying in the pan. "Sunny side up?" He asked, glancing toward Wanda, brows raised.

"Only if there's toast," Wanda responded back, rubbing her chin in thought. "Were there any glyphs or markings on the outside? There's always the chance that it was magical in nature, as opposed to technology based. Or another thought, it could be something that combines technology and magic. Always risky but if you get it right, the end result can be very powerful."

At that, she made a noise and went for her coffee again. "My life is strange. Academia will never be able to hold my interest ever again."

"You make the toast, I'm keeping the sausage from burning," Clint said. Then he considered his options for answering her other question and continued, "There were glyphs, yeah - it didn't seem like the magical kind, though. I don't even have pictures of them, which is just irritating. Might be able to get some of the stuff if I ask the right people, but at the moment, I got nada."

Making toast meant getting off the counter but not making toast meant that the eggs were kind of worthless. Food was currently more important than lounging, so she slid down and padded over to where the bread was kept. She eyed the number of loaves - enough to feed an army. Or at least the staff, students and everyone else on the grounds. "If you can remember and write them down, I could do some research if you'd like."

Wanda shot the map on the table a glare. "It'll be a nice diversion from figuring out who's giving me chaos headaches in the city, that's for sure."

"Chaos headaches?" Clint asked, casting a glance toward the map before looking back toward Wanda. "I could try and write down what I can remember. It's a little while, but I spent a couple months doing nothing but looking at them, so y'know. Help would be appreciated."

Instantly, her attention was back on Clint but it was different than before, more focused and intent. "I have noticed that the events have died down, so there's always the chance that the person behind them has left town." Or worse, Wanda thought. There were people out there with a very keen interest in chaos users. "But there's a chance that they're still out there, so any help would be greatly appreciated. If I am near enough to where it happens, it is like -" Her hand flailed around her head for a moment. "A gong going off. My powers shudder in response and, boom, headache."

Clint looked over toward the map on the counter. He'd noticed it before but not really bothered to take it in. Only then he actually processed the locations that were marked and he coughed a little. "Oh, so like. The bacon incident. With the camera equipment and stuff." It'd been a while since he'd heard anything from the kid calling himself Asgardian. But he also hadn't heard of any further incidents, which probably meant he'd taken Clint's advice, at least. Or was hiding his antics better, at any rate. "I can say with a little bit of surety that you might not have to worry about that kind of thing. Maybe. For a bit. I think."

"That sounds both ominous and yet very uncertain. I find neither of them are a good combination." Wanda bit back down on her desire to grill him over it because, first, she needed to make toast. Snagging the thickest bread she could find, she set about making several pieces of toast. She had no idea what Clint's appetite was like but she knew hers was healthy, to say the least. As the toaster set to work, she went back for more coffee. "I take it there's a story there?"

"I work for SWORD. The kid who was doing it, if it's the same kid, was going by the moniker Asgardian. That brought him to our attention. I investigated and tried to get him sorted out," Clint said, quirking a rueful smile. "It's a bit of a stretch to assume that the guy I talked to would be the same one who was causing your problems, but he did do the bacon one and he also did things in the other areas marked on your map. So it's a safe stretch, I think."

"Asgardian? Really?" The timing was too far apart to really be connected with their most recent brush with Asgard, though Wanda made a mental note to talk to Marie-Ange about it. "Well, he was throwing about great chunks of chaotic energy, so it only really stands to reason that this kid you ran into is the one and the same as the one who was giving me headaches. Chaos tends to mess with the odds a little bit."

Coffee. Coffee made her happy. She took a deep breath of the new cupful as she moved back towards the toast. "So, SWORD, hmm? That's who dropped you into Alaska?"

