1964-10-16 - Clint and the Sundance Kid
Summary: Sam Guthrie meets Clint Barton during one of his favorite passtimes; dart sharking and barroom brawls.
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Theme Song: None
clint cannonball 


So, Sam has learned his lesson about…bars, so he has picked the safest bar to be in for a passing mutant, and poured himself onto a stool in boot-cut jeans and a flannel shirt. How he's managed to get a couple twenties…who knows, but he has enough to just enjoy himself a bit, outside the mansion. Maybe he feels guilty about being able to pass as human when he's around mutant-town. He just needs a little normal-guy-time now and then. He works the handle of the beer back and forth, kinda spinning it in its own puddle of condensation.


Monday night and the evening is just settling in for all of the irresponsible schmucks in NYC, whereas it's just wrapping up for those with respectable jobs and wives that let them go out with the boys once or twice a week without getting too much shit for it. A grey haze hangs over the room where folks nurse their drinks and gear up for another week, which makes it the perfect place for Sam to blend.

The far side of the room has the tables shoved away, crowding one another, so one of the alleyways for darts is open and being utilized by a man who is clearly part of one of the local biker gangs. If the leather jacket with a million patches isn't the tip off, maybe the handful of buddies he surrounds himself makes it a little more apparent; all in matching jackets, smoking and talking wise. In the midst of this rough grouping of men is Clint Barton. A cigarette sticking out of the corner of his mouth, the leather-lacking man looks like he is just clinging to the 1950s rock look in the world's most comfortable looking jeans and a white tee shirt. And he seems to be kicking their asses rather casually in the game.

Tension casts a silent hush over the grouping and Clint looks down at the tip of his dart, thumbing the metal tip, "So, what's the rule again? I don't play cricket very often, Bill."

The man standing nearest to Clint, in leather and a handkerchief, frowns. "You got the twenty and the bull's eye left. For a guy who's never played cricket before, you're doing better than the last game."

"Yeah," Clint smirks enigmatically right in the guys face and takes a lax pose by the line. "Beginner's luck, I guess." This is how Barton gets his nose broken. Again.


Cannonball casts his cornflower blue eyes over to /trouble/ with a capital CLINT, and all the other trouble surrounding him. He takes a drink of his beer and the farmboy in him can just sense a fight coming on the way an old man senses rain. He slides off his stool and meanders a little closer. Clunk clunk go his boots on the hardwood, crunching on the occasional peanut or bottlecap. He leans against the nearby support beam. Its a foot thick and blackened by years of smoke haze and dirty hands.


Well, if there was ever an easterly wind picked up in the middle of O'Rourke's, this would be it, Sam, and your bones should be achin'.

A faint ripple moves through the gang in accordance to that figurative breeze; exchanged looks and subtle nods of discontent as Clint takes up his place at the line and tosses his first dart without even looking at the board, smiling a shit-eating, dazzling grin straight at 'Bill' and within clear view of the country boy.

*THUNK* 20.

The leather clad man doesn't even let Clint get out that second dart, much less the third, before he rears back and decks the smiling blond right in the face.

The rest of the gang takes action as well as Clint's head whips backwards with the force of the blow, stumbling backwards over the leg of a chair and into the wall. He checks his nose with one hand, coming back with a dab of blood forming from it. A couple of men advance, presumably to drag Clint out of the bar, or at least hold him still, while Bill grumbles, "You sharking piece of shit. You played us!"

"Well…sort of," Clint grunts, blinking away the tears that reactively come up with being punched in the face. "The cricket thing was the truth. Who the hell plays cricket?" Cocky little shit.


Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Sam puts a hand on the shoulder from behind, of the nearest man, "Seems ta me," he drawls, like a knight in shining rawhide, "like this ain't a fair fight either. It really take a whole heap a boys to beat up one shark? Here I thought these Neeew Yorker gangs were a little better 'n that." He flashes a dimpled smile, his cornflower eyes twinkling. "Plus…he's got one shot left. Y'all ain't e'en lost yet."


Sam's hand falls on the shoulder of one of the men who were gearing up to stride forward and take hold of Clint; a fellow with graying brown hair worn long and covered by a faded bandana who looks like he probably flosses his teeth with barbed wire. He squares with Sam, shoving his shoulder back and out of that hand if he is able. "Mind your own business, Hayseed." Getting right up in Sam's face, he's ready for aggression, but that winning smile does keep him from pounding the pretty boy's face flat.

Clint blinks through a blur of saline, staring at a rather hazy version of Sam—a spot of blond brightness against a cloud of leather. Huh. The second guy still gets to him but it almost could appear as if he's helping Clint stand up without his buddy to help muscle him around. The hustler sniffs and tastes blood in the back of his throat, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and stuffing it against his bleeding nose. "I mean-d.." Stuffed up, Clint notes. "D'guy's not wrong."

