Clint grabbed at his pint and dragged it protectively towards himself, suddenly glad that it was already three quarters empty as the liquid surged up in the glass due to the abrupt gust of wind. Pietro materialised across from him, sliding into the booth and raising an inquisitive brow from behind dark sunglasses.
“You look like an idiot wearing those inside,” Clint told him as tried to resettle the beer as foam began to rise from the disturbance.
“That seems entirely appropriate, considering the company,” Pietro snarked back in a tone that was only somewhat venomous. Positively friendly, really, “What did you want?”
In lieu of a reply, Clint took a sizeable gulp of his beer. Then he waited. Pietro’s fingers began to drum against the table. Clint made short work of emptying his glass, aware that it would be flat anyway. In that time, Pietro’s tapping progressively picked up in pace until it was noticeably inhumanly fast. A man a couple of tables over glanced up at the din.
“Stop that,” Clint warned, tilting his head to point him out.
Pietro frowned, but his fingers came to a determined halt, “Seriously, what do you want, Barton? I have more important things to do than-”
“I’m getting us both a beer,” Clint interrupted, forging straight through the irritation that crossed Pietro’s face, “And I bet that I can drink it faster than you.”
“Of course you can’t,” For a moment, Pietro sounded just like the teenager that he had been when they had met. That affronted tone had prefaced many petty bickers about inane topics like whether or not Pietro could outrun Clint’s arrow. Rankled at the suggestion that Clint could do anything faster, or better, than him, “There is no point in my drinking anyway. You are well aware that I’m unable to get drunk.”
“I’m getting it anyway. You can just drink it slowly instead, then.”
“Why?” Those ridiculous sunglasses disguised Pietro’s eyes, but Clint could picture the disdain that they would hold at the suggestion.
He shrugged, “Think of it like another one of those exercises that you do to practise patience. Houses of cards, ice sculptures… it’s just more social.”
“They don’t work. They are merely infuriating,” Pietro complained, but he still waited with as much patience as he could muster whilst Clint wandered over to the bar. At the very least, he refrained from wearing a dent into the table with his restless hands.
It was late on a weekday afternoon, so there were very few other patrons in a random dive bar. No one seemed particularly interested in looking up long enough to recognise either of them. Clint was returning to the corner booth impressively quickly. Still, Pietro had finally removed his sunglasses and was levelling Clint with an expression that was verging on well and truly pissed off. It was a testament to the personal growth that he had undergone since their quartet days that he actually waited long enough for Clint to sit back down before he piped back up with that characteristic derision.
“I am serious, Barton. I came because you said that you need me for something. If there is nothing, then I shall go and fill my time with something that actually has value.”
Clint put a dramatic hand over his heart, “Ouch, you’re killing me here. You have more than enough time to kill and I do have something for you to do.”
“Which is?”
“Hang out! Sit, talk and reminisce,” Clint kept his voice intentionally light, “Probably make sure I make it home. You may not be capable of getting drunk, but I fully intend to.”
“Hang.. out?” Pietro repeated the words like they didn’t make sense to him. Ire faded and was swiftly replaced by confusion.
“Yes, just two friends spending some time together. Having a drink,” To demonstrate, Clint raised his glass and took a healthy swig. Pietro’s remained untouched.
“We do not… hang out,” Pietro informed him with scepticism.
“We should!” Clint countered, “We’ve known each other forever and you do stupid favours for me all the time. I’d come if you needed help. We’re friends, right?”
There was something a little bit fragile in Pietro’s answering silence. He didn’t tend to have friends. He eyed Clint suspiciously and Clint answered with what he hoped was an earnest smile. To be honest, he didn’t really know where to begin with Pietro. Once, although it didn’t come easily, they’d established a fairly close working relationship. Time and distance had weakened it, but there were some bonds that couldn’t be broken. Whilst they had seen each other often enough over the years, it had always been as Hawkeye and Quicksilver. It was easier to fill the gaps around the latest crisis with the familiar routine of abrasion and snark than it was to be forced to sit with the dregs of a sort-of-friendship based on the past.
Goddammit, though. Clint was feeling nostalgic, so sue him. Things were fairly good for him right now; he was by no means unhappy, but maybe age was starting to catch up with him because he had recently found himself with a yearning for those long past quartet days. Back when it was just the four of them and Steve was trying to wrangle this pack of previously villainous teenagers. He wanted to revive that, just a little. Steve might’ve been his first stop, but he had filled a role somewhere in the middle of a tired older brother and a relentless drill sergeant. Even Captain America had had to learn patience over the years. Clint would trust Steve with absolutely anything, but there would always remain some subliminal level of hierarchy. Whilst he was at peace with it now, as a young man he had expressed his own awe and the sense of inadequacy that it wrought in juvenile bursts of defiance. Pietro had been as bad though, often enough. To a certain point, they had grown up together. Them and Wanda, from former teenage criminals to whatever they were now.
“How’s Wanda doing, anyway?” Clint asked, figuring that Pietro’s sister was a safe bet amongst all of the complicated history that hung between them, “I haven’t seen her in a while.”
A strange expression crossed Pietro’s face. He picked up his glass a mite too quickly, although he was of course fast enough to catch the liquid before it spilled, “She’s well.”
“Uh oh. That doesn’t sound good.”
“What?”
“She’s well?” Clint repeated in a poor imitation of Pietro’s accent. Unlike Wanda, who had consciously tried to blend her voice into a more American sound, Pietro’s accent had only dimmed a little since they had first immigrated. Still, certain words had entered his vocabulary in the many years since they moved and carried a distinctly American tone.
