Adrienne & Clint | Friday Afternoon (backdated)

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Adrienne and Clint meet up at the archery range and plans are hatched.


Milling around the archery range while she waited for Clint, Adrienne was, for some reason unbeknownst to her, humming 'Stacy's Mom' to herself and trying to buff a scuff mark out of the bow she'd taken from her demon self several months before. It was a beautiful bow, with great weight and balance to it, though all Adrienne knew was that it looked pretty and she really liked using it. She hoped Clint would approve of it, being mister super badass archer and all that. At least, she assumed that's who he was. She hadn't seen this version, but if he had the same powers, it stood to reason that that part of him, at least, was the same as the kid she'd taught math to, right?

At least he wasn't the same age and didn't look the same as the Clint she knew. That certainly made everything easier. She had her emotional hands full with Garrison right now. She didn't have the emotional capacity to deal with more doppleganger heartache.

Still humming, she took her quiver of arrows off her back and pulled one out so she could pretend to swashbuckle with it, feigning left and parrying right, in her own little world.

Clint paused at the entrance to the open-air archery range, his eyebrows rising a little at the sight of the dark-haired woman waving an arrow around like it was a rapier. Then he he chuckled and said, "Nice to meet you in person."

"Oh!" Adrienne jumped in surprise, spinning to see Clint. She nearly dropped the arrow to try and pretend it hadn't happened, but in the end she just decided to own it. She held the arrow up horizontally in front of her and then let it drop like she was doing a mic drop. "You too." She stepped over the discarded arrow to shake his hand.

After shaking her hand, Clint shrugged his quiver off his shoulder and held up his bow for her to see. "I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

Adrienne handed over her white longbow with its flared ends and its spider-web type design carved into the supple wood. "I stole it off a demon doppleganger of myself from a Limbo dimension," she told him with a smirk. She knew he knew about weird shit happening in the world so she didn't pretend she'd bought this thing at a comic convention.

"Nice," Clint said, handing his to her as after accepting hers. "I like the design - kind of riffing off a composite bow, but with a deeper draw. Mine's pretty utilitarian comparatively. This one is, at least. I've got kind of a collection. Molly's got an Asgardian one - she says she's cool with me attempting to reverse engineer it." It was obvious as he ran his hands over the bow that he was familiar with them. His enthusiasm for the Asgardian bow was even more obvious.

"Ooo, I would fund that research-slash-experiment if you want funding for that," Adrienne told him. "Provided you make me one after you make yourself one." She was pretty sure her demon bow was pretty badass, but an Asgardian one might even be a little bit cooler. "My ward was offering to take me back to Asgard so I could see it for myself. I could have gotten a whole bunch, I bet. But I told her I wasn't too keen on the whole 'rapid aging' thing." She held Clint's Hoyt bow in one hand to test the weight and then used her other to draw it. "This is cool. I like this. I also didn't realize until now how much they can differ in weight." This one was a lot lighter than her own.

"I use that one mainly for practice shooting - it's also good for showing other people certain tricks. Lighter is usually easier for newbs or people who aren't familiar with that particular type. Less concentrating on keeping the bow level, y'know?" Clint spoke almost absentmindedly as he checked the draw on Adrienne's bow. Then he smiled. "Let me show you my quiver, though. Made it myself - mostly, it's just regular arrows." He handed the bow back to her, then let the strap for his quiver drop into his hand from his elbow before holding it up where she could see it. "Designed it myself, though. There's a switch here that rotates in the trick arrows."

Adrienne's eyes widened as she slung her own bow back over her back, happy to have its comforting weight back against her body. "Trick arrows?! What?! Lemme see! What kind of trick arrows?! I want trick arrows! I will gladly fund the production of trick arrows as well," she told him with a nod. "I love being rich."

