thearena | Arena 12 - The Spaceport

Arena 12 - The Spaceport

As usual the Tributes are woken up early for the start of the arena, leaving the Tribute Centre before dawn. A few hours ride in a hovercraft delivers them to their destination where their excited prep teams will outfit them in skintight suits that are colour coordinated by District (D1 is White, D2 is Red, D3 is Orange, D4 is Aqua, D5 is Purple, D6 is Pink, D7 is Light Green, D8 is Blue, D9 is Yellow, D10 is Dark Green, D11 is Lavender, and D12 is Black) over which they will be put into what is instantly identifiable as a spacesuit, complete with oxygen tank and helmet before being loaded into the tubes.

They rise up into what appears to be outer space and immediately upon emerging from the tubes Tributes will find themselves floating upwards with a length of rope the only thing holding them to their podiums. The countdown crackles out from speakers built into each Tributes helmet.

20

19

18…

The Cornucopia sits in the middle of a dusty crater with buildings surrounding it, made up of a number of chained down cases and cubes in limited numbers. Cubes which sharp-eyed Tributes will note look like they fit into the slots beside the doors that lead into the spaceport.

8

7

6…

The mirrored visors of the uniformly white spacesuits make it impossible to tell friend from foe. Tributes fighting for goods will have to risk harming their friends but the alternative, floating off into space or suffocating when their oxygen runs out, leaves them little choice.

3

2

1…

The gong rings out and the countdown’s voice announces, “the Arena is now open” before the line goes dead. The Games have begun.

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It's not like there's anywhere in this station that's really safe, especially not with the gamemakers watching them and shaking things up whenever the hell they want, but at the moment, this room is probably the closest he could get.

Well, almost the closest, considering Sam's alone at the moment. The others come and go - even Steve, as much as Sam would love for him to just stay put until he's healed, that's just not feasible here - and so does he, but right now, he's holding down the fort.

He'd been sharpening the piece of metal and glass he's calling a knife, but he stands when he hears the sound of someone coming through the puzzles outside the room, putting himself in a more defensible position as he changes his hold on the knife. It might be one of the others, but just in case - and then no, it definitely isn't, although the guy does look really familiar.

Sam frowns, trying to place him. "...I know you from somewhere?" The guy's either going to attack him or he isn't, might as well be blunt.

It could be argued nowhere is really safe, honestly. But that would just be splitting hairs. There's a tracker in his arm, and he's been mired somewhere with seemingly no allies and nothing to his name. It could be worse, true, but it could be way better also.

So far, Clint's been lucky. He hasn't gotten himself injured, hasn't run into any really life threatening things beyond the initial gasp for air getting into the space port. Perhaps the luck comes simply with being thrown into the Arena late, but it might just be a little late apology luck from all the shit he's been through the past months. In any case, Clint's making his way slowly down through the science labs, looking for something, even if he has no idea what it is he's looking for. The puzzles vary, but while he usually doesn't show his intelligence, Clint's no slouch.

The puzzle outside the room Sam's guarding, however, makes him curse under his breath, loud enough in the quiet to echo. It's no surprise Sam moves, and as soon as Clint hears the familiar movements of someone moving, he's shifting in response, the sharp piece of metal functioning as his knife in hand. Sam's utterly unfamiliar, but he didn't immediately attack, and Clint can work with that.

"Don't think so." An uneasy pause, shifting where he stands. "Name's Barton."

Yeah, that name isn’t doing anything to lessen the feeling that Sam should know this guy from somewhere. Maybe it’s just that he’d seen him around the tribute center but hadn’t introduced himself - it’s not like he knows all of the tributes - but somehow, that doesn’t feel right.

“Sam Wilson,” he returns, relaxing his stance just a little, though he doesn’t change his hold on the weapon. If Barton didn’t attack him right away, that probably means if he’s going to, he’s going to wait until he can get a better handle on what Sam’s abilities might be, or until Sam’s been lulled into a false sense of security. It’s what Sam’d do. What he is doing, technically, even if he’s not planning on attacking.

And Sam has the advantage of knowing that while he might be alone right now, his allies probably aren’t that far off, and this guy - and then it hits him.

“Barton,” he says, snapping his fingers. “Hawkeye?”

The name Sam Wilson doesn't ring a bell, but Clint really didn't expect it to. In any case, Sam relaxes his stance just slightly, but doesn't let go of his makeshift weapon, and Clint can respect that. It's what he does too, after all.

But Sam says his name like an epiphany, snapping his fingers and -- Clint blinks, surprised.

