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so_hawkwardIf Clint had learned one lesson today about going home to New York, it was to always, always bring some aspirin with him.
The whole day's mess had started a week ago, when Clint had gotten a letter from his landlord. People had sometimes questioned why Clint even had an apartment since he had quarters on the Helicarrier, and Clint would reply that his apartment was what kept him from snapping and killing everyone on the Helicarrier.
Yeah, he was aware that remark wouldn't be quite as funny anymore.
It wasn't like Clint was wasting tons of money on a place. The apartment was just a small spot in a building owned by a Russian guy named Ivan, who had a love of tracksuits and an even greater love for screwing over his tenants. The notice Clint had received informed him, in a vague attempt at proper English, that his rent was going to be tripled starting immediately, and Clint had a feeling that wasn't going to go over well with his neighbors, many of whom barely managed to get by as it was.
Sure enough, when Clint got to the building, he found Ivan and his buddies outside, stashing boxes and clothes and electronics into a truck, while a young woman and her two kids watched.
"Back off. I keel you, okay bro?" Ivan said, waving his hand at the woman's son, who ran to hide behind the safety of his mother's legs.
"Ivan, could you maybe not threaten to k-i-l-l anybody around their kids?" Clint said, glancing between Ivan and... Simone, that was her name. Sweet lady, single mom, definitely not someone who deserved to be getting crapped on like this.
Ivan glared at Clint before trying to wave him away as well. "Bro, back off, bro. This not concern you."
"Clint, he's kicking us out," Simone said, looking distraught.
"Is good, bro. Is all good in my hood," Ivan said. "She not pay new rent. Is in lease. She sign, so pay or goodbye."
"You can't do that! He can't do this, can he, Clint?" Simone asked.
Clint sighed and yanked the lease out of Ivan's hand, even though he already knew what he was going to find. "He owns the building. I'm pretty sure he can do whatever he wants." That didn't mean Clint had to like it though, and he stayed with Simone while the rest of her belongings were carried out, talking to her kids and keeping them distracted. Under the circumstances, it seemed like the best he could do.
That night, it was like nothing had changed, despite how long Clint had been gone. Every night, while the weather was nice, Clint's neighbors would gather on the roof of the building, for a potluck dinner and a chance to catch up with each other. Clint's dessert offerings from J,GOB were well received, and somehow, Clint found himself kneeling in front of a trio of empty beer bottles, surrounded by some very skeptical guys.
"It's not a trick, it's physics. You've just got to snap your fingers real hard," he said, rolling the quarter between his hands as he mentally lined up his shot. With a sharp flick, he snapped the quarter at one of the bottles... where it bounced right off the glass with a hollow noise. After the laughter of his neighbors died down, Clint was able to pick up on snippets of what some of the others were talking about.
"Building after building--" "--happening all over the block--" "Heard the whole place went for ten million--" "--be the whole neighborhood soon..."
"What can we do though?" one of Clint's neighbors asked. "It's in the lease."
Clint nodded and sighed in annoyance. "The money's just money, but it's the hassle of moving. Ugh."
"'Just money?' That must be a nice thought to have," said the elderly lady who lived right below him, and Clint decided that maybe he should stop talking, and just go back to shooting at bottles.
The thing was, money wasn't that important to Clint, but then, he was also aware that not everyone had a billionaire playboy philanthropist willing to help out with anything they needed. That was how Clint ended up standing in front of a Chinese restaurant in the one suit he'd left in his apartment (out of the two he owned - ugh, suits).
"Can I pet your dog?" he asked around a mouthful of pizza, giving the red-tracksuited bodyguards a friendly smile.
"What you say, bro?" one of the guys - who Clint named Red October in his head because Natasha wasn't around to glare at him - asked.
"Your dog. Can I pet it?" Clint said.
Red October shook his head and gave Clint a wary look. "He bite, bro. Not good idea."
Clint looked down at the dog and offered it the rest of his pizza, and the dog barked happily before scarfing the pizza down, acquiescing happily to Clint's petting. "Who's a good boy that likes pizza? You are, aren't you, Pizza Dog?" He smirked at the bodyguards. "I don't know, man. The dog likes pizza, how bad can he be?"
