Action: Open.

[vagabond_code]

Who: Clint, Kate, and Kara || OR YOU
Broadcast: No broadcast.
Action: Iskaulit.
When: Tonight.

(CLOSED TO KATE AND KARA)

[When Kate Bishop says, 'I want to introduce you to a friend', get suspicious. Have a beer, find a pack of cards from where it had been stashed behind Varric's bar, deal yourself a few hands of Solitaire and park your butt. Dress in your best purples. They'd recently been discussing their respective romantic prospects, so he was primed for one of two equally unpleasant scenarios. Had Kate found him a date? Had Kate found someone for her own dating purposes? Was this some sort of weird thing where she wanted Clint to like the guy? A permission thing? Have another drink, consider upping and leaving, check the time like a billion times.

But they're weren't late, not yet. He was early. Because, what if he wanted to make a good impression? You only get one chance.]

(OPEN TO EVERYONE)

[Before this anxious meeting, and probably after it, Clint will be on what he has come to think of as the ship-with-the-bar-on-it. Hit him up there, or bump into him while he gets bored and takes to broadening his understand of what this place has to offer. Expect him to be nervously fiddling with a pack of cards - performing feats of accuracy that defy the laws of fluid dynamics. In the gardens chopping off the heads of this or that flower with edge of a rapidly spinning card or curving another one gracefully through the air from one end of the hallway to another. He even stands for a fair while looking at the mural. Anywhere else, he'll at least pop his head in.]

Comments

Action

[vagabond_code]

[Clint's recent experience with a one-eyed old mutt is woefully inadequate in the face of this hulking ferocious werewolf, even if he considers - for a moment - using the same tactics as he would to calm down Lucky. One hand comes up, and he holds the deck in a closed hand at his waist with the other. in a pinch he could probably weaponize it somehow right? Probably.]

Hey boy, hey, you're -- a good boy, right? Nobody needs to bite and or swipe anyone else, we're all friends here in beer-ship garden.

[Clint is standing still, but poised to move if he has to. He doesn't show any obvious signs of fear, but he's plenty alert.]

[vagabond_code]

Hey, some folks'd be happy with eight out of ten.

[Not Clint though. He's kind of a perfectionist. Already he's plucking the cards out of the glasses and going for the two cards that had dropped under the table. He gathers them together, but doesn't resume his little time-wasting game - instead facing Nova.]

I didn't drink all those.

[In case it needed saying. She'd made a good impression on him - he wanted to take a shot at doing the same.]

[takeabow]

I'd be surprised by your accuracy if you did.

[vagabond_code]

What do you think? Clown-guy?

[This to Kate. Conferring. The assassin-Clown had a gimmick at least, and he was fresh in Clint's mind, but when he tried to explain this to Kara...]

Wore white face paint and had a tear-drop under his eye right here. Trench-coat, the whole bit. Kind of a weird guy we've been bumping in to lately - in the exciting he-keeps-killing-people-we-like sort of way.

[Yeah no that's not very interesting. More of a morbid and unsettling series of stories now that he's replaying them in his head. He can feel Kate's burning disapproval without at all needing to look -- or maybe he's imagining it? -- but either way it's enough to drive him to try for a joke.]

Out-stayed his welcome.

[Real cool action-movie sort of one-liner it is, too, but unfortunately it's a joke that excludes Kara and it's probably too gruesome to explain at a first meeting so Clint moves on quickly.]

Most of the real exciting stuff is with the other team Kate's talking about. Then you got your shrink rays and time travel and psycho-genocidal-robots-level stuff.

[vagabond_code]

Probably yeah.

[Most people were.]

You know I keep meaning to come find you on the First Breath, but it seems like there's never a good time.

[There is of course more to it than that. Like, Clint being useless and antisocial for example. Oh well, now he's making an effort.]

[takeabow]

Any reason in particular?

[bb_wolf]

No, I'm not a good boy.

[He pads forward, giant paws silent except for a slight click of over sized and razor sharp claws. He doesn't actually approach, staying at a good distance that makes making eye contact easier.]
I'm the Big, Bad fucking Wolf and this garden is one of my favourite places. So I don't like people mutilating it because they're fucking bored.

Understood?

[goldenglasses]

[Vash doesn't catch on, not right away at least, why Clint didn't hear him.]

Its fine. I shouldn't be interrupting someone who's focused. I was just saying I need to remember not to cheat on you when playing poker.

[ladybro]

...There's always Madripoor. It's a little less tragic than, uh, clown-guy.

