[Lucky is all about this new bird friend, and he's licking Davesprite's hand. Kate, however, looks much less impressed, and she tucks her helmet under her arm and plants her other hand on her hip, studying him.
Okay, so she knows the basics about the whole Norfinbury thing, but Clint is Clint, so he didn't exactly get into detail. If the massive weight loss wasn't enough of a hint, though, the shift in Clint's mood would cinch it, so Kate is very aware Norfinbury sucked, even if she doesn't know the nitty gritty of what happened. So. Clint brought a friend back. It's not like that's strange or out of character for him, especially when said friend is a kid.
Davesprite caws and, to Kate's credit, she doesn't flinch.]
Kate Bishop. You didn't answer my question. What's your name?
[Because Clint didn't tell her anything about this! Fucking Clint!]
[Davesprite's weird bird hand tastes astonishingly like weird bird hand. It is a whole novel experience to be had for Lucky, surely, and Davesprite puts up with it without fuss.]
[But Kate—Kate—he's heard Kate, and—purple. He'd snap his fingers if they weren't tangled with Lucky's overly friendly tongue.]
Oh, shit, he told me about you. You're the other Hawkeye, right? What is with you guys and purple?
[It's not an answer, though, and he knows it.]
I'm Davesprite, but he's gonna noogie me into the cushions and out the back if I don't say Dave Strider. DS if you want a nickname. Pretty sure I don't legally exist yet.
You call it branding, I call it fashion felony. You've never seen Clint in purple choir robes.
[He shrugs at her.]
[Dave, though. He rolls the thought around, set of his mouth shifting as he does, but the issue is not as sore as it once was. There's unlikely to be another Dave here. At least, not another edition of himself.]
Yeah, alright. If he asks, tell him I gave you special dispensation and I'll shove him off the couch again if he tries to use it on me.
[Lucky tries his jump, Davesprite squawks, and the 3DS tumbles to the cushions as his hands go up to stop him from leaping onto his non-lap. Lucky, you are not that small.]
[He looks back to Kate.]
—evening. While he was wearing the choir robes, too. Don't underestimate me.
[Speaking of, can't he fly again? Davesprite floats up quite casually from the couch to hover stretched out near the ceiling. He sticks his tongue out at Lucky. Try to jump on him now, dog.]
The thing about Alaska is that it's fucking cold and you stay warm how you can, but his dignity still took some pretty fierce blows from that. Did he, uh, tell you about that?
Y'all are appropriating bird racists who don't know the first thing of real bird culture. Bet you're not even birdwatchers. As soon as Clint's got the government to write me up papers, I'm gonna report the both of you to the Audubon Society.
[He got plenty of practice, in other words.]
[He twists around until he's looking at her from upside down.]
I haven't seen him much. He's been debriefed like fifteen times by now, and he's never home.
[Which is part of the reason she's here—to corner him and make him spill.]
And you don't really have room to talk. Crows aren't orange. Where's your dedication to your branding? Maybe you should stop cawing until you're ready to go full goth.
[He caws at her again as he puts a hand to his chest, all mock-offense.]
Well, I never. You don't know where I come from. Maybe on my planet every crow was sunset colors and tasted like instant drink mix. I didn't suffer through the Tang wars for this disrespect, Bishop. My kin fought and died for their right to be part of a balanced breakfast.
[Pfft, says Kate, rolling her eyes as she scritches Lucky behind the ear.]
Wow, I hate to break this to you, but Tang isn't part of a balanced breakfast on this side of the multiverse. Your struggle is about to start all over again.
[And he turns back around upright. He's not even showing off, really; he just missed being able to do this.]
At least being orange is what I am. You can't fight DNA. The both of you went and dug your monochrome grave together. What's purple got to do with archery? Or hawks?
All I've had for the past couple months are water and the occasional lukewarm coffee. I'll take all the radioactive sugar water I can get, but if you get me real apple juice I'll love you forever.
[You have no idea how much he missed apple juice, Kate. None at all.]