It was one of the things that he could remember the twins arguing about, way back. He had been on duty monitoring the channels as one of them had to be at all times when Pietro had burst in, agitated. He had scarcely had the opportunity to bark out a demand that Clint allow him to take over early before Wanda had surged in after her brother, clearly still in the midst of a row.
“Stop running away!” She said hotly. She was so angry in that moment, Clint could remember it clearly. It was so unlike Wanda not to even acknowledge him and her usually demure expression was twisted to something furious.
“I am done with this conversation,” Pietro snapped back, “I am busy now. You can go, Barton.”
Clint would have been happy to escape his duty early even if it meant doing as he was told, but Wanda was blocking the doorway and she was so furious that sparks of scarlet magic were spilling off of her, “Well, I am not done. Perhaps it is you who should be trying harder to fit in here.”
Her brother’s expression had been full of scorn, “Sounding American would not make me an American.”
“We might fit in a little better if we did,” Wanda insisted.
Pietro’s expression was as dark as it ever was in relation to his sister, “And how much do you want to fit in? We are in America. We are living according to the American culture. We are speaking English even with each other. Do you wish to forget home?”
“Our home is gone, brother. We might be able to make a new one here if we allow ourselves to,” Wanda’s rage faltered. They could never be angry with each other for long. Their ire burned hot and fast and dissipated as abruptly as it had arrived.
She moved over to her brother, reaching out to him. He was tense and prickly, his shoulders stiff. Yet he was softening also, apologetic as he accepted her touch, “I am sorry, sister. I just do not want to lose what little we have left of them.”
“We won’t,” She promised, and Clint scuttled out of the room. This was private, an exposition of the fears that they would not discuss in his earshot if they were thinking any clearer. Still, as he left he heard Wanda continue to speak, “We will always hold our memories close. But we have a future, also.”
It was a testament to the maturing they had done over the years that the Pietro of today did little other than give him a withering look at the poor imitation, “She’s fine. We’re fine.”
“If you say so,” Clint wasn’t really willing to dig into whatever was creating discord between the two of them. His relationship with his own brother was rocky and he had been going for a more pleasantly reminiscent atmosphere than a reminder of the things that were difficult, “And Luna?”
Pietro took a long swallow and set his drink down with a thud that sent the liquid rolling, although it had retreated far enough from the rim that it failed to escape this time, “My daughter is fine, Barton. Lorna is fine, my nephews are fine. Is there any other member of my family tree that you would like to inquire about?”
And no way was Clint going to fall for that. He was not foolish enough to bring up Magneto and whatever position he was currently taking in the twins’ lives. He’d heard through the grapevine that he was officially not their father once again, but whatever that meant in practice he did not know. Pietro had a challenging expression on now that he had cast the bait but Clint would not be reeled in.
“You wouldn’t know, but it’s the kind of thing that’s polite to ask when you haven’t seen someone in a while,” He deflected, falling back to the well-trodden ground of perpetual insults.
Thankfully, Pietro also seemed to prefer that familiarity and shrugged, “Frivolous niceties.”
Clint bit his tongue when he almost responded with something about Pietro’s lack of friends. He seemed to be doing better on that front recently and Clint kind of understood that there had been some… events that represented a barrier on that front, “I heard you met Kate recently, anyway?”
“The new Hawkeye?” It was small, but there was a teasing smile that even almost hidden brightened Pietro’s whole face, “She’s an improvement.”
“She’s great, isn’t she?”
Pietro eventually relaxed a little. Little by little, the tension bled from his shoulders and he seemed less like he was a breath away from bolting. And it was nice to look back. They’d both been around Steve enough lately that it served as an easy segue into the good old days. Clint drank some more. Pietro gave up on drinking with him for the sake of companionship, but remained regardless.
“Do you still have that thing for the circus?” Clint found himself asking.
“I maintain a healthy appreciation for the performance,” Pietro nodded, pretentious as ever.
“I should have taken you to Carsons, introduced you to everybody,” Clint sighed. Although, on reflection, they’d spent much of their youth embroiled in petty slights.
It had been a strange era, where Clint had never once doubted that Pietro would have his back in a fight and they were capable of great unity, but they were never more than a breath away from dissolving into insults and derision. Clint had envied the insularity of the twins; whilst he had mourned the loss of his brother, of his mentor, of Natasha, Pietro and Wanda had shared a rich inner world that he was not party to. Even whilst they walked the same path of redemption, he had felt separate from them. And hated it. The Pietro of now was somehow both more and less of an enigma than he had been as a teenager. Perhaps this was growing up; whilst you untangled some parts of a person, new knots were forming without your notice. Was it possible to always know all of it?
“I think that Swordsmaster was enough of your circus for me,” Pietro responded drily. And wasn’t that a trip down memory lane, back to when they had both viewed Steve with some scepticism. They had worked together well that day, though. It was one of the first times that their cluster of oddballs with chequered pasts had really started to feel like a team of Avengers rather than a failed experiment.
Clint sighed heavily and regarded his empty glass, “I’d drink to that but… I think you should take me home.”
“I’m not your personal taxi service,” Pietro complained, as he always did, but he would do it. There was never a chance that he wouldn’t help when he was needed even if it was for silly things like this, “You’re not going to be sick, are you?”
Clint grinned, feeling younger than he had in years, “I bet that I can throw up faster than you can get me home.”
“You’re a heathen, Barton,” Pietro scowled. Yet Clint didn’t have time to blink before a generous tip was bestowed upon the bartender and they were gone. Clint lost the bet.
Some things did not change.