I'm coming home

[makethatwork]

Who: Clint Barton and YOU
Where: Alpha Force Tower, later Trailblazer dorms
When: TODAY. ...yeah, whatever today is.
What: Clint's back from his leave and is clueless about the things he missed. Like half his team disappearing.
Warnings: none (yet)

Alpha Force Tower

Clint could use a haircut and a shave, but all in all he doesn't look too worse for wear when he clomps into the residential area of Alpha Force tower, bow on his back and dufflebag slung over his shoulder. He's fiddling with one of his hearing aids, since he'd gotten kind of used to not wearing them most of the time so it's like getting used to them all over again, but otherwise he mostly looks way more relaxed and less likely to flip out than he did in the immediate aftermath of Mockingbird and Captain Victory's deaths.

"Hey, anyone home?" he calls out. "Fi, I brought you a souvenir!"

Trailblazer Dorms

In the wake of finding out that half of his team has disappeared without a trace, Clint wasn't really sure what to do with himself. "Disappeared" doesn't mean "dead", which is a blessing, but that doesn't make him feel that much better. A shower and a shave later, he's still pretty scruffy, but he feels like he should be doing... something.

And that something, he figures, is he should check on the Trailblazer kids. He always tried to keep an eye on them, even outside of the official mentoring or training, and now he's been gone for more than half a year. If nothing else, he knows there's new kids that he hasn't met yet, and he should do that. He shows up at the dorms and just hangs out in the living area, waiting to say hi to whoever comes by.

Comments

[teamsad]

When Clint walks in, Jess is sitting on the corner of a counter, eating a bowl of cereal and staring intently at the coffeemaker. Yeah, it's the afternoon. Go ahead and tell her it's not breakfast time right now.

She jumps when someone calls out who is not one of her three remaining teammates... and then blinks at him in bemusement when she A) recognizes him and B) realizes who he's looking for. She swallows, and sets her bowl and spoon down carefully.

"Uh. Do you know what year it is?" Maybe he's had head trauma. Or is a time traveller.

[makethatwork]

He is not one to judge about breakfast in the afternoon. No worries, Jess.

That said, he looks at her with a sort of baffled raised eyebrow and fits his aid back in before responding. "Uh, I'm sorry, did I just get back from being gone for more than six months and all you have to say is 'do you know what year it is'? I'm hurt. And it's 2014, by the way, why? Did you forget?"

[teamsad]

"No, I just wanted to make sure you didn't. ...welcome back, I guess."

She studies his face for a moment, frowning a little. He doesn't know yet. Should she tell him? Should she wait for someone else to do it, because chances are she will make a mess of that. But if she doesn't, he's going to be pissed at her for holding back.

"Do they not have news in Canada? I was in Madripoor and I still heard."

[makethatwork]

"They don't have news on the glacier I was camping on," he points out, even though he wasn't technically camping, and the cabin wasn't technically on the glacier. "Why? What'd I miss?"

[teamsad]

"Okay, mountain man."

Damn it. This isn't fair. This should be someone else. Legion could do this. Legion wouldn't give a shit.

"So... a few months ago, Druid, Fissure and Zoom kind of... vanished. And haven't been seen or heard from again."

[withoutaworld]

Rikki's favorite place to study these days is the living room. It's usually quiet, but people wander by often enough that she doesn't get lonely and occasionally provide distraction or breaks when she needs it. Half the time, she doesn't even go to her room when she gets back from class, just grabs a snack from the kitchen, heads right to the living room, and collapses into a chair.

She gets all the way to the couch before she realizes there's someone else here already... and it's not one of her teammates. She jumps a little, pulling a fist back instinctively (because unannounced adult in a teenagers' dorm is kind of weird), but she recognizes him a moment later, and all the fighting readiness disappears in an instant.

"Agent Barton?" She's known him since before she was a sidekick. He trained her in archery. He was one of Cap's best friends. What on earth is he doing here? "...is Agent Bubbles being replaced or something?"

No, that's silly. He's on Alpha Force - even if he's still a CONDOR agent, he doesn't have the time to be the Trailblazer liaison on top of Alpha Force stuff.

[makethatwork]

Clint is just as surprised to see her, honestly, and it shows on his face. It's a good kind of surprise, though, and he smiles lopsidedly at her. He's known her since before she hit her teens, technically, if only just, being related to like half of his CONDOR coworkers out east, so it seemed. And then Forrest had taken her as his 'kick, so he got to see her every time he went visiting.

She's not quite a little sister, they didn't spend enough time together for that, but a younger cousin he's fond of? Yeah, that's a pretty good description of how he feels about her.

"Hey, baby Cap, what're you doing here?" Wait, did she seriously-- "Nah, I just got back in town, thought I'd come check up on everyone. Are you in the Trailblazers?"

[withoutaworld]

"Nah, I just hang out here on the opposite coast for the heck of it." She drops her backpack and folds herself onto the couch, somehow managing to not flinch at being called baby Cap. "...yeah, I just got here a few weeks ago. Thought I could use a little... you know... space."

From New York. From her family. From all the reminders of Cap.

[makethatwork]

It occurs to him that maybe 'baby Cap' isn't the best nickname anymore. He called her Baby Barnes as a joke most of the time before her 'kick days (and "padawan" when she was still getting training with him), so he should probably stick to that if he's gonna nickname her these days.

'Cause if anyone out here understands what she's feeling, it's him.

"Yeah, I know the feeling," he says, his smile turning wry. "Thus why I've been out of town for like 7 months."

