alive
"So? Are you involved in some kind of Stark death battle?" Kate wants to know, when Clint comes home instead of setting up camp in Tony's beacon of self-importance.
"Not yet," Clint says, because there's no point in tempting fate by saying no. Or at least, no point in tempting it in major ways. "Maybe I should get cactuses," he says, eyeing the pots on his kitchen counter and window sill. The soil in them is dry and cracked. Go with native conditions is the suggestion he usually gets and the native condition when he gets called away is neglect and abandonment.
Lucky's been...lucky so far, since the kids down the hall like him and will walk him and feed him and make sure he has water at the exorbitant rate of a dollar per Kate-unavailable day. No one had the same sympathy for his spider plant or rhododendron or the kitchen herbs from the grow-your-own kit.
The empty pots and dry stalks sticking out of them are too grim to just leave empty. The cost of hearing things talk was that their lives took on a crazy weight. Clint could sort of remember not giving a crap about dead parsley, once.
"You'll just over water them," Kate tells him, still on the cactuses. Not really giving the idea a proper chance. "Just get rid of the damn pots and get. I don't know. Another dog."
Lucky whines in protest and Clint ignores Kate and keeps surveying his kitchen counter. Says, "Something low maintenance and hardy," and pats Lucky, scratching his ears until he pants, "Yahyahyahyah." in support. Or encouragement. Whichever.
"Okay," Kate says, sitting on his couch watching his laserdiscs and eating food from his fridge and reading a magazine, all at the same time, "I'm going then. Call me if New York is about to be swallowed or something, but I didn't sign up to watch your dog."
New York is pretty much always about to be swallowed by something, but Clint picks bits of dead basil out of a pot and flicks the pieces into the sink. "Hah," he says, "You don't sign up. You get sucked in."
"I signed up," Kate says, tossing her magazine aside as she gets up to grab her things. A few minutes later she kicks her way out of his apartment.
"Call me," Clint yells after her, sticking his head out into the hall "I have an Aveng-- cell phone now."
Even from down the hall he can hear her snort in response. "Are you sure you can handle anything that's not attached to your wall by a cable?"
-----
Tony, according to his book, is On Active Status. The book's become more sophisticated as Clint got older, the illustrations becoming less childish and morphing slowly into technical diagrams and maps, but not quite disappearing. Tony is a detailed little drawing in suit and tie and carrying a briefcase, Stark Tower a page border.
"I can't tell," Clint tells Lucky, "if I'm supposed to advise him or work with him." At least Active Status means Tony's not about to drag him on some kind of new kid quest of doom. Not that there isn't usually another quest of doom just around the corner anyway.
Lucky barks, "Advise!" but Lucky latches onto random words and repeats them as conversation. He'd be terrible if he was human and at a cocktail party, but as a dog he's the best. Clint feeds him a piece of bread from his sandwich.
"Advise? Hah! That know it all," he says, "You try telling him anything," and tosses Lucky another piece of sandwich. Lucky spits out the bit of tomato that snuck in by accident, then stares woefully at it where it lies on the floor and sticks his tongue out repeatedly, like he thinks it's foul. "Everyone's got problems," Clint tells him, around his own mouthful of sandwich.
Lucky whines. Clint tries to feed him more tomato, to see if he'll do the tongue thing again, but this time Lucky sniffs cautiously and sneezes, "Yuck."
-----
"I don't know what you're so grouchy about," Tony says the next time Clint comes grumping around, "It's like everything is JARVIS now. I had this conversation with Steve's motorcycle. Oh man, you do not want to hear what Cap gets up to on his downtime."
It's Clint's cue to ask what Cap gets up to on his downtime, but he doesn't take it. Tony gives him a couple of seconds to get with the program then shrugs and goes on.
"Anyway," he says, "What did they give me you for, anyway? Are you like--" it's awkward to finish because Clint clearly sees where he's going with it and glares. "Like my Coulson?" he ends anyway, and grimaces a little so Clint will know that he knows that it's awkward. "Because you've got the buzzkill thing going pretty good."
"I'm not Coulson," Clint says, his voice flat. "And I'm pretty sure They--" Tony can hear the capital, "gave me you."
He means saddled me with. Tony can tell by the way Clint doesn't sound like he thinks Tony is a prize.
"Just--Don't screw with anything, Tony." Clint says it with more than a hint of tired warning. Tony can just feel the wonderment dripping off him.