Red October's wary look turned into a full-on glare as he looked Clint up and down. "What you want here, bro, feed dog?"
"Actually, no," Clint said, swinging the duffel bag he was carrying to his front and unzipping it. "It just so happens that I have this big bag of money, and I hear there's a casino hiding out inside here where a guy could spend such a thing. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"
It was amazing what a simple bag of money could do, Clint thought, as the bodyguards let him go straight through to the back. He was hoping that this place wouldn't be too fancy, and then he stepped inside, and realized that "underground casino" really meant "underground room in the back of a Chinese joint where a bunch of creeps played cards." Oh yes, Clint was so glad he'd gotten dressed up for this.
"Hey, this family game. You don't look properly related," someone called across the room to Clint.
Clint looked around and shrugged. "That's okay, I don't play cards." The laughter from the gathered Russians gave Clint enough time to look around and spot Ivan.
"Bro, you go. Now," Ivan said sharply. He didn't look too pleased to see Clint, but Clint was pretty used to that in general.
"Aw, I can't go yet," Clint said. "See, I don't play cards, but I do spend money." He slid the duffel bag off his shoulder and threw it onto the table, sending the cards and chips flying. "I'm here to pay the rent, for everybody in the building."
"Bro, what are you? Fairy godmother?" Ivan asked. He peered into the bag and couldn't hide his surprise. "This lot of money, bro."
Money was no good if you didn't spend it, Clint had figured, and it wasn't like he needed that much to get by. When you were used to not living on much, having money to spare was actually kind of disconcerting. "It should cover the mark-up for everyone in the building. All cash, tax-free. Bro," Clint said, picking up a deck of cards and shuffling it idly.
"Maybe it not your place, bro," Ivan said. "Maybe don't want fairy godmother cash. Maybe want empty building, bro. Clearing you bros out, sell building, make more money, bro. So go fuck you, bro. Don't accept."
Clint kept his line of sight on Ivan as he shuffled the cards, warming his hands up and breaking the card backs, but that didn't mean he didn't notice the way the room quieted down, or the way the gentlemen next to Ivan shifted to put their hands on their poorly concealed weapons. "Too bad," he said. "Wasn't asking."
The first card Clint threw went straight for the neck of the guy to his right, and Clint's elbow found its way to the head of the guy on his left as the tracksuited idiot drew his gun. This close to each other, they'd end up shooting each other before getting him, and Clint kicked the table up at them to shove them back and make a bigger mess. The chaos would have been a fabulous cover if, in the commotion, Clint had spotted the guy behind him before he swung a bottle at Clint's head.
Damn, he was an idiot sometimes.
Things went blurry just long enough for Clint to get grabbed, dragged out of the back of the restaurant, and thrown straight through the front window. As he struggled to get up, he had to admit that getting thrown through a window didn't hurt quite as much as smashing through one on his own--
"Bro! Get that bro!"
--and then he remembered the bodyguards.
"Ah, hell," he muttered, getting up and taking off as fast as he could. It was thirty yards to the end of the alley, to anything resembling cover and safety, and Red October's shot went straight across his arm, making Clint stumble and look back. The other bodyguard aimed right for him... and then cried out as the Pizza Dog leapt up with a growl and clamped his teeth down on the bodyguard's arm.
Clint knew that he should have kept running. He had to be crazy to not keep running, but when the bodyguard threw the dog off his arm and kicked it into the street, there was no way Clint could do anything but turn around and run back. The bodyguards went down quickly, caught by the surprise of Clint's return and his blinding anger. It was dark, and cold, and the streets were full of rain and cabs and traffic and no one looking out for a poor pizza-loving mutt. Clint saw the car coming towards where the dog had landed, and reached into his pocket, grabbing the first quarter he could get his hand on.
Oh God, I can't watch, he thought, flicking the quarter sharply. This time, physics was on Clint's side, and the coin shattered the driver's side window, shocking the driver enough to make him swerve, but it still just wasn't enough.
