Bobbi & Clint | Sunday Afternoon

[x-hawkeye.livejournal.com]

Bobbi meets Clint thanks to a thrown sock. Beer and sandwiches ensue.


The worst part about giving up his place in the city was that Clint had all this crap that he didn't really want to go through but he couldn't justify just chucking it without going through it first. His rule of thumb was usually that, if he hadn't seen it or missed it in a year, he could get rid of it guilt-free. Only with some of this stuff, it wasn't all his. God only knew what some of his friends had tucked into random things in that apartment.

At least he was relatively sure none of it would explode. "None of it exploded in transit, at least," Clint rationalized, chucking a pair of balled up socks over his shoulder and out the door. The hallway outside the suite was littered with the detritus of his old apartment. He just needed to separate all the stuff he could legitimately get rid of from all the stuff he'd have to squirrel away again.

Bobbi had been examining some of the things Clint had thrown out of his apartment as she walked through the hallway. Were it not for the distraction of looking about - what was that over there, exactly? - her enhanced reflexes would've allowed her to dodge the pair of socks that came flying out the door. As it was, the socks struck the back of her head with a soft 'whoof' sound before they fell to the floor with the rest of the items.

"Okay, so..." she said, bending down and picking up the improvised projectile as she peered into the room. "That was a thing that just happened, I guess."

Clint turned around, eyes widening. "Aw, socks. No," he said, catching sight of the offending items in her hand. "Sorry," he offered a moment later. "Moving sucks?"

"This is true, yes." Bobbi said with a grin, tossing the socks back from whence they came. There were worse things with which to be hit in the head, and no harm no foul anyway. "Looks like you're making good progress though, I guess?" It was hard to tell with the current state of things but hopefully he was doing okay.

Catching the socks, Clint grinned back. "I mean, this is the stuff that I'm pretty sure I can trash but I wanna make sure, so. It's just working up the motivation to actually check out each thing to make sure there's nothing important hidden in it or whatever. My friends can be sneaky."

Part of her wanted to ask why he was throwing out what seemed like perfectly good socks, but then she remembered they'd struck her in the head and perhaps she didn't want to know why he was tossing them out. Bobbi raised an eyebrow at the last part. "Sneaky enough to hide things in socks?" She'd come across some odd behavior in her line of work but never anything quite like that.

Clint tucked the socks into his back pocket and stepped forward, offering his hand. "Clint Barton, formerly of SWORD. Before that, I worked for SHIELD. So y'know. Shadowy government agencies and... stuff."

"Bobbi Morse, XFI. Nice to meet you." She shook his proffered hand and looked around the inside of his room as he spoke. "Ahh, that explains it then. I'd heard they had a penchant for socks and now this confirms it."

"I mean, a bunch of quarters or rocks in a sock is still an awesome bludgeoning weapon," Clint said. "Also, I'm good at throwing things. My friends are just more likely to... kind of be a little stabby? Maybe?" He squinted at he considered that. "Also, sometimes they hide money in weird places. I dunno why." Tilting his head to the side, he indicated the kitchenette. "Want anything to drink? My suitemate's not here at the moment, but I don't think he'd begrudge me sharing his beer."

"You want to weed out any hidden stabby things, that's a good idea." Especially if they were hidden in one's footwear, sheesh. Boys, she said to herself. "A beer sounds great actually, yes please." Bobbi wasn't working and she'd never turn down an offered beer when there was no reason not to have one. She folded her arms and looked around the suite again. "Who's your suitemate?"

"Billiam," Clint answered, ducking into the fridge to grab them both beer. He left the suite door open so he could monitor his pile of trash out there and make sure nobody tripped over it. "Billy Kaplan, I mean," he said, popping the top on two bottles and handing one off to Bobbi. "He does the whole... magical thing? Sort of? Electricity and stuff. Way flashier than my schtick, but my party tricks are more intricate."

She took the proffered beer and tipped it in salute to Clint before taking her first sip. "Ah, magic. Gotcha." Bobbi didn't quite understand it at all but was a little fascinated by it just the same, truth be told. "Oh really? How so?" Whatever tricks he did were bound to be more flashy than her own powers but she was curious to see what he meant.

"Hm..." Clint paused for a moment, long enough to dig through the box he'd pulled the socks from. He found a chew toy that he tossed to PD without looking, then dug a little more. "Ha - here we go." Pulling a small bouncy ball out, he showed it to her. "Okay," he said, glancing around the room to check the placement of various things. "Hold your hand out."

There was a dirty joke about holding his ball just hanging there but she didn't know Clint well enough to make it out loud. Bobbi did smirk just a teensy bit, however, and held open her right hand, holding her beer in the other. "Should I put my beer down first?"

"Nah, just don't move," Clint said, grinning as he chucked the bouncy ball over his shoulder. It hit the wall, bounced into a heavy ceramic jug on the floor, careened off the arm of the couch, rocketed toward a table, smacked a clock-face, hit the ceiling light overhead, and landed in her hand. "Ta da!"

Bobbi's eyes darted around as she tried to track the ball's motion, and then it was right in the palm of her hand. "Whoa, alright then." He was right, that was pretty damn intricate indeed. "If we ever have a pool tournament I call dibs on you as a partner."

Clint laughed. "I've been banned from actually competing in things like that," he said, shaking his head. Then he waggled his eyebrows a little. "But they don't know that here, so sure. I'll help you fleece anybody who challenges you to a game of pool."

"I'll hold you to that, just so you know," Bobbi said with a smile. There were a few old buddies she wouldn't mind seeing put in their place, but she wasn't about to go out of her way to do that. Still, should the opportunity ever arise, she knew who to call.

"Deal," Clint said, offering the bottom of his bottle so they could clink on it.

"Cheers," Bobbi added, clinking his bottle with hers before taking another mouthful. "All I can offer in kind is help with track and field if that ever comes up for you." There weren't a lot of sports or games she played, sadly. "Oh, and Candy Crush," she added, snapping her fingers. "I'm pretty good at that too, if I do say so myself."

"I'm an Atomas man, myself," Clint said, grinning. "But I'll take the help with track and field, if I ever need to win a relay race. Hungry? I'm thinking a sandwich with the beer wouldn't miss the mark at this point."

"Huh, I don't know that one. I'll have to check it out." The more cell phone games she had to avail of during stakeouts, the better, after all. "A sandwich would be the perfect complement to this, great idea. Let's do it up."