[ Clint doesn't know quite what to say, here. He kind of looks at Kate hopelessly, like she's totally stumped him, and then drags himself up to his feet. Lucky lets out a low borf and flops out, watching them, and Clint closes the distance between him and Kate. He carefully rests his hands on her shoulders, looking her in the eyes. ]
I'm not dead. You can't get rid of me that easily. [ A beat, and then he frowns. ] ... I'm sorry, Katie.
[ And then - Davesprite. There's a beat, where Clint looks up to see Davesprite just... chewing on a noodle block, to which Clint just tries to not laugh because what. Are you doing. That's not how you ramen. Not that Clint is surprised he doesn't know how. ]
I - uh. Didn't exactly have time to grocery shop while I was in snow hell, DS.
[She's still upset, but the acknowledgement helps, at least. Kate almost hugs him, or at least considers it, but then the moment goes on a bit too long and the opportunity is gone and she just looks away instead, taking a step back when his attention turns to Davesprite.]
Ugh, don't eat that. You'll probably get cancer or something.
[Davesprite shrugs broadly at them and crunches another bit of ramen block.]
I wasn't raised to make noodles right. I do what I can.
[He glances back at them—the noodles, then Clint and Kate.]
So, everything's kind of complicated, right? And you're tired, and you're worried, and neither of you have really got the chance to sit the fuck down and learn everything, and that part with me didn't count because I only scratched the surface and joked about Clint's terrible taste in costumes. I'm sayin' both of you, you've got a lot of shit on your minds, right? We've been back like two days, maybe. It'll settle. I'll find furniture to push Clint off of if he keeps being dumb, but maybe for now we can just—sit down, order a pizza, talk a little, then sleep like the dead.
I'm gonna have to teach you how to make noodles 'cause that's. Painful. [ Clint says absently, staring at said noodles. Sorry, he's zoning out here. A beat, and he shakes his head, letting go of Kate after a second. ]
I just want to put on sweatpants. [ He says, rubbing at his face. ] Maybe shave. Take a shower. Can you guys order pizza and I'll - I can talk about whatever you want me to talk about, Kate, promise. DS will help.
[And with Kate giving in, he pops a thumbs up to Clint.]
Go wash the Alaska off, dude.
[He already took a good, long shower himself earlier. For now... He looks at the noodles again, then goes to find the trash to dump them in. This was a mistake.]
[ Unfortunately - or maybe fortunately, who knows - Clint decides he is going to take a shower for like half an hour. The warm water, the steady pressure - the fact that he gets to shave? It's glorious. He wants to sleep in this shower. Maybe live in the shower. That'd be so fine with him.
Eventually he gets out. He puts on clean clothes, and drags himself down the stairs. Slowly. He looks a hell of a lot better, but he's still kind of haggard, definitely thinner than he used to be. His movements carry kind of sickly tired that comes from a remembered chronic pain and from malnutrition. Life sucked in Norfinbury.
[So Kate orders pizza. Pizzas, technically. She's totally broke since the whole being disowned thing, but Clint is buying anyway, so she gets the grossest, most over the top kinds she can, and by the time Clint is done with his shower, they're sitting on the kitchen counter and Kate is getting out plates for all of them. She took care of the place while he was gone, at least, out of hope that he'd be coming back, so everything is pretty much clean and tidy. Far cleaner than he left it, for sure.
Kate's taking pineapple herself, trying to ignore how different Clint looks and moves as she hands Davesprite a plate.]
Don't let Clint eat all of it, because he totally will.
I know how to demolish a pizza, Kate. I'm like 17 by now and I just spent however long surviving off frozen rations. I was made for this day.
[He loads a couple slices of meat lover's onto his plate. Maybe he will eat one with a vegetable on it, too, if they bug him enough, but right now he wants to indulge.]
[Seeing Clint return, though, he gives him a once-over and nods.]
Looking better. Still crap, but better. We'll get there.
[He didn't get hit with pain the same way Clint did, but Norfinbury took its toll regardless. Floating makes the state of himself easier to work around.]
[ Clint is totally okay with Kate ordering whatever she wants. His house is her house, and Davesprite's, too, now. He's got the money to be able to make sure they don't have to want for anything, honestly.
Davesprite tells him he looks like crap, and Clint snorts, dropping down heavily on a bar stool. He's still kind of marveling at the fact that he can get up and hold things without wanting to die inside, it's - great. Clint takes like half a pizza for himself, raising his eyebrows at Kate like he's daring her to stop him. ]
I'm gonna eat all this pizza because I paid for it. [ He's teasing. ] DS is right, though, we just came from a place where frozen fruit was a delicacy. [ A beat, and then offhand at Davesprite: ] Nothing left over from the town, right? None of the side-effects?