"Are you about to give me a speech on magical ethics?" he asks, tilting his head curiously. He'd like to hear that from Clint, actually. It would be sort of surreal, and probably filled with things he could bring up again later, when Clint inevitably contradicted himself. "Is it going to be like Bruce's speeches on scientific ethics? By which I mean, hypocritical?"
"No," Clint says, eyeing him, "You made a promise. You fuck it up, it's on you." But then he winces, just a little, and it's pretty obvious that Clint is foreseeing serious, wider-ranging than on you repercussions to his fucking up whatever it is Clint thinks he's going to fuck up.
"You think I'm going to do something stupid," Tony says, "But you know everything I touch has been a rousing success, so I don't know what the hell your problem is."
Clint regards him with a steady, even look. The corner of his mouth twitches, but not into a smile. More like he has a jumpy nerve.
"I don't need a baby sitter," Tony tells him, in case that's what he's worried about, "You should talk to my coffee machine. He--uh. She--"
"It," Clint supplies, rolling his eyes.
"Well, JARVIS is a he." It just seemed rude to go around it-ing people. Things. Stuff that talks. Tony doesn't explain, but Clint's twitching has turned into an amused smile. It says you rookie all over it.
"Uh-huh," Clint says, but doubtfully. Like he thinks he knows JARVIS better than Tony.
"You've been talking to my computer, haven't you?" he asks, "All this time." It's not a comforting thought.
Clint's smile turns into a smooth, obnoxious smirk. He doesn't answer either way. "So," he says, smugly, "Cap's bike?"
-----
"Happy happy happy happy," Lucky pants as he trots along by Clint's side, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. It's pretty warm out for wearing a fur coat, but Lucky doesn't seem fazed, his tail swinging in time to his narration.
Walks are the best.
Around the corner and two blocks down is a hole-in-the-wall grocery that puts out a water bowl for dogs. Clint has suspicions about the old lady who runs the place, but he's kept it to himself. Definitely hasn't shared the idea with Kate, who thinks he sees wizards everywhere.
"It's a high wizard density area," Clint tells Lucky, who's busy slobbering water, "What does she know?"
"Density!" Lucky suggests, with a distracted wag, clearly busy with other things, then licks his nose and goes back to "Happy!"
"Happy happy," Clint agrees, swinging the clip end of the lead lazily as Lucky finishes then crosses the sidewalk to sniff at a tree and make offended whuffing noises on the exhale. Like he's insulted by whatever he smells there.
Then he turns and lifts his leg.
"Aw, geez," Clint says, "Sorry, tree."
There's no breeze, but the tree's leaves rustle. (Trees understand,) it says, sounding resigned.
"Us mammals are disgusting," Clint says, even though this tree is a whole lot friendlier than the one by the subway entrance and has never suggested such a thing. It's laughter sounds like bark scraping. Dry.
(Price of living in the city,) it says, as Clint frowns at Lucky's oblivious return to sniffing and then to circling.
"Tell me about it," Clint says, and then, noticing someone coming out of the grocery has stopped to watch him talk to the tree, covers with, "The hell, dog? You think I'm made of plastic bags?"
-----
"Okay," Tony says, cupping his hand over the phone. Clint is the most unsupportive whatever the hell it is he's supposed to be, mostly just coming over to float uncharitable allusions and give Tony suspicious, warning looks. Clint's going to love this. "I have some questions."
"You?" Clint asks doubtfully, sounding muffled and distracted. Like he's busy with something. There's the sound of clattering. Dishes or something. Domestic Hawkeye is a weird image so Tony tries to avoid processing it too much. "Alright," Clint says, and there's a clang, "Shoot."
"Alright. So. This robot--"
"What did it want?"
"What? Nothing." Tony glances across his work room and drops his voice to a whisper, "I built it last year. Before the whole stuff."
"Stuff? Do you mean Avengers stuff or the other stuff?"
"It's all the same stuff, Barton," Tony says in a hiss.
"Why are you whispering?" Clint wants to know, his voice suddenly clear, "What are you up to?"
The suspicious, paranoid shit. "I'm upgrading. Or I would be if--" he steps outside of his lab and says, "Fuck, Barton, how am I supposed to scrap anything now? I have--have glaring failures of engineering. That hold conversations."
"Mm-hm."
"That--Normally, I would just replace things. Or rearrange them. Or--"
"Uh-huh."
"Barton."
"Welcome to the life, Tony," Clint says without sympathy, and hangs up.