◉ Video + Action

[vagabond_code]

Who: Clint "a Hawkeye" Barton and yous guys
Broadcast: Fleet-wide
Action: Marsiva
When: This evening

[Clint begins his broadcast with his hearing aids in, but the result is a series of false starts where it’s obvious from the wincing and the head-turning that he’s dealing with some sort of loud or high-pitched feedback. It isn’t long before he ditches them - rips them off and pockets them - and starts over again. lips it is, then ]

Alright this isn’t going to be a big thing - I just want to put my face out there.

[And he pauses, counting out the seconds for whoever might be looking to take a look at their beep-machines and catch sight of him.]

Oh, and to whoever brought us here, nice ship. Also, you’ve got some balls, kidnapping someone who carries one of these in his wallet:

[Casually, meaningfully, accidentally, he produces a blockbuster membership card, with the printed name Clinton F. Barton and a signature. When he catches his mistake he tosses the card down out of frame and the camera catches him thumbing through the inside of his wallet. Following that, the sound of him mumbling:]

Futzing Avengers ID, never around when you… [He trails off. The feed doesn’t.]

[A little later, sitting wherever there’s a seat to be claimed aboard the Marsiva, he’ll be found picking cards out of his wallet and tossing them down onto a table. Reorganizing, dismissing some, yet the cards that he doesn’t tuck back into their leathery hideaway are all landing corner-to-corner in a perfect even pile.

A little later, you might catch him sprawled out and napping. Because he naps. He’s a napper.]

Comments

[vagabond_code]

[Manhattan's a bit forthright? A big fortnight? He wasn't getting it. Trying to figure it out got him a bit lost, but he caught back up at her question.]

It's complicated.

[Would she accept that as an answer? Probably not, but it would have to do for now.]

Can you slow down a bit?

[mucked]

Don't tell me you're finding these questions a little too arduous, Clint.

[ she (understandably) mistakes his protest as directed towards her line of interrogation, and not with her bone-dry london accent. ]

[vagabond_code]

Forget it then.

You didn't ask a question.

[mucked]

[ gee, sorry. ]

What year did you leave behind?

[vagabond_code]

Twenty thirteen.

[But why was that a worthwhile question?]

What about you?

[mucked]

[ its worth grows clearer in her answer: ] 1946.

[ 2013 sounds near enough to the others, though. the gap remains somewhat consistent. ]

[vagabond_code]

So what they're freezing us? Or they can do time travel?

[mucked]

They pluck us from whatever year they like. Across time, and -- and across universes, frankly. It's why it's important to get the details right.

[ a pause. she wishes she could locks this down. nice and tight. she doesn't need jim peeking in as she puts her hard-won intelligence to use. ] ...Could I have your communicator's frequency?

[vagabond_code]

[If this was her end-game, he thinks, she's wily indeed. Still, he gives it to her.]

private »

[mucked]

Perfect.

[ as close to thank you as she gets, it seems. peggy is eager to move her investigation forward -- but rules are rules, and there's nothing more suspicious than a rushed interrogation.

calmly: ] It's your question, Clint.

private »

[vagabond_code]

You didn't give me your numbers.

private from now onwards »

[mucked]

[ patience is a virtue, carter. ]

That doesn't sound like a question.

[vagabond_code]

[There was no getting one over on her, was there?]

Okay super-spy, please let me know what your frequency is?

[That's not a question just because you make the last word squeakier, dummy.]

You know what I mean.

[mucked]

[ wait. did he identify her on the back of merely her first name? it isn't impossible, she supposes. but she doesn't like the way he drags the words 'super' and 'spy' out on parade. thank-bloody-goodness she scrambled their broadcast. ]

Of course. [ and she -- smoothly, and without hesitation -- recites a number she's memorized.

if he's going to play less coy, then she will as well: ] Have you ever worked for SHIELD?

[vagabond_code]

Yes.

[He may not have copped her as a spy, but he could see pretty plainly that her questions were following a certain trajectory. It was like a game of chicken. Could he figure out what she wanted in time to not give it to her?]

Was S.H.I.E.L.D even a thing in 1946?

[mucked]

Not by that name. Or -- honestly? I'm not certain. [ but (bizarrely) she seems to breathe a little easier in the wake of his answer. it gives rise to her admission of shaky intel. it's entirely possible that the s.s.r. is shield-enough to count, but she hasn't been properly made aware of the grittier details.

here comes the true kicker of a question: ] You work with Captain Rogers, don't you? In 2013.

[ shield was only a key to get at this very lock. avengers, by itself, could be anything. avengers in conjunction with shield? and 'clint barton', whose name was listed in jim's file on the new york incident?

the pieces are tumbling into place. ]

[vagabond_code]

Worked with, for, and alongside. As long as this is Captain Steve Rogers we're talkin' about.

[mucked]

[ good.

it isn't -- not really -- about any fixation upon the captain. her fixation she guards close to her heart, and loathes to discuss him with strangers. instead, the captain is like a litmus test for strangers. if he's made an ally of them, then she believes she can do the same. and his claims are corroborated by what she's learned elsewhere.

gently: ] So it seems you and I have something else in common.

[ working in manhattan. and working with him. ]

[vagabond_code]

Because we both worked with Captain Rogers in 2013? See this is why I hate time-travel.

[He was joking, taking a jab at both the specificity of her language and the lengthy construction, which was giving him more and more trouble. Why couldn't she just have said; "me too"?]

[mucked]

Not quite. I've not been further than where I'm from. I last saw Steve in -- oh, bloody hell, February. 1945.

[ she'd kissed him -- and he'd disappeared. if it wasn't for his presence in the fleet now, she doubts she'd be comfortable saying even this much. ]

[vagabond_code]

The year his plane was shot down.

[He wasn't any closer to knowing what her angle was in all of this. He was so certain that there was some secret that she expected him to spill that it didn't once occur to him that all she really wanted was an ally.]

[mucked]

[ the same day -- or night, really -- if they wanted to be technical about it. but that's a secret best not breathed. it's a secret that those close enough to her know already, and one she has never had to tell once the investigations had finished and the depositions were sealed.

but she wonders where he gets his intel. shot down? well, technically... ]

Correct.

[vagabond_code]

That was a busy year for him.

[Not that Clint doubted the technical truth of what she was saying, but he did question the extent of her involvement. Sure Peggy may have seen Steve in 1945, but had Steve seen her? Clint didn't recall any record of a Peggy. She might have been a nurse, or one of those air-traffic flag-people, or a fan who'd happened to serve him his last cup of Joe. He had no idea. Then again, for all he knew she might be some wacky alternative female-Jim-Barnes. He hadn't yet gotten a handle on how weird these encounters might get.]

[mucked]

For all of us.

[ not him, of course. but she can't imagine steve would appreciate being raised above the ranks like that -- he fought because his fellows fought, not because he wanted to fight more than they did. she admired the way he saw himself as their equals, long after he'd outstripped them in physicals and in other ways. ]

[vagabond_code]

Well, not exactly all of us.

[If she was going to be particular, she could bet he was going to be particular too.

Albeit not particular enough to mentioned that one time when he traveled back to the past with present-day Steve to break wartime-Steve out of a cell.]