You two are the ones who picked it. I got turned orange when I turned into this. I'm asking what your excuse is for looking like color coded cartoon characters all the time, and don't tell me the branding thing.
[It doesn't even take a full second before he bursts out laughing. Least of his worries isn't kidding, and his laughter builds the more he looks at it. It is completely, uniquely terrible, and it may not be purple, but it doesn't need to be.]
He looks like a Greek gladiator got lost at a leather daddy convention and waxed his chest somewhere in the middle. His name's Athrilles and all he needs is someone to wrestle to submission in the arena of his heart. Oh, he tries to put on the tough guy act, but everyone knows he's the sensitive kind. Don't look at my shoulders whispers his spandex mask-cowl combo. The bolted on leather straps say I'm having a bad nipple day. But you can tell he's proud of his thighs.
[The whole thing is delivered through a net of snickers and giggles.]
[Don't test him, Kate. He's terrible when he gets going. As it stands, Clint's godawful costume choices might just kill him off before he gets the chance. The next look sends him into a whole new fit.]
Jegus, that's—that's a goddamn work of art.
[It takes him a moment to gather his voice.]
Someone must have taken pity and told him what hawks are eventually, because that's straight up Robin Hood. Your whole superhero league, was it always the Avengers? Or was it the band of merry men back then?
You're the one from this world. Between us, it's you who's got a shot of knowing the history. But you're gonna have to work if you want to shimmy up the ladder to the better Hawkeye slot. He and I have got history now. Alaskan history. Frozen bullshit nuclear wasteland history.
[His demeanor sobers too at that, and his arms end up settled against his tail as one might with their thighs.]
There used to be a ton of guides I could have shown you, but it's kind of hard to access that network from another universe.
What happened is we got brought to this town called Norfinbury, Alaska, some year in the future compared to what we're from. I'm from 2009, by the way. There were other people, too. Do you know Natasha Romanov? She was one. But other people from other worlds besides ours too, not all of them with Earths. And this town was pretty heavily destroyed after some nuclear attack for bullshit reasons, so we were basically all stuck trying to survive while got fed clues piece by piece from the assholes running everything.
People died sometimes, got revived missing senses or memories temporarily. There were nanomachines in our blood to keep us from dying of radiation, but the trade off meant other side effects, altered perceptions, having our heads messed with... Monsters called anomalies could show up and grab you if you were traveling. If you didn't get inside before lockdown each night, exposure would kill you from how cold it got.
[He doesn't know why Clint hasn't told her, and he may ask him later, but he won't blame him for struggling. He may have said serious shit like a joke, but he meant it. It's exactly why he joked so hard. Everything's been so serious so long that he needs the lighter stuff to remind him it's over.]
[He lets out a slow exhale, and by now he's more staring aimlessly into the middle distance beyond the couch than at her or anything else.]
There were a bunch of these 'sessions' before us, and a whole lot of complicated shit about who was running it and what was really going on. The whole town was some weird project, I guess, shaped like a spiral that we had to find the center of. And after that, we got to go—
[He almost says home, and he means for this Earth to become it, but it's not where he comes from.]
[It comes out soft, more of an exhalation than anything else.
Of course Clint doesn't want to talk about it, especially not after being debriefed by SHIELD on it endlessly like he has been, but... It still drives Kate crazy that this is just another example of Clint shutting her out when things get hard, even though they're supposed to help each other, as partners or friends or Hawkeyes or... whatever. That's just strengthened Kate's resolve to park herself here until he shows up, even if she dies of old age.
Kate just keeps scratching behind Lucky's ears, biting her lip as she tries to figure out what to say. She just met this kid literally ten minutes ago, and she has about a million questions, not least of all why he decided to come here instead of going home, but she zips it.
So, out comes the sincere Kate that America hates, her voice going quiet.]
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Okay, so she knows the basics about the whole Norfinbury thing, but Clint is Clint, so he didn't exactly get into detail. If the massive weight loss wasn't enough of a hint, though, the shift in Clint's mood would cinch it, so Kate is very aware Norfinbury sucked, even if she doesn't know the nitty gritty of what happened. So. Clint brought a friend back. It's not like that's strange or out of character for him, especially when said friend is a kid.
