closed; maybe I'll sleep when I am dead

[cognitived]

Who | Avengerpalooza + friends
What | Clint ran into some beasties in the woods. He didn't come out of it in one piece.
Where | Heading to and hanging around in the Avenger's Base.
When | End of Week 3, beginning of Week 4
Warnings/Notes | Brief mentions of animal death, bodily injury, and field amputations.

closed to sam;

He ran. The argument ends, not because they compromise, not because they decide to stop, but because Clint -- in a concussion fueled decision -- turns on his heel and runs away from the mess that was once a tribute, and the furious figure of his partner. It's a shit awful decision, he knows it from the moment he hits the ground running. But Clint's just as stubborn as Sam is, and he doesn't turn back. No, instead, he headed into the forest, wand clutched tight in his hand, ignoring the way his leg fought to give way out from under him.

And in the end, he winds up wandering half lost in a damn forest when most of him is telling him to turn back. But he's stubborn. But he's mad. But he's got mustard yellow flecks of blood splattered across his hands and he's got that expression of Sam's stamped into his mind.

He's so damn distracted he misses the silent gathering of a pack of massive wolves. Up until a twig snaps and a snarl creeps in at the edge of his hearing, and Clint realizes what an idiot he was. The next few moments are a blur. The snarl and snap of teeth, the crackle of electricity and pained yelps of injured wolves, the pain of teeth sinking into his arm and nearly ripping it clean off.

Later, Clint won't really remember it all. But somehow, through sheer force of will, he backtracked his way through the forest, warding off the few wolves left with lighting from his wand, arm tucked close against his chest. The village slowly rises around him, but he's got his eyes on the castle.

God he wants to throw up, the pain is so much.

closed to amputation party;

Sam works quickly, efficiently, but the truth of the matter is this: Clint's arm is all but useless. Only the barest bit of bone, shredded flesh, and gristle keeps it connected, and the tourniquet can only do so much. If they were in the Capitol proper, or back home, maybe this would be an injury he could come back from intact.

But as it is, Clint's leaning heavily on Sam, dazed, pain shooting through him with every jostle, every step, every shuddered breath. It's killing him.

The walk to the Castle is slow and laborious, with Sam picking off the few remaining wolves and carefully dragging Clint back to their base. It's only luck and maybe the wild, determined cast to Sam's features that keep the way clear. If he wasn't a bit preoccupied with the fact that he might tumble over should he step in the wrong place, and the fact that his arm is only barely connected -- his arm, his arm -- Clint would probably find it a bit more impressive. Here, now, he's more focused on not dying in Sam's arms like Nat did last Arena. He won't do that to him, not if he can help it.

Soon enough, they've made their way back, and Clint leans heavily against Sam as he works the door open. But Clint's goddamn tired of bloodloss, injured limbs and the rising terror of what this means. And a joke is basically the only way he knows how to cope. So he drawls, slowly, carefully, pretending like this isn't as bad as it is.

"Honey, we're home."

open to avengers and their add ons;

Once the party died down, and the chances of Clint bleeding out on the operating table passes, it all seems very surreal. He tries not to look, when he's lucid and not hallucinating or seeing ghosts, because it's terrifying. It shocks him to the core to see that empty space where a limb once was. Where a limb should be.

The blankets help, more than he ever thought they would. But he's so cold, and maybe that's bloodloss speaking. In any case, Clint spends most of the first day after curled up in the nest others placed him in, trying in vain to ignore the ache shuddering through him where what was left of his arm ended. He can't believe it, can't. Can't sleep, even though he's repeatedly told he must. Wakes up gasping for breath, keening with pain as the thrashing sends his arm sparking with reminder of his injury.

Though he's not really up to visitors, Clint welcomes it. Craves the comfort that comes with another human being talking to him like he's simply down with a fracture, or a gunshot wound. Those, those are easy. He knows how to deal with that.

Instead, Clint doesn't deal. He ignores it, the agony and terror and uselessness that claws its way up his throat. Greets a visitor with a thin lipped smile and a mumbled "Hey."