"Yeah?"

Well, it beats getting attacked. Clint shifts, hands lowering just a tad from the easy stance he'd held. He's not a fool, Sam might just use a break to come swinging, but someone knowing his codename is something he wants to understand.

And the confirmation makes him relax just a touch bit more. He still doesn't know the guy, and Barton definitely doesn't know him, but at least he's gone from completely unknown entity to having something in common.

"I'm a friend of Steve's," he says. "I've worked with him and Romanoff." I'm pretty sure I might be her friend, too, but he doesn't say that, because he knows Natasha well enough to know that she doesn't have very many friends, and he doesn't feel right claiming it for himself without being more sure.

And especially not claiming it to someone else, before he's said it to her.

At Romanoff, Clint perks up. It's a subtle thing, but there's a light to his eyes, an ease in which he rests his weapons and lowers his arms.

"Yeah? You SHIELD?"

Because to Clint, it's 2012 in the heated summer months following the invasion and battle for New York. With him out on probation, it could be they partnered Natasha up with someone else for missions. Even if that was unlikely.

Sam catches that, and then tension bleeds out of his shoulders, grip loosening around his makeshift knife until he's just holding it at his side, practically resting.

Anyone who lights up at Natasha's name is good in Sam's books.

"Nah, not me. Fury kind of offered after I helped them out, but the spy thing, it's not really me." It's possible he's stalling, just a little, while he tries to figure out a way if Barton knows about SHIELD and Hydra, or if he's from before that whole mess, like Banner.

It'd be just Sam's luck that it's the latter, and he'll have to awkwardly explain that he sort of helped take out the organization Barton works for.

That's nice, it really is. Clint likes not having to fight people who potentially know his friends. Well, friend, now. His own knife-bearing hands rest easily at his sides, even if he could throw them with deadly aim and force in seconds.

That probably goes without saying, even if Sam isn't all that familiar with his skill set.

Clint snorts though, a little smirk tugging at his mouth. Fury had offered him a job largely because he'd been a pain in the ass, but also because Clint was one talented sniper if he said so himself. He's not even the least bit surprised Sam got offered a job as well.

"Yeah, he does that." But that still doesn't answer the question, really. And if something big enough came by that Natasha had to be helped out by some random guy...well, Clint's pretty sure he would have been brought in, regardless of his leave.

"So what do you do, if it's not the spying thing?"

His mouth turns up in an answering smirk in response to Clint’s snort, and he shakes his head a little at his comment about Fury. “Doesn’t surprise me.” And from what Sam’d seen of the man, he’s betting few people turn him down. Or at least, didn’t, when SHIELD was still active.

“I’m a soldier,” he replies. “Pararescue originally, then more special ops stuff like the Khalid Khandil mission.” That’s the one that Natasha’d commented on, anyway, so he figures he might as well lead with that. There’s no point in holding back the Falcon stuff, here. Barton is SHIELD - was SHIELD? - and an Avenger, if he doesn’t already know, he’d find out pretty quickly.

“I was retired, but when Captain America tells you that Hydra’s taken over government organizations and is gonna kill a couple billion people, you don’t really have an option other than getting back in.”

Clint's honestly not all that surprised to hear that Sam's a soldier, in fact, he'd almost expected it. Still, it is a surprise to hear that Sam's pararescue, and even more so to hear he was part of the Khalid Khandil mission. He'd just barely heard of that one, really, because he'd been out on his own mission.

"Yeah? That was you?" Unknowingly parroting Natasha, but after all these years nobody should be surprised. And then he pauses because what. "Not that I don't believe you, but, HYDRA? Didn't Cap take care of them way back when?"

And perhaps more importantly, why didn't Fury call him back in to help? Yeah okay, maybe he was compromised, and maybe he's technically on probation, but if there were billions of people in danger he's pretty sure Fury would call him in regardless.

Hearing Barton echo Natasha, intentionally or not, Sam can't help but smile a little. "Yeah. Couldn't bring in choppers because of the RPGs, so we went in instead." There's a pause, then he shakes his head. "See, when I told Cap and Romanoff about it, I had a whole file, pictures and everything, made it a lot better."

It lacks flair, without him being able drop his resume down on a table.

"Yeah, that's what I thought, too. I guess they'd just gone into hiding, working their own game while pretending to have switched sides."

Sam's got an easy going humor to him, a quality that makes him hard not to like. So he smiles, faintly lamenting the lack of dramatic flair that Clint's pretty sure Steve and Nat thoroughly enjoyed, and Clint huffs with laughter.