[withoutaworld]

"Not on secret spy missions? I'm disappointed, Hawkeye." She can't even sound a little serious about it, though. It makes sense. She heard about what happened with Agent Morse, not that long before they lost Cap, and... yeah. It was a bad year for everyone.

"So are you back in town for real, or just dropping by?"

[chapterfiveversenine]

Legion catches up to Clint Barton after the latter is done talking to Jessica, pulling up his dossiers as they speak.

"Agent Barton," they say. "We acknowledge your return to Alpha Force. We welcome your alliance."

[makethatwork]

Look, Jess can mention a new guy who's a robot, but that does not prepare Clint for actually being approached by Legion. He was thinking, y'know, something more along the lines of "looks humanish, speaks normally (if a bit stilted)", not... well, Legion.

"Uh," he says. "Thanks. What the hell are you?"

He doesn't mean it badly, he's just not sure what to think.

[chapterfiveversenine]

"We are Legion, a compound AI," Legion says. Their plates ripple, extending and retracting in turn. "We joined Alpha Force recently to bolster its ranks."

[makethatwork]

"Oh, the robot guy."

Clint rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, then offers his hand. "Well, hey, welcome to the team, then. With two of our vets gone, we could really use the support."

[chapterfiveversenine]

"We understood that three heroes disappeared in the Mohave," Legion says. "Have you found one?"

[thisisntagame]

Tron usually didn't wind up in the residential floors, typically staying holed away in his office, but he'd come to grab a few things from his rooms. Seeing Clint down the hall though stopped him in his tracks, after so many months he honestly hadn't expected him back at all. Let alone dropping by without a word.

He crossed his arms, facing down his teammate with a scowl. He didn't make much effort to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
"Clint. It's been a while."

[makethatwork]

Oh, goodie, Clint's favorite little bundle of sunshine! Clint smiles with a totally insincere sort of cheerfulness. "Hey, Tron. Yeah, y'know, my wife and my best friend died, so I went to Canada to get my head on straight. You know how it is."

No he probably doesn't and you know it. Clint moves into the kitchen and starts up the coffee maker.

"You know if Fiona's around? I got her a shitty-ass souvenir on my way back."

[thisisntagame]

It wasn't that Tron didn't understand losing people close to you but-
What?
Tron was visibly stunned when Clint asked about Fissure. He stalked across the hall, following Clint into the kitchen, blocking the doorway.

"Clint, Fiona, Dana, and Zeke have been missing for months." Even if he hadn't kept in contact with the team, surely he would have heard that much.

[makethatwork]

"What?" is Clint's immediate, gobsmacked reaction. "What do you-- How-- What happened?"

He manages, mostly, to keep it from sounding accusatory, even though part of his brain is screaming 'HOW COULD YOU LET THAT HAPPEN???' loud enough to drown out most of his other thoughts. He might act like a little shit to Tron sometimes, but he trusts the guy, and knows logically that if he could've done anything, he would've. Same as Clint.

[thisisntagame]

The look on Tron's face was a forlorn combination between regret and loss. He legitimately hadn't expected Clint to be in the dark about this, and this was not how he expected this meeting to go at all. The sudden confrontation of emotion did nothing but remind him of the months he and Celestia had spent trying to cope with everything and keep the team functioning. He paused to compose himself again before delivering the briefest summary of events.

"November. They went to investigate a sinkhole that had opened in the local desert. The sinkhole disappeared and we haven't heard from them since."

He sighed, running a hand through his hair , an empty habitual motion.
"I'm sorry, I assumed...it was all over the news I gathered you would have heard, even if you were out of communication."

[mockingjaded]

She had been very new to this place, the last time she saw this man around. But she recognizes him - mostly on account of how she'd had dozens of people compare her work with an arrow to his. She'd not understood how shooting a bow could be worth Alpha Force status, but then she'd watched some Youtube videos and been informed.

When she sees him around the dorms, she slide around a corner to watch him for a moment.

"What brings you here?" she asks with a mild curiosity. She's certainly more calm than she was the first time he might have seen her.

[makethatwork]

Calmer is good. Calmer means she's settled in, and less likely to try to stab him or something.

He doesn't know. Teenage girls are scary when they get worked up.

"Hey... you." he says, oh so smoothly. He can't remember her name. He's 99% sure he was told her name at some point, but it's been a hell of a time the past few months.

"Uh, I just got back in town," he carries on, trying not to seem totally ridiculous with that obvious 'I have no idea what your name is but I really should' moment. "Thought I'd come by and check on you kids. Meet the newbies, see how everyone's training was going."

[mockingjaded]

She doesn't seem all that bothered by him not knowing her name. People not knowing who she is is still a welcome relief a lot of the time. The fame she is accustomed to is not the flattering kind.

"Did you see the new trolls?" she asks in bland conversation, almost like 'the trolls' are a physical feature of the dorms.

[makethatwork]

"Oh, the alien kids?" Clint shakes his head, taking the opportunity to lean against the wall. Hey, they're chatting, chatting is good, right? Easier to keep an eye on them when they're willing to chat with him!

Keeping an eye on them in an unofficial, worried-about-these-damn-kids sort of way, that is.

"Heard about 'em, haven't met 'em yet. What're they like?"

[mockingjaded]

"Like Karkat was when he got here, or so I hear," she says simply, though her frown deepens. "One of them was just rescued from TRIDENT about a month ago. Still not quite right."