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Day 14:
Clint doesn't so much 'set a trap' as much as he starts doing things just to screw with his furniture thief. Like leaving a crate with a purple lava lamp in the middle of where all his furniture once was.
His apartment also vaguely smells of burning and his work bench is a little charred on a corner, but everything is just fiiiine.
Day 14: The Garage
JP still had one hand dyed blue. It was a light blue now at least unlike a few days ago. Having endured enough mockery from teammates about his random distractions he felt disinclined to share how that came about. Or as he explained so eloquently: Do they need somethin' else the fuck t'go worry about cause he'll come up with stuff tha's needin doin.
It was nearing 4:23 in the a.m. when JP Bonaventure took a break from going out on errands, finding food, getting supplies (read: pillaging. Hey, warlord rules were in effect), and coming back to the Garage 'apartment' that lived upstairs to really finish off the framing for the first illusion of a couple rooms.
It was a fantastic snapshot of the state of his life right now. All sawdust and disarray from the remains of something that was, broken down and in this desolate space that had… nothing to fill it. Everything he had was pretty much left in Louisiana, not that he ever owned much of anything at all. His family and little girl were there but it was made clear that right now… right now there was nothing he could do there but hide and lie to himself that that situation would ever change. Elmo'd been right: He needed to stop being a hypocrite and make a new start for himself and he was given the tools to do this.
So now it was 4:23 and he sat all alone in the skeletal ribs of what might be… something. Some sort of sense of place or being, something his, if he just put some energy into filling that empty space with something that inspired him.
He was tired and just worked almost 52 hours non-stop with only small breaks and naps on and off. Hey, stealing other people's belongings when they live on the 4th floor was hard work. The heat in the place wasn't great yet but Vitale and Elmo came through with some blankets and bedding even though he had no bed to his name yet. That was okay though. Clint could have a bed and be fancy.
He hunkered down into Clint's donated chairs pushed facing one another; leg hanging over one side as the rest of him burritoed in a blanket. His dark brown eyes stared vacantly forward at the pool table gone workbench (it had plywood and a cover on it protecting it. Relax.) and wondered many things. Did he even notice? Well yeah he boobytrapped his own beer… JP had to respect that. He coulda just shot em. Was this getting invasive? Well… yeah breaking and entering into someone's home could be decided to be 'a bit invasive.
If he really wanted him to leave him alone he'd just shot em or move right? It seemed a hell of a lot easier. He wondered if he found it as funny as he did. Kinda broke up the week.
JP tried in vain to figure out what he really did aside from clearly being a bodyguard of a king. In the end he decided he was probably a merc. Seemed most sensible and Sam Guthrie he knew not exactly to be the golden boy everyone thought he was. Hell that's how they met. Jean-Pierre decided anyone who he was a friend of clearly hung around some shady mother fuckers.
His face used the back of the chair for a pillow as he yawned. God he needed some rest. He scratched his stomach under the stolen shirt he was wearing, adjusted his business and hunkered down. He could take a break for a nap and wonder to himself where the Grand Canyon even was. He had no idea. Why Clint might a gone to look at a big ol hole in the ground was beyond him. Potholes were easy to come by but apparently this one merited a t-shirt.
This is what happens when you don't bother finishing the 9th grade because your happy ass lands in corrections.
Still… he wondered. and a lazy smile krept on his face
Too.
tired.
to sleep.
He'd try like hell though.
Besides, tomorrow he was gonna surprise the hell outta this guy and/or scare him shitless when Vitale and he go and refurnish that apartment and piss off a certain DeAngelis brother by boostin his sectional and faking Clint into thinking they sold out his apartment.
Mean
but funny.
JP Didn't suppose one got more basement budget of a guardian angel sort where replacing broken things was concerned, but he did spend a bit of time with The Devil himself. Odd place for a god fearin boy to find inspiration, but damn it's funny.
Sides, Clint did a shit job lookin after himself. While JP could relate clearly some folks was droppin the ball having this guy's back.
Fuck why was he still thinking on this!?
Sleep now, Grand Theft Sectional was tomorrow. At least with Vitale there he knew he'd come out of it without a hernia.
Yeah, tomorrow was going to be fun.
Day 14: Clint's Pad
Barton sat cross-legged on the floor in his living room, in front of the crate and letting the odd light of the purple lava lamp play over him while he munched on a bowl of spaghetti. He might not have furniture, but he had cookware. Enough to make spaghetti happen at least.
Cross-legged and staring at the slow-moving blobs, Barton had turned off the other lights 'for ambiance' while he slurped noodles off his fork. 3:20am and he sported a new cut across his ribs where he had been thrown through a window and caught a particularly nasty shard of glass.