Davesprite caws and, to Kate's credit, she doesn't flinch.]
Kate Bishop. You didn't answer my question. What's your name?
[Because Clint didn't tell her anything about this! Fucking Clint!]
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[But Kate—Kate—he's heard Kate, and—purple. He'd snap his fingers if they weren't tangled with Lucky's overly friendly tongue.]
Oh, shit, he told me about you. You're the other Hawkeye, right? What is with you guys and purple?
[It's not an answer, though, and he knows it.]
I'm Davesprite, but he's gonna noogie me into the cushions and out the back if I don't say Dave Strider. DS if you want a nickname. Pretty sure I don't legally exist yet.
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[It's a dumb, flippant answer, because the real one is that... Kate just really likes purple. Shut up, Davesprite.]
I can't just call you "Dave"? "DS" is way too Yeats for me.
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[He shrugs at her.]
[Dave, though. He rolls the thought around, set of his mouth shifting as he does, but the issue is not as sore as it once was. There's unlikely to be another Dave here. At least, not another edition of himself.]
Yeah, alright. If he asks, tell him I gave you special dispensation and I'll shove him off the couch again if he tries to use it on me.
Who's the dog, then?
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If you can get Clint off of the couch, I'll be damn impressed. That's Lucky.
[Lucky, as though completely aware he's the center of attention, lets out a little boof and tries to jump on Davesprite.]
Lucky, down. What did you say about choir robes?
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[Lucky tries his jump, Davesprite squawks, and the 3DS tumbles to the cushions as his hands go up to stop him from leaping onto his non-lap. Lucky, you are not that small.]
[He looks back to Kate.]
—evening. While he was wearing the choir robes, too. Don't underestimate me.
[Speaking of, can't he fly again? Davesprite floats up quite casually from the couch to hover stretched out near the ceiling. He sticks his tongue out at Lucky. Try to jump on him now, dog.]
The thing about Alaska is that it's fucking cold and you stay warm how you can, but his dignity still took some pretty fierce blows from that. Did he, uh, tell you about that?
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Bits and pieces.
[Not as much as she'd like, of course. She flops out on the couch, head still craning up.]
There's a Hawkeye slash bird joke in here somewhere, but I'd feel lame making it.
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[He got plenty of practice, in other words.]
[He twists around until he's looking at her from upside down.]
So he didn't mention me?
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[Which is part of the reason she's here—to corner him and make him spill.]
And you don't really have room to talk. Crows aren't orange. Where's your dedication to your branding? Maybe you should stop cawing until you're ready to go full goth.
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Well, I never. You don't know where I come from. Maybe on my planet every crow was sunset colors and tasted like instant drink mix. I didn't suffer through the Tang wars for this disrespect, Bishop. My kin fought and died for their right to be part of a balanced breakfast.
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Wow, I hate to break this to you, but Tang isn't part of a balanced breakfast on this side of the multiverse. Your struggle is about to start all over again.
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[And he turns back around upright. He's not even showing off, really; he just missed being able to do this.]
At least being orange is what I am. You can't fight DNA. The both of you went and dug your monochrome grave together. What's purple got to do with archery? Or hawks?
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[But hey, she's smiling!]
Why does purple need to have anything to do with archery?
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[You have no idea how much he missed apple juice, Kate. None at all.]
You two are the ones who picked it. I got turned orange when I turned into this. I'm asking what your excuse is for looking like color coded cartoon characters all the time, and don't tell me the branding thing.
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[And she totally will.]
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I've been waiting for this day since he told me there was a helmet.
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The helmet is the least of your worries.
[She's pulling up the Goliath look first, and shoving the phone in Davesprite's face. Sorry, Clint.]