For whatever reason good ol' Bill glares back at Sam and then over to Clint, trying to figure out what the hell the angle with this new guy is. "What? This guy your partner suddenly? Supposed to sweep in and convince us not to beat you to a pulp?" But by now they've gained some interest by the barkeep and Bill scoffs, settling back a little bit. "/Fine/! Let him shoot." Impatient as all hell and aching to get his hands on Clint.

Barton shrugs a shoulder away from his captor and straightens up, eyes clearing now as he looks over at Sam, trying to figure out his angle, too.


Sam's angle. Hard to say. He does look right at Clint, though, and arches his brows. The shooter has a way out…now if he takes it or not, that's on him. He shrugs his shoulders a little, just to get the grime of being around these leathery turds off him, even if its just imaginary cooties. He crosses his arms over his chest and seems just as ready to brawl, as he would be to buy Clint a drink if he 'loses'. "How much money's on it, anyway?" He asks curiously.


… … …
Clint /really/ hates to lose. Especially around a bunch of jerks like these guys. Bunch of really 'hard fellows' as long as they have a bunch of their friends around. He blinks back at the southern fellow with the killer smile and there's just something about Clint that says he knows he can throw the game, but he really hates the idea. "Fifty bucks," Clint supplies, glancing over to the bills pinned to the other dartboard. A near $400 game in about fifty years. That isn't money you blow your nose at.


Sam quietly drops his hands down to his sides. He knows he's gonna need those fists if Clint makes the shot. He has no idea, of course, that Clint already knows he's gonna make the shot, and that its more or less just deciding if he's going to do it. "That there's worth a few drinks." He comments lowly. His angle is alright, and as the bikers review his presence, though he's standing up for the shark, there really doesn't seem to be any other connection besides being an interloper and just having a sense of…fair play, which apparently doesn't apply to sharking.


Clint weighs the gains against the losses now that he has this /kid/ inching in and not looking like he's going anywhere any time soon. Hell. Keen eyes flick across Sam assessingly, giving him the ol' up and down once over. If he got his ass beat, that was one thing, but pulling an innocent bystander in?
Damnit!
"It is," Clint agrees lowly, then heaves a sigh and turns back to the board. He tosses once and hits a triple 10, causing the group of bikers to relax a little bit and start their pre-emptive cocky celebration that they've muscled this little guy into cooperating. One of the bikers go for the other dart board, ready to pull off the stack of money while Clint fingers his final dart and grinds his teeth in frustration. Assholes. They were a bunch of pricks. "Hey, hey, hey! I still have another shot, don't I?"

Bill and his guys scoff and chuckle a little, knowingly to one another. "Yeah, okay, fine. Hurry up and choke."


Sam may seem an innocent bystander, but he does appear to have some decent arms hiding under that flannel. That…and he doesn't seem too worried…another tipoff that maybe he's not so innocent. Everyone's playin by the rules so he's fine. "And it all comes down to one shot. He stands, he goes for the aim…" Sam lowers his voice in tone, trying to make himself sound like a sports announcer, which comes off ridiculously dorky.


Clint lines up a shot, unnecessarily, pausing to flash Sam a lidded look while he dorks around with the sports announcer bit. His gaze lidded, but there's a wry angle to his lips that are entirely amused.
Punk kid. Nice.

Barton looks back to the board and lines up his shot.
Throws.
*THUNK*
Single Bull's eye.

And off like a shot, before the dart even strikes, Clint is /running/ like his life depended on it straight toward that other board. Nobody has time to even check the board or react, which is entirely Clint's strategy here as he leans in and collides, full-force with his shoulder first into the guy standing next to the pot of money hanging on the dart board. Stumbling and skidding on the bottle-cap screwn floor, he manages to yank the dart out and grab the cash before the other three men yell and start for him as well.


Cannonball grabs for one of the guys by the back of the jacket and yanks him backwards, then clomps forwards, hooks a stool with his foot, pops it into his hand with a kick upwards and throws it at a second guy. X-Men training is nothing to sniff about. Its not thrown SO HARD that it'll shatter. It'll just be not fun to get bowled over by a barstool. That should give the rogue dartsman a fair shot at least.


|ROLL| Cannonball +rolls 1d20 for: 8


Brute#1 is yanked backward and given a start when he tries to lunge for Clint, shouting rather indignantly, "The fuck!?" Turning around to immediately attempt a blind and sloppy (drunk) hook in Sam's direction.

Fate is a hell of a thing! Sam does everything right with some of that fancy honky tonk foot work, and still, there's a knot in the floor that keeps the stool from landing quite right into his hand, which gives it a wicked sort of spin and early clatter to the floor, making it rather easy for the second guy Sam tries to occupy to stop it with a lift of his black boot, though his foot gets temporarily caught in it to slow him down, he is able to step over it. Oh, he was going for Clint at first, but Brute #2 has all eyes on Sam now.