Comments

[earthborn]

She considers him from her lofty perch, all of her five feet and two inches above him. She's smudged with mud and dust and blood. There's a long black scab on one leg that looks like it might be the beginnings of an infection, and part of the skin on her face has been abraded away. It used to have scars that glowed red-- and now it looks like lava around the islands of red/brown dried blood. They've all lost weight.

He still looks like shit, though. She didn't lie about that-- but the smirk comes sudden, like the punchline to a joke.

"Are you trying to chat me up? Rude, and vain, wow."

[cognitived]

It's still quite a lofty perch, given Clint's place curled up in a nest of blankets and pillows. It makes him uncomfortable to be sprawled out with someone standing over him though, so he wiggles until he can get his hand on the ground and levers himself up. Beyond the bandaged mess of his arm, shorn half way to the shoulder, Clint's got burn marks sparked across torso and neck, skin tight against his ribs.

He looks like shit, yeah, but he's not alone. Clint eyes the mess of scar and skin at her jaw before catching sight of that smirk, getting the commentary. He huffs with amusement, his own cheeky smirk lighting up his face. It's fake, but it's a remarkably good cover.

"What, it ain't working?"

[earthborn]

"Haven't you heard? I'm already juggling three love triangles. I ain't got time for your drama."

Alright, if he's going to be like that, smirk and all, she might as well sit. This is, while technically being exactly what she was trained for, nothing even remotely approaching what she was trained for.

"Seriously, though. You need to relax, stop with the sad eyes like you're on the damn chopping block. It'll be fine. Y'know, I've lost an arm before," And that is true. Both arms, actually-- not that she was conscious for the recovery, such as it was. Such as it is, "It's not forever. You'll be all pretty and symmetrical again before you know it."

Which is the kindest way she has of acknowledging that he's likely to die before the Capitol ever puts him back together. A new body, fresh and clean of scars, like always.

[cognitived]

Well, that's one way around it. Clint tips his head, hiding his sharp smile against the turn of his shoulder for a moment, as she settles in next to him.

"An' here I was thinking I was the circus act."

A joke, but an awful one. She also doesn't know that he literally grew up in a circus, so, way to go there Clint. Still, this whole thing is actually, surprisingly, the best way she could have gone about it. Yeah, he knows he's going to die, this isn't his Arena, if any of them ever will be. Instead, he eyes Shepard curiously, eyes sharp as his namesake, almost as if he could read every thread of her thoughts upon her face. He can't, not really, but he sees her sincerity and it settles him.

"We'll see," Is what he says, slowly. It's an agreement, even if it doesn't entirely sound like one.

[earthborn]

"You have always been the circus act," Shepard knows when she's being sized up, but tired as she is, she hasn't the energy to find the last solitary damn she has left to give, "Hah."

We'll see, he said, and she coughed up a laugh for him. God, Thane used to talk like that; come to think of it, she'd heard that one out of Garrus more than once. What was it with snipers? Was it the loneliness that got to them, or just the work? Shepard liked her own work well enough, but it wasn't the same as having to spend all that time thinking about it. Making plans. Executing them. Executing people.

Not that she didn't ever see her way clear to the odd execution, but it was the salt on her meal, not the main course.

"So. Where you from?" Even still she felt that thread of kinship that had more to it than their shared species. They were old soldiers, and they both knew the score. No use in pretending that reality was any different than it was, after all, "I mean, obviously you're sharing oh-two with the rest of these glorified chimpanzees."

[cognitived]

He doesn't quite laugh, but there's humor written in his expression, a dark sort of thing. Sharper, perhaps, than usual. They're both without the energy to give a damn, and she doesn't bother sugarcoating anything. Easier, in many ways.

Besides that, Clint has no idea if it's a sniper trait or not. He's been one for years, decades, from military to merc to SHIELD. Killing people is what he does, thinking about it is just another part of the job. Easy, in its own way.

