◉ Video + Action

[vagabond_code]

Who: Clint "Hawkeye" Barton and you's all
Broadcast: Video
Action: Introductions on The Caprine, Katie-waiting on the Blameless and dog-walking aboard the Iskaulit
When: Action immediately following the shuffle, video in the days after.

Action | The SS Caprine, the SS Blameless and then the Iskaulit

[Immediately after the shuffle, Clint spends some time milling around on SS Caprine, knocking on doors or on the walls beside entranceways, poking his head in places. New ship, new faces. Does anyone on this ship play the drums at odd hours of the night? Is that a thing he should worry about? Do the kitchens have coffee? What's the space-mold situation in the corners of these space-rooms? Inquiring minds must know. Inquiring minds wearing standard-issue jump-suits.

But Clint stays off the network for a little while. Why? Because he wants to find Kate Bishop in person, first. That feels important to him -- not to settle for firing off a quick text message. After all, back home, it would be putting the situation mildly to say that they don't hang out as much as they used to. He hopes to find her still billeted on the Blameless... and... Okay. she's gone when he gets there, but Lucky is sleeping on her bed. In the Captain's room. So that answers that, and more besides. After a brief and joyful reunion with much shushing and good-boying Clint opts to knock out two birds with one stone and takes Lucky for a walk on the Iskaulit in case the Hawkeye to his Hawkeye should happen to be hanging out there.

Of course, since she's not there, he doesn't find her. And when Lucky tires Clint returns to the Blameless, again (weirdly, it feels less like trespassing to loiter here than on his own ship, and he feels less guilty drinking the coffee from Kate's kitchen than his own now that his own kitchen is on a strange ship full of strangers.) Finally, when at last he feels his welcome is being overstayed, Hawkeye retires to Kate's room to await her there.]

Video

[In the days that follow, feel free to contact him remotely. For his part, Clint does address the fleet with a short- ]

Hey.

This is Clint Barton, here to help with all your bow-and-or-arrow based needs. I've been here before, as some of you know. It's been about ...

[He looks at his hand, and the back at the camera.]

Five months?

So, what did I miss.

((ooc: if anyone should want to incorporate/continue CR from the test drive, by all means. It would have taken place while he was walking Lucky on the Iskaulit. That's canon now!))

Comments

[vagabond_code]

Got it.

[Is she inviting him to invite her to meet up with him somewhere? He pauses for a moment, leans off-screen. As much as he knows he should decline, if she really is suggesting they meet up then it might be because she had a worse time than she's letting on. When he comes back into frame it's to say:]

Beer then? I know a place.

[outstandingbalance]

Beer sounds good. Tell me where. I'll meet up with you.

[He's not wrong about it being an invitation to make an invitation, and she's not disappointed when he comes through with it.]

Say in an hour? Give you a little time to handle your messages.

[vagabond_code]

Good, yeah. Got more than I'd figured on.

[Five months, ish, he could almost have expected everyone he'd known the last time would have been replaced by now, or else sent home. Not so. Nat was living proof.]

Just the bar on the Iskaulit. The ... 'Space Bar' bar. Be my first time since getting back. The dwarf still run it?

[Guy had wanted to be called a dwarf - though it felt strange to say it out loud. It was a Tolkien sort of deal, far as Clint could tell.]

[outstandingbalance]

[Not someone Natasha knows beyond his name and face, so the word choice does strike Natasha as a little strange, but also it doesn't seem like a conversation that needs to be addressed now.]

As far as I know, it is. See you there.

[Everything else can wait until they're face to face.

And maybe had a beer or two.]

action »

[vagabond_code]

[As for that, he's going to be a little late. Closer to forty minutes than the thirty they'd agreed on. When he gets there he heads straight for the bar, and only joins Nat at the table after a short conversation with the barman. He's empty handed.]

Cards on the table, I don't have any money.

[So not credit cards. Or even gift-cards.

..

...

Yeah he's not going to pursue that metaphor out-loud.]

Figured they'd give me back the credits I had when they sent me home. Nope.

[outstandingbalance]

Lucky for you, I have enough money to pay for a couple of extra beers.

[Natasha smiles a little, though a little tight and a little thin, too. The Clint-but-not-Clint element is particularly stark there.]

Should I ask how you've been? You went home in there. Got some time back where you belong.

[vagabond_code]

A lot of it actually. Not a lot went right, but there were some good times.

[In reality he could have explained his situation to the bar-man. He could have put some beers on his tab.

But he'd thought about it on the way over, and he'd decided he didn't want this to be that kind of situation. One where he bought Nat a drink.

It was different the other way 'round. No-one would have any reason to question Natasha's motives. Well... ignoring for a moment the fact that she was a spy.]

You guys have Hydra? I'm hoping no.

