Some days, a man just can't catch a break. [Open, tagging Clint and Verity]

[smartass_captain]

New York circa 2013 isn't such a bad place, Jim has decided. There's so much to take in and watch that he's certain he could be kept busy for months on end just trying to learn everything he could. Clint had explained currency to him today--Jim knew what it was, just not how it all divvied up. He'd done a bit of research on a clunky old machine Clint had told him the name of and Jim had subsequently forgotten. Some kind of ancient PADD device on an obsolete web browser.

Some girl had shown up hassling Clint about something or another a while ago, and the archer had assured Jim he wouldn't be gone long and left. She was too young for Jim to pay much attention to, and Clint didn't need Jim tagging along for every babysitting job he ended up getting drug off to. Or it was a neighbor asking him about a leak in their ceiling, in which case Jim was just a jerk.

Wooden stairs creaked in protest when Jim finally left the apartment building, being careful to lock up with the spare key he'd gotten from Clint that was stowed safely in the pocket of his purple sweatshirt he was borrowing. Eggs again for the third day in a row didn't seem appealing, and Clint had given him a bit of money, so Jim is heading down to the corner to grab a bite of whatever awesome smelling food was being sold by the vendor he'd been watching from the window for three days now.

"Bro, look! At the corner by the falafel stand bro!"

There, at the corner, was a scruffy short haired blond in a purple sweatshirt and sweatpants, fumbling in his pocket for the correct change to pay for his order. Truly, an easier target would never happen. He didn't even look like he'd had his morning coffee yet. (Jim hadn't). The next thing Jim knows, his delicious smelling food is strewn on the street as a couple thugs in tracksuits drag Jim off into an alley trying to beat the shit out of him.

"What the hell?!" That was his breakfast, assholes!

Comments

Aw, history...

[aw_hawkguy]

While Jim and Verity are exploring the Nest of the Hawk, Clint is giving a statement to the nice officer, and handing over the suspects. With that done, he makes his way upstairs just in time to hear the question about bandages on his way in the door.

"Kitchen first aid kit's in the island, left cupboard, bottom shelf. There's also one under the sofa, and in the bottom-left cabinet of the entertainment center." He's Hawkguy, of course there's several first-aid kits. All fairly fresh, too.

It's not so much the skirt as the deep-v-neck.

[brave_heart_verity]

"Oh I will show you the pictures just as soon as Clint brings back my phone," she promises. "He wore a headband back then too. But it was the seventies." Clint really should be a lot older than Verity. Like a lot older. Being dead a half-dozen times has done wonderful things for his complexion.

"Thanks." She'll check the kitchen one since she's in the kitchen. Yes, she's checking the dates on things before using any of it. "Everything settled with the cops? And do you have any clean dishes or should I assume everything needs washing?"

Let's be honest, she's assuming everything needs washing anyway.

Jim would make that look good and you both know it.

[smartass_captain]

"You have pictures?" Oh hell yes. Yes a thousand times. Sorry, Clint. It's really nothing against you because you are the coolest guy but Jim needs to see this. What's a little embarrassment between friends right?

"The suits didn't give you a hard time did they?" You haven't even met this world and time's cops, Jim. Stop acting like they're horrible jerks. Jim pulls up the sleeve on his left arm, hisses and lets it fall again. Hm.

"Hey...Verity? You're not gonna like toss me out a window if I take this off so you can get at my arm without wrecking his clothes, are you?" Is he going to have to hold a towel over his chest, too, Verity? He doesn't want her to run off or get mad though. Definitely not when she's about to be prodding at sore areas.

It *would* help cover his contractual prerogative to rip his shirt once an episode.

[aw_hawkguy]

"Aw, you're tellin' him about the Hawkskirt? Man, I'm never gonna live that down," Clint sighs. "The, uh, the police might call you sometime in the next few days, Verity, ask you for a statement. I didn't tell 'em Jim was there, because, well, Nexus? But these guys have pretty long rap sheets, assault's not hard to believe. Stuff's clean, by the way."

At the rate he goes through bandages, does Verity think they have time to get old? She probably doesn't want to think about why they're all in low cabinets, either.

Remembering, Clint digs out Verity's phone to hand it back. "Right, this's yours. I think you got a text while I was holding it, I almost checked."

Hey, I'm not saying either of them would look bad in it.

[brave_heart_verity]

She's seen the state of his apartment. She's taking nothing for granted. But she is taking her phone back and pocketing it without even checking the message. It can wait. "Thanks. I'm not saying it was a bad look. It was... daring. Very forward-thinking. Guys in skirts is a thing now."

