1965-03-19 - Run, Rabbit, Run
Summary: When hunters collide and you make the mistake of letting the other know where you live? Mayhem ensues. Stalking occurrs. Bets are placed on how long they can keep this up without getting caught.
Related: Hunting Season
Theme Song: None
jp clint 


DAY 0: Where a waste can, a random glass that shows up in Clint's bathroom (with Clint's toothbrush in it)… and a saucepan finds its way into the sink. There is no note, and the tape-job on the window seems to be in tact.


Even with the hole in the window taped and plasticked up, the fact of the matter was that Barton had to buy some kind of…covering for his bed. It was warmer than it was, but sleeping on a bare mattress was annoying, even for him. The second issue was that it didn't serve well for convincing people to take their pants off if his place looked like a complete squatter's joint. Clint /did/ debate getting rid of the whole damn bed and hanging a hammock up instead, but banging on a hammock just wasn't as much fun as it sounded like it should be.

Don't ask how he knows.

So, the archer comes back to his mid-level apartment, more than half cleared out from his latest break up, with a set of cheap sheets and a sleeping bag.

Barton, you're a mess.
His mail pinned between his teeth, Clint drops the rolled up sleeping bag on the floor, stopping it with his foot, and walking to the bedroom to drop the package of sheets on the foot of the mattress. Stopping off in the bathroom to go through his mail while he does his business, there's a long pause after the first step into the space, frowning thoughtfully.

'When the hell did I get a trashcan in here?' Stormy gaze flicking confusedly to the sink's edge where his toothbrush seems to have found a new home as well. 'Did I get drunk and clean my bathroom? That doesn't sound like me.'

Slowly backing his way out of the cheaply made room with an alienated look back toward the bathroom, as if the toilet had somehow betrayed him, Barton walks through his livingroom with a quick visual check of all points of egress and ingress. His workbench hasn't been touched. Tools still in order. Maybe his ex came back and…put things back? That didn't make any damn sense.

Back to the kitchen to drop his pile of mail on the counter, the blond exclaims, pointing accusatorially at the sink. "Now I /know/ you don't live here!" What the hell was going on? He had acquired /other/ dishes from his little two-man-cooking-thieving-banging extravaganza earlier, but the saucepan was not one of them. Staring warily at the piece of cookware for several seconds, Barton eventually got around to washing it and putting it away, giving it the side eye the entire time.

That, dear friends, is how Clint Barton's apartment on the fourth floor of his unassuming apartment building got all of its windows (even the busted one) locked. He could honestly explain away most of what was there and seemed odd. Excusable items that he could've forgotten about (as unlikely as it was) or something like that. Nothing too invasive.


Day 4: Total Refrigeration

JP swung out and he was careful. Usually. He tagged the window in the living room where he'd exited and hung onto it for all of four days whiiiich meant he just spent four whole days as a civilian. It was something no one would know was ever done and really, it was a weird catharsis for the analog gear head. His brother might get what happened and just laugh at him. Screw it. Some days it was more a blessing that he wasn't all flashy like them other Mutants. Didn't matter. He was used to fighting twice as hard for everything. Felt good. Still keeping that tag on the window let him… well let's be honest, he was stalking his mark. This probably was one of his least healthier behaviours.

Still he knew Clint was out somewhere. That meant it was safer to drop by for… he didn't know what reasons. Hell maybe he was afraid of a normal conversation. He'd likely convinced himself it would completely ruin the game. That… this wasn't allowed to fall to the mundane. They needed this and frankly, Clint could use some stalking. It was good for the blood pressure right and that was… something.

He switched on the small radio that survived the Purge of Bob™ and set about pulling a beer out of the duffel across his back for the important things, the beer and a screwdriver. First the beer to the fridge, and 6 of the pint glasses (each boosted from a different bar from Harlem to the Bronx), then… something…

Sitting in one of the armchairs with a leg draped over the side which left him with a curious grin and also leaving him glad he returned even if he was alone. What to do.
It was too cold. Right. On with swapping that window out with… well that fucker on three would never crawl up so high. He went and swapped it out, taking the baseball with him. He fixed the broken one into place, knocked more of the glass in and let the ball roll forward. They wouldn't count the pieces. Fuck em.

He spent the better part of the next twenty minutes cleaning up that window and putting it back.

A wry grin left him satisfied with the job and from there? Eh best not to overstay a welcome. Off he went the way he way he came.


Day 5: Okay. Clint's cupboard was definitely breeding.

Standing in his kitchen, in his shorts, Barton stared at the six new pint glasses, all mismatchingwhich sounded like himbut they definitely were not there a few days ago. He remembers because he ran out of clean cups and had to use the one in the bathroom that magically appeared.

Very slowly, he closed the cabinet and went to shower. He had crashed in one of his armchairs the night before, after working on some new arrow payloads on his workbench, and fell asleep listening to the radio. So after pondering what to do about the semi regular break ins during his shower, Clint headed back to his bedroom to get dressed only to immediately notice there was more light coming through the windows.