"I'll take the discount version anyway." He drawls, brows quirked. But there's something about that last sentence -- Clint focuses in, gaze sharp and steady, living up to his namesake. "Switched sides?"

That sounds.....ominous.

At least he got an almost-laugh out of the discount version. It’s not quite the dramatic moment his first telling had been, but he’s still going to count it as a win.

Except then comes the part he really wasn’t looking forward to - telling the guy that the organization he’d been working for had apparently been corrupted.

“Yeah. They wormed their way into S.H.I.E.L.D. I don’t know how long, but seeing how deep they were, I’m guessing a while. They took over Project Insight, they were gonna use the helicarriers to take out anyone who might have been a threat to Hydra. There’s where I came in, I was part of the EXO-7 program. Wings.”

Clint has a way of looking at a person and seeing straight through them. His eyes are regular, good ol' human eyes, but there's something about his gaze. A quality that pins someone and holds them, intent and unblinking, and maybe he got his name for his sharpshooting, but he also got it for the piercing quality of his gaze.

So Sam speaks, a quick sparknotes answer to the question, and Clint watches and picks him apart. The tiny micro-expressions, the twist to his mouth, the furrow of his brow; Clint quantifies it, heart sinking into the put of his belly.

None of this sounds familiar. Project Insight? Whatever that was -- helicarriers? There was only one, and he shot it out of the sky with a single arrow. -- it had to have been above his clearance. Maybe above everyone's if HYDRA was apparently the cause.

"Guess we're lucky you joined in."

Sam’s been looked at like that before, a hazard of both having a really good therapist and being a counselor to a hell of a lot of good servicemen and women who felt they had very little reason to trust him. Of course, none of them were anywhere this good at it - except maybe Natasha, when she and Steve first showed up.

He raises an eyebrow briefly, acknowledging the way Barton’s looking into him, but doesn’t bother trying to make himself seem more sincere. Whatever Barton’s going to see in him, Sam isn’t going to try to change it.

At Barton’s response, though, he cracks a smile. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. Steve and Natasha helped me get my wings back, so you could say it was mutual luck, too.” He shakes his head a little, rubbing the back of his neck. “Honestly, man, it was kind of a whirlwind. Not even Fury knew what was happening until it was almost too late.”

If Sam had tried to make himself seem more sincere, he'd have seen through it instantly and pulled back. Sure, it's not an uncommon reaction, but Clint doesn't trust people -- seeing someone trying to convince him of their sincerity is a neon warning sign. Instead, he cocks his head, and stays right where he is.

There's a hint of a smile, humorless, but warming the longer it stays. His brows lift, a clear sign of surprise.

"Shit, really? Fury knows everything." No he doesn't, Clint knows that's not true. But it often seems like it. Natasha's just as bad, Coulson was even worse.

That’s going to be another way that Barton reminds him of Natasha, Sam can already tell. They’ve both got their spy trust issues thing going on.

Not that Sam can really blame them, especially given what had happened with Hydra, and where they are now.

“I’d believe it, man, between him and Natasha. Pretty sure it’s a spy thing.” He raises one eyebrow, smile a little teasing. “Should I be watching for that with you?”

Spy trust issues basically covers the entirety of SHIELD, or -- what's left of it, he guesses. Besides, Clint's pleased to remind someone of Natasha, especially when it comes in the forms of something that saved his own life more than once.

"If I tell you I'd have to kill you."

He's very serious, which means he's not serious at all, mouth curling with faint smile.

“Yeah, yeah. Lucky for both of us, I’m an open book.” That’s not strictly true. Sam knows how to be an extremely private person - you don’t get to be a part of top secret projects without it - and he knows how to hang on to the secrets he doesn’t want to spill while offering others up to people like a lifeline, a point of connection they can hold on to.

But with other soldiers and friends, he knows there’s a lot more of the ones he’s willing to put out there. He’s already got Clint in the first category, and he has a feeling he’s going to slide pretty quickly into the second, so Sam doesn’t feel like a liar when he says that.

“Come on, I’ll give you the tour, show you where all the supplies are.”

That's not entirely true, and Clint is pretty sure of that. However, he's no where near familiar with Sam, and he doesn't yet know how to read him accurately. Instead, he tips his head, doesn't let much show beyond a somewhat neutral amusement. But so far? Well, he likes Sam.

So he can nod, shifting a bit and stepping closer to follow Sam around.

"Lead on, man."

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Arena 12 - The Spaceport

Science Labs

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wrap this up here?

sounds good!