"Iowa." He leans back, gaze amused as he slots it her way. Yeah, yeah, an assassin from Iowa, laugh it up. "Been in New York for a while now, though."

Here, he eyes her up, takes in the gleaming scars at her cheek, tips his head. "You?"

[earthborn]

"No idea," She grins like the disparity amuses her; but it's the truth, "Grew up on Earth. But the exact city is, uh... A li'l harder. Alliance kept records though, I bet somebody could at least figure out what recruitment office I came through, if anybody cared."

Not that they would, after digging much further. Shepard's youth didn't lead to some vulnerable family or bucolic countryside. Her childhood haunts were owned by different transients, now. The world was a brief and narrow affair for those who survived only on luck, and the strength of their wits; not much given to place-names.

"Joined the military, got a new home. You know how it is."

[cognitived]

Yeah, yeah he knows exactly how it is. Truth is, Clint might be from Iowa, but he spent his childhood going from orphanages to foster homes to circus, and then, traveling wide across the nation. His home had been a dusty trailer, while they worked as roustabouts, until Swordsman and Trickshot took him in. For all the lot of good it did.

So, he nods, doesn't dig into that because he understands.

"Yeah, you bet." Not that his home had been with the military for very long. "How long did you serve for?"

[earthborn]

She had to stop and actually think about that. Time got strange-- and did she count the time she spent unconscious, those two years of 'meat and tubes'? Not like she can collect back-pay, after all, but even a dead Spectre is still a damn Spectre.

"Still serving, technically. As far as I know, you don't actually get demoted for being captured, most of the time," Hackett never seemed to care, anyways. So wait, that was... two years in Rio, and then... "Hm. About twenty-odd years, if you count the time I've spent in this place. You?"

[cognitived]

Yeah, okay, he snickers at that. Fury wouldn't let him leave even if he was captured either, really.

"Few years Spec Ops, before shit happened and I got discharged." He reaches up, taps at his ear, a faint acknowledgement of his deafness. Thoughtful, thoughtful. He hasn't put a time line down in a long time. "Did freelance shit for another couple, before I got on SHIELD's list and they recruited me. Stuck with them for, mmm, fifteen years? Yeah, somethin' like that."

[earthborn]

She sees the familiarity in that laugh with a fading smirk of her own. Oh yeah, he knows what she's talking about; couldn't get out of the line of fire even if you wanted to.

"I keep hearing stuff about them," Between Sandy and Steve, Shepard had pieced together enough to form a little raft of knowledge on which to float. The rest, she could extrapolate, "Most it not so bad. Me, I ended up with the Spectres, so. Guess I can relate."

Hey, what do you know? She likes this Clint Barton guy. Go figure.

[cognitived]

He's pretty easy to like, all told. Something about the sarcastic humor and easy confidence, and maybe a lifetime of spywork making it easier to fold in alongside an innumerable people.

"Yeah? They ain't so bad, 'least where it matters." He says, though now he knows SHIELD was HYDRA, rotten through to the core. Still, his head tilts, bird like, a muted curiosity in the blue of his eyes. "Spectres?"

Not that he can't draw conclusions, plucked up from the conversation, from the way she moves and fights.

[earthborn]

"Special Tactics and Reconnaissance, in English at least. Don't ask me to pronounce the Turian equivalent, it's got a lot of clicks in it, and I'm reliably informed that my accent is borderline unintelligible."

Shepard could say a few phrases in most common languages, translators notwithstanding, but like the rest of humanity she was late coming to the Spectre table. Can't have everything.

"You won't hear anything nice about us, though."

[cognitived]

He makes a little sound, acknowledging, humor lingering in the curving line of his mouth. Yeah, he gets it. Languages had always been Nat's thing, even if Clint could pick bits and pieces up. But this Turian, well, it sounds way out of his league too.

And he's complained when Natasha taught him Russian. Really, he had it lucky. In more than one way, it seems, though there's a rather big difference.

"Lucky to hear anything 'bout us." Easy, half-amused, "Certainly nothing nice, now."