"Depends on what you want," Clint said, laughing a little. "This one explodes. This one sends out an EMP - ten foot radius. Shorts out all electronics. This one sedates whoever it hits unless there's some kind of metabolism thing they've got going on that keeps the sedative from kicking in. This one's a grappling hook - I'm working on one that'd do a mesh net for more capture, less puncture. I've got a pretty good stock of them worked up, but they're not here at the mansion."

"Yesssss!" Adrienne said in almost a moan. "Those all sound awesome! How does the sedation one work? Is it a hypodermic or a gaseous style?" As someone who ended up in a lot of life-threatening situations but had no offensive powers, it was possible she'd daydreamed about trick arrows once or twice. They were much more interesting to her than bullets. "Have you ever tried a boomerang type? Or smoke?"

"I tend to just keep miniaturized smoke bombs in the pocket on my quiver," Clint said, showing her the pocket and the smaller bombs inside. "But the sedation arrows work sort of like a pressure-release hypodermic needle. Let me show you." He clicked the little button until one of the sedation arrows was in place, then he pulled it, hooked his quiver over his shoulder, and fiddled with the arrow until it released the small vial of sedative.

"So you shoot it and as soon as the tip hits, it released these prongs. The tip is flat, there's this small needle that's attached to the vial that comes through a hole in the arrowhead." He pushed the blunted arrowhead against the base of his palm to demonstrate the prong release, then flipped it so she could see the hole through which the needled would slide. "As soon as the prongs are down, the needle releases and injects the target with the dose of sedative. It takes a little while to knock them out, but then they're usually down for at least twenty, thirty minutes."

"How long's a while?" Adrienne asked curiously, pulling out another arrow from the quiver and nocking it to her bow, drawing back experimentally.

"Five to ten minutes, depending on the target's height, weight, and metabolism," Clint answered. "I could start making you a stock of your own, if you like. No funding necessary." He appreciated the offer, but getting funding in his world usually meant whoever was funding had a claim on what you produced and he'd worked for years to make sure no one else had any kind of claim on his designs.

"Aw, but I like funding things," Adrienne pouted. She was a little disappointed with the time it took for the knock-out drug to work, and put the arrow back into Clint's quiver.

Clint laughed a little. "Yeah, but being funded means I'd owe you something more than just the final product. And you can vary the types of sedatives you use, make a cocktail to hit as many different body types and potential mutations as possible. Alternately, poison is always an option. I've got a few arrows stocked with more deadly options, but those are for last-ditch kind of emergency situations."

"Owe me something more?" Adrienne cocked an eyebrow at him. "Like... you'd be my gigolo or something? I can assure you, I have been in a relatively stable relationship with a Mountie for almost two years now. I have my hands more than full dating him, trust me," she chuckled.

"I saw from your intro post you were with the government, so I get it," she shrugged. "Christ knows I was skeptical enough of regulatory types in the past. And I'm sure a dozen other people are going to give you the whole 'we're different here' speech- though I think your foster bro took that one a little too much to heart, to be honest," she smirked. "But sometimes," she continued with an easygoing smile, "when a rich lady- a lady who also happens to be a Frost, and has managed to live the second half of her life in almost complete interest of what the family business Frost Enterprises does, might I add- offers to fund stuff for you, it's not for any other reason than she wants to buy super cool arrows from you after you invent them."

Laughing at the gigolo comment, Clint shook his head. "Man, if I'd had somebody like you around when I was in college, I might not've let SHIELD snap me up after I got my PhD. Science for the sake of science, less interest in profits. At least on the surface. I'll let you know if I'm in dire need, promise." He clicked the vial of sedative back into the arrow's shaft and fiddled with it head until the arms retracted back into their streamlined housings. "Hey, though, how many eggs d'you think you could fund? All that talk earlier about sports and stuff got me thinking. With Memorial Day coming up, I could probably rock the egg race."