As it turned out, veterinarian receptionists were extremely receptive to soaking wet men in suits dropping bloody, unconscious dogs onto their desks and demanding to be seen now.
"Mr. Barton, we need to talk about your dog."
Clint sighed, turning away from the window in the reception area to face the vet that had had the misfortune of being the first one to come out and see the commotion Clint had caused. There was blood all across his lab coat, and Clint was trying very hard not to notice it too much. "He's not my dog."
"Um, okay, the dog? Has lost a lot of blood. He's in shock, and is a difficult surgical candidate--and what he needs is surgery," the vet said. "At this point, to make the decision to euthanize wouldn't be inhumane--"
"No, fuck that," Clint said loudly, getting angry all over again. "The dog'll make it. Do what you've got to do. Are we clear?"
"Sir, you--you can't know that," the vet said nervously. "I can't know that. Nobody can know that. I will absolutely operate on the animal, but you need to ask yourself whether we're doing this for him, or for you?"
Clint wanted to say that of course this was about the dog, of course, but then he thought about how it would feel to have another life lost because of him and, well, maybe the vet had a point after all. "I'm sorry I snapped at you," he said. He sighed, his shoulders sagging as some of his anger deflated. "Just fix my damn dog. The dog. Please."
Back in the waiting room, Clint had just about managed to get comfortable in one of the little plastic chairs, when he heard the last sound he wanted to deal with right now.
"Bro! Hey, you, bro. You mess up bad, bro," Ivan said, two of his lackeys at his sides. "Get up. We get out here."
Clint glanced up at Ivan and gave him a bitter smile. "Sure. I don't want any trouble," he said, standing up and sharply applying his knee to the groin of the first bodyguard. The second one went down just as easily and hey, maybe his anger wasn't gone after all.
"WHO THROWS A DOG INTO TRAFFIC?!" he yelled, shoving Ivan against the wall and hitting him square in the face.
"Bro! Bro! Bro, stop!" Ivan yelled, and Clint stopped just long enough to realize that everyone else in the waiting room was staring at them.
"It's okay, everybody," he said. "I've... been watching too many YouTube videos of the Hulk." If anyone bought that, Clint didn't notice, as he was too busy shoving Ivan outside and into the backseat of the nearest cab.
"I broke no laws, bro," Ivan said miserably, holding a handkerchief to his nose. "Allowed to raise rents. Is tough luck for you and your friends but I know my rights."
"Hold that thought, you tracksuit Dracula. We're going to try this again." Clint leaned into the cab, and if Ivan shifted back a little, well, Clint wasn't all that bothered. "I'm going to pay you everything everyone in that building owes you, and another 12.5 for the building outright, and that's it, negotiations are over. You wanted to sell it? Great, I want to buy it. I take care of my people, and you get rich. The end."
"I had buyer," Ivan said weakly.
"And I'm all out of fucks to give," Clint replied, slamming the cab door shut.
"Uh, Mr. Barton?" Clint turned around to see the vet behind him, shielding himself from the rain with a newspaper. "Your dog--the dog is out of surgery."
When they got to the recovery room, Clint could barely see the dog under all the bandages, but the faint motion of his breathing was just about the best thing Clint had seen since he'd gotten into town.
"He's got a broken leg, broken pelvis, two broken ribs, and he lost an eye," the vet said. "But he's made it this far. He'll make it all the way with proper rest and care."
"Good boy," Clint said, running a gentle hand over the dog's head. The dog probably couldn't even hear him right now, but Clint didn't really care.
"What's his name?" the vet asked.
Clint shrugged. "I don't know. Like I said, he's not my dog. Is there anything on his collar?"
The vet grabbed the collar and squinted his eyes to read it. "Collar says it's Arrow."
Clint glanced down at the dog, who was just waking up, and was looking back up at him. "Eh. I'll come up with something better."
[NFI, NFB, OOC okay, etc. Taken from Hawkeye #1 by Matt Fraction and David Aja. Warning for language, and violence against an innocent, pizza-loving animal.]