All the better for Clint, honestly, because he has both Brute #3 on his ass after checking the guy to the ground with a clatter, and Bill. Good ol' Bill who thought he had this in the bag runs after Clint once he realizes what's happened, yelling, "GET YOUR SKINNY ASS BACK HERE!"

Clint runs with cash and the dart in hand, but only briefly as he turns around and chucks the dart hard enough to pin Brute #3's sleeve to the ground and effectively startle the hell out of him. "Run, Billy-Bob-Lancelot!" He shouts back to Sam.


|ROLL| Clint +rolls 1d15 for: 15


|ROLL| Clint +rolls 1d20 for: 9


Cannonball gets a hell of a shot in the face, from the drunk guy, and he's starting to be on board with that run thing. With the two guys on him, he shakes his head, straw-blond hair going every which direction, then rubs at his jaw for only a second before he's facing the two guys while Clint tries to make a break for it. He's gonna hang in there a little longer, self-assured that if he really wanted to get out of here, he could. He does take some hops backwards, though, towards the door, fists up, ready to defend himself against pursuit. MAN, he does not need to get arrested again though, that's for sure.


"I'm faaaahn!" He grouses in Southern.


Feeling rather emboldened by that lucky shot, drunky #1 stumbles a little bit while he rights himself from his own punch and grins wide at Sam. He's missing two teeth. Well, he's done this before a couple times. He goes for a second, slightly more steady shot, but he is way off as he has misjudged Sam's hop backwards.

Brute #2 has no such difficulty though and is going to come right for Sam if the guy doesn't go. The gang in general is used to bar fights and don't have any issue with breaking down another one just to get their point across. When Sam doesn't run, he leans down to grab the stool that was thrown at him and figures what's good for the goose is good for the gander. He tries to use it like a baseball bat if Sam doesn't run.

Bill is hot on Clint's tail, and #3 is stupified as the dart sticks into the floor right next to his fingers. Oh shit! Doesn't pin him down, but that's damned startling! Clint doubles back when he glances back and doesn't see Sam running after. He snags someone's beer bottle and just /throws it/ at Bill. "What the hell are you doing!? /Come on/!" Clint barks at Sam. "If you want to get your face readjusted that bad, I'll sock you once we get /out/!"


|ROLL| Clint +rolls 1d10 for: 4


|ROLL| Clint +rolls 1d20 for: 4


|ROLL| Clint +rolls 1d20 for: 16


Cannonball manages to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge his way towards the other blond, hopping over an empty chair. He slides on the hardwood when he lands, "Right, right, more of them than there are of us!" He heads for the door, quick like a whip!


"Took you long enough, Shane," Clint jibes at the bottle connects with Bill's face and downs the guy out of shock, probably repaying the broken nose—Clint's is still bleeding as a matter of fact while he rolls his eyes at Sam. "We got that brawl with Mister Calloway a half hour down yonder to make. Gonna be late if we don't scurry." Taunting him with sarcastic mentions of the 10 year old western, 'Shane'. Clint turns tail and runs out the door with bikers on his heels. No plans of stopping until they are out of sight.


Cannonball runs after him, though he does also frown when he catches on that Clint's making fun of his boots…and his accent…probably his shirt too. "There'd be no brawl at all if ya'd not tried ta win a buncha money off some bikers!" Though the complaint falls a little flat, like…he'd still be fine with some punching, even now.


Clint laughs. Sort of. It's a little muffled and flat thanks to whatever's going on with his nose as the archer jams the cloth back up under it. But he looks like he is just having the /best night/. His eyes are sharp as he looks backward and quickly shoulder shoves Sam down into a narrow alleyway before the bikers can figure out which way the went and mow them down with their bikes. Grinning like a devil the whole time. "What can I say? I was having a night out and it seemed like a good idea at the time."


Cannonball stays fairly quiet, so that the bikers don't bust them in the alley. "Yer an idiot." His back thumps against the wall and he fires a deadpan look at Clint, then shakes his head, grinning. "And ya got yer damn nose broke. Yah need me ta set it? I set Frank Dill's nose up at the school one time." He pauses. "Course they did break it and reset it again after a few months. Ya know…maybe ya better just…see a doctor."


Clint quiets down once they're down the narrow alley way, grinning from behind that red-stained cloth, though those storm-laden eyes are fixed on the entrance to the little hide out. He whispers back to Sam. "Yeah, I've heard that before." Cheeky bastard. "Nah, I've broken this thing enough times that it's got this notch in it." With a fist full of bills, he offers them out to Sam and drops the cloth away from his face, smiling like fun trouble, embodied. "You take cash, Doc?"


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