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

kate, kara, and clint »

[ladybro]

[ kate and kara arrive together. perhaps she'd asked kara to meet her on the blameless before they left on the same shuttle -- keen to arrive as a pair instead of leaving it up to chance whether kara stumbles upon the older hawkeye first.

only it turns out that stumbling across him at all is a bit of a challenge. they check the nicer of the two bars first until (finding no clint in attendance) kate realizes she never really specified in which bar they should meet. which means, almost too predictably, clint probably ended up at the -- ah -- rougher of the two establishments.

so! a little later than the intended rendez-vous time, kate and kara show up at clint's table. kate hardly even says hello, but slides into a chair at the same time as she takes over his current game of solitaire, moving a four of spades onto its ace pile that (until now) clint had seemingly neglected. ]

Kara, Clint. Clint? Kara. She's a friend. Play nice.

kate, kara, and clint »

[takingkarabusiness]

[ Kara decided to look at least a little nice for meeting Kate's friend, but she feels a little overdressed. She's not wearing her glasses and her hair is down. She smiles broadly and offers her hand to shake Clint's before she sits. If he takes her up on it, she has a strong grip ]

It's good to meet you.

kate, kara, and clint »

[vagabond_code]

[Clint has a strong grip too by any human definition, what with all the bowstring-pulling-back, but he isn't hands-of-steel strong. He's also a little confused by the shake, though shake he does. Isn't that sort of a business transaction thing? What's the tone of this meeting supposed to be exactly? He obviously should have dressed better, given what Kara's wearing.]

You too. Sorry, I have to ask. Has Kate told you about the...

[He gestures to his ears, vaguely, in a manner that he can easily transition away from if she gives any hint of understanding. He'd rather not dwell on the subject.]

[ladybro]

[ kate leans back in her chosen chair with a mild smile. she's glad she did tell kara about the hearing hang-up -- especially since clint's so readily bringing it up on his own. she'd been half-concerned he might've pretended like nothing was the matter at all, and might've tried to get by reading lips that hadn't been forewarned to speak carefully.

she just nods -- it's not her question to answer. ]

[takingkarabusiness]

[ she nods and sits facing him, intent on making this easy for everyone ]

She did. But tell me if I can improve. I know what it's like to lose the thread of a conversation.

[vagabond_code]

What's your poison?

[This to Kara, and to Kate:]

Shirley Temple, Katie? Strawberry Daiquiri?

[The 'virgin' was implied here. It was also implied that they'd have a hard time stopping him from getting the first round. After all, he was already on his way toward standing up.]

[ladybro]

[ -- kate signed something that was probably a little on the rude side. clint knows very well she's no minor. ]

Mojito. [ ... ] Or, failing that, the house red.

[takingkarabusiness]

The same.

[ she drinks but just for the taste, usually ]

Thank you.

[vagabond_code]

You gaddit.

[Off he goes then, signing something back at Kate one handed because the other hand has his own glass in it. Why dirty another? As for what he's trying to get across? Well, the idea is to tell Kate to stop being exclusionary. He gives up part way through and dedicates himself instead to his mission at the bar.]

[ladybro]

[ paradoxically, despite all the warnings she dispenses regarding clint's behaviour -- it seems that kate's the one who ends up with a bit of a childish edge, at times, around him. or at least it seems as though he knows all too well how to push her buttons.

once he's out of earshot, she leans leftwards and whispers to kara: ] I never asked...'cause of the whole metabolism thing, and your secret identity, do you often have to play-act getting drunk just to keep up the human-facade?

[ she asks while she glances back towards the bar, checking to make sure clint isn't coming back prematurely. ]

[takingkarabusiness]

[ you probably could just cover your lips kate... ]

Well, the benefit of other people getting drunk is they become less observant, and we both know I laugh too loud anyway. Also, while metabolism is probably a factor, I think the invulnerability is the main player.

[vagabond_code]

[Although he's jostled a little heavily by someone's shoulder and someone tries to convince him to sit down and chat with them (he shouldn't have made eye contact), not too much of note happens to Clint between leaving the table and returning with the drinks. It takes about a minute, maybe two, and he returns and sits down after handing out the two mojitos. His own beer sits in front of him at the table, and he looks at it for a moment before mumbling,]

Those look good.

[ladybro]

[ sometimes, kate forgets that clint's hearing aids are on the fritz. back home -- she's used to him being able to hear her. unless he's gone and lost them, again. which happens more than both of them would like to admit.

but she gets her answer. and clint returns. and within about a heartbeat, she can tell precisely what's happened. he's ordered the pint of whatever beer they had, but now he's looking with envy at their mojitos. with a laboured sigh, kate doesn't even ask him before she leans across the table and switches their drinks. she takes his beer (which she probably won't like) but lets him have the mojito. ]

Cheers, [ she drawls as she raises her glass. ]

[takingkarabusiness]

Cheers.

[ she sips from her glass. god, kate, don't make her start the small talk ]

Kate told me you two work together?

[vagabond_code]

[What were the taboo conversation-topics when socializing in space? Politics? Religion? Those were pretty standard. How about the Atroma? Their ceaseless facade concealing an inescapable captivity that the members of the fleet neither asked for nor wanted? Ugh. He glanced across the table at Kate for some sort of sign, but came up empty. Then Kara spoke, and things got easier.]

That's right. Katie's like -- my apprentice or something. That is, if apprentices were already really really good at the job they were doing when they signed up for it so...

[He gestured dismissively. He clearly wasn't complimenting Kate when he spoke. He didn't check for her response or wait for her to interrupt or act humble.]

I'm starting to think there isn't a good word for it.

[Should he just go ahead and let Kate take the beer? He should have taken a generous gulp of it right off the bat is what he should have done. At least the mojito doesn't look any less drinkable now that it's his mojito. Still delicious. He takes a sip.]

But yeah she's the employee of the month. Every month. I mean, it's just us two.

[ladybro]

Employee of the month? [ she cringes. ] That makes it sound like I work for you. Not with you. [ she lays a hand on kara's elbow, ] I absolutely work with him. The with part is important.

[ or it was, until recently. but clint isn't privy to that information. ]

Clint works with a larger team, too. Some of the time. Don't let him make it sound like it's really just us two on every mission.

[takingkarabusiness]

Would that be such a bad thing? But it sounds like you both have a good thing going. Have you had a lot of exciting encounters?

[ superhero adventures seems like a reasonable smalltalk topic ]

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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. ]

[takingkarabusiness]

It just doesn't really seem like my scene.

What were they auctioning?

[vagabond_code]

[i?]

A tape. A bootleg.

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

[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.