The whole day's mess had started a week ago, when Clint had gotten a letter from his landlord. People had sometimes questioned why Clint even had an apartment since he had quarters on the Helicarrier, and Clint would reply that his apartment was what kept him from snapping and killing everyone on the Helicarrier.
Yeah, he was aware that remark wouldn't be quite as funny anymore.
It wasn't like Clint was wasting tons of money on a place. The apartment was just a small spot in a building owned by a Russian guy named Ivan, who had a love of tracksuits and an even greater love for screwing over his tenants. The notice Clint had received informed him, in a vague attempt at proper English, that his rent was going to be tripled starting immediately, and Clint had a feeling that wasn't going to go over well with his neighbors, many of whom barely managed to get by as it was.
Sure enough, when Clint got to the building, he found Ivan and his buddies outside, stashing boxes and clothes and electronics into a truck, while a young woman and her two kids watched.
"Back off. I keel you, okay bro?" Ivan said, waving his hand at the woman's son, who ran to hide behind the safety of his mother's legs.
"Ivan, could you maybe not threaten to k-i-l-l anybody around their kids?" Clint said, glancing between Ivan and... Simone, that was her name. Sweet lady, single mom, definitely not someone who deserved to be getting crapped on like this.
Ivan glared at Clint before trying to wave him away as well. "Bro, back off, bro. This not concern you."
"Clint, he's kicking us out," Simone said, looking distraught.
"Is good, bro. Is all good in my hood," Ivan said. "She not pay new rent. Is in lease. She sign, so pay or goodbye."
"You can't do that! He can't do this, can he, Clint?" Simone asked.
Clint sighed and yanked the lease out of Ivan's hand, even though he already knew what he was going to find. "He owns the building. I'm pretty sure he can do whatever he wants." That didn't mean Clint had to like it though, and he stayed with Simone while the rest of her belongings were carried out, talking to her kids and keeping them distracted. Under the circumstances, it seemed like the best he could do.
That night, it was like nothing had changed, despite how long Clint had been gone. Every night, while the weather was nice, Clint's neighbors would gather on the roof of the building, for a potluck dinner and a chance to catch up with each other. Clint's dessert offerings from J,GOB were well received, and somehow, Clint found himself kneeling in front of a trio of empty beer bottles, surrounded by some very skeptical guys.
"It's not a trick, it's physics. You've just got to snap your fingers real hard," he said, rolling the quarter between his hands as he mentally lined up his shot. With a sharp flick, he snapped the quarter at one of the bottles... where it bounced right off the glass with a hollow noise. After the laughter of his neighbors died down, Clint was able to pick up on snippets of what some of the others were talking about.
"Building after building--" "--happening all over the block--" "Heard the whole place went for ten million--" "--be the whole neighborhood soon..."
"What can we do though?" one of Clint's neighbors asked. "It's in the lease."
Clint nodded and sighed in annoyance. "The money's just money, but it's the hassle of moving. Ugh."
"'Just money?' That must be a nice thought to have," said the elderly lady who lived right below him, and Clint decided that maybe he should stop talking, and just go back to shooting at bottles.
The thing was, money wasn't that important to Clint, but then, he was also aware that not everyone had a billionaire playboy philanthropist willing to help out with anything they needed. That was how Clint ended up standing in front of a Chinese restaurant in the one suit he'd left in his apartment (out of the two he owned - ugh, suits).
"Can I pet your dog?" he asked around a mouthful of pizza, giving the red-tracksuited bodyguards a friendly smile.
"What you say, bro?" one of the guys - who Clint named Red October in his head because Natasha wasn't around to glare at him - asked.
"Your dog. Can I pet it?" Clint said.
Red October shook his head and gave Clint a wary look. "He bite, bro. Not good idea."
Clint looked down at the dog and offered it the rest of his pizza, and the dog barked happily before scarfing the pizza down, acquiescing happily to Clint's petting. "Who's a good boy that likes pizza? You are, aren't you, Pizza Dog?" He smirked at the bodyguards. "I don't know, man. The dog likes pizza, how bad can he be?"
