Iowa Bros in Space! The Spacening. Starring James T Kirk and Clinton Barton

[smartass_captain]

Fighting with Verity had done something for Jim despite all the vitriolic feeling swimming around his system. It had made him determined to go home. It wasn't as though he couldn't anymore. He knew exactly where the doorway leading back to the Enterprise stood. It was just...making himself open the door. Jim stands in the long hallway lined with doors to other worlds, staring intently at the 'Caution: Radiation risk' etched into the glass of his world's door. Shaking fingers reached for it, to push it open. Retracted.

He couldn't do this. No, bullshit. He was Jim Kirk, he could open a stupid door. Just. Not at the moment. Apparently. Jim shouts a string of fluent Orion curses at the door before stalking back off into the Nexus. To the plain door with the sideways 8 on it that leads to CLint's world. He pulls up a chair and waits. Clint would come sooner or later. He'd ask him to come with. Been meaning to show him around the ship anyway, might as well do it now.

Why couldn't his time have comms anyway? Jim smacks the back of his head against the wall while he waits, idly replaying the argument between himself and Verity in his head. What better way to kill time than to hate yourself?

Comments

[brave_heart_verity]

She doesn't need them to agree with what she did. She'd like them to accept that she's made her choice. No more fighting. There's no more fight in her. She's no hero, not like them, and she has nothing left to fight for.

"Me too." She'll lean on Jim if he lets her, letting herself be shuffled around. "...where were you guys and what happened to Clint?"

[aw_hawkguy]

"We went to a bar," Clint explains, "where the little blue guys and the big green guys don't like getting beaten at their own hustle." Closing the Nexus behind them, he goes to open the door into his apartment. It looks like Barney's out flirting with the neighbor again. "Good news, though, space medicine is awesome."

[smartass_captain]

Goddammit Clint. They weren't going to tell Verity about the barfight. You putz. Jim is already giving him a look from the safety of over Verity's head. Seriously, that is the worst way to open a story ever.

"I took your advice," Jim clarifies. "And asked Clint to come with me back to the ship. So...so I wasn't using the door alone. We were near a star base, so the plan was to go out for a few drinks and relax." Truth, all truth. That was the plan.

[brave_heart_verity]

Oh, Jim. She doesn't need to be told what happens next. She knows you both.

"Well. So long as you're okay." That's the only important thing right now. It would always be the most important thing, but today she doesn't even care about the rest of it. "So they have Kree and Skrulls too?"

[aw_hawkguy]

"Kinda. The kree guys had white hair and little doodleboppers comin' outta their foreheads, though." Clint gets out his laptop and gets it booting up (he has a lot of extensions). "Also, I got Jim's doctor to believe this place is real, so that's something."

He hoists a brow Jim's way--an unspoken, "do you wanna tell her, or should I?"

[smartass_captain]

"Andorian." Jim clarifies again. "I still never got to do my strip tease. He was getting into it too." He heaves a sigh and pulls Verity away from him gently, his teasing smile already back in place.

"Not that you're not gorgeous, Ver, but you should have seen this guy. Unf." He gives her the eyebrow raise. Yeah, that good looking. "Oh, yeah. Bones knows about this place now, which is pretty neat. He didn't take it too well when he found out Clint has antibodies in him from 2013 viruses and germs."

There's a nervous sort of chuckle as he licks at his lips. He knows, Clint. This si still just really wierd.

"Or...when he got a blood sample off Clint."

[brave_heart_verity]

She can't help but roll her eyes. "I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding someone willing and able to enjoy the show. Clint knows a lot of pretty people, have him take you to the next Avengers picnic."

They really are ridiculously pretty, the heroic set. It's just not fair. Maybe it's for the best she can't introduce him to Loki. She'd never see either one of them again.

"Let me guess, Clint: you're half Kree and half Atlantean and half centaur?" She can tease and make coffee at the same time. It's better than thinking.

[aw_hawkguy]

"Weirder. I'm Jim's great-something grandpa." He grins, but he's not teasing.