In fact, there was more window in his windows.

The hell?

He hadn't called the glass guy yet because…reasons.

Yeah okay shit was getting weird. This didn't smack of Bob. Even if she had forgiven him, this wasn't her style.

Clint spent the next hour setting up a fairly obvious looking 'trap' out of a box propped up with a stick on his kitchen counter. A beer set inside it. The tricky part was that the string tied around the beer pulled the stick. But the other end of the stick had a trigger which exploded a indigo dye pack discretely hidden like a squib behind an paper sheet on the ceiling. It wasn't a whole lot. Just enough to spatter, not drench a person in blue. And the dye would wear off in a couple days.

He just had to remember not to take the beer, himself.

It was like leaving milk and cookies out for santa. Except not.


Day 7: No change but the beer has become warm and a new beer on the counter was required.


Day 9: The beer is gone, the counter is blue, and both armchairs are missing…

Clint is remarkably satisfied with himself and that blue squib. He cleans up and goes out for the next two days rather aggressively, keeping an eye out for blue-skin. Which is for the best since he has no furniture now. Damnit.


Day 9: Earlier…

JP was …definitely stalking this guy. He was put in a headlock and they shared a beer, and later they shared a lobster and a lot of… not lobster. Yet they haven't spoken since.

Did that matter?
Why did he give any shits all of a sudden?

Okay, well…whatever.the good part about knowing Vitale was Italians knew how to get moving vans! Excellent. Sooooo off to collect a set of arm chairs because… well… if Clint wasn't aware stuff was happening he was about to. Wake-up call motha fucka! Game face went on! …wait… moving men weren't supposed to have a gave face… Merde.

Seriously even JP had to wonder if he was trying to prove himself superior in being clever or if he was avidly trying to get caught. This was nuts.

It was something getting both armchairs out and rightly no one stopped them. It looked official and people were used to things coming and going. Jean-Pierre went back up for one more pass back and took one more look around. He ducked back for a brief walk-through. This poor fucker really didn't really have anything left. He could severely empathize with having a woman gut your heart but at least JP's shit was left in tact when Mozelle walked out for the last time. This message to Clint that this meant something to her and she wanted him to feel it. She wanted her absence known and that… that was a lil close to home for JP. Guys like them were hard to love on the best of days and were also notoriously terrible at being able to keep up a relationship.

God knows JP wrecked the shit out of his with his own bullshit.

That pile of clothes was still there. Yes it was weird as hell to go through another guys' clean laundry but this was funny as hell to him. Exit one t-shirt that boasted a half circle sun that said GRAND CANYON on it and enter a similar shirt but one that said Treme, New Orleans on it. He smirked. Yeaaaaah that'll confuse him enough. Hey, it was better than feeling like the world was completely cored out. It was a sign of life that wasn't a fucking pigeon.

It was when he was heading out that he opted to snag the been off the counter wondering, "Why does he never catch- POP!

…the squib exploded…

…and there was blue dye…

…aaaaall down the right side of his body, face and hair.

Mon dieu. >.<


Day 12:Where in Clint finally gets around to doing laundry.

Clint, still feeling absolutely satisfied with himself over the tripping of his trap—as obvious as it was. I mean, that was the point, right? He /wanted/ the trap to look like a trap. That was the misdirect. A box and stick never worked. It was his wink to his mischievous elf that kept breaking in and screwing with that little shit he had left. 'I see you.' And with that explosive blue dye, so would everyone else.

It was good that Clint didn't invest in stuff—like people, stuff was temporary.

Still, he rolled out of bed and half asleep stumbled to the shower just to half asleep stumble back to turn his new coffee maker on. Because of course Bob wanted him to feel the sting and took his fucking coffee. Monster. The faint outline of not-blue on the linoleum where feet were placed still made him smile stupidly as he shambled back to the bedroom. Not thinking too hard about why something like that would make him smile, Clint was an expert as misdirecting himself as well.

Saturdays were laundry day, so Clint put on a pair of shorts in too-early spring and a sweatshirt, bundled his pile of mixed laundry all together in a towel and tied it together like a hobo to walk down to the laundromat and hang out for the day. Dumping everything in together like a feral raccoon scrubbing his food in a dirty puddle before eating it, something curious caught his attention. Pulling an orange tee shirt out of the washing machine, the archer tilted his head to the side curiously.

"Treme'?"

Confused for a moment, a quick half-smile quirked Clint's mouth. Chuckling to himself he pulled the sweatshirt off his back in the middle of the laundromat and dropped it into the the washer, throwing the alien Treme' shirt over his head and pulling it over his shoulders, stretching taut across his chest. Shutting the washer lid, Clint chuckled to himself again and shoved the coin slot home, kicking back to wait. Hands folded over his stomach, utterly amused.

"Jean-Pierre."


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