"Yeah, I told him using that name probably wasn't the best idea," Clint said, shrugging a little. "But it seemed more like magic, what he was doing, than chaos, but I've never seen chaos, so what do I know?" He smiled a little, poked at the sausages, and pulled the pans off the stove before checking through a few cabinets to find plates. "See, the thing is, SWORD sent me to Alaska cause I wouldn't let my partner shoot the Asgardian kid. My elbow sort of miraculously wound up smashing into his face and that's not really good for inter-departmental cohesion, y'know? So I've been inventorying a warehouse up there for the last few months."

Wanda tapped him on the shoulder after a few moments of searching and pointed Clint towards the right cupboard. "From what I know of SWORD, I am not surprised that it got you booted to the middle of nowhere, though I suppose they could have sent you even further away." She snagged a small plate for the toast before going to grab the butter. Bread was really only the vehicle for tastier things, after all. "Chaos is ... ah, not exactly easily identifiable. Things going weird on you is generally a sign but, well, magic does that too. And, by the way, I'm rather glad that your elbow managed to find a way to smash his face in. Shooting bad people is one thing but he sounds like a kid, really."

She made a disgusted noise. "Asgardian, pah."

"Right? Told him that was gonna get him the wrong kind of attention if he kept using it. Even if he quit messing with anti-mutant politicians and stuff," Clint said, plating the eggs and sausage before heading over to the counter and handing one to Wanda. "But yeah, there are worse places they could've sent me. And at least they didn't outright fire me, so that's a plus." Not that he was particularly happy with his job as it stood, anyway, but that was neither here nor there. "Bon appétit," he said.

She made an appreciative noise and scooped up the toast and butter with her other hand. "We may as well just eat on top of the map," Wanda said with a sigh, though she wasn't terribly disappointed that she knew part of the mystery she'd been hunting for. It wasn't completely solved but at least she had a name of sorts and a description of the powers. Setting the plates down, she went back for her coffee.

Coffee in hand, Wanda grabbed two chairs - one for her and the other to prop her feet in. "So, how on earth did you end up going from SWORD and warehouses to being delightfully bare chested in the same kitchen I was in?"

Clint grinned despite himself. "The higher ups decided they were going to make all our PTO use it or lose it. I had a lot of PTO. So I decided to use it. All of it. And my brother's been coming here for a couple months. So I'm crashing on his couch until my PTO runs out or they realize how stupid they're being and revert the policy." He settled in across from Wanda and dug in, happily munching on a sausage. "What about you? What's your part in the grand scheme of this place? I mean, besides tracking down people who mess with your chaos groove."

"Research," she said, with another wry glare at the map under their plates. "Of both the mundane and magical nature, which you probably could have guessed from my earlier questions." Clint was surprisingly easy to talk to but just because he hung around the mansion didn't mean he knew about the teams. And Wanda kept her cards close to her chest when it came to her own team. "My old mentor introduced me to the things weird and magical in university and I have, ah, kept up the interest, so to speak.

"Other than that?" She shrugged and smirked. "I like to say they pay me to keep the place pretty."

"Money well-spent," Clint said, still grinning. "I do more R&D with SWORD, personally. I mean, yeah, go out and find people who're playing with things they probably shouldn't be. Demons and temporal rifts, but it's a lot more research than I'd initially thought it'd be. And Doc Foster's all about the science behind things - it's not enough to say somebody used a magic spell to open a portal through time, she has to figure out which components of the ritual played into which real-life whatevers to create the perfect series of events and allowed the portal. Or something. Mostly, she's trying to figure out the Bifrost, though." None of that was top-secret, the public new about them and what they did, so Clint felt comfortable sharing.

Wanda let out a low whistle. "You're playing with the big leagues there." The food was hot and tasty, making her realize she'd had her head buried too much in that mystery than in keeping track of things like food. Amanda would be annoyed. "As exciting work as it sounds, it does sound like a break is needed. Nothing quite like time off to make your employers heart grow fonder or something like that. And if you have to take a vacation, well, you are in a mansion."