[Kate doesn't try to stop him, but she does reach over the counter to pick a slice of pepperoni off of his pizza and pop it in her mouth. Just to be a brat.
She's feeling out of the loop here already, though, so she looks between them as she feeds Lucky a bit of pineapple. Davesprite mentioned the side-effects, but he didn't exactly go into detail, so this is where Kate begins her endless grilling.]
What side-effects? You said they were from nanomachines, but... [She waves a hand vaguely. That doesn't tell her much.]
I want to give him obsession for collecting eggs someday you're welcome
[Sorry, you expected words? He's busy chewing through a probably too large bite of cheese and protein shapes and it is glorious. He makes a sound kind of like a dying whale that is simultaneously in a bad porno. If either of them expected him not to enjoy the experience of pizza this much, they are fooling themselves.]
[Once he's chewed thoroughly and swallowed, though—]
I said the nanomachines were because of the radiation, right? But they also poisoned us in ways that affected our brains somehow. So, if you mean have I stopped feeling like my dead Bro is following me through locked doors and creeping up in the ceilings and shit, yeah, that's gone. But you might want to get me a pack of Easter eggs to see if I'm still obsessed with those.
[He might just sit on them anyway. Bird instincts, man. The crow he was made with wasn't very smart.]
[ Clint lets Davesprite explain as he proceeds to shove a piece of pizza into his mouth. Like almost an entire piece. Chewing it is a task, but he doesn't care, he's up to it. It's been so long since he's had it, god. He still takes the time to bat at Kate's hand when she steals a pepperoni, but it's playful. ]
I think I've actually got a package of those in my closet. [ Clint says thoughtfully. He'd bought them for Simone's kids a while back. As for the rest of it, he gives Davesprite a thumbs up. Which he couldn't do in Norfinbury. ]
I can move without feeling like tiny gremlins are biting all of my joints and beating up my bones with hammers so - yeah, looks like it's gone. [ He sounds so, so relieved. Clint glances at Kate. ] Nanomachines came with terrible side effects, who would've guessed. They're not in my blood anymore, though. SHIELD checked.
[God, Clint. Kate's not sure if she's ready for a ridiculous bird brother, and yet here she is. She raises her eyebrows at Davesprite's whale imitation, but her expression sobers when he continues. They're both being pretty flippant about this, and admittedly she kind of expects that from Clint, but...]
Did you figure out who brought you there and why? Are you both okay?
[His closet? Davesprite's posture visibly perks up, but—nah, they can wait. He's got pizza. He crams another bite of it into his face hole, but still gives Clint an enthusiastic thumbs up in return the one he makes. It's pretty great to see him move his hand so freely.]
[But is he okay?]
I'm not dead or an anomaly or brainfucked by degrading nanowhatever. Get me some Flinstones vitamins and teach me how a kitchen is supposed to work, and I'll probably kick malnutrition's ass pretty quick.
[He'll let Clint handle the who and why, for however much answer they got to that. Instead he asks him his own question.]
D'you think SHIELD could check mine too? Though they probably would want to anyway. Not every day you get an orange bird guy with glowstick blood from an alternate dead universe showing up.
You should ask Natasha about the who and why, Kate. [ Clint says, pausing in his quest to devour as much pizza as possible in one sitting. Natasha paid more attention, knew the ins and outs, and it's easier for her to give mission briefings. Clint doesn't want to talk about Miller or Eve. He wipes his mouth with his hand with no measure of grace whatsoever. ] But we're okay. Promise.
It'll be even better once we show DS what goes in a fridge. [ It's not swords. Surprise! Clint wipes the grease on his hands on his sweatpants like an animal and rests a hand on Kate's forearm. ] I accidentally adopted him, so now you gotta help me raise him.
[ He's teasing! Mostly. Please help. To Davesprite: ] Yeah. Part of the deal for me getting to go home was me bringing you in to make sure you're all good to go. I already said I'm responsible for you so they're not gonna throw a fit. Probably.
You can meet everybody else, too. Cap's gonna want to give you an inspiring speech or something.
Nope. [Kate glances over her shoulder at Davesprite.] Sorry, Dave. I'm only like two years older than you, anyway. We're not pulling some weird Woody Allen thing.
[Joking is fine. She can do joking. She's not really touching her pizza, though.]
Hey, I know food is supposed to go in a fridge. [Beat.] Just not sure which food.
[Media told him some things, but not everything. As for Kate?]