His apartment smelled like burning from earlier in the evening when he had tried playing with a new mechanism for an incendiary arrow, his side had twinged strange with an involuntary spasm and his hand had slipped while he was balls-deep in the device. Now he couldn't smell anything. But still really wanted cookies after Fitz had planted the thought in his head with his own explosion.
Sigh.
Food just wasn't the same if you couldn't smell it.
So, Clinton Barton sat sullen and tired in his dark apartment that smelled like burning, watching his trolling lava lamp paint purple patterns on the wall, spite-eating spaghetti. His brain tired, but still over-working because that was default.
'I really should think about that hammock again. It was such an elegant answer to my boredom with the bed. Keeping the bed there for adult acrobatics wasn't out of the question as long as I can curl up and swing to sleep. Why? Why not? Eh. What was in this thing? Wax? Was it just water? How hot was the bulb that it melted wax but didnt boil the water. Fuck, Mittens and that Easy Bake Oven! That was crazy. Maybe it was something with some better heat disbursal properties than water. I should take it apart. How do you test that? Drinking it would be quickest. Drinking a lava lamp. That sounds stupid. But I'm not drinking the 'lava'. I miss my chairs. Why'd he have to take them both? They weren't even on the roof or in the alley or in the bar I found him in; that would've made sense. They better fucking be at his place.'
Sighing heavily, Clint looked down at his bowl and stirred the noodles around, chopping them up idly.
'Why the hell did he keep coming back? It was only a matter of time before someone I brought back decided that my dick was some kind of membership card and invitation back. But he wasn't sticking around. Which means it's a game, but what the hell are the rules? Every game has rules. About time I found someone who understands how this shit works.'
Stormy eyes drift to the ceiling, watching the slow drifting patterns churn. He asks out loud, "So what are the rules?" His expression impassive, betraying nothing while he mulls it over. The slide moving back toward spy mode slowly.
Breaking and entering was fine, it didn't seem right he was the only one. Problem there was that he had made JP's job easy by inviting him back. So how much of his hand does he show? Would it be creepy to flex a little skill and find out where he lived? What are the chances his brother lives with him? Wouldn't be hard to find out, just need a stakeout. If he does, what the hell does he do? Well, he needed to check the place out before he knew the answer to that, of course.
"Maybe he's got a hammock I can swipe," Barton considered with a crooked smile. "Maybe I should get a plant…"
Because those were somehow connected in his brain. Right up there with drinking lava lamps.
Day 15: The Garage
Nothing to wake you up like police sirens tearing through the streets of Mutant Town. JP somehow dove over the back of the chair diving over the back of it and landing with a thud still wrapped in a blanket burrito. Man the shiner on the left side of his face and his ribs were nooooot having any of that.
"Ow ow ow ow ow"
There was some utterance in French that were things his mother would give him The Look™ for but she wasn't here.
Today was the day he was going to get back on track with the rules. What WERE the rules anyways??!
There had to be some and it occurred to him he hadn't clearly defined them and had to. Thus Jean-Pierre elected that in this 'game' anything taken needed to be replaced with like or better. To no harm come for those that do right by you. Sorta the Bonaventure way. Sorta. But not that he, Maker of the rules, made the rule? Well it must be.
Everyone joked it was his actual super power and sometimes even he had to wonder. He wasn't… useless.
God blessed that Foreman's words stung him harder than his stupid fist and even JP had to wonder if all of this was some sort of arrogant play to get his confidence back. Surely it was… well it was likely. This only gave him momentum.
He staggered over to his cold ass shower and psyched himself up. Yup. It was gonna be cold and suck but he wouldn't smell like a bowling alley after and that was important because today he and the Italian… were going shopping.
Clint needed furniture. It wasn't even about making sure he wasn't in Clint's back pocket. The truth was he wanted to do this and he got a strange high off confusing the shit out of people and making life a little less shitty in the process.
Also? That Italian sunnovabitch didn't need leather furniture and could stand to take a punch in the proverbial balls.
Spite furniture. Perfect to eat Spite-ghetti on if only he knew.
Right. Vitale would be here to just read his the riot act and scream bloody murder at him for being beaten to a pulp again and then be totally put out for a while. Right. You got this Jean-Pierre. You're a Bonaventure. We got this.
The cold took a lot of the sting out he reasoned because his nerve endings were now frozen. There was the knock. He dried off, threw on Jeans and- he paused toweling off his hair. Yeah today was the day to dress for poetic justice.