[outstandingbalance]

[That gets a rueful laugh out of Natasha. Hydra, huh? Yeah, figures that would be in both worlds. Seemed like everything from her home was in his, and then some.]

Yeah, we have Hydra. Not a fan. We haven't heard too much from them recently though. Small blessing.

[vagabond_code]

We thought we'd beaten them a few times. Then they infiltrated the things we thought were uncorruptable. They turned our strongest against us. I'm glad I went back to be a part of that fight, but it isn't over and now I'm back here.

[Why was he explaining any of this?

He told himself it was part of a trust-building thing. If he told stuff, maybe she'd tell him stuff.]

So, you know. I've been alright.

[outstandingbalance]

Sorry to hear that. I have an idea how that goes. [She doesn't know the details, and she doesn't doubt they're worse than he's really letting on. Seems like there's more than a little understatement going on, and when "infiltrated the things we thought were uncorruptable" reads as an understatement, then things are really going south. She doesn't pry, though.

He's already revealed a lot, and she knows how that goes.

Well, she was going to bring him up to date too.]

You seem all right, for what it's worth. Probably could have used you here.

[vagabond_code]

At least you had Kate.

[And he probably wouldn't have been any use if he'd stayed. When he was last here he'd spent every day under the raider, trying to keep the cameras away in case something happened, and someone had to act in a way the Atroma didn't expect.

It had gotten him no-where. It had gotten him sent home.]

[outstandingbalance]

We did.

[Natasha signals the bartender for two beers, watching the counter top until they're delivered.]

There was a heist. Before calibrations. Not sure if they're related, but it feels a little like they might be.

[vagabond_code]

Yeah? Were you the heisters? Or the heistees?

[outstandingbalance]

A little bit of both, actually. We got a message from the other fleet to make a move on this... gala. Heard there was something there we could use. So we made our play and walked out with a bunch of information and some kind of AI.

[It had been a fun evening, all things considered. Pity how it turned out.]

After we got out though, the Atroma took the AI and wiped everything saved on one of their devices. They also showed off some kind of cannon they've got hidden on the Marsiva. Probably took out at least some of the other fleet.

[vagabond_code]

I heard the Atroma were over-thrown. Now that's starting to sound like some kinda revenge.

[On the one hand, he was working with very little information. From the outside it might appear presumptuous, but he figured Nat would only give him important information. So, it would make sense if the Atroma's overthrow was the crux of this story. From what he could tell that was about the most disruptive thing to have happened since Clint was sent home.]

[outstandingbalance]

The hosts were killed during calibrations, and a new pair moved in. What that means behind the scenes is hard to say.

[vagabond_code]

You know, this shadowy-space-landlord shtick doesn't sit will with me. I'd rather a loud-mouth in a bright costume I can point my bow at. And if the costume has an actual bulls-eye on it, even better.

[Like that one guy.]

What happened to guys like that?

[outstandingbalance]

Guess we ran out? They do make for easy targets when they're like that.

[vagabond_code]

Right?

[It made for a good segue.]

Ever notice how there aren't many bad guys on these ships? Like at all? Hero types, sure, anti-heroes? Got plenty of those. But if I was hosting a space-soap-opera with a bunch of boyscouts the first thing I'd do is throw a few drug lords or human traffickers in the mix. Maybe a lawyer or two, or some of those guys who hold up the lines in supermarkets by paying with just dimes and nickles. If it really was about the drama.

[outstandingbalance]

Calling them just bad guys might be over simplifying things a little. But... I can tell you if I were a bad guy on a ship like this? I'd keep that to myself.

[Still a bad guy?]

But I guess it all depends what kind of a bad guy you have in mind.

[vagabond_code]

The kind that make for good ratings.

[Which was to say, not the kind that avoided revealing themselves for fear of a super-powered smackdown.]

I dunno, maybe there's a spinoff show, and somewhere else in space there's a ship full of Hydra guys and A.I.M guys and a Galactus or two. I'd probably watch that.

[outstandingbalance]

I actually know two out of three of those. That's doing pretty good considering all this alternate realities bullshit.

[vagabond_code]

Sorry, but when you play bad-guy bingo you're actually supposed to go for an empty card.

[One day he'd meet a Natasha Romanoff who was just a lady living in a house with a husband and some kids and a dog. No spy-training, no blood on her hands, just the one passport, but probably an Olympic level athlete. A version of Nat who'd never had to fight someone else's war. A Nat who'd won bad-guy bingo.]

[outstandingbalance]

That was never going to happen. [At this point, Natasha is more willing to believe there's a version of her out there somewhere who's an actual spider than she is to believe in a version of her who wins manages to stay away from trouble.] And there's something to be said for knowing. Every time one of you mentions something that I haven't heard of, I have to wonder if that's the next thing coming down the chute.

[And Natasha doesn't like being in the dark.]

[vagabond_code]

We could compare cards then, if that helps. Which one are you missing from those three?