"Right?" Clint said, grinning. "There's worse places to be. And I'm meeting all kinds of interesting people." He'd well and truly tucked into the meal at that point, scooping pieces of egg up with his toast to munch on happily. "Mostly, though, it's giving me time to work on some of my weapon concepts - trick arrows, better billy clubs for my brother, some armor I want to get to prototypes."

Between Wanda's powers and her work out regime, she ate as well as most of the energy projectors in the mansion and without apology. Anyone looking at her would have had no idea she could eat the way she did but it was a good thing she enjoyed food or it would get old. "You are interesting. Armor, trick arrows? All I do is manipulate the world around us on an unseen level." She paused and then snorted with laughter, covering her mouth. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, someone told me I had to use that line and now seemed as good as ever. Oh goodness, it sounds as bad out loud as it does in my head."

Clint snorted a laugh despite himself. "Wow, that was pretty awful, yeah. But I mean, it's not like I've never used some awful lines in real life. Sometimes, they even work." He waggled his eyebrows a little. "To go back a little, though, yeah - R&D, remember? I make my own arrows, I've modified my bow, I'm trying to come up with a better set of body armor - if I can get it to block my own arrows... I'd be set."

"We'll need to trade bad lines later," she laughed. "Though most of mine will probably be in a foreign language so at least they will sound pretty." Wanda liberally slathered her toast with butter and used it to attack her eggs. "Well, I have the technical knowledge of a small child - ask Douglas, he starts swearing in a new language every time I look at a computer - but that sounds interesting. Though it does sound like you are preparing for the chance that someone will take your arrows and use them against you."

She tilted her head at him and quirked an eyebrow.

"Hey, I'm bored. Entertain me and I'll buy you a beer," Clint said in Russian, grinning widely. "That one actually worked. And it's best to always be prepared so far as someone taking my arrows and using them against me is concerned. You never know what's gonna happen when you're in the field."

"Really? That worked? I think my favorite was, You are so beautiful that I forgot the pickup line I was going to use to approach you," she replied in Russian. "Still terrible but it helped that he was handsome." Wanda drained her coffee again and scraped her chair back so she could get more. She vaguely remembered days where she never even touched the stuff but that was before the mansion. "And, well, you are not wrong on that. I once saw a goose take down an entire helicopter."

She ... might have had a hand in that.

Clint laughed. "It totally worked, which was the surprising part." Shoving some more eggs on his toast, he took a bite and chewed it, swallowing before continuing, "But yeah, that's what I mean. Sometimes, things just happen. You just have to be ready for whatever."

Wanda settled for bringing the rest of the pot over and setting it down over some notes of hers. "Well, this place will keep you on your toes, though I promise less in the way of giant glowing tubes." She picked up her fork and looked at him expectantly. "Should we keep practicing horrible Russian pick up lines on each other? I have a few I do not think I have ever repeated for fear of someone, not me, dying in shame..."

"Please," Clint said, gesturing with his fork. "Share. But to up the ante, as it were, let's switch to terrible pickup lines you've used."

Her eyes narrowed in thought for a moment before she switched back to Russian. "Apart from being sexy, what do you do for a living?" She coughed slightly. "I may have followed it up with a suggestion of what he could be doing for a living, if only for one night."

Laughing again, Clint shook his head. "That's a good one. Oh, here, this one is really awful. Do you know what my shirt is made of? Boyfriend material." Switching back to English, he said, "Obviously, the boyfriend part didn't really happen, but y'know."

She was laughing too hard to reply. "Boyfriend material? Really?!" Wanda covered her face with her hands, shaking her head. "You win. I do not know why I find that as funny as I do, but I throw in my white flag." Letting her hands drop, she snorted at him. "I see I have much to learn in the ways of bad pick up lines that actually work."

"Don't worry, I'm happy to share my best ones," Clint said, grinning. "It's the least I can do, since you gave me coffee and toast."

"Well, you inadvertently gave me a free show, so I believe we are even. Now, about those lines..."