The Sassy Saguero Restaurant t-shirt he stole at ground was today's choice. There we go. He brushed his teeth and downstairs willed his car to start letting it beep the horn twice to let Vitale know he was on his way down.
Man his ribs were blackend. He stood up straighter and posed there giving himself a critical look, toothbrush hanging out of the side of his mouth. A subtle approving nod later he decided, yup, he could still pull off the look. Yiiiiis.
He finished dressing, and debated his keys. Eh fuck it. He left em on the counter and headed out. What did he ever need keys for? Ain't no finer burglar on the planet.
That thought had him strutting out to Vitale, Vitale's wrath, and the best damn furniture heist the city may see for 12 months as JP went on whistling a tune.
Yeah. He was proud of himself.
Day 15: Clint's Pad
Clint woke up, not to sirens, but to the sound of screaming and a kid crying. If /he/ could hear it, shit was getting serious. It didnt help that it was coming from right over him and his windows and ceiling shook with the sound of running, stomping, falling, et cetera. His eyes cracked open heavily as he lay sprawled sideways on his bed. This was the second time in the last month that he had heard.
Well. That was it.
The archer yawned, shoved his slumping body up with a wince. He hadn't torn his stitches in his sleep for once, so his side wasn't matted in blood. Bonus. He slogged off to the kitchen where he hit the button on the coffee maker and rubbed both hands through his hair. Had his sense of smell come back yet? Hard to tell. Ah well.
Zombie Clint-ing out the door in stocking feet, he walked up the stairs to the 4th floor, his steps falling like lead until he shuffled to the door to the apartment right above him, eyes both closing as he knocked heavily on the door. Someone shouted something, but damn if he could make it out. So he knocked again, politely. Silence. Then again, silence was the default.
Mid-knock the door flung open and Clint slowly opened his eyes again, peering up at his upstairs neighbor.
"Morning, Pete," Clint rasped.
Pete was an asshole.
"It's 3 pm. What the fuck do you want, Barton?"
Pete was also 5'8" and about 200lbs, and /mean/. As his wife and two kids could attest to, but were currently nowhere in sight. Clint had also kicked his ass once before, but his wife kept taking him back. Which would explain why beneath the rigid shell of machismo Pete was glaring down on him, Clint could clearly see the fear starting to creep in.
Clint twisted a bland smile at the guy. "We've talked about this, Pete." Calm, cool, collected. Clint was tired as hell and in half zombie mode, but when his fist shot forward, the jab still connected with Pete's nose, and the resulting impact pitched the guy backward. Howling, probably, but it was just a dim 'whooooooo' to Barton.
***
Clint got back to his apartment, his shirt torn around the collar and his stitches now popped and seeping. But over all, he didn't look injured beside. Pete on the other hand…
Walking to the kitchen, he inhaled deeply and smelled nothing, in spite of the pot of steaming coffee on the burner. Grunting, he grabbed the whole carafe, a bowl of cold spaghetti from the fridge and sat on the floor, slurping right out of the carafe and eating spiteghetti. Maybe Pete would stay away this time. That guy was an asshole.
'Shit. This stings. I need to clean it.' So, he dragged himself into the bathroom with a bowl of spiteghetti and a whole carafe of coffee. Pulling his shirt off and dropping it in the tub, Clint haphazardly went between stuffing food in his face and dabbing iodine on his split skin and stitching himself back up by looking in the mirror. Gobs of bloody gauze and cotton in the handy dandy new bathroom trash can afterward.
"Thank you Jean-Pierre," Clint mutters as he drops the last of the cotton into the can and wraps himself back up. Spiteghetti gone and almost out of coffee, he wandered back into the kitchen to clean up. He had ops today and still had to get his practice in. A grumble shot toward his workbench and the betrayal there, he didn't have much time left before he had to get to work.
Getting dressed, he scrawled a note on the back of a receipt and left it pinned by a corner under the lava lamp.
'Spaghetti in the fridge'
Hey, thieving was hard work.
DAY 15: Later that mid-day
JP got the furniture moved in and noticed… the note that read: 'Spaghetti in the fridge'. A half grin eased onto the crazy Cajun's face and he went over and opened the fridge CAREFULLY cause… well there was a blue sploch on the counter that matched the blue that was stuck to his hand for like four days. This… this would take some finagling. "Vitale, we gonna be a while, but after this, we go pick up some Chinese food and pay em back. Wing Sing's pretty good."