[smartass_captain]

"And now I'm really really glad I got that weird ass vibe from you, or I'd have tried something that we'd both be regretting right now." Jim sighs, squeezing his eyes shut in mock pain.

He's chuckling a moment later.

"Bones just about shat a warp core when he saw the lab results."

[brave_heart_verity]

She stops to think about that. Literally stops with a scoop of coffee halfway from the bag to the machine, and just stands there for a minute, thinking about it.

Welp. "That explains a lot."

[aw_hawkguy]

Clint is enjoying seeing Verity stuck like that. It's kinda funny. "We're pretty sure it's some alternate-universe Clint Barton. Not, like, me-me."

Ooh, hey, the computer's booted up, time to plug in a flash drive and see what's on it.

[smartass_captain]

"Its enough generations out where it's not like you're my dad or some shit. It's fine." Jim rolls his eyes. "As far as I'm concerned, I picked up a new brother today." He snorts that last bit out with a shake of his head.

"Hell of a way to end a perfectly ordinary night out." Because all perfectly normal nights out end in fights, innuendo, and hyposprays.

[brave_heart_verity]

"At least it was good news." She glances over at the computer, then looks down at the coffee preparations. There's not much to do but watch it brew, but that is so much better than seeing the plans to destroy countless other worlds full of people, and the equations ending in the probability of it not working someday. She understands enough of it to understand what's happening. That's enough.

[aw_hawkguy]

Clint starts reading and blows out a sigh. Then something catches his eye, and he opens another file, and another, and another, skimming rapidly through them before swearing softly. "I'm gonna hafta get the whole team in on this. Damn it, guys, why didn't you tell us?"

[smartass_captain]

Jim stays out of the conversation this time, watching intently from where he's leaning against a counter.

If there was something he could do, they would ask him. He didn't want to overstep any boundaries by demanding to help too. Because that had gone so well earlier.

He shifts his gaze between Clint and Verity slowly. This looks a lot worse than he thought though.

[brave_heart_verity]

"Because they know what you'll all do when you find out?"

She'll pour their coffee when it's brewed, fixing it the way they each like, but her hands are starting to shake a little. "Jim, you're good at science stuff. Can you help Clint? Please?" Save your brother, Jim.

[aw_hawkguy]

"You said these files are from two years in the future? Then they've known about the problem for a while--Reed and Tony and their little club." He sighs, taking the coffee with a murmured thanks, swiping a hand through his hair as he reads.

"I thought those guys broke up after shooting Hulk into space turned out so great. And they had Steve come in to be their conscience until they booted him for being their conscience--this is crazy!"

Jim. Jim could maybe help. "You said you're already from an alternate universe, think you could help us figure out how to keep two from crashin' into each other?"

[smartass_captain]

"Hey wait. Isn't Tony supposed to be part of your group?" Jim remembers that name. He couldn't turn a goddamn tv on staying with Clint without hearing about something or another concerning Tony Stark and his company.

Jim takes his coffee with a quiet, thanks, before moving closer to get a better look at the screen. Coffee is then set down on the counter as he pulls Verity back into his left arm without even looking down at her and holds her head against his shoulder. All while never dropping his Captain Face.

Verity's already losing her world. CLint's got about two years before his goes next. Jim just fucking found out he had more family, he's not about to go losing it already.

"Depends on what is happening. Do I know how to stop a giant seismic drill that turns planets into swiss cheese? Absolutely. Anything else? Not so much. Upside, I don't believe in no-win scenarios. We'll figure this out." They have to. It's either figure it out or lose another planet.

"Are all of the versions of your world about to go pop? Because seriously that shit is messed up. CLint's might not even go. We have whole planets destroyed or around that weren't in whatever original reality Spock came from. Old Spock." He's still holding Verity to him while he stares down at the screen.

"Depending on how much has changed from her world to yours, Clint....I don't know if the problem will even be the same as hers is. Her bringing you those drives could have already changed something."