Red October's wary look turned into a full-on glare as he looked Clint up and down. "What you want here, bro, feed dog?"
"Actually, no," Clint said, swinging the duffel bag he was carrying to his front and unzipping it. "It just so happens that I have this big bag of money, and I hear there's a casino hiding out inside here where a guy could spend such a thing. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"
It was amazing what a simple bag of money could do, Clint thought, as the bodyguards let him go straight through to the back. He was hoping that this place wouldn't be too fancy, and then he stepped inside, and realized that "underground casino" really meant "underground room in the back of a Chinese joint where a bunch of creeps played cards." Oh yes, Clint was so glad he'd gotten dressed up for this.
"Hey, this family game. You don't look properly related," someone called across the room to Clint.
Clint looked around and shrugged. "That's okay, I don't play cards." The laughter from the gathered Russians gave Clint enough time to look around and spot Ivan.
"Bro, you go. Now," Ivan said sharply. He didn't look too pleased to see Clint, but Clint was pretty used to that in general.
"Aw, I can't go yet," Clint said. "See, I don't play cards, but I do spend money." He slid the duffel bag off his shoulder and threw it onto the table, sending the cards and chips flying. "I'm here to pay the rent, for everybody in the building."
"Bro, what are you? Fairy godmother?" Ivan asked. He peered into the bag and couldn't hide his surprise. "This lot of money, bro."
Money was no good if you didn't spend it, Clint had figured, and it wasn't like he needed that much to get by. When you were used to not living on much, having money to spare was actually kind of disconcerting. "It should cover the mark-up for everyone in the building. All cash, tax-free. Bro," Clint said, picking up a deck of cards and shuffling it idly.
"Maybe it not your place, bro," Ivan said. "Maybe don't want fairy godmother cash. Maybe want empty building, bro. Clearing you bros out, sell building, make more money, bro. So go fuck you, bro. Don't accept."
Clint kept his line of sight on Ivan as he shuffled the cards, warming his hands up and breaking the card backs, but that didn't mean he didn't notice the way the room quieted down, or the way the gentlemen next to Ivan shifted to put their hands on their poorly concealed weapons. "Too bad," he said. "Wasn't asking."
The first card Clint threw went straight for the neck of the guy to his right, and Clint's elbow found its way to the head of the guy on his left as the tracksuited idiot drew his gun. This close to each other, they'd end up shooting each other before getting him, and Clint kicked the table up at them to shove them back and make a bigger mess. The chaos would have been a fabulous cover if, in the commotion, Clint had spotted the guy behind him before he swung a bottle at Clint's head.
Damn, he was an idiot sometimes.
Things went blurry just long enough for Clint to get grabbed, dragged out of the back of the restaurant, and thrown straight through the front window. As he struggled to get up, he had to admit that getting thrown through a window didn't hurt quite as much as smashing through one on his own--
"Bro! Get that bro!"
--and then he remembered the bodyguards.
"Ah, hell," he muttered, getting up and taking off as fast as he could. It was thirty yards to the end of the alley, to anything resembling cover and safety, and Red October's shot went straight across his arm, making Clint stumble and look back. The other bodyguard aimed right for him... and then cried out as the Pizza Dog leapt up with a growl and clamped his teeth down on the bodyguard's arm.
Clint knew that he should have kept running. He had to be crazy to not keep running, but when the bodyguard threw the dog off his arm and kicked it into the street, there was no way Clint could do anything but turn around and run back. The bodyguards went down quickly, caught by the surprise of Clint's return and his blinding anger. It was dark, and cold, and the streets were full of rain and cabs and traffic and no one looking out for a poor pizza-loving mutt. Clint saw the car coming towards where the dog had landed, and reached into his pocket, grabbing the first quarter he could get his hand on.
Oh God, I can't watch, he thought, flicking the quarter sharply. This time, physics was on Clint's side, and the coin shattered the driver's side window, shocking the driver enough to make him swerve, but it still just wasn't enough.