Laying hands on the fridge his vision unfocused a bit getting a feel for all the ways it could be used. Finally JP stood all the way around the corner and willed the door to open on its own keeping himself out of the blast radius. He laid face up on the kitchen floor with his head in the fridge trying to see if anything under the bowl was rigged to pop like the squib under the beer. Neeewp. Standing up he found that… odd. There had to be a trick to this. He went for a fork and paused starting that process aaaaall over again. It was a lot of effort for a bowl of spaghetti that was absolutely in no way sabotaged.
JP's social life was complicated without human involvement.
Yeah. Day 15? Total win.
Before they headed out JP did one last thing, after determining that it was the workbench that smelled of burning. The f- Ah well. The same could be said of his garage at times. Who was he to judge when his business partner constantly made things smell of ozone. He rinsed his bowl out and put it away because he wasn't a barbarian and his mama raised him right AND… be cause it'd make Clint look in the fridge.
When all was said and done there was a beautiful black leather sectional and a legit dining room table that would seat four with chairs and a coffee table. JP took the crate because it was a way useful crate. He wanted the lava lamp but oddly left it exactly where it was in the room but on said new coffee table now. Why he didn't take it he explained to no one. He had his reasons. So pretty. That thing could hypnotize anyone for hours. But right now? Right now he had to go all the way to China town, get the kung pao, come back, put THAT in the fridge and get back to the garage.
Eventually, tired, fed, and remarkably well rested thanks to Vitale's gift there JP went back to the Garage and up to that big expanse that wasn't quite a home yet. It was an almost too quiet space and really in the end he reckoned it was the silence and the weird solitude he just wasn't used to from a large family to a prison, big family, and prison a couple more times… he's never really lived on his own before.
Huh.
He dropped his jacket on the back of the one chair present and then dropped down into the stolen, but thoroughly replaced chair he absconded with from Clint's place and pulled his knees up dragging the blanket Vitale left with him. The radiator would take a bit to heat up and frankly, trusting it was stiiiiiill on the questionable side.
On the upside of everything the radiator was noisy and that chair was really comfy. He had that. Once again the Mutant found himself remotely laying in wait. New York was a fucking noisy and often lonely town, but still there was room in it for a couple of jokers were one patient. Jean-Pierre was a very patient man when he wanted to be.
A leg hung over the arm of the chair and he let his awareness grab that room 's image from the window latch his skill held onto. Faint, but there. That room was sharp. They did good. He grinned to himself and fell asleep in the chair.
…until that roof started leaking on him.
sigh
Day…16ish?
Technically it was the next day when Clint finally got back to his apartment. Dragging ass and zombie trudging his way up the stairs. But he could smell things, again. Thea had made sure of that after she caught him favoring his side and chewed him out for not coming back to her sooner.
Her perfume was nice.
He could've done without the lecture.
He just wanted to go back to the apartment, which was honestly a new situation for him. He would have normally just crashed somewhere weird at HQ and let someone find his unconscious body somewhere inconvenient. How the heck did people manage this /commute/ shit? Ugh.
But…he wanted to see if his lava lamp was still there. Or the spaghetti.
Does that count as a second dinner date if he took it? I mean…I made him dinner, technically.
Clint almost smiled and dug deep to find the strength to shuffle the last set of stairs and up to his door, shoving his key home and turning the lock, Hawkeye pushed his door open…
…
…and stopped.
Well. The lava lamp was still there. But so was this really fucking nice leather sectional, which sure as shit didn't belong to him, and had tiny embroidered letters on it? G.D.?
Clint clenched his jaw and spun around, stomping back out of there and all the way down to the first floor again, to the landlord's 1A apartment. At 4am, he pounded on the door and waited before pounding on it again, much less politely than he had Pete's door, earlier.
Distant muttering eventually became a thing, which in all actuality was probably loud cursing as the door flung open and the spinster woman who managed his building answered in rollers and a bathrobe, looking pissed. She was 5'2 at best and smoked like a chimney. He was pretty sure her cat chainsmoked, too.
"What? What the hell could ya possibly need at 3 in the goddamn morning, Barton!?" She groused. Then primped subtly. "I told you, you're not my type. Go home and sleep it off."
Restraining a shudder, Clint shot back quickly. "I would go home, except you rented my place out, Martha! I didn't move out, you know. I just didn't have a lot of stuff."
Martha Johanson crossed har arms over her chest and glared back at Clint. "What the hell are you talkin' about? Yer paid up til next month, Barton. Read my lips: Go. Home.". And slammed the door in his face.
Clint reeled away from the door, moving his hand off the doorframe just in time. What the hell? If he was paid up, and Martha didn't rent his place out… that was…
A lightbulb went off in his head, the archer's mouth going slack and stormy eyes widened. He ran up the stairs full speed and took a breath before launching through the door again, stopping just inside to stare at the couch. You're kidding me.