Of course you're not adopting me. I only just met you and you're not old enough to be my hot mom. Any mom. You're a hot non-mom. Clint, steal her pizza she's not eating it and pineapple is for sad people.
[He grabs a couple more slices of whatever non-befruited food punishment is left and floats up to perch on top of the fridge. Around a mouthful of cheesy bread dinner:]
Hey, tell me about Cap. [He swallows.] And how many times do you think I'll have to explain to them about Sburb?
Are you calling me a sad people? [ Clint asks idly, reaching over to steal Kate's pineapple. ] Or are you calling her a sad people?
[ He pops it in his mouth. ] Cap's great when he's not being stupidly stubborn about things. [ A beat. ] And considering you still end up having to explain things about Sburb to me, probably a lot.
[Davesprite holds a hand up, palm open. He'd use both for full defensive posturing, but he's using the other one to keep his pizza plate steady. Why do you think he retreated to perching on the fridge, Kate?]
You can't make me sleep on the floor. I've slept there too many times the past few months, and if you try I'm gonna cause hell the way only an oversized bird dude can.
[Then to Clint:]
You're a downright clinical case of sad dad-ism. Unless you're trying to tell me the couch is your best friend and your endless napping is how you two catch up on the haps, and if you do say it I'm just gonna mark you down as even sadder than I thought. Plus, anyone would be depressed knowing they've got a history of costumes as bad as yours. Blame Kate for that.
[Speaking of.]
You're sad automatically because you put fruit on pizza, and you defend all that purple.
Nobody has to sleep on the floor, I have enough space for everybody. [ Grumble grumble. He also opens his mouth to protest Kate's accusation, but Davesprite picks it up and goes, as always, and Clint just flounders uselessly before just closing his mouth with a disgruntled look. ]
Hey. We talked about not dissing the purple, DS. [ He's totally useful to this conversation, as you can see. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
I'm not dead. You can't get rid of me that easily. [ A beat, and then he frowns. ] ... I'm sorry, Katie.
[ And then - Davesprite. There's a beat, where Clint looks up to see Davesprite just... chewing on a noodle block, to which Clint just tries to not laugh because what. Are you doing. That's not how you ramen. Not that Clint is surprised he doesn't know how. ]
I - uh. Didn't exactly have time to grocery shop while I was in snow hell, DS.
no subject
Ugh, don't eat that. You'll probably get cancer or something.
no subject
I wasn't raised to make noodles right. I do what I can.
[He glances back at them—the noodles, then Clint and Kate.]
So, everything's kind of complicated, right? And you're tired, and you're worried, and neither of you have really got the chance to sit the fuck down and learn everything, and that part with me didn't count because I only scratched the surface and joked about Clint's terrible taste in costumes. I'm sayin' both of you, you've got a lot of shit on your minds, right? We've been back like two days, maybe. It'll settle. I'll find furniture to push Clint off of if he keeps being dumb, but maybe for now we can just—sit down, order a pizza, talk a little, then sleep like the dead.
no subject
I just want to put on sweatpants. [ He says, rubbing at his face. ] Maybe shave. Take a shower. Can you guys order pizza and I'll - I can talk about whatever you want me to talk about, Kate, promise. DS will help.
[ Sorry, bro, he's enlisting you. ]
no subject
[Fine, that's a compromise, even if she's still a little huffy.]
Go take a shower. You look like a lumberjack.
no subject
[And with Kate giving in, he pops a thumbs up to Clint.]
Go wash the Alaska off, dude.
[He already took a good, long shower himself earlier. For now... He looks at the noodles again, then goes to find the trash to dump them in. This was a mistake.]
no subject
Eventually he gets out. He puts on clean clothes, and drags himself down the stairs. Slowly. He looks a hell of a lot better, but he's still kind of haggard, definitely thinner than he used to be. His movements carry kind of sickly tired that comes from a remembered chronic pain and from malnutrition. Life sucked in Norfinbury.
He's glad to be home. ]
no subject
Kate's taking pineapple herself, trying to ignore how different Clint looks and moves as she hands Davesprite a plate.]
Don't let Clint eat all of it, because he totally will.
no subject
[He loads a couple slices of meat lover's onto his plate. Maybe he will eat one with a vegetable on it, too, if they bug him enough, but right now he wants to indulge.]
[Seeing Clint return, though, he gives him a once-over and nods.]
Looking better. Still crap, but better. We'll get there.