As it turned out, veterinarian receptionists were extremely receptive to soaking wet men in suits dropping bloody, unconscious dogs onto their desks and demanding to be seen now.
"Mr. Barton, we need to talk about your dog."
Clint sighed, turning away from the window in the reception area to face the vet that had had the misfortune of being the first one to come out and see the commotion Clint had caused. There was blood all across his lab coat, and Clint was trying very hard not to notice it too much. "He's not my dog."
"Um, okay, the dog? Has lost a lot of blood. He's in shock, and is a difficult surgical candidate--and what he needs is surgery," the vet said. "At this point, to make the decision to euthanize wouldn't be inhumane--"
"No, fuck that," Clint said loudly, getting angry all over again. "The dog'll make it. Do what you've got to do. Are we clear?"
"Sir, you--you can't know that," the vet said nervously. "I can't know that. Nobody can know that. I will absolutely operate on the animal, but you need to ask yourself whether we're doing this for him, or for you?"
Clint wanted to say that of course this was about the dog, of course, but then he thought about how it would feel to have another life lost because of him and, well, maybe the vet had a point after all. "I'm sorry I snapped at you," he said. He sighed, his shoulders sagging as some of his anger deflated. "Just fix my damn dog. The dog. Please."
Back in the waiting room, Clint had just about managed to get comfortable in one of the little plastic chairs, when he heard the last sound he wanted to deal with right now.
"Bro! Hey, you, bro. You mess up bad, bro," Ivan said, two of his lackeys at his sides. "Get up. We get out here."
Clint glanced up at Ivan and gave him a bitter smile. "Sure. I don't want any trouble," he said, standing up and sharply applying his knee to the groin of the first bodyguard. The second one went down just as easily and hey, maybe his anger wasn't gone after all.
"WHO THROWS A DOG INTO TRAFFIC?!" he yelled, shoving Ivan against the wall and hitting him square in the face.
"Bro! Bro! Bro, stop!" Ivan yelled, and Clint stopped just long enough to realize that everyone else in the waiting room was staring at them.
"It's okay, everybody," he said. "I've... been watching too many YouTube videos of the Hulk." If anyone bought that, Clint didn't notice, as he was too busy shoving Ivan outside and into the backseat of the nearest cab.
"I broke no laws, bro," Ivan said miserably, holding a handkerchief to his nose. "Allowed to raise rents. Is tough luck for you and your friends but I know my rights."
"Hold that thought, you tracksuit Dracula. We're going to try this again." Clint leaned into the cab, and if Ivan shifted back a little, well, Clint wasn't all that bothered. "I'm going to pay you everything everyone in that building owes you, and another 12.5 for the building outright, and that's it, negotiations are over. You wanted to sell it? Great, I want to buy it. I take care of my people, and you get rich. The end."
"I had buyer," Ivan said weakly.
"And I'm all out of fucks to give," Clint replied, slamming the cab door shut.
"Uh, Mr. Barton?" Clint turned around to see the vet behind him, shielding himself from the rain with a newspaper. "Your dog--the dog is out of surgery."
When they got to the recovery room, Clint could barely see the dog under all the bandages, but the faint motion of his breathing was just about the best thing Clint had seen since he'd gotten into town.
"He's got a broken leg, broken pelvis, two broken ribs, and he lost an eye," the vet said. "But he's made it this far. He'll make it all the way with proper rest and care."
"Good boy," Clint said, running a gentle hand over the dog's head. The dog probably couldn't even hear him right now, but Clint didn't really care.
"What's his name?" the vet asked.
Clint shrugged. "I don't know. Like I said, he's not my dog. Is there anything on his collar?"
The vet grabbed the collar and squinted his eyes to read it. "Collar says it's Arrow."
Clint glanced down at the dog, who was just waking up, and was looking back up at him. "Eh. I'll come up with something better."
[NFI, NFB, OOC okay, etc. Taken from Hawkeye #1 by Matt Fraction and David Aja. Warning for language, and violence against an innocent, pizza-loving animal.]