Stupified, he let the door click shut behind him as he shuffled toward the couch and stood in front of it. G.D.
"God Damn…" he whispered, then exhaled a hysterical little flutter of a laugh, gripping the back of his neck in one hand, hip with the other. Well, shit. "Jean-Pierre…chere…" that flutter of a laugh twirled around inside his stomach in anxiety and…okay he was impressed. The blond archer rolled bonelessly and flopped down into the embrace of the couch. If it wanted to turn him purple or explode on him…let it. "Ohhhhh…" Clint groaned and relaxed, dropping his head back, letting out a deep sigh.
"Baby…you've outdone yourself," Clint mentions to the ceiling, his body relaxing, except for the twisting flutter in his stomach. Hungry? Maybe. More tired though. Smiling stupidly to himself while he plotted his reply. Time to find where the guy is slumming these days. Maybe actually find him…J.P. He had to find an impressive way to do it, though. Had to hold up his end of the game. Take it to the cajun man this time and off his own home turf.
Oh shit.
Clint sat bolt upright, his smile gone while he white knuckled the couch. Eyes wide. "Ohhhh no, no, no…" Barton jumped up as if the couch had burned him, and started to pace back and forth around the tiny living room swiftly, head down and hands on his hips, occasionally gripping the back of his neck with one while he chastises himself. "No-no-no-no. Damnit, Barton. You idiot. You can't start getting damn butterflies over this shit. You met the guy all of twice. Get your head out of your ass."
Sigh.
Day 16 (3:12 am): Gearhead Garage Apartment, Mutant Town
Cackling.
Jean-Pierre cracked an eye open when the light flipped on in Clint's apartment being still bound to the window through his mutant ability. Yes… yes he reckoned it was super creepy. How is one to be a superlative bank robber if one can't see what's going on inside the vault. Casing joints was his specialty. Still the super pissed look on his face was enough to entertain the crazy Cajun for the rest of the month.
One leg draped over the arm of the chair that used to be at the apartment in Bed-Stuy now replaces with the God Damn furniture helpfully embroidered GD. Suuuuuch fury. It was commendable. What it told JP…was that he knew how to get to that guy.
What he learned from this whole play out in his head was that someone needed to.
God he was tired. He pushed himself to his feet and carefully stepped around the piles of scrap lumber and nails and cords in his mare feet to go change out the back of un-frozen peas for his hand with the frozen one in the freezer.
Those poor overworked and underpaid peas.
"Oui. Oui, je l'ai fait, mon cher. J'ai seulement commencé à me surpasser." He sighed and rubbed his face fetching himself one of three glasses he owned that was left there. "Someone always watch' the watchers."
JP pushed the tap open and let the water run to get the rust colour out of the lines furrowing his brow when something dropped through the faucet and down the drain too fast to see what it was.
Huh. He was pretty certain he didn't get knocked so hard he was hallucinating. Double huh. Well if it was a bug that sucker was bigger than a nickel and definitely didn't belong up there.
He squint at the tap and tentatively extended one (now pale) blue hand with a glass under the tap and got a few rust flakes in there but it wasn't too bad. "Well… nothin that can' be cured by no coffee filter."(edited)
It was about that time that the drip in the wall started to become noticeable. JP's eyes narrowed. "Oh, tire-moi maintenant." He missed whatever came from the rest of the Clint Barton's All-Panic American Bandstand Special™ when he let go of the Brooklyn apartment window latch and grabbed a hold of the building water main to force the wheel around because his hand was in shit-shape to do it alone.
The drip…
…stopped with a rusted squeak.
He sighed. He was enjoying the fallout of his efforts too. Still, at least someone was having a good night.
Fuuuuuucking Mutant Town dilapidated infrastructure.
He abandoned his hopes of a glass of water, grabbed a beer instead murmuring, "Well leas' we have you." He shuffled back over to the armchair and folded himself into the only soft thing to sleep on even though it didn't much fit him. His car was downstairs and it was cold. The blanket was pulled up and he took a drink, calloused fingers setting the bottle aside near him. The blanket his teammates got him was pulled up and and he went to fall back asleep.
And the skylight started to drip on him. "Vous aussi?!" He wiped his forehead glaring at the ceiling, flipped it off and pulled the blanket back over his head, flapped a hand around, and found a corner of the vinyl tarp to drag over himself and the chair like a lazy man's makeshift tent.
He could deal with this bullshit at 7 when he got up.
Yup. Welcome to Mutant Town. Still wet, but frog free.