Clint, Namor | Don't Cryo No More

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Clint goes to check up on his previous aggressor.

Clint had checked with the doctor to make sure it was okay for him to be down in the medlab — and also that the patient he intended to check on wasn't still an adrenalin-fueled rage-monkey. That was always important.

There weren't many rooms, per se, but enough that Clint double checked the number as he headed toward it. Then he knocked and poked his head inside. "Hello?"

"I would have you lashed for intruding without permission."

The stranger's accent was not as thick as it had been the previous night, but his tone was very much the same: haughty, condescending to a fault, and without any trace of humor. Yet it was English. Everything else about his demeanor was different. The man sat calmly with his back against a wall, still shirtless, with the kind of languid grace found in predators at rest or a warrior king in court.

His calculating eyes gave Clint a speculative once over that asked, rather obviously: player or pawn? Adversary or tool?

Clint snorted. "Good thing we're not living somewhere that allows flogging for dropping by and saying 'hi,'" he said, shifting forward enough to rest his shoulder against the door frame. He quirked an eyebrow. "Also, you'd have to catch me again. And I'm wise to your wily ways, so it'd be harder. Would you like me to leave?"

He shrugged. It was a habit he had quickly picked up from the medlab staff. "Do as you please. This is not my kingdom, and I am merely a prisoner."

"Pretty sure you're not a prisoner," Clint said, staying where he was at the door. "I don't see any handcuffs or chains. What is your kingdom?"

The stare he got could have froze a bonfire. "The best prisons have no shackles. There are innumerable ways to keep a man captive or indentured."

"True, but since you're not raging through the hallways destroying everything in sight, I think you're pretty okay to leave whenever you want. I wouldn't necessarily suggest it, though. You didn't answer my question," Clint said, both eyebrows rising now.

"Neither you nor your pretty blonde minion have given me proper incentive to answer questions."

Clint grinned despite himself. "She's not my minion. She was actually there to steal that tube you were in. Got away with it, too." He paused for a moment, frowned slightly, and said, "I'm sorry for shooting you with all those arrows. And tasing you."

The man on the bed waved a hand at that. "Not that one, the other one. With the Staff of Imbued Darkness."

He shook his head, eyes peering holes into Clint's intent as if trying to read his mind and that statement was immediately discarded. "I can see no reason for you to lie. Rest assured that I hold nothing against you, but I offer no apologies in return."

"Works for me," Clint said, shrugging a little. "But what's this staff you're talking about? Imbued Darkness?"

If Namor's gaze had been cold before, now it was glacial. All of the humor drained from him in an instant, and he more closely resembled the man that Clint and Sue had met in Alaska not a week ago than he had since then. "It is mine."

Clint's unimpressed face was pretty epic. "Right, dude. Use your newly acquired vocabulary to actually tell me something. Be descriptive. I'd be alright if you were even, like, verbose. Glowering at me isn't gonna get you anything."

The man sighed, and he leaned forward to illustrate how exhausting this was. "You people and your demand for details. Very well," and this was punctuated with a beat, but suddenly Namor was sitting straight and proud, "My name is Namor. I was to be the first of that name to rule Atlantis and her empire. I was betrayed, and Atlantis lost."

Well, that was something, at least. Rather than interrupt, Clint gestured for the other man to continue.

That gesture was returned by another that was very inappropriate in Atlantean society, but Namor continued after a sufficiently dramatic pause: "Atlantis was centered around its home island, a beacon to the rest of the world with wealth and prestige unmatched. There the royal family was entrusted with a cache of weapons by our ancestors deemed too powerful to be within mankind's greedy reach." The emphasis placed on "mankind" indicated that Namor clearly meant everyone not Atlantean.

His tone hardened, slipping out of story-telling mode. "That staff is supposed to be there."

"Right," Clint said, nodding slowly. Part of him wanted to duck out of the room to check with the doctor about the man's state of mind, but he'd seen the tube the man had been in. While he wasn't entirely sold on the 'Atlantis' part of this, he at least believed the 'old.' 'Old' also meant his brain might've gotten scrambled while thawing, but. "Well, telepathy isn't where genetics decided to take my mutation. So explain to me what's so dangerous about the staff. Without the grandstanding. I need something concrete if I'm going to look into it."

"You need to remember your place, Archer." Namor's demeanor had slipped out of helpful and back into full predatory menace, his eyes razor-sharp with indignation. "I have no need for your help. I have not asked for it. My kingdom has fallen, but you will show me the deference that is my due."

He snarled, showing his teeth like a throwback to a more savage time. "I question why you choose to ally with men who hoard power and consort with demons."

Arching an eyebrow, Clint eyed the other man for a long moment, then said, "I question the wisdom of a man apparently out of time being an ass to people offering assistance. I'll leave you and your attitude to consider your somewhat precarious position in peace." Then, every line of his body utterly mocking, Clint executed a half-bow, turned, and left the medlab.