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He looks like a Greek gladiator got lost at a leather daddy convention and waxed his chest somewhere in the middle. His name's Athrilles and all he needs is someone to wrestle to submission in the arena of his heart. Oh, he tries to put on the tough guy act, but everyone knows he's the sensitive kind. Don't look at my shoulders whispers his spandex mask-cowl combo. The bolted on leather straps say I'm having a bad nipple day. But you can tell he's proud of his thighs.
[The whole thing is delivered through a net of snickers and giggles.]
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[Kate is cracking up herself, making such a disgusted face.]
The abs were bad enough. I don't need the daddy jokes too, ugh.
[Traumatizing. She's still giggling as she pulls up the next beauty.]
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[Don't test him, Kate. He's terrible when he gets going. As it stands, Clint's godawful costume choices might just kill him off before he gets the chance. The next look sends him into a whole new fit.]
Jegus, that's—that's a goddamn work of art.
[It takes him a moment to gather his voice.]
Someone must have taken pity and told him what hawks are eventually, because that's straight up Robin Hood. Your whole superhero league, was it always the Avengers? Or was it the band of merry men back then?
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[Jeez, Davesprite!]
And I'm not an Avenger. Not... technically. But this is why people call me the better Hawkeye. I don't wear cocktail dresses when I'm superhero-ing.
[Usually.]
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You're the one from this world. Between us, it's you who's got a shot of knowing the history. But you're gonna have to work if you want to shimmy up the ladder to the better Hawkeye slot. He and I have got history now. Alaskan history. Frozen bullshit nuclear wasteland history.
[Calmly, he adjusts his shades.]
It's serious shit.
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What happened? Clint keeps dipping out every time I see him.
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There used to be a ton of guides I could have shown you, but it's kind of hard to access that network from another universe.
What happened is we got brought to this town called Norfinbury, Alaska, some year in the future compared to what we're from. I'm from 2009, by the way. There were other people, too. Do you know Natasha Romanov? She was one. But other people from other worlds besides ours too, not all of them with Earths. And this town was pretty heavily destroyed after some nuclear attack for bullshit reasons, so we were basically all stuck trying to survive while got fed clues piece by piece from the assholes running everything.
People died sometimes, got revived missing senses or memories temporarily. There were nanomachines in our blood to keep us from dying of radiation, but the trade off meant other side effects, altered perceptions, having our heads messed with... Monsters called anomalies could show up and grab you if you were traveling. If you didn't get inside before lockdown each night, exposure would kill you from how cold it got.
[He doesn't know why Clint hasn't told her, and he may ask him later, but he won't blame him for struggling. He may have said serious shit like a joke, but he meant it. It's exactly why he joked so hard. Everything's been so serious so long that he needs the lighter stuff to remind him it's over.]
[He lets out a slow exhale, and by now he's more staring aimlessly into the middle distance beyond the couch than at her or anything else.]
There were a bunch of these 'sessions' before us, and a whole lot of complicated shit about who was running it and what was really going on. The whole town was some weird project, I guess, shaped like a spiral that we had to find the center of. And after that, we got to go—
[He almost says home, and he means for this Earth to become it, but it's not where he comes from.]
—Out. Elsewhere. And I decided to come here.
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[It comes out soft, more of an exhalation than anything else.
Of course Clint doesn't want to talk about it, especially not after being debriefed by SHIELD on it endlessly like he has been, but... It still drives Kate crazy that this is just another example of Clint shutting her out when things get hard, even though they're supposed to help each other, as partners or friends or Hawkeyes or... whatever. That's just strengthened Kate's resolve to park herself here until he shows up, even if she dies of old age.
Kate just keeps scratching behind Lucky's ears, biting her lip as she tries to figure out what to say. She just met this kid literally ten minutes ago, and she has about a million questions, not least of all why he decided to come here instead of going home, but she zips it.
So, out comes the sincere Kate that America hates, her voice going quiet.]
I'm sorry. It'll be better here.
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casually kicks the door in here
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I want to give him obsession for collecting eggs someday you're welcome
oh my god laughs
DAVESPRITE PLS
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I am sorry for this boy
noogies him
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