Adrienne wrinkled her nose at his mention of the 'talk earlier.' "Memorial Day egg race? I dunno, man. Is your foster bro going to get his panties all in a twist if I give you money to fund an egg race? He seems to have his heart pretty set on everyone doing exactly what he wants to do on Memorial Day," she smirked, turning away from Clint so she could pick up her own quiver and roll her eyes as she thought about her conversation with the blind guy.

"Don't rag on him too hard," Clint said, putting his arrow back in his quiver and clicking the button until he was back at his regular, unmodified arrows. "It's just... he's known for most of his life he's different and he's had to hide it. I think he latched onto the 'you can be yourself' thing this place seems to promote. He can be defensive sometimes, but I think he's a little more stressed than usual. It's not an excuse, but it might help make it seem less like hew as attack you out of the blue. He did kind of go off into unnecessary places, but he's been so excited about being here, about what this place represents..."

"Oh, to be young and idealistic again," Adrienne retorted wanly to Clint, this time letting him see her eye roll. She hadn't felt such an instant dislike to someone the way she did Clint's foster brother since she'd met Angelo, all those years ago. Those were good times. "Well, if you think he can play nice with everyone else and won't be too brokenhearted if we take some attention away from his precious ball game, then sure, never mind the egg race; I'd sponsor a whole damned carnival this weekend." The more stuff going on to distract Garrison from his depression over his employment situation, the better.

"A whole carnival? Complete with cotton candy and, like, bag tosses? Oh, we could do contests and other races, too," Clint said, smiling despite the jibes at Matt. He wasn't the kind of guy who'd usually let someone mess with either of his brothers, but Matt had kind of made his bed where this was concerned.

"I don't have much experience with carnivals," Adrienne admitted. "But if you want to get a list of contests and races and whatever, or ask the other folks here what they'd like to have, for sure. I'll fund the shit out of that thing." She pulled a random arrow from her quiver and showed it to Clint. Since she never actually attacked anyone with arrows, she still had the entire quiver that she'd taken from her demon self. Though they looked like they had been roughly hewn from trees, knobby and crooked, they always flew true and were holding up well despite being used in multiple practice sessions.

"I think this is a thing we should do - it's Memorial Day on Monday, is that too soon? Seems like people might enjoy it, since they'll have the day off, anyway," Clint said, taking Adrienne's arrow and holding it alongside his own. He ran his fingers along it, checking to see how balanced it was despite appearances, then he handed it back. She said she'd snagged the whole thing from a demon, which meant there could be some kind of magical something or other on the bow and the quiver, but the arrows themselves were pretty damn flight-worthy even if they didn't immediately seem that way.

"I don't think it's too soon," Adrienne mused thoughtfully. "Though, as admitted, I don't know a ton about what goes into hiring a carnival. But it seems to me you can procure almost anything in a hurry if you have enough money." She took the arrow back from Clint and fired it with her bow towards one of the targets.

Amused, Clint said, "Luckily, you're in the presence of a former carnie. I can help make the arrangements. We should be set." And maybe he'd actually get to see his other brother for more than five seconds. Novel thought, that.

"Really?! What did you do in a carnival?" Adrienne asked, intrigued.

"Mostly ran errands for the people doing the real tricks," Clint said, laughing a little. "But we traveled around, did shows, that kind of thing. It's where I first got into archery - I was just a kid, though. Seven or eight when we landed with the circus - me and my other brother. I can get us most of the hardware, probably - nothing fancy."

Adrienne gave him a diabolical look. "As long as we have a dunk tank."

Laughing again, Clint nocked his arrow and said, "I'll get you two dunk tanks." Then he 'muah-ha-ha'd' like the Count from Sesame Street and loosed his arrow, landing it precisely next to Adrienne's. The arrows quivered for a moment, less than a millimeter separating them.

"Good man," Adrienne praised triumphantly in regards to the dunk tanks. "Okay, right. Less talking, more shooting stuff." She added in her own diabolical laugh as she tried to fire an arrow as close to Clint's as possible.