Jim gets a confused look. "Why would I get upset if you take your shirt off? It's not like I've never seen a human body before." Seen yes. Touched not so much.

Hey, guess what there is now? There's coffee! Everybody can rejoice. Clint can pour. Verity's going to have her hands full.

The mask is a bit much though.

[smartass_captain]

"Because earlier I nudged you to get your attention and you nearly took off?" At..at least Jim is honest here? He's just as confused as she is. He's not sure what the 'right answer' is around Verity. But since he has permission, he'll carefully shimmy out of the sweatshirt he'd borrowed from Clint.

Ow, ow. Elbow caught on the fabric. Yeah, one of the bandages on the back of his arm is suspiciously wet, it's not gonna be pretty. But it will be even less pretty if it gets infected. At least only one of them burst?

Jim glances back at Verity, and this time his casual demeanor is just the tiniest bits forced. "What's the damage, doc?"

Coffee would be a godsend. And pastries, once Jim is cleaned up a bit.

Clint did just fine with the mask (that's what he tells himself).

[aw_hawkguy]

If Verity's sure she wants to be the one handling bandages and stuff, then sure, Clint can pour. Coffee for everybody. "Eh, I wasn't really thinking forward, mostly I was just thinking movement. It was breezy and didn't bind up when I needed to move. Reed wasn't just handing out the unstable molecules yet."

Masks are a necessary evil. That Goliath shoulders-only shirt... just evil.

[brave_heart_verity]

She's sure. It's not pleasant, but she can do this.

"You surprised me. And I wasn't that bad." The 'right' answer? She's not sure there is one. But for right now, the right answer is for him to sit down and keep still. She sits next to him, resting a hand on his shoulder and turning him a bit so the light is better before she peels off the bandage.

"Well, it's not pretty, but I think you'll be fine. But be more careful, they'll get infected if you keep popping them open like this." Cleaning first, then antibiotic spray. "And if you're really good, maybe Clint will tell you about when he was Goliath."

Two of her favorite things are sassing Clint and story time.

[smartass_captain]

A light might not be a bad idea. It was already windy out that morning (hence the need for sweatshirts) but now it's a right downpour outside. A shame really, because it means less people watching for Jim. Also a shame because the cops had fetched the tracksuit goons already.

Jim can be a good patient when he wants to be. And right now he so wants to be done with this so he can have coffee and food. So he is sitting quite still, gritting his teeth at the sharp sting of the disinfectant spray on his raw burned skin. "Yeah, well. wasn't exactly trying to do it."

Clint gets a short glance and a questioning look. See, the thing is, Jim is as clueless about superhero stuff as they are about Starfleet. And, you know, without that context...
"That sounds suspiciously like your stripper name." Not that that's a bad thing if it is. Just...not what Jim was expecting from his Iowa brother.

[aw_hawkguy]

Aw, Verity. You're getting a look of reproach, now. "Not a stripper name. Although I did wreck some clothes with it." Wait. That sounds even worse, give him a moment to facepalm and get some coffee in him.

Okay. "Goliath was a name another Avenger went by. He had this gas that could make him grow, like, giant-sized, and he'd get all strong and tough, proportionally speaking. And then he got out of it for a while, and during a fight my bow broke, and I thought I'd try a new thing. Have an actual power instead of just bein' the 'trick arrows' guy." There, that explains it.

Oh, wait, costume, crap. "In my defense, it was the late sixties, nobody knew how to dress. Some people couldn't even get naked right."

[brave_heart_verity]

In her defense, she didn't even bring up that costume. The look gets a scrunched-nosed one in return.

She's almost done, just a bandage now, taped carefully and well away from the blisters. "There you go," she murmurs, not wanting to interrupt story time. "Do you need help putting the shirt back on?" It wouldn't be good if he got cold.

"There are right and wrong ways to be naked?" This is news to her. She's never thought about it much.

[smartass_captain]

"I dunno, jumping off a building and chucking arrows at guys with your bare hands seems pretty legit to me." 'Superhero' is a safer phrasing than 'super soldier' is in Jim's head, so that's what he's going with. Never mind that jumping thirty meters and shit was definitely a Khan thing. Everything's fine. Plus, learning about your new friends!

He will accept the help from Verity, as he doesn't have the best range of motion in his left arm with all the taping and whatnot.