[brave_heart_verity]

"Tony Stark is an Avenger. One of the founding members," she explains quietly. "Also an alcoholic and a fan of terrorizing people into registering their powers with the government to 'keep people safe'. I'm not hugely surprised he's willing to blow up other planets. I wonder if this is why Valeria's so pissed at her dad..."

Verity leans against Jim with a little sigh. It's nice to have a friend to be strong for her right now. She listens to the conversation without much to contribute. Everything useful is, she thinks, in those files. She has a far more personal knowledge of what happens when Doom goes time-traveling, but she hasn't read far enough to realize his part in this.

"If it's that easy, I will take the win." On the other hand, for all she knows, her coming here has brought the incursions with her like a contagion. "Does it say how they started, Clint?"

[aw_hawkguy]

"Yeah. It looks like Tony, Reed, some'a the smart guys, and... Namor? For some reason. Got their little club back together and didn't tell anybody about this until... a fleet of pretty much all the aliens came to wreck Earth and save the universe? Seriously?" He groans and grumbles, thinking dire things about if the Kree kill him again.

"Uh..." He digs through the files. "It looks like... the Beyonder's got something to do with it. Destroying all the universes as... an experiment?" More skimming. "Beyonders, plural? Aww." Then he remembers Jim and maybe Verity don't know who that is. "Sorry, he was a guy who pulled a bunch'a good guys and bad guys to another world a couple times, to fight it out and see which one was stronger. Good or evil, I mean."

[smartass_captain]

Jim's entire face has tightened, his lips drawn into a thin line as he gnaws at the bottom one still deep in thought. Group of scientists make a scientist club that pisses off pretty much every other race in the galaxy?

That doesn't sound very heroic.

"Destroying universes as an experiment? To learn what exactly?" Jim glares down at the computer. "To see if someone can stop him? Because I've got a dick punch with that guy's name on it if that's seriously the reason. That's not how science fucking works." He's stewing hard, now.

"Any way to trick that guy into getting stuck in a different world and leaving his sorry ass there? How the fuck is he even destroying them this is bullshit."

[brave_heart_verity]

"To see what comes next." She gives a little shrug. "To see if new universes will be born out of the remains of the old, to see how many, how they might diverge and when... It would be interesting if there weren't so many deaths required."

She's not going to try to defend the people with the secrets because they clearly didn't do a good job with it. "Didn't Namor go Phoenix-crazy a couple of years ago?"

[aw_hawkguy]

Clint gives a shiver. "Hell. The Phoenix, yeah." He had a really bad time with the Phoenix, personally. Emma Frost set him on fire with her mind and kept him that way, maybe alive, maybe not, for who-the-hell-knew-how-long. "That, uh, was just last year, for me." Not long before he moved into this place, in fact.

"But yeah, Namor flooded Wakanda--so how the hell do he and T'Challa sit down at the same table, much less go in together on all this?" Clint is scratching his head again. "Okay, it looks like... part of the group gave up on saving the world, right at the end, and started work on a life raft to carry the best and brightest and also them through whatever happens. And part of the group... teamed up with Doom? To go try to kill the Beyonders?" He sighs. That's not going to be a popular option.

[smartass_captain]

"Okay but...how are they destroying planets. How is...whoever is doing this...getting worlds to collide. Or explode or whatever he's doing." Jim doesn't know who these people are. What they're capable of.

What he does know is that barring any major timeline changes Verity may have set in motion here, the countdown is two years to save Clint's world. Before that goes up too and Jim just moves both of them onto the Enterprise where alternate realities seem to be more stable.

"Find that guy and kick his ass. Or take a planetary core plasma drill and blow his planet up first with it. Or....fuck, I don't know, give him something else to do with his goddamn boredom."

[brave_heart_verity]

The details of what happened with the Phoenix Five are the kinds of things that don't get talked about on the news, but she can recognize that "I don't want to talk about it" tone of voice. She'll lean down to give Clint a hug.

"How it starts seems to be the more important question," she points out quietly. "Can we focus on that?" Going and destroying other planets doesn't seem like much of a solution to her.