[ kate scratches her neck, and looks down at a beer label she doesn't recognize. space. the truth is, she doesn't really know how to loop carefully around kazi. she'd not realized precisely who he he'd been until after the fight at the apartment had cleared out. finished. ]

The concept of Madripoor alone is worth a telling. Kara, it's like -- it's like a city of sin amped up to a thousand. Forget Vegas. This is a tiny island nation near Malaysia -- one that has no extradition arrangements with any other countries. Perfect haven for your bigger than average baddie.

[vagabond_code]

Woah, okay, we got talking dogs.

[It hadn't been entirely outside of the realm of possibility what with the walking on two legs and everything, but you could never tell.]

Look fella, you only had t'ask. I am bored, it's boring in space. You never been bored? Give a guy a break.

[Being stuck on an enclosed space with this thing might limit his options a bit, and the Big Bad was between Hawkeye and the door, but Clint wasn't really planning on running away if things got heated. There were other people on the Iskaulit, and he wasn't about to lead a rabid wolfman right into their path. Nor could he let this guy stomp around threatening every poor bastard who dared to pick a flower. That went double if the dog did anything violent.

Hawkeye had to know if he'd try to use those teeth.]

[bb_wolf]

I'm not a dog. I'm a wolf.

[He sits his not inconsiderable self down, settling down on his stomach to put his head at about head level with Clint, making it easier to see his face.]

This garden takes a lot of effort from a lot of people. Not me. I don't have green thumbs. But this is the only place in this whole fucking fleet where I can breathe without choking.

[Metaphorically.]

[vagabond_code]

Wait, slow down, I'm not--

[Shit. If mistake number one was not carrying weapons with him literally everywhere he goes, mistake number two is not having gotten his goddamn hearing aids fixed yet. He's really quite good at making up for his deafness, but there are some feats above even him.]

I know you're talking, but I can't read dog-lips all that great. It's gunna be a problem, I c'n tell.

[bb_wolf]

[Bigby snapped his mouth shut.

Well... shit.

Clint was just going to have to live with the consequences of that revelation as Bigby focused and shrank down, coming up onto his legs as he changed back into his human skin. He was, as a human, surprisingly mundane. Not giant, like his wolf self, not even overly hairy like some hirsute Canadian just a slightly short, well built man with no scars.

His eyes were the last to change, irises becoming apparent and then finally stopping glowing.

He was also naked. Deal with it.]

Easier?

[takingkarabusiness]

How does that even exist?

[ she shakes her head slightly ]

This seems like a pretty heavy topic. We don't have to go there.

[vagabond_code]

Madripoor? Why? Madripoor's great. You can get anything you want there, and there's always crime going on. It's like a pirate kingdom, what's not cool about that?

[vagabond_code]

'cuz we live basically next door. What if one of us ran out of sugar or something?

[And it was too awkward to go ask for spare sugar because they'd barely spoken except to teach Clint his ABCs? She'd done her best not to be patronizing, but he'd still felt like a child.]

[takeabow]

Well, Clint, I have bad news for you. Everyone's out of sugar.

[vagabond_code]

But see, now I know that.

[He's determined to make this a jolly moment in spite of her.]

[ladybro]

...Don't listen to Clint. Madripoor's not great. It's a sleazetown filled with sleazeballs. But -- it is impressive in its own way. I was there trying to bust up a super-villain auction.

[ that's right. i. she ain't claiming this as some kind of joint effort, clint. ]

[takeabow]

Glad I could help?

[takingkarabusiness]

It just doesn't really seem like my scene.

What were they auctioning?

[vagabond_code]

Looked painful.

[Clint began taking his shirt off half-way through the transformation. It was pretty obvious that -- yup. Dangly bits. Ugh. He didn't sign up for this. His eyes stay above waist-level and he holds his hand up to block his view just in case, although it doesn't seem to be bothering the wolf-guy any.]

I guess it's better?

[He's handing the guy his shirt, for what good it'll do. It isn't like he can put his legs in the arm holes or anything. Good going, Clint.]

Okay go, threaten away.

[vagabond_code]

[i?]

A tape. A bootleg.

[He rushed to answer before Kate - and he didn't lie. Not exactly. There were multiple copies.]

[bb_wolf]

Thanks.

[Bigby takes the shirt and ties it around his waist to maximise coverage of everything that humans find problematic and embarrassing.]

Nah, made my point. This garden takes a lot of fucking work from a lot of people. Don't maim the plants.

[ladybro]

[ luckily, they didn't have to delve into too much detail about the tape's contents. kate just dovetails her answer smoothly with clint's: ] Sensitive information. Not the kind of stuff you wanted in bad guy mitts.