"Sure. There's naked and then there's naked. One's sexy, the other is unwashed, greasy, and disgusting." Of course Jim would be the one to have his doctorate in the subtle variances of naked.

[aw_hawkguy]

"Well, I hadn't had as much practice, then. Hadn't trained as much with Cap, either, which makes a difference." Surely it wasn't thirty meters? Just a third-floor fire escape, and the top of the dumpster was springy, otherwise he'd've broken his legs landing (or aimed for a goon).

"Ugh, there's a reason that mind-control hippie compound we broke up didn't make the news."

[brave_heart_verity]

Is getting dressed as fun for Jim as getting undressed? (Probably not.)

"Mind-control hippies? That seems contradictory. I thought hippies were all about free thought and free love and free cable."

Verity will resist the urge to start cleaning Clint's apartment, and will only clean up the mess she made. Then she'll clean up herself, and put away the first aid kit. And then? Pastries! They each get a box at random with a fork and plate and well Clint probably doesn't have napkins so paper towels will have to do.

[smartass_captain]

Never. Okay well, maybe the first time he got to put on his Starfleet gold. Yeah that's...that's probably the only time.

"The point is, that's a level of naked no man, woman, or other should ever have to see." Or smell. Or anything, really. "It's enough to make you want to take a ten day shower just to feel some semblance of clean again."

Hell yes pastries! Jim pulls his tossed box open eagerly before poking around in it. "Hm. You want this strawberry danish thing, Verity? Clint? Looks awesome, but I'm allergic." Jim makes a face. He's actually allergic to lots of things. Which often makes enjoying food difficult. Luckily there's more stuff in here than Jim can ever hope to name, so he'll find more than enough that's safe to eat.

"So." Jim takes a sip of coffee and damn this verse is like the best at coffee. Jim wants to take them back to the ship with him with their magic coffee device because seriously. This is amazing. Oh wait he was saying something. "My turn for story time? Hell I figure since I'm not half dead on a couch somewhere, th'least I can do is tell you guys some stuff you'd wanna know."

[aw_hawkguy]

"Well, it was one mind-control guy using a commune as a front. It's both hard and weird to try to subdue muddy, naked people without hurting 'em. And it's breakfast, so I'm gonna stop talking about this." He takes a sip of coffee.

His eyes widen. He gives his cup a double-take, swallows, looks to Verity. "Oh, my god, what did you do to my coffee? This is incredible!"

Oh, but stories. "Yeah, sure, shoot." Clint will be over here, mostly ears, but also a mouth, because pastries and Heaven's Own Drip Perk.

These notes are real. I actually have notes.

[brave_heart_verity]

"This is probably going to sound lame but tell us about space." Space is a good place for stories.

Verity will give Clint first dibs on the danish, but since he's busy not thinking about the hippies she'll happily take it. And she's making a note: no strawberries for Jim. She may not be keen on touchy-feelies, but she's very careful about allergens and cross-contamination and that's almost like a fair trade except not really.

And she's trying not to smirk too much about how much they're enjoying the coffee. Maybe she'll teach them later. After stories.

I'm the same way, tbh.

[smartass_captain]

Jim does take another moment to just relish the god-coffee Verity has made for them. He'll explain replicators later and then she will understand because replicated food is like if cafeteria food and hospital food had a disappointing drunk baby that you had to eat. Nutritious, but library paste probably has better flavor. Don't ever explain it to Jim, make him into your coffeeslave as long as you can Verity.

There's a sort of shift in his posture that happens when Verity asks him about space. It's like Jim was remembering himself. His posture is straighter, more confident. Captain James T Kirk is on duty, for the time being. He can still be Captain Kirk while eating a spiced apple muffin.

"The biggest thing to keep in mind is warp-core technology. With it, we are able to utilize faster than light travel by taking effectively shortcuts through time and space. Starfleet has launched a five year exploratory mission that the Enterprise, my crew, has the honor of taking on. Our mission? To explore new worlds, encounter new life and observe whenever possible." There's less joking and much less swearing from Jim while he talks about space.

"Such a mission to explore deep space has not ever been attempted by Starfleet." At that Jim beams a bit with pride. His crew, his family were going where no man had gone before.

That metaphor, oh god.

[aw_hawkguy]

Clint nods thoughtfully, nursing his coffee (wow) and making inroads on--is that an apple fritter? Not anymore. "Found anyone friendly?" he asks, because he's been on a few space missions himself, and for what it's worth, he'd rather find space-friends than all the Kree on Hala.