[He didn't get hit with pain the same way Clint did, but Norfinbury took its toll regardless. Floating makes the state of himself easier to work around.]
no subject
Davesprite tells him he looks like crap, and Clint snorts, dropping down heavily on a bar stool. He's still kind of marveling at the fact that he can get up and hold things without wanting to die inside, it's - great. Clint takes like half a pizza for himself, raising his eyebrows at Kate like he's daring her to stop him. ]
I'm gonna eat all this pizza because I paid for it. [ He's teasing. ] DS is right, though, we just came from a place where frozen fruit was a delicacy. [ A beat, and then offhand at Davesprite: ] Nothing left over from the town, right? None of the side-effects?
no subject
She's feeling out of the loop here already, though, so she looks between them as she feeds Lucky a bit of pineapple. Davesprite mentioned the side-effects, but he didn't exactly go into detail, so this is where Kate begins her endless grilling.]
What side-effects? You said they were from nanomachines, but... [She waves a hand vaguely. That doesn't tell her much.]
I want to give him obsession for collecting eggs someday you're welcome
[Once he's chewed thoroughly and swallowed, though—]
I said the nanomachines were because of the radiation, right? But they also poisoned us in ways that affected our brains somehow. So, if you mean have I stopped feeling like my dead Bro is following me through locked doors and creeping up in the ceilings and shit, yeah, that's gone. But you might want to get me a pack of Easter eggs to see if I'm still obsessed with those.
[He might just sit on them anyway. Bird instincts, man. The crow he was made with wasn't very smart.]
oh my god laughs
I think I've actually got a package of those in my closet. [ Clint says thoughtfully. He'd bought them for Simone's kids a while back. As for the rest of it, he gives Davesprite a thumbs up. Which he couldn't do in Norfinbury. ]
I can move without feeling like tiny gremlins are biting all of my joints and beating up my bones with hammers so - yeah, looks like it's gone. [ He sounds so, so relieved. Clint glances at Kate. ] Nanomachines came with terrible side effects, who would've guessed. They're not in my blood anymore, though. SHIELD checked.
DAVESPRITE PLS
Did you figure out who brought you there and why? Are you both okay?
no subject
[But is he okay?]
I'm not dead or an anomaly or brainfucked by degrading nanowhatever. Get me some Flinstones vitamins and teach me how a kitchen is supposed to work, and I'll probably kick malnutrition's ass pretty quick.
[He'll let Clint handle the who and why, for however much answer they got to that. Instead he asks him his own question.]
D'you think SHIELD could check mine too? Though they probably would want to anyway. Not every day you get an orange bird guy with glowstick blood from an alternate dead universe showing up.
no subject
It'll be even better once we show DS what goes in a fridge. [ It's not swords. Surprise! Clint wipes the grease on his hands on his sweatpants like an animal and rests a hand on Kate's forearm. ] I accidentally adopted him, so now you gotta help me raise him.
[ He's teasing! Mostly. Please help. To Davesprite: ] Yeah. Part of the deal for me getting to go home was me bringing you in to make sure you're all good to go. I already said I'm responsible for you so they're not gonna throw a fit. Probably.
You can meet everybody else, too. Cap's gonna want to give you an inspiring speech or something.
no subject
[Joking is fine. She can do joking. She's not really touching her pizza, though.]
I am sorry for this boy
[Media told him some things, but not everything. As for Kate?]
Of course you're not adopting me. I only just met you and you're not old enough to be my hot mom. Any mom. You're a hot non-mom. Clint, steal her pizza she's not eating it and pineapple is for sad people.
[He grabs a couple more slices of whatever non-befruited food punishment is left and floats up to perch on top of the fridge. Around a mouthful of cheesy bread dinner:]
Hey, tell me about Cap. [He swallows.] And how many times do you think I'll have to explain to them about Sburb?
noogies him
[ He pops it in his mouth. ] Cap's great when he's not being stupidly stubborn about things. [ A beat. ] And considering you still end up having to explain things about Sburb to me, probably a lot.
Kate, eat your pizza.
no subject
[Kate uses her slice of pizza to point at Davesprite.]
- if you make one more hot mom joke about me I'm making you sleep on the floor.
[And then, to Clint:]
You're the saddest man I've ever met.
no subject
You can't make me sleep on the floor. I've slept there too many times the past few months, and if you try I'm gonna cause hell the way only an oversized bird dude can.
[Then to Clint:]
You're a downright clinical case of sad dad-ism. Unless you're trying to tell me the couch is your best friend and your endless napping is how you two catch up on the haps, and if you do say it I'm just gonna mark you down as even sadder than I thought. Plus, anyone would be depressed knowing they've got a history of costumes as bad as yours. Blame Kate for that.
[Speaking of.]
You're sad automatically because you put fruit on pizza, and you defend all that purple.
no subject
Hey. We talked about not dissing the purple, DS. [ He's totally useful to this conversation, as you can see. ]