Really not appealing. Probably very accurate.

[brave_heart_verity]

She had an MRE once. On a dare. She's never let herself get drunk enough to play those games again. Replicators will not be her friend.

The shift in Jim's posture doesn't go unnoticed. Verity thinks it's a good sign; he must be feeling better. She's more relaxed too, not as constantly on guard.

"That sounds amazing." She can't hide that she's a little envious, and honestly she doesn't really try. Having a purpose would be nice. "Are there a lot of non-Terran cultures where you're from?"

Now imagine eating that for 5 years straight.

[smartass_captain]

"Yeah. My first officer is Vulcan. Well, half. They're a crazy intelligent race of touch-telepaths who operate solely on logic. It's as irritating as it sounds." Still, Jim sounds very fond even as he gripes. "They're also endangered now because of.." Wow. That was gonna be...a long story. A long story culminating into Jim being dead. "Some stuff that may have been the major reason I became the youngest captain in Starfleet record."

"But there's plenty of planets in the Federation. We try to keep things level--species with mind altering pheromones or things like that have to go through some admittedly kind of harsh hoops to get into Starfleet, but it's a public safety thing more than anything. Hell I was born in space."

Jim leans over and peers into Clint's box while he's talking, and steals what looks to be a chocolate chip cookie from it. Clint has plenty more in there and Jim's box was sadly cookie-free. Though considering he has coffee cake and pound cake in his, well that just means he pours himself another mug of coffee.

"You said you've been t'space before, right?" Jim points at Clint after a long sip. "No pointy eared robots, blue antennaed guys or green skinned pheromone spewing mind controllers?" He's curious as to how different this universe's galaxy is. Or..you know. Maybe they were looking in different places is all. Space was a big damn place.

"Space, the... ah, fuck it, let's go get a burger."

[aw_hawkguy]

Jim's welcome to cookies; it's share and share alike. "Uh, well, there's blue guys and green guys," he admits, "and they hate each other. The Kree and the Skrulls; they had a war, Earth got caught in the middle, we ended it for 'em. Sometimes, one side or the other thinks it'd be a good idea to invade, and we have to fight 'em off."

He takes a sip of coffee and chuckles, admitting, "you're not gonna believe this, but I actually died fighting 'em off, one time." Oh, right. Coffee. Take a big drink of coffee, it's too early for beer.

https://youtu.be/RrxlbLVcpqI

[brave_heart_verity]

"Youngest captain and you get the first deep-space mission? You must be really good at it." She's not entirely sure what his job is besides making sure everyone else is doing their jobs, but that's pretty important. Otherwise, it might all be pillow fights and naptime and nothing would ever get explored.

Verity has no interesting "so this one time I ended up dead" stories and is very glad of that. Being as she's the only one in the room with that privilege, it seems to have fallen to her to be the comforter. This is disturbing both in its unfamiliarity and its genderedness. But here Clint, have a little pat on the arm.

Time to change the subject. "Skrulls are the shapeshifters, right?"

Shore Leave is a beautiful thing indeed.

[smartass_captain]

"Well, yeah you could say that." Jim Kirk is a pillar of modesty. "Pretty sure my CMO and first officer would disagree though." Bones had a habit of telling Jim that what he was really good at was putting himself in harm's way to try and save his crew.

"Shit, was that the fire thing?" Jim remembers Clint saying he couldn't handle fire because he'd died one time. "If that's a different event I'm gonna feel really bad in like a second here. Been there, done that and I couldn't imagine dealing with it again." Jim stares down at his half eaten slice of pound cake. He seems to have deflated back into just Jim again. Jim has a lot more weaknesses than Captain Kirk does. Something most super hero types probably understand pretty well.

He gives a long look Clint's way, then toward Verity. He doesn't know what all she's suffered through, but knows that she had mentioned being cursed too. "How are you sane? Either of you?" Jim suspects they may not be. He sure as hell doesn't feel like he is, most of the time.

http://i51.tinypic.com/2djt288.jpg

[aw_hawkguy]

"There, uh, was fire that time, yeah," Clint admits. He's quick to move on to Verity's question, though. "Yeah, Skrulls, shapeshifters. The Kree infected 'em with something, form-locked 'em for years. Fixing that helped end the war. Then one day, we get crazy religious-zealot Skrulls coming down, shot-up on superhuman DNA to copy people's powers. That's gratitude."

And that probably answers Jim's question, too. It's not whether Clint is sane, it's that the universe is crazy.